History of ancient Greece. Greece or Hellas

FOREWORD

I. CULTURE OF HELLAS IN THE XXX-XII cc. BC.

one) . Architecture.

2). The art of vase painting.

3). Literature.

four) . Writing.

5) . Religion.

II. CULTURE OF THE "DARK AGES" (XI-IX CENTURIES B.C.)

III. CULTURE OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD (VIII-VI CENTURIES BC)

one) . Writing.

2). Poetry.

3). Religion and philosophy.

four) . Architecture and sculpture.

5) . Vase painting.

IV. GREEK CLASSICS

BUT) . GREEK CULTURE IN THE V C. BC

one) . Introduction.

2). Religion.

3). Philosophy.

four) . Separation of sciences.

a) . The medicine

b) . Maths.

in) . Historiography.

5) . Greek literature of the 5th century.

6). Theater of ancient Greece.

7). Fine Arts and Architecture.

a) . Art of the Early Classics.

b) . Art of the High Classics.

B) . GREECE IN THE IV CENTURY B.C.

one) . Philosophy.

a) . Plato, Aristotle.

b) . Cynic teaching.

2). Historians of Greece IV.

3). Rhetoric.

four) . Greek oratory in the 4th century

5) . Literature.

6). Art.

a) . Architecture.

b) . Sculpture.

in) . Painting.

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CULTURE OF ANCIENT GREECE

INTRODUCTION

It can be considered indisputably proven that class society and the state, and with it civilization, were born on Greek soil twice with a large gap in time: first, in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. and again in the first half of the 1st millennium BC. Therefore, the entire history of ancient Greece is now usually divided into two large epochs: 1) the era of the Mycenaean, or Crete-Mycenaean, palace civilization and 2) the era of the ancient polis civilization.

First, we will talk about the culture of the first era.

I. CULTURE OF HELLAS IN THE XXX-XII cc.

The original and multifaceted early Greek culture was formed in 3000-1200. Various factors accelerated its movement. For example, the completed ethnogenesis Greek people strengthened the internal ties of the entire Greek-speaking world, despite frequent local clashes.

The creative activity of the Greeks of the Bronze Age was based on the development of a large stock of experimental knowledge. It is necessary, first of all, to note the level and volume of technological knowledge that allowed the population of Hellas to widely develop specialized handicraft production. Metallurgy included not only high-temperature (up to 1083°C) smelting of copper. Casters also worked with tin, lead, silver and gold, rare native iron was used for jewelry. The creation of alloys was not limited to bronze, already in the 17th-16th centuries. The Greeks made electr and knew well the technique of gilding bronze items. Bronze was used to cast tools, weapons and household items. All these products were distinguished by the rationality of the form and the quality of workmanship.

Pottery also testifies to the fluency in complex thermal processes carried out in furnaces of various designs. The use of the potter's wheel, known since the 23rd century, contributed to the creation of other mechanisms set in motion by the power of a person or draft animals. So, wheeled transport already at the beginning of the 2nd millennium consisted of war chariots and ordinary carts. The principle of rotation, which has long been used in spinning, was used in machines for the manufacture of ropes. When processing wood, turning and drilling devices were used. Achievements engineering Achaeans clearly illustrate created in the XVI-XII centuries. water pipes and closed water collectors. Particularly indicative is the knowledge of hydraulics and the accuracy of the calculations made during the construction of secret water supply systems in the fortresses of Mycenae, Tiryns and Athens around the 1250s.

The accumulation of technological knowledge and the progress of the skill of a wide range of ordinary workers, both in agriculture and in specialized and home crafts, were the basis of the intensive economic development of the country.

ARCHITECTURE Architecture was distinguished by high achievements. Architectural monuments vividly reflect the existence of property inequality and testify to the emergence of early class monarchies. Already monumental Cretan palaces of the XIX-XVI centuries. astounding in scale. However, it is characteristic that the general plan of the Cretan palaces was only a monumental repetition of the plan of the estate of a wealthy farmer.

Another level of architectural thought is the later palaces of the mainland kings. They are based on the central core - megaron, which also repeats the traditional plan of an ordinary dwelling. It consisted of a front room (prodomos), a main hall (domos) with a front hearth and a back room. Many acropolises were protected by powerful stone walls of Cyclopean masonry, 5-8 m thick on average.

The skill of the Achaean architects was complemented by the achievements of other types of art. Let's name the highly artistic polychrome and relief decor of the external and internal walls of large buildings. Columns and semi-columns, stone and marble carvings, wall paintings with the most complex compositions were widely used.

THE ART OF VASE PAINTING

During the XX-XII centuries. the art of vase painting developed rapidly. Already at the beginning of the II millennium BC. the traditional geometric ornament of the Cretans was complemented by a spiral motif, brilliantly developed by the Cycladic masters in the previous century. Later, in the 19th-15th centuries, in all regions of the country, vase painters also turned to naturalistic motifs, reproducing plants, animals and marine fauna. It should be noted that in some areas, bright local artistic traditions have developed that clearly characterize the vase painting of each center.

The breadth of society's artistic demands was manifested in the close attention of art to man and his activities. A brilliant example is the multicolored murals in the houses of Mount Jean of Akrotia, executed by several masters. The transfer of the idea of ​​movement is especially important, which fundamentally distinguishes the culture of Hellas in the XXX-XII centuries. from the traditions of contemporaneous other ancient cultures. High professional skills allowed the artists in the conditions of breaking the public worldview to quickly move away from the ancient canons of conventionality and ornamentation. And if in the art of the III millennium there are still few monuments that speak of the craving of artists for naturalness, then in the XX-XII centuries. the creations of many artists are distinguished by their ability to harmoniously combine the feeling of wildlife with the requirements of a decorative style. Particularly noteworthy is the attention of art to the inner world of a person and the desire to depict the individual features of the depicted characters. At the same time, the artists did not forget about the transfer of the physical appearance of a person, reproducing naked figures in painting, sculpture, toreutics and glyptics. It is noteworthy that even in ordinary monuments of art one can notice respect for a person.

LITERATURE

The literature of the early Greeks, like other peoples, went back to the traditions of ancient folklore, which included fairy tales, fables, myths and songs. With the change in social conditions, the rapid development of folk epic poetry began, glorifying the deeds of the ancestors and heroes of each tribe. By the middle of the 2nd millennium, the epic tradition of the Greeks became more complicated, professional poets-storytellers, aeds, appeared in society. In their work already in the XVII-XII centuries. a prominent place was occupied by legends about the most important historical events contemporary to them. This direction testified to the interest of the Hellenes in their history, who later managed to preserve their rich legendary tradition in oral form for almost a thousand years before it was written down in the 9th-8th centuries.

In the XIV-XIII centuries. epic literature has developed into a special kind of art with its own special rules of speech and musical performance, poetic size-hexameter, an extensive stock of constant characteristic epithets, comparisons and descriptive formulas. Oral transmission contributed a lot to a strictly objective selection of works that the people kept in their memory.

The epic poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" testify to the level of poetic creativity of the early Greeks. outstanding monuments world literature. Both poems belong to the circle of historical narratives about the campaign of the Achaean troops after 1240. BC. to the Trojan kingdom.

It should be noted that both poems show an amazing consonance of the epic with the plastic art of Greece in the 18th-12th centuries. They are united by the strength and vitality of images, the richness of imagination and love of freedom. high literary art Achaeans, who brought to the fore the man and his role in his destiny, despite the predestination of the gods, is a precious contribution of early Greece to world culture.

In addition to fiction, the oral tradition of the Greeks of the period under study also contained a huge amount of historical, genealogical and mythological traditions. They were widely known in oral transmission until the 7th-6th centuries, when they were included in the written literature then spreading.

WRITING

Writing in the Greek culture of the XXII-XII centuries. played a limited role. Like many peoples of the world, the inhabitants of Hellas first of all began to make pictorial notes, known already in the second half of the 3rd millennium. Each sign of this pictographic letter denoted a whole concept. The Cretans created some signs, although few, under the influence of Egyptian hierographic writing, which arose as early as the 4th millennium. Gradually, the forms of signs were simplified, and some began to designate only syllables.

Such a syllabic (linear) letter, which had already developed by 1700, is called letter A, which still remains unraveled.

After 1500, a more convenient form of writing was developed in Hellas - the syllabic letter B. It included about half of the signs of the syllabic letter A, several dozen new signs, as well as some signs of the oldest picture writing. The counting system, as before, was based on decimal notation. Syllabary entries were still made from left to right, but the writing rules became more strict: words separated by a special sign or space were written along horizontal lines, separate texts were provided with headings and subheadings. Texts were drawn on clay tablets, scratched on stone, written with a brush or paint or ink on vessels.

Achaean writing was accessible only to educated specialists. He was known by ministers in the royal palaces and some layer of wealthy citizens.

RELIGION

The religion of early Greece played a large role in the dynamics of the social thought of the Hellenes.

Initially, the Greek religion, like any other primitive religion, reflects only the weakness of man in the face of those "forces" that in nature, later in society and in his own mind, interfere, as it seems to him, with his actions and pose a threat to his existence, thus more terrible, that he does not understand where it comes from. Primitive man is not interested in nature to the extent that it invades his life and determines its conditions.

The diverse forces of nature were personified in the form of special deities, with whom many sacred legends and myths were associated. Hellenic mythology is distinguished by its richness, and in later eras it retained many traditions from the time of the tribal system. During the XXX-XII centuries. The religious ideas of the Greek population have undergone many changes. Initially, deities who personified the forces of nature enjoyed exceptional reverence. They especially honored the Great Goddess (later Demeter, which means "Mother of Bread"), who was in charge of the fertility of the plant and animal world. She was accompanied by a male deity, followed by minor gods. Cult ceremonies included sacrifices and gifts, solemn processions and ritual dances. The deities had certain attributes, the images of which are very frequent, and they served as symbols of these heavenly powers.

The formation of early class states introduced new features into spiritual life, including sacred ideas. The community of Hellenic gods (the pantheon) received a more defined organizational structure. The worldview of the people now depicted relations between the gods, very similar to those that the Achaeans saw in the royal capitals. Therefore, on Olympus, where the main deities lived, Zeus, the father of gods and people, who ruled over the whole world, was supreme. Other members of the early Hellenic pantheon subordinate to him had special social functions. The Achaean epic, which has preserved information about the veneration of many early Hellenic deities, also conveys a somewhat critical view of the celestials, inherent only in Greek thinking: the gods are in many ways similar to people, they have not only good qualities, but also shortcomings and weaknesses.

The works of art and data of the Achaean epic about the hostility of the Olympians to individuals or tribes apparently reflected the opinions of the Achaeans about the existence of good and hostile forces of nature. The surprisingly evil faces of the terracotta goddesses from the sanctuary on the Mycenaean acropolis speak of the latter. It is characteristic that the art of the Achaeans extremely expressively reproduced the life-affirming symbols of religion and the benevolent images of patron gods.

II. CULTURE OF THE "DARK AGES" (XI-IX centuries) The palace civilization of the Cretan-Mycenaean era left the historical scene under mysterious, still not fully clarified circumstances, around the end of the XII century. The era of ancient civilization begins only after three and a half and even four centuries.

Thus, there is a rather significant time gap, and the question inevitably arises: what place does this chronological segment occupy (in the literature it is sometimes referred to as the "dark ages") in common process historical development of Greek society? Was it a kind of bridge that connected two very dissimilar historical epochs and civilizations, or, on the contrary, did it divide them with the deepest abyss?

Archaeological research in recent years has made it possible to find out the true extent of the terrible catastrophe experienced by the Mycenaean civilization at the turn of the 13th-12th centuries, as well as to trace the main stages of its decline in the subsequent period. The logical conclusion of this process was a deep depression that engulfed the main regions of mainland and insular Greece during the so-called Sub-Mycenaean period (1125-1025). Its main distinguishing feature is the depressing poverty of material culture, behind which was hidden a sharp decline in the standard of living of the bulk of the Greek population and an equally sharp decline in the country's productive forces. The products of the Sub-Mycenaean potters that have come down to us make the most bleak impression. They are very rough in form, carelessly molded, lacking even elementary grace. Their paintings are extremely primitive and inexpressive. As a rule, they repeat the spiral motif - one of the few decorative elements inherited from Mycenaean art.

The total number of metal products that have survived from this period is extremely small. Large items, such as weapons, are extremely rare. Small crafts like brooches or rings predominate. Apparently, the population of Greece suffered from a chronic lack of metal, especially bronze, which in the XII - the first half of the XI century. still remained the mainstay of the entire Greek industry. The explanation for this deficit should, apparently, be sought in the state of isolation from the outside world in which Balkan Greece found itself even before the beginning of the Sub-Mycenaean period. Cut off from external sources of raw materials and not having sufficient internal resources of the metal, the Greek communities were forced to introduce a regime of strict economy.

True, almost at the same time, the first iron products appeared in Greece. Scattered finds of bronze knives with iron inserts date back to the very beginning of the period. It can be assumed that by the second half of the XI century. the technique of iron processing to some extent was already mastered by the Greeks themselves. However, the centers of the iron industry were still extremely few and could hardly provide the entire population of the country with a sufficient amount of metal. The decisive step in this direction was taken only in the X century.

Another distinctive feature of the Sub-Mycenaean period was a decisive break with the traditions of the Mycenaean era. The most common method of burial in the Mycenaean time in chamber tombs was supplanted by individual burials in box graves (cysts) or in simple pits.

Toward the end of the period, in many places, for example, in Attica, Boeotia, Crete, another new custom- cremation and burial in urns that usually accompanies it. This, again, should be seen as a departure from traditional Mycenaean customs (the dominant method of burial in the Mycenaean era was cadaverization; cadaverization occurs only occasionally).

A similar break with Mycenaean traditions is observed in the sphere of worship. Even in the largest Greek sanctuaries (which existed both in the Mycenaean era and in later times (starting approximately from the 9th-8th centuries)), there are no traces of cult activity whatsoever: the remains of buildings, votive figurines, even ceramics . Such a situation, indicating the fading of religious life, archaeologists find, in particular, in Delphi, on Delos, in the sanctuary of Hera on Samos and in some other places. Exception from general rule constitutes only Crete, where the worship of the gods in the traditional forms of Minoan ritual seems to have been uninterrupted throughout the entire period.

The most important factor contributing to the eradication of the Mycenaean cultural traditions, of course, the sharply increased mobility of the bulk of the population of Greece should be considered. Started in the first half of the 12th century. the outflow of the population from the regions of the country most affected by the barbarian invasion also continues in the Sub-Mycenaean period.

In Greece, the vast majority of Mycenaean settlements, both large and small, were abandoned by the inhabitants. Traces of the secondary settlement of Mycenaean citadels and towns are found only occasionally and, as a rule, after a long break. Almost all the newly founded settlements of the Sub-Mycenaean period, and their number is very small, are located at some distance from the Mycenaean ruins, which the people of that time, apparently, superstitiously shunned.

Perhaps no other period in the history of Greece so closely resembles the famous Thucydian description of the primitive life of the Hellenic tribes, with their continuous movement from place to place, chronological poverty and uncertainty about the future.

If we try to extrapolate all these symptoms of cultural decline and regression into the sphere of socio-economic relations inaccessible to our direct observation, we will almost inevitably have to admit that in the XII-XI centuries. Greek society was thrown far back, to the stage of the primitive communal system and, in essence, returned to the original line from which the formation of the Mycenaean civilization once (in the 17th century) began.

III. CULTURE OF THE ARCHAIC PERIOD (VIII-VI centuries)

WRITING

One of the most important factors of Greek culture VIII-VI centuries. considered to be a new writing system. The alphabetic script, partly borrowed from the Phoenicians, was more convenient than the ancient Mycenaean syllabary: it consisted of only 24 characters, each of which had a firmly established phonetic meaning. If in the Mycenaean society, as in other similar societies of the Bronze Age, the art of writing was available only to a few initiates who were part of a closed caste of professional scribes, now it is becoming the common property of all citizens of the policy, since each of them could master the skills of writing and reading . Unlike the syllabary, which was used mainly for keeping accounts and, perhaps, to some extent for compiling religious texts, the new writing system was a truly universal means of communication that could be used with equal success in business correspondence, and for recording lyrical poems or philosophical aphorisms. All this led to a rapid increase in literacy among the population of the Greek cities, as evidenced by numerous inscriptions on stone, metal, and ceramics, the number of which is increasing as we approach the end of the archaic period. The oldest of them, for example, the now widely known epigram on the so-called Nestor Cup from Fr. Pitekussa, dates back to the third quarter of the 8th century, which makes it possible to attribute the borrowing by the Greeks of the signs of the Phoenician alphabet either to the first half of the same 8th century, or even to the end of the preceding 9th century.

Almost at the same time (the second half of the 8th century) such outstanding examples of monumental heroic epic like the Iliad and the Odyssey, from which the history of Greek literature begins.

POETRY Greek poetry of the post-Homerian period (7th-6th centuries) is distinguished by its extraordinary thematic richness and variety of forms and genres. Of the later forms of the epic, two of its main variants are known: the heroic epic, represented by the so-called Cycle poems, and the didactic epic, represented by two poems by Hesiod: Works and Days and Theogony.

Lyric poetry is becoming widespread and soon becomes the leading literary trend of the era, which in turn is divided into several main genres: elegy, iambic, monodic, i.e. intended for solo performance, and choral lyrics, or melik.

The most important distinguishing feature of the Greek poetry of the archaic period in all its main types and genres should be recognized as its pronounced humanistic coloring. The close attention of the poet to a specific human personality, to its inner world, individual mental characteristics is quite clearly felt already in Homer's poems. "Homer discovered a new world - Man himself. This is what makes his "Iliad" and "Odyssey" ktema eis aei, a work forever, an eternal value ".

The grandiose concentration of heroic tales in the Iliad and the Odyssey became the basis for further epic creativity. During the 7th and first half of the 6th centuries. a number of poems arose, composed in the style of the Homeric epic and designed to merge with the Iliad and the Odyssey and, together with them, form a single coherent chronicle of mythological tradition, the so-called epic "kikl" (cycle, circle). The ancient tradition attributed many of these poems to "Homer" and thus emphasized their plot and stylistic connection with the Homeric epic. Greek poetry of the post-Homerian period is characterized by a sharp transfer of the center of gravity of the poetic narrative to the personality of the poet himself. This trend is already clearly felt in the work of Hesiod, especially in his poem Works and Days.

Extraordinarily complex, rich and colorful world human feelings, thoughts and experiences are revealed to us in the works of the generation of Greek poets following Hesiod, who worked in various genres of lyrics. Feelings of love and hatred, sadness and joy, deep despair and cheerful confidence in the future, expressed with the utmost, hitherto unheard-of frankness and frankness, constitute the main content of the poetic fragments that have come down to us from these poets, unfortunately not so numerous and in the majority very short (often only two or three lines).

In the most frank, one might say, deliberately emphasized form, the individualistic trends of the era were embodied in the work of such a remarkable lyric poet as Archilochus. No matter how one understands his poems, one thing is clear: the individual, having thrown off the close bonds of ancient tribal morality, here clearly opposes himself to the collective as a self-sufficient free person, not subject to anyone's opinions and any laws.

Moods of this kind should have been perceived as socially dangerous and provoked protest, both among the zealots of the old aristocratic order, and among the champions of the new polis ideology, who called on fellow citizens for moderation, prudence, effective love for the fatherland and obedience to laws. In a direct response to the verses of Archilochus, the lines from the "militant elegies" of the Spartan poet Tyrtaeus sound full of stern determination: It is a glorious deed - fighting enemies in the front ranks, To a brave husband in battle to accept death for the fatherland.

Pride will serve both for the city and for the people He who, stepping wide, advances to the first row, And full of perseverance, forgets about shameful flight, Sparing his life and powerful soul.

(French 9. Translated by V.V. Latyshev) .

If Tirtaeus makes the main emphasis in his poems on the feeling of self-sacrifice, the readiness of a warrior and a citizen to die for the fatherland (a call that sounds very relevant in such a state as Sparta, which in the 7th-6th centuries waged almost continuous wars with its neighbors), then another an outstanding master of the elegiac genre and at the same time an illustrious statesman - Solon puts in the first place among all civil virtues a sense of proportion, or the ability to observe the "golden mean" in everything. In his understanding, only moderation and prudence are able to keep citizens from greed and satiety with wealth, prevent the internecine strife generated by them and establish "good law" (eunomia) in the state.

While some Greek poets sought to comprehend in their poems the complex inner world of man and find the best option for his relationship with the civil collective of the policy, others no less persistently tried to penetrate into the structure of the universe surrounding man and solve the riddle of its origin. One of these poets-thinkers was Hesiod, known to us, who in his poem "Theogony", or "The Origin of the Gods", tried to present the existing world order in its, so to speak, historical development from the gloomy and faceless primordial Chaos to the bright and harmonious world headed by Zeus the Olympian gods.

RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

In the era of the Great Colonization, the traditional Greek religion did not meet the spiritual needs of contemporaries also because it was difficult to find an answer to the question of what awaits a person in his future life and whether it exists at all. Representatives of two closely related religious and philosophical teachings of the Orphics and Pythagoreans tried to solve this painful question in their own way. Both those and others evaluated the earthly life of a person as a continuous chain of suffering sent down to people by the gods for their sins. At the same time, both the Orphics and the Pythagoreans believed in the immortality of the soul, which, having gone through a long series of reincarnations, inhabiting the bodies of other people and even animals, is able to cleanse itself of all earthly filth and achieve eternal bliss. The idea that the body is just a temporary "dungeon" or even "grave" of the immortal soul, which had a huge impact on many later adherents of philosophical idealism and mysticism, from Plato to the founders of the Christian faith, first arose precisely in the bosom of the Orphic- Pythagorean doctrine. Unlike the Orphics, who were closer to the broad masses of the people and based their teachings only on a somewhat rethought and updated myth about the dying and resurrecting deity of wildlife Dionysus Zagreus, the Pythagoreans were a closed aristocratic sect hostile to democracy. Their mystical teachings were of a much more refined nature, laying claim to sublime intellectuality. It is no coincidence that Pythagoras himself (the author of the famous theorem that still bears his name) and his closest students and followers were passionate about mathematical calculations, while paying generous tribute to the mystical interpretation of numbers and their combinations.

Both the Orphics and the Pythagoreans tried to correct and purify the traditional beliefs of the Greeks, replacing them with a more refined, spiritually filled form of religion. A completely different view of the world, in many ways already approaching spontaneous materialism, at the same time (6th century BC) was developed and defended by representatives of the so-called Ionian natural philosophy: Thales, Anaximander and Anaximenes. All three were natives of Miletus, the largest and most economically developed of the Greek cities of Asia Minor.

What happened in Ionia in the 7th and 6th centuries BC that contributed to the emergence of such outstanding personalities? The population of mixed blood (Carian, Greek and Phoenician branches) was drawn into a long and difficult class struggle. What blood from these three branches flows in their veins? To what extent? We don't know. But this blood is extremely active. This blood is highly political. This is the blood of inventors. (Public blood: Thales is said to have proposed to this restless and disunited population of Ionia the formation of a state of a new type, a federal state governed by a federal council. The proposal is very reasonable and at the same time very new in the Greek world. He was not listened to.) city, such as that which took place in Attica in the time of Solon, is, and for a long time, driving force of all inventions in this land of creation. For the first time in the history of mankind, the Milesian thinkers tried to present the entire universe around them as a harmoniously arranged, self-developing and self-regulating system. This cosmos, as the Ionian philosophers were inclined to believe, was not created by any of the gods and by any of the people, and in principle should exist forever. The laws governing it are quite accessible to human understanding. There is nothing mystical, incomprehensible in them. Thus, a big step was taken on the path from the religious-mythological perception of the existing world order to its comprehension by means of the human mind. The first philosophers inevitably had to face the question of what should be considered the fundamental principle, the root cause of all existing things. Thales (the oldest of the Milesian natural philosophers) and Anaximenes believed that the primary substance from which everything arises and into which, in the end, everything turns, must be one of the four basic elements. At the same time, Thales preferred water, and Anaximenes preferred air. However, Anaximander, by far the most profound of the most ancient Greek philosophers, advanced further than all others along the path of abstract-theoretical understanding of natural phenomena. He declared the so-called "apeiron" to be the root cause and basis of all that exists - an eternal and infinite substance, qualitatively not reducible to any of the four elements and at the same time being in continuous motion, during which opposite principles stand out from apeiron: warm and cold, dry and damp, etc. Entering into interaction, these pairs of opposites give rise to all phenomena of nature available to observation, both living and dead. The picture of the world drawn by Anaximander was completely new and unusual for the era in which it arose. It contained a number of pronounced elements of a materialistic and dialectical nature, including the idea of ​​a comprehensive, constantly changing form of primary substance, quite close to modern ideas about matter, the idea of ​​the struggle of opposites and their transition into each other as the main source of all the diversity of the world. processes.

The Greek natural philosophers well understood that the most reliable basis of all knowledge is experience, empirical research and observation. In essence, they were not only the first philosophers, but also the first scientists, the founders of Greek and all European science. The eldest of them, Thales, was already called by the ancients "the first mathematician", "the first astronomer", "the first physicist".

ARCHITECTURE AND SCULPTURE

In the VII-VI centuries. Greek architects for the first time after a long break began to build monumental temple buildings from stone, limestone or marble. In the VI century. a single common Greek type of temple was developed in the form of a rectangular, elongated building, surrounded on all sides by a colonnade, sometimes single (peripter), sometimes double (dipter). At the same time, the main structural and artistic features of the two main architectural orders were determined: Doric, which was especially widespread in the Peloponnese and in the cities of Magna Graecia (Southern Italy and Sicily), and Ionic, which was especially popular in the Greek part of Asia Minor and in some regions of European Greece. The temple of Apollo in Corinth, the temples of Posidonia (Paestum) in southern Italy, and the temples of Selinut in Sicily can be considered typical examples of the Doric order, with such characteristic features as severe power and heavy massiveness. More graceful, slender, and at the same time, distinguished by a certain pretentiousness of decorative decoration, the buildings of the Ionic order were represented in the same period by the temples of Hera on about. Samos, Artemis in Ephesus (a famous architectural monument, considered one of the "seven wonders of the world"), Apollo in Didyma near Miletus.

The principle of harmonious balance of the whole and its parts, clearly expressed in the very construction of the Greek temple, has found wide application in another leading branch of Greek art - monumental sculpture, and in both cases we can confidently speak of the social conditioning of this important aesthetic idea. If a temple with a colonnade resembling rows of hoplites in a phalanx was perceived as a model and, at the same time, a symbol of a closely knit civil collective, then the image of a free individual, who is an integral part of this collective, was embodied in stone sculptures, both single and united in plastic groups. Their first, still extremely imperfect in artistic terms, samples appear approximately in the middle of the 7th century. BC. A single sculpture of the end of the archaic period is represented by two main types: an image of a naked young man - a kuros and a figure dressed in a long, tight-fitting chiton of a girl - a kora.

Gradually improving in the transfer of proportions human body, achieving an increasing life similarity, the Greek sculptors of the VI century. have learned to overcome the static inherent in their statues.

With all the lifelikeness of the best examples of Greek archaic sculpture, almost all of them are subject to a certain aesthetic standard, depicting a beautiful, ideally built young man or adult man, completely devoid of any individual physical or mental characteristics.

VASE PAINTING The most widespread and accessible type of archaic Greek art was, of course, vase painting. In their work, aimed at the widest consumer, master vase painters depended much less than sculptors or architects on the canons consecrated by religion or the state. Therefore, their art was much more dynamic, diverse and quickly responded to all sorts of artistic discoveries and experiments. Probably, this explains the extraordinary thematic diversity characteristic of the Greek vase painting of the 7th-6th centuries. It was in vase painting, earlier than in any other branch of Greek art, with the possible exception of coroplasty and bone carving, that mythological scenes began to alternate with episodes of a genre character. At the same time, Greek vase painters (especially during the heyday of the so-called black-figure style in Corinth, Attica and some other regions) they do not neglect the life of the social lower classes, depicting scenes of field work, craft workshops, folk festivals in honor of Dionysus, and even the hard work of slaves in the mines. In scenes of this kind, the humanistic and democratic features of Greek art, which had been instilled in it by the surrounding social environment since the archaic era, were especially clearly manifested.

IV. GREEK CLASSICS IV. A) GREEK CULTURE IN THE 5TH CENTURY INTRODUCTION

As in other areas of life, in the culture of the 5th century. BC. there is a combination of traditional features dating back to the archaic and even earlier eras, and completely different ones, generated by new phenomena in the socio-economic and political spheres. The birth of the new did not mean the death of the old. Just as in cities the construction of new temples was very rarely accompanied by the destruction of old ones, so in other areas of culture the old receded, but usually did not disappear completely. The most important new factor that had the most significant impact on the course of cultural evolution in this century was the consolidation and development of the polis, especially the democratic one. It is no coincidence that the most striking works of material and spiritual culture were born in Athens. But there were also Greco-Persian wars, which caused the rise of general Greek patriotism, awareness of the value of the Hellenic way of life and its advantages; the growth of the Athenian Maritime Union, which led to the concentration in Athens of the brightest cultural figures of Greece. The conscious policy of the leaders of Athens also played a huge role, striving to make their native city the largest folk center of Hellas, the center of everything valuable and beautiful that was then in the Greek world. Finally, the Peloponnesian War had a certain impact on the development of culture, which gave rise to a sense of hopelessness and despair among a number of representatives of the intellectual elite.

RELIGION

In the first half of the 5th c. there are important changes in the religious ideology of the Greeks. Unfortunately, they are little known to us and are reflected most often in literary works, which makes it difficult to understand whether this phenomenon arose as a result of individual or group creativity or reflects a widespread idea. The rise of the classical polis, the victory over the Persians had important consequences for the popular outlook. Modern researchers note the growth of religiosity among the Greeks.

The development at the end of the Archaic period on the basis of the ancient peasant cult of the hope of immortality, which was previously considered to belong not to a single individual, but to a number of successive generations, in Athens in the 5th century BC, when a person felt free from family ties and tradition, comes to the cult of personal immortality. From the point of view of traditional ideas, in the war with the Persians, their deities also fought on the side of the Greeks, which, in particular, Herodotus mentions. The victory of the Greeks over the Persians was accordingly perceived as evidence of the power of the Greek gods. The second important circumstance connected with the rise of the classical polis is the feeling of historical optimism, which was also reflected in the religious consciousness. Zeus, who increasingly dominated the pantheon, acquired in the thoughts and feelings of the Greeks the traits of a guarantor of justice. These ideas are very clearly expressed in Pindar and Aeschylus. In the trilogy about Prometheus, Zeus initially appears as a tyrant, but in the last tragedy he reconciles with Prometheus, who is ready to die for people. In Aeschylus' Oresteia, the idea of ​​the possibility of solving everything, even the most difficult and painful problems, triumphs through reconciliation: the terrible goddess Erinia turns into beneficent Eumenides. The belief that the gods will help a person if he is deprived of pride and accepts his fate was inherent in the Greeks of that time.

The most important feature of the next, "Periklov" period was the strengthening, at least in Athens, of the tendency to complete merging within the framework of a single pantheon of polis and folk deities. The most ancient deities of Attica, Athena and Poseidon, are now revered jointly both on the Athenian Acropolis and on Cape Sunius. Strengthening the cult of Athena. The influence of the cult of Dionysus is growing, in which democratic tendencies are clearly visible. The prestige of the Hellenic sanctuaries at Olympia and Delphi is still great, but the importance of Delos is somewhat decreasing after it was completely under the rule of Athens.

Religion is humanized, it becomes worldly. Since that time, the state and the gods form an inseparable whole. Religious feeling gives way to the patriotism and pride of citizens who can erect such magnificent monuments to their gods, which were the occasion for magnificent festivities and became the object of admiration of the whole world. But merging with civic pride, the religion of humanized gods leaves the heart of man and exalts him much less than he imagines. Last third of the 5th c. allows us to speak about a certain crisis in the religious consciousness of the Greeks, which had several reasons. The most severe disasters that befell the Hellenic world during the years of the Peloponnesian War broke the spirit of optimism that prevailed in previous years, and at the same time undermined faith in the goodness of the gods - the guarantors of the existing order. The second important reason for the crisis is the complication of the nature of society, its social structure, which no longer correspond to traditional religious ideas dating back to ancient times. Previously, this discrepancy remained out of the attention of contemporaries, but now, in a new, extremely complex environment, the discrepancy was literally evident. The literature of these years is full of mockery of the gods, traditional beliefs and rituals. However, the paradox of the situation lay in the fact that those same citizens who yesterday laughed at the gods, watching a comedy, tomorrow participated in solemn religious ceremonies in honor of the same deities. All this is evidence of the emerging gap between the religious feelings of the citizen and the religious policy of the state, previously impossible in the Greek world. Finally, among the causes - and at the same time the results - of the spiritual crisis, one should name the criticism of the traditional ideas and institutions of society, including religion, by the sophists. Sophistic ideas spread most of all among the top of society. It is not for nothing that the popular opinion of Athens in the "case of the Hermocopides" considered Alcibiades and his friends, people of the same circle, to be the perpetrators of the sacrilege. At the same time, the scale and depth of this crisis cannot be exaggerated. It was in the midst of the decline of old ideas that new religious ideas were born. In particular, at this time, the idea of ​​​​a personal connection between a person and a deity becomes popular. We meet her, for example, in Euripides, who, in general, had a very negative attitude towards traditional views. The importance of new cults is growing, for example, the god of healing Asclepius. Some old cults are being revived due to changes in their functions. The decline of traditional beliefs leads to the widespread penetration into Hellas of foreign cults, Thracian and Asian. The religious consciousness of the era is also characterized by the spread of mysticism.

PHILOSOPHY

In the philosophy of the V century. the leading direction remained natural philosophy, which developed in Ionia in the previous century. The most prominent representatives of the spontaneous-materialistic natural philosophy of this time are Heraclitus of Ephesus, Anaxagoras and Empedocles. Like the natural philosophers of the past, the philosophers of the fifth century the main attention was paid to the search for the primary element. Heraclitus, for example, saw him on fire. According to Anaxagoras, the world was originally a motionless mixture, consisting of the smallest particles ("seeds"), to which the mind (nous) gave movement. Anaxagora's conception of the mind meant a radical opposition of the source of motion to inert matter; it had a significant impact on the further development of philosophical thought (the idea of ​​"primary impulse" in the philosophy of modern times). Empedocles saw four primary elements (he called them "the roots of all things"): fire, air, earth and water. All material things, according to Empedocles, consist of these four elements, quantitatively and qualitatively unchanged, combined in various proportions. The movement of matter (as in Anaxagoras) is determined by the mind located outside of it - the organizing principle of the cosmos, which has overcome the initial chaos. The theory of four elements, thanks to its perception by Aristotle, remained the foundation of European physics until the 17th century.

Ancient Greek materialism reached its peak in the teachings of Leucippus of Miletus and Democritus of Abdera. Leucippus laid the foundations of atomistic philosophy. His student Democritus not only accepted the cosmological theory of his teacher, but expanded and refined it, creating a universal philosophical system.

Democritus threw the world a great word - the atom. He dropped it as a hypothesis. But since this hypothesis, better than any other, answered the questions posed by his predecessors and his time, this word thrown by him was to pass into the ages. For the first time in the history of philosophy, Democritus created a detailed theory of knowledge, the starting point of which is sensory experience. But the true "nature" of things (atoms), according to Democritus, is inaccessible to the senses and is comprehended only with the help of thinking. Like Empedocles, Democritus explained sensory perception by outflows (streams of atoms separating from the perceived body). A large place in the teachings of Democritus was occupied by social and ethical problems. He considered democracy to be the best form of government, and serene wisdom to be the highest virtue. The materialistic philosophy of Democritus had a huge impact on the development of European philosophy and the natural sciences.

In the 5th century the traditional opposition of natural philosophy, materialistic in its basis, and Pythagoreanism continued. The Pythagorean doctrine was still more popular in Magna Graecia than in Hellas proper.

All philosophical schools of the beginning of the 5th century. united by the desire to create a single universal cosmological and ontological concept, to explain the unity and diversity of the world. And in this they were the indisputable successors of the work of the philosophers of the archaic era. However, from about the middle of the 5th c. a decisive turn takes place in the spiritual life of Greece: henceforth, the center of philosophy is not the world, but man. Sophists (from the Greek word "sophos" "wise") played a significant role in this spiritual upheaval. The emergence of the sophistical movement, as already noted, is associated with a general complication of the structure of society, which found its expression both in an increase in the number of socio-professional groups, the emergence of a layer of professional political figures, and in an increase in the amount of specific knowledge necessary for successful political activity. Sophist, itinerant and paid teacher of wisdom and eloquence, a natural result of the process of professionalization of knowledge. Another reason for the birth of the sophistic movement is the logic of the internal development of knowledge itself. The comprehensive cosmological teachings of natural philosophers rested, in fact, on very shaky foundations, being fundamentally speculative. The further, the more difficult it became to harmonize, within the framework of unified concepts, a multitude of separate empirical observations and conclusions of particular sciences with such general schemes of the cosmos. The stronger the gap between natural philosophy and real knowledge became, the greater became public skepticism about natural philosophy. The sophists became the spokesmen for this skepticism.

Socrates acted as an irreconcilable enemy of the sophists in Athens, although from the point of view of everyday consciousness (as, for example, it is reflected in Aristophanes), Socrates himself is not only a sophist, but even their head.

Socrates was to his contemporaries and still remains a mystery to us, the key to which, perhaps, will never be found. Socrates was, most likely, not a philosopher, but a folk sage who opposed the sophists, but who accepted everything positive that their teaching contained. Socrates did not create his own school, although he was constantly surrounded by students. The views of Socrates reflected some new phenomena in the life of Greek society, primarily Athenian. He emphasized the need for professional knowledge for successful activity in any sphere of life, "Every person, gifted or mediocre, should, according to Socrates, learn and practice in what he wants to achieve success. Education and training in political art is especially important for gifted people", from which the political conclusions were drawn: the leadership of the state is also a profession, and it is necessary that professionals also deal with it. This concept was absolutely opposed to the fundamental principles of Athenian democracy, according to which the management of the policy is the business of every citizen. Thus, the teachings of Socrates created a theoretical basis for the oligarchs, which eventually led him to an irreconcilable conflict with the demos, which ended in the condemnation and death of Socrates.

SEPARATION OF SCIENCES

The 5th century can be considered the time of the birth of science as a special field of activity. Natural philosophy of the archaic era and the first half of the 5th century. in essence, it was a kind of synthetic science, in which both general cosmogonic constructions and observations and conclusions of a more particular nature, belonging to individual scientific disciplines, merged. However, ancient Greek science could preserve such a character only up to a certain level. The expansion of the sphere of knowledge, the increase in its sum, led not only to the branching off of natural philosophy of individual sciences, but also (sometimes) to conflict between them.

A) medicine.

Particularly indicative is the progress in medicine, associated primarily with the activities of Hippocrates.

It would be a great mistake to assume, as is sometimes done today, that Greek medicine originated in the sanctuaries. In Greece, in the era of rationalism, there were two medical traditions: the medicine of spells, dreams, signs and miracles in the orbit of the sanctuaries, and the medical art, independent and entirely secular, to which Hippocrates belonged. They were parallel, but completely different from each other.

In the "Hippocratic Collection" one can distinguish the treatises of three large groups of doctors. There are doctors-theorists, philosophers-lovers of speculative speculation. They are opposed by the doctors of the Knidos school, who have such a great respect for facts that they are unable to go beyond them. Finally, in the third group - and Hippocrates and his students belong to it, that is, the Cossian school - there are doctors who, based on observation, proceeding from it and only from it, persistently strive to interpret and understand it. These doctors have a positive mindset: they refuse arbitrary suggestions and consider the mind as a constant constant.

These three schools are equally opposed to the medicine of the sanctuaries. But only the Kos school founded medicine as a science. B) Mathematics.

During the 5th century mathematics turns into an independent scientific discipline, freeing itself from the influence of the Pythagoreans and becoming the subject of professional activity of scientists who did not adjoin any philosophical direction. Important for the development of mathematics was the creation of a deductive method (a logical conclusion of consequences from a small number of initial premises). The progress of mathematical knowledge is especially noticeable in arithmetic, geometry, and stereometry. Significant advances in astronomy also belong to this time. Anaxagoras was the first scientist to give a correct explanation of solar and lunar eclipses.

C) historiography.

Only in relation to the V century. one can also speak of the birth of historiography: the Ionian logographs are being replaced by historians. Modern researchers put the birth of history as a science in connection with the formation of democracy and, accordingly, the deepening of the political consciousness of citizenship. A citizen who creates modern history with his political activity wanted to know the history that his ancestors created. That is why the strictly rational work of Thucydides became the pinnacle of Greek historiography. Herodotus, whom Cicero called "the father of history", can be considered as a transitional link from logographs to Thucydides. The main theme of the "History" of Herodotus is the Greco-Persian wars.

The theme of Thucydides' work was the history of the Peloponnesian War. Native Athenian, related to Cimon's family, brilliant student Sophists, Thucydides was a prominent representative of the top of the Athenian policy. However, his career came to an abrupt end in 424, when he, being a strategist, was defeated at Amphipolis and expelled from Athens. Thucydides' work is contemporary history. Only at the very beginning does he give in a very brief form a general outline of the history of Hellas from ancient times, all other content is strictly limited to the task at hand. Thucydides consciously opposed his method to that of his predecessors, the logographers and Herodotus. He can be considered the founder of historical criticism. Thucydides sees his task in creating a true history of the Peloponnesian War. Discarding everything miraculous (which occupied such a significant place in the work of Herodotus), Thucydides tries to explain what was happening only by "human nature." Thus, the natural-scientific method is transferred to the sphere of political history. History, from the point of view of Thucydides, is not a mechanistic process, cognizable on the basis of logical analysis, because blind forces also act (natural events, unforeseen coincidence of circumstances - in a word, everything that is embraced by the concept of "blind chance"). The interaction of the rational and the irrational forms the real historical process. Thucydides also assigns a significant role to prominent political figures, emphasizing their ability to understand the direction of the historical process and act in accordance with it.

GREEK LITERATURE IN THE FIFTH CENTURY

The significant changes that took place in Greek culture during the 5th century are clearly reflected in literature. The beginning of the century sees the decline of choral lyrics - that genre of literature that dominated the archaic era; at the same time, Greek tragedy was born - the genre of literature most fully corresponding to the spirit of the classical polis.

This early Attic tragedy of the late 6th and early 5th centuries. was not yet a drama in the full sense of the word. It was one of the offshoots of choral lyrics, but differed in two essential features: 1) in addition to the choir, there was an actor who made a message to the choir, exchanged remarks with the choir or with its leader (luminary); while the chorus did not leave the scene, the actor left, returned, made new messages to the chorus about what was happening behind the scenes and, if necessary, could change his appearance, playing the roles of different people in his various parishes; 2) the choir took part in the game, depicting a group of persons put in a plot connection with those who were represented by the actor. The quantitative parts of the actor were still very insignificant, and he, nevertheless, was the bearer of the dynamics of the game, since the lyrical moods of the choir changed depending on his messages. Aristocratic in origin, ideas, method of expression, choral lyrics pass into the 5th century. from the previous one, represented by such recognized masters as Simonides of Ceos and Pindar from Thebes - the last and most striking singer of the Greek aristocracy (he himself came from a Theban aristocratic family). Pindar's style is distinguished by solemnity, pomp, richness of exquisite images and epithets, often retaining a connection with the figurative system of folklore.

Most of the poems of Pindar's rival Bacchilids that have come down to us also belong to the epinician genre. In the work of Bacchilids, one can clearly see the desire to adapt the traditional genre to new tasks, new conditions of life. The strict aristocracy of Pindar is alien to him. Although Bacchilid's main theme is valor, it is already understood in a different way, not as a combination of the traditional qualities of an aristocrat, but as the ability to always be on top, to meet any task. More interesting are his praises, in which individual episodes of myths are lyrically developed. It is characteristic that among the dithyrambs of Bacchilids, a prominent place is occupied by those in which Athenian traditions are expounded, especially about Theseus.

THEATER OF ANCIENT GREECE

However, new social conditions made lyric poetry an outdated genre, it left the stage along with the aristocracy that gave birth to it. It is replaced by theater - tragedy and comedy. The theater occupied a special place in the life of the Greeks and in many ways was not similar to the modern one. In Athens, theatrical performances took place initially once a year (then - twice), during the feast of the god Dionysus (Great Dionysius - the feast of the beginning of spring, which at the same time marked the opening of navigation after the winter winds), when performances were going on for three days from morning to evening which were then discussed throughout the year. The theater, unlike choral lyrics, is addressed to the entire demos, it is more democratic, it serves as a platform from which those who seek to convince the demos of the correctness of their own ideas and thoughts address the demos. It is no coincidence that the theater reached its peak in the 5th century. reached in Athens, the most democratic of the policies of Hellas. The theater became a true educator of the people, it shaped the views and beliefs of the free citizens of Hellas. The theater was a public institution included in the system of city holidays. The theatrical spectacle was massive, the audience was most of the citizens, the organization of performances is one of the most important and honorable liturgies; since the time of Pericles, the state has given money to the poorest citizens to pay for tickets. Theatrical performances were competitive in nature, plays by several authors were staged, and a jury elected from citizens determined the winner.

TRAGEDY

Ancient tradition calls the first tragic poet Thespis and points to 534. as on the date of the first production of the tragedy. These early tragedies were rather one of the offshoots of choral lyrics than actually dramatic works. Only at the turn of the VI and V centuries. tragedy takes on its classic form.

In the images of myths, Greek tragedy reflected the heroic struggle of the people against external enemies, the struggle for political equality and social justice. The tragedy found its brightest embodiment in the work of the three major Athenian playwrights - Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.

heyday Greek tragedy was brilliant but short. Literally in the course of one century, tragedy arose, reached its heights and declined. And although tragedy continued to exist in subsequent centuries, is it niko?

COMEDY The birth of comedy as a special genre is apparently associated with Sicily, where the activities of Epicharmus took place, who was the first to actively develop parodic, mythological and everyday themes in the form of integral plays. The ancient authors, however, preferred to call these plays dramas, since the chorus played almost no part in them. Somewhat later, comedies also appeared in Athens, where they received official recognition later than tragedies: comedies began to be staged on the Great Dionysia in 488-486, and on Leney around 448.

"The ancient Attic comedy is something exceptionally peculiar. The archaic and crude games of fertility festivities are intricately intertwined in it with the formulation of the most complex social and cultural problems facing Greek society. Athenian democracy raised carnival liberty to the level of serious public criticism, while maintaining inviolable external forms of ritual play.Despite the recognized influence of Epicharm, Attic comedy differed from Sicilian: its object is not the mythological past, but living modernity, topical issues of the political and cultural life of the policy, it has an extremely strong accusatory pathos.In Attic comedy, this accusatory tendency usually finds an expression in mockery of specific persons, often in a very rude form.As a rule, a caricature serves as a way to ridicule social phenomena and citizens.The persons ridiculed are almost always served in a crudely caricatured form, the author of the comedy cares little about the true appearance hero. Finally, the plot of the comedy is often fantastic. The turbulent political life of Athens provided abundant material for the development of comedy. Its most prominent representatives are Cratinus, Eupolis and Aristophanes, but, unfortunately, only fragments have survived from the works of the first two, and only 11 of the 44 comedies of Aristophanes have been fully preserved.

ART AND ARCHITECTURE

According to the most common periodization of the history of Greek fine arts and architecture of the 5th century BC. It is customary to divide into two large periods: the art of the early classics, or strict style, and the art of high, or developed, classics. The boundary between them runs approximately in the middle of the century, however, the boundaries in art are generally rather arbitrary, and the transition from one quality to another occurs gradually and in different areas art at different speeds. This observation is true not only for the boundary between early and high classics but also between archaic and early classical art.

A) The art of the early classics.

In the era of the early classics, the cities of Asia Minor lose their leading place in the development of art, which they previously occupied. The most important centers of activity for artists, sculptors, and architects are the Northern Peloponnese, Athens, and the Greek West. The art of this period is illuminated by the ideas of the liberation struggle against the Persians and the triumph of the policy. The heroic character and increased attention to the human citizen who created the world where he is free and where his dignity is respected distinguishes the art of the early classics. Art is liberated from those rigid limits that fettered it in the archaic era, this is the time of searching for something new and, because of this, the time of intensive development of various schools and trends, the creation of heterogeneous works. The two types of figures that previously dominated sculpture - kuros and kore - are being replaced by a much greater variety of types; sculptures tend to convey the complex movement of the human body. In architecture, the classical type of the peripteral temple and its sculptural decoration are being formed.

Landmarks in the development of early classical architecture and sculpture were such buildings as the treasury of the Athenians in Delphi, the temple of Athena Aphaia on about. Aegina, the so-called temple of E at Selinunte and the temple of Zeus at Olympia. From the sculptures and reliefs that adorned these structures, one can clearly see how their composition and style changed in different periods - during the transition from archaic to strict style and then to high classics, which is exactly characteristic of each of the periods. Archaic art created perfect in its completeness, but conditional works of art. The task of the classics was to depict a person in motion. The master of the pores of the early classics took the first step towards great realism, towards the depiction of personality, and it is natural that this process began with the solution of an easier task - the transfer of the movement of the human body. The following, more difficult task fell to the share of high classics - to convey the movements of the soul.

The affirmation of the dignity and greatness of a human citizen becomes the main task of Greek sculpture of the classical era. In statues cast in bronze or carved in marble, the masters strive to convey a generalized image of a human hero in all the perfection of his physical and moral beauty. This ideal was of great ethical and socio-educational significance. Art had a direct impact on the feelings and minds of contemporaries, educating them about how a person should be.

Second quarter of the 5th c. - years of activity of the most prominent of the artists of the early classics - Polygnot. Judging by the testimonies of ancient authors, Polygnotus, in an effort to show people in space, placed the background figures above the front ones, partially hiding them on uneven ground. This technique is also attested in vase painting. However, for the vase painting of this time, the most characteristic is no longer following painting in the field of stylistics, but independent development. In search of visual means, vase painters not only followed monumental art, but, as representatives of the most democratic form of art, they overtook it in some ways, depicting scenes from real life. In the same decades, the black-figure style declined and the red-figure style flourished, when the natural color of clay was preserved for the figures, while the space between them was filled with black lacquer.

The art of the high classics, prepared by the creative searches of the artists of the previous generation, has one important feature - Athens becomes the most significant center of its development, and the influence of the Athenian ideology increasingly determines the development of the art of all Hellas.

B) Art of the High Classics.

The art of high classics is a clear continuation of what arose earlier, but there is one area where a fundamentally new one is being born at this time - urbanism. Although the accumulation of experience and some empirically found principles of urban planning was the result of the creation of new cities during the period of the Great Colonization, it was during the high classics that the theoretical generalization of this experience, the creation of an integral concept and its implementation in practice took place. The birth of urban planning as a theoretical and practical discipline, which combined artistic and utilitarian goals, is associated with the name of Hippodames of Miletus. Two main features characterize his scheme: the regularity of the city plan, in which the streets intersect at right angles, creating a system of rectangular blocks, and zoning, i.e. a clear allocation of different functional areas of the city.

The temple was still the leading type of building. Temples of the Doric order are being actively built in the Greek West: several temples in Agrigentum, among which stands out the so-called temple of Concordia (in fact, Hera Argeia), considered the best of the Dorian temples in Italy. However, the scale of construction of public buildings in Athens far exceeds what we see in other parts of Greece. The conscious and purposeful policy of the Athenian democracy, headed by Pericles, to turn Athens not only into the most powerful, but also the most cultured and beautiful city of Hellas, to make the native city the center of all the best that is in the world, found practical implementation in a broad construction program.

The architecture of the high classics is characterized by striking proportions, combined with a festive monumentality. Continuing the traditions of the previous time, the architects at the same time did not slavishly follow the canons, they boldly looked for new means to enhance the expressiveness of the structures they created, most fully reflecting the ideas embedded in them. During the construction of the Parthenon, in particular, Iktin and Kallikrates boldly went for the combination in one building of the features of the Doric and Ionic orders: from the outside, the Parthenon is a typical Doric peripter, but it is decorated with a continuous sculptural frieze characteristic of the Ionian order. The combination of Dorica and Ionic is also used in the Propylaea. The Erechtheion, the only temple in Greek architecture with an absolutely asymmetrical plan, is extremely peculiar. The solution of one of its porticos is also original, where the columns are replaced by six figures of caryatid girls.

In sculpture, the art of high classics is associated primarily with the work of Myron, Phidias and Polykleitos. Miron completed the search for the masters of the previous time, who sought to convey the movement of a person in sculpture. In the most famous of his creations, the Discobolus, for the first time in Greek art, the problem of conveying an instant transition from one movement to another was solved, and the static character coming from the archaic was finally overcome. Having completely solved the problem of conveying movement, Miron, however, could not master the art of expressing lofty feelings. This task fell to Phidias, the largest of the Greek sculptors. Phidias became famous for his sculptures of deities, especially Zeus and Athena. Little is known of his early works. In the 60s, Phidias creates a colossal statue of Athena Promachos, which towered in the center of the Acropolis.

The most important place in the work of Phidias was the creation of sculptures and reliefs for the Parthenon. The synthesis of architecture and sculpture, so characteristic of Greek art, finds its ideal embodiment here. Phidias had the general idea sculptural decoration Parthenon and leadership of its implementation, he also made some of the sculptures and reliefs. The artistic ideal of triumphant democracy finds its final embodiment in the majestic works of Phidias, the undisputed pinnacle of high classic art.

But, according to the Greeks themselves, Phidias' greatest creation was the statue of Olympian Zeus. Zeus is represented sitting on a throne, in his right hand he held the figure of the goddess of victory, Nike, in his left hand, a scepter, a symbol of power. In this statue, also for the first time in Greek art, Phidias created the image of a merciful god. The statue of Zeus was considered by the ancients to be one of the wonders of the world.

The ideal citizen of the policy is the main theme of the work of another sculptor of this time - Polykleitos from Argos. He performed mainly statues of winning athletes in sports. The most famous is his statue of Doryphoros (youth with a spear), which the Greeks considered an exemplary work. Doryphorus Polikleitos is the embodiment of a physically and spiritually perfect person.

At the end of the 5th century new features begin to appear in sculpture, which were developed in the next century. In the reliefs of the balustrade of the temple of Nike Apteros (Wingless) on the Acropolis of Athens, dynamism is especially striking. We see the same features in the sculptural image of Nike, made by Paeonius. The desire to convey dynamic compositions did not exhaust the search for sculptors of the end of the century. In the art of these decades, a large place is occupied by reliefs on tombstones. Usually they were created according to a single type: the deceased in the circle of relatives. The main feature of this circle of reliefs (the most famous is the tombstone of Hegeso, daughter of Proxenus) is the depiction of the natural feelings of ordinary people. Thus, the same tasks are solved in sculpture as in literature (the tragedy of Euripides).

Unfortunately, we know almost nothing about the great Greek artists (Apollodorus, Zeuxis, Parrhasius), except for a description of some of their paintings and information about their skill. It can be assumed that the evolution of painting basically went in the same direction as sculpture. According to ancient authors, Apollodorus of Athens discovered at the end of the 5th century. chiaroscuro effect, i.e. laid the foundation for painting in the modern sense of the word. Parrasius strove to convey spiritual movements by means of painting. In a vase painting of the second half of the 5th c. more and more place is occupied by domestic scenes.

In the minds of subsequent generations, the 5th century BC associated with greatest victories, won by the Greeks at Marathon and Salamis, it was perceived as the time of the heroic deeds of the ancestors who defended the independence of Hellas, saved her freedom. It was a time when the single goal of serving the motherland inspired the fighters, when the highest valor was to die for the fatherland, and the highest good was considered the good of the native policy.

IV. B) GREECE IN THE IV CENTURY B.C.

PHILOSOPHY

A) Plato, Aristotle.

The 4th century turned out to be a very fruitful period for the development of culture, especially philosophy, and oratory. At this time, the two most famous philosophical systems were created - Plato and Aristotle. Plato (426-347) belonged to a famous aristocratic family in Athens. His philosophical concept turned out to be closely intertwined with socio-political views. In the treatises "State" and "Laws" Plato created a model of an ideal policy with a carefully developed estate system, strict control of the top of society over the activities of the lower classes. He considered the correct interpretation of the concept of virtue, justice to be the basis for the correct construction of the state, therefore philosophers, people with knowledge, should have been at the head of the policy.

"Until the cities ... either philosophers reign, or the current kings and rulers sincerely and satisfactorily philosophize, until the state force and philosophy coincide in one ... until then neither the city, nor even, I think, the human race, wait for the end of evil ... " No less popular was the teaching of Aristotle (384-322), a philosopher who had long and strong ties with the Macedonian court. His father was a court physician there, and Aristotle himself spent eight years at the court of Philip II as an educator of Alexander the Great. A student of Plato, Aristotle was engaged in scientific research and teaching at the Lyceum gymnasium in Athens.

Aristotle went down in history primarily as a scientist-encyclopedist. His legacy is a real body of knowledge accumulated by Greek science by the 4th century: according to some information, the number of works written by him approached a thousand.

Aristotle, unlike his teacher, believed that the material world is primary, and the world of ideas is secondary, that form and content are inseparable from each other as two sides of one phenomenon. The doctrine of nature appears in his treatises primarily as a doctrine of motion, and this is one of the most interesting and strong points of Aristotle's system. He is considered an outstanding representative of dialectics, which was for him a method of obtaining true and reliable knowledge from probable and plausible knowledge.

The scientist also acted as a historian, teacher, theoretician of eloquence, creator of ethical and political doctrine. Ethical treatises belong to his pen, in which virtue is understood as a reasonable regulation of activity, the middle between extremes: courage, for example, was located between fear and despair. He paid much attention to poetry, believing that it has a beneficial effect on the psyche and is important for social life.

The teachings of Aristotle were widely used in European philosophy by representatives of various trends. In the middle of the century, some of his provisions formed the basis of theological theories. The philosophy of the Renaissance was influenced by completely different aspects of the theory of Aristotle than the medieval scholastics, they did a lot to publish the texts of the philosopher, to restore his teachings in full. At the same time, attention was drawn to the opposition Plato - Aristotle, which is allegorically represented by Raphael in the painting "The School of Athens". The teachings of Aristotle were highly appreciated by K. Marx and F. Engels. B) The teachings of the Cynics.

In the same period, Antisthenes (450-360) and Diogenes of Sinop (died c. 330-320) laid the foundations philosophy cynics, whose heyday falls on a later time. Cynics 4th c. opposed themselves to traditional forms of life and the establishment of the policy, taught to limit needs. The foundations of correct behavior, in their opinion, should be sought in the life of animals and in the early stages of human society.

HISTORIANS OF GREECE IN THE 4TH CENTURY

The historical genre was represented primarily by the famous historian Xenophon, a native of Athens (428-354). He came from a wealthy family, received an excellent education, studied with Socrates. The main historical work of Xenophon, "Greek History", chronologically continues the work of Thucidus, covering the period from the end of the Peloponnesian War to the Battle of Mantinea, and serves as one of the main sources for the history of the 4th century BC. The history of Xenophon is written in a completely different way than the work of his predecessor. It is drier, it does not have that thoughtful concept, breadth of views on the historical process, a thorough analysis of the causes of events that are so attractive in Thucydides. The main drawback of Xenophon's work is conscious bias: he reshapes history to his liking, creating a generally distorted picture, because some events are simply hushed up, others that are quite important, he speaks in passing, and inflates others in every possible way.

In addition to the work of Xenophon, from historical works of the 4th century. excerpts from the "Oxyrhynchus History" by an unknown author, describing the events of the 90s, have come down. The manuscript got its name from the place of discovery, the city of Oksyrhynchus in Egypt. The few surviving fragments make it impossible to get an idea of ​​the composition of the work and the principles of its construction. One can definitely speak only of a very detailed presentation of events and a discrepancy in the description of facts with Xenophon. Excerpts from the "Oxyrhynchus History" are of great importance for highlighting certain moments in the history of Hellas, information about the rise of Boeotia and the struggle of political groups in the policies is especially interesting.

The works of other historians of this period have not survived, only a few scattered passages have survived; the names of the authors and the titles of the works came down in the transmission of other writers.

RHETORIC

Representatives of the rhetorical trend in history were Ephor and Theopompus. Their writings are characterized by a pronounced tendentiousness and a moralizing tone. Ephor (405-330) is known as the creator of the "General History", of which only fragments have survived. The basis of the work was the history of Hellas, but much attention is paid to descriptions of other peoples.

A contemporary of Ephorus Theopompus (born in 378) was the author of the History of Greece and the History of Philip of Macedon, which also have not come down to us. Objectivity, obviously, was not one of his virtues, since contemporaries unanimously stated the author's tendency to slander.

Greek oratory in the 4th century.

Greece 4th century gave a galaxy of brilliant speakers. The beginning of the cultivation of the spoken word was laid by the sophists, who, being themselves outstanding masters of eloquence, taught others this art. They founded schools where, for a fee, everyone could learn the rules for constructing a speech, the proper manner of pronouncing it, and the effective presentation of the material. In Athens, the center of the cultural life of Hellas, all prominent political figures were excellent orators. Fluent in the word Pericles; his speeches, purposeful and convincing, with precise and figurative comparisons, made a great impression on the listeners.

There are two main types of speeches - political and judicial. Political speeches were recognized as the highest achievement of oratory, and among them deliberative speeches were considered the most important, i.e. devoted to the discussion of specific issues that required the adoption of specific measures. Sources show that the Attic orators raised and discussed the question of the place they occupied in the state and the purpose of their speeches. Most of them believed that the purpose of political speeches was to bring good, and the duty of the orator as a citizen was to turn the gift of speech to benefit. hometown. The topic of discussion was topical issues of our time and more general problems: the foundations of domestic and foreign policy, the principles of interpolis relations, the attitude of the Hellenes towards non-Greeks.

Of the representatives of the older generation of speakers, Antiphon, Andocides and Gorgias were the most famous. Isocrates (436-338) was an outstanding speaker, his ancient biographers numbered up to 60 speeches belonging to him, only a third have survived to this day. Demosthenes (384-322) also left a memory of himself as an outstanding orator.

According to his political views, the speaker is a supporter of democracy, which he associates with independence. His speeches allowed researchers to recreate many provisions of democratic theory: its understanding of the state, laws, social relations, wars. Demosthenes' devotion to the democratic system did not preclude a critical attitude to its shortcomings. Demosthenes rather sharply indicates the passivity of citizens who do not want to fight for their rights, the growth of apoliticality, the inability and unwillingness to act quickly and decisively, the tendency to endless word disputes, i.e. everything that weakened the position of Athens and was in the hands of Macedonia.

Political associates of Demosthenes were Hyperides and Lycurgus. Hyperides (389-322), one of the best Attic speakers, took an active part in the anti-Macedonian war. Lycurgus (390-325) was interested not so much in foreign as in domestic politics, managed the Athenian finances. Only one of his speeches has come down to us. As an orator, he apparently possessed great strength, logic, and the ability to persuade.

Among the opponents of Demosthenes were supporters of the pro-Macedonian group Aeschines and Dinarch. Aeschines (397-322), versatile educated person, who was not only a talented speaker, but also an actor, is known for his discussions with Demosthenes. About Dinarch (born in 396), who was ranked among the ten most famous Attic orators, there is less biographical information than about others. A partisan of Macedon, he became notorious for his lampoons against Demosthenes.

Two orators glorified themselves not in the political, but in the judicial field. Lysias (459-380) was a metecus who rendered many services to the Athenian democracy. The liveliness of the image, a good knowledge of the laws, amazing, according to the recall of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the elegance of speech provided him with invariable victories in legal proceedings.

The long and frequent practice of speaking, the appearance of brilliant and famous orators could not pass without leaving a mark on theoretical thought. In the IV century. A fundamental study devoted to eloquence appeared - Aristotle's "Rhetoric". It gives such an interesting and deep analysis of the art of persuasion that many centuries later, in our day, propaganda specialists find ideas there that were considered the achievement of only a new time.

IV CENTURY GREECE IDEOLOGIES

The works of various genres reflected problems that, apparently, should be considered decisive for the ideology of the 4th century. The center of attention of the political thought of Hellas was, first of all, the policy itself. On the one hand, by this period, many observations had already been accumulated on various forms of government, on hallmarks Greek states compared to others. On the other hand, the unstable situation in the city-states prompted us to carefully analyze their structure, to look for the cause of the current situation in the deviation from the correct way of life.

A) The "correct policy" project.

The same circumstances contributed to the ideologues turning to the study of the organization of the polis, but they followed different paths and came to different conclusions. Plato in "The Republic" believed that the policy is on the verge of disaster because of the dissoluteness of democracy, which violates the established order, allowing people who are by nature incapable of governing the city to rule. He saw a way out in recreating the foundations that were originally inherent in the policy as a type of state. They form a hierarchical system in which the spheres of activity of the three state classes are clearly demarcated: the rulers-philosophers, warriors and farmers. Everyone does their own thing, and the state regulates and controls everything.

In his later work "Laws", Plato tries to present not the ideal society that was reflected in his work "The State", but the state structure, accessible, as he thinks, to real human understanding and real human forces. If Plato took the path of creating a conditionally exemplary policy, which in many respects opposes the real policy, then Aristotle in "Politics" advocated the preservation of the foundations of the existing order. He also had a project of an ideal state structure, but less abstract and more close to life. He came to the conclusion that the policy is the highest form of human association, and the goal of the people living in it is to achieve good. The family was recognized as the basic cell of society, while Plato believed that it should be abolished, and children should be made common.

In his reasoning, Aristotle started from nature: as the family is natural, so is slavery, for nature itself is intended for some to command and others to obey. Having carefully considered the existing variants of the policy, the philosopher finds three correct forms of government (monarchy, aristocracy and polity) and three incorrect ones (despotism, or tyranny, oligarchy and democracy), gives a detailed description of each, and chooses their proximity to the good as an evaluation criterion.

In all projects of the "correct policy" special attention was paid to social and economic factors. No wonder Plato and Aristotle dwell on the problem of private property in such detail, while Socrates is concerned about protecting the property and lives of wealthy people. And the autocratic form of government, which found so many supporters in theory, attracted mainly by the opportunity to establish social balance in the policy with a firm hand.

The creation of an ideal policy was closely connected with the problem of education, since it was assumed that the well-being of the state depended on how its citizens were brought up.

During this period, apparently, utopia was very popular. All projects of the "correct policy" were clearly utopian in nature. There were widespread ideas about societies built on the principle of equalization, about a golden age, about amazing countries where people have everything in abundance. In the 4th century, despite a sharply negative attitude towards the barbarians, the idea arose of the existence of certain primitive tribes with dominant patriarchal foundations, living in serene harmony. These ideas were especially popular in the subsequent time, in the era of Hellenism.

b) A look into the past. Historiography of the 14th century.

Acute dissatisfaction with their time, a departure from traditional polis ideals prompted the ideologists of the 4th century. often refer to history. It was at this time that interest in the past of individual policies and Hellas as a whole increased significantly. With an unstable present, the past began to be perceived as a standard of stability. An appeal to historical facts could also serve as a justification for certain political actions. The history of policies has been studied from the point of view of the evolution of the political system in them, the time of determining its "spoilage" and the reasons that contributed to this. This is how Aristotle approaches the history of Athens in the Athenian polity. Deviation from the constitution of the ancestors sees Socrates in contemporary Athens and believes that the duty of fellow citizens is to restore the former order in which the city prospered and prospered.

An idealized view of the past was used as a weapon in the political struggle: the oligarchs accused the democrats of distorting the paternal system and fought against them under the motto of its reconstruction. The object of fierce disputes were the founders of the Athenian state Solon and Cleisthenes. Each of the warring factions sought to prove that they followed their precepts, as a result, both of them acquired the features of legendary heroes and turned from real historical figures into ideal statesmen.

For Greek historiography of the IV century. two main features are characteristic: the first is the interpretation of history as a political subject, its use to interpret the present; the second is the conviction that the historian is not just a chronicler describing events, but a political mentor who can and should influence public life.

All political orators subordinated their historical excursions to certain tendencies. For example, they used the facts of the early history of Athens, often referred to the Greco-Persian wars in order to justify the right of Athens to hegemony in the Greek world. Mythology and history provided rich material at their disposal. This practice apparently gave rise to the statement of one of them that history should be considered as a common heritage that can be used in the right situation.

Political theorists were also interested in the principles of interpolis relations in Hellas. The formation of coalitions, clashes between them, the disintegration of former alliances and the organization of new ones led to the fact that the reasons for the instability of alliances and the optimal conditions for their construction began to be analyzed. Two main options for the dominance of policies in Greece were identified - domination and hegemony. Domination, which was condemned in every possible way, most often meant the suppression of weaker ones by a strong policy. Hegemony, the primacy based on respect for the autonomy of policies, was recognized as fair and worthy of imitation. As already mentioned, internecine wars were severely condemned.

The flourishing of the idea of ​​pan-Hellenism in the 4th century. usually associated with Socrates. But if we understand the term "pan-Hellenism" more broadly, not as the unity of the Greeks in the face of Persia, but unity in general, then it is necessary to mention Demosthenes. The speaker constantly pointed out the disunity of the policies in front of Macedonia, their common enemy, and the irreversible consequences to which it could lead. Referring to historical and cultural community Greeks, he called for unity and forgetting strife.

LITERATURE

Those changes that took place in the society of the 4th century were reflected in its culture. During this period, oratory, philosophy, historical writings took a leading place in literature, clearly crowding out other genres - drama and lyrics. Although theaters continued to flourish, even new ones were built, and the audience willingly visited them, tastes have changed significantly. The moral foundations of life, acute political and social conflicts, the problems of good and evil in the private and public spheres attracted less and less attention. The interests of people have narrowed significantly, focused on private life.

Tragedy lost its popularity, but comedy flourished. Two plays by Aristophanes belong to this time - "Women in the National Assembly" and "Plutos", but the zenith of the playwright's work belongs to the previous period. After Aristophanes, laughter ceased to be accusatory, it lost its political topicality. The place of the "ancient" comedy was taken by the "medium" one, which entertains the audience by playing up the insignificant events of everyday life. Works of this kind have not survived to our time, only the names of their authors (Alexis, Anaxandides, Antifan, Evbul) and the titles of the plays are known.

A clear decline is also observed in the lyrics. If the 6th and 5th centuries amaze with an amazing variety of talented poets and poetic schools, then the 4th century produced only one famous lyricist - Timothy of Miletus, from whose poetic heritage only fragments have been preserved. He enjoyed great popularity in Hellas, is mentioned with praise by Plato and Aristotle.

ART

Similar processes took place in art. The 4th century is usually regarded as the time of the late classics, the period of transition to the art of Hellenism.

A) architecture.

It is significant that after the Peloponnesian War, monumental construction not only decreased, but its centers also moved: instead of Attica, they became the Peloponnese and Asia Minor. Pausanias, who left a description of the most famous monuments of Greece, considered the temple of Athena Alea in Tegea to be the most beautiful building in the Peloponnese, replacing the old one that burned down in 394. It was built and decorated famous master Scopas. Contemporaries were interested in the layout of Megalopolis, a city built by the Arcadians as the center of the Arcadian Union.

Architecture began to take on a slightly different character: if earlier temple buildings played a leading role in it, now more attention has been paid to civil architecture - theaters, meeting rooms, palestras, gymnasiums. New trends in architecture were also expressed in the desire to create a common Hellenic style - koine; the same unification took place here as in the language. The outstanding architects of this time included Philo, Scopas, Polykleitos the Younger, Pytheas.

The rise was experienced by the architecture of small forms, which has much in common with sculpture. Its typical example is the monument to the head of the choir Lysicrates, built by him in Athens after winning the competition in 335. Such structures were usually erected at private expense.

Popularity in the 4th century the cult of Asclepius, the god of healing, led to the construction in Epidaurus (60-30s) of a remarkable architectural ensemble, which includes a temple, a stadium, a gymnasium, a house for visitors, a theater and a folos, or fimela (concert hall).

B) Sculpture.

New demands began to be made to sculpture. If in the previous period it was considered necessary to create an abstract embodiment of certain physical and mental qualities, an average image, now the sculptors showed attention to a specific person, his individuality. The greatest success in this was achieved by Scopas, Praxiteles, Lysippus, Timothy, Briaxides.

There was a search for means to convey the shades of the movement of the soul, mood. One of them is represented by Skopas, a native of Fr. Paros, whose works amazed contemporaries with their drama and the embodiment of the most complex range of human feelings. Destroying the former ideal, the harmony of the whole, Scopas preferred to depict people and gods in moments of passion.

Another, lyrical direction was reflected in his art by Praxiteles, a younger contemporary of Skopas. The statues of his work were distinguished by harmony and poetry, refinement of mood. According to the connoisseur and connoisseur of the beautiful Pliny the Elder, Aphrodite of Knidos was especially popular. To admire this statue, many took a trip to Knidos. The Cnidians rejected all offers to buy her, even at the cost of cassating their huge debts.

The beauty and spirituality of man are also embodied by Praxiteles in the figures of Artemis and Hermes with Dionysus.

The desire to show the diversity of characters was characteristic of Lysippus. Pliny the Elder believed that the main, most successful work of the master is the statue of Apoxyomenes, an athlete with a strigil (scraper). The cutter of Lysippus also owned "Eros with a bow", "Hercules fighting a lion". Subsequently, the sculptor became the court painter of Alexander the Great and sculpted several of his portraits.

The name of the Athenian Leochar is associated with two textbook works: "Apollo Belvedere" and "Ganymede, abducted by an eagle." The sophistication and showiness of Apollo was admired by Renaissance artists, who considered him the standard classical style. Their opinion was then reinforced by the authority of the neoclassical theorist J. Winkelmann. However, in the XX century. art historians ceased to share the enthusiasm of their predecessors, finding in Leohar such shortcomings as theatricality and polishedness.

B) painting.

On painting in the 4th century can be judged mainly from the information preserved by ancient authors. Judging by them, she reached a high level not only in practice, but also in theory. Such paintings were widely known by the founder of the Sicyon school, Eumolpus, whose student, Pamphilus, created a treatise on artistic skill.

The tendencies of Scopas were close to the artist Aristide the Elder, one of whose paintings depicted a mother dying on the battlefield, to whose breast a child reaches out. The work of Nikias "Perseus and Andromeda" is copied on one of the frescoes in Pompeii. This artist was highly valued by Praxiteles, trusting him to tint his marble statues.

In the IV century. the art of small forms flourished, marked by grace and grace. It is glorified by the terracotta masters of Tanagra. Vase painting, on the contrary, entered a period of decline: the compositions became too complicated, the pomp of the decor increased, and negligence appeared in the drawing.

In general, the art of this period is regarded by researchers as a time of fundamental shifts, intensive searches, the emergence of trends that ended in the Hellenistic era.

CONCLUSION

As mentioned above, the entire history of ancient Greece is usually divided into two large eras: 1) Mycenaean civilization and 2) ancient civilization.

A characteristic feature of early Greek culture was the amazing unity of its style, clearly marked by originality, vitality and humanity. Man occupied a significant place in the worldview of this society; moreover, the artists paid attention to representatives of various professions and social strata, the inner world of each character. The peculiarity of the culture of early Hellas is reflected in the surprisingly harmonious combination of the motives of nature and the requirements of style, which are found in the works of its best masters of art. And if initially artists, especially Cretan ones, strove more for embellishment, then already from the 17th-16th centuries. Creativity of Hellas is full of vitality. It should be noted that the culture under study is characterized by a certain traditional character, the preservation of a number of concepts, for example, the motif of a running spiral, preserved from the culture of the North Balkan tribes of the Neolithic era, which received excellent development in the Cycladic art of the III millennium and was repeatedly reproduced in the II millennium in the ornament of not only monumental royal tholos , but also in the decoration of household items, especially dishes. Along with the spiral, the people retained other traditional geometric motifs. Therefore, in the era after the Dorian migration, when the need for luxury goods sharply decreased with the death of palaces, the geometric style again took a leading place in art.

In the XXX-XII centuries. Greece's population has gone through a difficult path of economic, political and spiritual development. This period of history is characterized by an intensive growth of production, which created conditions in a number of regions of the country for the transition from the primitive communal to the early class system. The parallel existence of these two social systems determined the originality of the history of Greece in the Bronze Age. It should be noted that many achievements of the Hellenes of that time were the basis of the brilliant culture of the Greeks of the classical era and, together with it, entered the treasury of European culture.

Then, over the course of several centuries, called the "Dark Ages" (XI-IX centuries), in their development, the peoples of Hellas, for reasons unknown so far, can be said to be thrown back to the primitive communal system.

The "Dark Ages" are followed by the Archaic period - this is the time of the emergence, first of all, of writing (based on Phoenician), then philosophy: mathematics, natural philosophy, then the extraordinary wealth of lyric poetry, etc. The Greeks, skillfully using the achievements of the previous cultures of Babylon, Egypt, create their own art, which had a huge impact on all subsequent stages of European culture.

During the archaic period, a well-thought-out and clear system of architectural forms was gradually created, which became the basis for all further development of Greek architecture.

Nothing is known about the monumental painting of the archaic period. Obviously, it existed, but for some reason it was not preserved. But we can judge vase painting, which, unlike many other arts, is much more dynamic, diverse and responds faster to all kinds of artistic discoveries and experiments.

Thus, the period of the archaic can be called the period of a sharp leap in the cultural development of Greece.

The archaic period is followed by the period of the classics (V-IV centuries BC).

In the philosophy of the V century. the main direction will be natural philosophy, materialistic at its core, and Pythagoreanism, which opposes it. But the more it breaks away from real knowledge, the greater is the public skepticism towards natural philosophy, which the sophists became the spokesmen for.

The emergence of the sophistic movement is associated with a general complication of the structure of society. They played a big role in the spiritual upheaval in Greek society in the middle of the 5th century, as a result of which the center of philosophy was not the world, but man.

End of the 5th-4th century. - the period of the stormy spiritual life of Greece, the formation of the idealistic ideas of Socrates and Plato, which developed in the struggle against the materialistic philosophy of Democritus, and the emergence of the teachings of the Cynics.

Bibliography.

1. "History of Europe", ed. "Science", 1988, v. 1 "Ancient Europe";

2: André Bonnard, "Greek Civilization", ed. "Art" 1992, books I-III;

3: V. S. Nersyants, "Socrates", ed. "Science", 1984;

4: A. F. Losev, A. A. Takho-Godi, from the series "Life of Remarkable People" - "Plato, Aristotle", ed. "Young Guard" 1993;

5: Prof. I. M. Tronsky, "History ancient literature", ed. UCHPEDGIZ, 1947;

6: Cassidy F. H., "From myth to logos", M., 1972, p. 68;

7: M. Louis Bourgea, "Observation and experience with doctors" Hippocratic collection, 1953

8: Plato, "Politics or the State", translated from the Greek by Karpov, part III, St. Petersburg, 1863, p. 284;

9: Marx K., Engels F. op. 2nd ed., Vol. 20, p. 193,555,643; T. 23 p. 92.643.

An ancient legend says that when God created the world, he accidentally dropped a handful of stones into the sea. And these stones miraculously turned into flowering islands and rocky atolls. This is how Greece was born, which was called Hellas thousands of years ago. Its inhabitants - Hellenes - told the whole world about the beauty of Aphrodite and the power of Zeus, about the bloody mysteries of the Cretan labyrinth and 12 labors of Hercules. And the Hellenes taught us the word "democracy".

Once upon a time, many centuries ago, numerous islands and the southern coast of the modern Balkan Peninsula were inhabited by people who proudly called themselves Hellenes, and their country - Hellas.

Hellas - the self-name of Greece - was originally the name of a city and region in southern Thessaly (a Greek province) and only then gradually spread to the whole of Greece.

Many mountain ranges with snow-capped peaks entangled Hellas. Day after day, sea waves turned the coastline of Hellas into rocky bays full of reefs and dangerous undercurrents. But the Greeks loved their country so much that with their tireless work they decorated its rare plains with flowering gardens and vineyards. It was impossible to imagine more diligent and patient farmers than the Hellenes. They turned the earth strewn with stones into fields of ears of wheat, working tirelessly and then watering every patch of it. And thanks to the cares of the Hellenes, the mountain slopes were covered with neat rows of countless grape bushes, the fruits of which turned into sparkling wine, allowing you to forget about fatigue and enjoy life. The Hellenes were also famous as excellent seafarers. It could not be otherwise - after all, the sea surrounded them from all sides.

The life of the Hellenes was filled with numerous myths and ancient traditions. They were carefully passed down from generation to generation. One of these legends tells of a terrible flood that covered the whole world in just a few days. Almost no one managed to escape from this element. Tradition says that only one man named Deucalion managed to survive. He became the ancestor of a new generation of people. One of his sons - Ellin - settled just in this region. The Hellenes are his direct descendants.

What do you know about speaking and writing?

Review the diagram. How does it show the relationship between oral and written speech?

What unites oral and written speech?

What is the difference?

7. Write down separately signs of oral and signs of written speech.

• Perceived simultaneously with the process of speaking.
• It is possible to access the text multiple times.
• There is more time to select the optimal* language tools.
• It is created in a matter of seconds at the moment of speaking, in front of everyone.
• Voice, gestures, facial expressions, body movements are used.

8. Prepare an oral presentation on the topic "Comparative characteristics of oral and written speech."

9. Read a portion of the student's oral response. Find extra words in this answer. To what extent do they interfere with listeners' perception of the speaker's speech? In what cases do pauses in the student's answer indicate that he is looking for the right word, clarifies what was said? Find the breakdown of the construction that has begun, when the speaker does not finish one sentence, but is already starting another.

So ... the most important difference between Hellas and Egypt ... as if in the special role of cities. The fact is that in Egypt the city was the capital of a principality or kingdom ... and there everything was ruled by a king and priests.

In Hellas... that means... every city... or, as the Greeks used to say, a polis, was an independent republic... with a people's assembly, which... it was here that the rulers were elected, who were supposed to... report. .. to give a report for each year of work.

Relations between the inhabitants of the policy were, as it were, complex, often even sharp. For example, when the question was decided who should have the right to vote. Therefore, the conduct of city affairs was considered ... an important and ... complex science ... - politics. _ _

(According to S. Sokolov.)

11. Tell about the shades of the meaning of the word letter in Russian, English and German. What is the meaning of the word letter and the phrase written language In russian language?

Word letter has different shades in different languages. Each nation singles out in this concept some one, in its opinion, an important side.

In Russian, the word letter related to the verb write and shows that it is something written. You can write by hand, or you can write on a typewriter or computer.

In English, the word Letter means both a letter and a letter. So it is emphasized that the letter is written in letters (although the possibility of writing letters in pictures, drawings is not excluded).

In German, writing is called der Brief, which comes from the Latin brevis, meaning "short." This word emphasizes that the letter as an essay should be short.

(According to E. Krasheninnikova.)

12. Write for yourself a short (5-7 point) memo on how to write letters. Use the provided text.

• Writing is a capacious and versatile form of communication.
• Before writing a letter, you need to think about everything. After all, it is not indifferent to whom, why, what to write and how.
• If you are writing a letter by hand, then make sure that the letters are clear so that at the end of the line the words do not roll down like raindrops from the roofs. Neatly written letters are a sign of attention and respect for the addressee.
• The letter must be polite.
• Do not forget to sign the letter and indicate the date of departure.

13. Memory dictation. Remember the poetic lines of V. Shefner about words, about speech. Pay attention to punctuation marks. Close the textbook and write down, as you remember, this quatrain. You kind of dictated it to yourself - you wrote a self-dictation. Check your dictation against the text of the textbook.

There are words - like wounds, words - like a court, -
They do not surrender with them and do not take prisoners.
Words can kill, words can save
In a word, you can lead the shelves behind you.

14. Write down how you understand the last two lines of V. Shefner's poem. Support your reasoning with examples.

Experts divide ancient Greek history into several conditional periods:
• Crete-Mycenaean period (3000 -1100 BC)
• Dark Ages (1100 - 800 BC)
• Archaic period (800 - 500 BC)
• Classic period (500 - 336 BC)
• The era of Hellenism (336 - 30 BC)

The beautiful nature of Hellas, which poets sang many times, was not too generous, especially for farmers. There is little fertile land in Greece. The climate here is arid, there are no large rivers, and it was impossible to create an irrigation system, as in the river civilizations of the East. Therefore, agriculture became the main branch of the economy only in some regions of the country. Moreover, with the development of arable farming, the soil began to quickly deplete. Bread, as a rule, was not enough for the entire population, whose numbers increased over time. More favorable conditions were for gardening and cattle breeding: the Greeks have long bred goats and sheep, planted grapes and olives. The country was rich in minerals: silver, copper, lead, marble and gold. But, of course, this was not enough to provide a livelihood.

Another "wealth" of Greece was the sea. Convenient bays, numerous islands located close to each other created excellent conditions for navigation and trade. But for this it was necessary to master the elements of the sea.

Civilization has managed to give a worthy "answer" to the "challenge" of the environment. Becoming skilled seafarers, the Greeks gradually turned their country into a strong maritime power.

The Greeks themselves were well aware of the advantages of the maritime power they created, its independence from the changing nature: "Bad harvests are the scourge of the most powerful powers, while maritime powers easily overcome them." The struggle for existence was primarily due to the development of new spaces, colonization and trade. Greek civilization constantly expanded its borders.

The first center of civilization originated on the island of Crete at the turn of the III-II millennium BC. e. Around the 15th century BC e. Cretan culture, vibrant and original, tragically quickly perishes (obviously, after a volcanic eruption).

She was replaced by a new culture - the Achaean. The Achaean tribes spread to most Greece and the Aegean islands. Surviving in the XV-XIII centuries. BC e. heyday, already in the XIII-XII centuries. BC e. she dies as suddenly and tragically as her predecessor. Perhaps the Achaean culture was destroyed during the invasion of the northern peoples, among whom, obviously, were the Dorian Greeks.

The eras of the Cretan and Achaean cultures can be considered a kind of preliminary stage, after which the history of the Greek civilization proper begins.

Crete-Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations.

Greece, on the one hand, consisted of many completely independent, isolated, often warring states, on the other hand, there was a kind of early realized community that manifested itself in a single, despite dialectical differences, language, a single religion, common Greek sanctuaries and festivities. Geographically, along with mainland Greece, the islands of the Aegean Sea, Crete, Cyprus and the western coast of Asia Minor belong to Ancient Greece.

The creator of the most ancient civilization in the Aegean region was the pre-Greek population. The Greeks penetrated Crete, where civilization was already in the III millennium BC. e. reached a high development, only in the II millennium BC. e.

By the beginning of the III millennium BC. e. the population of the Balkan Peninsula began to use metals - bronze, lead and silver for the manufacture of weapons, jewelry, religious objects. If metal tools were used, then in the craft, but not in agriculture: metals were expensive and inaccessible. Only in the second half of the III millennium BC. e. metals are widely used in the Aegean basin. There are not enough metal reserves in this area: copper, and then iron, had to be brought in. There is an assumption that the famous Troy owed its heyday to the role of an intermediary that it played in the delivery of metals through Asia Minor to the Aegean world.

The heyday of culture in Crete dates back to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC. e. This is the period of construction of palace complexes with amazing fresco painting, creation of the best examples of artistic ceramics, jewelry, carved seals. The economy is based on a new multicultural type of agriculture, focused on the cultivation of three main agricultural crops - cereals (mainly barley), grapes and olives (the so-called Mediterranean triad). On this basis, reserve funds of agricultural products began to be created in individual communities, which not only covered the shortage of food in lean years, but also provided food for people not directly involved in agricultural production, for example, artisans. Part of the community reserve funds could be used for intercommunal and intertribal exchange. The development of trade in Crete, as well as in the Aegean in general, was closely connected with the development of navigation. It is no coincidence that almost all the Cretan settlements known to us now were located either directly on the sea coast or not far from it.

The highest flowering of the Minoan civilization falls on the XVI - the first half of the XV century. All of Crete was united under the rule of the kings of Knossos. Stone roads were actively built, which were laid throughout the island and connected Knossos with its most remote corners. During this period, there was a unified system of measures in Crete, apparently forcibly introduced by the rulers of the island. It is very possible that the unification of Crete around the Palace of Knossos was carried out by the famous Minos, about whom the later Greek myths tell so much. Greek historians considered Minos the first Talas-Socrates - the ruler of the sea. They said about him that he created a large navy, eradicated piracy and established his dominance over the entire Aegean Sea.

At this time, the Cretans establish lively trade and diplomatic relations with Egypt and the states of the Syro-Phoenician coast. Traces of their settlements, or, perhaps, just ship anchorages, were also found on the shores of Sicily, in southern Italy, and even on the Iberian Peninsula.

In the middle of the XV century. BC e. the situation has changed dramatically. Crete was hit by a catastrophe, the equal of which the island has not experienced in its entire centuries-old history. Almost all palaces and settlements, with the exception of Knossos, were destroyed. From this beat Minoan culture has not recovered. Crete is losing its position as the leading cultural center of the Aegean.

The causes of the catastrophe, which played such a fatal role in the fate of the Minoan civilization, have not yet been established. According to the most plausible guess put forward by the Greek archaeologist S. Marinatos, the death of palaces and other Cretan settlements was the result of a grandiose volcanic eruption on the island of Thera (modern Santorini) in the southern Aegean Sea. Other scientists believe that the Achaean Greeks, who invaded Crete from mainland Greece (most likely from the Peloponnese), became the culprits of the disaster. They plundered and devastated the island and subjugated its population to their power.

In parallel with the Crete-Minoan culture, the Mycenaean culture developed. It originated in the mainland Peloponnese and surrounding areas. The founders of this culture were the Achaean Greeks, who invaded the Balkan Peninsula at the turn of the 3rd - 2nd millennium BC. e. from the north, from the region of the Danube lowland or from the steppes of the Northern Black Sea region.

Frontier III - II millennium BC e. can be considered the beginning of a new stage in the history of ancient Greece - the stage of the formation of the Greek nationality. The basis of this process was the interaction and gradual merging of two cultures: the culture of the newcomer Achaean tribes and the culture of the local pre-Greek population.

In the first centuries of the formation of a new culture, regression is observed. Monumental architectural structures disappear. Instead of them, nondescript adobe houses appear, sometimes rectangular, sometimes oval or rounded on one side.

Gradually, powerful aristocratic families emerged within the Achaean communities, settling in impregnable citadels and thereby sharply separating themselves from the mass of ordinary fellow tribesmen. Great wealth is concentrated, partly from local peasants and artisans, partly captured during military raids on the lands of neighbors. In various regions of the Peloponnese, Central and Northern Greece, the first and still rather primitive state formations arise. Thus, starting from the XVl. BC. Greece entered a new, or, as it is usually called the Mycenaean, period of its history.

In the Mycenaean era, there was no political unity on the Greek mainland, much less an official empire. The earth was fragmented into dozens of kingdoms that competed with each other. The main centers of Mycenaean culture were, as in Crete, palaces. The architecture of Mycenaean palaces has a number of features that distinguish them from the palaces of Minoan Crete. The most important of these differences is that almost all Mycenaean palaces were fortified and were real citadels, reminiscent of their appearance castles of medieval feudal lords.

The palace center controlled the local bureaucracy. The fortress strictly monitored the surrounding cities, the number of which could be more than 20. At the same time, the palace was also an industrial and commercial center with many divisions. Architects, masons, carpenters, mechanics, gunsmiths, shipbuilders, furniture makers, bronze makers, jewelers and many others worked here. Below all stood the slaves (captives). There was no money, no market trade. Everyone was paid in kind for their work.

The main part of the communal land was apparently divided into allotments with approximately the same yield. These allotments were distributed within the community itself among its constituent families. The land left after the partition was leased out. The communal lands, as well as the lands that belonged directly to the palace, were under the control of the palace administration and were exploited by it in the interests of the centralized state economy.

The state monopolized the most important branches of handicraft production, imposed restrictions on blacksmithing and established control over the distribution of scarce raw materials, all metal.

The main type of taxes collected from the districts was metal - gold, bronze, and agricultural products. Unlike the river civilizations of Egypt. Mesopotamia and India, the agricultural resources of the Greek states were more scarce. Stony soils, the absence of overflowing rivers oriented the economy of the Greek states to fishing, the development of exchange crafts and trade. Mining played a dominant role.

The growth of the power of individual cities led to the inevitable clashes for the seizure of territories and wealth. XVI - XIII centuries. BC e. - a period of active redistribution of internal borders. Around I235 BC. e. The ten-year period of the Trojan War begins. From the end of the 16th century BC e. The Mycenaean civilization begins the military expansion of the surrounding territories. In the XV century BC. e. Achaeans colonize Crete, turning it into a stronghold for moving east and south.

During the XIV - XIII centuries. BC e. Mycenaean palace kingdoms experienced the highest rise. Successfully combining trade with piracy, the Achaeans soon become one of the most prominent political forces in the Eastern Mediterranean. However, clouds were already gathering over Achaean Greece. The last decades of the thirteenth century BC e. were anxious and restless. In many places old fortifications are being hastily restored and new fortifications are being erected. Historians attribute the events of this period to the movement of the Dorian tribes from the territory of Macedonia and Epirus and the Phrygian-Thracian tribes into the territory of Greece. The Mycenaean civilization could not withstand the onslaught of the barbarians and disappeared forever. Other possible reasons for the death of the Mycenaean civilization, archaeologists call a civil war, a social upheaval, a powerful uprising of slaves, a foreign invasion from land or sea, a rupture of trade ties with the East, which resulted in famine, devastating epidemics ...

By 1100 BC. e. the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization disappeared. With her disappearance, the art of writing was forgotten, and historians do not have written sources from the period 1100-800. BC that is why it is called the Dark Ages. During this period, the Greeks had little contact with other peoples, so there are few references to them in foreign sources. In Greece, the population has declined sharply, agriculture and crafts have reduced the volume and worsened the quality of products.

In the VIII - VI centuries. (Archaic period) there is an intensive development of ancient society. The population grew, its standard of living rose. There is private ownership of movable and immovable property.

A characteristic feature of the economy of this period in the history of Hellas is the presence of a fairly developed exchange, which is associated with the process of colonization and the departure of the mass of the population to the colonies, with the import of products from the colonies to the metropolis, as well as with the development of crafts in the metropolis and the export of handicrafts to the colonies. The emergence and development of coins in the Greek world can serve as the most important indicator of the development of exchange in the era of the colonial expansion of Hellas.

With the development of productive forces and exchange, new working hands appear - imported slaves. The labor of slaves is used in mines, in crafts, in port and ship work.

New population groups appear - shipowners, owners of craft workshops, which over time increasingly determine not only the economic, but also the political nature of the city-states - policies that arose in the 8th - 6th centuries. BC e. in Greece as a result of the struggle of new social groups and forces with the aristocracy.

The policy included the city and the adjacent rural area and was considered an independent state. The largest policy was Athens, which occupied an area of ​​2500 km 2. Other policies were much smaller, their territory did not exceed 350 km2. By the beginning of the archaic period, most policies were ruled by aristocrats, and the system of government was an oligarchy (the power of a few), but as trade expanded, the middle class of merchants, artisans and bankers began to grow and flourish. Deprived of political rights, it begins to seek the opportunity to participate in decision-making.

One could become a member of the community under two conditions: if a person was a Greek by nationality, if he was free and owned private property. All members of the community - free owners - had political rights (although not always equal), which allowed them to take part in state activities. Therefore, the Greek policy is called a civil community.

The state in Greece did not exist above the community (as was the case in the East), it grew out of the community; more precisely, the community itself turned into a small state, with its own laws, authorities and management system. Members of the community, townspeople and farmers, who did not know the problem of alienation from the state, rallied into a single, rather closed team, which constituted an economic, political and ideological whole.

Ownership of land was determined by belonging to the civil collective of the polis, but within the framework of this collective, landed property freely circulated at least from the end of the 5th century. BC e. The rapid development of commodity-money relations led to the economic flourishing of the Greek city-states, in which various sections of the free population were interested to one degree or another.

Greece of the archaic and classical periods

Among the population of policies, a privileged position was occupied by its citizens. Other free people who were not citizens of the policy were considered incomplete. These included primarily dependent peasants who had lost their ownership of their plots of land, and foreigners (meteks). The number of foreigners grew as Greece conquered more and more colonies. Many meteks were wealthy, but nevertheless they were usually forbidden to buy land, and this, of course, closed access to the management of the policy.

Slaves were at the bottom of the social ladder. In Greece, as in Rome, slavery differed from domestic slavery in the East in its particular rigidity and certainty. (The exception was Sparta, where helot slaves retained some independence.) Debt slavery of fellow tribesmen was eliminated rather quickly; only prisoners of war became slaves, and perhaps this is why, as historians suggest, the line separating the slave from the free was so distinct.

Slaves in Greece had no rights and were indeed equated with "talking tools": they were deprived of all property, were the subject of sale and purchase, could not marry, the children of slaves were called offspring and were also considered slaves. Even in those cases when slaves were released into the wild, they remained incomplete and still depended on the former owner, who became their patron, patron.

Slavery in ancient Greece was taken for granted, freedom was considered a gift that was not available to all people. So, the great philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC) believed that "some are naturally free, while others are naturally slaves, and ... in relation to these latter, the slave position is as useful as it is fair ".

With the transition to arable farming from common ownership, individual farms began to allocate special plots (clerks), which turned into the private property of their owners. While some became rich, concentrating more and more land in their hands, others, on the contrary, became poorer and lost land. This is how the community split into large landowners and landless people (feta). The former constituted the class of nobles, who are already called by Homer the best people. Nobility precisely consisted in the origin of a good family, the ancestor of which was considered a god or a hero.

The abolition of royal power, which took place in the VIII and VII centuries. in most of the Greek cities, was by no means the result of any sudden upheavals. Tsarist power was more and more limited, made urgent from life, and from hereditary in a certain kind - generally accessible to all noble families. Even the hereditary priest-king, where he remained, turned into an elected dignitary. Thus, the landowning nobility, divided into separate clans, became the ruling class of the state. The former royal council became the main body of aristocratic government. He decided his sentences on the basis of old customs, and since the latter were not written down, the decisions of the judges were very often arbitrariness and injustice. That is why one of the first requirements of the lower stratum of free citizens was written laws.

The most important states in Greece were Laconia (Sparta) and Attica (Athens).

The state system of Sparta also corresponded to the goals of the militarized state. At the head were two kings who acted as commanders, judges and priests, as well as a council of elders (gerousia), consisting of representatives of noble families aged at least 60 years, and ephors, a kind of controlling body. Unlike the elders, the kings were not elected - it was a hereditary title. The kings had great privileges, but could not make decisions without the approval of the council of elders, which, in turn, had to rely on the opinion of the people's assembly. But the elements of democracy were not developed in Sparta: the popular assembly, although formally considered the highest body, did not have much influence on political life. Unlike Athens, ordinary Spartans did not make speeches at meetings, did not prove their point of view, but shouted their approval or disapproval of the proposed solutions. The system of Sparta can be called oligarchic.

The invariability of the system and the archaism of customs were also maintained due to strict isolation from other states. The historian Xenophon wrote that the Spartans "were not allowed to travel abroad, so that citizens would not be infected by frivolity from strangers."

Laconia to its population. Laconia occupied the southeastern part of the Peloponnese and consisted of the valley of the Evrota River and the mountain ranges that bounded it. In this country there were arable lands, and pastures, and forests, in which there was a lot of game, and in the mountains there was a lot of iron: from it locals made weapons. The population of the country consisted of the descendants of the Dorian conquerors and the Achaeans they conquered. The first, the Spartans, were only full-fledged citizens of the state, the second were divided into two classes: some were called helots and were serfs, subordinate, however, not to individual citizens, but to the whole state, while others were called perieks and were personally free people, but standing to Sparta in relation to subjects without any political rights whatsoever. Most of the land was considered the common property of the state, from which the latter gave the Spartans separate plots for subsistence, which were originally approximately the same size. These areas were processed by helots. Part of their land was left to the Perieks, they lived in cities, engaged in crafts and trade, but in general in Laconia these occupations were poorly developed; already at the time when other Greeks had a coin, in this country, as an instrument of exchange, iron rods were used. Perieki were obliged to pay tax to the state treasury. The Spartans did not have the right to leave their country, and foreigners were forbidden to live in Laconia.

In Sparta, the old royal power, but there were two kings at the same time. Most likely, either these were the descendants of the royal families of two merged communities, or the office of the second king was established to limit royal power at a time when a similar phenomenon was occurring in other parts of Greece. Elders, or geronts, were chosen for the rest of their lives from men no younger than 60 years old, but there were only twenty-eight of them. Together with both kings, they constituted the government council, called the gerousia (council of elders). Another important institution was the college of five ephors, elected by the people for only a year. Ephors were investigators in criminal cases, judges in civil cases, overseers of the behavior of citizens and the officials themselves. This political system remained unchanged for a very long time. The Spartan Republic was a stronghold of antiquity and oligarchic rule.

In addition, the policy was dominated by the principle of equalization, which was the pride of the Spartans, who called themselves a "community of equals."

The Spartans lived in the same modest dwellings, wore the same simple clothes, devoid of decorations, gold and silver coins were withdrawn from circulation - iron bars were in circulation instead. The legendary king Lycurgus introduced joint meals, for the arrangement of which everyone had to contribute their share (food and money). Infants with physical disabilities were destroyed. Boys from 7 to 20 years old received a rather cruel public education. Having reached the age of majority, they were enrolled in the army and served until old age. The harsh, strictly regulated life of Sparta resembled a barracks. And this is natural: everything pursued one goal - to make courageous, hardy warriors out of the Spartans.

Athens was the main city of Attica, an area located in the south of the Balkan Peninsula. The population of Attica gradually united around Athens. This area was rich in minerals (clay, marble, silver), but agriculture could be practiced only in small and few valleys.

The main sources of strength and wealth of this policy were trade and shipbuilding. A large port city with a convenient harbor (it was called Piraeus) quickly turned into an economic, commercial and cultural center. The Athenians, having created the most powerful fleet in Hellas, actively traded with the colonies, resold the goods received to other policies. In Athens, sciences and arts flourished, huge amounts of money were spent on urban planning. In the 5th century Acropolis began to be erected - the pinnacle of ancient Greek architecture, the center of which was the famous Parthenon temple dedicated to Athena, the patroness of the city. The heyday of the Greek theater is also associated with Athens. Famous sculptors and writers flocked to Athens. The philosophers Plato and Aristotle established their schools there.

Athenian state. The population of Attica was ranked among the tribe of the Ionians. Initially, there were several states here, but they merged into one state, making it the center of Athens. In addition to citizens of the state, lived in Attica meteki- aliens from other places, engaged in crafts and trade, paying taxes and even being obliged to participate in the army, but not considered citizens. The citizens themselves were divided into three classes: landowning nobility, small landowners and artisans. The Athenian nobility constituted the estate of the noble, or Eupatrides(i.e. having good fathers). Free peasants who lived on their small plots were called geomors, artisans - demiurges: geomors and demiurges, taken together, made up the demos.

At the head of Athens was originally a king who ruled with a council consisting of the elders of the most important clans and called areopagus. Tsarist power, however, gradually passed to elected dignitaries. First of all, they began to elect a special commander as an assistant to the king in the war, polemarch, then part of government and judicial cases began to be entrusted to a special dignitary archon(ruler), who was appointed by the Areopagus, and even later created the position of six judges, thesmofetes. Thus, the royal power was divided among nine dignitaries, who all began to be called archons. In the middle of the VIII century, BC. e., they began to be elected for ten years, and not for life, as before, at the beginning of the 7th century. - only for one year. As royal power was fragmented between individual dignitaries, the former royal council, the Areopagus, on the contrary, gained more and more importance. It began to be replenished with archons who performed their duties well and became lifelong members of this institution. Athens became a real oligarchy, in which the Areopagus was the focus of interests, aspirations and traditions of the Eupatrid class.

The forces of Athens and Sparta were especially strengthened during the era of wars with Persia. While many city-states of Greece submitted to the conquerors, these two policies led the fight against the seemingly invincible army of King Xerxes and defended the independence of the country.

In 478 BC. e. Athens formed the Delian Maritime Union (its center was on the island of Delos) of equal policies, which soon turned into the Athenian maritime power. Athens, violating the principles of autarchy, began to interfere in the internal affairs of its allies, managed their finances, tried to establish their own laws on the territory of other policies, that is, they pursued a real great-power policy. The Athenian state at the time of its heyday was a very significant force: it included about 250 policies.

The Attic nobility not only politically dominated the people, but also enslaved them economically. In Attica, there were a lot of geomors who sat in small plots and led their household on them. With the growth of the population, these areas were more and more fragmented, and it soon became very difficult for the geomors to live, especially since, thanks to the importation of grain from abroad, agriculture in the marginal Attica could not be a very profitable occupation. In the event of, for example, a crop failure, one had to resort to loans from eupatrides, but one had to pay high interest on the loans issued. The debtor's land served as security for the debt, and the lender placed a stone on it with a mortgage act carved on it, and if the price of the land was lower than the amount of the debt, then the debtor himself and his family were responsible and had to work off the missing amount of the debt, i.e. fell into slavery. As a result, part of the rural population of Attica not only went bankrupt, but also lost their freedom.

The ruling class gave in to the desire of the people and in 621 instructed one of the Thesmothetes to draw up written laws that would guide the archons, instead of the old customs and their own discretion. Subsequently, when morals softened, these laws (the laws of Draco) were considered as a model of cruelty, but, in essence, the Athenian legislator of the 7th century. BC e. only reproduced in his decisions the views of that time on crimes and punishments. It can be concluded that they corresponded to the general consciousness of the people from the fact that these criminal laws remained in force, apparently, until the 4th century BC. BC e. This legislation left inviolable the former right of debt. The irritation of the people took on such a character that the nobility was forced to make concessions in order to prevent an uprising, and the result of this was the famous legislation of Solon.

Solon himself belonged to the Eupatrid class, but his main occupation was trade, which forced him to visit many foreign countries, which enriched him with knowledge and life experience. Solon had already managed to provide important services to his native state, when in 594 BC. e. was elected the first archon with the authority to issue the necessary laws. His task was to "remove the burden" (sisakhfiyah) from the people and the land, as he called the destruction of all debt obligations with their consequences. All debts were abrogated, the pledge stones that burdened the land of the geomors were removed, everyone who was only in slavery because of the debt made was released, and henceforth it was forbidden for lenders to enslave their debtors. Solon engaged in reforms in civil law, allowing citizens, among other things, to make spiritual wills, an indication that at this time the principle of tribal or family property fell into decay in Attica, since the right to bequeath one's property at one's discretion presupposes the existence of purely personal property. In litigation about property, it was possible to complain (appeal) against the sentences of officials to the so-called gelieye, an assembly of jurors who were chosen by lot from all citizens over 30 years of age.

Solon introduced a new division of citizens into classes in Athens, based on the property qualification, i.e. the amount of income received from property (but only from real estate). There were four of these classes: pentakosiomedimny, the richest citizens who had at least five hundred coppers of barley (or wine and olive oil) of annual income; hippies, i.e. horsemen, whose income was equal to three hundred medimns; zeugites, i.e. teamsmen who received at least two hundred medimns, and feta whose income was less than this figure. (The riders are called so because they could go to war with a horse, while the teams got their name from the fact that they had a pair of mules for plowing the field). Between these classes, rights and duties were distributed, namely, the richer had greater rights, but also carried heavier duties. The main positions in the state were available only to pentakosiomedimnas, while fetes could only take part in the national assembly. But the first class was assigned such duties as the construction of ships, the organization of public festivals, etc., in addition to personal service in the army in good weapons and on horseback, while people of the fourth class went to war lightly armed (with a shield, bow and arrows) or made by rowers on warships. (Persons of the second class appeared in the army on their horses and "fully armed" - in a helmet, armor, greaves, with a shield and a spear; persons of the third participated in heavily armed infantry, i.e. served as hoplites and also in full armor.) Such a distribution rights between citizens was neither an aristocracy nor a democracy, and therefore received a special name timocracy (from the Greek timnia - qualification).

Solon also transformed the government of Athens. Nine archons were left at the head of the board, but they were no longer elected from only eupatrides and not only eupatrides, but from all citizens of the first class and by all the people, to whom they gave an account in their reign. Next to the Areopagus, which left the highest supervision over the observance of religious prescriptions and laws and the behavior of citizens, as well as the murder court, Solon established a new council of four hundred. The council became the main government institution, since it was in charge of the state's revenues and expenditures, communicated with foreign governments, preliminarily considered the weight of government measures, and so on. All citizens, not excluding the fetes, had the right to participate in the popular assembly, which elected all officials, decided all the most important matters and adopted legislative decisions, but only under the supreme supervision of the Areopagus, who could cancel everything that, in his opinion, was contrary to the laws. and it was dangerous for the state.

Solon's reform irritated the Eupatrides, but did not fully satisfy the people either. In essence, she still left great importance to the old nobility. On the other hand, there were many people who were dissatisfied with the fact that Solon did not equalize landed property, as many expected. Finally, the sisachphia abolished the old debt obligations, but the old economic conditions, which made it necessary to go into debt and pay high interest, remained in force. That is why popular ferment continued even after the reform carried out by Solon. The outcome of this state was the establishment of tyranny in Athens, as was done at the same time in other cities of Greece. Tyranny dominated Athens for half a century (560-510). First, Peisistratus ruled the city (until 527), then his two sons, Hippias and Hipparchus.

Subsequently, after the expulsion of the tyrant from Athens, the struggle of parties began again in Attica. In 508-506. BC e. The reform of Cleisthenes was carried out, which marked the beginning of Athenian democracy. Representatives of the demos received the right to hold elected office. True, the title of archons remained available only to the first two classes, but the archonship itself lost its former significance, and even the poorest citizen could get into the Council, since the election to this institution was made by lot from all citizens who sought this position. The archonship suffered greatly in its significance even under tyranny, but now special colleges were established, to which the duties of archons were transferred. To ensure the transformed political system from tyranny, Cleisthenes introduced the so-called ostracism. Every spring, the people had to vote on the question of whether any of the citizens posed a danger to freedom, and if an affirmative answer was obtained, then a new meeting of citizens was convened, at which everyone present wrote on a shell or shard (ostracism). Whoever had a majority of votes against himself was expelled from Attica for ten years, but did not lose his property and, upon his return, enjoyed all his rights again.

Thanks to the reform of Cleisthenes, the people gradually received a decisive voice in all the most important affairs of the state, and the people's council (ekklesia) began to acquire the main importance in the internal life of Athens.

The transformation of Athens into a maritime and trading state should have entailed changes in their internal structure, already by the mere fact that the timocracy introduced by Solon and retained by Cleisthenes was based on land ownership, which now, as the basis of influence in society, has given way to industry and trade. A number of changes that took place in the Athenian state life in the first half of the 5th century BC. BC e., led to the triumph of democracy. First of all, at this time, public offices, which were the property of only the rich, became available equally to all citizens without distinction of classes. But there was still an institution in Athens that ran counter to the very spirit of democracy. It was an Areopagus, consisting of life members and enjoying the right of supreme supervision over the people's council itself. The old religious traditions reigned in the Areopagus, not very conducive to the desire for change, and its composition was made up of former archons who fell into this position by lot, i.e. incidentally, by no means contained the guarantee that the Areopagus would exercise its rights especially wisely.

Ephialtes decided to strike the Areopagus. He carried out a proposal according to which only murder cases were left behind the named institution (due to their connection with religious ideas about the propitiation of the gods). All other rights of the Areopagus were divided between the popular assembly, the Council of Five Hundred and the Helium, i.e. by a jury selected by lot from all citizens at least 30 years of age. officials now had to submit their annual reports directly to the people, and the people could even remove them before the deadline in case of any fault on their part. It was allowed to propose new laws to the people only by proving the worthlessness of the old ones before helium.

Death prevented Ephialtes himself from completing this reform, but he found a successor to his work in the person of Pericles. During the reign of Pericles, Athenian democracy reached its greatest development. Four times a month, a people's assembly gathered in the city, in which all citizens were to participate and everyone could express their opinion, and matters were decided by a majority of votes. The Council of Five Hundred prepared proposals that were to be made to the people, and was in charge of current affairs. All court cases were considered by a jury, consisting of six thousand citizens, chosen by lot and divided into ten divisions. Almost all public offices were mixed by lot, but each elected before taking office had to prove that he would be able to fulfill the duties associated with it. Only the strategists continued to be elected by direct vote and re-elected after a year's term. Thus, the supreme power in Athens was directly in the hands of the people. In order for the people to have the opportunity to really fulfill, for example, the duties of judges, who had a lot of cases with lawsuits that arose in other cities, but were considered in Athens, Pericles introduced a small remuneration for the administration of a judicial post, in the amount of two or three obols a day, - the amount for which it was possible to have daily food.

Greek democracy has reached its peak. However, the endless conflicts between the Greek policies put forward a new force into the arena - Macedonia. Alexander the Great became the "gravedigger" of Greek democracy, which disappeared in the cauldron of the first redistribution of the world.

Alexander the Great, who ascended the throne of Macedonia in 336 BC. e., realized the plans that his father had hatched: he undertook a campaign against the Persians - the old enemies of the Greeks. The Persian state, already quite weak at that time, covered a huge territory: the highlands of Iran, most of Central Asia, all of Asia Minor and Asia Minor, part of India and Egypt. After the first victories, Alexander the Great had the idea of ​​​​conquering the entire Persian state, and then world domination. Only in 324 BC. e., bringing his exhausted army to the Indus River, Alexander was forced to end a long military campaign and died a year later at the age of 33.

Thanks to the conquests of Alexander the Great, a gigantic empire was created, which included, in addition to the Balkan Peninsula and the islands of the Aegean Sea, Egypt, Asia Minor, the south of Central Asia and part of Central Asia. The campaigns of the great commander brought destruction and creation at the same time. Streams of Greek and Macedonian settlers poured into the East, who everywhere established new social relations, founded city-states, laid communication routes and spread the culture of the Greek world, in turn absorbing the achievements of ancient civilizations.

In many conquered cities, public schools were organized, where boys were taught in the Greek way, theaters, stadiums, and hippodromes were built. Greek culture and way of life penetrated the East, absorbing the traditions of Eastern cultures. Together with Greek gods Isis and Osiris and other eastern deities were revered, in whose honor temples were erected. Hellenistic kings planted, according to Eastern custom, the royal cult. Some cities turned into major cultural centers that competed with the Greek ones. So, in Alexandria, a huge library was created, which consisted of about 700 thousand scrolls. Large libraries were in Pergamon and Antioch.

Political life and value system

The empire was an extremely fragile entity. It included areas very different from each other both economically and culturally. Their population professed different religions. Alexander the Great, capturing primarily large cities, was content with collecting taxes from the conquered regions, changing little in their lives. After his death, the state was divided between the successors of Alexander - the generals who fought with each other for power. Again, military alliances arose and disintegrated, governors rose and suffered defeat. Greece of the Hellenistic era was a series of separate states in which local traditions were intertwined with Greek and Macedonian.

These states were a kind of combination of eastern despotisms and the polis system. At the head was the monarch, who had his own lands, a standing army and a centralized administration. But cities with rural territories assigned to them retained self-government. True, the size of urban lands depended on the king, the policy lost the right to conduct an independent foreign policy, and a royal official monitored its internal affairs.

There was no real stability inside the Hellenistic states: from time to time they were shaken by dynastic wars, conflicts between the city nobility and the royal administration, the struggle of cities for complete autonomy and the protests of the social lower classes against the tax system. The situation was aggravated by the fact that already in the III century. BC e. the young militant Roman civilization launched an offensive against the Hellenic world, conquering one state after another.

The Hellenistic world was gradually absorbed into the Roman Empire. In 196 BC. e. Rome proclaimed the "freedom" of the Greek policies, that is, the liquidation of the monarchical system - a slogan that had a certain popularity among the Greeks. Roman garrisons were now located in the major cities of Hellas, Rome determined the borders of states, intervened in the internal affairs of policies. The unions of policies were dissolved, instead of democracy, an oligarchy was established, a huge number of people were sold into slavery and taken out of the country. In 30 BC. e. Roman troops conquered Egypt - the last of the Hellenistic states that retained their independence.

In the Hellenistic era, for the first time in the history of mankind, contacts between East and West became permanent and stable. These contacts manifested themselves in many areas: trade relations were strengthened, new forms of statehood were created, and cultural interaction grew. But in the final analysis, the transformation of Greece into a world power did not infuse new forces into the ancient civilization. The foundations of Greek civilization (democratism, the isolation of policies - autarky) were eroded, and new civilizational foundations were never created.

An appeal to the art of Ancient Hellas may seem like an anachronism today: why bother contemplating long-vanished monuments, when humanity of the long-suffering XX century. in agony and doubt looking for solutions to pressing life issues? Do the statues of three thousand years ago, moreover, for the most part badly broken, sometimes incomprehensible, have the right to distract the attention and time of a modern, eternally busy person? Can they give him more than knowledge of a number of facts and events about a particular time, will they calm him down in moments of deep spiritual upheaval or excite him in difficult periods of indifference and depression, sometimes capturing not just one person, but the whole society?
The answers to these questions can hardly be found in any book. They sometimes appear at the most unexpected moment and often at those hours when a person, having come to the museum, turns off from the daily rush. Lingering in the halls of the art of Ancient Hellas, he sees at first glance monotonous marble statues, differing from each other only in the turn of the torso or the tilt of the head, the movement of the hands or the position of the legs. People to whom all this seems boring rush to the halls where sculptural monuments full of seething passions or colorful canvases tell about entertaining situations, dramatic events, immediately capturing the viewer's imagination. However, those who are interested in ancient monuments need not worry: they will receive their reward. Hellenic sculpture (and the main thing in the art of the ancient Greeks is plasticity - “the muse is strong, but secretive”) does not immediately reveal the full wealth of emotions, conflicts, and ideals contained in it. It requires unhurried, thoughtful contemplation, penetration into the character of plastic forms, almost real, visual touch that brings joy of all kinds of nuances in the modeling of marble sculptures.
Hellenic art, which will be discussed, is not, in fact, such a museum and antiques: to enjoy it, it is not necessary to go to the halls of the Hermitage. There are many buildings on the streets of Russian and Western European cities, past which people walk every day and see pediments decorated with sculptures, relief friezes or monumental statues, beautiful colonnades created by architects who turned to antiquity. Passers-by usually do not think about the ancient Hellenes, but in the depths of their consciousness there sometimes arises a memory of the Greeks who lived millennia ago and opened the opportunity for people to “rightly rejoice,” as Aristotle said. Thanks to their aesthetic

By typic insights, at the Doric portico, courage and valor seem to be instilled in a person, and at the Ionic or Corinthian portico, which adorns the entrance to the theater, a person experiences the “joy of recognition”, anticipating a meeting with art.
Despite the millennia separating us from the ancient Hellenes, we largely live and breathe their consciousness of the world, their attitude to being, colored and enriched, moreover, by the great ideas of Christianity...
The artistic heritage of Ancient Hellas is one of the two components of the great ancient culture(the other is the art of Ancient Rome), which determined the essence of all subsequent European aesthetic creativity. The ancient Hellenes, or Greeks, were a small but talented people who inhabited the Balkan Peninsula in the 1st millennium BC. e. The origins of their origin go back to the distant past.
In the III-II millennium BC. e. on the Balkan Peninsula, in the western coastal part of Asia Minor and on the islands of the Aegean Sea lived the distant ancestors of the Greeks. The large fortified cities of the Achaeans - Mycenae, Tiryns, Athens, Pylos and others - were part of the great, very developed, but so far little studied Aegean or Crete-Mycenaean culture, along with Troy, the cities of the island of Crete and many other centers of the Aegean basin1. Having conquered Crete, but weakened after a grueling struggle with Troy, the Achaeans experienced the crushing pressure of the Dorians: these tribes poured into the Balkan Peninsula from the north and destroyed the cities of the Achaeans, * "pushing the inhabitants to the southern regions of the Peloponness.
It can be said that Greek art began its history in the 11th century. BC e. In the 1st century BC e. The Romans turned Greece into an imperial province. And although the Hellenic cities existed until the end of the ancient period and beyond, their culture and art from the 1st to the 4th centuries. n. e. were already part of the culture of the Roman Empire. The great period of Hellenic art, which left the brightest monuments to mankind, lasted from the 11th to the 1st century. BC e. It will be discussed in this book.
The art of Hellas, of course, had in its development the initial stages, the centuries of prosperity and the late period, when in the nature of the artistic
1 Some researchers consider the art of the Aegean world to be the beginning of Greek culture, others are more cautious and treat it as a “buffer” phenomenon between the ancient Eastern and Greek civilizations. In this book, the story about the art of Hellas begins with the creativity of the Dorians. The reader will be able to get acquainted with the artistic monuments of the Aegean world in other publications, in particular, in the album: Aegean Art. - M., 1972. In this book, from the monuments of the Aegean art, the reader will see (in the insert and on the flyleaf) four works.
The reader who is interested in a more complete set of illustrations on Greek art will be able to find their reproduction in other books of the author.

Vein forms began to feel the loss of its former integrity and perfection. In this regard, several periods are distinguished in the art of Hellas: Homeric (XI-VIII centuries BC), archaic (VII-VI centuries BC), classical (V-IV centuries BC .) and Hellenistic (III-I centuries BC). The last ancient centuries (I-IV centuries AD) Hellas lived, as noted, under the rule of Rome.
When the reader encounters one or another system of periodization of art, he should always keep in mind the conditionality of the proposed boundaries, established only for the convenience of understanding development and in conflict with the living continuity of the eternal, never-stopping movement. It is impossible to indicate exactly the boundaries of archaism and classics, classics and Hellenism, just as it is impossible to assert that it was in such and such a century or in such and such a year that, for example, the art of the Ancient East ended and the ancient era began. In many early monuments of Greek archaism, elements of ancient Oriental art made themselves felt for a long time. The same continuity, non-stop can be observed during the decline of antiquity. In the II century. n. e. still under construction in Rome great temple of all gods Pantheon - famous monument pagan era, but in those same years in the deep dungeons of Rome, the catacombs, early Christian works already arose - frescoes full of new sensual emotions, multi-figured reliefs on marble sarcophagi. The continuity, integrity and solidity of the process of development of ancient art (as well as the art of other eras) must always be taken into account, contemplating and mentally analyzing the features of various art forms.
The art of ancient Greece is the most important stage in the development of human culture, located chronologically between the eras of the Ancient East and the Middle Ages, a kind of link in the chain of the universal evolution of the artistic form. At the same time, the art of Hellas is an original, special phenomenon. It is these two of its qualities - general historical significance and individual, unique essence - that should always be realized by a person who comes into contact with the images created by the ancient Greeks. Also, however, one should also treat each individual work of art, which, on the one hand, is an element of continuous human evolution, a part of universal civilization, and on the other hand, an exceptional creation of an individual - an artist who can never find anything completely adequate.
The reader who is familiar with the monuments of the Ancient East, who knows about the existence of the pyramids at Giza, about the reliefs of Egyptian temples, about the monumental statues of the pharaohs, will notice a lot of fundamentally new things in the art of the ancient Hellenes. Indeed, the ancient Egyptian artists were guided by feelings of immensity, globality of the world, moods colored by the awareness of the cosmic nature of being: the columns of Egyptian temples are still perceived as gigantic embodiments of the very essence of plants - lotus or papyrus, the ceilings of the central

Birth of Aphrodite. Relief. Marble. Around 460 BC e. Rome, National Museum
halls - like a sky with stars, and the temples themselves - like an artistic model of the universe. A person next to such architectural images seems negligible, insignificant, almost a grain of sand. At the temple of Queen Hatshepsut in Deir el-Bahri, it is insignificant - a temple with a huge colonnade rises above it as a symbol of the deity, nature (rocks) reigns even higher, and the sky and the all-encompassing cosmos dominate all this. In Greece, the artists, without losing their sense of the cosmic nature of being, began to see the main thing in earthly images. Temples were built on the basis of human proportions, columns often took the form of caryatids and Atlanteans.
The boundaries of the concept of a deity in Egypt were infinitely wide. In Greece, all world entities (nature, animals, plants), included in the concept of a deity, took on the form of a person. Genesis was embodied by the courageous wise Zeus, the vastness of the sea with its unrest and dangers - Poseidon, the plant world, promising fertility and wealth - Demeter, the animal kingdom - Artemis, etc.
The deity in the mind of the ancient Egyptian artist was infinite in its parameters, in Greece the divine and real world was focused in human forms. In such a change in the world

Views can be felt, on the one hand, as a narrowing of the framework in the perception of being, a certain decrease in its greatness and comprehensiveness, but, on the other, one cannot but see in this a movement towards a humanistic understanding of the surrounding reality. Man for the Greek is no longer an infinitely small, insignificant being, lost in the vastness of the divine spheres, but, as it were, the very embodiment of an idea, the center of the universe.
If in Ancient Egypt the deity often appeared in the form of a half-animal, often with a human body and an animal head, then the ancient Greeks have a different story: the deity always has the appearance of a person, and in the guise of monsters the body of the beast is used, but sometimes the head is human.
In the art of Ancient Egypt, the artist is fascinated by the grandeur and mystery of nature and deity, he is seized with solemn and reverent awe. With Greek artists, even in the early archaic era, a person seems calm, confident, majestic.
In comparison with Egyptian art, elements of the secular principle are intensified in Greek art, of course, with its still very significant cult meaning.
The world of artistic images of Ancient Egypt is full of contrasts. These are either large figures of omnipotent pharaohs, priests, officials, or small ones - insignificant slaves, captives. explaining social standing the difference in size of people depicted on Egyptian reliefs is ubiquitous. Among the ancient Hellenes, it almost disappears.
The inner excitement of even outwardly calm images in ancient Egyptian monuments is maximally accentuated by artists. In the art of the Greeks, especially in the classical period, everything gravitates toward restraint of emotions, sublime enlightenment of consciousness.
It is worth paying attention to the fact that after the expressiveness of the Egyptian perception of the world, which was replaced by the rationality and logic of antiquity, the emotional essence of the images will again be clearly manifested in the art of the Middle Ages, in order to give way to a logically rational system again during the Renaissance. In such an endlessly pulsating rhythm of the human attitude to the world, when rational principles arise alternately after sensual principles, antiquity is perceived as one of the brightest manifestations of the world's artistic consciousness.
It is known that heightened internal emotionality and sensual expressiveness led in the art of the ancient Egyptians to the canonization of forms, a kind of principles of external restraint. The Greek philosopher Plato writes: "Having established that it is beautiful, the Egyptians announced this at sacred festivities, and no one - neither painters, nor anyone else who creates all kinds of images, nor in general those who are engaged in musical arts", was not allowed to enter innovations and invent something other than domestic.”
A completely different picture is the art of the ancient Greeks, which is characterized by a frequent, very noticeable change in artistic forms, especially manifested at the turn of the 5th-4th centuries. BC e.
1 Musical arts among the ancient Greeks - arts controlled by the beautiful Muses, led by the god Apollo.- Approx. the author of the book.

Embodied, as noted, in ancient Egyptian art, the awareness of the boundlessness of the cosmic scale of the universe determined the noticeable mystery of its images.
In the art of the Hellenes, where man became the basis of the new mythological perception and the attention of artists focused on his essence, the element of the mystery of being became much less.
By the time of the formation of ancient (Hellenic) artistic activity, the main types of fine art known in our time had time to arise and take shape: architecture, sculpture, painting, relief, vase painting, glyptics, etc. In Ancient Hellas, they received further development, which led to originality and dissimilarity ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian monuments. In the art of the Greeks, at the same time, it is impossible not to notice a lot of new things, in particular, in relation to materials. One of the main innovations was the widespread use of marble instead of strong rocks (granite, basalt, diorite), consonant with the feeling of eternity, besides colored ones, which strengthened the abstraction of Egyptian images from reality. In addition to intaglio, new types of glyptics, such as, in particular, cameo, also became widespread among the Hellenes; Glass vessels also appeared in abundance, and the art of terracotta became very popular.
The tools of the Hellenic sculptors were tongue, scarpel, tra-yanka, rasp, borer. The initial processing was carried out with a tongue, from the blows of the sharp end of which rough marks remained on the surface. Then the stone block was processed more carefully with a scarpel, which, like a tongue, was beaten with a hammer, so that a trace resembling a path remained from the sharp and flat working end of the scarpel. Subsequent finishing was carried out with a tray, leaving small parallel notches. Then the stone was polished with a rasp or sand. To make recesses - auricles, nostrils, folds of clothing, etc. - the Hellenic masters used a drill.
In the art of the Hellenes, sculpture has always occupied the first place in its significance. Even the forms of architecture (for example, the Parthenon) were plastic. Very underdeveloped fresco painting on the plane was of little interest to the Greeks, it was pushed aside during the heyday (5th century BC) by drawings on the spherical surfaces of vessels. The plasticity of the whole worldview of the Greeks is obvious. She also declared herself in the nature of philosophical aphoristic conclusions (“I know that I know nothing”, “Know thyself”, etc.), mythological heroes seem to be tangibly personified ideas, the volumetric-figurative perception of the Greeks of the world and all is striking. elements.
If speculation prevailed in the art of the East, and sometimes not quite clear abstraction, mystery (by the way, they were found later in the art of the Middle Ages), then the image created by the Hellenes (architectural, sculptural, philosophical, poetic, mythological, pictorial) is always extremely specific, it is so clear that, it seems, you can feel it, touch it with your hand.

The plasticity of the perception of the world is the core, the essence of ancient, mainly Hellenic art. In Roman the prerequisites for the transition to a new - medieval, as before antiquity, more speculative, abstract understanding of being and man will already be noticeable.
The art of the ancient Hellenes manifested an exceptional integrity of the aesthetic understanding of the world, a kind of universality of artistic thinking, the ability of one master, far from professional limitations, to express his feelings in different types art, in an architectural structure, statue, ceramics or jewelry. This is how Phidias, Scopas and, probably, many of their fellow tribesmen worked. It was no coincidence that the same qualities of an integral artistic consciousness manifested themselves later, during the years of the High Renaissance, in the work of Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo.
Ellin in his mind perceived himself as a great, harmonious and beautiful person. “The artist, creating them (the statues from the pediment of the Parthenon. - G.S.), hardly had a more perfect nature in front of him than we do,” Goethe said, “the artist grew up himself and, embodying nature, reflected his own high perfection in it .. Whoever wants to do something great must develop his strength to such an extent that he is able, like the Greeks, to raise the lower real nature to the height of his spirit and to make real that which in the phenomena of nature, due to internal weakness or external obstacles, has remained simple. opportunity" 1.
Completeness and integrity, the completeness of the artistic image was characteristic of the art of the ancient Hellenes. The feeling of duality, uncertainty was excluded. The feeling of the joy of suffering that developed strongly in the Middle Ages was alien to Greek art; it did not encourage the embodiment of mutually exclusive, but intertwined emotions. Beauty, in Hellenic art, always had to be logically expressed by the artist and also clearly, without omissions, perceived by the viewer. art for ancient Greek besides, it was not just an adornment, it contained some more serious, morally deep meaning that a person needs in his real life. “Who is beautiful - only one pleases our eyesight, who is good in himself - and he will seem beautiful,” says the poetess Sappho. In the aesthetics of the created images, the Greeks always wanted to see ethical, moral elements. Obviously, in this regard, the poet Theognid writes: "Everything that is beautiful is sweet, and what is not beautiful is not cute." The logical clarity of artistic images, the definiteness and completeness of their forms, as well as plasticity, constitute one of the most important qualities of Hellenic art.
Another, very important, perhaps even the main feature of Hellenic art, which the reader will encounter, is the exceptionally strong metaphorical nature of images.
In the monuments of Ancient Egypt, as noted, their cult essence always came first. Appreciated now, no doubt
1 Eckerman IP Conversations with Goethe in the last years of his life: Per. E. T. Rudneva.- M.; L., 1934.- S. 406-407.

Their enormous aesthetic qualities, no matter how great they were, were subject to religious canons. In Hellas, a new principle of artistic reflection of the world, coexisting with the cult, arises and develops. Metaphors always come to the fore in monuments. Naturally, its manifestations evolve over time, many early works Hellenes still retain extensive dedications carved on marble surfaces to the deities depicted on them. Later in the classics, this tendency disappears, and it is no longer possible to imagine on the leg of Apollo Belvedere or Aphrodite of Melos embossed multi-line appeals to the deity. The statue begins to be perceived not only as a gift from a pilgrim to the all-powerful Olympian, but above all as a work of art. This process, actively developing throughout Hellenic history, led, in fact, to the birth of art. (Although it should be noted that the ancient Greeks did not have a word in their language equivalent to the later term "art".)
Metaphor, characteristic of the art of all times and peoples, arose and manifested itself with particular force, first of all among the Hellenes. We can say that it became the basis of the artistic image. How in famous poem“It stands alone in the wild north ...” the poet speaks not of a pine and a palm tree, but of separated loving souls, and the trees described are nothing but poetic metaphors, and Hellenic images are often painted in new, sometimes unusual, but always bright colors that enrich the perception.
Agesander (m. b. Alexander).
Aphrodite of Melos. Marble.
1st half of the 2nd c. BC e. Paris, Louvre

Metaphor as a deep property of an artistic image based on associative links of an aesthetic nature (requiring its careful, unhurried contemplation and experience) formed the basis of Greek art, and later of everything later - European. The metaphor is complex, it is inextricably linked with the contemplative image and, in essence, "is reflected in it, being, as it were, his, the viewer, quality. The sharper the susceptibility of a person, the more complex, richer and more diverse the metaphorical coloring of the monument seems to him. The more modest his aesthetic luggage, the more colorless the metaphor for it and the less expressive the work of art.
In ancient Egyptian monuments, in many respects, as mentioned, subordinate religious elements perception, the metaphor is not always realized openly and logically, since the master appeals primarily to a miracle, revelation, mysterious insight. The ancient way of artistic and metaphorical understanding and reflection of the world is fundamentally different from the Egyptian one.
Considering the sculptures of the Aegina pediment, where the Achaeans and Trojans are fighting, it must be remembered that in the mind of a person of the 5th century. BC e. this conflict was associated with the war of the Greeks and Persians, which then greatly worried the Hellenic society. The victory of the gods over the giants, depicted on the reliefs of the altar of Zeus in Pergamum, we perceive as a kind of metaphor, an artistic allusion to the triumph of the inhabitants of Pergamum, who defeated their opponents - the Gauls.
The ancient Greeks began to understand that in the living fabric of genuine art, not only the beauty of allegory - a metaphor, but also the possibility of miraculous foresight is hidden. They began to see artists primarily as prophets.
The metaphorical nature of Greek art is especially vividly manifested in the theme of centauromachy. It would be naive to think that the Greeks of the 5th c. BC e. believed in the existence of centaur monsters. The centaur was perceived as a poetic image of a half-human, half-animal, and the victory over him was the triumph of a bright mind over a chaotic and vague half-animal state.
The metaphorical nature of the Hellenes was manifested not only in the philosophical understanding of many mythological images, but also in the attitude of masters to the artistic properties of materials. As if in the very already slightly “melting” marble from the surface, which is especially well suited for the statues of Aphrodite, the meaning of the image was contained. It is no coincidence that the masters preferred bronze in the statues of athletes, which is more consistent with the external qualities of a tanned male body. In the mind of the viewer, the marked properties of the materials were transferred to the qualities of the image. They formed its essence, strengthened its features.
The metaphor also affects the nature of the processing of the material - in the interpretation of its surface. The smoothness of the stone creates one impression of the image, the roughness causes other associations, and the attitude towards the image changes from this. The unpolished, generalized outlined shoulders and the face of a centaur on one of the metopes of the Parthenon are not the result of a flaw in the sculptor. Their difference from marble with more

The body of a Greek wrestling with a monster, with a body-worked surface, contributes to the awareness of the rudeness and uncouthness of a centaur, opposed to a person who is harmonious and clear in his bright thoughts.
Just as the concepts of the chronological framework of antiquity, which revealed itself in a multitude of various styles, manners of all subsequent centuries, including modern times, its territorial boundaries are also conditional. One can only indicate where the initial manifestations of Hellenic art expressed themselves and where Hellenic culture declared itself as a new, unusual, beautiful entity that amazed everyone. Like a goddess emerging from the foam, ancient art, unsurpassed in the beauty of its monuments, revealed itself for the first time in the Aegean basin; it arose, one might say, from the waves, like the beautiful Aphrodite. The islands of Crete, the Cyclades, the Balkan Peninsula, Asia Minor were lands ennobled for the first time by the miraculous sprouts of the Hellenic artistic consciousness. The initially narrow territorial boundaries of ancient art subsequently expanded significantly. They include Spain in the west, the Black Sea coast in the north, Asia Minor cities in the east, and North African cities in the south.
With the attack on the Greco-Roman cities of the barbarians in the first centuries of our era, the boundaries of the influence of the art of the ancient Hellenes narrowed again, but Roman elements declare themselves. Sometimes very unusual works of the Hellenes appear on the periphery - in Spain, Sicily, the Northern Black Sea region, North Africa, southern France, Asia Minor. The peculiarity of the life and life of numerous Hellenic tribes also determines the specifics of art schools (Attic, Doric, Ionic), which are very different from each other and left monuments different in their style.
In the book, the reader will find a lot of information about the works of the Hellenic masters, meet the names of artists and sculptors, learn about the attitude of the ancient Greeks themselves to art. Much of this information comes to modern science from the writings of various ancient authors, and primarily from the miraculously surviving book of Pausanias "Description of Hellas", translated into Russian.
Quite a few monuments, architectural and sculptural, as well as products of applied art (vases, glyptics, terracotta, numismatics, etc.) have been preserved from the art of Hellas. Many works of ancient Greek masters are discovered by archaeologists and now in the places of settlements of ancient people. They are discovered both in Greece itself and in the regions of the Northern Black Sea region, where in the period from the 6th century. BC e. according to the IV century. n. e. ancient cities and towns existed.
It will not be difficult for the reader to see, even without visiting Greece, beautiful monuments of ancient architecture, marble statues, painted ceramic vessels on our land. And it is quite possible that after reading the book, he will become more understandable and close to the ancient Greek works of art with which he will meet in his life.