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Western Civ. Id
The Age of Pericles
and The Athenian
Empire
Page 5
Greek Thought
Alexander the Great
The Hellenistic World
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Page 13
Page 17
THE RISE OF ATHENS
Today, we must look at the second great polis, that of the Athenians. As we did in the
case of Sparta, we must first look at the geography of Athens and the influence of
that geography on her growth.
The territory of the Athenians occupied a rocky peninsula in central Greece called Attica. Unlike Laconia, the
Spartan homeland, the area of Attica included very little good farmland. It was generally a poor region except for silver.
The city of Athens itself was about five miles from the coast, but it was near enough to use several good harbors in her
territory. This meant that if Athens were to become an important state, she would have to rely on trade rather than
farming. Before 500 B.C. when Athenian trade was still limited, the polis remained backward and relatively weak. But as
her trade developed after 500, she became one of the most powerful and most progressive of all the Greek city-states.
The dialect of Attica is closely related to the Ionian (Iconic) dialects. This means that the original population of Attica
were predominately Mycenaean Greeks who lived in Attica before the start of the Iron Age.
Evidence about the earliest organization of the Athenian polis is limited, but there is enough information to give at
least some idea of the conditions there. As I suggested above, Athens remained relatively backward during her early
history. This is reflected in her constitution, which remained an aristocracy dominated by a few families as late as 600 B.C.
In the executive branch of government the basileus was replaced by a board or committee of nine officials called archons
Like the ephors of Sparta, the archons were elected each year. Each official was responsible for some aspect of the
administration – war, religion, justice, etc. The council at Athens was called boule, and in the earliest period this body had
considerable powers. The council was made up of former archons. After their year as archon was over, the officials
became permanent members of the boule. There was an assembly which elected officials and made important decisions,
but it could take action only on those matters that the boule placed before it. Thus, the boule had the greatest role in
policy-making.
Participation in this early government was limited in two ways. Like Sparta, Athens had expanded in the years before
600, taking into its system many outlying farms and villages. The people who were annexed in this fashion were not
citizens. They had no role in government at all. Even in the citizen-body itself there were restrictions. All citizens could
vote in the assembly, but only members of certain families could hold the archonship.
P a g e 1 o f 31
whom the money was borrowed. Even if he had
been cheated, the farmer usually could not get
satisfaction because the man who cheated him
was likely to be a cousin of the judge.
This then was the condition of Athens in 600
B.C. We saw earlier that Sparta also had an
oppressive system and that the Spartan system
never changed. In Athens, the economic
conditions were so bad that change was
necessary. Between 600 B.C. and 500 B.C.,
events occurred that completely remade the
Athenian state.
Reform under Solon
Attica shown inside the blue circle.
These families were called eupatridae, nobly born. They
dominated politics by holding the archonship and
controlling the boule. This system was extremely unstable
because of the bad economic conditions in Attica. Before
600 most persons in the region were still farmers, and the
limited farmland made it difficult for these persons to make
a living.
Between 750 and 600, the population of Attica
gradually increased. As it did, it became increasingly more
difficult for farmers to produce enough food to feed the
whole family. In bad years, these small farms would have to
borrow food from their richer neighbors, the eupatridae, who
might have some left over. Once a farmer fell into debt, it
was hard for him to pay off, for he now had to produce
enough to feed his family and also enough to pay back what
he had borrowed. By 600, many persons – perhaps most of
them– had become permanent debtors. They merely paid a
fixed sum to a wealthy neighbor with no hope of completely
clearing the debt. Worse yet, they were sometimes cheated
by their creditors, who might charge high and unreasonable
interest.
As conditions worsened, the farmers appealed to the
government for help, but the government was unwilling to
do anything. The government was controlled by the
eupatrid families, and the eupatrids were the men from
The reform began in 594 B.C. when the danger
of revolution became so great that the eupatrids
agreed to allow reform. They appointed a man
archon, for one year with the power to introduce
whatever changes he wished. The man chosen
for this was named Solon. He was a eupatrid
himself, but he placed the interests of the city
above those of the aristocracy to which he
belonged. He reformed the basis of participation
in government by allowing any persons with
wealth to hold the archonship and sit on the
boule. In this way, he converted the city from an aristocracy
with an oligarchy. Office holding was now dependent on
wealth, not birth. This may not seem an improvement, but
it was. Now any citizen could become archon provided he
made a lot of money first. As a related reform, Solon gave
citizenship to some people who were not citizens before.
A second notable reform of Solon was to publish the
laws of the polis. Before this time, there was no written law.
The archons merely kept the law in their heads, so that they
could change the interpretation of it whenever they wanted.
Solon put the laws on tablets in the city. After Solon’s time,
the laws were available for anyone who wanted to read
them. This ended irregular justice. Finally, Solon attacked
the problem of debt by merely abolishing all the debts
outstanding in his time.
Solon also created laws that made it illegal to export
grain. These agricultural laws were very important. Since it
was illegal to export grain, eupatrid farmers were
encouraged to find some other crop to export. The best
crop for the export market was olives. But, it takes over
twenty years to produce olive oil from scratch. You have to
plant trees that take two decades to mature. You also have to
invest in oil mills. This change in Athenian crop production
was only a logical choice for wealthy farmers. It had the
effect of setting back Athenian aristocrats by two decades.
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Peisistratos’ Tyranny
The main failing of Solon’s program was in the debt
abolition. He had ended the debt, but he had done nothing
to prevent new debts in the future. After about fifty years,
the situation was right back where it started. This led to the
establishment of a tyranny at Athens (549-10). You may
remember that a tyrant was an illegal ruler who would seize
control of the government of a city in times of unrest. In
Athens the tyrant was a man named Peisistratos, who
gained the support of the small farmers for his rule. He was
absolute leader from 549-517, when he died. He made all
the decisions and dominated the other organs of
government. After his death, the position of tyrant was
taken by his son Hippias, who continued to rule until 510.
The tyrants did nothing to alter Athenian government,
but they carried out many reforms to improve the economic
system. Peisistratos reformed the money system in a way
that promoted the growth of trade and commerce. He took
other steps to encourage trade. He created many new
religious ceremonies to attract visitors and tourist money to
the city. And he built many new temples to provide jobs for
those who could not make a living as farmers. These actions
effectively relieved the economic pressures on Athens. By
making Athens a commercial city rather than an
agricultural one, Peisistratos provided alternative jobs for
depressed farmers. He also further reduced the power of
the Athenian aristocrats whose power base was rural rather
than urban. By increasing the political power of those who
lived in the city and took part in merchant activities,
Peisistratos both reduced the power of the eupatridae and also
changed the focus of Athenian politics. This policy was
disastrous for the tyranny. Once economic unrest was
alleviated, no one wanted a tyrant any more. Thus, in 510,
Hippias was driven out and legal government restored.
Although evidence is uncertain, Cleisthenes apparently
got a bill extending citizenship to most of the free
inhabitants of Attica who were not already citizens (called
metics). Metics were non-Athenians who had moved to
Athens to take part in the trade and mercantile activities of
the city. Their interests were primarily urban rather than
rural. So, their participation in Athenian government was
more focused on city activity than rural, which further
diluted the influence of the country aristocrats. He lowered
the property requirements for holding the archonship so
that all but the very poorest citizens were eligible to serve.
But the most important reforms had to do with the way the
Assembly conducted its business. The old council of
archons was deprived of its power to arrange business of
the assembly. In its place a new council was created called
the Council of 500.
The Council of 500 was made up of 500 men chosen
annually by lot. They were not elected, and the membership
changed each year. The lots were drawn in a way that the
council would represent a cross-section of the whole demos.
This was an important reform because it made the assembly
essentially an independent body. They assembly could not
only make decisions but also decide what questions required
debate. In essence, the Athenian assembly became a real
deliberative legislative body under Cleisthenes, and since it
was made up of a fairly broad range of Athenian citizens,
Athens became pretty democratic.
The reforms of Cleisthenes essentially changed the
government at Athens from an oligarchy to a democracy for
the first time. Once democracy was established, Athens
began to progress very rapidly as a result of her developing
commerce. Between 500 and 479 B.C., Athens emerged as
a major power in the Greek world, and we need to consider
this development now.
Themistocles and Athenian Sea Power
Reforms of Cleisthenes
The end of the tyranny paved the way for new changes
in the government itself. The economic policies of
Peisistratos had greatly strengthened the craftsmen and
merchants of Athens, who were unhappy with the older
system of oligarchy. Two years after the end of tyranny in
508, a reformer named Cleisthenes pushed a reform of the
government through the assembly.
The man responsible for the growth of Athenian power
was named Themistocles. He was the major Athenian
leader from the 480s to 471, and he perceived that it was
necessary to have a strong navy if trade was to become
strong. Under his leadership, the Athenians built a navy of
200 ships, which was by far the largest fleet in the Greek
world.
Cleisthenes eliminated the four traditional tribes, which
were based on family relations and also gave more power to
rural citizens, and organized citizens into ten tribes
according to their area of residence (their deme). He also
established legislative bodies run by individuals chosen by
lot, rather than kinship or heredity.
This Athenian fleet proved to be a decisive factor in a
series of terrible wars that broke out after 500 between the
Greek cities and the newly formed Persian Empire. Now
you should remember that the Persians began expanding
around 550 B.C. and that they succeeded in conquering
most of the Near East.
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One group of states that fell under Persian control were the Ionia Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor. The Ionians
resented the Persian control, and they led an unsuccessful revolt against Persia from 499-493.
The Persian Wars
During the revolt, Athens attracted the hatred of Persia by sending some limited aid to the rebels in Ionia. This revolt
was none of Athens’ business, but they felt close to the Ionians because they spoke the same Greek dialect. To punish the
Athenians for this aggression, the Persians sent a small army to attack Attica in 490 B.C. To the surprise of everyone, the
Athenians were able to defeat the invasion at the Battle of Marathon.
This defeat only antagonized the Persians further. After conquering the great states of Asia, the Persians were not
about to be beaten by an insignificant little polis like Athens. For various reasons, however, the Persians were unable to take
any action against the Greeks until 480. In that year, the Persians invaded Greece again with a fleet of 800 ships and an
army of 180,000 men. It was the largest military expedition ever seen. The Persian goal in this campaign was to take over
the whole of Greece and incorporate it into their empire.
Many Greek states were so frightened at the size of the Persian forces that they immediately surrendered to the
invaders. But a small group, including Athens and Sparta, decided to fight against the seemingly overwhelming odds. The
Greeks had only 50,000 men and 354 ships. The Greeks suffered some defeats. In fact, the city of Athens was actually
captured and burned by Persia. Despite these losses, the invasion was finally repulsed. The Persian fleet was almost
destroyed at the battle of Salamis off the coast of Attica in 480. The next year, 479, the Persian army was also defeated by
Spartans at Plataea in central Greece.
Conclusion
As I mentioned at the beginning of my lecture, the development of Athens follows an unusual pattern. In 600, she
lagged far behind most other Greek states, but by the early 400s, she is rapidly becoming the leading polis of Greece.
Through most of this period, she was plagued by serious economic and political problems that were gradually solved by
placing greater emphasis on commerce and by the development of democratic government.
The victory which was won in the Persian War tended to confirm the Athenian belief that they had been moving in
the right direction. To be sure, other Greeks also helped in the defeat of Persia. Sparta provided most of the land forces,
and other cities also contributed. To some extent, this was a victory of the polis with its idea of shared government over
the absolute monarchy of the East.
But the Athenians believed that they had made a special contribution to the ultimate Greek success, and in fact they
had. Without the large Athenian fleet, the Greeks could not have won the battle of Salamis and probably could not have
won the war. This victory then gave the Athenians a great deal of confidence in themselves and in their form of
government.
Next time we shall see that this confidence was very dangerous both to the Athenians and to their neighbors.
P a g e 4 o f 31
The Age of Pericles and
The Athenian Empire
At the end of my last lecture, I talked about the growth of Athens as a great naval
power and her role in the defeat of the Persians in 479. Today we shall see how her
power continued to grow after the war. The continuing ascendency of Athens in the
middle part of the 400s was the direct result of continuing conflict between the
Greeks and the Persians.
After the defeat of their army in 479, the Persians
withdrew their forces from the mainland of Greece,
but that did not mean that the threat from Persia was
ended completely. Persia still controlled the Ionian
Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor just across the
Aegean. In this position, it was always possible that
they might mount a new invasion of Greece at any
time.
For this reason, a number of Greek states decided
to set up an alliance to continue the war until Persian
influence had been eliminated from the Aegean area
entirely. In the winter of 478/477, they agreed to set
up a new defensive league for the purpose of
prosecuting the war. The participating cities were
mainly from the Aegean islands and the northern
parts of Greece. Because Sparta did not want to
involve her armies in such long-range operations, she
and the other members of the Peloponnesian League
did not belong.
The headquarters of the league was established
on the island of Delos in the center of the Aegean.
For that reason, the alliance was know as the Delian
League. The league was a military assistance pact
similar to NATO.
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The Delian League
Each member of the alliance was required to contribute
to the military effort according to its means. Large cities
gave ships and men for the forces. Smaller cities merely gave
money to finance operations. The league members were to
meet each year to decide on the strategy for the year to
come. Each city had one vote. Since Athens had the largest
fleet, she was selected to lead the
forces of the League. She supervised
the collection of the money, and she
fur nished the commanders for
military operations.
This alliance was extremely
successful in its efforts against Persia.
By 450 B.C., all of the Ionian cities of
Asia Minor had been freed from
Persian domination. Persian influence
was eliminated. As the Greeks of Asia
Minor became free, they too joined
the Delian League so that the
influence of the alliance gradually
grew. And, of course, the influence of
Athens, as the leader of the alliance,
also grew whenever the league
expanded.
The growth of Athenian power
in foreign policy was accompanied by
a great advance in the internal
organization and prosperity of the
polis as well. The man most responsible
for this progress was Pericles.
received pay for any public service. This meant that poorer
citizens often had to work during the assembly meetings.
Now they could all go.
This system was a perfect democracy because every
citizen could hope to hold office and to influence the
making of policy. If a man was dissatisfied with the way the
government was run, all he had to do was got
to the next assembly meeting and say so. If
enough other citizens agreed with him, they
could vote to change things. This meant that
a man would could speak well and
persuasively in the assembly often had great
influence in policy even if he did not hold any
public office proper. Such men were called
demagogues, which means leader of the
demos. Remember that demagogue is not an
office. Frequently demagogues were so
popular that they might hold the elective
office of general. This is how Pericles could
be a major leader for thirty years. Many but
not all of those years he was general.
Pericles
c. 495 BC - 429 BC
Pe r i c l e s w a s a l s o n o t e d f o r o t h e r
accomplishments at Athens. He adopted
policies to foster trade and commerce. He
supervised most of the rebuilding of Athens
after the destruction of the Persian War. He
was responsible for the Parthenon and the
major buildings we associate with Athens
today.
Strengths & Failings of the Athenian Polis
Pericles of Athens
The major accomplishment of Pericles internally was
the perfection of the Athenian system of democratic
government. This system had continued to grow more
democratic since the time of Cleisthenes in 508; now it was
completed. At some point, probably during the time of
Themistocles, the archons, who were the major officers of
the state, ceased to be elected. Instead, they were chosen
strictly by lot. There was a drawing, and the men whose
names came up were archons. Thereafter the only officials
who continued to be elected were a committee of ten
generals, who led the armies. The generals had to be elected
because their jobs were too technical to be left to chance.
Pericles was responsible for two measures which
extended democracy even further. First, he eliminated the
last property requirements for holding office. Now, any
Athenian could be archon if his name came up. Second, he
introduced the practice of paying any person who served in
public office. This was important because previously, no one
The argument can be made, I think, that the ideals and goals
of the Greek polis reached their highest realization in the activities
of Athens in the time of Pericles. Unfortunately, however, the failings of the polis are also most evident in this period.
These failings became obvious in the relations between Athens and her allies in the Delian League. As time went on, the
other allies fell progressively under Athenian influence. All the
other cities were much weaker than Athens, and it was difficult for
them to resist policies that she favored. It was in the nature of the
polis everywhere that Athens, once put in this position of power,
would pursue policies in her own interest rather than the policies
in the interests of the whole alliance. In a city-state, only the rights
and interests of the citizens were considered important. Others
had no rights. By the same thinking, other city-states besides your
own did not have any rights either. Thus, if a city-state had the
opportunity to dominate and manipulate her neighbor, she would
not hesitate to do so.
P a g e 6 o f 31
Gradually therefore, the Athenians came more and
more to interfere with the activities of the Delian-League
members in order to achieve her own ends. In some cases
these ends were political and strategic. She tried to increase
her advantage in respect to other states. In other cases, the
ends were economic. Many communities which had not
joined the league were attacked and forced to participate in
its operations. Usually Athens justified the attacks by saying
that these cities were benefitting from the wars against
Persia without contributing to them. But in some cases these
cities were attacked because they were in a favorable
position in the Athenian world. Occasionally, a member of
the league would try to withdraw from the alliance, and that
member would be forced to rejoin. In some of these
communities, the Athenians stationed troops and ships to
prevent new disaffection in the future. Occasionally, the
simply set up new governments with officials friendly to
Athens. Some allies were persuaded or coerced into
adopting the Athenian system of money and Athenian
weights and measures so that they would find it easier to
trade with Athens than with other states.
The greatest Spartan problem was that Athens
controlled the sea. By the second war, it became evident
that Sparta must have a navy to defeat the Athenians. In
412, Sparta made a deal with the Persians to return the
Ionian cities to Persia in exchange for money to build ships.
That is how the Spartans eventually won out.
The destruction of the political power of the polis was a
much more gradual process. It is evident from 404 to 338
B.C. Like many great conflicts, the Peloponnesian Wars
disillusioned most of the Greeks who participated in them.
Greeks had once believed that loyalty to a polis was the most
important feeling that a man could have. But they now saw
that such loyalty could lead to terrible destruction. After
404, loyalty to the state is replaced by more personal
concerns and interests. Moreover, the example which
Athens had set was an invitation to other cities to create
similar empires based on alliances in the Aegean.
Other Attempts at Empire
Following the war, Sparta abandoned her conservative
foreign policy and forced many other states into one-sided
alliances with her. In the 370s, another polis, Thebes, tried
the same thing. These efforts at imperialism provoked
numerous wars, and there was almost constant conflict in
Greece from 404 to 338.
Finally, in 454 B.C., the Athenians arbitrarily moved
the headquarters of the league from Delos to Athens, where
it would be more secure. They insisted that a part of the
money collected for military purposes should be paid to
Athens for guarding the treasury. With this event, the Delian
No single city had the men and resources to achieve any
League ceased to be an alliance and became instead an sort of permanent hegemony over the city-states of Greece.
Athenian empire.
All these conflicts did was to drain the resources of the cityThe ultimate results of the high-handed Athenian states and make them vulnerable to the aggression of other
policy in the Delian League were first the destruction of the Greek states with more centralized forms of government.
Athenian Empire, and in the long run, the destruction of
In the 400s the Greek polis system, exemplified by the
the polis as the main form of government in Greece.
highly successful Athenian polis, reached its height. But by
the end of the century, both Athens and the polis had gone
The Peloponnesian Wars
into decline. At its high point Athens probably came closer
The destruction of the Athenian Empire was achieved to achieving the theoretical objectives of the polis than any
by two serious wars between Athens and Sparta at the end other city-state. In government it achieved a system in
of the 400s. These wars are known as the Peloponnesian which all citizens participated on as equal a footing as was
Wars (431-421, 415-404). You may remember that the possible to achieve. I might say that the citizens made up
Spartans usually tried to prevent the growth of powerful more than half of the population. Athens also achieved
states in Greece as part of their traditional foreign policy. extraordinary heights of intellectual expression, which we
Thus, they viewed the growth of Athenian power with shall be looking at later on.
alarm, and that eventually led to the outbreak of hostilities.
Of course, Athens also became the first major Greek
Almost every state in the Greek world was involved in the
imperial
power in the same period, extending her power at
war on one side or the other.
the expense of others. Many modern writers find the
On the Athenian side, the wars did not go well because imperialism hard to reconcile with the achievements of
the assembly made all of the decisions. In a time of crisis, it Athens, but in fact they go together. The same loyalties and
is difficult to make consistent policies when everybody has to ambitions that made the Athenians excel in intellectual and
be consulted about them. If Pericles had lived, Athens political pursuits also made them want to dominate other
might have won; but he died in 429, and the later Athenian cities.
leaders were not as capable as Pericles.
P a g e 7 o f 31
It was this drive for supremacy that eventually brought Athens and the polis system to ruin. Historians sometimes
criticize the Greeks for not finding a way to unite their diverse cities in a political system based on the polis. Why, they ask,
couldn’t the Greeks build a Greece-wide state in which all Greeks participated as citizens on an equal basis? But this was
not possible, if you look closer. In order for the Greeks to participate in government in the manner of the polis, the Greek
state had to be small. In Greece, the right of a citizen did not stop with the right to vote. The citizen had to be able to
participate directly in the polis, to sit in the assembly, and to hold office. In such a system, the number of citizens had to be
limited.
P a g e 8 o f 31
Greek
Thought
In the last few lectures, I have been tracing the political history of the Greeks. They created the roots of many modern political ideas. They also made vast contributions to
other areas of intellectual life.
Three basic traits mark Greek art and literature at its height. They are so
fundamental that I want to begin by looking at them separately.
The first trait of Greek culture is humanism. Humanism is a concern for man and
his problems. Near Eastern culture centered on the gods, but from the beginning,
Greeks were always more concerned with man.
A second trait is rationalism. Rationalism is the belief that we can learn the truth
about things through reason and logical argument. Greeks generally thought that there
were regular patterns and rules in the operation of the universe. They believed that
they could explain these rules in a systematic way.
The last trait was idealism. Idealism is the belief that what we can reason out in
their minds is more important even more real than what we can actually see and feel
around us. Most Greeks believed, for example, that they could understand natural,
scientific phenomena better thought and argument than by making careful
observations.
The defining work of Greek literature is an epic poem called the Iliad. Greeks
though that a man named Homer wrote the Iliad around 750 B.C., shortly after the
end of the Dark Ages. The Iliad describes an incident during the Trojan War. In the
war, a Greek army attacked the city of Troy in Asia Minor. Some scholars think that
the Trojan War actually took place around 1200 B.C. – in the late Bronze Age.
Achilles, the hero of the
Iliad is shown on this vase
ca. 530 B.C. as a hero,
Achilles is a killing machine,
a warrior whose search for
excellence makes him take
to the battlefield in spite of
the knowledge that doing
so will end in his death.
The story of the Iliad concerns a quarrel between two leaders of the Greek army.
Agamemnon, the commander of the army, and Achilles, the foremost warrior. As a result of their quarrel Achilles refused
to fight. When Achilles withdrew from the fighting the war went badly, and many Greeks were killed. The way the Iliad
deals with these events reveals many basic Greek ideas about life and about the human condition.
P a g e 9 o f 31
Greeks believed that every man has what they called
moira, or fate. It consisted of whatever happened to him.
The poem reveals early Greek ideas about fate and what
brings it about. In part, the gods affect it. They take part in
the story, and they influence the human characters by giving
them advice or tricking them.
Almost all Classical Greek writers pursued this
objective. The most important literature of the period was
tragic drama which developed in Athens in the 400s. Tragic
plays were presented as part of the public religious festivals
of Athens. They were financed and supervised by the
government, and they were intended to perform a service to
The Greek gods differ from the Near Eastern gods. the public in some way.
They are anthropomorphic. They look like human beings,
Playwrights served the city by examining the work of
and they act just like them. Viewed in this way, they were fate in human life and the kinds of actions that would bring
easier to understand. When they intervene in the war, they a bad fate. They had great freedom to present their personal
are moved by personal reasons. Greek gods often display views about this. The plots of most tragedies were taken
some of the worst traits of humans; they are often petty, from myth, but mythical plots could be manipulated in
greedy, spoiled, promiscuous – because, as immortals they order to present particular moral points.
can be without consequences!
Tragic drama reveals changing Greek views about the
The Greek gods do not control fate completely. The
Iliad hints that even the gods are governed by fate. The gods
don’t really control human action either. Men have some
freedom to determine their own fates and the outcome of
events. But, one thing a man cannot change is his death. All
of the characters in the Iliad are all aware that they will die
some day.
human condition. The earliest playwrights took positions
that most Athenians would have shared. These early writers
are Aeschylus (524-456) and Sophocles (494-406). Their
plays all differ in detail, of course, but the plots generally
follow a regular, ideal pattern or scheme.
The leading character of the play is usually a famous
hero from myth. In the play, the hero forgets that there are
The Iliad is also discusses how men should live. Greek rules governing human life. He commits what the Greeks
warriors strive to achieve arête, excellence. The characters of called hubris, a violation of the rules. He does something a
the Iliad risk their lives in combat to prove that they are the human being should not do and is punished for his actions.
best warriors. They believed that if they fought well they
A play called Oedipus Rex by Sophocles exemplifies early
would be remembered after they died. Early Greeks tragedy. In the myth, Oedipus fled from his home to avoid a
believed that the afterlife was a gloomy place without joy or prophesy that he would kill his father and marry his mother.
hope, so the best they could do was to stay alive in the Unfortunately, Oedipus did not know that he was adopted.
minds of the living. The Iliad glorifies the efforts of men to By fleeing he inadvertently set off a chain of events that
excel in life.
made the prophesy come true. Without knowing it, he killed
As Greeks became more civilized, they became more his father and married his mother. The gods punish not
convinced that the world followed logical orderly rules. This only Oedipus for his crimes, but also his city for his actions.
new rationalism affected ideas about the role of moira and
We are often troubled because the fate of tragic heroes
the gods in human life.
seems unfair. For example, Oedipus did not intend to do
wrong; he tried to avoid it. But the Greeks had different
Moira, Arête & the Rules of the Polis
ideas about sin from ours. To them, a man committed
Greeks no longer believed that fate was random. Moira hubris when he tried to do something that men cannot do.
was governed by regular, orderly rules, and men received One thing men cannot do is avoid fate. Oedipus thought
the fate they deserved. The gods became more rational, that he was smart enough to outwit fate. His hubris was to
intervening in human affairs to punish men who violated try to be smarter than men can be. In the end, he tears out
the rules. Obviously, it was important to know what the his eyes because he cannot face the truth about his crime.
rules were.
But Oedipus is not controlled by fate – in a sense, by acting,
Greeks came to came to believe that the polis was the he brought his fate about! As weird as this seems to us,
perfect form of government, so its laws and customs were Greeks believed that fate was just and right and that the
perfect guidelines for human behavior. But the laws of a city gods supported it.
could not cover all of the rules. In some areas, the rules of
But in the later 400s, the last great tragic playwright, Euriplife were uncertain. Writers tried to explore these areas to ides (480-486) challenged many popular assumptions about moira
help other Greeks understand the rules governing the
and the gods. He lived in the time of the Athenian empire and the
human condition more fully.
P a g e 10 o f 31
Peloponnesian Wars, when the Athenian polis did many
obviously unwise things. It became much harder to believe
that the citizens of the polis were necessarily correct in what
they thought and did. Euripides saw that the Peloponnesian
Wars spread death and destruction indiscriminately. The
wars made it difficult to believe that human suffering was
just, right, or logical. Euripides believed that disaster in
human life was not caused by moira, or the gods, but by men
themselves. Most of his plays deal with destructive human
passions of some sort.
In Medea, the heroine is jealous because her husband
wants to marry another woman. To get revenge, she
murders him and several other people, including her own
children. Yet, the gods help her to escape punishment.
Euripides was saying that not all human sins are punished,
and perhaps also, that human crimes are not always sins.
Euripides’ plays were quite controversial and many
Athenians considered his ideas immoral and irreligious. By
the 400s Athenian writers and intellectuals began to express
opinions that average Greeks could not accept or even
understand. But, other Athenians had also begun to
question the rules of the polis and basic assumptions about
wrong and right had wrong. Among them were Athenian
philosophers called Sophists, and another Athenian named
Socrates.
Philosophy
governments are not created by the gods, but by men. Right
and wrong are simply matters of opinion. Most political
decisions are not moral, but practical. The only way to
judge them was to see whether they achieved the desired
result. If a leader persuaded a city to go to war and the city
won, it was a wise decision.
The Sophists argued that there is no true morality, only
opinions about right and wrong that can change. This idea
troubled one man, an Athenian sculptor named Socrates (d.
399 B.C.). Socrates thought that the Sophists were wrong.
He believed it was possible to have true ideas about right
and wrong. But they had to be based on a logical
understanding of the world. He did agree that many earlier
Greek beliefs about government and morality were
incorrect because they were not logical.
Socrates decided that many Greek beliefs, including
those of the Sophists, were illogical and incorrect. He went
around Athens starting conversations with people. He
would ask them to say what they believed about something
– government, morality, religion, etc. Then he would ask
them questions about what they said, forcing them to
explain and justify their answers until he could show that
what they had said was illogical and false. In this way, he
proved to individuals that what they had strongly believed
was not true at all. After forty years of this, he became so
unpopular that, in 399, he was executed by the city.
The Sophists began to raise
questions because of the work they
did, which was new to Greece. The
profession of sophist arose because
many Greek cities became
democracies in the 400s. Now, to
have influence in a democratic polis,
a man had to speak persuasively in
the assembly. That created demand
for teachers to train would-be
politicians in speech making or
r h e t o r i c . T h e S o p h i s t s we re
professional teachers of rhetoric.
But Sophists didn’t merely teach
rhetoric. They also tried to train
politicians to make wise political
decisions. Greeks had always
thought that political decisions must
be moral because the gods would
punish cities that acted immorally.
But, Sophists argued that you can’t
really know what the gods want
because human customs and
Socrates, philosophizing to the end, makes one last point before drinking poison and executing
himself.
P a g e 11 o f 31
Socrates demonstrated that philosophers could use
Aristotle was interested in science, especially biology,
reason and logic to show that people’s beliefs about morality and he knew that, in biology, some animals do change in
and government were not true. Later philosophers used form. For example, caterpillars change into butterflies and
them to show what was true.
come to have a new form in later life. Aristotle wanted to
Enter Plato (d. 347), who was one of Socrates’ most explain such changes. Thus, he argued that there was no
gifted students. Plato created a theory of the world that unchanging design for the world. Instead, there is an
could serve as the basis for correct, moral political decisions. intelligent, active plan which makes everything in the world
Plato’s view of the world is called the theory of ideas. He and also makes it change.
argued that everything in the world is what it is because of
its form. The form is defied by a perfectly logical idea of the
thing. For example, a chair is a chair because it has certain
basic characteristics that we think of when we think of a
chair. Chairs do differ form one another. Some have arms;
some do not. But if we thought about it, we could come up
with a general definition that all chairs conform to. Plato
argued that everything is like this, even moral principles
such as justice or goodness. They are what they are because
there is an idea behind them that can be logically defined.
Plato said that these ideas are real things that exist in a
separate world of their own. The world of ideas is a perfect
blueprint of our world, the world of nature. Plato’s concern
for morality influenced his view of these two worlds. If
something is to be morally true, it must always be true in
every situation. Morality and moral ideas cannot change. In
our world, things do change. If we cut the legs and back off
a chair, it is not a true chair anymore. But the definition or
idea of a chair never changes; it is always true. Thus, Plato
argued that the perfect world of ideas is true and real. Our
world, the world of nature, is imperfect and changeable.
Everything in the world has a purpose. The purpose of
a thing determines its form, and when its form changes by
regular, natural stages, it changes to fulfill the purpose set
for it in the plan. He believed that developmental changes
occur not only in animals, but also in such things as
government.
So, we have to examine how the forms of things change
in the world as they move toward achieving their purposes.
Thus, he collected large amounts of specific data about
biology, government, literature, and other subjects of study.
Now, Aristotle’s ideas were not really scientific in the
modern sense. He wanted to understand the plan, that is, to
learn why the world was made as it is, rather than to
understand the particular objects of his study.
Nevertheless, Aristotle became the most important
authority for philosophical and scientific thought for nearly
1,000 years. And, in many ways, he can be considered the
father of science. We might say that he laid the foundation
for most of the modern subjects we study in the university
today.
It is hard for modern students to understand how Plato
could say that the world around us is not real. But he is
actually arguing about the truth and how men know the
truth. He is merely saying that what we can logically deduce
about the world and its principles is truer and more
important to know the what we can feel or see or experience
with our senses. He would reject the modern scientific belief
that you learn truth through collecting and observing facts.
You learn about things by thinking about them, not by
experimenting on them. He believed that when men
understood the world of ideas logically, they would
automatically act in logical, moral ways. They would also be
able to create more logical, moral governments and
customs.
After Plato died, one of his students, Aristotle (d. 322)
created a new theory of his own that began with Plato’s
ideas. Aristotle accepted the notion that everything is what
it is because of its form, but he worried about the view that
the forms were determined by an unchanging blueprint.
P a g e 12 o f 31
Alexander the
Great
In the fourth century B.C. - the 300s - the center of attention in the ancient Greek
world shifts to a state in the northern part of Greece, a place called Macedonia.
Macedonia was the country that produced the greatest conqueror of the ancient
Greek world, Alexander the Great.
Alexander took Greek civilization out of its narrow confines on this little peninsula in Europe and spread it throughout
the near and middle east. By the time he died, Greeks were in control of Egypt and Persia and a lot of places we have not
talked about like Afghanistan. In fact, by
the time Alexander died, Greek civilization stretched from Italy to the Indus river – the border today of India and
Pakistan and as far north as the Himalayan mountains. before getting to Alexander proper, you need to know a bit about
where he was from and how he got his start because that makes things more understandable.
Macedonia was not in what we would call the mainstream of Greek civilization before 400 B.C.. First of all, it was not
a city-state, not a polis. It was a kingdom. And it was not a particularly well-organized kingdom. It lost control of its own
coastline to the Athenians in the fifth century, and it had trouble with uncivilized peoples to the north of it. However, the
Macedonians were Greeks; they spoke Greek, believed in the gods and Homer, and participated in the Olympic games.
Still, cities like Athens and Sparta looked upon them as poor country cousins rather than full-blown members of the Greek
family.
In 359 B.C. all of that began to change. The reason it did was because a powerful personality became king of
Macedonia. That person is known as Philip of Macedon, and he is quite a character. Philip became king in his early 20s
and had already had a number of interesting experiences. He had been a hostage in the city of Thebes as a teenager
(explain why people were hostages) and while there had really learned a lot. He was fascinated by Greek politics — Thebes
had a democratic system like Athens — and he fell in love with Greek culture.
When he became king in 359 BC he drew upon those experiences to build Macedonia into a powerful state. First, he
was both a brilliant politician and a brilliant warrior. He knew that his men would only respect him if he showed himself
brave in battle, and so, when he fought battles, he always made certain that he was in the lead. That proved to be
dangerous at times, for he was frequently wounded and on one occasion lost his right eye.
P a g e 13 o f 31
When he became king in 359 BC he drew upon the
experiences of his youth to build Macedonia into a powerful
state. First, he was both a brilliant politician and a brilliant
warrior. He knew that his men would only respect him if he
showed himself brave in battle, and so, when he fought
battles, he always made certain that he was in the lead. That
proved to be dangerous at times, for he was frequently
wounded and on one occasion lost his right eye.
But Philip preferred not to fight battles. One of the
things that I have stressed in talking about the Greeks is
their appreciation of human nature, its strengths and its
weaknesses. Philip preferred to conquer places by bribing
people rather than by fighting them. If he wished to take a
city, he offered them enormously generous terms of
surrender in hopes that the people would decide that the
Philip II of Macedon on a gold coin.
terns were far preferable to resisting. In fact, on one
occasion he said that he could take any city in Greece if he
could just get to the front gate with a wagon load of gold.
Now that he was in control of all of Greece, he decided
Besides, he said, if one fights, one always leaves behind to create a government that would give him the power to use
resentment and bitterness, and that is always a problem for all of Greece for his ambitions. He called all of the Greek
any political leader, king or not.
cities together at Corinth and established a legislative
Philip also was a reformer. He knew that making his assembly that would vote on matters that concerned all of the
state powerful meant not just political manipulation but Greece. He gave himself the title of hegemon, a title from
genuine reforms – genuine systemic change. Therefore, he which we get our English word hegemony. The Spartans
changed the tax structure to take advantage of Macedonian refused to come and Philip, politician that he was, decided to
gold mines and the commerce provided by the coast, which leave them alone.
he took back for the kingdom. He also reformed the
Now what was he going to do? He wanted to attack
Macedonian fighting forces. The Macedonians used a Persia. That should be a challenge. In 336 he believed that his
phalanx just like the other Greek cities, but he made some army was ready to attack, but, before he marched across the
changes to it. He replaced the jabbing spear with a Hellespont and into Persia, he arranged for his daughter to
fourteen-foot long pike. The job of the phalanx then was wed the king of Epirus, another of those little kingdoms in
not to poke at the other side after the phalanxes collided but the northern part of Greece. At the wedding, he was
to hold the other phalanx and then let horsemen – cavalry assassinated, supposedly by a Macedonian nobleman in the
– attack it on the flanks. He also vastly improved the pay of the Persians.
training of these forces so that they would be well-trained
As you can probably guess, now that Philip was dead, a
and well-disciplined.
number of the Greek cities decided that the time had come
In 352 Philip set out on his dream, which was the to declare their independence from Macedonian hegemony
conquest of all of Greece. It took some time and did not and go back to being the way they were. they figured that,
really end until 338 BC when he defeated a combined army with Philip dead, the Macedonian kingdom would fall apart.
from Athens and Thebes at the battle of Chaeronea. Very Philip's son Alexander III, succeeded him. Alexander was far
important for understanding Philip's skill. The Greeks came more ruthless, more brilliant, and far more effective than his
at him on two wings, one of
Thebans and one of father. this was the man who would be known in history as
Athenians. The Macedonians retreated before the Athenian Alexander the Great, perhaps the greatest military genius of
wing and the Athenians, joyous that their mere appearance western civilization.
on the battlefield had broken the Macedonians, gave chase.
Alexander became king at the age of twenty (about your
The Macedonian retreat was, as you can guess, a feint, and
age). The first thing that he did was crush the rebellion that
when the Athenians came over a little hill, they found the
he perceived to be bubbling up among the Greek cities. In
Macedonians drawn up in a phalanx with calvary on the
fact, as a lesson to the other cities, he destroyed the city of
wings ready to run down the Athenians. The combined
Theban/Athenian army was crushed.
P a g e 14 o f 31
Thebes, but, when he did so, he did not burn down the house
of the poet Pindar, because he wanted the Greek cities to
know that he still respected Greek civilization. He just wanted
no trouble.
In 334 B.C. Alexander led an army of 40,000 men into
Persia. To give you an idea of his character, he took not
only soldiers with him but poets, philosophers, scientists,
and secretaries to make note of learning in all of the places
he planned to take his army.
The first problem that he had to
overcome was the opposite problem the
Greeks faced in the Persian wars over a
century earlier. This time the Persians
controlled the sea (and had since the
defeat of Athens) and now the Greeks
had to supply themselves across the
Aegean. But Alexander did not build a
powerful war fleet to take on the
Persians; he decided instead to take all of
the ports the Persians controlled - all the
places they could dock their fleet. When
the fleet had no where to dock and pick
up supplies, the fleet was done. That
means taking all of what is today the
Turkish coast, all of Palestine and Syria,
and all of Egypt. Right! And that is exactly what Alexander
did. By 331 BC he had control of the entire eastern coast of
the Mediterranean Sea. And in 331 he established the city
of Alexandria in Egypt, which would become one of the
greatest cities of the next 1000 years and is still a pretty fine
city today.
conquer although he had no idea how big it was or how
long it would take.
At this his army mutinied. They sat down and said that
they wanted to go home. He argued with them, but it did no
good. So, in 326 he ordered the army to head back home.
Now remember, they are doing all this on foot.
It took him two years just to get back to Babylon, which
was still one of the great cities and
where he had a headquarters.
He spent a year there
reorganizing his administration
and then decided that he might
like to conquer Arabia instead.
In 323 B.C. at the age of 33, he
contracted a fever and died.
What a life!. No military
figure in western civilization
a ch i eve d wh at A l ex a n d e r
achieved. He campaigned for
eleven years, marched over
22,000 miles with his army, and
never lost a battle. He was such
a military genius that he
prepared for battle with
incredible intensity. Usually he knew the terrain better than
his enemy even when it was his enemy's own country. His
troops were remarkably well-trained and, of course, became
battle-hardened within a very short time.
But was that all he was? Was he essentially a military
adventurer and little more? A number of historians argue
that was the case. He was a military genius, they say, but
After his conquests on the coast, he set off with his that is all he really cared about. He was a soldier's soldier.
army inland to defeat utterly the Persian army, capture the He would get drunk, get violent, even at one time killed a
Persian Emperor, and destroy the Persian Empire. In friend in one of his drunken rages.
October 331 B.C. he met the Persian army at the Battle of
But other historians argue that he was more than that
Arbela, one of the most important battles in history.
and they point to the following as evidence. He really had
That was the end of the Persian Empire, but Darius plans to unite this enormous empire into a great economic
had escaped and Alexander wanted to capture him. He and cultural system.
chased him all over Persia until a warm summer day when
He built some cities and rebuilt others - a number of
he finally caught up with him. Alexander had only sixty
them
were named Alexandria - and wanted them to be
men, but, by the time he caught up with Darius, his
Greek
in character. He established military colonies
followers presented Alexander with the emperor's body. Tell
throughout
his empire and wanted his soldiers to
the story about raising them above all other men.
intermarry with the local population. In fact, he married a
Alexander was not even finished then. He decided to Persian woman himself as an example to his officers and
continue to march eastward, more or less just to see if there men that lie wanted to establish a civilization that all could
were more civilizations to conquer. In 327 he had reached be a part of.
the borders of India and defeated there a large Indian army
Whatever the assessment of Alexander, his conquests
– equipped with elephants – on the banks of the Indus
completely
changed the culture of the ancient world. From
River. Then he decided maybe that all of India was good to
P a g e 15 o f 31
now on, the sophisticated, the cultured language of all of the Middle East is Greek. Although Jesus was a Jew and his
language was Aramean, the New Testament was written in Greek. When the Romans conquered this part of the world a
century or two later, Latin did not replace Greek culture but rather existed along side it. A truly educated Roman needed
to be able to speak Greek. A good example is the Apostle Paul, a Jew, a Roman citizen, and one who spoke and wrote in
Greek. Greek dominated that part of the world and would until the arrival of the Arab Moslems in the 7th century AD.
And it was Alexander who made it possible.
Jesus was a Jew and his language was Aramean, the New Testament was written in Greek. When the Romans
conquered this part of the world a century or two later, Latin did not replace Greek culture but rather existed along side it.
A truly educated Roman needed to be able to speak Greek. A good example is the Apostle Paul, a Jew, a Roman citizen,
and one who spoke and wrote in Greek. Greek dominated that part of the world and would until the arrival of the Arab
Moslems in the 7th century AD. And it was Alexander who made it possible.
Alexander’s Empire
P a g e 16 o f 31
The Hellenistic
World
Alexander’s death marks the start of the later period of Greek history that scholars
call Hellenistic Times. The period extends from 323 to the founding of the Roman
Empire in 30 B.C.
I want to give a general sketch of the political conditions in Hellenistic Times. The death of Alexander set off a civil
war among his Macedonian generals to see who would rule after him. In the war, his great empire broke up into several
pieces each ruled by one of his generals. There were three major kingdoms covering Macedonia and large parts of what
had been the Persian Empire. Some smaller states also existed. They remained independent in theory, but they were
usually under the thumb of one or another of the larger states. Most old Greek city-states were in this category. So, let’s
start off with a brief look at the political divisions of the Hellenistic world. There were three major states:
Egypt: Rulers were descended from Ptolemy I, one of Alexander’s generals. This state included Egypt, part of Arabia, Palestine
and the island of Cyprus. The new Greek rulers inherited a tightly-knit well organized bureaucracy, the ancient Egyptian
tradition that rulers, the Pharaohs, were divine, and vast agricultural resources. This was the wealthiest of the Hellenistic States.
The Seleucid Kingdom: Founded by another of Alexander’s generals, Seleukos. This kingdom included most of what had
been the Persian Empire proper – Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and Iran. It grew and shrank considerably over its period of
existence. It was the most culturally diverse empire, and had to be ruled with a strong hand. The Seleucid empire was only
controllable through a strong bureaucracy and a powerful military.
The Antigonid Kingdom: After a period of chaos as one Greek general after another tried to acquire the Macedonian
homeland, order was finally restored by an able, ruthless and efficient general named Antigonos Cyclops (One-Eyed).
Antigonos ruled Macedonia and part of Northern Greece. This was the only completely Greek kingdom of the big three.. The
Antigonid kingdom was weaker than the Seleucid Kingdom, poorer than Egypt, but it was the most unified, and more
militarily powerful.
Until about 201 B.C. these three great states maintained a precarious balance of power, and this made it possible for
smaller states to exist, primarily by playing diplomatic alliance games with the larger states. Smaller states made alliances
with the larger ones in order to maintain their independence, playing one great state against the others. There were some
surviving Greek city states that we already know — Athens, Sparta, Rhodes — and a few rising city states in Asia Minor.
These states also formed leagues to defend themselves.
P a g e 17 o f 31
In these states, big and small, the military was also
Greek. It was recruited from Greeks who lived in each
specific state and beefed up with Greek mercenaries who
traveled to the state that paid the best wages. In fact
Hellenistic mercenary units were highly specialized, well
trained, well organized and negotiated with rulers for their
pay and benefits. Some battles were decided on the basis of
who could buy out the army of whom. Hellenistic armies
fought on the Macedonian pattern. Hellenistic armies
tended to be large by classical Greek standards, as many as
30,000 men in phalanx formation, with as many as two
thousand cavalry. The infantry employed the long spears
and lighter armor that Alexander had made the standard.
The great Hellenistic states were kingdoms. The office
of king was hereditary and the king embodied the state.
This was not like that old Greek idea of the basileus whose
power was constrained by other government institutions.
There were no checks on the power of a Hellenistic
monarch. Each ruler was assisted by a large and elaborate
bureaucracy that increased the king’s control over his
kingdom. So, we can say that foreign absolute rulers
dominated local populations through the use of a network
of bureaucratic officials and a foreign army.
Hellenistic world were professional scholars and teachers.
Down to the 400s, Greek authors and philosophers did not
write for money. It was a sideline. They made a living in
other ways. For example, Thales, the first philosopher, was a
merchant. Aeschylus and Euripides were both wealthy
landowners. Socrates was a stonemason. This began to
change with the Sophists, who taught rhetoric for money. By
the 300s, even some philosophers taught for a living, as
Aristotle taught Alexander, for example.
In the Hellenistic period, professionals, scholars and
thinkers moved to wherever there was a demand for their
work. Thus, we can say that scholars had, for the first time
in the West become professionals who literally chased jobs
and went where the money was, like scholars do today.
Many of them were attracted to the new Macedonian
kingdoms of the Near East. Hellenistic rulers founded lots
of new cities in the Near East and encouraged Greeks to
migrate to the cities and settle. The most famous city was
Alexandria in Egypt, but there were many others. In these
cities, the kings established Greek schools to educate the
children of Greek immigrants and to teach Greek culture to
their non-Greek subjects. The kings were willing to pay
writers and philosophers to come to the cities to teach,
write, and do research in the schools. Since they had a lot of
money, they could attract the best scholars.
It is important to remember that in the non-Greek
kingdoms, the majority of the resident populations were not
Greek. But, the ruling families were Greek, and the ruling
classes were either Greek or were natives who had acquired
the language and cultural trappings of “Greekness.” The Hellenistic Education
These great schools were the main centers of
upper classes of the Hellenistic states and the urban
populations had, by the mid-200s b.c., become thoroughly intellectual activity in Hellenistic times, and they had a great
influence on what thought would be like. Thus, it is
hellenized.
necessary to understand what the schools taught. There
Creating “Greekness”
were two types of education.
This meant that a profound change took place in the
The most popular type were the schools of rhetoric or
older Near Eastern lands like Egypt and Mesopotamia. speech making. They were designed to teach people how to
Most of the people in these lands came from the older be political leaders, which is what everyone wanted to be.
civilizations. They were Egyptians, Persians, or Jews for Every large city had one. The schools of rhetoric grew out
example. But the rulers, from the kings on down in of the schools of the Sophists. Their goals and methods
government, were all Greeks and Macedonians. The were primarily developed in the early 300s by an Athenian
governments were made up of foreigners. Non-Greek Sophist named Isocrates (d. 338). Isocrates believed that
natives could get into government only by becoming learning to speak and write intelligently was not only
Greeks. They had to give up their own customs, learn the necessary for politicians, but it was also useful for persons of
Greek language, wear Greek clothes, and generally live and every walk of life. He also felt that good public speakers had
think like Greeks.
to know about lots of other things besides rhetoric. His
In every society, it is the rulers, the upper class, that students were required to study literature, mathematics,
mainly determine what kind of art and literature is science, history, and even philosophy. These subjects are
produced and what kind of intellectual activity goes on. what we today call the “liberal arts.”
Since the Hellenistic rulers were Greeks, Hellenistic
civilization, even in the Near East, rapidly became Greek.
This was possible because most intellectuals in the
P a g e 18 o f 31
The second major type of education was in philosophy.
Philosophy included the study of all major intellectual
subjects – literature, natural science, and social science as
well as what we consider philosophy. Philosophical schools
were mainly for professional intellectuals. The first
philosophical schools had been founded in Athens by Plato
and Aristotle, but many others were established in the Near
East by various Hellenistic kings. The most famous was set
up by the Macedonian king of Egypt, Ptolemy I (304-282)
at Alexandria. It was dedicated to the Muses (the goddesses
of learning). Thus, it was called the Museum. The Museum
was based on the ideas of Aristotle.
Because Hellenistic civilization was primarily for
educated men, the quality of intellectual endeavor was
significantly changed. Because there was so much organized
research and study, considerable advances were made in
knowledge, especially in natural science which would have
held little interest for the earlier Greeks. For instance,
Eratosthenes (d. 200), a scholar at the Museum, calculated
the circumference of the earth, missing the actual average
by less than 200 miles. But, generally speaking, Hellenistic
thought was not as profound or as universal in its appeal as
early Greek thought had been. And it still is not to us today.
Another focus of the research of Hellenistic scholars
In addition to teaching, the scholars at the Museum was to systematize earlier Greek literature. First they studied
spent a lot of time collecting, observing, and interpreting literature to find what they considered the best. Then they
information chiefly about literature
wrote authoritative works about the
and about natural phenomena. To
texts and derived rules about literature
assist them, Ptolemy built the largest
based on the forms, styles and content
library in the world at that time. Later
of the original texts. Sometimes they
kings collected specimens of strange
would then write works that were
p l a n t s a n d a n i m a l s a n d bu i l t
meant to exemplify the perfect form of
laboratories to examine them in. With
a writing style. For instance, several
its large facilities and its emphasis on
Hellenistic scholars wrote epic poems,
research, the Museum was more like a
of which, fortunately, few have
modern university than any other
survived. One of the titles produced
institution in the ancient world.
during this period, the Argonautica of
Apollonius of Rhodes presents us with
General Traits of Hellenistic
a typical example. It is in the Homeric
Civilization
tradition in terms of vocabulary and
diction. It is meant to be a perfect epic
T he developments I have
poem, but it is rather dull and prosaic,
m e n t i o n e d g r e a t l y i n fl u e n c e d
dependent on rules rather than
Hellenistic civilization. Now let’s
creativity. It also contains lots of
consider some of its general traits.
A Hellenistic bust. Note the lifelike
allusions to more obscure poems,
First, Greek culture spread all over
features, wrinkles, warts and all.
myths and places, that only very well
the East, and intellectual activity
educated scholars during the period
became truly international not local as
would have been familiar with. In other
it had been before. In Hellenistic times,
words, for the average reader it would be BORING! But,
a new Greek dialect developed that was the same
remember, it wasn’t written for the average reader, it was
everywhere. It was called koine, common Greek. It was used
written to edify and amuse fellow professional scholars —
by all educated men whether they were Greek or not. But it
an audience that was far more interested in rules and trivia
was not just language that spread. Greek literature and art,
than creative style or content.
and to some extent, Greek thought replaced others for
Hellenistic art followed two paths. The first, in keeping
centuries.
with the scholasticism of the period was a monumental
Second, this universal culture (oikomene – the civilized
sculpture that both echoed the art of the classical period,
world) chiefly belonged to educated members of the upper
but was bigger, and somewhat more static and less idealized
classes. It was not shared with the masses. In this respect, it
than classical Greek sculpture. [monumental art to glorify
differed from earlier Greek culture. Average Athenians
state] Another path that art took in the Hellenistic period
could to some extent understand and learn from the plays of
was portraiture. The classical Greek artists didn’t do much
Aeschylus. They could not understand as well the scientific
portraiture. They sculpted and painted idealized
theories developed in the Museum.
representations of gods and heroes all to glorify their city.
P a g e 19 o f 31
During the Hellenistic period, wealthy patrons began to pay artists to paint them or sculpt busts or statues of them.
Wealthy patrons also paid artists to create “private” works of art to beautify their homes and gardens. These were not
works meant to glorify the polis, but to entertain viewers and to demonstrate the wealth, culture, and education of private
patrons. These works were often quite realistic, and even unflattering to the subject, showing wrinkles, warts and all.
Oddly, many Hellenistic portraits appeal to modern viewers BECAUSE of their realism.
Philosophy for Living
Important innovations took place in the area of philosophy during the Hellenistic period, though. A large part of
philosophical inquiry during this period was devoted to ethics – that is the exploration of proper behavior. In classical
Greece proper behavior was essentially dictated by a person’s polis so there was no real reason to spend a lot of time
mulling over the subject. In the 5th century, Socrates began to explore ethics and stress that right conduct might not be
the same as the conduct expected by one’s community, and we know what kind of trouble he got into. But by the
Hellenistic period, philosophers began to emphasize that ethical behavior should be something that was internal rather
than external. That is, humans should act according to their own standards of behavior, rather than to the demands of the
state. Given this internalization and personalization of values and the emphasis on rules, it became important for thinking
humans to derive some rules that they could use to guide their behavior. Several schools of philosophy came into being for
that very purpose. So let’s briefly look at a couple.
The most popular of these new systems was Stoicism. The principle founder of the movement was Zeno of Citium.
Zeno taught that the universe was organized along a logical reasonable divine plan (logos). For Stoics there were no
accidents, so every person should try to live in harmony with that plan. In order to do so, one must exercise one’s
reasoning faculties and determine what the most reasonable behavior is. So that we will not be tempted away from
contemplation of the logos we need to avoid emotional activities and to do one’s duty faithfully in one’s family and one’s
community. Stoicism, with its stress on public and community service, and a strict adherence to duty, became the most
popular philosophy with the Romans.
Another school founded by Epicurus of Athens was called Epicureanism. Epicureans were dramatically opposed to
the Stoics. They believed that everything was the result of accident. They admitted that there were some rules in nature,
but argued that these rules developed over time without any real purpose. Since everything was temporary, Epicureans
believed that men should make the best of their lives in the face of chaos. They should pursue a life of avoidance of pain.
Epicurus argued that pleasure was simply an absence of pain, because pleasure derived from the senses would ultimately
end in pain. So, Epicureans withdrew from public and political life in order to protect themselves from the inevitable pain
of trying to cope with a chaotic world.
So, that is the Hellenistic world in a nutshell. Greek culture spread all over the civilized world, yes, but in the process,
we might say that it lost much of its vitality, much of its popularity, and became more static, more intellectualized, and
much less democratic, than the real thing.
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Unit 2 Study Guide — The Greeks
Bronze Age Greece
✓ In ancient times, the center of the Greek world was not the modern country of Greece at all, but the body of
water called the Aegean Sea. The Greeks settled along the coasts of this sea, including the eastern fringe
which is now a part of Turkey. In general, the most important Greek areas were those close to the sea.
There was also considerable settlement in the islands of the Aegean.
✓ The Aegean area where the Greeks lived was very different from the Near Eastern regions which we have
discussed so far. There are no large rivers in the Greek world, so that Greek development was not dominated by rivers as in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Fortunately, rainfall in Greece was heavier than in the East
so that desert conditions did not appear. The country is generally broken up by mountains which form many
small valleys but few large plains. Because of the mountains it was difficult for Greeks to travel from one
place to another by land. This is why from very earliest times, the Greeks relied on the sea as a means of
getting from place to place. They were sailors and traders.
Minoan Civilization
✓ Early Bronze Age culture began on Crete about 3000 B.C. By about 2200 B.C. a very high civilization had
developed. This culture is called Minoan. I should say here that the folks who lived on Crete and took part in
this civilization didn't call themselves Minoans. Study Minoan civilization and make sure that you are familiar
with the following terms:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Sir Arthur Evans
Knossos
Monos
Minotaur
Middle Minoan
Minoan Zeus
•
•
•
•
•
Snake Goddess
bull vaulting
Linear A
Linear B
Santorini (Thera)
✓ Why, when most other cities of the Bronze Age were heavily walled and fortified, were Minoan cities unwalled?
✓ Discuss the economy of Minoan Crete. What kinds of crops did they raise and how did the Minoans make a
living? What is the relationship of the previous question (about defense) to this question?
✓ Discuss the religion of the Minoans, to the extent that we can understand it from the archaeological record.
What are some of the pitfalls of trying to explain religion without written records?
Mycenaean Civilization
✓ Although Greece proper had been settled from about 6000 B.C. onward, we begin our study with the first
Bronze Age culture which had a written language – the Mycenaeans. The Mycenaean culture takes its
name from the first site from that civilization to be unearthed in modern times. The city of Mycenae was excavated in 1876 by Heinrich Schliemann.
✓ Who was Heinrich Schliemann? You should know a little about his background and career.
✓ What were the government, society and economics like?
P a g e 21 o f 31
✓ We know a fair amount of information about Mycenaean civilization as a result of records kept by the Mycenaeans written in Linear B. Identify the following:
Linear B
Pylos
Michael Ventris
wanax
Dark Age Greece
✓ Between 1200 and 1100 B. C., the Mycenaean civilization collapsed and disappeared. After the collapse of
the Mycenaeans, there is a decline in real civilization in Greece down to around the end of the 9th century
B.C. Historians call the period from 1150 to 750 B.C. the Dark Age of Greece because for most of the first
half of the 20th century, we really didn’t know much about it. In fact, even today much of what I have to say
is guesswork. But the Greek Dark Age is an important period because it was at this time that the Iron-Age
civilization, what we call Greek Civilization Proper, was getting started.
✓ The basic unit of government and society was the oikos, which might best be translated as “household.”
each household had its own religious observances, laws and loyalties. Members of the oikos included the
central extended family, landless warriors who threw in with the family, retainers who were technically free,
and farmed and tended livestock, and finally a very few slaves who had been taken in battle.
✓ You should be familiar with the basic institutions of Dark Age Greece. What was government, such as it
was, like? Religion? Society? Economic institutions?
✓ Dr. Price argues that the society of Dark Age Greece was essentially a frontier society. What is a frontier
society? Why does Dark Age Greece resemble one?
✓ Identify the following terms and concepts:
• oikos
• blood feud
• manna
• ancestor veneration
✓ Dr. Price spends some time on the subject of “woman stealing.” Why was this rather odd activity important
in this primitive society? What, over time, were its consequences?
✓ The transition from societies based on the household to tribal or clan communities is an essential step toward the societies and states that became the standard in the Greek World. Why? Identify the following
terms:
• genos
• heroes
• hero cults
• chief
• boule
✓ The growth of agricultural production, the rebirth of trade in the 800s B.C. had important consequences for
the Greeks. Discuss some of those consequences including:
• colonization
• appearance of the polis
• appearance of polis government
✓ “Polis” could be defined as city, or city-state, or community. Polis can be a bit confusing the way we use it.
For Greeks the word was used for the actual headquarter town for a larger geographic state. For instance,
Athens is the town headquarters of a larger state called Attica. Athens is the polis of the Athenians, and
Athenians might live in the town, or, more likely in this early period, they live in the countryside of Attica, and
come to town to trade and take part in politics and religious activities.
P a g e 22 o f 31
✓ As a result of Greek colonization the Athenian philosopher Plato described the Greeks living round the Aegean "like frogs around a pond." In fact, to a lesser degree, the same could be said about the entire Mediterranean. What are the implications for Western Civilization as a whole of Greek colonization?
✓ Learn the following terms:
• the Greek Archaic
• basileus
• elected magistrates
• boule
• assembly of warrior citizens
• acropolis
• agora
Rise of Aristocratic Government
✓ Between 750 and 600 B.C., there was a strong presupposition of equality in Greek communities. But, fairly
quickly particular families began to gain greater power within the political, economic and social structures of
the poleis (plural of polis).So, what were the origins of these aristocratic families? How did they come
about? how did they come to dominate Greek communities in the 700s and 600s?
✓ Learn the following terms:
•
•
•
•
•
•
aristoi
arȇtȇ
debt slavery
class consciousness
Homer
Iliad
•
•
•
•
•
Odyssey
kouros
kore
Hesiod
Works and Days
✓ Who were tyrants? How did they come to power? What kinds of reforms did they bring about and why? Using your lectures (on line and in class) and the text, identify several tyrants from Athens, Sparta and Corinth,
and explain how they contributed to the evolution of society and politics in their states.
Athens in the Archaic
✓ Athens is often labeled as “the Typical Polis.” In several ways this title is mislabeled. We often do so to set
up a comparison between Athens as a “typical” Greek city state and Sparta, which we can hold up as
“atypical.” The truth is that both Athens and Sparta are, in their own ways atypical, and, in fact, the term
“typical” is hard to apply to any Greek city state. In short, your professors are, in a rather small way, lying to
you. Let’s examine the historical facts:
I.
By the Classical period which begins in roughly 490 B.C., there were over 1,000 Greek city states
spread around the Mediterranean, and all of them were somewhat different in terms of their economics, society and government. Each had, for the most part some very basic similarities, especially in
terms of society and government.
a. Each had democratic and aristocratic elements.
b. Each had a government that was made up of an executive branch (kings or elected magistrates or
a mixture of both), a council and an assembly of soldier citizens.
c. Each made a fairly strong distinction between citizens and non-citizens when it came to political
participation.
d. Each, with very few exceptions, was based on the polis.
e. BUT, and this is a pretty important but, each was a bit different from the others.
II. What this means is that no one Greek polis can be described as somehow typical.
P a g e 23 o f 31
✓ Athens and Sparta are both more democratic than most poleis, which makes them both somewhat atypical.
We’ll talk about Sparta in a bit, but first, let’s examine the history of Athens in the Archaic Period (roughly
650-490 B.C.).
✓ How did the geography of Attica effect the development of social, economic and political institutions?
✓ Identify the following terms:
Attica
Athens
archons
Council of the Areopagus
the ecclesia
eupatridea
metics
tyranny
Draco (c. 621-618 B.C.)
Solon (c. 594-593 B.C.)
Peisistratus (c. 549-517 B.C.)
Hippias (c. 517-510 B.C.)
Cleisthenes (fl. 508-497 B.C.)
Themistocles (fl. 490s -470s B.C.)
Council of 500
triremes
election by lot
✓ How did the Athenian “tyrants,” Draco, Solon and Peisistratus come to power? How did the reforms of Solon
change the nature of the Athenian state? Draco? Peisistratus? You should have a clear understanding of
the complexities and consequences of the policies of each of these “tyrants.”
✓ In what ways did the policies of Cleisthenes and Themistocles change the nature of the Athenian state?
✓ Study the roles of women and slaves in Athens, and by extension, most of the Greek World.
Reforms of Cleisthenes and Themistocles
✓ The end of the tyranny in 510 B.C. paved the way for new changes in the government itself. The economic
policies of Pisistratus had greatly strengthened the craftsmen and merchants of Athens who were unhappy
with the older system of oligarchy that Solon had created. Two years after the end of the tyranny, in 508
B.C., a reformer named Cleisthenes pushed a series of government reforms through the assembly.
✓ Identify the various reforms of Cleisthenes. How did those reforms change the politics of the Athenian state?
Was Athens more or less democratic after Cleisthenes?
✓ In 483, Themistocles sold a scheme to the Athenian Assembly to expand the size of the Athenian navy from
100 triremes to 200. Silver from the Athenian mines would be given to families of the first two classes of
Athens (Eupatrids and merchant) who, in turn would use the silver to build ships that would be captained by
a member of that family. Using this system, Athens built and manned another 100 brand new, state of the
art, triremes. This scheme not only helped Athens to become a powerful mercantile state, but also helped to
save Greece from invasion by the Persians. Explain..
Sparta
✓ The Spartans inhabited an area called Laconia, in the southern part of mainland Greece on what is called
the Peloponnesus. Laconia is ringed by hills, but most of the land area is dominated by one of the few rivers
of any size in Greece, the Eurotas River.
✓ Sparta had more good, usable farmland than almost any other polis in Greece proper. When you add this to
the fact that there are no really good harbors in Laconia, you will see why the basis of Spartan economy
was farming. This also helps to explain why the headquarters of the polis was not on, or even near, the sea,
but right in the middle of the valley far from the coast.
✓ This headquarters was a village, or rather, a collection of villages known as Sparta. There were few temples
and other large buildings, but Sparta never became a real city in the physical sense of a large settlement.
Nevertheless, it was the center of a city-state, and that city-state was not called Sparta or Laconia. It was
P a g e 24 o f 31
named after those who made up the polis – the Lacedaemonians. The Lacedaemonians were Dorians.
They spoke the Doric dialect. So there were probably Greeks who came to Laconia in the early Iron Age.
✓ In the mid-700s, the Spartans embarked on a long and difficult war that would ultimately mold Sparta into a
city state unlike any other in the Aegean World. Like other Greek states in the early 700s, the Spartans experienced a growth in population. They responded to population growth by deciding to expand into neighboring territory. They decided to expand west into the state of Messinia. In 743 B.C., Sparta invaded
Messenia. By 725, the Spartans were successful. They expanded into Messenian territory, colonizing it and
enslaved the population.
✓ A second Messenian war broke out in 685, when enslaved Messenians revolted to try to retake their homeland. Aided by the Argives, a powerful state to the north, the Messenians crossed into Sparta and apparently gave the Spartans a pretty hard time. The Spartans ultimately won this war, but it is possible that in
the process, they completely transformed their society.
✓ The transformation is attributed to a Spartan tyrant and lawgiver named Lycurgos. Lycurgos turned Sparta
from an aristocracy into a democracy, a state governed by the Spartan citizens. Under Lycurgos, it reached
a point, by the beginning of the 600s, where it did not need to change thereafter.
✓ Identify Spartan government. Like other Greek states, Sparta had an executive (kings, ephors), a council
(Gerousia) and assembly (the Equals), and explain how their government worked.
✓ Who were the perioikoi? How many of them were there, and what was their relationship to the Lacedaemonians?
✓ Who were the helots? How many of them were there, and what was their relationship to the Lacedaemonians?
✓ Discuss life for the Spartans. Dr. Price notes that from birth to death Spartans were soldiers, and the life of
the Spartan citizen, both male and female, was dedicated to the state. Consider:
• When a baby was born to a Spartan citizen couple, if the baby did not conform to Spartan notions of
health and strength, it was killed. Spartans would accept no weaklings.
• At the age of seven, every Spartan boy left home and went into a military training program called the
agôgé.
• Every man over 30 was still required to eat the main meal each day with the other men in his military unit,
rather than with his family.
• In time of war, of course, all men served as long as they were physically able to do so. In fact, men who
were no longer really able to fight, volunteered to go to war for the express purpose of dying in battle —
dying, as the Spartans called it, the Beautiful Death.
• Only Spartan men who had died in battle, and only Spartan women who had given birth to a son, were
buried with a tombstone to mark their graves.
• The organization of Sparta into a military state gave the Spartans the power they needed to keep the
helots under control.
✓ Ironically, Spartan women received better education and had more freedom than any other Greek women.
• Spartan women received education in writing and arithmetic so that they could administer the family
farms while their husbands and sons were away fighting.
• They received extensive physical education, which included dancing, running, and exercise.
• Spartan women were also allowed to talk back to Spartan men.
✓ The internal organization of the Spartan polis gave it great strength and helped to determine the role it
would play in the Greek world as a whole.
✓ Study Spartan foreign relations. What was their relationship to the other Greek poleis? Why?
✓ Now it is time to look back over and review the Spartan system, considering some of its implications of it for
Greek civilization as a whole. If I were able to ask you what form of government Sparta had, you might be
P a g e 25 o f 31
unable to answer. Strange as it may seem to us, a Greek would say that the Lacedaemonian government
was a democracy. Democracy means rule of the demos, the citizens. In Sparta, it was the citizens who ruled
with no distinction among them. Looked at from the point of view of the helot, it was not a democracy, but in
Greece, only the citizens mattered. The helots were not citizens.
✓ In the Greek world, the mark of a citizen was that he was a free man. You might have some difficulty conceiving of the Spartans as free. To us freedom means that a person is largely left alone to do what he
pleases provided he does not interfere with anyone else. The Spartans were not free in that sense, nor
really were any Greeks. Our view of what freedom means would have horrified the Greeks of the polis. The
Spartans belonged to the polis.
✓ To a Greek, a man was free if he was a citizen of a free polis. He was free to help direct and advance the
affairs of the community. But a man could never be free from the demands of the polis itself. In return for
being permitted to participate in the political life of the polis, a citizen was expected to put the interests of
the community before his own personal interests. Thus, the privilege of citizenship also brought heavy obligations.
✓ You should be familiar with the following terms relating to Sparta which may be found in the in class lectures, the on line lectures or your text book:
Laconia
Eurotas River
Lacedaemonians
Sparta
Messenia
helots
perioikoi
Lycurgos
two kings
ephors
gerousia
“the Equals”
agôgé
“the Beautiful Death”
“bare bottom girls”
Peloponnesian League
phalanx
The Persian and Peloponnesian Wars
✓ The Persian Wars have their beginnings, not in Greece, but in the Greek states on the western coast of Asia
Minor that are called the Ionian Greek states.
✓ The Ionian Greek city states had existed in Asia minor for several centuries. They were independent selfgoverning states. In the 560's B.C. these Ionian states were brought into an alliance with a larger eastern
state called Lydia. The Persians conquered Lydia in 547 B.C. The Persians brought the Greek Ionian states
into their empire at the same time.
✓ Remember that at about this time, Athens had begun to expand her own influence into Asia Minor and the
Black Sea. Athenians traded goods for wheat in these areas. So, Persian expansion threatened Athenian
trade and expansion into the area. What we essentially have here is competition between Persia, the great
land empire, and Athens, a maritime trading state, for domination over Asia Minor, the Black Sea and the
Western Balkans.
✓ With the help of the Athenians, a great revolt broke out in all of the Ionian cities. Historians have several
theories as to why the Ionians revolted at this time.
• Herodotus (“the father of history”)says that the Ionian leaders gathered while the Persian armies were
away and decided that the time was right to free themselves from Persian domination. While some historians have pointed out that the Persians were not particularly oppressive rulers, I should mention that the
Ionians were, on at least two recent occasions, required to provide ships and sailors to the Persians without compensation for invasions of Thrace and Egypt. Some Ionian states might have found these impositions troublesome.
• Some modern classical scholars suggest that the Ionian leaders had ambitions of their own in Asia Minor,
which they could not attain so long as they were under Persian domination.
• The most likely reasons are all of the above plus this: Persian domination prevented the Ionian Greeks
from doing what they liked to do best — that was to fight among themselves.
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• The revolt was successful until 494 B.C. At this time the Persians got organized and defeated the Ionians
and their allies and regained control of Ionia.
The First Persian War (490 B.C.)
✓ The Persians began to see the mainland Greeks as a threat to them because the Athenians had come to
the aid of the Ionian Greeks. In 490 the Persians sent an expedition to Greece to attack Athens and her ally
Eritrea. Eritrea was defeated and destroyed, its citizens were sent to Persia and resettled.
✓ After they finished with Eritrea the Persians sailed down the coast to attack Attica. They landed at the plain
of marathon about 21 miles from Athens. The Athenians prevented the Persians from advancing by occupying the hills around the village of Marathon in northern Attica. The Persians couldn't advance.
✓ The Athenians spent several days debating whether or not to attack the Persians. The Persians became
bored and took action. They put most of their forces on ships, probably to move up the coast and attack
from another point. When the Athenians saw that the odds had improved they attacked. They defeated the
Persians on land and within a few days managed to attack and destroy much of the Persian fleet.
✓ As a result of the Athenian victory at Marathon the Persians were determined to avenge themselves not
only on the Athenians, but on all of Greece.
The Second Persian War (480-479 B.C.)
✓ Darius died in 486 and his son Xerxes took the throne. Xerxes also wanted to invade Greece, and he decided to begin his invasion on the summer of 480 B.C. Xerxes sent messengers to all of the states in
Greece. The messengers commanded that the states surrender to Persian domination and send tokens of
soil and hostages to Persia.
• The Greeks had had ten years to prepare for the return of the Persians. What had they done in order to
prepare for the invasion? Nothing! Absolutely zip. This was mainly because they had spent that ten years
bickering and fighting among themselves.
• Only the Athenians had prepared themselves to meet the Persians at sea. The Persian invasion of 480
B.C. was awesome. Persian land forces have been estimated at 80 to 120,000 men, but this estimate is
probably conservative. The Persian land army was escorted by a fleet of 40-50,000 men, and lots of
troop ships, transports and war ships (600 to 800 warships). Some of these ships were lost to storms
early in the invasion, it is probable that only about 500 warships were left by the time they were needed
for defense. The Greek states that surrendered to Xerxes provided another 200 or so ships.
• The Spartans decided to establish a holding force at Thermopylae. This was a strategically located pass
in central Greece. The Spartans were only able to raise a small force to defend this area though. The
main reason was because Thermopylae was north of Athens, and most of the allies were from the Peloponnese. They felt that this area was not their concern. The Spartans finally raised 7,000 men (including
a small contingent of helot soldiers). They were able to hold the area for a few days. After the main force
withdrew, a small force of three hundred Spartans under their king were caught in the pass and fought to
the last man. This made Thermopylae famous to the Spartans.
• At the same time the Persian fleet was anchored at a natural harbor called Artemisia, near Thermopylae.
The Greek alliance navy attacked the Persian fleet. This sea battle was a draw. But, the Persians feared
that their entire fleet would be penned in by the Greeks. Xerxes sent about 200 ships out to sea to save
them from Athenian attack. These ships were destroyed in a storm. This weakened the Persian naval
forces.
• After Thermopylae, Persian land forces invaded Athens and burned the city to the ground. When the Persians arrived, the city was empty, her populace had fled to a nearby island and her military forces awaited
the Persians at sea.
• The Persian naval forces were enticed into the straits of Salamis and defeated by the Athenian navy. The
Persian fleet was demolished.
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• The only problem was that after Salamis the Persian army had no way to get home. So they continued to
move around the Greek mainland destroying crops and being a general nuisance.
• After Xerxes returned to Asia, he left a force of about 75,000 Persians and some Greek allies in Greece.
• In 479 B.C. a combined Greek army under the leadership of Sparta met the remaining Persian land
forces near the town of Plataea. The Greeks decisively defeated the Persian forces and, essentially,
wiped them out.
✓ After the defeat of their army in 479, the Persians withdrew their forces from the mainland of Greece, but
that did not mean that the threat from Persia was ended completely. For this reason, a number of Greek
states decided to set up an alliance to continue the war until Persian influence had been eliminated from the
Aegean area entirely.
✓ You should be able to identify and explain the following terms that apply to the Persian Wars and the growth
of Athenian influence ini the Aegean after those wars:
Ionian states
Artemissium
Darius
Thermopylae
Boeotia
Leonidas
Marathon
Salamis
Themistocles
Plataea
triremes
Delian League
Xerxes
Delos
Immortals
“The League of Athens and Her Allies”
Salamis
Pericles and the Rise of Athens
✓ The growth of Athenian power in foreign policy was accompanied by a great advance in the internal organization
and prosperity of the polis as well. The man most responsible for this progress was Pericles.
• Pericles was responsible for two measures which extended democracy even further.
‣ He eliminated the last property requirements for holding office. Now, any Athenian could be archon if his
name came up.
‣ He introduced the practice of paying any person who served in public office. This was important because
previously, no one received pay for any public service. This meant that poorer citizens often had to work during the assembly meetings. Now they could all go.
• This system was a perfect democracy because every [male] citizen could hope to hold office and to influence the
making of policy. If a man was dissatisfied with the way the government was run, all he had to do was got to the
next assembly meeting and say so. If enough other citizens agreed with him, they could vote to change things.
• Pericles was also noted for other accomplishments at Athens. He adopted policies to foster trade and commerce. He supervised most of the rebuilding of Athens after the destruction of the Persian War. He was responsible for the Parthenon and the major buildings we associate with Athens today.
✓ The Failings of Athenian Democracy: The argument can be made that the ideals and goals of the Greek polis
reached their highest realization in the activities of Athens in the time of Pericles. Unfortunately, however, the failings of the polis are also most evident in this period.
• These failings became obvious in the relations between Athens and her allies in the Delian League. It was in the
nature of the polis everywhere that Athens, once put in this position of power, would pursue policies in her own
interest rather than the policies in the interests of the whole alliance. In a city-state, only the rights and interests
of the citizens were considered important. Others had no rights. By the same thinking, other city-states besides
your own did not have any rights either. Thus, if a city-state had the opportunity to dominate and manipulate her
neighbor, she would not hesitate to do so.
• The ultimate results of the high-handed Athenian policy in the Delian League were first the destruction of the
Athenian Empire, and in the long run, the destruction of the polis as the main form of government in Greece.
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• Ask yourself the following questions: What evidence may be found in the Athenians’ treatment of her allies that
supports the argument that I have just made?
The Peloponnesian Wars
✓ The stronger Athens became, the more Sparta worried about the Growth of Athenian power. Remember that the
Spartans worried that a Greek state that became too powerful and too aggressive might ultimately threaten Sparta,
and endanger Spartan control of her helots.
✓ The destruction of the Athenian Empire was achieved by two serious wars between Athens and Sparta at the end
of the 400s. These wars are known as the Peloponnesian Wars (431-421, 415-404). Almost every state in the
Greek world was involved in the war on one side or the other.
✓ Identify the following terms from the period from the end of the Second Persian War to the fall of Athens in the
Peloponnesian Wars:
Pericles
Long Walls
Delian League
Athens plague
Delos
Piraeus
rowers
Peace of Nicias
ostracism
Alcibiades
ostrakon
Invasion of Sicily
First Peloponnesian War
Aegospotami
Thirty Years Peace
Thirty Tyrants
Temple of Athena Nike
Corinth
Thucydides
Thebes
✓ One historian compared the Peloponnesian Wars to a struggle between an elephant and a whale. Explain.
Hellenic Art and Literature
✓ Identify the following which may be found in the lectures and text:
Homer
Iliad
Odyssey
Achilles
Odysseus
epic poetry
moira
arête
Trojan War
Hesiod
Works and Days
Sappho of Lesbos
Lyric Poetry
history
Herodotus
Thucydides
tragic drama
Aeschylus
Sophocles
Euripides
Oresteia
trilogy
Oedipus
Medea
comedy
Aristophanes
Lysistrata
Phidias
Elgin Marbles
Polycleitus
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Hellenic Philosophy
✓ Identify the following:
Thales of Miletus
Pythagoras of Samos
Anaxagoras
Sophists
Socrates
ethics
“gadfly”
Plato
the Academy
World of IdeasThe Republic
Philosopher Kings
Aristotle
the Lyceum
“the mean”
“the rational animal”
telos
the Unmoved Mover
logic
Alexander the Great
✓ In the fourth century B.C. - the 300s - the center of attention in the ancient Greek world shifts to a state in the
northern part of Greece, a place called Macedonia.
✓ The Macedonians were Greeks; they spoke Greek, believed in the gods and read their Homer, and they participated in the Olympic games. Still, city states like Athens and Sparta looked upon them as poor country cousins
rather than full-blown members of the Greek family. But Macedonian society, government and cultural was rather
different from those of their more civilized Greek brethren ini the south. Find, study and discuss those important differences. What did Macedonian Greeks have in common with the Greeks of the polis? In what ways was Macedonia different in terms of its form of government and society?
✓ In 359 B.C. all of that began to change when Philip of Macedon became king in his early 20s. Who was Philip and
why and how did he change the course of events in the Aegean World?
✓ Identify the following terms from the text and lectures:
Philip II
Thebes
hostage
Macedonian phalanx
cavalry
Demosthenes
Philippics
Isocrates
Battle of Chaeronea
Corinthian League
hegemon
✓ Philip was assassinated in 336 B.C. and his son, Alexander, became king at the age of twenty (about your age).
The first thing that he did was crush the rebellion that he perceived to be bubbling up among the Greek cities. In
fact, as a lesson to the other cities, he destroyed the city of Thebes, but, when he did so, he did not burn down the
house of the poet Pindar, because he wanted the Greek cities to know that he still respected Greek civilization. He
just wanted no trouble.
✓ In 334 B.C. Alexander led an army of 40,000 men into Persia. To give you an idea of his character, he took not only
soldiers with him but poets, philosophers, scientists, and secretaries to make note of learning in all of the places he
planned to take his army.
✓ Identify the following terms related to Alexander and his conquests:
Phoenicians
“son of Amon”
Granicus
Gaugamela
Issus
Hydaspes
Siege of Tyre
The Hellenistic Age
✓ Alexander’s death marks the start of the later period of Greek history that scholars call Hellenistic Times. The period extends from 323 to the founding of the Roman Empire in 30 B.C.
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✓ The death of Alexander set off a civil war among his Macedonian generals to see who would rule after him. In the
war, his great empire broke up into several pieces each ruled by one of his generals. There were three major kingdoms covering Macedonia and large parts of what had been the Persian Empire. Some smaller states also existed.
They remained independent in theory, but they were usually under the thumb of one or another of the larger states.
Most old Greek city-states were in this category. So, let’s start off with a brief look at the political divisions of the
Hellenistic world. There were three major states:
• Egypt: Rulers were descended from Ptolemy I, one of Alexander’s generals. This state included Egypt, part of
Arabia, Palestine and the island of Cyprus. The new Greek rulers inherited a tightly-knit well organized bureaucracy, the ancient Egyptian tradition that rulers, the Pharaohs, were divine, and vast agricultural resources. This
was the wealthiest of the Hellenistic States.
• The Seleucid Kingdom: Founded by another of Alexander’s generals, Seleukos. This kingdom included most of
what had been the Persian Empire proper – Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, and Iran. It grew and shrank considerably
over its period of existence. It was the most culturally diverse empire, and had to be ruled with a strong hand.
The Seleucid empire was only controllable through a strong bureaucracy and a powerful military.
• The Antigonid Kingdom: After a period of chaos as one Greek general after another tried to acquire the Macedonian homeland, order was finally restored by an able, ruthless and efficient general named Antigonos Cyclops
(One-Eyed). Antigonos ruled Macedonia and part of Northern Greece. This was the only completely Greek kingdom of the big three.. The Antigonid kingdom was weaker than the Seleucid Kingdom, poorer than Egypt, but it
was the most unified, and more militarily powerful.
✓ Until about 201 B.C. these three great states maintained a precarious balance of power, and this made it possible
for smaller states to exist, primarily by playing diplomatic alliance games with the larger states. Smaller states
made alliances with the larger ones in order to maintain their independence, playing one great state against the
others. There were some surviving Greek city states that we already know — Athens, Sparta, Rhodes — and a few
rising city states in Asia Minor. These states also formed leagues to defend themselves.
✓ Learn the following terms from the text and lectures:
gymnasium
Stoicism
New Comedy
Skepticism
Menander
mystery religions
Cynics
Euclid
Diogenes
The Library at Alexandria
Epicurus
geocentric universe
Epicurianism
heliocentric universe
Zeno
professionalization of scholarship
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