Download Reader 5 - Ancient Greece

5–
Ancient Greece
Notes & Vocab________________________________
In ancient times, Greece was not a unified country. It was a collection of separate lands where Greek-speaking people lived.
By 3000 B.C., the Minoans lived on the large Greek island of Crete and created an elegant civilization that had great power
in the Mediterranean world.
Effect of Geography
Ancient Greece was made of hundreds of small islands
and mainland regions that spanned across the Aegean,
Mediterranean and Ionian seas. Due to Greece's land
being rugged, many of the cities were interspersed and
became remote. This made unification nearly
impossible.
The rugged landscape also made farming difficult so
many Greeks moved to the
coast for agricultural
reasons. Because of coastal
access, many also become
Write the word with its
traders and pirates, which
corresponding
definition in your
made ancient Greek society
notebook.
cosmopolitan
Vocabulary
The climate is another
influence on Greek
civilization. Their climate ranges from 48 to 80 degrees, which supported a life filled with
outdoor activities for many Greek citizens such as sports and outdoor theatre.
Mycenaeans
Around 2000B.C. Indo-European migrants settled on the Greek
mainland. They built the fortified walled city of Mycenae and their king
ruled both city and surrounding farms.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Minoans
Mediterranean
peninsula
cosmopolitan
oligarchy
direct
democracy
7. representative
8. siege (military)
Around 1500 B.C. a sea-trading people called the Minoans from the
large island of Crete came in contact with the Myceaneans, opening up
the idea of sailing and trading throughout the coastal cities. Mycenae also adopted Minoan culture
through writing, religion, art, politics and literature.
During the 1200s B.C. the Myceaneans fought a ten-year war against Troy, another
independent Greek city-state. According to legend, the Mycenaean army besieged and
destroyed Troy because a Trojan prince had kidnapped Helen, the beautiful wife of their king.
This military accomplishment became portrayed in one of the poems in Homer’s Iliad. It
tells the story of the Trojan Horse. According to the fable, the Mycenaean siege of Troy
lasted more than 10 years until the morning the Greek armies retreated from their camp,
leaving a giant wooden horse outside the gates of Troy. After much debate, the Trojans pulled
the mysterious gift into the city. When night fell, the horse opened up and a group of Greek
warriors, led by Odysseus, climbed out and sacked Troy from within. Although archeological
evidence confirmed the sacked city of Troy, the story of the Trojan Horse remains a
mythological tale of kings and gods.
Greek Politics
By 750 B.C. the city-state or polis, was the fundamental political unit in ancient Greece. A polis was made up of a city and
its surrounding countryside, which included numerous villages. Most city-states had different forms of government;
monarchies, aristocracies or oligarchies were common.
Like other city-states, Athens went through power struggles between rich and poor. Oppressed by the oligarchical rule of a
handful of aristocrats, the ancient Athenians sought a government where all citizens would determine how the state was
run. Athenian reformers moved toward democracy, allowing citizens to participate directly in political decisions.
However, only free, resident men could be citizens and only some of them could vote.
Athens’ democracy also demanded a lot of time: adult male representatives had to put a halt to their jobs and
take up positions of authority within the democratic system. They also had to go to the Athenian assembly (the
Pnyx) on a regular basis to debate and vote on important issues like going to war. The Athenian leader Pericles
later introduced direct democracy in which citizens rule directly and not through representatives.
While the United States government adopted the Greek idea of democracy, the U.S. is a democratic republic, in
which citizens elect and hire officials to represent them, and the representatives do the majority of lawmaking
and governing.
Athenians and Spartans go to War
As Athens grew in wealth, prestige and power, other city-states began to view it with hostility. Ill-will was especially
strong between Sparta and Athens. Sparta declared war on Athens in 431
B.C.; this became known as the Peloponnesian War.
Athens had the stronger navy, while Sparta had the stronger army. Since
Sparta was located in-land, Athens did not have a chance to win by seabattle, so the advantage often turned to Sparta. Even though a truce was
signed in 421 B.C., the Athenians tried again; sending a huge fleet
carrying more than 20,000 soldiers to destroy Syracuse, one of
Sparta’s wealthiest allies. The expedition ended with a crushing
defeat which severely weakened Athens. The Spartans continued
to attack Athens for nine more years until finally in 404 B.C.,
Athens could admit defeat; it had lost its empire, power and
wealth.
The Uniting of Greece
The Peloponnesian War severely weakened several Greek city-states. King Philip II of Macedonia noticed this weakness
and saw an excellent opportunity for advancement. The Macedonians always saw themselves as Greek, even though most
Greek citizens looked down on the Macedonians as a lesser culture. Philip had a vision of uniting the Greek city-states
together to attack against Persia one day and began training up a very powerful and skilled army. In 338 B.C., Athens and
Themes joined forces to fight Philip, but by then it was too late; the Macedonians soundly defeated them, ending Greek
independence.
King Philip’s next plan was to
invade Persia, but he never
got the chance; at his
daughter’s wedding in 336
B.C. he was stabbed to death.
Philip’s son Alexander
immediately proclaimed
himself king of Macedonia.
Because of his tremendous
accomplishments over the
next 13 years, he became
known as Alexander the
Great. A great conqueror, in
13 short years he amassed the
largest empire in the entire
ancient world
— an empire
that covered
3,000 miles.
His father was able to unite the Greek city-states, and Alexander destroyed the Persian Empire forever.
More importantly, Alexander's conquests spread Greek culture, also known as Hellenism, across his
empire.
When Alexander died in 323 B.C. at the age of 32, it became obvious that the "empire" was nothing but
Alexander's personal possession: there was no legal or political framework holding it together without his big personality.
Within four years the empire began to fragment as Alexander's top generals and the various city-states of Greece began to
fight over the empire. Alexander's heir and the rest of the royal family were murdered; the army fractured into factions,
and the Greek states tried to regain their independence. The Greek peninsula came under Roman rule in 146 B.C.