a) Brief account having the content of who are involved, what are the issues/reasons for the war, how it ended and its result.
Ancient Greece in 431 BC was not a nation. It was a large collection of rival city-states located on the Greek mainland, on the west coast of Asia Minor, and on the many islands of the Aegean Sea.
Most of the city-states had become allied with one or the other of the leading military powers, AthensSparta. Athens was a great naval power, while Sparta relied mainly on its army for superiority. In 431 BC these alliances went to war against each other in a conflict called the Peloponnesian War. The war, which went on for 27 years, is named for the Peloponnesus, the peninsula on which Sparta is located. and
The result of the war was the crushing defeat of Athens and the end of its maritime empire. A more long-range result was the weakening of all the city-states. This made them vulnerable to a takeover by Macedonia several decades later. A brilliant account of the war was written by the historian Thucydides as events unfolded. His work still stands as a definitive source of information on the war.
The Athenian Empire and the Spartan Alliance coexisted as long as a balance of power was maintained between them. A truce called the Thirty Years' Treaty had been signed by both powers in 445 BC. Within a decade the truce was breaking down as Athens sought to extend its empire. In 433 Athens allied itself with Corcyra, a colony of Corinth, but Corinth was an ally of Sparta. Incited by Corinth, Sparta accused Athens of aggression and threatened war. Athens, under the leadership of Pericles, refused to back down. War began in the spring of 431, when Thebes, a Spartan ally, attacked Plataea, an ally of Athens.
The war fell into three phases. First came ten years of intermittent fighting, concluded by an uneasy truce in 421. This truce phase, named after the Athenian general Nicias, lasted until 415. The final phase began when Athens launched a massive and ill-fated assault against Sicily. This campaign was so catastrophic for Athens that the city barely recovered militarily. In 411 the democracy at Athens was also temporarily overturned, and the city remained in political turmoil for years. When the democracy was restored, its leaders could not agree on truce terms, and many wanted to continue the war at all costs. Fighting went on for the next six years. Athens rebuilt its fleet, while Sparta and its allies created their own navy. The end for Athens came in 405, when the Spartan navy under Lysander decisively defeated the Athenians in the battle of Aegospotami.
As the war began, Sparta and Athens each took advantage of their military strengths. Sparta, with its much larger army, ravaged Attica the territory around Athens while the Athenian navy raided cities on the Peloponnesus. This strategy lasted for two years. Meanwhile Pericles' death in 429 left the democracy prey to hostile factions and reckless leaders who pursued their own advantage. Most of the leaders were warmongers who insisted on vigorous prosecution of the conflict. Chief among these demagogues was Alcibiades, who was as irresponsible as he was brilliant. By 425 Sparta's hopes for victory were bleak, and its leaders were ready to ask for peace. Slowly, however, the fortunes of war changed. Sparta, under its general Brasidas, scored significant victories at Chalcidice (424) and Amphipolis (422). Both were serious losses for Athens. The Athenian leader Nicias persuaded the city to accept Sparta's offer to cease hostilities in 421.
The six-year truce was used by both sides to win more allies. The peace was doomed because the fighting thus far had settled nothing. On both sides there were men eager to renew the conflict. Alcibiades took the lead in promoting the Sicilian expedition in 415. When he was recalled to Athens to stand trial for religious offenses, he defected to Sparta. Athens was badly defeated at Sicily but survived for a few more years because Sparta did not press its advantage after the Sicilian losses.
By 412 Sparta, with the help of allies, had built its own navy. This was done with aid from Persia, a traditional enemy of the Greek city-states. Sparta's alliance with Persia, however, made the other city-states uneasy, and they became less eager to revolt against Athens. Athens was in trouble politically by this time. An oligarchy (government by a few) overthrew the democracy in 411, and the oligarchs were soon replaced by a more moderate regime. Full democracy was restored in the summer of 410 after a major Athenian naval victory over the Spartans. Alcibiades was recalled by Athens and given supreme command. But in 406 his fleet was lost in the battle of Notium, won by Sparta's Lysander, who was the ablest Spartan commander in the war. Battles continued, mainly at sea, with each side trading losses.
In 405 Lysander took his navy northward to the Hellespont (now called the Dardanelles) to cut off Athens from its vital grain supply lines to the Euxine (now called the Black) Sea. Lysander made a surprise attack on the Athenian ships at Aegospotami while the crews were dispersed on land. All but nine of the Athenian ships were lost, and several thousand Athenians and their allies were slain. Peace was signed in the spring of 404. Sparta
2. Persian War
a) Brief account having the content of who are involved, what are the issues/reasons for the war, how it ended and its result.
Greece was not alone in the ancient world. Egypt was flourishing. Other civilizations were developing around the Mediterranean. One of the largest and most powerful was the Persian Empire. The Greek world was tiny. It covered a small area at the southern tip of the Greek peninsula. The Persian Empire was huge. It stretched from the Mediterranean Sea all the way to the Indus River Valley. Remember all those towns the ancient Greeks built in early times? Some were still flourishing. The Greek towns located along the Turkish coast had fallen under Persian rule. The Greek colonists were unhappy about it. Athens sent supplies to help them out. Those supplies included weapons. Persia would have noticed the Greeks sooner or later, but this activity most definitely caught their eye. The Persian army had no doubt that the Greeks would be easy to conquer. The Greeks were outnumbered - what chance would they have? The Persians laughed at the thought of the battle ahead. What the Persians forgot, or perhaps they just did not know, was that the Greeks were incredible warriors. Athens had a highly capable navy, with ships that were tiny and easy to maneuver. The Spartan army was terrifying. The Persians came three times, and fought three huge battles - Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis. Each time the Persians were convinced they could easily conquer the Greeks. Each time, the Greeks drove them away. Xerxes, the Persian King, was furious at the result of the first two battles with the now hated Greeks. For the third major battle, the Battle of Salamis, he sent an incredible number of Persian ships to wage war on Greece. He didn't want just to win. He wanted Greece to be totally destroyed. Xerxes (nicknamed "Xerx the Jerk" by some of our students) was so confident of success that he had his slaves carry a golden throne from Persia, and set it up on a hillside overlooking the Greek harbor, so he could be comfortable while he watched the Greeks die. But the Greeks did not die. Their small ships could maneuver better. The Greeks were able to toss burning wood aboard the Persian ships and get safely away. The Persians had to abandon their burning ships. Those Persian sailors who made it to land were greeted by the Spartan army. The Spartans killed them all. When Xerxes saw how the battle was going, he ran away and left his army behind. While Athens burned the Persian ships, Sparta left some men on the beach to handle any Persians who made it to shore. The rest of the Sparta army marched north and defeated the Persian army coming in from that direction. The Greeks took the day. The few Persians who survived fled. But there was always the threat that the Persians might come back. In preparation, the Greeks created the Delian League - a treasury that would allow them to quickly prepare for war, should the need arise. |
3. Gods and Goddesses of Greece and Rome Compared
| Major Gods and Goddesses | |
|---|---|
| Greek | Roman and their description |
| Aphrodite | Venus-goddess of love |
| Apollo | Apollo-god of the sun |
| Ares | Mars-god of war |
| Artemis | Diana-goddess of the moon |
| Athena | Minerva-goddess of wisdom |
| Demeter | Ceres-goddess of the earth |
| Hades | Pluto-god of death |
| Hephaistos | Vulcan-god of smith |
| Hera | Juno-queen of the gods |
| Hermes | Mercury-messenger of the gods |
| Hestia | Vesta-goddess of the home |
| Kronos | Saturn-god of time |
| Persephone | Proserpina-goddess of the underworld |
| Poseidon | Neptune-god of the sea |
| Zeus | Jupiter-king of the gods |
| Minor Gods with Greek or English name on the left and Latin on the right | |
| Erinyes / Eumenides (Furies / Kindly Ones) | Dirae / Furiae |
| Eris | Discordia |
| Eros | Cupid |
| Moirai (Fates) | Moirae / Parcae |
| Charites (Graces) | Gratiae |
| Helios | Sol |
| Horai (Seasons) | Horae |
| Pan | Faunus |
| Tyche | Fortuna |
4. Olympics
a)brief history
According to legend, the ancient Olympic Games were founded by Heracles (the Roman Hercules), a son of Zeus. Yet the first Olympic Games for which we still have written records were held in 776 BCE (though it is generally believed that the Games had been going on for many years already). At this Olympic Games, a naked runner, Coroebus (a cook from Elis), won the sole event at the Olympics, the stade - a run of approximately 192 meters (210 yards). This made Coroebus the very first Olympic champion in history.
The ancient Olympic Games grew and continued to be played every four years for nearly 1200 years. In 393 CE, the Roman emperor Theodosius I, a Christian, abolished the Games because of their pagan influences.
Approximately 1500 years later, a young Frenchmen named Pierre de Coubertin began their revival. Coubertin is now known as le Rénovateur. Coubertin was a French aristocrat born on January 1, 1863. He was only seven years old when France was overrun by the Germans during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Some believe that Coubertin attributed the defeat of France not to its military skills but rather to the French soldiers' lack of vigor.* After examining the education of the German, British, and American children, Coubertin decided that it was exercise, more specifically sports, that made a well-rounded and vigorous person.
Coubertin's attempt to get France interested in sports was not met with enthusiasm. Still, Coubertin persisted. In 1890, he organized and founded a sports organization, Union des Sociétés Francaises de Sports Athlétiques (USFSA). Two years later, Coubertin first pitched his idea to revive the Olympic Games. At a meeting of the Union des Sports Athlétiques in Paris on November 25, 1892, Coubertin stated,
Let us export our oarsmen, our runners, our fencers into other lands. That is the true Free Trade of the future; and the day it is introduced into Europe the cause of Peace will have received a new and strong ally. It inspires me to touch upon another step I now propose and in it I shall ask that the help you have given me hitherto you will extend again, so that together we may attempt to realise [sic], upon a basis suitable to the conditions of our modern life, the splendid and beneficent task of reviving the Olympic Games.**His speech did not inspire action. Though Coubertin was not the first to propose the revival of the Olympic Games, he was certainly the most well-connected and persistent of those to do so. Two years later, Coubertin organized a meeting with 79 delegates who represented nine countries. He gathered these delegates in an auditorium that was decorated by neoclassical murals and similar additional points of ambiance. At this meeting, Coubertin eloquently spoke of the revival of the Olympic Games. This time, Coubertin aroused interest.
The delegates at the conference voted unanimously for the Olympic Games. The delegates also decided to have Coubertin construct an international committee to organize the Games. This committee became the International Olympic Committee (IOC; Comité Internationale Olympique) and Demetrious Vikelas from Greece was selected to be its first president. Athens was chosen as the location for the revival of the Olympic Games and the planning was begun.
b)Contests/Events
- Archery
- Basketball
- Boxing
- Canoeing,
- Cycling,
- Equestrian Events (horseback riding),
- Fencing, Field Hockey,
- Gymnastics,
- Handball,
- Judo
- Rowing,
- Shooting,
- Soccer,
- Swimming,
- Tennis,
- Track and Field,
- Volleyball,
- Water Polo,
- Weight Lifting,
- Wrestling
- Yachting
- and etc..
c)Filipino winners to the Beijing Olympics
Manny Pacquiao, Harry Tanamor,Tshomlee Go and Ma. Antoinette Rivero and other not mentioned.
5. Great Greek Philosophers: Books written/Philosohies/contribution.
Greek philosophers | |||||||
 | We know almost nothing about Thales of Miletus. Later generations told many anecdotes about this wise man, but it is difficult to verify the reliability of these stories. What seems certain, however, is that he predicted the solar eclipse of 28 May 585, which was remembered because the Lydian king Alyattes and the Median leader Cyaxares were fighting a battle on that day. Another reliable bit of information is that he did geometrical research, which enabled him to measure the pyramids. However, his most important contribution to European civilization is his attempt to give rational explanations for physical phenomena. Behind the phenomena was not a catalogue of deities, but one single, first principle. Although his identification of this principle with water is rather unfortunate, his idea to look for deeper causes was the true beginning of philosophy and science. Thales died after 547. | ||||||
 | Thales was not the only one who was looking for a first cause. Pythagoras of Samos (c.570-c.495) did the same. According to legend, he left his country and studied with the wise men of Egypt, but was taken captive when the Persian king Cambyses invaded the country of the Nile (525). He now became a student of the Chaldaeans of Babylon and the Magians of Persia. Some even say that he visited the Indian Brahmans, because Pythagoras believed in reincarnation. At the end of the sixth century, he lived in southern Italy, where he founded a community of philosophers. In his view, our world was governed by numbers, and therefore essentially harmonious. | ||||||
 | Heraclitus was a rich man from Ephesus and lived c.500, during the Persian occupation of his home town. His philosophical work consists of a series of cryptical pronouncements that force a reader to think. Unfortunately, a great part of his work is lost, which makes it very difficult to reconstruct Heraclitus' ideas. It seems certain, however, that he thought that the basic principle of the universe was the logos, i.e. the fact that it was rationally organized and therefore understandable. Bipolar oppositions are one form of organization, but the sage understands that these oppositions are just aspects of one reality. Fire is the physical aspect of the perfect logos. | ||||||
 | Parmenides of Elea was a younger contemporary of Heraclitus of Ephesus, but he lived at the opposite end of the Greek world: in Italy. Both men were intrigued by the immense variety of phenomena, but where Heraclitus discerned order in the chaos, Parmenides pointed out that the endless variety and eternal changes were just an illusion. In a long poem, which partially survives, he opposed 'being' to 'not being', and pointed out that change was impossible, because it would mean that something that was 'not being' changed into 'being', which is absurd. In other words, we had to distrust our senses and rely solely on our intellect. The result was a distinction between two worlds: the unreal world which we experience every day, and the reality, which we can reach by thinking. This idea was to prove one of the most influential in western culture. | ||||||
 | One of the solutions to the problem postulated by Parmenides of Elea, was the hypothesis of Democritus of Abdera: matter is made up from atoms. There was no real evidence for this idea (which was not completely new), but it explained why change was possible. The atoms were always moving and clustering in various, temporary combinations. Therefore, things seemed to change, but 'not being' never changed into 'being'. (It was assumed that 'not being' was a vacuum, which means that it is in fact not a 'not being' because a vacuum exists in four dimensions.) The consequence of this idea is that we are allowed to use our senses, although Democritus warns us to be careful. | ||||||
 | Thales, Pythagoras, Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Democritus had been trying to explain the diversity of nature. The object of the studies of the AthenianSocrates (469-399) was altogether different: he was interested in ethics. It was his axiom that no one would knowingly do a bad thing. So knowledge was important, because it resulted in good behavior. If we are to believe his student Plato, Socrates was always asking people about what they knew, and invariably they had to admit that they did not really understand what was meant by words like courage, friendship, love etc. Socrates was never without critics. The comic poet Aristophanes ridiculed him in The clouds, and when his pupil Alcibiades had committed high treason, Socrates' position became very difficult. He was forced to drink hemlock after a charge that he had corrupted the youth. Among his students were Antisthenes, Plato and Xenophon. philosopher | ||||||
 | In the decade after the death of Socrates, Antisthenes (c.445-c.365) was the most important Athenian philosopher. Like his master, he tried to find out what words mean, but he was convinced that it was not possible to establish really good definitions (which brought him into conflict with Plato). He did only partially agree with Socrates that someone who knew what was good, would not do a bad thing. Antisthenes added that one also had to be strong enough ("as strong as Socrates") to pursue what was good. Therefore, Antisthenes recommended physical training of all kinds, and wanted his students to refrain from luxury. His most famous pupil was Diogenes of Sinope. | ||||||
 | The Athenian philosopher Plato (427-347) is usually called a pupil of Socrates, but his ideas are no less inspired by Parmenides. Plato accepted the world of the phenomena as a mere shadow of the real world of the ideas. When we observe a horse, we recognize what it is because our soul remembers the idea of the horse from the time before our birth. In Plato's political philosophy, only wise men who understand the dual nature of reality are fit to rule the country. He made three voyages to Syracuse to establish his ideal state, both times without lasting results. Plato's hypothesis that our soul was once in a better place and now lives in a fallen world made it easy to combine platonic philosophy and Christianity, which accounts for the popularity of Platonism in Late Antiquity. One element, however, was not acceptable: the idea of platonic love - a homosexual relation with pedagogical aspects. | ||||||
 | Diogenes of Sinope (c.412-c.323) was a student of Antisthenes. Both men are called the founder of the school that is known as Cynicism. The essential point in this world-view is that man suffers from too much civilization. We are happiest when our life is simplest, which means that we have to live in accordance with nature - just like animals. Human culture, however, is dominated by things that prevent simplicity: money, for example, and our longing for status. Like his master, Diogenes refrained from luxury and often ridiculed civilized life. His philosophy gained some popularity because he focused upon personal integrity, whereas men like Plato and Aristotle of Stagira had been thinking about man's life and honor as member of a city state - a type of political unit that was losing importance in the age of Alexander the Great. However, we can not return to nature. The Cynics became some sort of jesters, accepted at the royal courts because their criticism was essentially harmless. | ||||||
 | Plato's most famous student was the Macedonian scientist Aristotle of Stagira (384-322). After the death of his master, he studied biology and accepted a position as teacher of the Macedonian crown prince Alexander at Mieza. When the Macedonians subdued Greece, Aristotle founded a school at Athens. Most of his writings are lost; what remains are his lecture notes, which were rediscovered in the first century BCE. During the last decades, scholars have started to re-examine the fragments of the lost works, which has led to important changes in our understanding of Aristotle's philosophy. However, the accepted view remains that he replaced his master's speculations with a more down-to-earth philosophy. His main works are the Prior Analytics(in which he described the rules of logic), the Physics, the Animal History, the Rhetorics, the Poetics, the Metaphysics, the Nicomachean Ethics, and the Politics. All these books have become classics, and it is not exaggerated to say that Aristotle is the most influential philosopher of all ages and the founder of modern science. | ||||||
| All philosophers are confident that rational thinking is the road to truth. Except for Pyrrho of Elis (c.360-c.270BCE), who entertained some doubts about the quest for knowledge. He argued that we can not fully comprehend nature, do not know for certain whether a statement is true or false, and are unable to build an ethical system on so weak a fundament. People would be happier if they gave up these useless intellectual exercises and postponed their judgment. The result was a conservative political philosophy, because Pyrrho recommended that, even though we had no moral absolutes, we should live by time-honored traditions. The weakness of his system is, of course, twofold: in the first place, one can not postpone a judgment forever, because sometimes action has to be undertaken; in the second place, how can you be certain that certain knowledge is impossible? Pyrrho's world-view is called Skepticism, and may be compared to the postmodernist philosophy of the 1980's. | |||||||
 | We live happiest when we are free from the pains of life, and a virtuous life is the best way to obtain this goal. This is, in a nutshell, the view of the Samian philosopher Epicurus (342-271). In his opinion, we are unable to understand the gods, who may or may not have created this world but are in any case not really interested in mankind. Nor do we know life after death - if there is an existence at all after our bodies have decomposed. Therefore, we must not speculate about gods and afterlife. In Antiquity, Epicurism was the most popular of all philosophical schools, a popularity which it partially owed to the fact that its founder had explained his thoughts in several maxims, which even the illiterate could remember. Predictably, Christian philosophers attacked Epicurus' ideas about the afterlife and divine providence. | ||||||
 | After the conquests of Alexander, the world was larger than ever, and the city-state had ceased to be an important political unit. Like Diogenes of Sinope and Epicurus, Zeno of Citium (336-264 BCE) ignored traditional values like prestige and honor, and focused on man's inner peace. In his view, this was reached when a person accepted life as it was, knowing that the world was rationally organized by the logos. A man's mind should control his emotions and body, so that one could live according to the rational principles of the world. It has often been said that Zeno's ideas combine Greek philosophy with Semitic mysticism, but except for his descent from a Phoenician town on Cyprus and an interest in (Babylonian) astronomy, there is not much proof for this idea. This philosophy, called Stoicism, became very influential under Roman officials. | ||||||
 | Zeno of Citium was succeeded as head of the Stoic school at Athens by Cleanthes, who was in turn succeeded by Chrysippus, a native of Soli in Cilicia (c.279-c.206). His contributions to the development of philosophy can especially be found in the field of logic, where he studied paradoxes and the way an argument should be constructed. He also reflected upon the use of allegoresis, which is a way to read a text metaphorically and find hidden meanings (or construct them). From now on, philosophers started to use the epics of Homer and the tragedies of Euripides as if they were philosophical treatises. Finally, Chrysippus was the man who concluded that if the rational principle of the universe, the logos, was divine, the world could be defined as a manifestation of God. | ||||||
 | We are ill-informed about the development of philosophy after the origin of the Stoa, Epicurism, Skepticism, Cynicism, Aristoteleanism, and Platonism. For several reasons, nearly all texts are lost. This was also the fate of the works of the Stoic sage Posidonius of Apamea (c.135-51), but his books are often quoted by other authors. As a philosopher, he was not an innovator, but applied the theory to science and scholarship. For example, his HistoriesWorld History of were a philosophical continuation of the Polybius of Megalopolis. Among his other publications were treatises in which the Stoic world view was applied to everyday subjects: On anger, On virtue, and Consolation. Being more interested in educating the masses than in theoretical purity, he often borrowed ideas from other schools. Philosophy after Posidonius often was a cross-fertilization between viewpoints (e.g., Plutarch of Chaeronea and Plotinus). | ||||||
| The charismatic teacher and miracle worker Apollonius lived in the first century AD. He was born in Tyana and gave a new interpretation to Pythagoreanism, which was essentially a combination of ascesis and mysticism. In his books On astrology and On sacrifices, he demanded bloodless offerings to the One God, who needs nothing even from beings higher than ourselves. This brought Apollonius into conflict with the religious establishment, but he was recognized as a great sage and received divine honors in the third century. Although the Athenian Philostratus wrote a lengthy Life of Apollonius, hardly anything is certain about the man who was and is frequently compared to the Jewish sage and miracle worker Jesus of Nazareth. | |||||||
 | In his own age, the Delphian oracle priest Plutarch of Chaeronea (46-c.122) was immensely popular because he was, like Posidonius of Apamea, able to explain philosophical discussions to a general audience. Among his Moral treatises are treatises like Checking anger, the useful The art of listening, the fascinating How to know whether one progresses to virtue, and the charming Advice to bride and groom. Plutarch also wrote double biographies, in which he usually compared a Greek to a Roman (e.g., Alexander and Julius Caesar). In the epilogue, he analyzed their respective characters. The result is not only an entertaining biography, but also a better understanding of a morally exemplary person, which the reader can use for his own progress to virtue. | ||||||
| Born in Phrygia, Epictetus (c.50-c.125 CE) became a slave of the emperor Nero's courtier Epaphroditus. When he was old, useless and therefore "freed" from slavery, he had to make a living and started to teach the Stoic philosophy, first at Rome and (after the emperor Domitian had expelled the philosophers in 89) at Nicopolis in western Greece. Because Epictetus was able to explain Stoicism in a systematic way and with an open eye to its practical applications, he had many students from the rich senatorial order, which ruled the Roman empire. Among these men were the future emperor Hadrian and the historian Arrian of Nicomedia, who published several of his conversations. Epictetus wrote a Handbook, which is arguably the most popular book on philosophy that was ever written. | |||||||
 | After the age of Posidonius of Apamea, it was not uncommon that philosophers from one school borrowed concepts and ideas from other branches of philosophy. Slowly, the schools were merging, and a new synthesis (called Neo-Platonism) was created by Plotinus(205-270). Like Plato, he accepted that our world was a mere shadow of the world of the ideas, which was in turn -and this was a novel idea- a shadow of an even higher world, which was again a shadow of the One God. In other words, the world has four levels of reality: God was the highest level, and then there were the levels of the intellect, the soul, and matter. (That matter is more real than the speculative levels of existence, was an unusual idea in Antiquity.) According to Plotinus, the wise man would try, by means of ascesis, to free his soul from matter and unite it with God. Plotinus achieved this mystical unity several times. His philosophy was adopted by the fathers of the church Ambrose and Augustine, and was to remain the philosophical school par excellence until Aristotle of Stagira was rediscovered in the twelfth century. |
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