Greek Odyssey

Athenians were part of the whole Greek society that believed in the gods who lived on top Mount Olympus, the highest point in Greece. They saw them as having control over every aspect on earth and in order to bring great blessings upon themselves they paid honours to the gods. These honours were paid in the form of sacrifices, offerings like works of art, money and other valuables to the gods’ sanctuaries, and festivals of songs, dances, prayers, and processions. For the first eight days of every month, Athens honoured the gods through a festival; on the third day Athena’s birthday was celebrated, Artemis’ birthday being celebrated on the sixth day, and her brother Apollo being honoured the next day. The Acropolis, which was reconstructed by …show more content…
This lead to them believing that they were more culturally advanced than the other city states, as they built temples as a place where they could worship the gods and make sacrifices to them. As seen in Pericles’ Funeral Oration, recorded by Thucydides “We celebrate games and sacrifices all the year round, and the elegance of our private establishments forms a daily source of pleasure and helps to banish the spleen; while the magnitude of our city draws the produce of the world into our harbour, so that to the Athenian the fruits of other countries are as familiar a luxury as those of his own" – it clarifies that the city of Athens saw themselves as more culturally advanced due to the money they had to build these temples and have these games and …show more content…
From the records of Thucydides it is written that “most Athenians were born and bred [in the countryside]; they grumbled at having to move their entire households” showing the impact that the Peloponnesian wars had on the lives of Athenian citizens. During the invasion of the countryside, even in a short time of forty days, the Spartan army was able to inflict losses on the Athenian countryside that were felt strongly by the residents of these countryside homes. Flee of the Athenians resulted in them residing behind the city walls; the crammed nature of this faced the people with an epidemic disease (the plague) which ravaged Athens’ population for several years – beginning in 430BCE. The plague was due to the Athenians being crammed together in unsanitary conditions with symptoms beings; vomiting, convulsions, painful sores, uncontrollable diarrhoea, and extreme fever and thirst. The disease thus destroyed Athenian confidence in their relationship with the gods – “As far as the gods were concerned, it seemed not to matter whether one worshipped them or not because the good and the bad were dying indiscriminately” as described by Thucydides about the population’s attitude at the peak of the disease, as well as their confidence in