Words for Board: Epicurus, Zeno, Stoic, Euclid, Archimedes, Eratosthenes

WARNING!! WARNING!! Your next test approacheth!!! (Yes, it's true.) It will be on the new material since the last exam, the old words listed in the syllabus just before the sample exam and, last, but not least, the old famous essay!! Your choices of essay are: 1. Philosophy–trace the development from Thales to Zeno–show any shifts in interest and why. 2. Peloponnesian War–the causes, developments and results (not each battle)–the rise of Macedonia and the defeat of Greece is a result too. 3. Compare/contrast Hellenistic (Phillip and Alexander of Macedonia, Selecuse, and Ptolemy of their respective empires) monarchs with Roman government. (Frankly, I don't like any of them, but that's the breaks!) Good luck!

Now you get to hear about philosophy, science, and art during the Hellenistic period. It's really the end of the Greeks. It was exciting but also unstable and crumbling.

Epicurus was in 341-270 BC at Athens. He tried to give inner peace in a bad world. He said don't fear death. He believed the atom theory of Democratus. (Everything is made up of little bits and pieces.) He said when you die, you just reverse to the atoms out of which you were constructed. You will have no feeling, memory, senses, etc. when you are dead, so therefore it can't hurt you or cause pain. So there's nothing to fear. You just cease to exist. He said the wise man maximizes pleasure and minimizes pain (that is pursue pleasure and avoid pain). But his idea of pleasure was not what you're thinking (shame on you!!). Pleasure is not party, food and sex cuz that will eventually weaken the body and hurt you in the long run and that's not the goal. You are to pursue all pleasure where there is no pain involved. Like what is pleasure? Conversation with your friends, listening to music and reading. That's it! His motto was "Live unobtrusively." (I.e. Stay out of the way!) If you ask him if you should get involved, run for office, etc., he'd say no–you'd only get hurt. Just stay at home. Epicureans were not very useful socially cuz they didn't do anything. However, his followers got kind of mixed up. They went in for wine, women and song. Somebody that's an Epicurean today believes like his followers, not the original thoughts of Epicurus.

Zeno founded the Stoic school. His people met at a stoa (covered porch downtown) in a shopping center that was covered downtown. He said you can't avoid the bad things in life so prepare for disaster so you can handle it. Whenever you have a choice, make a moral decision. Do good whenever possible that will influence others. If you've done good stuff, when disaster happens at least you'll know you've done your best. Give it the old college try to help you through. You'll know the disaster is not your fault and you can take disaster more calmly. (Or you could be like me–so used to disasters it doesn't matter after a while.)

In science there was a lot of exciting things happening. At Alexandria in Egypt, there had been established a huge library. It was the biggest in the world and had something like 5000 books. (That's not much today.) It looked more like a pottery factory cuz they weren't books like we think of them today. They were scrolls which were kept in pots with lids to keep rats from gnawing on them. The Ptolemies had built the library to get the big scholars to come to their city and it made them look neat.

Euclid invented plane and solid geometry and the theorems behind it. (That's the stuff they tortured you with in high school.)

Archimedes of Syracuse was neat. He was around 287-212 BC. He determined the value of Pi. He didn't go to Alexandria but did all his work in Syracuse. He also played with the density of objects in water (specific gravity). Now, it's story time. You get to hear the story of Hero's crown. The tyrant (king) of the area was Hero and Archimedes was working for him. Hero had a jeweler make a crown for him. After the jeweler got done, Hero was worried that the jeweler had stolen some gold and put some other base metal in its place in the crown. He balanced the crown against the amount of gold that was supposed to have been used and it weighed out ok. But the jeweler could have added some cheap material to make it weigh the same. How will Hero ever know? He could melt down the crown but, if he's wrong, he won't have the crown anymore. So he gave the problem to Archimedes. Archimedes thought about it really hard but couldn't come up with anything. One day, while he was taking a bath, he noticed that the level of the water rose when he put his body in. He had found his answer. (It's said he ran through the streets naked to get home and work on the answer.) He took 2 tubs and 2 jars. He put the jars in the tubs and filled them with water. He lowered the crown and an equal amount of gold into the jars. If they're the same, they should kick the same amount of water out of the jars. They weren't!!! The jeweler had added some silver which blended in really well but it is much denser.

Archimedes also played with levers and pulleys. The Romans were coming but with the help of Archimedes, Syracuse withstood the Roman siege for 3 years. He put a crane with a claw on the end in the harbor to grab and tip over the Roman ships. He invented a laser-type weapon by having kids with bronze mirrors stand up on the citadel and focus the sun on the sails of the ships. The sails would catch on fire from the heat. Eventually, the Romans captured the city. Orders were to take Archimedes alive, figuring he was a scientist and would work for anyone. But some dumb soldier burst in on him playing in his basement and killed him.

Eratosthenes of Cyrene was Stockmyer's favorite. He measured the circumference of the earth. Some of the scientists back then realized the world was round. All you need to measure the circumference is the knowledge that the earth is round, some geometry, 2 stakes, a hammer, a protractor, and the sun. He drove the stake in at Cyrene and one in at Alexandria. At noon in Cyrene there was no shadow cast by the stake and a little shadow at Alexandria. He knew the distance between the cities. He extended some straight lines through the earth and came up with some angles and by geometry figured out the circumference. (Stockmyer thinks he's neat cuz he figured out something really complicated without fancy tools.)

Somebody had invented the steam engine in Alexandria. It was a rotary type but it was never hooked to anything cuz it wasn't needed. There was slave labor. Slaves were lots better than trying to figure out machines cuz they could do more than a machine. Actually, slaves were holding the ancient world back. You have to work out simple machines before you get to the complicated ones. They didn't even need simple machines cuz slaves did everything. Slavery prevented progress. Also, steel had not been invented yet. They had iron, but iron won't spring back like steel and there would be no springs which are an important part of machinery.

There were supposedly 7 architectural wonders of the ancient world. The 7 were picked before Rome got going so it's not really fair to call them of the ancient world. The Great Pyramids, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, The Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Maussollos' tomb, and the temple of Diana at Ephyra are ones you don't have to know. There was the Colossus of Rhodes built in 305 BC. It was built at Rhodes (an island off Asia Minor). The sun god had supposedly helped them keep their independence so they built this 100-foot statue of bronze. It had a staircase inside and was a great tourist attraction. It fell down 50 years after it was put up because of an earthquake. The Chamber of Commerce of Rhodes argued over putting it back up til they found that people would still come to see it lying on the ground. It lay there for 1300 years but was sold to a junk dealer. And #7 was the Pharos at Alexandria. It was a lighthouse that was 400 feet tall. It served as a beacon light to attract ships in at night and could be seen for 30 miles. It had an oil flame with mirror reflectors at the top. It had a restaurant on the top but the elevators hadn't been invented yet. You had to climb 400 feet of stairs. They did have a donkey that went up on a ramp on the outside, but would you want to ride a smelly donkey up 400 feet to eat?! It eventually fell down form an earthquake, too. That's a bad part of the world to put up anything tall.

Art is supposed to reflect the time period. (Today the camera makes things difficult. Artists don't paint portraits and real stuff as much as they would if the camera wasn't there to capture everything exactly.) The Greeks borrowed their culture from the Egyptians, Lydians, and Minoan-Cretans. And the Romans borrowed their culture from the Greeks. In the beginning, art was very stiff and perfect. By the Age of Pericles, they showed the body more naturally but it was still too calm and perfect. During the Hellenistic period (time of tension), people were shown with wrinkles, warts, zits, etc.

And that is the end of Greece.