Research Work

Research Work

Please research on the following and post through your blog or to this blog as comment.
1. Peloponnesian War
a) Brief account having the content of who are involved, what are the issues/reasons for the war, how it ended and its result.

• The First Peloponnesian War (460 BC - circa 445 BC) was fought between Sparta as the leaders of the Peloponnesian League and Sparta's other allies, most notably Thebes, and the Delian League led by Athens with support from Argos.

• The reasons for this war are sometimes traced back as far as the democratic reforms of Cleisthenes, which Sparta always opposed. However, the more immediate reason for the war was Athenian control of the Delian League, the vast naval alliance that allowed it to dominate the Mediterranean Sea.The First Peloponnesian War ended in an arrangement between Sparta and Athens, which was ratified by the Thirty Years' Peace (winter of 446–445 BC). According to the provisions of this peace treaty, both sides maintained the main parts of their empires. Athens continued its domination of the sea while Sparta dominated the land. Megara returned to the Peloponnesian League and Aegina becoming a tribute paying but autonomous member of the Delian League. The war between the two leagues restarted in 431 BC and in 404 BC, Athens was occupied by Sparta.

2. Persian War
a) Brief account having the content of who are involved, what are the issues/reasons for the war, how it ended and its result.

• The Greco-Persian Wars (also often called the Persian Wars) were a series of conflicts between the Achaemenid Empire of Persia and city-states of the Hellenic world that started in 499 BC and lasted until 449 BC. The collision between the fractious political world of the Greeks and the enormous empire of the Persians began when Cyrus the Great conquered Ionia in 547 BC. Struggling to rule the independent-minded cities of Ionia, the Persians appointed tyrants to rule each of them. This would prove to be the source of much trouble for the Greeks and Persians alike.

• In 499 BC, the then tyrant of Miletus, Aristagoras, embarked on an expedition to conquer the island of Naxos, with Persian support;^[2] however, the expedition was a debacle and, pre-empting his dismissal, Aristagoras incited all of Hellenic Asia Minor into rebellion against the Persians. This was the beginning of the Ionian Revolt, which would last until 493 BC, progressively drawing more regions of Asia Minor into the conflict. Aristagoras secured military support from Athens and Eretria, and in 498 BC these forces helped to capture and burn the Persian regional capital of Sardis. The Persian king Darius the Great vowed to have revenge on Athens and Eretria for this act. The revolt continued, with the two sides effectively stalemated throughout 497–495 BC. In 494 BC, the Persians regrouped, and attacked the epicentre of the revolt in Miletus. At the Battle of Lade, the Ionians suffered a decisive defeat, and the rebellion collapsed, with the final members being stamped out the following year.

• The allied Greeks followed up their success by destroying the rest of the Persian fleet at the Battle of Mycale, before expelling Persian garrisons from Sestos (479 BC) and Byzantium (478 BC). The actions of the general Pausanias at the siege of Byzantium alienated many of the Greek states from the Spartans, and the anti-Persian alliance was therefore reconstituted around Athenian leadership, as the so-called Delian League. The Delian League continued to campaign against Persia for the next three decades, beginning with the expulsion of the remaining Persian garrisons from Europe. At the Battle of the Eurymedon in 466 BC, the League won a double victory that finally secured freedom for the cities of Ionia. However, the League's involvement in an Egyptian revolt (from 460–454 BC) resulted in a disastrous defeat, and further campaigning was suspended. A fleet was sent to Cyprus in 451 BC, but achieved little, and when it withdrew the Greco-Persian Wars drew to a quiet end. Some historical sources suggest the end of hostilities was marked by a peace treaty between Athens and Persia, the so-called Peace of Callias.

3. Gods and Goddesses of Greece and Rome Compared

Major Gods and Goddesses
Greek	Roman and thier descriptions
Aphrodite	Venus-goddess of beauty
Apollo	Apollo-god of medicine and music
Ares	Mars-god of war
Artemis	Diana-goddess of hunting
Athena	Minerva-goddess of wisdom
Demeter	Ceres-goddess of good harvest
Hades	Pluto-god of the underworld
Hephaistos	Vulcan-god of fire
Hera	Juno-goddess of the marriage women
Hermes	Mercury-messenger of the gods
Hestia	Vesta-goddess of fire and home
Kronos	Saturn-father of the gods and goddess
Persephone	Proserpina-wife of Hades
Poseidon	Neptune-god of the oceans and waters
Zeus	Jupiter-god of lightning and king of the gods

4. Olympics
a)brief history

• Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympic Games, is in the western part of the Peloponnese which, according to Greek mythology, is the island of "Pelops", the founder of the Olympic Games. Imposing temples, votive buildings, elaborate shrines and ancient sporting facilities were combined in a site of unique natural and mystical beauty.

• Olympia functioned as a meeting place for worship and other religious and political practices as early as the 10th century B.C. The central part of Olympia was dominated by the majestic temple of Zeus, with the temple of Hera parallel to it. The ancient stadium in Olympia could accommodate more than 40,000 spectators, while in the surrounding area there were auxiliary buildings which developed gradually up until the 4th century B.C. and were used as training sites for the athletes or to house the judges of the Games.

b)contests/events

• The Greeks invented athletic contests and held them in honour of their gods. The Isthmos game were staged every two years at the Isthmos of Corinth. The Pythian games took place every four years near Delphi. The most famous games held at Olympia, South- West of Greece, which took place every four years. The ancient Olympics seem to have begun in the early 700 BC, in honour of Zeus. No women were allowed to watch the games and only Greek nationals could participate. One of the ancient wonders was a statue of Zeus at Olympia, made of gold and ivory by a Greek sculptor Pheidias. This was placed inside a Temple, although it was a towering 42 feet high.

• The games at Olympia were greatly expanded from a one-day festival of athletics and wrestling to, in 472 BC, five days with many events. The order of the events is not precisely known, but the first day of the festival was devoted to sacrifices. On the Middle Day of the festival 100 oxen were sacrificed in honor of a God. Athletes also often prayed and made small sacrifices themselves..

• On the second day, the foot-race, the main event of the games, took place in the stadium, an oblong area enclosed by sloping banks of earth.

• At Olympia there were 4 different types of races; The first was stadion, the oldest event of the Games, where runners sprinted for 1 stade, the length of the stadium(192m). The other races were a 2-stade race (384 m.), and a long-distance run which ranged from 7 to 24 stades (1,344 m. to 4,608 m.).The fourth type of race involved runners wearing full amor, which was 2-4 stade race (384 m. to 768 m.), used to build up speed and stamina for military purposes.

• On other days, wrestling, boxing, and the pancratium, a combination of the two, were held. In wrestling, the aim was to throw the opponent to the ground three times, on either his hip, back or shoulder. In ancient Greek wrestling biting and genital holds were illegal.

• Boxing became more and more brutal; at first the pugilists wound straps of soft leather over their fingers as a means of deadening the blows, but in later times hard leather, sometimes weighted with metal, was used. In the pancratium, the most rigorous of the sports, the contest continued until one or the other of the participants acknowledged defeat.

• Horse-racing, in which each entrant owned his horse, was confined to the wealthy but was nevertheless a popular attraction. The course was 6 laps of the track, with separate races for whereupon the rider would have no stirrups. It was only wealthy people that could pay for such training, equipment, and feed of both the rider and the horses. So whichever horse won it was not the rider who was awarded the Olive wreath but the owner. There were also Chariot races, that consisted of both 2-horse and 4-horse chariot races, with separate races for chariots drawn by foals. There was also a race was between carts drawn by a team of 2 mules, which was 12 laps of the stadium track.After the horse-racing came the pentathlon, a series of five events: sprinting, long-jumping, javelin-hurling, discus-throwing, and wrestling.

• The ancient Greeks considered the rhythm and precision of an athlete throwing the discus as important as his strength.The discus was a circle shaped stone, iron, bronze, or lead. There were different sizes according to age groups. The javelin was a long wooden stick shape with spear head, similar height to that of a person. In themiddle was bound a thong for a hurler's fingers to grip and guide to the correct angle it was thrown.To Jump long distances athletes used lead or stone weights to increase the length of the jump. These weights were known as 'halteres' were held in front of the athlete during his ascent, and then swung behind his back and dropped during his descent to help propel him.

c)Filipino winners to the Beijing Olympics

5. Great Greek Philosophers: Books written/Philosohies/contribution.