Essays on Agora

Introduction:

Many contemporary films have catchy and witty titles, which promote those movies better than their trailers or synopses. The case of the film called “Agora” belongs to one of those few exceptions, where the title says it all, if you know what it means. The word ‘agora’ stood for a ‘gathering place’ in ancient Greece. It was the central point for the Greek community, a meeting point of differences and similarities within the social, economic and political views, and it is exactly where the story within the film finds a crack.

The film “Agora,” released in 2009, ...

1. The word “philosophy” means in Greek “the love/pursuit of wisdom” – considering the first Greek philosophers (the Pre-Socratics), what propelled them to pursue a new kind of “wisdom”? What were they unsatisfied with?

The pre-Socratic philosophers were referred to as physiologoi, meaning physical or natural philosophers. They sought to provide natural and rational justifications for various occurrences. The “essence of things” propelled them to pursue new king of wisdom by posing questions such as; where does everything come from? Can nature be explained mathematically? From what does everything emanate? As such, their concerns were ontology, mathematics, and cosmology. They were unsatisfied with the mythological explanations to the occurrences that were being experienced during their time and sought to provide reasoned explanations to natural occurrences.

2. How are the concepts of Lack (Poverty) and Resourcefulness (Resource) pertinent to Philosophy (and Love, according to Plato)? What does the philosopher lack, what resources does he/she have that enables him/her to attain what is lacking?

The concept of love depicts the fullness ...

The civilization of ancient Greece centered on the Aegean Sea, the region that today includes Greece and the western part of Turkey. Ancient Greece was not a single country ruled by one person. Ancient Greece consists of numerous city-states that share a common language and culture. About 800 B.C. Greeks began to form ‘polis’ or city-states throughout the country. Each polis has its own government. Some city-states had a few thousand inhabitants, but some city-states such as Athens have a total population of 250,000. City-states were set up as far from Greece as France and Spain. There were several different forms of ...

Athens has remained to be seen as a remarkable perennial city in Greece. The political, social, and economic position of the city strategically placed it in the right position for the economic dominance in the country and Europe generally. A city-state is an area with one city centrally located and containing the city residents. The people in Athens undertook a range of activities catalyzed by the development of Athens, which later formed part of the culture. Many people began to adopt the life of the Athenians since the ancient times and they began to unite by the Athenian virtues and values. ...

Ancient Greek Architecture is dated from around 600 BC to the 1st Century AD. The temples, theatres, gateways, tombs, stadiums and other buildings built around this time in the areas under the Greek empire and later, the Hellenic lands constitute the bulk of ancient Greek architecture. This report is a look at some of the best work of that time, the technical and architectural commentary on these structures and the present day relevance of these architectural marvels. Among all, the correctness and strictness of the Greek architectural structures are their most distinctive characteristics. Unlike architectural styles of the past ...