4-14-11

  Today in class we finally finished watching and taking notes on the Ancient Greece video.

  Socrates didn't care about his appearance, but only in the mind. He was the leader of a revolution in thinking. It had began far to the east of Greece in Babylon, the start of astronomy. Astronomy spread to current day Turkey. In Greece they started to calculate the movement of the moon and stars. Theres started measuring angles and position of the sun and later wrote the first book on how to sail at night using the stars as navigation.

  Socrates was not interested in the stars and moon. He was more interested in studying the minds of people. He came up with reason, logic, and theory. He loved the city; he walked around there all day talking and debating with whoever he could. He thought that everybody should form their own opinions of things and determine right and wrong for themselves. He was very well known for the quote, "The unexamined life is not worth living".

  During this time Sparta invaded Athens and burned all of their crops. The only thing the Athenians did was watch from the city wall with Pericles as their leader. The city state soon received a giant plague, sweeping out 1/3 of the people, including Pericles. He had planned to make Athens a bigger super power, but all he brought them was sickness and death.

  Neither side of Athens or Sparta were able to defeat each other. Sicily asked Greece for protection and help from another city state associated with Sparta. Greece decided to help them and used 10,000 of their soldiers. It was a long time before anybody heard anything back and then nothing came at all. Athens and Sicily badly lost. Two fleets of tryrines were destroyed and 50,000 Athenian and Sicily soldiers were either killed or taken prisoner. With their navy force diminished, enemies of Athens knew it was time to take over.

  The people were starving and so they decided to go to Athena, but she offered no help. In 404 B.C. Athens surrendered to the Spartan leader Lysander. The Athenians navy was pretty much destroyed except for an exception of 12 ships.

  The people thought that Socrates was the reason why Athens had lost so badly. He always questioned the supremency  of Athens's future. Socrates was arrested and was tried by a jury of some of his fellow citizens. Socrates didn't show any fear; he was actually kinda stubborn. He was sentenced to death from a poison called Hemlock.