Ancient Greece: Famous Greeks

-About 550 B.C., a Greek slave named ____ made up his now famous fables.
-In most of _____’s fables, animals talk and act like people. These often funny stories point out human flaws as well as strength.
-Fables end with a message or moral.
-Famous fables include, “The Tortoise and the Hare”

Aesop

-Famous story about him, The Iliad by Homer.
-Warrior-hero
-His story inspired the achilles tendon, a muscle in the leg.
-son of the Thetis, a nereid, and Peleus, the king of the Myrmidons
-Described having a large chest, a fine mouth, and powerfully formed arms and legs
-Very fierce in battle
-Thetis tried to make him immortal by dipping him in the river Styx

Achilles

-ruler of the gods
-ruled the sky; threw lightning bolts
-Hera’s husband

Zeus

-c. 750 B.C.E
-Epic poems included the Iliad and the Odyssey
-Historians don’t know if he was a real person or if he wrote the poems alone or not.
-Many people was guessed about his personal life
-Created different style of poetry

Homer

-A general and writer of plays
-He developed drama even further by using three actors instead of one or two and painting backdrops for scenes
-Two of his most famous plays are Oedipus Rex and Antigone

Sophocles

-One of the best 3 writers of tragedy plays
-Tried to take drama beyond heroes and gods; characters more “down-to-earth”.
-Took interest in real-life situations, especially war. Showed war as cruel.

Euripides

-Best known writer of Greek comedies
-Many plays included jokes, like modern tv shows have today
-Make fun of politicians and scholars

Aristophanes

-another Greek tragedy writer
-first to introduce the idea of having two actors
-Introduced costumes, props, and stage decorations
-One of his best known plays was a group of three plays called the Oresteia. It was wrote is 458 B.C. and describe what happened when the Mycenae king returned home from the Trojan war

Aeschylus

-A greek philosopher that taught his pupils that the universe followed the same laws that governed music and numbers
-He believed that all relationships of the world could be expressed in numbers. As a result, he developed many new ideas about mathematics.
-Created the Pythagorean Theorem that is still used today. It is a way to determine the length of the sides of a triangle.
-First to establish the principles of geometry

Pythagoras

-A critic of the Sophists
-An Athenian sculptor whose true love was philosophy
-Believed that an absolute truth existed and that all real knowledge was within each person.
-Invented the Socratic method; he asked his pupils pointed questions to force them to use their own reasoning and to see things for themselves.
-Some Athenian leaders considered this a threat to their power.
-Sentenced to death

Socrates

-One of Socrates students
-He did not like democracy
-Established a school called the Academy
-Wrote the Republic about Athenian government

Plato

-Greek philosopher and polymath
-Taught by Plato
-founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy within the Lyceum and the wider Aristotelian tradition
-wrote about many subjects including government

Aristotle

-Wrote the history of the Persian Wars
-Tried to separate fact from legend
-People refer to him as the “Father of History”

Herodotus

-Many historians consider him to be the best historian of the ancient world
-Fought in Peloponnesian war and was sentenced to exile when he lost a battle
-Then wrote his History of the Peloponnesian Wars
-Saw war and politics as activities of human beings, not gods.

Thucydides

-In 359 B.C ___ rose to the throne as King of Macedonia
-Wanted to defeat the Persian empire
-Took over Greek city-states
-____ controlled most of Greece
-Before _____ could defeat the Persian empire, he was murdered

Philip II

-Was only 20 when he became king
-Age 16- became a commander of the army
-Invaded Asia Minor and beat the Persians
-Died at 32 of illness
-Great military warrior

Alexander the Great

-a lawyer and one of Athens greatest public speakers
-Urged Athens and other city-states to join and fight Macedonia
-Warned people that Philip was dangerous and would take over Greece

Demosthenes

-A poet and writer
-One of his works was called Argonautica and it tells the story of Jason and his group of heroes that search the ram with gold fleece
-One of the works from the
Hellenistic Age

Apollonius of Rhodes

-wrote short poems about the beauty of nature
-Considered creator of pastoral poetry
-From Sicily

Theocritus

-Founded a philosophy we now know as Epicureanism
-Taught students that happiness was the goal of life. He believed that the way to be happy was to seek out pleasure
-To him, pleasure meant spending time with friends and not worrying about things

Epicurus

-Developed Stoicism.
-Became popular in the Hellenistic world
-For them, happiness came from following reason, not emotions, and doing your duty
-Unlike Epicureans, Stoics thought everyone had a duty to serve in their city

Zeno

-An astronomer from Samos
-Claimed the sun was at the center of the universe
-At the time other astronomers rejected the idea

Aristarchus

-Astronomer; in charge of the library at Alexandria
-Concluded that the earth is round
-Measured shadows to find the curve of the earth's surface

Eratosthenes

-most famous scientist of the Hellenistic Era
-Worked on solid geometry
-Figured out the value of pi
-the king of Syracuse was impressed and asked him to use levers to defend the city

Archimedes

-most famous Greek mathematician
-best known book Elements describes plane geometry
-King Ptolemy of Egypt asked if he knew an easier way to learn geometry than reading the Elements

Euclid

-is called the greatest astronomer of all the ancient world
-studied and named over 850 stars
-figured out how to estimate the distances from Earth to the sun and moon

Hipparchus

-changed the way people thought about health and medicine
-often called “father of modern medicine”
-believed diseases had natural causes

Hippocrates

-first woman to earn fame as a mathematician
-Born in Egypt c. 370 C.E
-Taught Greek philosophy and mathematics in the city of Alexandria

Hypatia

-Brother of Zeus
-god of the seas and could cause earthquakes
-lived on Mount Olympus; one of the most important gods

Poseidon

-ruler of the underworld
-other brother of Zeus
-Wife is Persephone

Hades

-goddess of wisdom, crafts, and war
-There was a giant gold statue of her in the Parthenon
-The Athenians(named after _____) came to honor her at a festival every 4 years

Athena

-Wife of Zeus
-goddess of marriage
-sister of poseidon, zeus, hades, etc.

Hera