ysippos followed the advice His Apoxyomenos of L c 330 b.c.e., a copy of which is housed in the Museo Pio-Clementino at the Vatican, presents an athlete scraping the oil and dust off his body after a contest, a common occurrence in Greek everyday life Lysippus introduced a new set of proportions for the depiction of the human form resulting in more slender figures than those of the Early Classical Period The body, when depicted, is eight, not seven, times the length of the head, supplanting the more muscular mode of representation introduced by Polyclitus a century earlier As the arms of his figure lift to engage in the action of scraping, they break into the viewer’s space and offer an unobstructed view of the torso This feature emphasizes the sculpture’s three dimensionality and grants it a greater sense of movement Each side offers a different view, forcing onlookers to walk around to fully experience the sculpture As the arms move forward, the back takes on a convex form, typical of the art of Lysippus The final major figure in art of the Late Classical Period was Praxiteles, his signature work being the Hermes and the Infant Dionysus of c 330 b.c.e It presents Hermes, the messenger of the gods, taking the infant Dionysus, god of wine, to the Nymphs, who reared him In Praxiteles’ work, Hermes teases Dionysus by holding up a bunch of grapes that have since broken off along with his right arm The sculpture represents the humanization of the Greek gods and their portrayal as having the same weaknesses and faults as humans The work uses the proportions established by Lysippos, but its elegant quality is Praxiteles’ own He achieved this by exaggerating the S curve of Hermes’s body, idealizing its forms, and giving a dreamy expression to his face Alexander the Great died in 323 b.c.e and his conquered lands were divided among his generals Egypt went to Ptolemy; Mesopotamia, Persia, Syria, and most of Asia Minor to Seleucus; and Macedonia and Greece to Antigonus The outside influences brought by Alexander’s conquests resulted in an art that combined Eastern and Western idioms, marking the end of the Late Classical Period and the beginning of the Hellenistic era, when less restraint and more drama were infused into art See also Greek city-states; Greek drama; Greek mythology and pantheon; Greek oratory and rhetoric; Hellenistic art; Hellenization Further reading: Beard, Mary, and John Henderson Classical Art from Greece to Rome Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001; Belozerskaya, Marina, and Kenneth Lapatin Ancient Greece: Art, Architecture, and History Los Ange- Classical Period, Greek 87 les: J Paul Getty Museum, 2004; Boardman, John Greek Art London: Thames and Hudson, 1964; Burn, Lucilla The British Museum Book of Greek and Roman Art New York: Thames and Hudson, 1992; Fullerton, Mark D Greek Art Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; Lawrence, A W Greek Architecture New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1996; Osborne, Robin Archaic and Classical Greek Art Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998; Sparkes, Brian A Greek Art Oxford: Oxford University Press for the Classical Association, 1991; Spivey, Nigel Jonathan Greek Art London: Phaidon Press, 1997 Lilian H Zirpolo Classical Period, Greek The Greek Classical Period (500–323 b.c.e.) had a vast amount of influence on Western culture in terms of art, literature, philosophy, and architecture This period occurred between the Archaic Period (800–500 b.c.e.) and Hellenistic Period (323–31 b.c.e.) and took place near the Mediterranean and Black Seas Many renowned philosophers and writers appeared at this time, such as Aristotle, Euripides, and Sophocles Greece was a collection of city-states with different forms of government The Classical Period marked the contribution of democracy to Western civilization, with its roots in the city-state of Athens It was an aristocrat, Cleisthenes, who brought the ideas of democracy to Athens in 510 b.c.e The word democracy comes from the Greek word demos meaning “the dominion of the people.” Cleisthenes’ objective was to attain more power for the Greeks in Athens, by giving the people the power to vote Democracy for the Greeks meant that a majority of votes, taken in an assembly (which was every male’s duty when randomly chosen to attend), decided an issue Males who did not attend a required assembly were no longer considered citizens, and their civil rights were taken away There were political conflicts during the Classical Period as well The golden age, during the Classical Period, marked a time when Athens was strong During this time the Greeks waged war on the Persians, who were a great threat with their growing military power, wealth, and size A deadly war broke out in 479 b.c.e., during the Persian invasions, in which the Greeks destroyed the Persians Although Sparta and Athens joined forces in their conquest over the Persians, hostility between the two city-states grew and eventually erupted into a war against each other, known as the Peloponnesian War