Top 10 things to know about ancient Greece and the arts

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Originally uploaded by Luis Manuel Guaida

1. Democracy and art was enabled partly by the system of slavery.
2. The Greek Empire, which preceded the Roman Empire, included parts of Turkey and Italy. See Greek temples in 3 nations.
3. The Minoan civilization, on the island of Crete, preceded the rise of Athens, the center of art, and Sparta, the center of militarism.
4. The city-states of Sparta and Corinth as well as the temples at Olympia are on a peninsula known as the Peloponnesus.
5. Greek pottery is so finely painted that it is an important source of historic evidence. Their pottery resembles photography.
6. Helmets, shields and ships show that the Greeks had a taste for the fine curve and graceful proportion. They had a high sense of the
aesthetic: artistic beauty and taste.
7. The Spartans pursued the art of war, the Athenians were equally serious about the aesthetics in every other phase of life.
8. The name of the great temple above Athens is the Parthenon, named for Athena Parthenos, "Athena the the virgin." Btw, here we see a connection with Mary, virgin mother of Jesus. The mesa on which the extraordinary temple is built is the Acropolis (acrophobia, fear of heights).
9. The shocking realism achieved by Greek sculptors is perhaps exemplified by the Discus Thrower created by Myron of Eleutherae about 450 BC.
10. Spa, a word denoting a health center, is an acronym for the 3 great Athenian thinkers: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. "Spa" gives us the chronological order.