Study Guide for Chapter 3: Classical Greece and the Hellenistic Period
Directions: Use the questions, list of artworks, and terms below to help you grasp the key information in reading Chapter 3. Be sure you can accurately answer each one.
The Classical Ideal
1. What name is given to the period of Greek history between the Persian Wars and Alexander the Great?
2. What descriptive name has been given to the Athenian civilization of the last half of the fifth century B. C. E.?
3. Why are Greek tragedies still read and performed?
4. What influence did the Macedonians and Romans have on the spread of Greek ideas?
5. What name is given to the period of history following the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B. C. E. (and until the rise of the Roman Empire?
6. What was the “dark side” of the Greek spirit?
7. What was the role of reason in imposing a sense of order on the chaos of the world?
8. Why was the Greek belief in “nothing in excess” important in avoiding hubris?
9. Why did the Greeks emphasize the study of human thought and actions?
10. What was the result of the victory in the Persian War on Athenian civilization?
11. What was the purpose of the Delian League according to Athens? According to the other Greek city-states?
12. What was the cause of the Peloponnesian War? What was the eventual result of the war?
13. What great historian wrote the History of the Peloponnesian War? Why was he a great historian?
14. According to Thucydides, which leader is most associated with the achievements of the Athenian Golden Age?
Drama in Classical Greece
15. Who were the three great masters of Classical Greek Drama?
16. What literary form evolved from the choral hymns sung in honor of the Greek god Dionysus?
17. Who was the first important Athenian tragic dramatist (the Oresteia trilogy)? What does the Oresteia trilogy say about the way to bring a rational society of human beings out of primeval chaos?
18. Who was the author of Antigone and Oedipus the King?
19. Why did Antigone disobey King Creon?
20. What action did Oedipus take regarding his father? His mother? According to the Greeks, why did Oedipus deserve to suffer for his actions?
21. Which Greek dramatist showed the most sympathy for the problems of women (Medea, Phaedra) who lived in a society dominated by men?
22. Who was the greatest Greek author of comedic plays?
23. In Aristophanes’ Lysistrata, what action did the women of Athens take to convince men to stop their war?
Philosophy in the Late Classical Period
24. How much of our knowledge of Socrates comes from his own writings? From the works of his student Plato?
25. What was the method used by Socrates to test the truth of traditional ideas?
26. How did Socrates’ opponents feel about their ignorance being exposed by the questions of Socrates?
27. What institution, founded by Plato in 387 B. C. E., was the first permanent institution in Western civilization devoted to education and research?
28. What was Plato’s “Theory of Forms”? What does his theory say about the world we perceive around us?
29. Who was Plato’s most gifted student?
30. What school was founded by Aristotle in 335 B. C. E. (in competition with Plato’s academy)?
31. What was “real” according to Plato? To Aristotle?
32. How did Aristotle resolve Plato’s split between the apparent reality we perceive and the genuine reality acquired by philosophical contemplation?
33. According to Aristotle, what caused the downfall of tragic heroes? What was the result on the audience of watching the fate of the tragic hero?
34. Why did Plato advocate the censorship of music?
The Visual Arts
35. What was the subject of the Canon by Polykleitos? What did Polykleitos mean by a “canon of proportion”? Would this understanding of the importance of proportion and scale to beauty also apply to architecture?
36. Why is the Parthenon an “incomparable symbol of the Golden Age of Greece”?
37. How did the building of the Parthenon contribute to the Peloponnesian War?
38. For which goddess was the Parthenon built?
39. What was the subject of the Parthenon frieze (the Elgin Marbles)?
40. In what city and museum are the Elgin Marbles located?
41. What is the subject of the caryatids of the Erectheum?
42. Why was the nude statue of Aphrodite of Cyrene by Praxiteles important in the history of Western art?
The Hellenistic Period
43. What was the influence of Alexander the Great on the spread of Greek ideas to Syria, Egypt, and India?
44. What tow events mark the beginning and the end of the Hellenistic Period?
45. What was the greatest city of the Hellenistic Age? What was the most important city of Hellenistic Asia?
46. How did Hellenistic art differ from Classical art? Which style emphasized order and balance? Which style emphasized emotion and expression?
47. What was the subject of the frieze on the Altar to Zeus at Pergamum?
48. What story was told by the Laocoön sculpture?
49. Into which empire were the Hellenistic cities absorbed?
50. In what ways did Greek civilization influence Roman culture?
Define or Identify
The Golden Age of Greece
Pericles
Persian Wars
Peloponnesian Wars
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian Wars
Aeschylus, Oresteia trilogy
Sophocles, Oedipus, Antigone
Euripides, Medea
Aristophanes, Lysistrata
Polykleitos, The Canon
Significant Works to Remember
Acropolis (Parthenon, Elgin Marbles, Frieze, Metopes, 447 – 432 B. C. E.) and (Erechtheum 421 – 406
B.C.E.)
Myron, Discus Thrower, 450 B. C. E.
Polykleitos, Spear-bearer, c. 450 – 440 B. C. E.
Altar to Zeus, Pergamum, c. 180 B. C. E.
Praxiteles, Aphrodite of Cyrene, c. 100 B. C. E.
Laocoön, early first century C. E.
Key Terms
Boule
Caryatids
Catharsis
Chorus
Ecclesia
Gandaharan
Hamartia
Harmony
Parthenos
Satyr Play
Sophists
Tragedy
Tragic hero
Fatal flaw
Trilogy