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Democracy in the classical period of Greece
Ancient greek culture
Democracy in the classical period of Greece
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What Caused The Downfall of Sparta?
Hypothesis: Sparta collapsed because they did not allow the helots to fight in battle
The Beginning of Sparta In about 100 BCE, the Dorians invaded Greece from the North. During the Dark Ages, the Dorians made their way south, capturing the inhabitants of the lands they passed through as helots. At the beginning of the Dark Ages, it is thought that there were many Dorian settlements in Laconia, each with their own helot population. At some time during the Dark Ages, Sparta overtook these fellow Dorian settlements and their helot populations, as well as control of the whole of Laconia. The Spartans kept the helots as a huge, strong slave race and, although they did not enslave their fellow Dorians, the other Dorians were made perioci, meaning "those who live round about". The perioci were needed to be the craftsmen, tradesmen and manufacturers for the Spartans, who were trained as full time soldiers.
At the end of the Dark Ages, there was nothing exceptional about Sparta (except her control of the helot population) but from about the middle of the 6th Century BCE, Sparta gradually turned away from the rest of Greece. They no longer welcomed visitors, cut their trade ties, stopped building ships and when the rest of Greece began using coins instead of iron spits, Sparta continued to use the spits. Sparta still had poetry and music, but instead of listening to new poems and songs, they learned only the compositions of the past, and new poets and musicians were not welcomed. Sparta still produced pottery and metal work for every-day use, but it was of poorer quality than the work of other cities. Spartans no longer participated in athletic festivals in other parts of Greece and the whole city became secretive and withdrawn, refusing to communicate with the rest of Greece.
Education The Spartans were raised and educated to be perfectly obedient and obey the state without question. Spartan education had no interest with literature, intellectual or academic activities and did Spartans were not taught subjects like mathematics, science or geography. Even as babies, Spartiates were treated harshly - they were made to eat whatever food they were given, left alone, left alone in the dark, and it is probable that no attention was paid to babies when they cried.
A Spartan Boy's education as a soldier began when the boy was about 7 or 8 years old.
Helots were the original residents of the Laconian plain, the term Helots often means ‘prisoner of war’ and that is a good representation of what the Helots were, prisoners or slaves. Owned as property of the state they were assigned land that was owned by individual Spartans, they worked, lived on and made profit from the agricultural products derived from the land though a half of any harvest was directly given to the landowner. The helots produced all the food for the population of Sparta and worked incessantly to maintain the spartiate’s lifestyles, Tyrtaeus compared the helots to ‘Asses exhausted under great loads: Under painful necessity to bring their masters full half the fruit their ploughed land produced’. The tasks of the helots were generally agricultural though, when the Spartans w...
“reach them to endure pain and conquer in battle.” (Document 11). Sparta was especially known for their strong army force. From age seven, all boys were trained not to express their pain and become great soldiers on the battlefield. Unlike Sparta, Athens’ main focus was not on the military. “For we are lovers of beauty, yet with no extravagance and lovers of wisdom, yet without weakness.” (Document 9). Athens was essentially based upon the arts and intelligence. Instead of boys going through years and years of military training, Athenians learned subjects like literature, art, and arithmetic.
The one thing we know for certain about Spartan society is that we don’t know much about it. Very few documents and artifacts about the Spartans have been discovered, but the ones that have tell us everything we know. Two of these works are Plutarch’s On Sparta and Xenophon’s Spartan Society. One of the main things these two accounts focused on was the Lycurgan reforms. Through their stories and writings Plutarch and Xenophon had both some similarities and differences when talking about the political, economic, militaristic, and social reforms. One of the main differences when comparing these two writings is how Plutarch gives a historical account of Spartan society and tries to keep objectivity
Like most Greek states of the Archaic and Classical Era, the Spartan city-state was a militaristic one. Sparta, however, took the idea to its extreme. In order to become the best soldiers, Spartan citizens had to dedicate their entire lives to the occupation. In fact to be a soldier – a hoplite – was the full infrastructure of Spartan society. While most Greek city-states looked down on labor, physical work, and even working for profit, they still had to work for a living, produce something. “The Spartans a...
Jacobs, Lewis. “Refinements in Technique.” The Rise of the American Film. New York: Teachers College Press, 1974. 433-452. Print.
Race has proven to be more than the color of someone’s skin. Race, through personal experience, is stigmas and stereotypes, limits and control, power, and opportunity. Race is about shades, hues, and pigments justifying bias actions. Does one race, because of something that cannot be changed, have an advantage over another? Does something as simple as the color dictate how one is seen in society and limit what one can and cannot do?
In approximately 650 B.C., Sparta was formed in the Peloponnese peninsula in Laconia by several smaller city-states that joined together. Located near the fertile farmlands of the Eurotas River, the Peloponnese peninsula was an ideal area to establish a new civilization. Sparta, meaning “to sow,” was appropriately named because of its positioning in one of the only fertile valleys in Greece. After conquering its western neighbor Messenia, Sparta gained even more fertile land as well as the Taygetus mountain ranges. These mountains provided essential raw materials including timber and wildlife. As a result of the Taygetus range, Sparta was somewhat isolated from the rest of Greece. This is provides insight into why Spartan livelihood differed so greatly compared to other Greek city-states.
In 725, the oligarchy of Sparta needed land to feed a dramatically growing population, so the Spartans went over the Taygetus mountains and took over Messenia, where a fertile plain was enough to support themselves and their newly conquered people. However, like all conquered people, the Messenians fought back in 640 BCE and almost destroyed Sparta itself. Almost defeated, the Spartans invented a new political system as dramatically revolutionary by turning their state into a military state. The Messenians were turned into agricultural slaves called helots, "serfs", where they worked small plots of land on estates owned by Spartans. There's no question that the life of the helots was a miserable life. Labor was long and hard and the helots always lived right on the border of subsistence.
...portantly, through his own music, which a majority of people still listen to during this very time, despite the progress of music over the centauries. Therefore, in conclusion, while Johann Sebastian Bach may not have been some great King or noble of some sort, he was an extraordinary and unforgettable composer and organist of Germany and devoted himself to his greatest passion, music, in order to further the influence of his culture, so that others may carry such cultural ways with them and into future generations such as our very own, where even Bach has yet to be forgotten.
In 1749 Bach started a new composition called “The Art of Fugue”, but he did not complete it. Bach tried fixing his sight with a surgery but something devastating happened, he lost his eye sight completely and a year later he suffered a stroke and died. During his life time, Bach was better known as an organist than a composer, “Curiously, Bach refrained from calling himself a composer…” (Wolff 2000, p.3). Bach was able to give different emotions to others with music. Bach died a respected man and having an important position in the world of music.
On the first day of spring, in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany, one of the greatest composers in musical history was born. Johann Sebastian Bach would live on, and distinguish himself in music history and would one day be among the most remarkable musicians who ever lived. Some would designate him as the greatest of them all (Pogue and Speck 24). He was born into one of the most extraordinary musical families the world has ever known. Bach was a devoutly religious man and was acquainted with tragedy. His first wife had died suddenly while he was away, and 12 of his 20 children died in infancy. However, he married again and three of his sons became significant composers (Johann Sebastian Bach). The features of Bach’s life, his styles, and his motivation contribute to part of Bach’s exceptional history.
... new dimensions in virtually every department of creative work to which he turned, in format, musical quality and technical demands (p. 22, Classical Music, the Rough Guide). His music was so complex that many analysts have uncovered layers of religious and numerological significance that is rarely found in the music of other composers. Bach’s chorale harmonizations and fugal works were soon adopted as models for new generations of musicians. Bach was the last great representative of the Baroque era in an age which was already rejecting the Baroque aesthetic in favor of a new, enlightened one (www.sfsymphony.org/templates/composer).
I have shown throughout this essay that we can determine personal identity solely based on psychological continuity. During John Perry’s dialogue he says that there are only three ways in which we can tell a person is who they are. Those three ideas being a person is their body, a person has a continuation of memory, or a person is their immaterial soul. Through the whole of this essay we have discussed that even though bodily identity and immaterial souls are a good suggestions for determining personal identity that they really aren’t logical theories. I have argued that we can distinguish personal identity from psychological continuity.
Locke first splits substances of which we have ideas into three groups; God, finite intelligences, and bodies. Locke writes that identity is ascertained by a comparison between the idea of an object at one moment in one place, and the idea of the object at another time and place. If these two ideas match up, that is to say that they are exactly the same, then the object itself is the same. God’s identity is indubitable, as he is eternal and unchanging. Finite intelligences and Bodies each have an exact beginning, and when you compare the current finite intelligence or body to its beginning you can understand its identity. An object cannot have two distinct beginnings in time and space, and two objects cannot share in one beginning. As such, finite intelligences and bodies each have unique beginnings which identify them. Locke’s idea of personal identity is based on the same principal of continued comparison as the identities of the three substances.
In the year approximately 500 B.C., the Greek civilization came upon a time of peace. Because of the tranquil times, the civilization’s society had more time to focus on writing, math, astronomy, and artistic fields, as well as trade and metallurgy. Out of all the city-states of Greece, two excelled over all the rest, Sparta and Athens. Even though they were the most advanced and strong civilizations, they were bitter enemies. While Athens focused mainly on the people’s democracy and citizen rights, Sparta were ferocious and enslaved its original inhabitants, making them unable to leave