Download Classical Civilizations: Mediterranean Basin 2 WH011 Activity

Classical Civilizations: Mediterranean Basin 2
WH011
Activity Introduction
Hey there, it’s (Jack). Today we’re talkin’ about two Greek city-states: Athens and
Sparta. To help out with this, I’ve got some different activities up my sleeve. Let’s get
started!
Reading Passage Introduction
First, you’ve got to understand some stuff about Athens and Sparta. After the Persian
War, they became the top dogs of the Greek world. However, they were pretty different,
especially in terms of ideology. What I mean is that Athens and Sparta had different
value systems and ideas.
In general, they had different beliefs about how people should live and be governed. Not
sure what I mean? Well, check out this reading passage. It’s going to give you a helpful
comparison between Athens and Sparta, which will allow you to understand very
important developments which occurred after the Persian Wars in Classical Greece.
Video 1
Hey there, (actor name) here. Today we’re looking at one of the most interesting
struggles in Greek history, the Peloponnesian War. It’s full of dynamic leaders, bold
military tactics, and two opposing ideologies struggling for dominance. The
Peloponnesian War was also very different from the Persian Wars. You might
remember, the Persian Wars involved many of the Greek city-states unifying to fight off
the Persian invasion.
Well, the Peloponnesian War was more like a civil war, when one faction of a country
fights another faction from that same country. But it’s also good to remember that at this
time Greece wasn’t what we think of today as a country or a nation. It was a collection
of loosely tied-together city-states.
Now during the Persian Wars, Athens and Sparta emerged as the leading Greek citystates—or superpowers, if you will. But they were very different from one another.
Athens was wealthy and worldly, and quite proud of its democratic society. Sparta, on
the other hand, was plain and isolated, and equally proud of its strong militaristic
society.
Even though they joined forces to fight the Persians, they always remained very
suspicious of each other. And this suspicion would lead to … that’s right, the
Peloponnesian War.
When Athens proposed that the Greeks go on the offensive and force the Persians out
of the Aegean Sea, Sparta wanted nothing to do with this ambitious plan.
So Athens gathered support from other Greek city-states and formed the Delian League
in four-seventy-seven B.C.E. To be a member of the league, you gave soldiers and
money to Athens to push the Persians out of the Aegean. By four-seventy B.C.E., they
had removed much of the Persian threat. After the threat was removed, some of the
city-states wanted to leave the Delian League. However, Athens refused to let them
and continued to demand money from them for protection – money that the Athenians
would also use to beautify their own city-state. Seriously, that Parthenon didn’t pay for
itself.
Around this time Athens also began to expand on the Greek mainland, conquering other
city-states. These developments made Sparta and its allied city-states, who were also
known as the Peloponnesian League, very wary. They no longer saw Persia as the
major threat to Greece. Instead, their biggest concern was Athens’ ambitions.
In order to stop Athens, the Peloponnesian League went to war against the Delian
League. The war ended with a treaty outlining an agreement to a thirty-year peace
between Sparta and Athens in which Athens would give up the territory it conquered on
the Greek mainland in exchange for Sparta’s recognition of Athens’ naval superiority.
Despite the treaty, the city-state of Corinth, a member of the Peloponnesian League,
and Athens began to have issues with one another when two of their colonies went to
war in four-thirty-three B.C.E. So Corinth and Athens engaged in a naval battle. As a
result, Sparta came to the aid of its ally Corinth, sparking the Peloponnesian War.
Video 2
Ok, when the Spartans attacked Athens, Pericles, the Athenian leader, was ready. You
see, prior to the invasion, Pericles commissioned a large wall that was built around the
city to keep out invaders for just such an occasion. The walls deflected the siege, and
the Athenian fleet blocked Spartan supply lines from reaching Athens.
Despite this success, there were some serious problems with Pericles’ plan. First, it
kept Athens on the defensive and didn’t do enough to completely fight off Sparta. Also,
it forced all the people of Athens to live inside the city walls. Pericles didn’t anticipate
the unsanitary conditions this would create. Within two years, Athens suffered from an
outbreak of the plague. And as it turned out, Pericles’ plan would be his own undoing
when he, too, contracted the plague and died.
After the death of Pericles, Athens began to fall apart as serious tensions arose
between the aristocrats and the democrats. Around this time, a democrat named Cleon
led Athens. He believed Athens had to go on the offensive, and he initiated an attack on
Sparta. He thought this would incite a slave revolt in Sparta. So, in four-twenty-five
B.C.E., Cleon led the attack. But Athenian success was fleeting, and the death of Cleon
in four-twenty-two dealt Athens a serious blow.
After Cleon’s failed expedition, an Athenian leader named Nicias negotiated a truce with
Sparta. However, the truce only lasted seven years. What destroyed the truce? Well,
when a charismatic and manipulative young man named Alcibiades became the leader
of Athens, he sided with the pro-war faction of democrats against Nicias and began
heading up a renewed war effort.
Soon Alcibiades designed a brilliant plan for a rather daring expedition. But the night
before the expedition, sacred statues in Athens were vandalized, and Alcibiades and his
friends were believed to be responsible. Alcibiades was arrested for sacrilege, but he
escaped and fled to Sparta, where he gave the Spartans all the details of the
expedition.
In the end, the expedition was a complete and utter failure. It resulted in the deaths of
many Athenians and drained the city of its monetary resources. The war continued for
several more years and, in their desperation, Athenians even welcomed Alcibiades back
to lead the city. Eventually, though, Athens surrendered to Sparta. The Spartans
restored the Athenian aristocrats to power and outlawed democracy. From this point on,
Athens was a shadow of its once-glorious self.