The Legacy of Athens: Art, Culture and Works of Philosophers Who Influenced the World

Comparing the two city-states Athens and Sparta, Athens is more dominant and powerful, because of their lifestyle, values, and beliefs, education and lastly cultural achievements/legacies. Firstly, Athens profound lifestyle, values, and beliefs were very important/crucial because it was what Athenian everyday life was built upon. The lifestyle of the everyday Athenian ranged from social class on a scale, the scale started from politician, philosopher, working-class male citizen, women and lastly slaves.

Within an Athenian household, the man of the house would provide by doing his job which would usually be a farmer, fisherman, soldier, teacher, a government worker, or craftsman. Men would bring groceries home from the local Agoura which means farmers market in English. Men would get married to his wife at the age of twenty-two ranging to twenty-four, rather than wives being married at the age of twelve to sixteen.

The woman would predominantly spend most of their lives within the house. The daily life of a woman in Athens would consist of hosting guests in the woman room of the house, women would usually do chores and such around the house. Boys were taught at home by their mothers until they were at the age of 6 or 7 years old. Most Athenian families sent their sons to be taught by schoolmasters. The wealthier Athenian families would send their sons to be taught by a trusted school slave teacher. Boys would use wax-covered tablets with a stylus to learn on. Boys learned to add, subtract, multiply, divide and about fractions. Moreover, Girls would mostly watch over their mothers learning how to take care of and clean a household. Wealthy Athenian families would sometimes have working slaves that would help around the house.

Philosophers were a major stepping stone in the history of the world bringing a new type of thinking to Athens. Philosophers like Aristotle and Plato would host a university type schooling for boys after they have finished a previous four-year schooling process. This university type of development was respected within the Athenian civilization. Another cultural aspect that really took play in Athenian everyday life was praying to the goddess Athena. Athena is the goddess of wisdom, courage, inspiration, strategic warfare, mathematics, strength, and lastly skill. The city Athens is named after the goddess Athena because she was said to have had a contest with the god Poseidon (god of the sea) and Athena had won, this is why Athenians had named Athens after Athena. In conclusion life in everyday ancient Athens would not be the same without its pristine lifestyle, values, and beliefs. Secondly, the exquisite and rich Athenian education system is world renowned for its succeeded Philosophers. The Athenian system, of course, involved the earlier years of boys being taught basic school necessities to a limited extent although, this paragraph will explain the notorious Philosophers of the ancient world.

The Athenian Philosophers were the founders of free-thinking beyond the everyday typical Athenian lifestyle, they would propose new ideas to the public. As said in the previous paragraph philosophers like Aristotle and Plato would host a university type schooling for boys after they have finished a previous four-year schooling process. The very first influential Philosopher was Socrates. Socrates was very well known for his successful method of revealing information, this method was called the Socratic method of questioning. Socrates believed that by simply practicing a process of a series of questioning it would enable students to examine ideas logically and to make sure that there is validity for those ideas. Socrates much like the other Philosophers would see the world in his image, Socrates believed that wisdom is obtained from when we as human beings have accepted that there is much that we do not know.

This idea of Socrates was named as Socratic Ignorance. Socratic ignorance is what made Socrates be put to his death. Socrates' death was determined to happen by the Athenian government. The Athenian government enforced this to happen because Socrates was convicted of corrupting the young minds of Athens and introducing arbitrary ideas. Socrates debated if he should fight for his life to continue living although, he decided that he would use his death as a final lesson for his followers rather than fleeing when unfortunate situations arise upon one. Socrates’s death consisted of drinking hemlock poison in a suicide. Socrates’s most prominent student was Plato.

Plato, unlike his role model, would write and record his thoughts. Plato would also record information on how Socrates would act in the streets of Athens, this would result in dialogue. Plato's analogy on life had to do with his shadow cave theory.

This shadow cave theory consisted of a group of people being chained from birth and stuck in a cave. In this cave, the only thing that the group of people could see were shadows, until one day a prisoner was able to escape the man walked out of the cave and could not believe his eyes a world of color and that life was more than just shadows reflecting off the wall. The prisoner had run back to save the others by informing them that they are living life incorrectly, although ignorance is bliss and resulted in the murder of the freed prisoner. This story represents that blindfolded people like the people in the cave do not want to hear or learn something different from the way they have lived their lives since day one. This is what Plato believed and passed on to many. The education of Plato's teaching has been viewed as the best philosopher of his time. Hence education from a philosopher's standpoint was very influential in the history of the world. Lastly, Athens is tremendously dominant and powerful, when looking at their past cultural achievements/legacies. The most dignified piece of art that Athens has to offer the most would be of course the Parthenon. The Parethon is so very universally recognized as the ancient Greek monument that is in Athens. The reason so many people are drawn and captivated by this elegant piece of art is because of the well structured and designed architecture.

The architecture of the Athenian Parthenon consists of a foundation of limestone and large marble columns that still to this day hold whatever is left of the Parthenon. The Parthenon even included a massive statue of the goddess Athena made entirely out of gold. The Parthenon is so greatly respected that they have even built a real-life replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tennessee.

This replica was built to show Americans the fundamentals of how important ancient Athens is and was. The second most important legacy that will not be forgotten is the influence that Athens had on the world in general. All the points listed in this essay are still to this day talking about and evaluated to better educate ourselves. When speaking in general it is with respect to the numerous thing that Athens has given to us. In other words, Athens has announced its dominance through the numerous thing that Athenians created, all the way from modern-day Philosophy, family values that some are used to this day, tremendous architecture and many more.

This is how Athens the most dominant city-state has left a legacy for us all to remember. In conclusion, this essay has displayed and reported valid evidence that Athens is the most powerful and dominant city-state in all of the ancient world. Hence Athens proves its historic name once again through their lifestyle, values, and beliefs, education and lastly cultural achievements/legacies. This is why Athens is the more dominant and powerful city-state.