Religion.

In today’s lesson we discussed religion and what they believed in. They believed that there was many gods. They also believed that the power of gods was central to the Ancient Greek ways of life. They also thought that ritual worship was a part of every day life.

There is lots of gods but we are only going to discuss a few the main ones we choose to talk about were Dionysus, Zeus, Athena and Aphrodite.

Zeus- Zeus was the king of all gods. He was the god off the sky and ruler of the Olympian gods. He also was the cloud and rain gather. His power was that if someone had done something wrong or if he didn’t like someone he could throw a thunderbolt. This would be like a lighting strike and this would go straight down onto the victim, I think this is great because it shows how powerful he is and how big his power is. He was married to Hera (different god). He was a famous for his affairs.

Athena- Athena is the virgin goddess of reason; she is also the god of intelligent activity, arts and literature. This links in to Lysistrata because in the play she is the one that says “we should not have sex with the men until the sign for peace”. They say that she sprung from Zeus head in full grown armour. She’s fierce fighter and brave in battle. She is the embodiment f wisdom, reason and purity. Can you believe the she is Zeus favourite daughter? (Favouritism or what!).

Aphrodite- Aphrodite is the goddess of love desire, and beauty. She’s that powerful she can make any many desire her!! I think that this is incredible. Can you believe it thought that there is two accounts to her birth…. Confusing…..  One is said that she is the daughter of Zeus. The other is that she got washed up on the shore in a scallop. Which you choose to believe how she was born is your choice. She’s married to a god called Hephaestus. She has a favourite lover, he is the lover of war! Ares. She represents sex affection, and the attraction the blinds people together, she has the power of love.

Dionysus- He’s god of fertility and wine. He has the control over how wine makes people feel he can make then feel joy and divine ecstasy. But then on the other side he can make people feel anger and rage. Dionysus also has to power to make a man mad. I think this is incredible; to have the power to make a man mad must be amazing feeling knowing you have that control over someone’s mind! It states the Dionysus was born from Zeus’s thigh, hmmm not quite sure about that. It says this is because Zeus was having an affair with Semele and he never had shown himself to her and she asked for one wish off him and that was to show himself. As he revealed himself to her she was instantly burnt to a crisp. Then that is when Zeus took Dionysus and stitched him to his thigh until he was read to be born.

These 4 gods all are linked in one way or another because they are all linked to Lysistrata. 

Zeus- He’s important to the play because he is like the big dog (main god) so he had controlled of everything. He has control over mercy and revenge.

Dionysus- He seen as a patron (lover) of the arts.

Aphrodite – she was the goddess of the love desire on beauty, this is linked to the play because she wanted to stop sex to stop the war and make peace.

Athena- she’s a virgin and the goddess of the reason, intelligent and activity. She was a defender

Peloponnesian War

Hello guys in todays lesson we discussed the Peloponnesian War. This was very interesting and amazing to learn about.

The Peloponnesian War lastest in total 27 years and ended in 404BC ( 2 decades). Can u believe that the 2 states were at war due to Greed & Jealousy.  Athens was a democracy because it was run by the council so everyone had the write to vote. but because a large portion of the population were for foregin so they they werent actually loud to vote! neither were women.
this was intersting because this was linked to the play Lysistrata, it was linked because the play was written while the war was going on. But Aristophanes didn't stop there he also took the mick out the play and made it in to comedy side. My opinion on why he wrote the play would have to be, that he wanted to show how pathetic everyone is that is involed in the war. Also he saying we are having a war over Greed and Jealousy. 'Seriously'. He just wanted Peace!!. There is also risks writing this becasue some people could of been offend by his writing. Hes a very strong charcater aswel so he would of been able to stick up for himself.!

Aristophanes

Aristophanes was a talented and amazing man. He was born 448BC and then passed away on 385BC so this makes him 63 when he died. As we know Aristophanes wrote many of amazing plays but to this date only a portion of them survive today, on avarage 40 of his plays surived. Furtermore his work is the oldest form of comerdy. We also no the Aristophanes wrote most of his play when the civil war ( Two States in one country, Athens & Sparta). was taking place, he did this because the Civil War gave him somthing to write about and gave in ideas and things to write about. In the lesson we discuss when all his work took place and we did a time line, based all of his work, and during this we found out alot more about Aristophanes. The thing that inspires me the most is the fact he never gave up he has passion about what he wanted to do, he was a fighter! E.g he produced Banqueters ( this play is lost) and entered it into the City Dinoysia (Festival to celebrate the god Dinoysus) and he lost the competition. Then he comes back with the same play the year after, he taken a look at it a changed things and then come on to win 2nd prize. This shows how determind he is. Then  he kept coming back with play after play and wining 1st and 2nd prize, this was with every play he wrote.