The high point of Classical Greece took place in the 5th century BCE. The city-state of Athens dominated Greece at the time, so the period is often called the Golden Age of Athens. Much of Western civilization’s science, philosophy, art, and literature, laid its foundations during that period.

Classical Greek government and society consisted of city-states. Each city-state’s citizens had its own set of legal and political rights. Free adult men were the most powerful citizens. Their wives, female relatives, and children were citizens without political rights. Nevertheless, Athenian democracy is considered the world’s first democracy. Adult, land-owning men voted directly on bills rather than voting for representatives.

Starting in 499 BCE, Athens and its rival city-state, Sparta, joined to lead a war against the Persian Empire, which was at that time the most powerful empire in the Mediterranean region. The Greeks achieved a surprising victory, and Athens became the leading city-state of the Greek world. For most of the century, Athens led a burst of intellectual, artistic, military, and political growth. The Greek playwrights and poets of that time, such as Asechylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, are still widely read and performed. Golden Age Greek scientists such as Archimedes, mathematicians such as Euclid, and physicians such as Hippocrates, are still considered the forerunners of those modern sciences. Socrates and Plato are among the first, and most important, philosophers. Athens’s greatest democratic leader, Pericles, oversaw much of this growth.

Ancient Athens was a patriarchy, a society ruled by adult men. It offered benefits to the poor and to widows, orphans, the ill, and the homeless. Its public officials tried to fight corruption. Many officials were elected by lot rather than by the citizens’ vote, so that they could not obtain too much lasting power.

Athenian society was divided into clearcut social classes, but its elite were not as vastly wealthy as in most other ancient civilizations. The middle class owned most of the land. Boys were educated at home till age 7. Atl age 18 they were required to enter military service. Athenian women in general received little education and spent their lives taking care of their homes and children.

Source: Ancient Greece and the Golden Age of Athens
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