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The Persian Wars
THE GREEKS HAD SOME
COLONIES OF CITYSTATES IN ASIA MINOR.
AROUND 546 BC, THESE
CAME UNDER PERSIAN
CONTROL. SOME FIFTY
YEARS LATER, IN 499
BC THEY REBELLED
AGAINST PERSIAN
AUTHORITY, AND
STARTED THE
PERSIAN WARS
The Initial Rebellion
 In 499 BC, the city-state of Miletus had had
enough of their Persian overlords. When the
Persians conquered the Greek city-states of
Asia Minor in 546 BC, they set up harsh
tyrants who governed these city-states
without mercy. Miletus had had enough.
 The people of Miletus asked the other
Greek city-states for help, and some
refused, including Sparta. Athens however
answered the call for aid and helped the
other Greeks in Asia Minor revolt.
 When all seemed well, the Athenians returned
home. However, the Persians, under King
Darius, were able to reconquer the Greeks in
Asia Minor within 3 years, and Darius wanted
revenge against the Athenians. 7 years later,
in 490 BC, the Persians crossed the Aegean
sea, seeking to destroy the Athenians.
Marathon
The Battle Resumes
 490 BC: The Athenians and the Persians
met at the plains of Marathon. Some 26
miles from Athens. Though totally
outnumbered, the Athenians decided to
charge anyway. They succeeded, and the
Persians ran away scared. 6000
Persians were killed, and less than 200
Greeks died.
 According to legend, a messenger ran
straight back to Athens with the good
news, and when he arrived, gasped
“Rejoice, we conquer!” and then died of
exhaustion. This is where the modern
day marathon race comes from.
 Battle of Marathon
The Odds Are Against You…
 Imagine: You are in charge of the Greeks, and a giant
force of Persians are about to invade a large section
of the country that is largely undefended. You have
7,000 troops, the enemy…has 100,000.
 What do you do?
The Battle Rages
The Battle of Thermopylae
Left: scene from the Battle of
Thermopylae
 The Battle of Marathon was just a setback for the Persians. 10 years later, in 480 BC,
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they returned again to defeat the Greeks. With an army of 100,000, and over 600
ships, the Persian King Xerxes was determined to win.
Athens and Sparta joined together, along with some other city-states to defend
themselves. This army is led by the Spartan General King Leonidas.
The Greeks realize that they are badly outnumbered, and will lose a direct conflict.
So they attempt to even the odds by leading the Persians to attack them in
Thermopylae, a narrow canyon which allowed the Greeks to fight only a small
portion of the Persians at a time, giving them a fighting chance.
A traitor shows the Persians a way around the pass, and so Leonidas orders everyone
else to escape, and he with just 300 other Spartans perish in the defense of the pass.
Strategy, Phalanx
Salamis
 Though the Spartans’ heroism slowed
down the Persians, it did not stop them.
They marched on, and burnt Athens to
the ground.
 After that, the Persians marched south
to conquer the rest of Greece. They met
the Greek navy at an island called
Salamis. Though outnumbered yet
again, the Greeks used stratagem to
defeat the Persians. They lured the
Persians into shallow waters, then
rammed and sank their ships, defeating
the fleet.
 Xerxes was shocked by this loss, and
returned home. The next year (479), the
Spartan general Pausanias led the
Greeks to victory and drove the rest of
the Persians out of Greece for good.
 Opt. VID Salamis
10.26 Greek Mythology
WHAT WAS THE GREEK RELIGION LIKE?
Greek Pantheon
 The Greeks believed in many
different gods, but the most
powerful Greek Gods were known
as the Olympians. They were
called this because they (mostly)
lived and ruled the world from Mt.
Olympus, high above Greece.
 Much of what we know about the
Olympians we get from Homer’s
Illiad and The Odyssey, two epic
poems about the adventures of
Odysseus, a Greek hero.
The Nature of the Greek Gods
 The Greeks created gods in the image of
humans; that is, their gods had many human
qualities even though they were gods.
 The gods constantly fought among themselves,
behaved irrationally and unfairly, and were
often jealous of each other. Zeus, the king of
the gods, was rarely faithful to his wife Hera.
Hera plotted against Zeus and punished his
mistresses.
 The Greek gods were highly emotional and
behaved inconsistently and sometimes
immorally. Greek religion did not have a
standard set of morals, there were no Judaic
Ten Commandments. The gods, heroes, and
humans of Greek mythology were flawed.
The Olympians: The Most Important Deities
 Intro: The ancient Greek mystical
world was ruled by a small group of
powerful gods called the Olympians.
When things had to be decided, the
council of 12 gods met on Mount
Olympus to discuss things.
 The 12 Olympian gods all kept a home
on Mount Olympus. Unless they were
off traveling somewhere, that's where
you could find most of them. Hades
preferred his home in the Underworld.
Poseidon preferred his palace under
the sea. But the rest of the Olympians
lived on Mount Olympus year around.
Jigsaw Activity
 Next, you’ll learn a little bit more about some of these
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gods
Each person at a table will get a different god / goddess
to learn about: as you read quietly, fill out the worksheet,
and read it quietly (7 min)
Then, (on my signal), get together with others who read
the same thing. Discuss what you read, and answer the
questions together. (5 min)
Then (on my signal), go back to your table, and take
turns talking about the character you studied. Answer the
group questions based on your discussion (7 min)
Join a classroom discussion (5 min) Finish worksheet.
Important Myths
 While there are many Greek
myths and stories that we could
discuss, there are two that are
quite influential and still known
today: The Story of Pandora’s
Box, and the Tale of Hercules.
 The Story of Pandora is a tale
that tells us about how the evil
in the world came to be.
 Anyone know the story?
Hercules, the Real Deal
 In addition to myths about gods, the ancient
Greeks also told stories about heroes. One of the
most famous Greek heroes was Hercules, aka
Heracles, the world's strongest man. Hercules
was the illegitimate son of a mortal woman and
Zeus, who tricked the woman by disguising
himself as the woman's husband.
 Hera, Zeus's wife, was angry about Zeus' affair
and sought to punish Hercules. Hera tricked
Hercules into believing that his entire family were
dangerous beasts, which Hercules then
proceeded to kill.
 When Hercules realized that he had killed his
entire family, he agreed to perform 12 tasks
(aka the Labors of Hercules) to atone for his
terrible actions. For one of the tasks, Hercules
had to slay the nine-headed monster called the
Hydra. VID
HW Reminder:
 Your Sparta /
Athens / Us
Comparison is
due today!
 Finish up your
poster on a Greek
Deity / Hero
 EC: include a
connection
between your
person and today
(for ideas, see:
http://greekmyth
ologytoday.com/)

I recommend using
Google Drawings:
LINK
10.28 The Golden Age of Athens
AFTER THE UNEXPECTED GREEK VICTORY
AGAINST THE PERSIANS IN 449 BCE, THE
GREEK CITY-STATES WERE ABLE TO ENJOY
THEIR RENEWED INDEPENDENCE AND
FREEDOM. THE WAR ALSO ESTABLISHED
ATHENS AND SPARTA AS THE LEADING CITYSTATES OF GREECE.
Results of the Persian Wars
 Spartans and Athenians alike
had worked hard to drive the
Persians from their homeland.
After the war, the Spartans
returned home, concerned
with keeping the helots
subjugated, whilst the
Athenians had bigger plans.
 As a result, many Greek citystates were concerned that the
Persians might yet again
regroup and attempt to attack
them in the future. So two
years later, in 478 BC they
formed an alliance called the
Delian League. Since Sparta
declined to participate, Athens
naturally took the leading role
as the leading city-state.
The Golden Age of Athens
 Video Everyone was required to send gold
and/or ships to help defend the other citystates in the league. Athens was in charge
of how much each city-state had to send.
Gradually though the relationship between
Athens and the other city-states soured.
 Athens started to treat the other city-states
less like allies and more like colonial
subjects. Other city-states were required to
swear an oath of allegiance, and could not
leave the league.
 This money, or tribute, allowed Athens
(from 479 BC till the end of the
Peloponnesian War in 404 BC, or for 75
years) to fund the Golden Age of
Athens.
Pericles Cont…
 Pericles was not one to waste time
with frivolous things. He worked
hard and made good use of his
time.
 It was said that the only time you
might see him on the street was
when he was walking to and from
government buildings on official
government business.
 Legend also has it that he only
went to one party in his life, and
even then he left it early.
Pericles
 A very influential man, Pericles (495-429 BC)
was one of the key figures to lead Athens during
its Golden Age. He was reelected to the strategoi
for nearly thirty years, and would eventually
become the de facto leader of Athens.
 One of the main reasons for his success was his
great oratory skills. One of his biographers
described him as having words like “thunder and
lightning.” As he was convincing, smart, and
respected, the Assembly would usually go along
with whatever he suggested.
 Can you think of any other similar leaders?
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Barack Obama
Winston Churchill
Adolf Hitler
Pericles’ Leadership
 Athens grew and strengthened
under Pericles’ watchful eye. He
led them to victorious campaign
one after another. He made sure
the other city-states in the
Delian League stayed in line,
and even supervised the
establishment of new, Athenian
colonies.
 He also worked to develop a
series of better, stronger walls to
ward off invaders and attackers.
They called these the long
walls, which stretched from
Athens to the nearby
seaports of Pireaus and
Phalerum. These allowed
Athens to have a way to get
supplies, even when under siege.
Pericles Cont…
 Pericles also helped make Athenian
Democracy more available to more
citizens. For instance, though every
citizen was able to participate, the
poorer ones could not afford to do
so, because they were not making
any money while serving on juries,
or other government work.
 Pericles convinced the Assembly to
pay citizens for government work,
thus allowing more to fully
participate.
Pericles’ Building Projects
 Pericles was also a patron of the arts; he supported
sculptures, dramatists, architects, and painters. In
449 BC, he even suggested the idea that Athens
ought to rebuild the temples and buildings in
the Acropolis, an area that overlooked the city but
had been destroyed in the Persian Wars.
 Although it would be expensive, Pericles offered a
solution to this. He argued that they ought to use
some of the tribute from the Delian League to fund
the project.
 Most of the other city-states in the Delian League
thought this was a frivolous use of the funds, and
even some Athenians didn’t like the idea. However,
Pericles used his oratorical skills to convince the
Athenians, and the threat of the sword against the
other league members. Pericles suggested that if their
allies were being protected, then using some of the
spare funds was no problem.
The Parthenon
 The most famous of all the buildings in the
Acropolis was one known as the
Parthenon. This was a temple built to the
goddess of wisdom, Athena, the patron
goddess of Athens.
 Built between 447 & 432 BC, even today,
after thousands of years, it is considered
the greatest of all Greek buildings and a
treasure of human culture.
 Though it was badly damaged in an
explosion in the late 1600s (it was used to
store gunpowder at the time), it still stands
today as a testament to the greatness of
Athens, and many thousands of tourists
still come to visit it today.
Construction
 Pericles wanted a building that would
both honor Athena, but also leave no
doubt about the greatness and wealth
of Athens. So he hired two of the time’s
best architects to do the job.
 They designed a temple larger than
any other such temple in all of Greece,
being about 230 ft long, 100 ft wide
and 60 ft high, using more than
20,000 tons of marble. On each of the
four sides, there was a colonnade, or
row of columns.
Columns
 The Parthenon certainly had
a lot of columns, but most
Greek buildings did. The
Greeks were very fond of
them, so much so that 3
main variants developed
over time. There were three
main types: Doric, Ionic,
and Corinthian.
 The Doric is the oldest and
simplest design, the Ionic
was tall and slender with
curlicues at the top, and the
Corinthian was most ornate
with smaller curlicues and
layers of leaves on it.
Doric
Ionic
Corinthian
Examples of
different
columns /
colonnades
More Examples
The Parthenon, cont…
 Pheidias, the master architect hired by Pericles to design the
building, made sure that the building was the finest piece of
architecture the world had ever seen (and arguable has ever seen
since). The Doric columns he chose to make were magnificent,
and considered to be the best examples of the style ever.
 There were many other parts of the temple that required exact
care. The carvings on the sides, and on top of the colonnades
depicted epic battles between gods and mortals, as well as
religious ceremonies.
 Inside the temple was perhaps the most magnificent part of all: a
40 ft tall marble statue of Athena that was covered with ivory
and gold. The statue alone cost more than the rest of the
building…but sadly nothing still remains of it (though a smaller
copy of it has survived). Indeed, it would have been a sight to
behold.
 The Parthenon
The Theater of Dionysus
 Athenian Architects also built large outdoor
theatres, for meetings as well as community
performances. The most important one in Athens
was the Theatre of Dionysus, located just below
the Acropolis, close to the Parthenon.
 This semicircular outdoor theatre allowed 15,000 to
watch the proceedings, and the acoustics were so
nice that even up in the farthest sections you could
easily hear what was happening on the stage.
Artist’s
Rendition of
the Original
The
Amphitheatre
of Dionysus,
Today
Video
Greek Influence
 Why is the Parthenon (and other Greek Architecture)
seen as so influential today? Why should we care?
The U.S. Supreme Court Building
Courthouse Delaware County
Local Examples
Utah State Capital
American Fork Amphitheatre
Can you think of any other examples? Please share!
End of an Age
 Eventually, the other Greeks had had enough. The
Peloponnesian War broke out, led by both Sparta
and Athens. For along time, due to Athens’ navy, the
Spartan-led armies could not defeat Athens and her
allies.
 Eventually however, sickness and plague overcame
the Athenians, and that was the moment their
enemies were able to exploit. Athens was defeated,
and the Golden Age of Athens was over.