Unit Two Facts

Question 1

Composer of tragedies who stressed the psychological dimensions of his characters more than his contemporary poets. Some of his works began to aniticpate the family tragicomedies of the New Comedy period. His plays, like Hippolytus, became even more popular in Athens in the 4th century after his death .

Answer 1

Euripides

Question 2

Philosopher whose ideas promoted a distinction betwen matter and mind. Like the atomists he believed that physical reality was made up of tiny, invisible particles. But he believed that there was Mind or a mind that, on rational principles, combined and recombined these elements.

Answer 2

Anaxagoras

Question 3

Sparta’s conquest of this region on the Peloponnesus gave Sparta badly-needed territory; the Spartans reduced the population to serfs who worked the land, while Spartan men became life-long soldiers.

Answer 3

Mesenia

Question 4

By a vote of a large number of the citizens of Athens a citizen who was deemed to be dangerous to the polis could be banished from the polis of Athens for 10 years.

Answer 4

ostracism

Question 5

Greek statesman who in 621 B.C.E. produced the first written code of Athenian law. It was thought that the penalties his laws imposed were a bit harsh.

Answer 5

Draco

Question 6

He and his successors focused on medicine; they approached disease and healing through careful observation with reason, to discover the natural causes of and cures for disease.

Answer 6

Hippocrates

Question 7

First and most important Athenian tyrant, he ruled in the second half of the 6th century. He expanded public building projects, built temples, expanded the central government at the expense of the nobles, and sent judges into the small towns. He was succeeded by his son Hippias who was something of a disaster.

Answer 7

Pisistratus

Question 8

Greek general Miltiades defeated the Persian army here in 490 B.C.E. during the first Persian War. This victory spared Athens for a decade from the burning wrath of the Persians.

Answer 8

Marathon

Question 9

The doric friezes of the Parthenon do NOT depict which of these:

Answer 9

The sturuggle between Athens and Sparta

Question 10

The basic political unit of ancient Greece, it usually included a fortress (an acropolis) and included the villages and farm-land that surrounded a city.

Answer 10

polis

Question 11

Female Greek islander and author of notable love poetry.

Answer 11

Sappho

Question 12

When the audience knows more than the characters in the play, so that their words or actions do not mean what they think they mean.

Answer 12

tragic irony

Question 13

Ptolemaic queen of Egypt and daughter of Ptolemy I; she became queen of Egypt when she married her brother.. She was eventually worshiped as a goddess.

Answer 13

Arsinoe

Question 14

Philip of Macedon learned to appreciate classical Greek culture after he was heldhostage in what city?

Answer 14

Thebes

Question 15

Persian capital looted and burned by Alexander in retaliation for the buring of Athens by Persians 150 years earlier:

Answer 15

Persopolis

Question 16

Early proponent of Cynicism – he rejected materialism and the hypocrisy of his day. – and pretty much everything else (like marriage, property, religion, and luxury). Reputed to have lived in a tub.

Answer 16

Diogenes

Question 17

An artistic composition formed of small cubes or pieces of stone, marble, or ceramic known as tesserae

Answer 17

Mosaic

Question 18

His Elements remained the standard textbook on geometryinto the 20th century.

Answer 18

Euclid

Question 19

Wife of Creon; the death of her beloved son Haemon led her to kill herself

Answer 19

Eurydice

Question 20

The first Greek philosopher, he promoted rational inquiry into the world without using the gods to explain how things came to be. His proposal that the earth emerged out of water was similar to the view of the Greek myths, but he explained it by natural causes, rather than as the action of the gods.

Answer 20

Thales

Question 21

The high point of Greek cities where defensive fortifications were originally built to protect the local inhabitants against attack.

Answer 21

acropolis

Question 22

He was called “The Philosopher” by Thomas Aquinas – he is arguably the most important philosopher in the history of Western culture.

Answer 22

Aristotle

Question 23

Citizen/farmer/soldiers in Athens who with shield and spear would fight in close-order ranks; these small landowners were the majority of Athens’ citizens.

Answer 23

Hoplites

Question 24

Co-architect and master builder of the Parthenon

Answer 24

Ictinus

Question 25

Region in Greece where you would find Athens.

Answer 25

Attica

Question 26

A hill in Athens; also the name of the council of nobles who met on the hill and governed Athens before the fifth century; during the fifth century one of the courts met here.

Answer 26

Areopagus

Question 27

A leader in the anti-Spartan faction in fifth-century Athens, he was elected to the generalship 30 times and was the most influential statesman during the golden age of Athenian democracy.

Answer 27

Pericles