HIST 2A Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Hellenization, Cyropaedia, Companion Cavalry
Document Summary
Focus: exchange between intellectuals and political leaders. Early greek city-states" main concern = application of laws. Political philosophy as solution to problems of the era. Spartans got military and financial assistance from persians. Spartans tore down walls of athens instead of destroying it. Athens continued as intellectual center in greek world. Rash decisions of athenian popular democracy in the war. Capital punishment, sicilian campaign (sending out troops to cities they thought they could conquer easily) Philosophers and athenian elite put him up on charges of corrupting youth elite. Conflict because of history of peloponnesian war (spartans = oligarchists) Convicted out of general anger, put to death by drinking poison. One more strike against political system in eyes of intellectuals. Intellectual response: search for ideal states (plato"s republic) (seemed to look a bit like sparta; model rulers of the past (cyrus i of persia, hercules, etc. ) Persian intervention in peloponnesian war and afterward.
