Download 19 Greeks Crucible of Civ Video Fill in

Video Fill In: The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization
Name: ______________________ P: ___
1 In a flash of insight that marked a turning point in the history of civilization, one man,
_______________, saw that the citizens of Athens should have freedom, the chance to shape their
own destiny and govern themselves. He saw this even though he had been brought up as one of
the hated ________________ (ancient Greek for a member of the ruling class), and as such had
been taught to look down in contempt (hatred) on these common people.
Athens, located in the southern part of what is now Greece but was then called Hellos, was built
around the _______________, a steep sided outcrop of bare rock which afforded the Athenians a
stronghold from which to fend off the attacks of their neighbors. Life in ancient Athens has been
described as __________, __________, and __________, with a life expectancy (average age at
death) of just ______ years.
2 Greece seemed like an unlikely place for a great empire. For one thing, Athens was ruled by an
aristocratic elite class, who, in order to maintain their power, kept the people in a state of
____________, meaning that they had no part nor share nor say in anything. For another, Greece
was mountainous, unlike the two great neighboring empires of its day, ____________ to the south
and ____________ to the east, which had grown up around broad plains and great river valleys.
This meant that Greece was fragmented into many small nations called _______________ which
made Greece difficult for any single ruler to dominate. Furthermore, Athens was not even the most
powerful of these city-states. Far more powerful were the ________________ to Athens'
southwest, a nation of citizens raised from birth to be _______________.
3 The Greek's path to empire began in the middle of the __________ century BCE when one man
seized total power from the hated aristocrats and became __________ by riding into Athens on a
chariot with a particularly tall and beautiful woman next to him, who he claimed was Athena, the
patron goddess of Athens. This man was _______________. He took the extraordinary step of
appealing to the support of the common people, thus challenging the rule of the hated
_______________, the rich land owning families that had ruled Athens for centuries. He reduced
__________ and offered free ___________ to help poor peasant farmers. Athenian agrarianism
(agriculture) prospered, including, most importantly, the production of ___________, which the
Greeks used as food, fuel, oil, and to trade for goods throughout the ___________________ Sea.
Athens became an international ______________ power.
4 After Pisistratus died in 527 BCE, his son __________ followed in his footsteps and ruled Athens
for a time with a fair hand. But he turned bitter and cruel after the murder of his brother (as part of
a ________________). Freedoms given to the people by Pisistratus were now stripped away by his
embittered and paranoid son. Hippias' now had no cause other than _________________ (holding
on to his power by any means necessary). Hippias' change from a benevolent to a cruel ruler taught
Athenians the _____________ and ______________ nature of tyranny (could be good or very bad).
5 In 510 BCE, Cleisthenes and his men captured Hippias and banished him from Athens forever.
By now, the Greek myth of the ____________________ was permeating (spreading) to all levels of
Greek society. An example of this can be seen in the athletic contests held at _______________ in
southern Greece every ________ years. While once open only to the wealthiest of the Greeks, by
the time Cleisthenes had overthrown Hippias and took power in Athens, anyone with enough skill
was allowed to take part.
_______________, another of the hated Athenian ____________, conspired with Athens' most
feared and powerful rival, ____________ to seize control of Athens and exile Cleisthenes, setting
himself and his Spartan soldiers up on the ____________, the large rock overlooking Athens. The
people of Athens, enraged at the thought of living under Spartan rule, rose up against Isagoros and
recaptured Athens, marking the first time in recorded history that the ordinary people had turned
on their rulers and seized power for thems________.
6 Cleisthenes was recalled from exile by the Athenian people and asked to form a government.
Cleisthenes knew there was no going back to rule by the hated _______________. But nor could he
declare himself ___________. Instead, Cleisthenes carved out a great meeting place from bare rock
in the shadow of the Acropolis where Athenians could come and discuss the future of their city.
This became the ancestor of the ______________ of the United States, the British _____________
_____________ and _______________ around the world. Here rich and poor alike could come to
address their fellow citizens and vote on matters of common interest, using a __________ pebble
for yes, and a __________ pebble for now. The great Athenian Assembly would meet every
_______ days and discuss everything from raising ________, building _________, from the price of
_______ to the declaration of ______. Because of these reforms, Cleisthenes has been called the
father of _______________, meaning literally "people power" or the rule of the people.
7 But the world's first democracy would soon be tested in the crucible of war and conflict. In the
early 5th century BCE, the ___________, led by the great king __________ were the greatest
empire in the world. In 490 BCE the Persian force came ashore at a sandy shore north of Athens
called _____________. The heart of the Athenian army called upon to defend Athens against the
Persian invaders were the ____________, men who could afford a heavy bronze shield, a spear,
and a sword. Although outnumbered _______________, the Athenian army charged headlong into
the Persian army and emerged victorious.
An Athenian general named _______________ realized that the Persians were likely to return
and seek to conquer Athens with its navy. In response, he ordered the building of a fleet of 200 of
the most advanced warships of the day, the _____________. Realizing the Athenians could not
defeat the huge Persian army under king __________ on land, Themistocles ordered the whole of
Athens _____________. (This order, carved into a stone tablet, was recently found in a Greek
_______________.) Themistocles lured the Persian fleet, which outnumbered the Greek fleet
_______________ into the straits of _____________, and defeated it. Without its navy, the
Persians could not _________ its army or guarantee the ___________ of its king and retreated.
8 The victory at Salamis opened the door for the Golden Age of Greek democracy, which the
Greeks protected against all threats. For example, they could vote to ___________ (kick out) for
ten years anyone who they considered a threat to democracy. They even kicked out
_______________, who had led them in their great victory over the Persians at Salamis. This
opened the door his successor, _______________, to guide the Greek democracy into its heyday.
Pericles began a great building project, including the ______________, perhaps the most beautiful
and famous building in the world to this day, on the top of the Acropolis. Under Pericles'
leadership, Athens became home to some of the leading minds in history, including
______________, considered the world's first historian, and poets and authors such as
_____________. Athenians began attending the _____________ at the base of the Acropolis
__________ a year, where they would boo the worst actors off the stage but could be moved to
_________ by the best. The most famous and favorite of Greek plays were the ______________,
which told tales of great men who fell victim to the destinies that were decreed to them and lost
everything.
9 The fall of the Greek Empire began in 431 BCE with Pericles' attempt to make Athens the
undisputed leader of the Mediterranean by vanquishing (defeating finally) their old rivals, the
_____________. Pericles convinced the _____________ to back his plan, which was to abandon
the farm land around Athens (knowing that they could not defeat the superior Spartan army on
land), hide behind the city walls, and defeat the Spartans with its superior navy at sea instead. The
Spartans did indeed burn the ________ all around the city. Athens now had to rely on its ships to
supply it with imported _________ to survive. One of these ships brought the __________ to
Athens, which killed a _________ of the city's population, including Pericles. Without this single
strong leader, countless figures scrambled for the top position, simply following the prejudices and
passions of the masses in order to gain support, thus demonstrating the danger of a democracy to
slide into ___________.
The war dragged on for a decade. In 416 BCE, a small Greek colony on the island of ___________
asked Athens to send its fleet to defend it from attack from an ally of the Spartans. Athens sent a
huge invading army to Sicily but suffered a one of the greatest defeats in ancient history. They lost
in part because Sicily was over ______ miles from Athens, making resupply and communication
almost impossible., in part because Athenian commanders had ______________ (argued) about
what to do, but mostly because the Athenians, dreaming of ____________ glory, had engaged in a
pointless and _______ military campaign.
10 With the Athens' military power now ____________, her enemies began to close in. The
Spartans, with help from the Persian empire, built a fleet of ships paid for with Persian _________.
With this fleet, the Spartans ___________ the port of Athens. Food could now not get through and
the people began to ________ in the streets of Athens. In 404 BCE, Athens finally surrendered to
the Spartan commander Lysander. Humiliated, the Athenians searched for someone to take the
blame for their defeat. They arrested _____________, who had spent most of his life questioning
the Athenian leaders and the principles by which the Athenians lived their lives. Furthermore, he
encouraged his young followers to do the same. He was arrested for undermining the state
____________ and _____________ the youth of the city. At his trial, Socrates was ___________
(refused to apologize or repent), instead saying famously: "The ____________ life is not worth
living" and even demanded free ____________ for life for all the work he had done. He was found
guilty and executed in the traditional Athenian manner, by drinking ____________, which caused
an excruciatingly painful and slow death.
11 Athens was never again a great ___________ (military) power. Instead, she became a city of
intellectual inquiry (questioning assumptions and authority) and a haven of ___________________
in which Socrates' students slowly began to build a world based on _____________. Rather than
an empire of weapons, Athens became an empire of reason, extending its dominion (influence)
over all the areas in which our lives are lived to this day.
Video Fill In: The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization
Vocabulary Banks
Box 1:
Cleisthenes
nasty, brutish, and short
Acropolis
fifteen
aristocrats
serfdom
city-states
Persia
soldiers
tyrant
loans
Mediterranean
Pisistratus
aristocrats!
sixth
self-preservation
Hippias
perilous
tyrant
Olympia
heroic man of action
Acropolis
elves
four
aristocrats!
democracy
white
roads
parliaments
tyrant
nine
taxes
Box 2:
Egypt
Spartans
Box 3:
taxes
olives
economic
Box 4:
gay love triangle
unpredictable
Box 5:
Isagoros
Sparta
aristocrats!
Box 6:
Congress
House of Commons
black
figs
Box 7:
Darius
hoplites
safety
Xerxes
four to one
Persians
two to one
Themistocles
Marathon
Salamis
trireme
feed
evacuated
coffee shop
ostracize
Themistocles
tears
Parthenon
Herodotus
theater
Spartans
crops
Sicily
imperial
assembly
grain
600
vain
crippled
blockaded
religion
dinner
gold
starve
corrupting
imperial
reason
Box 8:
Aeschylus
Pericles
twice
tragedies
Box 9:
third
mob rule
plague
squabbled
Box 10:
hemlock
Socrates
unrepentant
unexamined
Box 11:
study and discussion