Download (pages 118 to 151) Chapter 05

Classical Greece: 2000 B.C. – 300 B.C.
Chapter 5, Pages 118 to 151
World History: Patterns of Interaction
McDougal-Littell 2007
The Minoan civilization on the island of Crete around 2000 B.C., and the
Mycenaean culture in Greece around 1500 B.C., both influenced the northeastern
Mediterranean area. But neither of those were Greek cultures. The Mycenaeans
would disappear around 900 B.C., before the first phase of Greek history began.
Although they were not Greek, they lived in Greece before the Greeks did. In 1184
B.C., the Mycenaeans had a war with Troy, a city-state on the western coast of
Asia Minor and won.
Following the collapse of the Mycenaean culture, the Dorians dominated Greece.
They were less advanced in writing and technology than the Mycenaeans. As
Greece transitioned out of the Dorian Age, which ran from 1150 B.C. to 750 B.C.,
the first phase of Greek history begins, called the ‘archaic’ phase. Homer, a blind
poet, wrote two books around 750 B.C., the Odyssey and the Iliad, about the war
with Troy. During this era, Greeks also began to colonize and expand in the
Mediterranean area, founding cities in Italy, Spain, North Africa, Sicily, Crete, and
on the shores of the Black Sea. Homer himself may have lived in Ionia, the western
coast of Asia Minor; many Greeks spent their entire lives in the colonies and never
set foot in Greece. The details of Greece’s complex polytheistic mythology were
developed during this era, but they represent primarily a popular cultural
framework for the arts, and not the objects of personal religious belief. The
operative religious system of Greek culture during this time was vile, including
human sacrifice. Greece was never unified into a monolithic state; each city-state
retained its independence. Although the word ‘democracy’ is sometimes associated
with the self-government of these city-states, the Greek notion of democracy was
not like the modern American understanding: Greek democracy was based on
exclusiveness and inequality, while American democracy is based on inclusiveness
and equality. Toward the end of the archaic era, the first philosophers arose, and
began to reject mythological explanations in favor of rational explanations. The
philosopher Xenophanes saw that monotheism was more logical than polytheism.
The Persian king Cyrus began to colonize Anatolia, which created conflict between
Persia and Greece about who controlled Ionia. In 490 B.C., under king Darius, the
Persians attempted to invade Greece, but were defeated by the Greeks at the Battle
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of Marathon. In 480 B.C., the next Persian king, Xerxes, tried again to invade
Greece. After a Persian victory at Thermopyle, the Greeks prevailed at the battles
of Salamis and Plataea. The defeated Persians retreated, and would not attack
Greece again for the next thousand years.
In the wake Greece’s victory over Persia, the city-state of Athens had the most
powerful navy, and the city-state of Sparta had the most powerful army. During
this “Classical Era” or “Golden Age,” Greek politicians spoke often about noble
virtues, but continuously engaged in bribery, extortion, and corruption. Athens
controlled the seas and islands around Greece, and used its navy to extort money
from other city-states. Sparta formed the Peloponnesian League, a group of citystates who were tired of Athenian corruption and harassment. Athens formed the
Delian League with the city-states on its side. The result was the Peloponnesian
War, from 431 B.C. to 404 B.C., in which Athens and its Delian League lost.
Although producing excellent sculpture and poetry, the Greek city-states,
economically weakened from fighting among each other, lost the military and
political ability to influence other nations around the Mediterranean Sea.
In Macedonia, a nation just north of Greece, Philip II became king in 359 B.C. and
developed a powerful army. Soon Macedonia invaded and controlled Greece –
weakness is provocative. Philip II hoped to expand the Macedonian Empire further,
but was assassinated in 336 B.C., and his 20-year-old son Alexander took the
throne. Alexander had studied Homer with his teacher, the philosopher Aristotle.
Solidifying Macedonian control of Greece, Alexander took his army eastward,
attacking the Persian Empire. He conquered all the regions belonging to Persia,
and some other regions as well: Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and parts of Afghanistan
and India. Alexander controlled a huge empire. He was a military genius, often
overcoming armies larger than his, but also guilty of unprovoked aggression. His
mental health declined, and he died in 323 B.C. at the age of 32.
Alexander’s empire quickly divided itself into several smaller empires during the
Hellenistic Era. Greek culture spread throughout the region, and although
politically and militarily in decline, Greece’s influence in science, art, and
philosophy continued. Euclid compiled the many individual discoveries made over
the years in geometry into a single logical system around 300 B.C., and around 237
B.C., the mathematician Archimedes refined the notion of π and also formulated
those laws of physics which relate to levers, pulleys, and concave mirrors.
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