Ancient Civilizations by Scarre Christopher. Fagan Brian M. & Brian M. Fagan

Author:Scarre, Christopher.,Fagan, Brian M. & Brian M. Fagan [Chris Scarre]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781317296072
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd
Published: 2016-03-17T16:00:00+00:00

The Great Age of Athens

In a famous speech recorded (or invented) by Thucydides, the Athenian leader Pericles called Athens the “school of Hellas.” It is certainly true that the cultural life of fifth-century Greece was nowhere livelier than at Athens. Here lived and worked the great dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes; the historian Thucydides; and the philosopher Socrates. Unusual in any ancient society, a high proportion of Athenians could read and write, more so than in the rest of Greece. In archaeological terms, the most vivid testimony to Athens’s status and power is provided by the remains of buildings, monuments, and sculptures.

Figure 10.6 Bronze helmet of “Corinthian” type from the Greek sanctuary at Olympia in the Peloponnese, late 6th century B.C. Greek infantrymen, heavily protected by bronze helmets, breastplates and greaves, were a highly effective fighting force and successfully defeated the Persian invasion of 480–479 B.C. (Leemage/UIG via Getty Images)

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