ANCIENT GREEK CULTURE
SCULPTURE
and reason. Athens’ greatest, most noble citizen,Socrates (469–399 BC),
was forced to drink hemlock for his disbelief in the old gods, but before
he died he left behind a school of hypothetical reductionism that is still
used today. Plato (427–347 BC), his star student, was responsible for doc-
umenting his teacher’s thoughts, and without his work in books like the
Symposium, they would have been lost to us. Considered an idealist, he
wrote ‘The Republic’ as a warning to the city-state of Athens that unless
its people respected law, leadership and educated its youth suffi ciently, it
would be doomed. His student Aristotle (384–322 BC), at the end of the
Golden Age, was the personal physician to Philip II, King of Macedon,
and the tutor of Alexander the Great and focused his gifts on astronomy,
physics, zoology, ethics and politics. The greatest gift of the Athenian
philosophers to modern-day thought is their spirit of rational inquiry,
without which we might still be in the shadows of conscience.Sculpture
Classicalsculpture began to gather pace in Greece in the 6th century BC
with the renderings of nudes in marble. Most statues were created to
revere a particular god or goddess and many were robed in grandiose
garments. Formerly the statues of the preceding Archaic period, known
as kouroi, had focused on symmetry and form, but in the early 5th cen-
tury BC, artists sought to create expression and animation. As temples
demanded elaborate carvings, sculptors were called upon to create large
reliefs upon them. During the 5th century BC the craft became yet more
sophisticated, as sculptors were taught to successfully map a face and
create a likeness of their subject in marble busts, catering to the vanity
of politicians and rich men. Later still the Romans adopted this perfec-
tionist school of sculpture and continued the tradition. Perhaps the most
famous Greek sculptor was Pheidias, whose reliefs upon the Parthenon de-
picting the Greek and Persian Wars – now known as the Parthenon Marbles –
are celebrated as among the fi nest from the Golden Age.The Oracle of Delphi
Near the modern-day village of Delphi is the site of the Delphic oracle,
the most important oracle in ancient Greece. Its beginnings are shroud-
ed in myth; some say Apollo, when looking for an earthly abode, found
a home here but not before doing battle with the python who guarded
the entrance to the centre of the earth. After he slew and threw it into
the chasm it began to rot, producing noxious vapours. From this fi ssure
came intoxicating fumes that the sibyl, or Pythia (a clairvoyant crone,
or seer) would sit above on a tripod, fall into a trance, and allow herself
to be possessed by Apollo. While in this state the sibyl raved and her
mumblings were interpreted by attendant priests. Citizens, politicians
and kings – for a fee – consulted the sibyl on personal aff airs and mattersTOP FIVE MYTHICAL CREATURESMedusa She of the bad hair day, punished by the gods for her infl ated vanity. Even dead,
her blood is lethal.
Cyclops One-eyed giant. Odysseus and his crew were trapped in the cave of one such
cyclops, Polyphemus.
Cerberus The three-headed dog of hell, he guards the entrance to the underworld –
under his watch no-one gets in or out.
Minotaur This half-man-half-bull mutant leads a life of existential angst in the abysmal
labyrinth, tempered only by the occasional morsel of human fl esh.
Hydra Cut one of its nine heads off and another two will grow in its place. Heracles
solved the problem by cauterising each stump with his burning brand.