Download The Rise of Greek Civilization

The Rise of Greek Civilization
Introduction to Greece
• First there was Mother
Earth
• Next the gods of night
and day appeared and
then starry sky
• Earth and Sky created
the 12 Titans
• These gods rebelled
against their father Sky
• The son of Cronos, Zeus
toppled Cronos from his
throne
I. Greece’s Geographic Setting
• Greece is a peninsula
(surrounded by water on 3
sides) and clusters of islands
• Mountains are the major
landform and farmland is
scarce
• Greeks became traders and
sailors
• The geography of Greece
made it difficult for people to
get together
• Greek communities thought of
themselves as separate
countries
Greece’s Communities
• Each community thought
of themselves as
independent with their
own governments and
customs
• Each area was ready to
go to war to protect their
identity
• Each one fought with
each other even though
they shared a common
language, heritage, and
religion
II. Greek Beginnings
• Greeks shared stories about how they
began as a civilization
• Greek myths told stories about the
features of nature
• The most famous story was about the
Trojan War, a war between Greece and
Troy across the sea
The Trojan War
• A prince named Paris from
Troy was a guest of a Greek
king, Menelaus
• Paris kidnapped Menelaus’s
wife, Helen and took her to
Troy
• A war began between Greece
and Troy that lasted 10 years
• The Greeks used a trick to
conquer Troy and burned and
looted the city
Epics of the Trojan War
• 2 epics or narrative poems were written by
Homer, The Iliad and the Odyssey
• The Iliad tells of a quarrel between the
Greek leaders in the last year of the war
• The Odyssey describes the adventures of
the hero Odysseus as he struggles to
return to his homeland from Troy
III. The Dark Ages
• Soon after the Trojan War, there was a collapse
in the Greek Civilization
• Poverty was everywhere and people no longer
traded for food and goods beyond Greece
• They had to depend on what they grew
themselves and some people were forced to flee
to islands to the west
• The art of writing disappeared
• From the 1100’s to 750 B.C. have been called
Greece’s Dark Ages
The Dark Age Continued
• Without writing people depended on word of
mouth to pass on their traditions which created
myths that were told and retold
• Families began to resettle in places where they
could grow crops and raise animals
• These family farms grew into small villages
developed around places with rocky protected
hills where they could be safe from attack
• The name of such a place was acropolis
meaning “high city”
IV. Governing the City-States
• Around 750B.C. villages
joined together to form a
city near the acropolis
• These cities had their
own government and
traditions and they were
called city-states
• Hundreds of city-states
grew up each
independent from one
another
V. Aristocracy: Nobles Rule
• Earliest leaders of
city-states were kings
or military leaders
• Aristocrats or the rich
and powerful ruled
and controlled the
good land
• They had the best
chariots and weapons
A New Type of Ruler
• As the Greeks grew rich from trade, a new
middle class of merchants and artisans emerged
who wanted a say in the government
• These wealthy businessmen wage war against
the nobles and took power
• These rulers were called tyrants because they
seized power by force
• Tyrants were supported by the middle and
working classes and were respected by ruling
wisely
Democracy: Rule by the People
• Eventually the people of many city-states
overthrew the tyrants
• A few villages formed a government called
a democracy where the citizens govern
themselves
• Athens was the city-state where
democracy was fully expressed
Democracy in Athens
• Solon, an Athenian
leader reformed laws
by canceling all debts,
freeing citizens who
had been enslaved
for having debts and
allowing males over
18 to debate laws