Classical Greece chapter 5

Section 1

Cultures of the mountain and the sea

The rivers, much like Sumerian, Egyptians, Harappans, and the Chinese civilization, affected culture. The people of Greece are only 85 miles from the sea. Being that close to the sea, the people of Greece made their living by trade and the things that the sea gave them. The Greeks became skilled sailors, which allowed them to trade and interact with other civilizations and people.

Being mountainous, the island of Greece, needed to get resources from others. The mountains also prevented the Greeks from creating strong central government.

The climate was good for gathering outside to discus politics and philosophy. This also carried over to discussing politics and government.

As the government and military developed, areas of Greece were brought under one kingdom. The first was the Mycenaean kingdom, of which the capitol was Mycenae. They built a huge wall to protect the city. Because this group was very warlike, their kingdom attacked other surrounding kingdoms or islands. They used bronze weapons, which were stronger than the weapons of their enemies. One island that they attacked was the island of Crete. The Minoans are the people of Crete, who influenced the religion, art, politics, and literature of the Mycenaean or Greeks.

Trojan War was fought to control the waterway through the Aegean Sea. As this war progressed, the Dorians gained power. As the countryside was being devastated, these people came to power. Under their leadership, the economy collapsed, trade stopped, no written works were recorded. Due to the lack of written records, we don’t know what caused the decline.

With this group of Greeks with no written records, storytellers such as Homer told the Trojan War to future generations. These storytellers gave an oral history of the time period. Two of his epics, long poems telling a story, used the Trojan War as the backdrop. These were The Iliad and The Odyssey. In The Iliad had heroes, the Greek Achilles and the Trojan Hector. The Greeks have a great value of heroic ideals, virtue and excellence being those ideals. Also in The Odyssey the hero, Odysseus, uses his wits to defeat the Trojans.

The Greeks created myths about their gods; giving the gods, love, hate, and jealousy that are human characteristics. Who are the gods of the Greeks? 

Section 2 Warring City-States

The city-states of Greece were called polis, which was the fundamental political unit. Aroga, which was the center of the town or the acropolis, was the gathering place

In some of the city-states, just like the river civilizations, the ruler was a king or monarch. This type of government is called a monarchy. Some adopted an aristocracy, ruling by a few noble landowning families. As trade became more wide spread, wealthy merchants and artisans became unhappy with the aristocratic rule. They formed an oligarchy, which is a government ruled by a few powerful people. Weapons made out of bronze were soon replaced with those made of iron. The people of the city-state were expected to protect the polis. The soldiers called hoplites stood side-by-side holding a spear in one hand and a shield in the other.

This formation was called Phalanx the most powerful fighting force in the ancient world.

Tyrants took control of the government telling the poor and the discontented anything to get them to support them. The city-states passed from one tyrant to another. Two powerful city-states found new ways of governing these were Sparta and Athens.

Sparta builds a military state

Messina was conquered by Sparta. The Messenians became helots or peasants forced to stay on the land they worked. They had to give the Spartans half of their crops. The Messenians rose up to revolt against the Spartans. Barely putting down the revolt the Spartans changed the way they ruled their city-state. A bicameral government was established.  The assembly that included all free adult males and the Council of Elders made up the government. The council of elders proposed the laws that the assembly voted on. Two kings ruled over the military of Sparta. The young boys (the age of 7) of Sparta were trained to fight and protect the city-state. They were treated harshly, which created a tough soldier. The girls were also rugged learning to wrestle, and play sports. The women learned how to manage the family estates. The Spartans were the most powerful armies in Greece, but didn’t value the arts. Spartans valued duty, strength, and discipline over individuality, beauty, and freedom.

Athens builds a limited democracy

Athens is located north of Sparta, and it differs greatly from the lifestyle of the Spartans. Athens tried to create a democracy, government ruled by the people. Only free adult males counted as citizens, women, slaves, foreigners were excluded from being citizens and had few rights. Slaves made up one third of the population. Women were to raise children, weave cloth, prepare meals, and manage the household. And had very little to do with the intellectual life of the city.

A group of peasants revolted which prevented a tyrant named Cylon to gain power. After the revolt the peasants demanded a written code of laws. The lawmaker Draco wrote the first legal code for Athens. To prevent civil war a new leader named Solon was given the power to reform the laws to better Athens.

Reforms introduced by Solon

• Outlawed debt slavery
• He allowed all citizens to participate an debate policies
• Any citizen could bring charges against any one
• Encouraged the export of grapes and olives
• He didn’t address land reforms which leads to fighting between wealthy landowners and the poor farmers

A tyrant that names Pisistratus seized power and brought about a few changes. Funds were given to the poor to buy farm equipment. the money was raised by taxing the agricultural production. Another leader added more political reforms for Athens. Cleisthenes was this leader.

Cleisthenes reforms

• Worked to make Athens a full democracy, broke up the power of the nobles
• All citizens could submit laws to the assembly
• Created the Council of Five Hundred, this group proposed laws and guided the assembly

The Persian Wars

Greeks that lived in what is now turkey, revolted and the Persian King Darius vowed to destroy Athens seeking revenge. The Persian armies landed near Athens and met the Athenians assembled in phalanx ready to fight. The Persian army left 6,400 dead with the Athenians losing only 192. The area they fought on was the marathon plain. Marathon story.

After the Persians were defeated at marathon, they attacked again ten years later. They forced the Athenians to retreat. 300 Spartans protected the rear as the Athenians fled. The people left Athens and boarded their ships and fought the Persians on the water. Sinking 1/3 of the ships, the Athenians forced the Persians to leave. After the fighting with the Persians, Athens became the head of the 140 city-state organization known as the Delian League.  After this the Athenians used their navy to control the other city-states. Thus entered the golden age of Athens.

Section 3 Democracy and Greece’s Golden Age

During the golden age of Athens, drama, sculpture, poetry, philosophy, architect, and science reached new heights. A wise and able statesman, named Pericles, led Athens. This was the Golden Age of Athens also known as the Age of Pericles. He had three goals for Athens.

1: to strengthen democracy increased the number of paid public officials. The poorest could serve if elected or selected by lot. Thus allowing Athens to have a large portion of population involved in government. Pericles introduced direct democracy.

2: to hold and strengthen the empire, built a 200 ship navy using the money from the Delian league. Having  a strong navy was important to maintain the trading of the Athenians.

3: to glorify Athens. He used money from the empire to beautify Athens.

Greek sculpture was attempting to create figures that were graceful, strong, and perfectly formed.  Their values of order, balance, and proportion became the standard of what is called classical art.

Greek drama, consisted of two types of plays. Tragedies and Comedies. The hero of the drama was an important person and often gifted with extraordinary abilities, a tragic flaw usually caused the hero’s down fall. Hubris or excessive pride was the flaw.

Most comedies were satires filled with slap stick humor and crude humor. Playwrights made fun of the customs, politics, respected people, or ideas of the time.

Sparta and Athens dislike each other. The Peloponnesian War began the war between Athens and Sparta. The Athenians were defeated when they tried to attack Sparta.  After 27 years, Athens fell to Sparta. The idea of democracy was weakened and new teachers came along.

These philosophers or lovers of wisdom began teaching the young of Athens. These thinkers developed ideas that followed these assumptions. The universe is put together in an orderly way, subject to absolute and unchanging laws. People can understand these laws through logic and reason.

Sophists, questioned unexamined beliefs and ideas about justice and other traditional values.

Section 4 Alexander – Empire Builder

The fighting between Sparta and Athens weakened Greece; a nearby king noticed the weaknesses. This kingdom was Macedonia and the young king Philip (23 years old) he developed the phalanx into a highly successful unit. 16 men by 16 men with 18 foot spears. Using this phalanx, he was ready to attack Greece. Although warned by some Athenians, they didn’t try to defend against attack and the Macedonian army led by 18-year-old Alexander. The Macedonian leader planned on attacking Persia. Before he could invade Persia, Philip was killed at his daughter’s wedding.

Alexander became King of Macedonia. During the battle of Thebes, the army of Alexander killed 6000; the survivors were sold into slavery.

Having captured Greece, Alexander could move on to carry out Philip’s plan to invade Persia. Attacking the Persians, Alexander led his cavalry into the Persian army and defeated them. Next he attacked Darius III, and routed his army so bad that he was frightened for his life. This victory gave Alexander control of Turkey. Darius III tried to negotiate with Alexander by giving him a third of Persia. Alexander noting the decline of Persia military, vows to continue fighting through out Persia. Upon enter Egypt, he is crowned and named pharaoh.

Alexander next marches to Mesopotamia and his armies defeat Darius III again, but this time Alexander marches into the richest provinces of Persia. The huge treasures of Babylon were distributed among his armies.

Marching into India this army fights and defeats an army that includes 200 elephants.  When Alexander died at the age of 33, Macedonia included Greece, turkey, Egypt, and all of Persia. On his deathbed, he predicted that his commanders would control the empire.

Antigonus became king of Macedonia and took control of the Greek city-states.

Ptolemy took control of Egypt became pharaoh.

Seleucus took control of most of the Old Persian Empire.

As Alexander and his armies marched throughout southwestern Asia, Greek artists, merchants, and officials followed. Thus the Greek culture spread throughout the area. As the cultures intermingled a new culture grew.

Section 5 The Spread of Hellenistic Culture

 Greek culture blended with Egyptian, Persian, and Indian influences. This became known as the Hellenistic culture. Alexander created a city named Alexandria at the mouth of the Nile. This huge city became the center of the Hellenistic culture, trade, and exchange of civilization. This city was very beautiful. A huge lighthouse was built an soared over the town and was very beautiful. Universities and museums were built by the residents of Alexandria.

Scientists and mathematics improved their fields during the Hellenistic period. 

Euclid developed the theories that we use in geometry today and Archimedes estimated the value of pi. The philosophy of the Hellenistic period could be seen in the teachings of Zeno who started a school of Stoicism. Stoics believed in a divine power who controlled the universe. 

Another teacher created a school of thought called Epicureanism. Epicurus thought that the only real objects were those that could be perceived by the five senses. 

Regarding the arts, the Hellenistic period experienced a growth of realism with the creation of statues to tell the stories of the area. These statues were very lifelike.