Download ANCIENT GREECE-Revised2012

GREECE
Geography
• Greece occupies a small area in the
Mediterranean and Aegean Seas
• Made up of the mainland and numerous islands
• Two geographic features played a significant role
in developing Greece:
– Mountains
• Isolated Greeks from one another –
different communities develop
• However, rivalries between communities led
to warfare that devastated Greek society
– The Sea
• Became seafarers who established colonies
that spread Greek civilizations
• Peninsula = land that is surrounded on three
sides by water
• Archipelago = a chain of islands
Early Greek Civilizations
• The Minoan civilization (3000 – 1450 BC)
– Established on the island of Crete
– Named after King Minos, legendary king of Crete (the
Minotaur story)
– Used bronze to make weapons
– Large palace at Knossos – had basic plumbing
• was destroyed several times and rebuilt
– Sudden and catastrophic collapse around 1450 BC
• Volcanic eruption, tidal wave, mostly invaded
– Historians can’t read the writings of the Minoans
• The Mycenaean State
– First Greek state, flourished between 1600-1100 BC
• Mycenaeans are considered to be the first Greeks
because they spoke a form of the Greek language
– The Mycenaeans were Indo-Europeans who entered
Greece, gained control of the Greek mainland, and
developed a civilization
– Mycenaean society was dominated by warfare and
powerful kings
• Small kingdoms often fought each other, prided
themselves on being a warrior people
–Conquered Crete, supposedly destroyed Troy
– Had tombs built into hillsides where members of the
royal families were buried
– Collapsed due to famines, invasion by outsiders, war
between the Mycenaean cities, and the end of trade
• By 1100s BC the Mycenaean cities were mostly in
ruins
• Dark Age
– Decline in population and food production
• People fled cities, farmers struggled to grow
enough food to eat
– Large numbers of Greeks left the mainland for
various islands
• Many went to Ionia – the western shores of Turkey
– Lost the use of writing for several centuries, Greek
civilization almost disappeared
– 8th century BC the Greeks adopt the alphabet from
the Phoenicians
• Reduced to 24 letters which made reading and
writing easier
– Homer
• One of the greatest poets of all times, wrote epic
poems based on the Trojan War that became the
basis for Greek education system
–Epic poem = a long poem that tells the deeds of
a great hero
• Iliad – tale of the Greek hero Achilles
• Odyssey – long journey home of Greek hero
Odysseus
Greek City-States
• The central focus of Greek life and society was the polis
– Polis = Greek city-state
– Acropolis = fortified gathering place at the top of a
hill which was sometimes the site of temples and
public buildings
– Agora = an open area that served as a gathering place
and as a market
• Polis = community of people with a common identity
and common goals
– Each polis developed independently of its neighbors,
own form of gov’t , laws, and customs
• Greeks were fiercely loyal to their polis and
regarded themselves not as Greeks, but as
members of a particular city-state
– Make-up of a polis:
• Citizens who had political rights = adult males
• Citizens who had no political rights = women and
children
• Non-citizens = slaves and foreigners
– Some cities develop democracy = gov’t by the people
or rule by the many
– Other city-states develop an oligarchy = rule by the
few
– New military system develops
• Based on hoplites = heavily armed foot soldiers
• Carried a round shield, short sword, and a
thrusting spear
• Formed a phalanx for protection
–Phalanx = a wall of shields created by foot
soldiers marching close together in
rectangular formation
– Greek colonies established, one of the most
famous being Byzantium
• Spread of cultural and political ideas
– Two important city-states emerge
Athens
• Found on the peninsula of Attica
• First ruled by kings, then aristocrats
– However poor people are getting poorer and
they demand reform
• Cleisthenes creates the foundation of Athenian
democracy (world’s first democracy)
• Standards for voting = must be a free male over the age
of 20 who has completed military training and owns
land
– Accounts for 10% of the population
• Duties of people allowed to vote:
– Vote in all elections and serve in office if elected
– Serve on juries and in the military during war
• Athenian democracy consisted of three main bodies
– Council of Five Hundred who proposed laws that
would be voted on by the Assembly and supervised
both foreign affairs and the treasury
– Athenian Assembly – composed of all male
citizens who were eligible to take part in the gov’t
• This assembly voted on and passed the laws
• Direct democracy = people participate directly
in gov’t decision making and vote directly on
an issue
– Complex series of courts
• The archon served as the chief of state and was
head of both the Assembly and Council
• Economy was largely based on farming and trade
• Family – primary function was to produce new
citizens
• Women could not own property and always had
a male guardian
– Chief obligation was to have children
– Were expected to stay at home and out of sight,
unless attending religious festivals or funerals
• Demographics of Athens around 430 BC
– 150,000 citizens, 43,000 of whom were males with
political power
– 35,000 foreigners – had protection of laws and some
responsibilities
– 100,000 slaves
Sparta
• Located on the Peloponnesus, the large peninsula of
southern Greece
• Like most city-states, Sparta needed more land, so
they conquered neighboring peoples instead of
starting new colonies
– The Spartans turned these conquered peoples
into helots = state slaves
– The helots were given to Spartan citizens to work
on farms
– Spartans were now free to spend all their time
training for war
• Spartans decide to create a military state to keep
control over the helots
– Helots outnumbered Spartan citizens by 7 to 1
• Life in Sparta was rigidly organized
– Babies were examined at birth and if they were
found to be weak, they were put to death
– Men
• Taught physical toughness by parents until age
seven
• They then entered a school system designed to
teach them combat
–At the end of their training, boys were sent into
the wilderness and expected to survive
• At age 20 the boys became hoplites in the Spartan
army
• Allowed to marry, but had to live in barracks until
age 30
–Could now live their own lives, but expected to
fight with the army when needed
• Allowed to vote in the assembly at age 30, retired
from the army at age 60
– Women
• Expected to exercise and raise healthy children
• Had greater freedom and power in the household
due to separation from their husbands
• Could own property
• Government structure
– Was an oligarchy headed by two kings who led the
army on its campaigns
– Ephors – a group of five men elected each year
• Responsible for the conduct of all citizens and
education
– Council of Elders – composed of the two kings and 28
citizens over the age of 60
• Decided the issues that would be presented to the
assembly
– Assembly of male citizens – voted on the issues
• Foreigners were discouraged from visiting and Spartans
were not allowed to travel abroad
– Kept out dangerous ideas and discouraged new
thoughts
ATHENS
SPARTA
Where Located
Peninsula of
Attica
Peninsula of
Peloponnesus
Gov’t Type
Democracy
Oligarchy
Military State?
NO
YES
Accepts Foreigners?
YES
NO
Who Can Vote?
Free men who
own land
Men in the army
Voting Age?
20
30
Life of Women
Stay inside, have
male guardian
More freedom
and power
The Persian Wars
• (490 BC - 479 BC)
• Greeks in Ionia rebel against Persian rule, ask for help
from other Greeks
– Persian emperor Darius decides to get revenge on
the Greeks
• First Persian Invasion – 490 BC
– Battle at Marathon – Athenians attack the Persians
while they are unloading and the Persians retreat
– An Athenian messenger runs 26 miles from
Marathon to Athens to announce the victory
• He dies after delivering the message
• Darius is furious over the humiliating defeat and starts
to plan another invasion
– However he dies and his son Xerxes vows to get
revenge for his father
• Second Persian Invasion – 480 BC
– Battle at Thermopylae
• Greeks are afraid they won’t have enough time to
prepare
• A group of 300 Spartans decide to hold off the
entire Persian army at the mountain pass of
Thermopylae
• Are successful for several days until a local shows
the Persians an alternate path through the
mountain and they kill all the Spartans
– The Persians advance and burn Athens
• Need the Persian navy to bring additional supplies
– Battle of Salamis
• An Athenian navy commander lures the Persian
navy into the narrow Strait of Salamis
• Persian ships were very large and could not
maneuver well
• Xerxes watches from a throne on the shore as his
navy is destroyed
– The Persian army is now stranded in Greece with few
supplies
– In 479 BC a large Greek army led by the might of
Sparta crushes the Persians, ending the war
The Golden Age of Athens
• Athens and Sparta became the two most powerful
city-states as leaders in the Persian Wars
– Sparta not popular, Athens becomes the leading
city-state
• Dozens of Greek city-states banded together for
defense
– This alliance was to be a league of equals
– Athens, as the largest and richest, ended up
controlling the entire alliance
– Became known as the Delian League
• As the League’s leader, Athens controlled its ships and
money
– Would not allow unhappy members to quit
– Would attack rebelling members with the League
fleet
– The League more or less turned into an Athenian
Empire
• Used League funds to rebuild Athens
– Built the Parthenon = a grand temple dedicated to
the goddess Athena
• Pericles
– Great champion of democracy and most influential
politician in Athens
– Commissioned the Parthenon
• Trade brought much wealth to Athens
– Athens at the time was the heart of Greek culture
• Greatest rival was Sparta
– Had its own allied city-states = Peloponnesian League
– Athens fears the military might of Sparta and allies
– Sparta fears that the Athenian navy would stop
Sparta from trading
– This mutual fear led to Sparta and Athens declaring
war in 431 BC
The Peloponnesian War
• War between Athens and Sparta
– Sparta and allies dominate the land
– Athens and allies dominate the sea
• Spartans surround Athens hoping for an open battle
– Athens avoids any battles on land
– Knowing they can’t compete in open battle, they
hide behind their city walls, relying on supplies from
their navy and colonies
• In 430 BC a terrible plague breaks out in Athens,
killing a third of the people, including Pericles
• 421 truce, war breaks out six years later when Athens
attacks one of Sparta’s allies
• This time Sparta destroys the Athenian navy and Athens
surrenders
– The walls of Athens are torn down and the Empire
destroyed
• Costs of the war
– Weakened major Greek city-states
• Athens nearly destroyed, Sparta exhausted as well
– Sparta tries to act as Greece’s dominant power
• Lost too many resources, defeated by Thebes who
also can’t maintain control
– Struggle for power in Greece led to a long cycle of
warfare that left all of Greece vulnerable
– Ignored the growing power of Macedonia to the
north
Greek Culture
• Philosophy = the search for wisdom and knowledge
– Greek word meaning “the love of wisdom”
• Socrates
– First of the great Athenian philosophers
– Everything known about Socrates comes from the
writings of his students
– Interested in broad concepts of human life
– Best way to learn is to ask questions
• Use question-and-answer format to acquire
knowledge
• Known as the Socratic method
– Socrates was charged with disrespect for religion and
corrupting the city’s children
• Thought he caused children to question the
actions of the gods
• Believed the displeasure of the gods caused
Athens to lose the war
– Sentenced to death by drinking a cup of hemlock, a
poison
• Plato
– Student of Socrates
– His most famous work was the Republic
• Gov’t should be led by the people most qualified
to make good decisions - philosophers
– Plato founded the Academy, a school where
respected philosophers could teach their students
and hold debates
– Questioned reality and believed in ideal Forms
• Every material object in the world was only the
reflection of a perfect ideal
• Aristotle
– Student of Plato
– Emphasis on reason and logic to study the natural
world
• Reason = clear and ordered thinking
• Logic = the process of making inferences
– Aristotle believed in analyzing through observation
and investigation
• People should use reason to learn about the world
by making careful observations
• Influenced the development of science in Europe
• History
– A systematic analysis of past events, created by the
Greeks
– The Greeks were one of the first people to write
about and analyze the past
– Herodotus – First historian, wrote about the Persian
Wars
– Thucydides – considered to be the greatest historian
of the ancient world
• Included many primary speeches and looked at
his sources critically
• Greek Drama
– Used for entertainment, two distinct forms of drama
• Tragedies – usually focused on hardships faced by
Greek heroes
• Comedies – satires, written to expose the flaws of
society
– Several well-known Greek playwrights
– Sophocles – concentrated on the suffering people
brought upon themselves
• Many of his characters had fatal flaws
• Famous play = Oedipus Rex, the story of a king
who accidentally kills his father and marries his
mother
– Aeschylus – wrote plays based on ancient Greek
myths
• Famous play = Oresteia, the tragedies faced by the
leader of the Greek army on his way home from
the Trojan War
– Euripides – wrote about characters whose tragedy
was brought about by irrational behavior
Alexander the Great
• Macedonia was a powerful kingdom to the north of the
Greek city-states
• Philip II reorganized the Macedonian army and adopted
the phalanx system
– Conquered all of the major Greek city-states except
Sparta and became the new leader of Greece in 338
BC, he was assassinated in 336 BC
– After his death, his son Alexander came to the throne
(356-323 BC)
• Alexander was a great military leader and
strategist
– Reestablished control in Greece due to a revolt
• Thebes resisted and Alexander burned down the
city and sold all the people into slavery
• Decided to fulfill his father’s dream of conquering the
Persian Empire
– Destroyed the Persian army and emperor Darius III
fled – he was later murdered by one of his own
officers
• After this victory, Alexander led his army deeper into
Asia
– Went and conquered parts of India
– When his army refused to go any further, Alexander
agreed to go home
• On his way back home, Alexander fell ill in the city of
Babylon and died a few days later
– He left no heir, so his generals began to fight for
control
– In the end the empire was divided among the three
most powerful generals
• Macedonia and Greece, Persian Empire, and Egypt
• Legacy of Alexander
– Created new cities, most of them named Alexandria
• Built Alexandria as the Greek capital of Egypt –
important city which had a famous library
– Alexander envisioned a world in which many cultures
would live together
– Made a conscious effort to bring people and ideas
from different places together
• Alexander married two Persian princesses
• Encouraged Greeks to move to the Alexandria
cities
– Created a new type of culture
• Blended elements of Greek civilization with ideas
from Persia, Egypt, and Central Asia
• Created the Hellenistic Era
– Hellenistic means “to imitate the Greeks”
– Expansion of Greek language and ideas to other parts
of the world
– Massive spread of Greek colonists to Asia
• Hellenistic Achievements - philosophers
– Interest in Greek philosophy
– Cynicism school of philosophy = cynics rejected ideas
of pleasure and wealth
• Instead people should live according to nature
– Epicureans = people should seek out pleasure and
avoid pain
– Stoicism – great emphasis on reason, self-discipline,
and emotional control
• Stoics believed people should identify their proper
role in society and strive to fulfill that role
• Hellenistic Achievements – Science and Math
– Euclid = formulated many of the ideas about
geometry that are still used and learned today
– Eratosthenes = determined the world was round and
calculated its circumference
– Archimedes of Syracuse = one of the greatest
inventors of the ancient world
• Established the value of pi, developed a compound
pulley that could lift heavy loads, and used levers
and pulleys to lift a ship out of the water
• Alexander’s empire fell apart soon after his death, and
the different Hellenistic kingdoms were shortly
conquered by the Romans