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Classical Greece

Classical Greece
Nikos Kitsakis · CC BY 4.0 · source

Overview

Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (the 5th and 4th centuries BC) in Ancient Greece, marked by much of the eastern Aegean and northern regions of Greek culture (such as Ionia and Macedonia) gaining increased autonomy from the Persian Empire; the peak flourishing of democratic Athens; the First and Second Peloponnesian Wars; the Spartan and then Theban hegemonies; and the expansion of Macedonia under Philip II. Much of the early defining mathematics, science, artistic thought (architecture, sculpture), theatre, literature, philosophy, and politics of Western civilization derive from this period of Greek history, which had a powerful influence on the later Roman Empire. Part of the broader era of classical antiquity, the classical Greek era ended after Philip II's unification of most of the Greek world against the common enemy of the Persian Empire, which was conquered within 13 years during the wars of Alexander the Great, Philip's son.

In the context of the art, architecture, and culture of ancient Greece, the Classical period corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries BC (the most common dates being the fall of the last Athenian tyrant in 510 BC to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC). The Classical period in this sense follows the Greek Dark Ages and Archaic period and is in turn succeeded by the Hellenistic period.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

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  1. That society then which nature has established for daily support is the domestic, and those who compose it are called by Charondas _homosipuoi_, and by Epimenides the Cretan _homokapnoi_; but the society of many families, which was first instituted for their lasting, mutual advantage, is called a village, and a village is most naturally composed of the descendants of one family, whom some persons call homogalaktes…

    Aristotle, Politics

    States what Classical Greece is; the author is tied to Classical Greece in the knowledge graph.

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  2. The Carthaginians also observe the twenty-first of the same month, as bringing with it the largest number and the severest of their losses. I am not ignorant, that, about the Feast of Mysteries, Thebes was destroyed the second time by Alexander; and after that, upon the very twentieth of Boedromion, on which day they lead forth the mystic Iacchus, the Athenians received a garrison of the Macedonians. On the selfsame…

    Plutarch, Plutarch

    States what Classical Greece is; the author is tied to Classical Greece in the knowledge graph.

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  3. Elli MYLONAS The Perseus Project: Interactive Sources and Studies in Classical Greece The Perseus Project (5) has just released Perseus 1.0, the first publicly available version of its hypertextual database of multimedia materials on classical Greece. Perseus is designed to be used by a wide audience, comprised of readers at the student and scholar levels.

    Library of Congress, Workshop on Electronic Texts

    Names Classical Greece twice; opens on Classical Greece.

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Philosophers who discussed Classical Greece

Related ideas

Opposing perspectives

Place in the tradition

Part of Ancient history.

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