Week 8 (10/18): The Greek World in the Fourth Century BC

1. Aftermath of Peloponnesian War in Athens (404-399 BC)

A. Revolutionary Coup ("Thirty Tyrants")

Lysander

defeats at Phyle and Piraeus by the democrats (map of Attica)

B. Trial and death of Socrates

i. Context

• Sophists and moral relativism
• Aristophanes' Clouds: Socrates as a sophist (422 BC)
• Socrates' friends: Alcibiades, Critias (uncle of Plato, leader of the Thirty), Xenophon (Spartan sympathizer)

ii. Socrates: (469-399): the citizen and critic

• public service: hoplite, Council of 500 (406/5: battle of Arginusae)
• views of democracy as represented by Plato (Laws, Republic)

iii. The trial

Prosecutors: Anytus and Meletus

defense speech, Apology (versions by Plato and Xenophon)

• Charges
  • not believing in the gods the city believes in
    • Anaxagoras the sophist/natural philospher
    • Socrates' "divine being" or "supernatural experience" (daimon)
    • the gadfly of the state
      
  • corrupting the youth

   

2. The Greek World of the 4th century B.C.

A. Social, Economic, Intellectual Effects of Peloponnesian War

i. Economic weakening

ii. Rise of mercenaries/peltasts

iii. Rise of philosophical schools

Plato and the Academy, Theory of Forms (Parmenides)

Aristotle, the Lyceum, and the birth of political science

iv. Literature (mostly Athenian)

few original tragedies, just reperformance; texts fixed by law

comedy loses its political nature (later plays of Aristophanes, Menander)

historiography: Xenophon and others, Atthidographers

v. art: "decline" from classical forms
 
       Discobolus (460-450 BC) vs. Aphrodite/Eros/Pan

Parthenon frieze (430's) vs. Bassae frieze

B. Political/Military Sphere, 404-338 BC

classical Greece

Corinthian War (395-386 BC), Athens/Thebes/Persia/Corinth vs. Sparta

       strange bedfellows

       King's Peace, 386 BC (imposed by Persia)

i. Era of Hegemonies

Sparta: 404-371 BC (Spartan imperialism)

       Agesilaus

Athens: 378-338 BC (aka the Second Athenian Maritime League)

The Social War (350's)

Thebes/Boeotian League: 371-362 BC (Battle of Leuctra, 371 BC, and reconstruction; Second Battle of Mantinea, 362 BC)

       Epaminondas, Pelopidas

innovations: the Sacred Band (150 pairs of male lovers), 50-deep hoplite phalanx

Goal of each city's foreign policy in the 4C: to be free and autonomous

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