A Golden Age for Athens? :: World History Essays

A Golden Age for Athens? The 5th century BCE was a current of great development in AncientGreece, and specifically in Athens. The development of so many culturalachievements within Athens and the Athenian Empire has led scholars todeem this period a Golden Age. It is true that his period had manyachievements, but in the light of the Athenians treatment of women, metics(non-Athenians living in Athens), and slaves it is given to questionwhether or not the period can truly be called Golden.The 5th century and the Athenian Empire gave birth to an amazingamount of accomplishments. One such accomplishment was the minting ofstandard Athenian coins that were used through go forth the Athenian holdings asvalid for trade. The use of standard Athenian-minted coins helped theAthenians establish and maintain discover over their empire by helping tocontrol trade and the economy of the area to the Athenians benefit.Since Athens regularly received tribute from the states itcontrolled, Pericles , the leader of Athens, began a building project inAthens that was legendary. Athens had been looted by the Persians duringthe Persian Wars and Pericles set out to rebuild the city. The cityswalls had already been rebuilt right after the end of the second PersianWar so Pericles rebuilt temples, public grounds, and new(prenominal) impressivestructures. One of the or so famous structures to result from Periclesbuilding project was the Parthenon. The Parthenon and other suchstructures re-established Athenss glory and while some Athenianscriticized the projects as too lavish, most Athenians enjoyed the benefitsof the program. A major benefit to the Athenian people was that there wasan abundance of work in the polis.The 5th century BCE was also an important time for Athenianthought. Sophists, paid teachers, taught rhetoric amongst other subjectsto wealthy Athenian citizens. The Sophists were criticized by Athenianswho thought that Sophists were destroying Greek tradition by emphasizi ngrationalism over a public opinion in superstition, however it was this rationalismthat became so important to Greek philosophers such as Socrates and Plato,both who belonged to the 5th century BCE. The Sophists high regard forrhetoric was subsequently of great use to citizen addressing the Assembly in thedeveloping Athenian democracy.Athenian democracy is perhaps considered the crowning achievementof the 5th century BCE. Democracy grew out of the status that poorerAthenians were gaining as rowers for the ships of the large Athenian fleet.Since these poorer Athenians now played a large part in the Athenianmilitary, they ga8ined more say in the Athenian government. This led to a