Fight or Peace? Ancient Greek Role Playing Activity



-65809-1321031Fight or Peace? Ancient Greek Role Playing ActivityFight or Peace? Ancient Greek Role Playing Activity47466250City-StateSpartaPositions War Hawk Peace Keeper Council of Elder King and General City-State Athens Positions War Hawk Peace Keeper Assemblyman (woman)Naval Commander City-State CorinthPositions War Hawk Peace Keeper Assemblyman (woman) Military General 33000100000City-StateSpartaPositions War Hawk Peace Keeper Council of Elder King and General City-State Athens Positions War Hawk Peace Keeper Assemblyman (woman)Naval Commander City-State CorinthPositions War Hawk Peace Keeper Assemblyman (woman) Military General After the Persian Wars Invasion Repelled 1333502929890“The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.” –Thucydides (Book I, History of the Peloponnesian War 1.22-[4]) 620000“The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.” –Thucydides (Book I, History of the Peloponnesian War 1.22-[4]) Ancient Greece was not a unified country, but a collection of city-states who operated as their own country with their own government, military, and economy. They traded and formed alliances throughout their history. Over 300 Greek city-states existed on their own, but they did have a few things in common including language, religion and cultural ideas. During the Persian Wars they rallied together and defeated a common invader through a series of wars known as the Persian Wars. This victory led to re-establishing their independence and a much greater role in the Mediterranean world. The Athenians used their navy following the Persian Wars to protect the people of Greece from another Persian invasion; they sent ships to help the Egyptians revolt against Persian control; they received diplomats from the King of the Libyans; and they helped support the Greek colonists in Ionia. Athens required city-states belonging to the Delian League where they were forced to pay tribute, naval boats and soldiers to help protect all of Greece. Later on, Athens accepted just money from these allies and used it to help build their own city and navy. This upset members of the Delian League and some even tried to leave. Athens responded by using their military to enforce payment of taxes and even implemented a trade embargo on some city-states. Those that opposed Athens began to look elsewhere for support. The Spartans had a pre-existing alliance with city-states in Peloponnesus and vowed to protect one another with Sparta taking the lead. Unlike Athens, Sparta did not force its members to pay taxes! These re-established alliances led to increased tension in the region and the possibility of conflict was near. Would peace win out or would Greece be brought into another expensive and devastating war! -Mr. Sidler Role Playing Events Leading Up To the Peloponnesian WarI am from the city-state of ___________________ and a ________________________(position) Cause # 1 of the Peloponnesian War Cause #2 of the Peloponnesian War Cause #3 of the Peloponnesian War Notes: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Organize your notes in a 3 -2 -1 (3 facts, 2 ideas you found interesting, and 1 question)The Peloponnesian WarThe Peloponnesian War began in 431 BC between the Athenian Empire (or The Delian League) and the Peloponnesian League which included Sparta and Corinth. The war was documented by Thucydides, an Athenian general and historian, in his work History of the Peloponnesian War. The war lasted 27 years, with a 6-year truce in the middle, and ended with Athens' surrender in 404 BC.Causes of the warAccording to Thucydides, the cause of the war was the "fear of the growth of the power of Athens" throughout the middle of the 5th century BC. After a coalition of Greek states thwarted an attempted invasion of the Greek mainland by the Persian Empire, several of those states formed the Delian league in 478 BC in order to create and fund a standing navy which could be used against the Persians in areas under their control. Athens, the largest member of the league and the major Greek naval power, took the leadership of the league and appointed financial officers to oversee its treasury, which was located on the island of Delos, the League headquarters.Over the following decades Athens, through its great influence in the League, was able to convert it into an Athenian empire. Though some members of the League embraced Athenian conversion, just as many were bitterly opposed to the governments imposed upon them. Gradually League funds went more directly into Athenian projects, rather than into defending the Aegean and Greece from Persia. Pericles had the League treasury relocated from its home on Delos to Athens, from [where] most of the funds were used in vast building projects such as the Parthenon. As the member states of the League gradually lost their independence, it transformed into the Athenian Empire, whose growth Sparta watched with concern.The League, based around the Ionian and Aegean Sea, was by its very nature reliant on ships for trade and to fend off pirates and Persian fleets. As the League developed into the Athenian Empire, member states gradually lost control of their own ships, which they gave to Athens annually as tribute. Consequently, Athens began to accumulate a huge navy. This increase in Athenian military power allowed it to challenge the Lacedaemonians (commonly known as the Spartans), who, as leaders of the Peloponnesian League, had long been the sole major military power in Greece.The immediate cause of the war comprised several specific Athenian actions that affected Sparta's allies, notably Corinth. The Athenian navy intervened in a dispute between Corinth and Corcyra, preventing Corinth from invading Corcyra at the Battle of Sybota, and placed Potidaea, a Corinthian colony, under siege. The Athenian Empire also levied economic sanctions against Megara, an ally of Sparta. These sanctions, known as the Megarian decree, were largely ignored by Thucydides, but modern economic historians have noted that forbidding Megara to trade with the prosperous Athenian empire would have been disastrous for the Megarans. The decree was likely a greater catalyst for the war than Thucydides and other ancient authors admitted, more so than simple fear of Athenian power.Reference: G.L. Cawkwell,?Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War?(1997 London) Website: centerbottom10000040000 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download