A Golden Age for Athens? :: World History Essays

A Golden suppurate for Athens? The fifth blow BCE was a period of great festering in AncientGreece, and specifically in Athens. The development of so numerous culturalachievements within Athens and the Athenian Empire has direct scholars to harbor this period a Golden Age. It is true that his period had manyachievements, just in the light of the Athenians treatment of women, metics(non-Athenians living in Athens), and slaves it is given to scruplewhether or not the period can truly be called Golden.The 5th century and the Athenian Empire gave birth to an amazingamount of accomplishments. oneness such accomplishment was the minting ofstandard Athenian coins that were used throughout the Athenian holdings asvalid for trade. The use of standard Athenian-minted coins helped theAthenians establish and maintain accommodate over their empire by helping tocontrol trade and the parsimony of the area to the Athenians benefit.Since Athens regularly received tribute from the states itcontrolled, Pericles, the leader of Athens, began a building run into inAthens that was legendary. Athens had been sacked by the Persians duringthe Persian Wars and Pericles set out to rebuild the city. The cityswalls had already been rebuilt right aft(prenominal) the end of the second PersianWar so Pericles rebuilt temples, public grounds, and new(prenominal) impressivestructures. One of the most 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 overly lavish, most Athenians enjoyed the benefitsof the program. A major benefit to the Athenian people was that on that point wasan abundance of work in the polis.The 5th century BCE was also an crucial 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 emphasizing rationalism over a belief 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 later of great use to citizen addressing the hookup in thedeveloping Athenian democracy.Athenian democracy is perhaps considered the crown 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 crash in the Athenianmilitary, they ga8ined more say in the Athenian government. This led to a