ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to introduce the artistic, and especially literary, background against which they were writing. Plato and Aristotle both lived in Athens, and so it is the artistic environment of that city which is especially relevant for understanding their work. Drama played an immensely important part in the life of classical Athens. Plays were performed at religious festivals in honour of Dionysus; they were public events, with wealthy citizens being required by law to sponsor them; and they were attended by the mass of the population. Phidias, an Athenian, who flourished in the fifth century BCE, was a sculptor of particular renown; he made both the statue of Zeus at Olympia, recognised as one of the wonders of the world, and that of Athene in the Parthenon at Athens. His name was to be widely used by philosophers as an example of artistic greatness.
