First Greek Civilizations

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
• Illiad--story of the Trojan War
• 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:
• universe is orderly and subject to unchanging laws
• 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
• 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