THE GREEK ACHIEVEMENT

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CHAPTER 3

• THE GREEK ACHIEVEMENT

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Ancient Greece

• In contrast to ancient Egypt, Greece became the
  first place in the ancient world in which we
  modern people might feel at home.

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Greek Achievement

• The Greeks achieved a degree of political and
  intellectual liberty.
• It was unique in the ancient world and remarkable
  in any age.

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Original Thought

• They demonstrated an extraordinary capacity for
  original thought in virtually all areas of human
  knowledge.

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Excellence in Art

• They reached standards in art and architecture
  that became criteria of excellence in the Western
  world.
• Created the concept of the classic.

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Founders of our Civilization

• Indeed, Greek achievements provided the
  foundation for the subsequent development of
  Western civilization.

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Contradictory Characteristics

• There were characteristics of Greek civilization,
  however, that might make us uneasy.
• They undermined their own civilization by
  behavior contrary to their ideals of reason and
  moderation.

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Denied Universal Rights

• They denied the universal natural rights implied
  in their philosophy to
• slaves
• women
• non-Greeks
• also to one another.

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Peloponnesian War

• They waged a long, fratricidal civil conflict,
  the Peloponnesian War.
• It sapped their strength and exposed them to
  foreign domination.

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Learning from the Greeks

• We can learn as much from the unrealized
  aspirations of Greek civilization as we can from
  its achievements.

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YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND

• Minoan and Mycenaean cultures and their influence
  on classical Greece.
• Hellenic Greeceits political history and its
  astonishing cultural achievements, culminating in
  the classical age.

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YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND

• How Greek culture was diffused and its life
  extended during the Hellenistic era.