CONSOLATA INSTITUTE OF PHILOSOPHY

CONSOLATA INSTITUTE OF

PHILOSOPHY

CHM 938

GREEK-ROMAN HISTORY

Lecturer: Fr. Joseph Mwaniki, imc

Email: frmwaniki@tangaza.ac.ke

Outline of the course

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Introduction to Greek-Roman History

Greek History; An Introduction

Early Aegean Civilisations

Rise of Greek City states

Wars and Expansion

The Glory that was Greece

Alexander and the Hellenistic age

Roman History and its major divisions

The Roman Republic, Its Culture and Life

The Roman Empire and Pax Roman

Roman Law, Philosophy, Literature and Art

The Crisis, Decline and the Causes

Western Civilization, Roman Heritage and

Christianity.

Lesson 4

RISE OF GREEK CITY

STATES, WARS AND

EXPANSION

The Rise of City-States

? Geography played a critical role in shaping civilizations,

and this is particularly true of ancient Greece.

? The Greek peninsula has two distinctive geographic

features that influenced the development of Greek

society.

? First, Greece has easy access to water. The land contains

countless scattered islands, deep harbours, and a

network of small rivers. This easy access to water meant

that the Greek people might naturally become explorers

and traders.

? Second, Greece's mountainous terrain led to the

development of the polis (city-state), beginning about

750 B.C.E. The high mountains made it very difficult for

people to travel or communicate. Therefore, the polis

became the structure by which people organized

themselves.

? Some of the most important city-states were Athens,

Sparta, Thebes, Corinth, and Delphi. Of these, Athens and

Sparta were the two most powerful city-states.

The Rise of City-States

? According to the legendary poet Homer, around 1200

BCE, the Mycenaeans were involved in a conflict with

the city of Troy in Anatolia, called the Trojan war.

Various foreign ¡°Sea Peoples¡± began invading

Mycenaean settlements, prompting the inhabitants to

migrate to islands in the Aegean, Anatolia, and Cyprus.

? At that time, life in the Greek peninsula and Greek

islands was characterized by conflict and instability.

This instability was the context for the emergence of

Greek city-states.

Ancient greek Polis

? Without a powerful, centralized state, smaller

governing bodies created political order. One such

type of governing body was the city-state or polis.

Initially, the term polis referred to a fortified area or

citadel which offered protection during times of war.

People flocked to them and set up communities and

commercial centres. Over time, poleis¡ªthe plural of

polis¡ªbecame urban centres whose power and

influence extended to the surrounding agricultural

regions, which provided resources and paid taxes.

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