Chapter 4 – Ancient Greece – Notes



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

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