Download Hebrews, Persians, and Greeks, 1100 - 336 BCE

CHAPTER 3
Building the Classical World: Hebrews, Persians, and Greeks, 1100 - 336 B.C.E.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
I.
Hebrew Civilization and Religion
The Jews, whose civilization has been one of the most influential in the West, originated
at the end of the end of the International Bronze Age, when their seminomadic, pastoral
ancestors began to migrate into Canaan.
A. The Settlement in Canaan
Distinguished by their belief in only one god, the Hebrew tribes believed they were
descended from a single ancestor, Abraham, and had been led out of slavery in Egypt by
Moses, who had also given them God’s law. The Hebrews’ control over Canaan led them
into conflict with other groups, especially the Philistines, which resulted in the Hebrew
tribes organizing themselves under a king.
B. The Israelite Kingdoms
Under the kings David and Solomon, Hebrew life was transformed, as these monarchs
created governmental, military, and commercial structures such as those found in the
empires of Mesopotamia and Egypt. After Solomon’s death in 922 B.C.E., tribal
animosities caused the kingdom to split into two: Israel and Judah, both of whom
struggled to survive in the shadow of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires.
A. The Hebrew Prophets
As the gap between rich and poor grew and the poor became more oppressed, social
critics known as prophets arose, speaking with what they thought was the authority of
God to denounce religious decay, urging moral reform, and spiritual consciousness. After
Israel fell to the Assyrians in 733 B.C.E., religion in Judah became more centralized in
Jerusalem. This led to greater uniformity and a more powerful priesthood but caused
later prophets to challenge the supremacy of the priests.
B. The Babylonian Exile
After Judah fell to the Babylonians, thousands of Jews found themselves deported to
Babylon, where they struggled to maintain their cultural and religious identity, and
further developed their idea of one god as a universal god. When the Babylonians in turn
fell to the Persians, the Jews returned to Jerusalem.
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C. The Second Temple and Jewish Religious Practice
A second temple was built in Jerusalem and religious leaders such as Ezra began to
standardize Jewish religious practice, with a new emphasis placed on knowledge and
observation of Jewish law. In the process, women were excluded from some public
religious roles they had previously had but gained status as the gender through which
Jewish identity descended.
D. The Hebrew Bible
It was in the period following the building of the Second Temple in 515 B.C.E. that the
Hebrews began slowly to shape their Bible, in which they recounted their relationship
with their one god as it developed through historical events. Nonetheless, the significance
of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament, lies less in its narration of history than in its
religious ideas: its insistence on the presence of God in human lives, its moral vision of
human existence, and its understanding of history as the unfolding of a divine plan.
II.
Classical Persia: An Empire on Three Continents
About 300 years before the ancestors of the Hebrews migrated into Canaan, other peoples
began to migrate into what is now western Iran. Five hundred years later, these had
consolidated into two groups: Medes and Persians. Although at first the Medes
dominated, in the sixth century Persia broke away from, and then conquered, the Medes.
A. Cyrus the Great and Persian Expansion
Ascending the throne in 550 B.C.E., Cyrus the Great transformed Persia into a giant,
multiethnic empire. His son Cambyses continued the expansion and, with the conquest of
Phoenicia, made Persian a naval power.
1. A Government of Tolerance
The highly centralized Persian government, although absolute in power, allowed
subject peoples to continue their own religion and tradition as long as they
recognized Persian political supremacy.
2. Zoroastrianism: An Imperial Religion
The official religion of Persia was Zoroastrianism, which believes that the
universe is dominated by a struggle between the forces of good and the forces of
evil. Human beings, by choosing right or wrong, engage in this struggle, giving
human existence meaning and laying the foundation for a profound human ethics.
Zoroastrianism thus provided an ideological support and guide for the great
Persian kings, and also played an important role in shaping Western religious
thought, especially the ideas of a final judgment and the combat between good
(God) and evil (the Devil).
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B. The Achaemenid Dynasty
This dynasty was founded when Darius seized the throne in 522 B.C.E. Darius further
expanded the Persian empire, reorganized it into provinces or satrapies, and brought
artists and craftsmen from throughout the empire to construct his new capital, Persepolis.
III.
Greece Rebuilds: 1100 - 479 B.C.E.
Emerging from the Dark Age, a period of poverty and political instability, Greece’s
economic growth and encounters with the Phoenicians and Persians in the Archaic Age
set the stage for the period of great cultural achievement known as the Classical Age.
A. The Dark Age (ca. 1100 - 750 B.C.E.)
Urban life, literacy, and maritime trade disappeared as both food production and
population declined, causing many Greeks to migrate to Ionia.
B. The Archaic Age (ca. 750 - 479 B.C.E.)
Between 750 and 650 B.C.E., many economic, cultural, and technological innovations
were introduced to the Greeks from their contacts with Middle Eastern peoples, the most
valuable of which was the Greek adoption of the Phoenician alphabet.
1. Homer’s Epic Poems
Newly literate, the Greeks quickly recorded two of the greatest literary works ever
composed, the Iliad and the Odyssey, both attributed to a poet named Homer but
actually drawing on a large and already old oral tradition. Homer episodically
emphasized certain aspects of human character and emotion to make points about
human strengths and weaknesses.
2. The Polis
A new form of social and political life, the polis was a self-governing city-state,
which varied in size but contained the same institutions: an assembly, a council of
elders, temples, and a marketplace. The polis fostered a strong bond between the
citizens and their community.
3. Colonization and the Settlement of New Lands
Due to a population boom, the Greeks turned to colonization throughout the
Mediterranean, stimulating commerce and spreading a vibrant Greek culture
which often deeply influenced local peoples.
4. Elite Athletic Competition in Greek Poleis
To express a common Greek identity and honor the gods, aristocratic men from as
many as 150 city-states competed for glory in athletic games, including the first
Olympics.
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5. The Hoplite Revolution
With increased wealth, non-aristocratic men could afford war weapons, which led
to the development of the hoplite phalanx, infantry fighting in a close-knit
manner. Conscious of their military contributions, the hoplites began to challenge
the political dominance of the aristocracy, usually led by a populist tyrant. While
tyrants enabled the political participation of ordinary citizens, their rule often
became oppressive and usually did not last more than two generations.
6. Sparta: A Militarized Society
The hoplites of Sparta achieved political power without the help of a tyrant, but
rapid expansion, especially the Spartan conquest of Messenia, caused Sparta to
become a highly militarized, authoritarian polis.
7. Athens: Toward Democracy
To avoid war between the peasantry and the aristocrats, in 594 B.C.E. Solon
enacted reforms that limited aristocratic authority and increased all citizens’
political participation. From these reforms emerged democracy. Following the
rule of the tyrant Peisistratus, Cleisthenes built on Solon’s work, establishing new
institutions and ensuring every male citizen had a permanent voice in government.
Out of the legacy of Solon and Cleisthenes, Athens developed principles of
government that remain to this day.
C. The Persian Wars (490 - 479 B.C.E.)
Athens’ support of the Ionian Greeks’ rebellion against the Persian Empire set the stage
for a conflict between Persia and the Greek poleis.
1. The Marathon Campaign
Thanks to well-trained hoplites, and the unity created by Cleisthenes’ democratic
reforms, the Athenians were able to defeat the Persians when they landed at
Marathon.
2. Athenian Naval Power and the Salamis Campaign
In preparation for Persian revenge, Athens developed a large navy consisting of
battleships called triremes, manned by the poorest citizens, who now in addition
to hoplites and aristocrats, took an active role in the military defense of Athens.
The sacrifices of Athens’ ally Sparta at Thermopylae enabled the Athenians to
position their fleet for a stunning victory over the Persian navy at Salamis.
IV.
The Classical Age of Greece (479 - 336 B.C.E.)
Following the defeat of a great empire by a handful of city-states, Greek confidence
soared and creativity flourished, nowhere more so than in Athens.
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A. The Rise and Fall of the Athenian Empire
After Persia’s defeat, Athens adopted an aggressive foreign policy that rapidly expanded
an Athenian Empire but sowed the seeds of the discord that would cause that empire’s
collapse.
1. From Defensive Alliance to Athenian Empire
To continue to drive the Persians out of the Aegean area, Athens created the
Delian League, but while the Persians were gone by 496 B.C.E., the League
became a means for Athens to imperialize other Greek poleis.
2. Democracy in the Age of Pericles
Democracy at home and empire abroad reached their peak under Pericles, who
dominated the Athenian political arena from 461 B.C.E. until his death in 429
B.C.E. Both empire and increased public business led to an increase in public
officials, whose honesty the Athenians sought to ensure and whose ambitions they
tried to limit by making these officials accountable to the public and, if necessary,
exiling them – a practice called ostracism.
3. Conflict with Sparta: The Peloponnesian War
Feeling threatened by Athenian power, Sparta and a few allies began a
long
conflict in which Spartan land power and Athenian naval power created an
effectual stalemate, until a disastrous Athenian expedition in 415 B.C.E. set the
stage for Athens’ defeat.
4. The Collapse of Athenian Power
Athens surrendered in 404 B.C.E., but within a year had overthrown the tyrants
imposed on them by Sparta and restored democracy. Sparta, over-reaching itself
militarily, was unable to maintain itself as a dominant power and thereafter the
Greeks either chronically fought each other or served as mercenaries.
B. The Social and Religious Foundations of Classical Greece
The prosperity and vibrant civic life of Greek citizen men sprang from a society that
strictly subordinated women and relied on slave labor.
1. Gender Roles
For Greek men, the primary purpose of a wife was to produce legitimate
offspring, and so Greek women were married off young, consigned to a life of
domestic labor and kept strictly controlled and secluded by their husbands. Lower
class women were sometimes forced by economic necessity to sell produce or
cloth in the marketplace, a few women gained prestige as priestesses, and others
were prostitutes, including an elite group of courtesans. In general, Greek men
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considered women to be intellectually and emotionally inferior to men, and
preferred male relationships, including homosexual ones.
2. Slavery: The Source of Greek Prosperity
Greek prosperity depended on the labor of slaves, who made up about a third of
the population. Slaves, who had no legal or political rights, performed a wide
variety of tasks and gave well-off Greek citizens the leisure to pursue intellectual
and cultural development. Slaves occasionally gained freedom, but never
citizenship.
3. Religion and the Gods
Greek life was permeated with religion, which provided a structured way for the
Greeks to interact with their gods, whom the Greeks believed were not only
powerful but omnipresent and influential in daily life and events. Especially
important were the gods that protected the polis. Shared religious ideas on the
gods and their worship, like the Greek language, gave the Greeks a common
identity.
C. Intellectual Life
Exploring the natural world and the human condition, the Greeks in the Classical Age
created an enduring legacy in drama, science, philosophy, and the arts.
1. Greek Drama
The Greeks examined their values and contemporary issues in public dramatic
performances, which were both educational and entertaining. The tragedies of
Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides explored conflicts between passion and
reason, between divine and human law, while Aristophanes’ irreverent and lewd
comedies made points about human and social failings with sarcasm and
mockery.
2. Scientific Thought in Ionia
About 600 B.C.E., Greek thinkers in Ionia, inspired by their encounter with the
Babylonian scientific and mathematical tradition, rejected supernatural
explanations for natural events and tried to develop a rational understanding of
nature based on careful inquiry and logical deduction.
3. The Origins of Writing History
A similar desire to understand the general causes of things – in this case human
events, not natural ones – led to the origin of the Western tradition of writing
history with Herodotus, who sought to explain the Persian War in terms of
human, not divine, causality. Herodotus extended his inquiries and analysis to
foreign cultures as well, raising basic questions about cultural encounters that are
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still relevant. Thucydides further developed the analysis of the human causes of
human events in writing a history of the Peloponnesian War.
4. Nature Versus Customs and the Origins of Philosophical Thought
With their inquiring spirit, the Greeks were the first to pose a profound question:
Are political and moral standards rooted in nature and reflect absolute standards,
or are they human inventions, with humans the measure of all things? In the fifth
century B.C.E., teachers named sophists argued for the latter, leading to moral
relativism. In response, Socrates and his pupil Plato argued for the validity of
absolute standards; Plato, in particular, taught that not only were virtues real, they
constituted a higher reality, whose truth was often obscured by the actually lessreal physical world. Therefore careful, critical reasoning was required to in order
to perceive and understand them, a rational quest for absolutes that Plato believed
was incumbent upon all but the particular responsibility of philosophers. Plato
elevated theory or the abstract over scientific inquiry or the particular, but Plato’s
student Aristotle believed that the scientific observation and classification of the
particulars of this world allowed us to acquire knowledge of absolute truths.
5. The Arts: Sculpture, Painting, and Architecture
The pursuit of the ideal preoccupied Greek artists as well as philosophers, who
sought to balance this idealism with realism, especially in the representation of
the human body, which the Greeks believed was both beautiful and worthy of
exaltation. Greek architects as well sought to reflect the grace and balance they
perceived in the natural world with symmetrical and proportional buildings.
V.
Conclusion: Classical Foundations of the West
The Classical Age produced what would be important, lasting legacies for the West: the
religious and ethical teachings of the Hebrews, the model of a tolerant and efficient
empire provided by the Persians, and the political, artistic, and philosophical innovations
of the Greeks.
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TIMELINE
Insert the following events into the timeline. This should help you to compare important
historical events chronologically.
Clesthenes’s democratic reforms unify Attica
Homer composes Illiad and the Odyssey
Greeks stop invasion of Greece at Marathon
Trial and death of Socrates
David and Solomon rule the Israelite kingdom
Hoplite armor and tactics develop: Spartans conquer Messenia
Trial and Death of Socrates
Peloponnesian War; Thucydides writes History
______ 1000-922 B.C.E.
______ 750-720 B.C.E.
______ 700-650 B.C.E.
______ 507 B.C.E.
______ 490 B.C.E.
______ 431-404 B.C.E.
______ 339 B.C.E.
TERMS, PEOPLE, EVENTS
The following terms, people, and events are important to your understanding of the chapter.
Define each one.
Democracy
Monotheism
Babylonian Exile
Zororastrianism
Acropolis
Polis
Hoplites
Panhellenic
Helots
Phalanx
Tyrants
Triremes
Delian League
Ostracism
Oligarchy
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Hetairai
Forms
Sophists
Cannan
Judah
Israel
The Second Temple
Philistines
David and Solomon
Prophets
Cyrus the Great
Solon
Peisostratus
Cleisthenes’s
Pericles
Aeschylus
Herodotus
Thucydides
Plato
Socrates
MAP EXERCISE
The following exercise is intended to clarify the geophysical environment and the spatial
relationships among the important objects and places mentioned in this chapter. Locate the
following places on the map.
Sparta
Miletos
Delphi
Thebes
Delos
Athens
Marathon
Salamis
Troy
Pickup map from Kishlansky Stidy Guide, page 20
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MAKING CONNECTIONS
The following questions are intended to emphasize important ideas within the chapter.
1. Discuss the early political and social organization of the Hebrews. Why did they
eventually develop kingship? What was the religious significance of the Hebrews?
2. What is the significance of the Hebrew Bible to historians? What was its meaning to the
Hebrews of ancient Israel?
3. What factors contributed to the emergence of Persia as a giant, multiethnic empire that
stretched from India to the Mediterranean Sea? How were the many varied ethnic groups
in the Persian Empire treated? How did this contribute to Persian unity?
4. What were the two types of political organizations typical of Archaic Greece? What were
the results of population growth and opposition to aristocratic power in the seventh
century B.C.?
5. Discuss the hierarchy of gender roles in classical Greek society. How did those roles
determine access to public space? What role did slavery play in this society?
DOCUMENT QUESTIONS
1. What are the common themes in the excerpts of the three tales of the flood? What about
this story would make it appealing to different cultures?
2. In Hippocrates’s evaluation of Europeans and Asians, recklessness and hot-headedness,
which contributed to a warlike society, are positive traits? What other societies might
have agreed with this assessment?
PUTTING LARGER CONCEPTS TOGETHER
1. One of the clearest differences between Greek civilization and other civilizations we have
considered and will consider is the failure to establish any long-lasting imperial form of
government. What factors account for Greek civilization’s inability to maintain imperial
government?
2. Compare and contrast the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. What generated such
examination of Athenian culture and political organization?
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SELF-TEST OF FACTUAL INFORMATION
1.
Which statement about Solomon is true?
A. He formed a monarchy to unite the twelve Hebrew tribes.
B. He alienated the ten Northern tribes with his extravagance and forced labor
arrangements.
C. He lost battles to the Assyrians.
D. He suspended trade with non-Hebrews.
2.
Which city is located farthest to the east?
A.
B.
C.
D.
3.
Which of the following is not true of Zoroastrianism?
A.
B.
C.
D.
4.
described a hero’s adventures returning home after the Trojan War.
depicted military combat in vivid detail, but treated the main characters superficially.
omitted mention of gods or religion.
recounted old legends that had been told for many generations.
Which of the following terms is incorrectly identified?
A.
B.
C.
D.
6.
It was the official religion of the Persian Empire.
Ahura Mazda is the creator and the cause of all good things.
The priests recognized the Torah as their holy book.
People are expected to engage in ethical conduct.
The Iliad
A.
B.
C.
D.
5.
Persepolis
Corinth
Jerusalem
Sardis
Phalanx – government by a few
Ostrakon – pottery shard used to vote to expel a citizen
Trireme – Greek boat
Acropolis – defensible hilltop
After occupying Messenia the Spartans suppressed the
A.
B.
C.
D.
Hoplites.
Helots.
Kouros.
Ionians.
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7.
A runner brought Athenians news of the victory at the Battle of Marathon over an army
led by the
A.
B.
C.
D.
8.
The “Father of History” was
A.
B.
C.
D.
9.
Polyclitus.
Hippias.
Alcibiades.
Herodotus.
Which author is correctly matched with his work?
A.
B.
C.
D.
10.
Persians.
Phoenicians.
Spartans.
Romans.
Homer – Politics
Aristotle – Antigone
Thucydides – History of the Peloponnesian War
Sophocles – On the Nature of Things
Which statement about Plato is true?
A.
B.
C.
D.
He believed in the reality of absolute unchanging Forms.
He founded a school called the Lyceum.
He taught that truth is relative.
He studied under Aristotle.
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