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Chapter 4 – Ancient Greece – Notes
Section 1 – The First Greek Civilizations
Geography
 Mountainous area resulted in an Independent people with own ways of life
 Surrounded by the sea = Seafaring people
Minoans
 Named by Arthur Evans after Minos, King of Crete
 Civilization established in the Bronze Age
 Sea trading people
 Destroyed by either a natural disaster or invaders
 Knossos was the central city of Minoan civilization
Palace of Knossos
 Royal seat of the kings
 Rooms brightly decorated
 Elaborate building that included:
 living rooms for the royal family
 Workshops for making vases & jewelry
The first Greek State: Mycenae
 Discovered by Heinrich Schliemann in 1870
 Ruled by powerful monarchies who lived in a fortified palace center
 Led by Warrior Kings
 Prided themselves on heroic deeds in battle
The Fall of Mycenae
 Weakened by earthquakes and internal struggle & fighting
 400 year Dark Age – few written records
Homer
 Epic Poems
o Illiad--story of the Trojan War
o Odyssey return of Odysseus
Trojan War 1200 BC – Achilles
 The capture of Troy by the Greeks, according to Homer, was accomplished by a trick
using the Trojan horse
Arete
 Greek ideal of excellence and virtue
Chapter 4 Section 2 – The Greek City-States
Greek City-State - Polis
 By 750 BC the Polis becomes the central focus of Greek life
 Town, city, or village & the countryside
 Where people met for political, social, & religious activities
Acropolis – fortified hill in center of the city
Agora – marketplace
Hoplite soldiers – heavily armed infantry or foot soldiers
Phalanx
 Block formation
 Soldiers went into battle by marching shoulder to shoulder
Tyrants
 Seized the government by force- took land from the rich & gave to the poor
 Gained & kept power by hiring soldiers
 Fell out of favor because contradicted the Greek rule of law
Sparta and Athens
Sparta
 Conquered their neighbors, the Laconians & the Messenians
 These people became known as helots (Greek word for “capture”)
 Became a military state to ensure control over the helots
 From childhood boys are trained to be soldiers
Spartan = “highly self-disciplined”
 men served a lifetime in the military (age 20-60)
 lives were rigidly organized & tightly controlled
Spartan Woman
 power over the household
 they enjoyed more rights and freedoms than Athenian women
 expected to exercise & remain fit to bear children
 expected husbands & sons to be brave
Spartan Values
 duty, strength and discipline over all
 discouraged from studying philosophy, literature & arts – might lead to new thoughts
Spartan Government
 Oligarchy – 2 Kings
 Ephors – 5 elected men
 Council of Elders
Daily Life in Classical Athens
 Boys were taught reading, writing, math, music, and physical education
 Education ended at age 18 when officially became a citizen
Athenian Women - Role of Women
 Strictly controlled -confined to the house
 Always had a male guardian
 Could not own property
 Learned to read & play instruments, but not given a formal education
Government
 Ruled by Aristocrats
 Economic problems = political turmoil
 Farmers sold into slavery
 Athens verged on Civil War
Solon – reform-minded aristocrat
Solon’s Reforms
 Cancelled all debts
 Freed slaves
 Would not take land from rich & give to poor
Internal Strife = Tyranny
 Pisistratus seized power in 560 BC
 Gave aristocrats’ land to the poor to gain their favor
 Succeed by his son & Athenians rebelled against him
Cleisthenes’s Reforms
 Gained power in 508 BC
 Created a council of 500 – Citizen’s Assembly
 Basis of Athenian democracy
 Laid the foundation democracy we know today
Types of Government
Monarchy
 Ruled by a single king
 Rule is hereditary
 Some rulers claim divine right
 Practiced in Mycenae
Oligarchy
 Ruled by a few group of citizens
 Rule is based on wealth
 Practiced in Sparta
Aristocracy
 Ruled by nobility
 Rule is hereditary & based on land ownership
 Social status & wealth supports authority
 Practiced in Athens
Democracy
 Ruled by citizens
 Rule is based on citizenship
 Majority rule decides the vote
 Practiced in Athen
Chapter 4 - Section 3 – Classical Greece
First Persian War
 Athens aids Greek Colonies against Persia
 Persian ruler Darius seeks revenge & invades at Marathon
 Defeated by Athens
 Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens
Second Persian War
 Xerxes (Son of Darius) invades with 180,000 men and thousands of warships
 Thermopylae – Greeks hold off the Persian army
 300 Greek soldiers were especially brave even though they were outnumbered
The Athenian Empire
Delian League
 Defensive alliance against the Persians
 Attacked the Persian Empire until liberated all the Greek states
 Headquarters was moved from Delo to Athens
Age of Pericles 461-429 BC - Height of Athenian power and brilliance
Direct Democracy
 People participate directly in government decisions through mass meetings
 Every male citizen voted
 Meetings held every 10 days
 The assembly passed all laws & elected public officials
Ostracism
 Athenians practice this in order to protect themselves from overly ambitious
polititions
Great Peloponnesian War
 431 – 405 B.C.
 Greek world divided: Athens vs. Sparta
 During 2nd year of the war – plague breaks out in overcrowded Athens, killing
Pericles and 1/3 of the people
 Fought for 25 more years until the Athenian fleet was destroyed at Aegospotami
 Athens loses 27,000 men and fleet
Sparta wins!
 404 BC--Athens surrenders
 Athens stripped of walls, fleet, colonies and confidence
 Both sides exhausted, Sparta also declined
 Petty internal wars over next 66 years caused them to ignore Macedonia to the north
 This would lead to Greece’s demise as an independent nation
Chapter 4 – Section 4 – The Culture of Classical Greece
Greek Religion
 Mt. Olympus- Home of the Greek gods
 Polytheistic
 Did not focus on morality
 12 chief gods and goddesses
 Oracle
 Festivals / rituals- were used to encourage the gods to be generous
The Olympics – 776 BC
Architecture
 search for perfect forms
 Based on ideals of reason, moderation, balance, and harmony in all things
 Most important form was the temples dedicated to gods or goddesses
 Parthenon
Greek Sculpture
 Lifelike nude statues showed ideal form of beauty
 Polyclitus – sculptor who wrote systematic rules for proportions that can produce an
ideal human form
Drama
 Tragedy – hero with a tragic flaw
 Oedipus Rex
 Written by Sophocles
 The Oracle of Apollo foretells how Oedipus will kill his father and marry his
mother
Comedyy
 Satire
Philosophy
 An organized system of thought
 “love of wisdom”
 Basic assumption:
o universe is orderly and subject to unchanging laws
o people understand those laws through logic and reasoning
Sophists
 Traveling teachers
 Forget the gods, concentrate on improving yourself
 No universal truths
Socrates – “The unexamined life is not worth living”
 Socratic Method
o Question-and-answer format to lead pupils to see things for themselves by
using their own reason
 Questioning authority = trouble
 399 BC tried for corrupting the youth of Athens
 Sentenced to die by drinking hemlock
Plato – “How do we know what is real?”
 Student of Socrates
 Greatest philosopher of all time
 Believed individuals could not achieve a good life unless they lived in a just and
rational state
 Ideal forms make up reality
 Expressed hi ideas in a book titled The Republic
 Established a school called the Academy
Aristotle
 Student at the Academy for 20 years
 Did not accept Plato’s theory of ideal forms
 Believed in analyzing through observation and investigation (scientific method)
 Favored constitutional government
Inventor of the syllogism
All men are mortal
A is to B
Socrates is a man
as C is to A
Therefore C is B
Socrates is ________
Herodotus
 wrote History of the Persian Wars
 “Father of History”
Thucydides
 Wrote History of the Peloponnesian War
 Considered the greatest historian of the ancient world
Chapter 4 – Section 5 - Alexander and the Hellenistic Kingdoms
Philip II
 Conquers Greece at Chaeronea 338 BC
 Murdered
Alexander the Great – son of Philip II
 20 when crowned
 Aristotle tutors him in Greek culture
 Inspired by Homer
 Great General-never lost a battle
 Brutal
 Brave and lucky
35,000 Greeks defeat 40,000 Persians at Granicus River
Major Battles at:
 Granicus
 Issus
Alexander adopts Persian ways--unites Persia with Greece
 200 miles into India
 Army refuses to go on, turns back
 Alex dies at 33 with no heir
Alexander’s Legacy
 70 new cities
 Created the Hellenistic Era
 Ended era of the Polis
Empire divided into 4 Kingdoms:
 Macedonia
 Egypt
 Pergamum
 Syria
The Spread of Hellenistic Culture
 It was an age that saw the expansion of Greek language and Greek ideas to the non
Greek world.
 Hellenism became the core of Western Civilization
 Greeks flocked to the new empire
 Greek language united the region
Hellenism: blend of Greek and local cultures – means “to imitate the Greeks”
Alexandria, Egypt
 Became greatest city of the age
 Lighthouse--one of the 7 Wonders of the World
 Library (first research library)
 Glass tomb of Alexander
 University, Zoo, museum
Science and Technology
 Ptolemy--earth is center of universe--main authority for science for 1,000 years
 Eratosthenes—Determined that the earth was round and calculated its circumference
(24,675 miles)
 Euclid—Wrote the Elements. It was a textbook on plane geometry
Philosophy and Art
Stoicism--Zeno
 Divine power controls the universe
 Natural harmony
 Control of desires=ethical life
 Believed happiness could only be found when people gained an inner peace by living
in harmony with God.
Epicureanism—Epicurus
 Gods rule, but no interest in humans
 Only reality is what we perceive with our senses
 Happiness comes from freedom from turmoil and worry.
 Happiness was the goal of life, and could be achieved through the pursuit of pleasure.
Art--away from classical idealism toward realism and drama
Hellenism dominated the Mediterranean and SW Asia for 1,000 years