Greece essay

The ancient Greeks are still known today as being the “Golden age” of civilization. They became masters of sculpture, architecture, art, but they also became the masters of war. The two images, showing armor from the Peloponnesian wars and the Elgin marbles, represent two aspects of Greek life. Despite war being considered by many to be something barbaric, to the Greeks, war was as much an art as was the building of the Parthenon or the plays performed in their amphitheaters.

From the very beginning of Greek civilization, war has been not only an integral part of their society, but also something that the Greeks perfected. Some of the very first Greeks, the Mycenaeans, were predominately a warrior based culture. It was Agamemnon, the Mycenaean king, who conquered all of Greece and united it under his banner. He also brought the Greek armies across the Aegean to the walls of Troy, where they performed one of the most brilliant acts of deceit the ancient world has ever seen, the Trojan horse. The Greeks took pieces from their own ships to construct a colossal wooden horse, in which Greek soldiers would hide and wait for the Trojans to bring it inside; once inside the city the Greek soldiers opened the gates and the army proceeded to burn Troy to the ground. Later in Greek history, arose the Spartans; a warrior people who had mastered warfare by using something know has the Hoplite formation. They used this Hoplite formation to hold off the Greeks at the battle of Thermopylae, even though they lost, 300 Spartans alongside several thousand Greek allies were able to fend off over 200,000 Persian soldiers. Xerxes army and navy would later be crushed at the battles of Plateau and Salamis respectively, thus suffering the same embarrassing defeat that his father did many years earlier at the battle of Marathon. Around 330BC, Alexander the Great took the Greek art of war and used it to finally defeat the Persian Empire, bringing him all the way to the Indus valley. After Alexander’s death, the Greek style warfare was used everywhere in the entire known world. The Greeks spend just as much time refining the art of war as they did constructing developing the art of sculpture and architecture.

The Greeks are considered by many to be the founders of modern culture. They were the first people to truly be able to capture the human form and they were the first to perform plays, such as Lysistrata, in large amphitheatres. In this case, the Elgin marbles represent the Greeks contribution to the finer arts such as sculpture and architecture. In the world of sculpture, The Greeks were the first to represent the human form with near perfection. Polycleitus, was the most notable of all the Greek sculptors, he carved people in an idealistic and almost god-like sense. The most notable aspect of Greek culture was their architecture. They developed two styles: Doric and Ionic, both of which are still widely used in many of today’s buildings. One of Greece’s greatest architectural achievements was the Parthenon. The Parthenon is a massive temple built to Athena, the patron god of Athens, which was built on top of the Acropolis. It is the single largest Doric structure in existence and is considered one of the most copied buildings in the world. The Greeks have a legacy of being one of the greatest contributors to modern society and their achievements are still marveled today.

For the Greeks, the architecture of their buildings and the perfection of their sculptures were just as important as the art of warfare and battle. From the beginning of the Mycenaeans to the death of Alexander war was as much as art as was architecture and sculpture.