The Golden Age of Greece began after the victory of the Persian Wars. The civilization of Ancient Greece shifted into prosperous and peaceful times from around 500 to 400 B.C. E. This period is called the Golden Age because of all the achievements. The Ancient Greeks made many contributions to the traditions of Western civilization with their literature and ideas about science, mathematics, art, and architecture. A great deal of this came about because of what the Greeks believed about their mighty gods. Most saw their gods as the source of all reason and power. The Greeks believed they could honor their gods and glorify the human body by imitating the deities in sculpture made with marble or bronze. Besides that,
famous philosophers in this period such as Socrates and Plato also influenced the masses with their teachings of Humanism and the encouragement to question. Humanism meant realizing man’s intelligence and ability to reason. The two side’s ideals resulted in being the best they could be in everything they did. Greeks, especially Athenians also took the effort of beautifying their city-states with the use advanced architecture. The literary works of this era include the historical writings of Herodotus, who described the Greco-Persian Wars, and Thucydides who wrote the History of the Peloponnesian War, dramas of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Aristotle.
Greenblatt, Miriam, and Peter S. Lemmo. Human Heritage – A World History. New York:
McGraw-Hill Glencoe, 2001. Print.
“Age of Pericles.” Mlahanas.de/Greeks/History/AgeOfPericles. Version 1.2, November 2002. Free Software Foundation, Inc., 2000-2002. Web. 27 September 2009.