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Transcript of Ancient Greece
- Surrounded by 3 bodies of water (peninsula)
Geography of Greece
- Lived on the island of Crete
- Made up of hundreds of islands
- Early Greek communities were made up of city states
- Discovered by archeologist Arthur Evans
- Named after legendary King Minos
- Knossos was their capital. They built a huge palace there.
- Became rich through trade
End of the Minoans
A volcanic eruption caused a tsunami near the island of Thera and caused destruction in Crete
Invaders known as the Mycenaeans conquered and destroyed Knossos
- Painted frescoes
- First group to have plumbing system
Legend of the Minotaur
- Group of people from Asia who settled in the mainland of Greece
- Built a palace at Mycenae
- An archeologist named Heinrich Schliemann discovered their civilization
- Their leaders are considered the first Greek kings
- Learned about the sea, trading and technology from the Minoans
- Created a strong army (most famous leader was a king named Agamemnon)
- Occurred when the Mycenaean civilization fell.
- It was a time of less trade and poverty.
- Written language was forgotten and artisans stopped making objects.
- Many Greeks moved to the Aegean islands and to Asia, which spread their culture.
The End of
- The Dorians invaded Greece and settled in the Peloponnesus.
- The Greeks began writing again, with a new alphabet they learned from the Phoenicians.
- A polis, or city state, was like an independent country.
- An agora, or open area, served as a market and a place for people to meet and debate issues.
- An acropolis was the main gathering place of the city state. It was a fortress built on top of a hill
- They were the first people to develop the idea of citizenship.
- The military of city states were made up of ordinary citizens, who swore allegiance to their “home city state”.
- Citizens had rights and responsibilities:
- they could vote, hold office, own property, and defend themselves in court.
- Only free, native born, land owning men could be citizens.
The Greek Phalanx
Two Types of Government
- Oligarchy - a few people hold power
- Ex: Sparta
- Democracy - all people share power
- Ex: Athens
- Spartans were an inland military state. They would conquer and enslave their neighbors.
- The slaves were known as helots.
- Boys entered the military at age 7 and were treated harshly.
- At age 20, men entered the regular army and lived in the barracks for 10 years.
- They returned home at age 30, but served in the army until age 60.
- To keep their helots from rebelling, the Spartans created a strong military of boys and men.
Women in Sparta
- They were trained in sports and exercised regularly so they could produce healthier babies.
- They had many rights:
- were allowed to own property
- freedom while men were in barracks
Because of their military focus, Spartans fell behind in education
- Focused on education and taught about principles of honesty and morality
- Boys went to school from age 7-18
- They learned mathematics, literature, speech, music and sports
- Some wealthy girls also attended school, but most learned about household duties
The Persian Wars
How Did it Start?
- As the Greeks set up their colonies in Asia Minor, the Persians began controlling the Greek city states.
- Athens sent soldiers to help the Greek colonies rebel against the Persians,and they burned the Persian city of Sardis.
- King Darius decided to stop the Greeks from interfering in his empire, so he declared war.
-When the Athenians didn’t arrive, the Persian commander ordered the troops back on the boats to attack the Athenian army from the south.
- When the horsemen were on the boat, the Athenians (who had been hiding behind a hill) charged the Persian foot soldiers and defeated them.
-The Persian army lands in Marathon and waits for Athens to arrive.
- This time, the Greek city states united.
Sparta sent their army along with their king Leonidas, who would serve as commander of all the Greek land forces.
Athens sent their naval fleet along with their general Themistocles, who devised a plan on how to defeat the Persians.
Leonidas waits with his army at a spot, while Themistocles gets his navy to cut off the Persian food supply
A traitor led the Persians to a path around the mountains and the Persians defeated the Greek army at the Battle of Thermoplylae.
Leonidas chose Thermopylae as the place to stall the Persians because it was a narrow pass between the mountains that was easy to defend.
- Even though the Greeks were outnumbered, the location, strategy and new ships allowed for a victory
- The Persians arrived and burned the city
- The Persians continued their attack on Greece, heading towards Athens.
- Even though they were outnumbered again, the Greeks beat the Persians
- this finally convinced them to retreat back to Asia Minor
- More Greek city states joined the fight and gathered at Plataea.
The Delian League
- Athens joined forces with other city states (except Sparta) and formed the Delian League.
About 50 years later, Alexander the Great conquers the Persians
- It promised to defend its members against the Persians.
Democracy in Athens
- Athens had a direct democracy
- Every citizen present can vote on laws and policies
- American way - representative democracy
- A very popular politician who kept Athens in control of the Delian League
- He believed that anybody with talent should be involved in the government.
- He began a rebuilding program in Athens
- Pericles knows the Spartans will win in an open battle
- Plan - stay safe behind city walls, have their navy send supplies to their allies to help out
The Peloponnesian War
- This was a war between Athens and Sparta that lasted almost 30 years
- Good news - Sparta has no navy - they couldn’t stop Athenian supply ships
- Problem - disease spreads, thousands die - even Pericles
Sparta gets desperate to win and make a deal with the Persians
- Persia gave Sparta money to build a navy
- Sparta gave Persia land in Asia Minor
Results: Sparta’s new navy destroys the Athenian navy
Spartans attack on land into Athens and they surrender...Sparta wins!
- Both epics dealt with stories of people involved in the Trojan War ( a war between Greece and Troy).
- He wrote two very famous epics known as the Iliad and the Odyssey.
- The first Greek epics were written by a poet called Homer.
The Trojan War
- The Greeks burn the city of Troy
- Paris kills Achilles with an arrow
- Agamemnon dies
- Paris, Helen and other Trojan nobles escape through a secret passage
people who paid rent to grow crops in another person's land
Greek not from that city state/non Greek
Most were prisoners of war
Greeks used the world's first gold and silver coins
- Tyrants were strong leaders who would take over and run the government
- They usually were not bad
- As time passed, most city states eventually moved into a democracy or an oligarchy form of government
Beginnings of Democracy
- Solon and Cleisthenes were leaders who created many reforms that reduced the power of the rich
- Increased the power of the assembly (by adding more people)
- Citizen juries were also created
- Led by two military kings
- Led by a council of elders (28 men over age 60)
- Smaller assembly made up of citizens would elect 5 ephors (advisers to the kings)
Darius sets sail with 20,000 Persian cavalry soldiers
- Darius’ son, Xerxes, wanted revenge against Athens for defeating his father’s Persian army.
So, he gathered 100,000 troops and prepares to battle the Greeks again.
- This is the location Themistocles chose to block the Persian supply ships because it was a narrow strait the Persian ships would not be able to maneuver well.
- He had ordered new ships built that were smaller, faster and easy to maneuver called triremes.
After the Persian Wars ended, there were two "super powers" in Greece.
The Peloponnesian League
- Sparta formed their own alliance system fearing Athens' control
For many years, the Greeks fought against each other for power. Meanwhile a country to the north, Macedonia was getting stronger
The Rise of Macedonia
- King Phillip wanted to unite the Greek city states with his own kingdom.
- He trains the Macedonian army to fight in a phalanx
- Soldiers also used a longer spear called a sarissa
Macedonia Turns to Greece
- Phillip places his 16 year old son Alexander as commander of his army and attacks Greek city states one by one
- He allows them to keep their own government, but they must promise to support Macedonia to attack the Persians.
While planning the attack, Phillip is killed!
His son, Alexander, becomes the new king at 20 years old.
- Greek city states, Egypt, and all of the Persian land
- Renamed many cities along the way Alexandria
- Largest one was in Egypt
- He became greedy and wanted to conquer India
- took 11 years!
- He pushed his soldiers too far. They rebelled and Alexander was forced to begin marching back east.
- He dies of malaria at age 32.
Since his son was an infant, Alexander's top generals split up his empire
- He spread Greek culture east
- This time period is known as the Hellenistic Era
- Many Greek festivals included athletic contests
- The most famous sports event was the Olympic games, which honored Zeus
Oracle at Delphi
- Greeks would travel here to visit the priestess who would tell the future
- Most of her answers could be interpreted in different ways
Temple of Apollo
- He wrote many children's stories that use animals to teach a lesson
- Tortoise and the Hare
- Ant and the Grasshopper
- Boy who cried Wolf
- Socrates taught in a question/answer method (known as the Socratic method)
- One of his students, Plato, started a school for higher learning called the Academy
- Aristotle wrote books about government, mathematics, science and logic
- Greeks created the idea of theater (comedy, tragedy)
- Greeks created the idea of a hypothesis in scientific thinking
- Greeks invented many simple machines
- Hippocrates asked his patients questions about their symptoms
- Made his students say an oath (it promised to keep a patient's illness confidential and never to purposely harm a patient)
- Doctors today still take this oath
phalanx - fighting in rows (each man would use part of his shield to cover the other)