Test Review

Agora :

- gathering place, assembly, marketplace
- the center of athletic, artistic, spiritual and political life in the city/state (especially Athens)

Polis :

- political entities ruled by their bodies of citizens
- origin of the words politics, metropolitan, poll

The importance of the year 508BC to the ancient Greeks

- the birth of democracy
- the first time in recorded history a people had revolted against their rules

Socrates :

[the early years]
- as a young man he worked as a stonemason
- he fought - heroically- in the Peloponnesian War
- his working background and battlefield experiences may have shaped the way he viewed the world

Socratic method :

[the teacher]

- Socrates met with young students in workshop just outside agora
- method : ask a series of questions to determine their underlying beliefs and the extent of their knowledge
- this led to the scientific method, in which you star out with a hypothesis, then set out to prove - or disprove - your theory through experimentation.
- I can't teach anybody anything, I only can make them think. — Socrates

[the controversy]

- Athens was a great city attracted brilliant thinkers
- visitors from all over the world shared their knowledge of astronomy, medicine, meteorology, literature, philosophy, and all things scientific
- this was often at odds with traditional the Greek god, which got young people thinking and questioning
- I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others. —Socrates

the death of Socrates :

[trial]

- Socrates was changed with two crimes
- corruption of Athen's youth
- impiety (not believing in the gods of the state)

[his defense]

- "It's my job to be gadfly to the lazy, sluggish horse that is Athens."
- "I should actually be rewarded with free dinner for life."

[how did that work out]
- a jury of 500 male citizens found him guilty (279-221)
- sentenced to death by drinking poison hemlock
- he had the opportunity to escape, but refused, providing his loyalty to Athenian democracy

What the ancient Greeks meant if they called you an idiot

- an idiot in Athenian democracy was someone who was characterized by self- centeredness and concerned almost exclusively with private  - as opposed to public - affairs
- in Athenian democracy, idiot were born and citizens were made through education
- declaring to take part in public life, such as democratic government of the polis (city state), was considered dishonorable

The unexamined life is not worth living