Answer to Question 1
During the sixth century B.C.E., a small group of Greek thinkers introduced methods of intellectual inquiry that combined careful observation, systematic analysis, and the exercise of pure reason. These individuals, whom we call philosophers (literally, lovers of wisdom), laid the foundations for Western science and philosophy.
The Naturalists reasoned that there must be a single unifying substance that formed the basic stuff of nature. They asked, What is everything made of? How do things come into existence? and What permanent substance lies behind the world of appearance? Leucippus of Miletus theorized that physical reality consisted of minute, invisible particles that moved ceaselessly in the void. These he called atoms, the Greek word meaning indivisible. Democritus, a follower of Leucippus and the best known of the naturalist philosophers, developed the atomic theory of matter. According to this materialist view, atoms moved constantly and eternally according to chance in infinite time and space. The atomic theory survived into Roman times, and, although forgotten for 2,000 years thereafter, it was validated by physicists of the early twentieth century. Pythagoras, the founding father of pure mathematics, believed that proportion, discovered through number, was the true basis of reality.
The Humanists turned their attention from the world of nature to the realm of the mind, from physical matters to moral concerns, and from the gathering of information to the cultivation of wisdom. Athens' foremost Humanist philosopher, Socrates, insisted on the absolute nature of truth and justice, describing the ethical life as belonging to a larger set of universal truths and an unchanging moral order. For Socrates, virtue was a condition of the psyche, the seat of both the moral and intellectual faculties of the individual. Hence, understanding the true meaning of virtue was preliminary to acting virtuously: to know good is to do good. His pupil, Plato, believed there was a higher reality of eternal truths, which he called Forms, and was distinct from the imperfect and transient objects of sensory experience, which were mere copies of Forms. Plato's Theory of Forms proposes that all sensory objects are imitations of the Forms, which, like the simplest mathematical equations, are imperishable and forever true.
Answer to Question 2
Athens, the most cosmopolitan of the city-states, was unique among the Greek communities, for the democratic government that came to prevail there was the exception rather than the rule in ancient Greece. In its early history, Athenslike most of the other Greek city-stateswas an oligarchy,that is, a government controlled by an elite minority. But after a series of enlightened rulers, the Popular Assembly, in 508 B.C.E., acquired the right to make laws and Athens became the first direct democracy in world history.
In the democracy of ancient Athens, Athenian citizens exercised political power directly (unlike the United States, which is a republic). Fundamental to Athenian democracy was a commitment to the legal equality of its participants: one citizen's vote weighed as heavily as the next. Athenian democracy was, however, highly exclusive. Its citizenry included only landowning males over the age of eighteen. Of an estimated population of 250,000, this probably constituted some 40,000 people. Women, children, resident aliens, and slaves did not qualify as citizens. The small size of Athens probably contributed to the success of its unique form of government. Although probably no more than 5,000 Athenians attended the Assembly that met four times a month to make laws in the open-air marketplace (the Agora) located at the foot of the Acropolis, these men were the proponents of a brave new enterprise in governing.
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