Hellenistic Culture cont.

Hellenistic Culture

Philosophy and art:

- Epicureanism and stoicism (Greek philosopher named Zeno): founded the school of philosophy
- founded the school of thought
- Epicurus taught that the gods had no interest in humans ruling the universe
- Today, the word epicurean means a person who is devoted to pursuing human pleasures, especially the enjoyment of good food

Realism in Sculpture:

- Rulers, wealthy merchants, and cities all purchased statues to honor gods, commemorate heroes, and portray ordinary people in everyday situations
- Colossus of Rhodes: a bronze statue more than 100 ft high, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world
- Hellenistic culture moved away from the harmonic balance and idealized forms of the classical age
- 150 BC the Hellenistic world was in decline
- Rome was growing and gaining strength

Hellenistic Culture

Hellenistic Culture:

Hellenistic Culture in Alexandria

- Hellenistic culture: a blend of Greek, Egyptian, Persian, and Indian culture
- Trade and Cultural diversity:
- Alexandria became a foremost center of commerce and culture/civilization

Alexandria's Attractions

- Alexander's coffin
- An enormous stone lighthouse called Pharos
- Alexandria's museum and library
- The Alexandrian Library contained 500,000 papyrus scrolls

Science and Technology:

- Astronomy:
- Aristarchus: estimated that the Sun is at least 300 times bigger than the sun
- Earth and other planets revolved around the sun
- Ptolemy disagrees with Anistarchus, says that Earth is the center of Universe, this is taught for next 14 centuries
- Eratosthenes estimated the the real size of Earth, saying it's round
- Mathematics and Physics:
- Euclid: wrote the book on Geometry (Elements)
- Archimedes: estimated the value of pi, explained law of the lever
- the Archimedes screw - could raise water from the ground

Alexander's Empire

Alexander's Empire:

1. Philip Builds Macedonian Power
- Philip is Alexander's dad and King of Macedonia
- King of Macedonia who invaded Greece and won
- He was going to conquer Persia, but he was murdered

2. Alexander names himself king at 20 years old
- Alexander defeats Persia
- When young, he was tutored by Aristotle
- He relied on the Iliad
Alexander vs Darius:
- Alexander is outnumbered by Darius's army, but wins anyways
- crowned Pharaoh in 332 BC, he told them he was a God
- Alexander's army moves east to Mesopotamia. Darius's army outnumbered him again with a HUGE army. Battle at Gaugamela. Alexander used phalanx, and won. Again.
- Alexander continues east to Persepolis, and burned it to the ground (and took money/gold)

3. Alexander's Other Conquests 
- Now reigned as an unchallenged ruler of Southwest Asia
- 326 BC Hydaspes River: defeats India
- Been fighting for 11 years and marched 11,000 miles. So the army turned home.
- 323 BC the army reached Babylon and Alexander settled down there. It says that Alexander became seriously ill with a fever and died a few days later but other historians thought that he could've been murdered or died from other diseases but his body was never found.

The Final Presentation

The Final Presentation 

- Today in class, the final group presented their project. Kelsie, Giovanna, Jillian, Sofia, and Anna did their project about pottery. They had a well-organized PowerPoint and made a pot that would look like some of the pots back then. After their presentation, we talked about the snow that will come and what days they will take away because we don't have cyber days anymore. I really don't want part of my spring break to be taken away because I have special vacation plans but even if we lose a day i will probably miss it anyway. After talking about the snow days, we opened the textbook to p. 146-149 and read 'The Spread of Hellenistic Culture.'

Alexander's Empire

Alexander's Empire (p142-145)

- King Philip II hoped to take control of Greece (became king in 359 BC at the age of 23)
- The Macedonias were a hardy people who lived in mountains
- He organized his troops into phalanxes of 16 men across and 16 deep, each one armed with an 18-foot
- Demosthenes, the Athenian orator, tried to warn the Greeks of the threat Philip and his armed posed
- At Philip's daughter's wedding in 336 BC, he was stabbed to death by a former guardsmen. His son then became king of Macedonia and was known as Alexander the Great
- In 334 BC, he led 35,000 soldiers across the Hellspont into Anatolia
- Leading his troops in battle, Alexander smashed the Persian defenses
- During his time in Egypt, Alexander founded the city of Alexandria at the mouth of the Nile
- Alexander became very ill with a fever and died .a few days later at the age of 32
- Antigonus became King of Macedonia and took control of the Greek city-states
- Ptolemy seized Egypt, took the title of pharaoh, and established a dynasty
- Seleucus took most of the old Persian Empire, which became known as the Seleucid Kingdom

Presentations Part 2

    In class today, my group (Jamie, Maddie, Valerie, and I) finally presented our project. I thought it was hilarious because I remember filming it laughing so hard. I feel like we did a good job presenting and describing the different types of events but I won't know until we get our grades. For the rest of the class we watched a video based on a movie (Ben Hur) that took a week to film the chariot racing but was only about 4 or 5 minutes long. We also saw what movies Mr. Schick worked on and talked about all the actors and actresses he met. That was basically the whole class and then the bell rang.

Presentations

 In class today, three groups presented their projects. Maddy, Chase, Faith, and Ellie presented a food video about how they made it because it was what the Greeks ate. They brought in "wine" which was actually sparkling grape juice and they brought in the cake they made and some bread/oil to go with it. The next group was Owen and Ben. They made a small trireme model out of wood and told us all the information about it. When Ben would speak, Owen would hold the board and show us a specific part of the ship when Ben would talk about it. The final group that went was Frankie, Vlad, Aiden, and Dom. I forgot what their group name was called but I know it had something to do with Greek Gods. We didn't have enough time to present our project but we will be the first ones to present tomorrow.

Project Work

Today we worked on more of our project which is due Tuesday. Here is more of a preview to our paper:

There were many different types of events that took place at the Ancient Greece Olympics but we decided to only focus on four specific activities. Chariot racing, discus, running, and wrestling were all part of the Olympics back then. Chariot racing is a popular event at the Ancient Greece Olympics which consists of small, two-wheeled vehicles drawn by either two, four, or six horses. The discus throw was one of the five events of the pentathlon where you would throw either an iron, bronze, stone or lead discus. Running wasn’t different from   

Western civ project

Western Civilization Project: Today in class we worked on our project that is due on March 12th. Maddie, Valerie, Jamie, and I are going to film a video for the project on Friday and it'll look really weird so hopefully no one will be outside and at the same place we'll be at.

Here is a start to our paper:

1 Body Paragraph: There were many different types of events that took place at the Ancient Greece Olympics but we decided to only focus on four specific activities. Chariot racing, discus, running, and wrestling were all part of the Olympics back then. Chariot Racing is a popular event at the Ancient Greece Olympics which consists of small, two-wheeled vehicles drawn by either two, four, or six horses. From start to finish, the chariot racers complete seven laps hoping to be in the lead. The chariots are extremely fragile and if it were to collide with someone else, it would be destroyed and multiple injuries may occur or even death.

Plato Allegory of the cave

Plato's Allegory of the cave

(a story, poem, or picture that can contain a hidden meaning, or a moral, or a political lesson)
- Ideal society: by examining concepts like justice, truth, and beauty
- They identify things they see without actually seeing them
- When one prisoner is free and outside, the sunlight hurts his eyes and he finds the new environment disorienting
- The sun ends up being the ultimate source of everything he has seen
- The other prisoners don't believe him, call him stupid, and won't let him set them free
- Most people are not just comfortable in their ignorance but hostile to anyone who points it out

Plato: no to Athenian democracy; yes to philosopher kings
- Things in the physical world are flawed reflections of ideal forms
- For theologians, the ideal forms exist in the mind of a creator
- People still wonder if the things outside the cave are anymore real than the shadows

Philosophy Video Continued

In class today we got a lot of food that Jamie brought which included: big bagels, mini bagels, grapes, sugar cookies and regular chocolate chip cookies. We also started talking about how we might see different colors but call them the same thing and I understood it at first but after the conversation we had I was very confused. We also finished the 10 minute video that took three classes to go through today and here are the notes:

Philosophy Video Continued

- Logic is the philosopher's toolbox; Logic is about reasoning, giving strong arguments that don't fall victim to fallacies
- Fallacy: a failure in reasoning of flawed reasoning that leads to an invalid or unsound argument
Step 1: try to understand
Step 2: critical evaluation