G10 Document Investigation Greece

The Iliad

The Iliad tells the story of the last year of the Trojan War. The heroes of the Iliad are warriors: the fierce Greek Achilles (uh•KIHL•eez) and the courageous and noble Hector of Troy. Near the end of the epic, Achilles kills Hector in single combat, paving the way for the Greeks’ ultimate victory over Troy. In this dramatic excerpt, Hector’s wife begs him not to fight Achilles. Hector’s response to his wife gives insight into the Greek heroic ideal of aretē (ar•uh•TAY), meaning virtue and excellence. A Greek could display this ideal on the battlefield in combat or in athletic contests on the playing field.

“’My dear husband, your warlike spirit will be your death. You‘ve no compassion for your infant child, for me, your sad wife, who before long will be your widow. . . . As for me, it would be better, if I’m to lose you, to be buried in the ground. . . .’ Great Hector . . . replied, ‘Wife, all this concerns me, too. But I’d be disgraced, dreadfully shamed . . . , if I should slink away from war, like a coward. [F]or I have learned always to be brave, to fight alongside Trojans at the front, striving to win great fame for my father, for myself.’”

—Homer

The Iliad (translated by Ian Johnston)

What does Hector say that demonstrates aretē?

A Powerful Fighting Force

Though Sparta was renowned as a military state with a powerful army, Athens, too, possessed a strong military made of outstanding soldiers. The phalanx, represented below on the pottery, was the favored military formation for the armies of Athens and Sparta. Both city-states saw the value of a strong military, especially in light of the brewing conflict with Persia.

What quality greatly valued by the Greeks is shown on the pottery?

Pericles on Democracy

Thucydides is widely considered to be the greatest historian of ancient Greece. In his History of the Peloponnesian War, he included excerpts of speeches from leaders on both sides, including this passage from a speech by Pericles. The speech was given as part of a funeral for Athenian soldiers who had fallen during the war. As part of honoring the Athenian war dead, Pericles expressed his great pride in Athenian democracy.

“Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership in a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty.”

—Pericles, “The Funeral Oration”

from Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War

How does Pericles relate the issue of class to his opinion of democracy?

The Parthenon

Built between 447 and 432 BC, the Parthenon was a Greek temple dedicated to Athena. It serves as an excellent example of the Greek artistic ideals of harmony, symmetry, and balance.

How does the Parthenon display the Greek preference for symmetry and balance?

A View of Alexander

The Greek historian Plutarch lived and wrote about 400 years after Alexander died. This is part of his account of the aftermath of the Battle of the Granicus.

“The Persians lost in this battle twenty thousand foot and two thousand five hundred horse. On Alexander’s side, Aristobulus says there were not wanting above four-and-thirty, of whom nine were foot-soldiers; and in memory of them he caused so many statues of brass, of Lysippus’s making, to be erected. And that the Grecians might participate in the honour of his victory he sent a portion of the spoils home to them particularly to the Athenians . . . All the plate and purple garments, and other things of the same kind that he took from the Persians, except a very small quantity which he reserved for himself, he sent as a present to his mother.”

—Plutarch

quoted in Life of Alexander

How does Plutarch characterize Alexander? How might someone who lived in a kingdom conquered by Alexander differ in his or her view of him?

Archimedes (c. 290–212 BC)

Gifted in both geometry and physics, Archimedes also put his genius to practical use. He invented the Archimedes screw, a device that raised water from the ground, and the compound pulley to lift heavy objects. The writer Plutarch described how Archimedes demonstrated to an audience of curious onlookers how something heavy can be moved by a small force.

“Archimedes took a . . . ship . . . which had just been dragged up on land with great labor and many men; in this he placed her usual complement of men and cargo, and then sitting at some distance, without any trouble, by gently pulling with his hand the end of a system of pulleys, he dragged it towards him with as smooth and even a motion as if it were passing over the sea.”

—Plutarch

quoted in Parallel Lives: Marcellus

What other uses might have been found for Archimedes' invention?