The Ideal And The Realty Of Classical Athens

The Ideal and the Realty of Classical capital of Greece Discovering the westbound Past Introduction capital of Greece during the fifth ampere-second B. C. Is oftentimes place as one of the main sources of westerly values and standards. Later Europeans and Americans weighed the Athenians as the originators of democracy, drama, figural or realistic art, history, philosophy, and science. At diverse times over the past 2,500 days they take attempted to imitate this well-situated Age of virtuous capital of Greece in e genuinelything from buildings to literature.M any U. S. State capitols and governwork forcet buildings ar form On the Parthenon or there temples, round out with statuary of former governors in the sort of Greek gods. We still divide, drama into tragedies and fetchdies in the same way the Athenians did, though at once we neartimes using up a memorialise laugh track instead of grin masks to indicate that a given mildew is a comedy.During some historica l periods, such(prenominal) as the Renaissance, dependers and spell outrs discharge conscious attempts to hand to continent prototypes in exclusively aras of life, comb the deeds of Athenian authors for previously lose material in their quest to pass water guidance and learn everything possible from this unusual flowering of culture. Even much than as a model for literature and art, classical capital of Greece has continued to practise as a relevant source for answers to prefatorial questions intimately military personnel existence.Though all cultures endure sought to identify the crowning(prenominal) taper and connoteing of serviceman life, the ancient Greeks, especially the Athenians, were the first in the West to come through answers that were non expressed in spiritual or legendological terms. Their thoughts on these matters grew out of speculations on the nature of the domain made by earlier Greeks, bursticularly Thales and. His sideline Misbranded a nd Heraclites. These thinkers, living in the ordinal and sixth centuries B. C. Theorized near how the universe had been organize and what it was made of by kernel of sagacious explanations drawn from annotation rather than from myth or religious tradition. Because they believed the natural universe could, be explained, in former(a) than spectral terms, they atomic number 18 often termed the first align scientists or first philosophers. During the fifth century B. C. , several(prenominal) Athenian thinkers cycleed their maintenance from the honesty almost, them to the compassionate beings living in that world. They used this new method of philosophic inquiry to question the workings Of the human mind and the societies humans create.They asked such questions as. How do we learn things? What should we try to learn? How do we bash what is right or wrong, approximate or bad? If we can know what is nigh, how can we create things that are good? What kind of government is beat out? This caseful of questioning is perhaps to the highest degree often associated with Socrates (469-390 B. C. ) and his pupil Plato (427-347 B. C. ), who are largely called, the founders of Western philosophy. Thales and his followers are so know as the pre- Socratic and a twentieth-century philosopher, Alfred unification Whitehead, noted-?only half jokingly-?that the European philosophic tradition .. Insists of a series of footnotes to Plato. two Socrates and Plato believed that goodness is related to knowledge and that purity could be learned. For Plato especially, true knowledge was gained not by observation of the world just now by contemplation of what an ideal world would be like. In their view, to understand goodness, justice, or beauty, it is necessary to think about what unclouded and ultimate goodness, justice, or beauty means. Plato thus introduced into Western thought a rigid s check over of idealism and was the first to redeem flora on what an ide al orderliness or set of laws would look like.He as well as diagnosed the education required to train citizens for governing this Ideal state and the kindly and economic structure necessary to hold back them at their posts. Though he likely recognized that these standards could never be achieved, he believed that the creation of ideals was an important component of the study of philosophy, a sentiment shared by many Western thinkers aft(prenominal) him. Plats most brilliant pupil, Aristotle (384-322 B. C. ), originally agreed with his t severallyer but then began to depart somewhat from idealism.Like the pre- Socratic, Aristotle was fascinated by the world nigh him, and many of his ratings on scientific subjects denounce keen powers of observation. Even his treatises on standards of human behavior, such as those concerning ethics and government, are based on close observation of Athenian society and not apparently on speculation. Aristotle throw out intended that these full treatment should not only describe ideal human behavior or governmental systems, but overly provide suggestions about how to alter current practice to adapt more closely to the ideal.Thus, although Aristotle was still to some degree an idealist, both the source and the liquidator of his ideals was the real world. In classical Athens, human nature was a subject contemplated not only by scientists and philosophers, but in like manner by historians, such as Herodotus and Discusses. They, too, searched for explanations about the natural order that did not imply the gods. For Herodotus and Discusses, the Persian and Peloponnesus wars were caused by human separateings, not by actions of vengeful gods such as those that Homer, following tradition, depicted in the Iliad as causing the Trojan war.Like Aristotle, they were interested in describing real tear downts and finding explanations for them like Plato, they were withal interested in the possible as well as the actual. tale, in their opinion, was the best arena for observing the true expense of various ideals to human society. To the Athenians, war was the ultimate test of human ideals, morals, and values, but these could also be tested and observed on a much smaller eggshell in the way people conducted their nonchalant lives.Although for Plato the basis of an ideal government was the absolutely trained ruler or root word of rulers, for Aristotle and other writers it was the perfectly managed household, which they regarded as a microcosm of society. Observing that the household was the smallest economic and policy-making unit in Athenian society, Aristotle began his reflection of the ideal governmental system with thoughts on how households should be run. Other writers on politics and economics followed suit, giving advice after observing households they regarded as particularly well managed.Whereas Plato distinctly indicated that he was describing an ideal, in the case Of Aristotle and o ther Athenians, it is sometimes difficult to determine whether they were attempting to describe reality, what they wished were reality, or a pure ideal. Your confinement here go out be to canvas the relationship between ideal and reality in the writings of a hardly a(prenominal) Athenian philosophers, historians, and commentators. What ideals do the writers set forward for the individual, the household, and the government?How are these ideals reflected in more realistic descriptions of life in Athens and in the way Athenians built their houses and their metropolis? Sources All the written sources we will use come from Athenians who lived during the classical period and are thus what we term original or primary sources. They discord greatly from new(a) primal sources, however, in that their textual truth cannot be checked. Before the development of the imprint press, the only way to obtain a copy of a work was to write it out by hand yourself or hire someone to do so.Therefo re, each manuscript copy might be slightly different. Because the originals of the works of Aristotle or Discusses carry long since disappeared, what we have to work with are translations of composites based on as many of the oldest copies still in existence after 2,500 years that the translators could find. The problem of accuracy is further complicated with some of the authors we will fill because they did not actually write the works attributed to them. Many of Aristotle works, for instance, are believably copies of his students notes unite with (perhaps) some of his own.If you think of the way in which you record your own instructors remarks, you can count on why we must be guarded about assuming that these secondhand works contain everything Aristotle taught exactly as he intended it. Socrates, in fact, wrote nothing at all all his ideas and words come to us through his pupil Plato. Scholars have long debated how much of the written record represents Socrates and how much represents Plato, especially when we consider that Socrates generally poke at social gatherings or informally while walking around Athens, when Plato was not taking notes.These problems do not mean that we should discount these sources, they simply mean that we should realize that they differ from the printed documents and tape-recorded speeches of ulterior eras. We will begin our investigation with what is probably the most famous description of classical Athens Source 1 a funeral speech delivered by Prices. Prices, one of the leaders of Athens when the Peloponnesus War opened, gave this speech in 430 B. C. In enjoy of those who had died during the first year of the war. It was recorded by Discusses and, though there is some divergence over who actually Wrote it, reflects Prices opinions.Read the speech guardedly and be prepared to answer the following questions (1) Is Prices describing an ideal he hopes Athens will achieve or reality as he sees it? (2) How does he depict Athen ian democracy and the Athenian attitude toward wealthiness? (3) How does he compare Athens with Sparta? (4) How does Athens treat its neighbors? (5) What role does Prices see for genus Athene Ian women? Source 2 comes from a posterior section of Discusses Peloponnesus War, and it ascribes Athenian actions in the sixteenth year of the war. As you read It, think about the virtues that Prices ascribed to the Athenians. 1 ) Are these virtues reflected in the debate with the Menials or in the actions against them? (2) How do the Athenians justify their actions? Sources 1 and 2 from Discusses, History of the Peloponnesus War, translated by Richard Crawler (New York Modern Library, 1951) up. 103-106 p. 109. 1. Prices Funeral Speech, 430 B. C. That part of our history which tells of the military achievements which gave us our several possessions, or of the ready valor with which every we or our ethers stemmed the tide of Hellenic or foreign aggression, is a group too beaten(prenominal ) to my hearers for me to dilate on, and I shall therefore pass it by.But what was the road by which we reached our position, what the form Of government under which our richness grew, what the national habits out of which it sprang these are questions which I may try to solve in front I proceed to my panegyric (festival assembly) upon these men since I think this to be a subject upon which on the present occasion a speaker may by rights dwell, and to which the whole assemblage, whether citizens or foreigners, may get word with advantage. Our constitution does not copy the laws of near states we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves.Its administration favors the many instead of the few this is why it is called, a democracy. If we look to the laws, they consecrate equal justice to all in their private differences if to social standing, advancement in public life falls to nature for capametropolis, class considerations not being allowed to intercept with mer it nor again does poverty breastwork the way, if a man is able to serve the state, he is not hindered by the reconditeness of his condition. The freedom, which we enjoy in our overspent, extends also to our unremarkable life.There, far from exercising a overjealous surveillance over each other, we do not feel called upon to be untamed with our neighbor for doing what he likes, or even to indulge in those injurious looks which cannot fail to be Offensive, although they inflict no overconfident penalty. But all this ease in our private relations does not make us law slight as citizens. Against this headache is our chief safeguard, teaching us to conform the magistrates and the laws, particularly such as regard the protection of the injured, whether they are actually on the statute book, or belong to hat code which, although unwritten, yet cannot be disordered without acknowledged disgrace.Further, we provide plenty of means for the mind to refresh itself from business. We cel ebrate games and sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to expel the spleen while the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbor, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury as those of his own. If we turn to our military policy, there also we differ from our antagonists.We throw open our tit to the world, and never by alien acts exclude foreigners from any opportunity of learning or observing, although the look of an enemy may occasionally net income by our liberality trusting less in system and policy than to the infixed spirit of our citizens while in education, where our rivals from their very cradles by a painful stop seek after manliness,