OPUS PROJECT,Parts & Whole

This past week in History and Theory class we began to study Greek culture and architectural forms. Much of the source of Greek sculpture and architecture derived from the Egyptians with the post and lintel construction.
"Plato wrote in Epinomis, "Whatever the Greeks acquired from foreigners is finally turned by them into something nobler." p.216 Roth. Greece being made up primarily of islands and a peninsula attached to the mainland by an ithmus at Corinth. This land was stretched out from Crete to Egypt. Due to the lack of land their major source of commerce was the seaway, the Aegean Sea. The Greeks became major sea men, (sailors) and still are in present time. The Greeks had a agricultural system based on small farms because of the geographically the land was mountainous rough and rocky made up of limestone and marble. The Greeks had to trade with neighboring countries which later they conquered and colonized.
The Greeks were the first group of people to develop city/states and a democrat governmental system. One was a citizen of the state they were born in. Even though one might be considered a citizen of Greece there still was a social hierarchy class system. Their government was ruled by land owning men. The Greeks had a quest for knowledge and much of their source for the knowledge of geometry and astronomy came from Egypt and Meseopotamia.
Thales of Miletos after learning about mathematics from the Egyptians, came up with the concept of atoms, the smallest indivisible components of all matter. p. 220 Roth. The Greeks had an innate love of logic(logos ) meaning reason, idea, conception, or word" a natural order the opposite would be chaos. p.220 Roth .

The Greek pursued balance and symmetry, (summetria); everything having like measure was the ideal. The philosopher Heraclitus stated "Measure and logos are firm in a changing world". He described the cosmos as a balance between heaven and earth, night and day, health and disease. p. 220 Roth. Another philosopher Pythagoras of Samos believed that all natural philosophy was based on numbers. He discovered the basis of musical harmony. He and other developed mathematical proofs for the triangular and square numbers first used by the Egyptians and Mesopotamians, another source of their knowledge. The Greeks believed that a "an is the measure of all things". Socrates believed that truth could only be found by questioning, refinement and testing." The Greeks believed that the gods did not reveal all knowledge but as time went on my searching and seeking all truths would be revealed. The Greeks endeavor to achieve excellence in human endeavors music, poetry, crafts, government, sculpture and architecture was known as "Arete" which could be obtained through completion. A person of arete did all thing well and keep in balance. This meant a well ordered person endeavored to exercise strength, restraint, value over quantity and noble struggle over pure competition. They regularly sponsored contest , at Argolis, Crinth, Delphi, and Olympia in search of arete.
. p 221 Roth. The Greeks identified themselves as hellenes, and their land as Hellas.