The Classical “Golden Age”

MEDITERRANEAN PEOPLES HIST 1301 | History The Classical “Golden Age” A lot of historians consider the Greek Classical era—and the artistic, literary, and philosophical accomplishments of Athens in particular—to be the “Golden Age” of history. According to some academics, this was the era when science and philosophy first emerged since it was then that people began to critically study the natural world and rationalise their religious beliefs. (Other contemporary historians contend that this perspective undervalues Mesopotamia's and ancient Egypt's contributions to mathematics and medicine.) For instance, in around 480 BCE, Empedocles postulated that the four basic "elements" (earth, fire, water, and air) were subjected to forces of attraction and repulsion, rather than gods creating the cosmos. Democritus, a different period philosopher and physicist, maintained that the cosmos was made out of small particles, or "atoms," which randomly gathered together in a vortex to produce the universe. Philosophers challenged conventional ideals as well as conventional conceptions of the gods. A portion of these inquiries originated from the sophists (also known as the "wise ones") of Athens, who were renowned for their knowledge, discernment, and deft use of rhetoric. Starting in the middle of the fourth century BCE, sophists began to become a significant force in Athens' democratic community. They professed to be able to teach anyone, for a price, the craft of rhetoric, or persuasion, in order to help them succeed as politicians or solicitors. While many aspirational men hired sophists, others were concerned that such educated speakers may persuade the public to behave contrary to their own interests. Many believed Socrates to be a member of the sophists. Socrates, a stonecutter by profession, openly challenged politicians and sophists over right and wrong as well as good and evil. Rather of relying on unquestioned conventional views, he wished to build values on reason. While some of his supporters included the statesman Alcibiades and others who had opposed Athenian democracy, his probing questions frequently humiliated influential individuals in Athens and earned enemies. Socrates was executed in 399 BCE after an Athens jury declared him guilty of impiety and corrupting the youth. Although Socrates didn't write anything himself, a few of his followers did write biographies of him. Among them was Plato, who composed dialogues depicting Socrates conversing with others between 399 and 347 BCE, the year of his death. Plato developed a philosophical system via these dialogues that covered the study of ethics, psychology, and epistemology, or the theory of knowing, as well as the study of nature (physics). According to him, the universe is made up of ideas and forms, and the actual world we see is only a shadow of that real world. Plato asserts that the wise philosopher makes sense of these concepts and forms by applying reason. At the Academy, a public park or gymnasium outside of Athens where people went to unwind and exercise, Plato founded a school. Aristotle, one of his most well-known students, eventually disagreed with his master and held the view that forms and ideas could only exist in conjunction with the material cosmos. Aristotle established his own educational institution in 334 BCE in the Lyceum, a separate Athens gymnasium, where his pupils concentrated on the logical investigation of the natural world. Because of the concepts of Plato and Aristotle have had such a strong effect throughout the ages, modern historians consider them to be the founders of Western (European) philosophy. Theatre was also created in Athens during its Golden Age. Dramas with music and dance, similar to operas and musicals today, were written by playwrights of the fifth century BCE, such Sophocles and Euripides. The plays' narratives were derived from conventional myths about gods and heroes, but the authors addressed contemporary philosophical issues via the characters they created, issues that have had a lasting impact. For instance, Antigone, the daughter of Oedipus, must choose between abiding by the law and her religious convictions in Sophocles' Antigone. During the Golden Age, historical scholarship also developed. The reason Herodotus and Thucydides are regarded as the first genuine historians is because they looked to the past to provide logical explanations for the causes and consequences of human behaviour. Herodotus penned Histories, or "inquiries," a comprehensive history spanning a large geographic area, in order to delve deeply into the causes of the conflict between the Greek and Persian cultures. In a manner resembling that of contemporary historians, Thucydides used objectivity in History of the Peloponnesian War to describe the politics, happenings, and savagery of the fight. At last, sculpture, vase painting, and architecture reached their pinnacles during this time. Greek painters of the Classical Age emerged with their own distinctively realistic styles that sought to depict the ideal human form in art, breaking away from the highly stylized and two-dimensional art of Egypt and the Levant. Artists based their own creations on these ancient models centuries later, particularly in the European Renaissance. Greek sculptors continued to create sculptures of nude adolescents for religious sanctuaries during the Classical era, but they did it in more realistic positions that more closely mirrored the natural appearance of the human body. Vases are the primary means of preserving Greek paintings. Vases were commonly adorned in the Archaic era with patterns and other motifs that were inspired by Egyptian and Phoenician art.Vase artists began to use less patterning during the Classical era, particularly in Athens, and instead portrayed realistic subjects from everyday life and mythology. Greek painters therefore came into their own during the Classical era and stopped significantly referencing the art of Egypt and Phoenicia.