March 22, 2011

Ostracized – you are banished from your own land.

The Athenians were now looking for a leader, they found a man who would change their world forever, and his name was Pericles. He wanted to glorify Athens. He was born into one of Athens wealthiest families. He wanted a city fit to rule an empire. He wanted to create a city that would have people realize the greatness of the city they live in. He wanted Athens to be the best city on the planet. 20 years earlier the Persians burnt down the temples on the acropolis. Pericles propped a massive re construction plan. Parthenon was a huge, magnificent building; it was in tribute to Athena. The modern day cost of it would be a billion dollars. It was used to glorify Athens and was located on the top of the acropolis. It was there to make the Greeks feel really good about them. This new construction program was extraordinary expensive. It is still standing present day. People would gather from all over the Greek world would gather and help build this building. Some protested that it was taking up the city but when the building was completed in only 15 years, everybody was happy with it. When you first came through the doors, you would have been stunned. You would have been confronted first thing by a 40 foot, golden statue of Athena. The statue was very life like. A five hundred foot long of carved of marble design that someone has chiseled a partial statue out of called a frieze. The people who built it were regular, every day people. Here Pericles let everybody be glorified. It includes all the great people who helped defeat the first threat to the Greeks, the Persians. It is still standing today, representing Greeks victory. They put it on the top of the acropolis so that everybody could see it. Everybody who showed up in Athens basically looked at it and was blown away. It took 15 years to build it. Pericles kept the government that Themistocles had and he was successful by doing so. Pericles was remarkable by associating with the leading minds of his day. Pericles was well aware of his city’s statue. Even Pericles partner a woman named Aspasia. He divorced his wife and lived with Aspasia. She was in a way you could say a prostitute. She still was a brilliant, confined woman. She would present herself very well. Pericles fell in love with her and let her make decisions in decision making conversations. She was allowed to hold her own. Pericles had her participate in some of the most important conversations with important people. In 5^th century Athens the highest achievements of art and culture were not restricted to the elite. The world’s first theater was in the acropolis in Athens. They would show stories by acting it out here. The first tales performed on the Greek stage were called tragedies. Greek tragedies would show Greeks the destiny that should be theirs. There were many tragedies performed such as people marrying their own mother and not knowing, and having kids with his own mom or one where a woman killed her husband. Greeks invented drama. The tragedies are what their really, really known for. The Greeks wrote these plays that had to do with really good people making some bad mistake. Otherwise it was about really good people falling from the top such as married people, personal life, or something having to do with their job. Oedipus was a guy who at a very early age was taken away from his parents. He lived his life and achieved greatness. He solved the riddle of the finks.  Because he solved it he was allowed to pass the path. A fortune teller told him that he was destined to kill his own father and marry his own mother without knowing who he was killing or who he was marrying, which he did. He has someone find out who his mother and father are. They figure it out but don’t tell him. His mother finds out before him and she hangs herself. Then he finds out and is completely embarrassed. He doesn’t want to see the looks on other people’s faces so he bulges his own eyes out. This is all fiction by the way. Real poets wrote these stories. The Athenians were shocked by the plays. The Greek tragedies show people today the psychological view of Greeks from years ago. Athens was the heart of a cultural revolution that would spread around. Pericles began to plan a great new adventure. He wanted to make Athens the undisputed ruler of the Mediterranean. He would not bring Athens glory, but death. Hubris means arrogance and pride. It is something that a lot of leaders are victim to this. They get to big for their britches. They are powerful but they don’t feel as though they are powerful enough. Pericles wants war against Sparta. Athens wanted to completely rule the Mediterranean. He wanted to go to war and be determined that he would not climb down. He wanted the biggest glory. Pericles knew that it would not be an easy war to win. Sparta had a very strong navy. So he proposed a strategy, he convinced the Athenians to abandon all the lands of Athens and go to Piraeus. He used the Athenian navy to try and defeat Sparta. Pericles expectations were that he would make the Spartans realize that they had no other device available to defeat them and they would give up. He was going to cut off all ships to supply them and they would start starving and then after a year or two they would surrender. This was the start of the Peloponnesian war.