Greece! 1900-133 BC Because They Were Awesome. Geography

• Mountains and Islands ▫ 80% Mountains  Isolating  Separate Communities ▫ Sea becomes extremely important!  No part of Greek mainland is more than 60 miles from the sea.  Trade, travel, resources. Minoans: 2700 to 1450 BC

• Sea Empire ▫ Traded pottery, gold, and silver jewelry ▫ Art: Paintings in the palace at Knossos  Sports  Nature ▫ Conquered by Mycenaeans.  Lasted 1250 years!  Empire of peace, trade, art. Mycenae: 1600 to 1100 BC

• Warrior People! • Agamemnon and Troy ▫ Helen (Agamemnon’s sister-in-law) is seduced by Paris (Prince of Troy) and taken home with him.  She is the “Face that launched a thousand ships.” ▫ Agamemnon wanted the riches of Troy.  Uses Helen’s affair as an excuse to launch a war.  Makes sacrifice to gain the god’s favor for the war.  His daughter.  Wife, Clytemnestra will be a little peeved by this. Mycenae: 1600 to 1100 BC • Agamemnon and Troy ▫ Troy is ultimately destroyed  Everybody dies:  Paris  Helen  Achilles  Hector  It’s all very sad... • Ultimately Mycenae is weakened by earthquakes (the gods must be angry…) and invasion from the north. The Dark Age: 1100 to 750 BC

• Farming collapses • Records and Archaeology goes silent. • Mainland Greeks flee to the islands and Ionia (Asia Minor/Turkey) ▫ Some flee north and colonize the island of Lesbos ▫ Dorian Greeks flee southwest  Peloponnese  Southern Aegean islands  Crete The Dark Age: 1100 to 750 BC

• Iron slowly replaces bronze! ▫ Weapons become more affordable ▫ Easier to use ▫ Provides improved farming The Dark Age: 1100 to 750 BC

• Homer ▫ Poet ▫ Paints a picture of the past/lost glory of Greece ▫ Gives Greeks a vision of a possible/better future. ▫ Not a record of history as much as a creation of it and a creation of cultural/shared identity. ▫ Taught: Courage, honor, excellence through struggle and contest. Greek Expansion:

• Why? ▫ Desire for good farmland ▫ Overpopulation of home ▫ Trade! • These lead to the founding of Byzantium ▫ Byzantium will be known as Constantinople at the height of it’s power and named for it’s greatest citizen and founder. ▫ Today it is called Istanbul ▫ Controlled the waterway between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea  Economic advantage! Athens • Economic Capital of the Ancient world ▫ 300,000 people at it’s height  Larger than Anchorage ▫ Citizens belong to the State  This leads to a fierce kind of city loyalty.  Eventually leads to the fall of Greece. ▫ Traded:  Olive Oil, Salt, Wine, Pottery, Grain, Metals, Fish, Timber, Slaves  Traders gain wealth Want a share of power Leads to a contest between Old Money (Aristocrats and landowners) vs. New Money (Merchants). Rule of History:

• The wider the gap between the rich (those that have) and the poor (those that don’t have), the more unstable society will be. Vocabulary • Polis = City ▫ Metropolis: (metro = mother) Mother-city ▫ Politics: the business of the city. ▫ Policeman: man of the city. • Greek City State ▫ Center of the city is the Acropolis  Acro = top, tip, highest, beginning  Highest point of the city  Built on a defensible hill.  Temples placed there (protection of the gods). ▫ The Agora  The marketplace or assembly area  Where the people live Vocabulary

• Oligarchy ▫ Oligos = few ▫ Arch = chief, first, to rule ▫ Rule by a few or by a small group. • Democracy ▫ Demos = people ▫ Cracy = government ▫ Rule by the people (understood as mob-rule) Vocabulary

• Tyrant  A ruler that seizes power by force from aristocrats (old money). ▫ Kept power by using hired thugs—I mean soldiers. ▫ Led to a hard choice:  Tyrant vs. Rule of Law or   End of the aristocracy and power the one vs. the rule of the people. Back to Athens! • Had a King  Led an oligarchy of aristocrats  CRISIS! ▫ A man called Draco (Draconian) passes laws that are so harsh a new guy named Solon has to take over to avoid civil war. ▫ Solon helped, but wouldn’t fix the problem of land ownership so  ▫ Peisistratus takes over and institutes land reforms. (HE SHARED THE WEALTH: took land from the rich and redistributed it to folks that didn’t have any.) ▫ The poor REALLY liked him, but didn’t like his son too much, so they said, “no more tyrants, thank you very much.” Athens

• CRISIS! ▫ After the Athenians got rid of the tyrants, a guy named Cleisthenes came to power.  He set up something called The Council of 500.  Supervised foreign affairs.  Oversaw the city budget.  Proposed laws.  He laid the foundation for Athens’ final form of government: democracy. Sparta • They were different from Athens. • It was a military city-state. ▫ Formed to control the Helots or captured slaves. • They had: ▫ Two kings. ▫ 28 citizens over the age of 60 that ruled on issues to be presented at assembly. ▫ Assembly only voted yes or no   No debate.  Only voted on subject of war. Sparta

• Children were taught military discipline. ▫ State raised children after 7 years.  Taught to steal, lie, cheat, and intimidate others for food. ▫ 20 years old  Serve in the military.  Live in the barracks until 30. ▫ Stayed in the military until they were 60. ▫ Women:  Be/stay healthy.  Have lots of babies.  Words of a Spartan mother to her son:  “Come home bearing your shield or on it!” Athens vs. Sparta

• Athens and Sparta did things very differently from each other. • They competed with each other for influence, commerce, and control/power. • Political differences were aggressively argued they fought a really long war with each other with a few breaks to fight with other people like THE EVIL PERSIANS. • The fight against Persia leads to: Classical Greece: 500 to 338 BC

• Ionian Greece fell to the Persians  in 499 Athens tried to liberate them. ▫ It failed, but it made Darius (Persia’s king) mad.  Every night for 9 years, Darius has a slave declare: “Sire, remember the Athenians!”  This is really an unhealthy rage. It ends badly for Darius. Classical Greece: 500 to 338 BC

▫ Darius lands with an overwhelming force on the beach of Marathon (26 miles from Athens).  Gets his trash kicked.  Athenian man who is assigned to watch and take news home, Pheidippides, races to Athens with the news!  With his dying breath he cries: “Victory, we win!”  Victory was really un-hoped for. ▫ It is a minor victory, but it inspires tiny little Greece. Classical Greece: 500 to 338 BC

• Inspired Greece: ▫ Builds a fleet of ships to defend against the next and inevitable attack from the Persian super- power. ▫ The next Persian King Xerxes brings 180,000 soldiers and thousands of warships. *It’s brown trousers time.* Classical Greece: 500 to 338 BC • Thermopylae “The Hot Gates.” ▫ At a place called Thermopylae 7,000 Greek soldiers hold off the hoard for 2 days. ▫ This is the fight made famous by the movie 300.  Sparta played an inspirational part, but they weren’t the only ones there. *I’m not sorry to burst any bubbles here.*  When told, “The sky will be black with arrows!” Dieneces of Sparta said, “That is good news. We will fight in the shade!”  They LOSE. But Greece is inspired! Persia can be defeated. Classical Greece: 500 to 338 BC • 479 BC: Athens gets sacked and destroyed, but Persia loses the war. ▫ Athens comes out with naval control of the Aegean Sea! • 478 BC: Athens forms the Delian League  headquartered on the island of Delos. ▫ All officials were Athenian. ▫ Defended from the Persians at first and then pursued them! ▫ Liberated most of the Greek states in the Aegean. Classical Greece: 500 to 338 BC

• 454 BC: The Delian treasury was moved from Delos to Athens. The Age of Pericles: 461 to 429 BC • Pericles expanded the Athenian Empire and nurtured democracy at home. • Every Male citizen had to participate in the democracy. ▫ 300,000 Athenians  60,000 Adult males with political rights  10,000 Adult male foreigners under the protection of the law  Subject to responsibilities, taxes, military service, etc.  Most were NOT citizens.  100,000 slaves. The Age of Pericles: 461 to 429 BC

• Athenian democracy: ▫ Every 10 days the assembly met. ▫ Anyone in attendance could speak, but usually only respected leaders did. ▫ Poor could participate because Pericles paid the office holders. ▫ The practice of Ostracism protected the democracy from overly ambitious politicians.  Anyone named by @ least 6,000 votes was banned from Athens for 10 years. The Age of Pericles: 461 to 429 BC

• Athens becomes the center of Greek culture. • Massive rebuilding projects. • Imported 50 to 80% of their grain. ▫ They didn’t have enough land for farming. ▫ This is a BIG PROBLEM. • Raised sheep and goats. • Grew grapes and olive trees. • Women could participate in religious festivals, but very little else. ▫ Only traveled under escort. ▫ Father of the house owned the women of the house. The Peloponnesian War: 431 BC

• Athens vs. Sparta! • The Persians were defeated. • The Delian League was split into the Athens faction and the Spartan faction. ▫ Athens  Navy. ▫ Sparta  Army. • Sparta besieged Athens. ▫ In the second year 1/3 of Athens (including Pericles) are killed by Typhus. The Peloponnesian War: 431 BC • The Siege: ▫ Lasted 25 years. ▫ 405 BC: Athenian navy is destroyed at Aegospotami on the Hellespont.  With no navy, Athens is beaten and the empire destroyed.  It was a very sad day. • 67 more years of fighting continues to weaken Greece. ▫ Athens, Sparta, and Thebes fight for control. ▫ They ignore Macedonia to the north. THIS IS BAD. Macedonia and the Hellenistic Era

• Hellenistic = To imitate the Greeks. • 359 BC: Philip II ▫ Builds an army, ends the independence of the Greek city-states in the south.  Decides to celebrate his triumph by finishing off Persia.  Killed before he can invade.  By a former male lover that had been humiliated by him—possibly paid by Alexander’s mother? Macedonia and the Hellenistic Era

• Alexander the Great ▫ Prepared for rule.  Schooled in warfare and academics.  His tutor was ARISTOTLE. ▫ Motivated by a desire for glory and empire.  Wasn’t above using revenge to justify his actions. For example the burning of Athens by Persia in 480BC. ▫ 334 BC: 37,000 men to capture Western Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt! Macedonia and the Hellenistic Era

• Alexander the Great ▫ Builds Alexandria to be the Greek capitol of Egypt and to serve as the shipping hub for Egyptian wheat for the rest of his empire. ▫ Turned East and looked to conquer India  his soldiers finally refused to go farther. Macedonia and the Hellenistic Era

• Alexander the Great: ▫ His Legacy:  Political  Monarchies  Cultural  Greek language, architecture, literature, art, and religious diversity spread throughout Asia, India, and North Africa.  The launching of the Hellenistic Era.  ALEXANDRIA: the academic capital of the ancient world. Macedonia and the Hellenistic Era

• Alexandria: academic capital of the ancient world. ▫ Home to poets, writers, scholars, philosophers, scientists ▫ Pharos  The Great Lighthouse of Alexandria ▫ The Great Library and the Museums of Alexandria  Think of it as the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, and the internet all in one for the ancient world.  500,000 scrolls! Macedonia and the Hellenistic Era

• When Alexander the Great dies: ▫ Generals fight over the pieces of his empire. ▫ Four kingdoms emerge  All ruled by Greek administrators.  Macedonia  Syria  Pergamum (Western Asia Minor/Modern Day Turkey)  Egypt (the greatest of the four)