Download conflict in the greek world

CONFLICT IN THE GREEK
WORLD
Chapter 4.3 & 4.4
Conflict
• Greek city-states were often at odds with each
other
– Minor conflicts between them
• The Greeks were able to put aside problems
and join forces against the Persians
– Persians had conquered part of the Greek empire,
including the city-states in Ionia (Asia Minor)
– 499 B.C. – Ionian Greeks rebel against Persian rule.
• Athens sends ships to help
• Beginning of the Persian Wars
PERSIAN WARS
• Persians crush the main rebel cities in Asia
Minor
– Was not the end of the fighting
• Darius I (Persian King) was furious at the role of
Athens in the uprising
– Sends forces across the Aegean to attack Athens
– Landed at Marathon in 490 B.C.
– Athenians receive little help from neighboring citystates
PERSIAN WARS
• Persians outnumbered Athenians
– Citizens came out to defend, and continued
against the better armed Persians
– Persians were overwhelmed and retreated to
their ships
• Athenians celebrated the triumph, but
knew it would be short lived
– Athenian leader THEMISTOCLES urged them
to build a fleet of warships and prepare other
defenses for the Persian return.
PERSIAN WARS
• Athens was able to persuade Sparta and other citystates to join the fight
• Darius son Xerxes sends a larger force to conquer
Greece (480 B.C.)
– Persians were able to first defeat the Spartans at Thermopylae.
– Persians the marched to Athens and burned the city.
• Citizens had withdrawn to safety
– Greeks used the ships they had been urged to build and led the
Persians into a fight on the sea.
• Greeks defeated them in a large battle, as Xerxes watched his fleet
defeated from the shore
– Greeks would ultimately defeat the Persians on land in Asia
Minor, ending the Persian invasion
DELIAN LEAGUE
• Delian League – alliance
between Athens and
other city-states for
protection
• Dominated by Athens
– Used their position to
create an “Athenian
Empire”
– Moved league treasury to
Athens from island of Delos
• Used that money to
rebuild city
• Forced members who
were upset to remain in
the Alliance
“AGE OF PERICLES”
AND DIRECT DEMOCRACY
• “Golden Age of
Athens”
– 460-429 B.C.E
– Led by statesman
PERICLES
– Economy thrives
– Government becomes
more democratic
ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY
• “Periclean Athens” = DIRECT
DEMOCRACY (vs. Representative
Democracy as in United States)
– Citizens handle and take part in day-to-day
affairs of government
– Athenian Assembly – 500 people chosen by
lots; met many times a month
– Pericles believed all should be able to serve
(men) so he set up a stipend for all members
of the Assembly.
ATHENIAN DEMOCRACY
• Other aspects
– JURY – panel of citizens who have the
authority to make final judgment in a trial
• Could be hundreds to thousands of people
• Citizens over 30 years of age served for one year
– OSTRACISM – citizens could vote to banish
the one public figure they felt was the biggest
threat to public democracy
• Person with largest numbers of votes was
“ostracized” (forced to live outside the city) for
usually 10 years
ATHENS AND CULTURE
• Culture and the arts thrive in the time of
Pericles
– Rebuilding of the Acropolis
– Public festivals
– Theatre
– Building projects created jobs for artisans and
workers
PELOPONNESIAN WAR
• Many Greeks resented the Athenian domination
• Sparta and other enemies of Athens formed the
PELOPONNESIAN LEAGUE
– 431 B.C.E – war begins between the leagues
– Would encompass all of Greece for 27 years
• Sparta would defeat Athens in the war
– Had better land army
– Forced all citizens inside the city, leading to plague and death,
including Pericles
– Sparta would ultimately align itself with Persian for naval
superiority
– This ends Athenian domination of the Greek world, but Athens
remains cultural center of Greece
THE GLORY OF GREECE
Philosophy, Art, Literature, History
Philosophers: Lovers of Wisdom
• Many Greeks believed events were caused by the whims
of the Gods
• Some thinkers began to use observation and reason to
find the cause for events
– “Philosopher” = lover of wisdom
• “Big Three”
– Socrates
– Plato
– Aristotle
– Explored all subjects (math, music, logic {rational thinking]) to
explain events
– Modern science traces many its roots to this
– Hottest topics
• Ethics
• Morality
• Rhetoric
SOCRATES
• First of the “great”
philosophers in Greece
• Questioned tradition and
peoples beliefs
– “Socratic Method”
– Get people to examine the
implications of their beliefs
• Ultimately put on trial for
“corrupting Athenian
youth and failure to
respect the Gods”
– Accepted sentence of
death, as being loyal to the
laws of Athens
PLATO
• Student of Socrates
• Left Athens for 10 years on the
death of Socrates
– Returned to set up a school –
the “Academy”
– Taught the importance of
reason
• Argued a government should
regulate EVERY aspect of the
citizens life to provide for their
best interest
– Suspicious of democracy
• Three classes of people
– Workers
– Soldiers
– Philosophers
ARISTOTLE
• Student of Plato
• Analyzed all forms of
government and found
positives and negatives for
each
– Like Plato, suspicious of
democracy
– Favored a strong, single ruler
• Believed in the “golden mean”
of things (moderation)
– Developed a school (the
“Lyceum”) to promote the idea
– Many European universities
would be developed on
subjects taught by Aristotle
writings
Architecture and Art
• Plato argued all items had an ideal form
– Aristotle called it the “golden mean”
– Ratio of 1:1.6
• Architects would try to portray this
harmony and balance in everything
– Parthenon
– Relaxed human forms
Literature
• Began with epic poems
– Iliad
– Odyssey
• Took many forms – most famous was drama
– Tragedies – stories of suffering that ended in disaster
– Comedies – Humorous plays that often mocked people or
customs
• Greatest authors
– Tragedies – Sophocles, Euripides
– Comedies - Aristophanes
• Also included historians
– Herodotus