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Wars of Ancient Greece
Video Clips
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBTeL
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iks6lkz
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Question Of The Day
How Long did the Trojan war last?
10 years.
 What Was Helens husband name?
Menelaus
 Trojan Horse ..Who was the mastermind
behind it and helped make it?
Odysseus
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Questions Of The Day
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How long was the Trojan war fought?
10 years
Who was Helen’s husband?
King Menelaus
Who was the mastermind behind the
design and use of the Trojan Horse?
Odysseus
Introduction
There are three major wars in the history of
Ancient Greece:
 The Trojan War, 1250 BCE
 The Persian War, 497-479 BCE
 The Peloponnesian War, 461-445 BCE
The Trojan War, 1250 BCE
 The Trojan War is considered one of the most important events in
Greek history and mythology
 The Trojan War began when Helen fled her husband, King Menelaus
of Sparta, with Paris of Troy
 Menelaus deployed a large fleet of ships to bring Helen back from
Troy.
 It is said that the Trojan War lasted 10 years, with some believing
that it would never end.
 Some theories suggest that the Trojans were victorious.
 To enter the city of Troy the Greeks constructed a large wooden
horse, able to contain 30 Greek soldiers, and presented it to the
gates of Troy
 The horse was accepted by the Trojans and brought inside the city’s
walls. The Greek soldiers exited the horse and opened the gates of
Troy to the remaining soldiers during the following night,
conquering the city and bringing about the fall of Troy.
The Trojan Horse
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The Trojan Horse is a creation of the Ancient Greeks. It was a
large, hollow, wooden construction that resembled a horse.
Odysseus helped design and construct the Trojan Horse
The Trojans assumed the horse was a gift or peace offering to
end the war and readily accepted it past their gates and into the
city.
The Trojan Horse was the key warfare weapon used by the
Greeks to defeat the Trojans.
Military Ships
There were two main types of boats that played a
role in everyday life during the times of Ancient
Greece:
Military
 Cargo
Trireme
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Propelled by manpower
The trireme was a single tier ship with two tiers
of oars per side. There were 25 rowers on each
side of the ship, one man to an oar.
Trireme’s were approximately 115 feet long and
8.5 feet tall.
In good weather conditions Trireme’s could
travel up to14 knots per hour.
The downside of Trireme’s was that they were
rather light and could be blown off course in
high wind conditions.
Quinqueremes
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Quinqueremes had three to four tiers of
oars with two men to an oar.
The boats were significantly heavier than
Trireme’s and were not as easily affected
by high wind conditions.
Quinqueremes were constructed of wood
with metal spikes to hold the wood
together. The most common wood used
was fir, cedar, and pine.
Hoplites
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Hoplites were citizensoldiers of the Ancient
Greek city-states.
They were protected with
bronze chest plates,
helmet with cheek guards,
and greaves.
A hoplite was expected to
buy his own protective
armor.
The armor could weigh
between 50-70 pounds.
Phalanx
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The phalanx is a Greek fighting
formation (organized battle line)
that focused on soldiers fighting
as a closely ranked unit
The first few ranks of soldiers
would project their spears over
the first rank of shields.
The phalanx was essentially a
formation of a shield wall and a
mass of spears pointing toward
the oncoming enemy.
Frontal assaults were very
difficult against a phalanx
formation and it also allowed a
higher proportion of the soldiers
to be actively engaged in combat
at a given time.
Phalanx formation: standing in a battle line, awaiting the clash with enemy troops.
The Persian War
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The Persian War is
considered a defining
moment in Greek history,
with the Persians
conquering everyone in
their war path.
The Persians attempted
to conquer Greece by
land in 514 BC by
attacking the Scythians.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHVWF4Hl9wE&feature=related
The Persian War
During 500 BCE onward the Persian Empire
expanded to the borders of Greece.
Battle of Thermopylae
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The Persian army marched into Greece under the
leadership of King Xerxes. They encountered a small
Greek force led by the Spartan commander Leonidas at a
narrow mountain pass at Thermopylae. The Greeks were
able to defend the pass against the much larger Persian
forces until they were betrayed. A Greek traitor showed
the Persians a secret passage around the pass. The
Persians were able to attack from two sides. Realizing
the battle was lost, Leonidas stayed back with 300 other
Spartans to give time to the bulk of the Greek force to
retreat safely. It was a tremendous act of sacrifice on
the part of Leonidas and his fellow Spartans.
Battle of Thermopylae
A "Golden Age" is a period of peace, harmony, stability, and prosperity.
The Peloponnesian War
431-404 BCE
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The Peloponnesian War was a major
Ancient Greek military conflict.
The Athenian leader Pericles
transformed Athens into the cultural
center of Greece.
The Spartan strategy to conquer
Athens was to invade yearly.
To combat the damages of Spartan
invasions Pericles hired the best
architects and had the Acropolis
rebuilt.
The Peloponnesian War
 The Athenian soldiers faced a serious geographic disadvantage
from the start because Sparta was located inland, rendering the power
of the Athenian navy useless in the battle.
 During Spartan invasions Pericles allowed Athenians from the
countryside to move inside the city.
 Overcrowding led to a plague that killed a one-third of the people
and internal struggles undermined the democratic government of
Athens.
 Sparta allied with Persia, a former enemy, against the Delian
League.
 In 404 BCE, with the assistance of the Persian navy, the Spartans
captured Athens and conquered its entire fleet and empire.
 The Peloponnesian War is the longest and most bitter and costly
war in the history of Greek conflicts.
The Peloponnesian War
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Harmony among the Greeks dwindled after the Persian
Wars.
Athenians, under the direction of Pericles, were
subjected to conflict with Corinth, a Spartan ally.
Sparta assisted in defending Corinth, to which Pericles
responded with war against the Spartans.
Athenian soldiers thought they could defend against
Spartan forces indefinitely.
The war was essentially a deadlock until the 404 BCE
attack on Athens by allied Spartan and Persian forces.
All forces involved in the Peloponnesian War suffered
great casualties and losses
The Aftermath of War
 The Peloponnesian War was effective in ending the
dominance of Athenian’s in Greece.
 Democratic government suffered in Athens, with
corruption and selfish interests replacing previous orderly
ways.
 Following these three major wars fighting still continued
to disrupt life in the Ancient Greek world.