Download The Ancient Greeks

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Chapter 8: The Ancient Greeks
Lesson 3: The Golden Age
Big Idea: Defeating the Persian Empire in war led to the Golden Age in Classical
Greece.
First Paragraph
Historians use the phrase Golden Age to describe a time when a civilization was at its
best.
This judgment is made based on such things as the civilizations:
• Art
• Architecture
• Literature
• Science
The Persian Wars
Vocabulary
1) league – a group of allies
The Greek city-states stopped fighting each other and worked together to defeat a
common enemy: Persia
The Persians had a large empire, and king Darius I turned his soldiers toward the
Greek mainland.
Athenian soldiers fought the Persians on the plain of Marathon and managed to defeat
the larger Persian army.
Legends about the battle describe a messenger who ran all the way from Marathon to
Athens, a distance of 26 miles, 385 yards.
According to legend, the messenger Phidippides ran
26 miles to Athens to report on the Athenian victory
over the Persians. After declaring victory, he
dropped dead!
The Persians again invaded in 480 BCE. They were under the command Xerxes, the
son of Darius I.
The Persians invaded by land and by sea, and were opposed by many Greek citystates including Athens and Sparta.
The Persians outnumbered the Greeks again, but again the Greeks won.
The Greek city-states formed leagues to protect themselves against common enemies:
The Peloponnesian League was led by Sparta and consisted of the southern citystates.
• The Delian League was led by Athens and consisted of city-states from Attica,
Asian Minor, and some of the Aegean Islands.
•
Even though the Greeks were
outnumbered by the Persians, they
were able to defeat both King Darius I
and his son Xerxes.
The Age of Pericles
Pericles was a relative of Cleisthenes, the Athenian leader who instituted democratic
reforms.
Pericles ruled Athens for about 30 years. He:
• Introduced pay for all government officials, which allowed people who were not
wealthy to serve in government.
• Gave male citizens of any class the right to hold government office, believing
that even poor citizens had a right to participate in government.
Pericles was the ruler of Athens for much of its
Golden Age. He turned Athens into a cultural
center by supporting the arts and architecture.
Achievements of the Golden Age
Vocabulary
1) patron – supporter of learning and the arts
2) tragedies – serious plays with unhappy endings
3) comedies – humorous plays designed to make audiences
laugh
Pericles supported learning and the arts, and he hired architects to build temples and
theaters.
He also supported writers such as:
• Herodotus – wrote about the Persian Wars.
• Sophocles – wrote tragic plays
• Aristophanes – wrote comedies that made fun of political leaders
During the Golden Age, scientists studied nature and human life. The scientist
Hippocrates discovered that illnesses came
from natural causes, and were not
punishments from the gods.
Medical students still take the Hippocratic
oath when they become doctors.
The Hippocratic oath compels
doctors to promise that they will
do no harm to their patients.
The End of the Golden Age
Vocabulary
1) plague – a deadly disease
2) demagogue – a leader who stirs up the feelings and
fears of people to gain personal power
Athens wanted to be known as the most powerful city-state, so they began conquering
other lands, such as Egypt.
They also forced their allies in the Delian League to pay them for protection and
peace.
Sparta did not like the growing power of Athens, so they broke off friendly relations
with them.
The Peloponnesian War began in 431 BCE when Sparta and its allies in the
Peloponnesian League went to war with Athens and its allies.
When Sparta attacked, Pericles pulled everyone from the countryside within the walls
of the city.
The city was overcrowded, and a plague spread through the city. It killed ¼ of the
Athenian army, including Pericles.
After Pericles died, the Athenians followed
bad leaders, and they grew weaker. Sparta
conquered Athens in 404 BCE, and replaced
the democracy with their own form of
government: an oligarchy.
The Peloponnesian War lasted
about 27 years, with Sparta
fighting Athens and eventually
claiming victory.
The Greek Philosophers
Vocabulary
1) academy – a special school
Philosophers are “lovers of wisdom” and many of these great thinkers and teachers still
existed after the Peloponnesian War.
Philosophers:
• Socrates – the city’s gadfly was found guilty of teaching dangerous ideas to the
city’s young people. He was ordered to drink poison, and instead of running
away, he drank the poison to show the importance of following the law.
• Plato – he believed that philosophers would make the best rulers. He started an
academy to teach future rulers how to govern well. He believed that democracy
was dangerous because people with too much freedom would stop obeying the
law.
• Aristotle – Unlike his teacher, this philosopher believed that it was important to
study things the way that they actually were, not how one would like them to be.
He was among the first scientists to study both animals and plants in detail.
The Death of Socrates
Plato and his student Aristotle