The history and culture of classical Greece has a significant impact on the modern world. Classical Greece

History

Historians Herodotus and Thucydides record and study past events

• pioneered the accurate reporting of events
• Thucydides’ approaches still guide historians today

Lesson 4

Philosophers Search for Truth

• Athenians lose confidence in democratic government, question values
• Philosophers—thinkers who seek the truth—appear
• Greek philosophers based philosophy on two assumptions:
• the universe is orderly with absolute laws
• people can understand laws through logic, reason

Socrates

• Socrates—believes in questioning, – Socratic Method
• self-examination of values, actions
• Convicted of corrupting young people;
• sentenced to death in 399 BC

Plato

• Plato—Socrates’ student
• Wrote The Republic, his
• vision of a perfectly governed society
• person of greatest intellect chosen to lead

Continued…

Lesson 4

Philosophers Search for Truth

Aristotle

• Aristotle—questioned nature of the world, human belief, knowledge
• Invents method for arguing according to the rules of logic
• Applies method to understand psychology, physics, and biology
• Tutors 13-year-old prince who becomes Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

LESSON 5

Alexander the Great conquered Persia and Egypt and extended his empire to the Indus River in northwestern India.

Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great

LESSON 5

Philip Builds Macedonian Power

• Macedonia—kingdom of mountain villages north of Greece
• King Philip II—ruler, brilliant general; dreams of controlling Greece
• Macedonians call themselves Greek; rest of Greece does not