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GREECE
Geography
• Greece occupies a small area in the Mediterranean
and Aegean Seas
• Made up of the mainland and numerous islands
• Two geographic features played a significant role
in developing Greece:
– Mountains
• Isolated Greeks from one another – different
communities develop
• However, rivalries between communities led
to warfare that devastated Greek society
– The Sea
• Became seafarers who established colonies
that spread Greek civilizations
• Peninsula = land that is surrounded on three
sides by water
• Archipelago = a chain of islands
Early Greek Civilization
• The Minoan civilization (3000-1450 BC)
– Established on the island of Crete
– Named after King Minos, legendary king of
Crete (the Minotaur story)
– Sudden catastrophic collapse around 1450 BC
Early Greek Civilizations
• The Minoan civilization (3000 – 1450 BC)
– Established on the island of Crete
– Named after King Minos, legendary king of Crete (the
Minotaur story)
– Used bronze to make weapons
– Large palace at Knossos – had basic plumbing
– Sudden and catastrophic collapse around 1450 BC
Greek City-States
• The central focus of Greek life and society was the polis
– Polis = Greek city-state
• Greeks were fiercely loyal to their polis and
regarded themselves not as Greeks, but as
members of a particular city-state
– Make-up of a polis:
• Citizens who had political rights = adult males
• Citizens who had no political rights = women and
children
• Non-citizens = slaves and foreigners
– Some cities develop democracy = gov’t by the people
or rule by the many
– Other city-states develop an oligarchy = rule by the
few
– New military system develops
• Based on hoplites = heavily armed foot soldiers
• Carried a round shield, short sword, and a
thrusting spear
• Formed a phalanx for protection
–Phalanx = a wall of shields created by foot
soldiers marching close together in
rectangular formation
Athens
• Government structure was a democracy
– Direct democracy = vote directly on the issues
– Indirect democracy = elect people to vote on
the issues in your place
• Standards for voting = must be a free male over the age
of 20 who has completed military training and owns
land
– Accounts for 10% of the population
• Duties of people allowed to vote:
– Vote in all elections and serve in office if elected
– Serve on juries and in the military during war
• Athenian democracy consisted of three main bodies
– Council of Five Hundred who proposed laws that
would be voted on by the Assembly and supervised
both foreign affairs and the treasury
– Athenian Assembly – composed of all male
citizens who were eligible to take part in the gov’t
• This assembly voted on and passed the laws
• Direct democracy = people participate directly
in gov’t decision making and vote directly on
an issue
– Complex series of courts
• Built the Parthenon = a grand temple dedicated to
the goddess Athena
• Women could not own property and always had
a male guardian
– Chief obligation was to have children
– Were expected to stay at home and out of sight,
unless attending religious festivals or funerals
Sparta
• Like most city-states, Sparta needed more land, so
they conquered neighboring peoples instead of
starting new colonies
– The Spartans turned these conquered peoples
into helots = state slaves
– Spartans were now free to spend all their time
training for war
• Spartans decide to create a military state to keep
control over the helots
– Helots outnumbered Spartan citizens by 7 to 1
• Life in Sparta was rigidly organized
– Babies were examined at birth and if they were
found to be weak, they were put to death
– Men
• Taught physical toughness by parents until age
seven
• They then entered a school system designed to
teach them combat
–At the end of their training, boys were sent into
the wilderness and expected to survive
• At age 20 the boys became hoplites in the Spartan
army
• Allowed to marry, but had to live in barracks until
age 30
–Could now live their own lives, but expected to
fight with the army when needed
• Allowed to vote in the assembly at age 30, retired
from the army at age 60
– Women
• Expected to exercise and raise healthy children
• Had greater freedom and power in the household
due to separation from their husbands
• Could own property
• Government structure
– Was an oligarchy headed by two kings who led the
army on its campaigns
– Ephors – a group of five men elected each year
• Responsible for the conduct of all citizens and
education
– Council of Elders – composed of the two kings and 28
citizens over the age of 60
• Decided the issues that would be presented to the
assembly
– Assembly of male citizens – voted on the issues
• Foreigners were discouraged from visiting and Spartans
were not allowed to travel abroad
– Kept out dangerous ideas and discouraged new
thoughts
ATHENS
SPARTA
Peninsula of
Attica
Peninsula of
Peloponnesus
Gov’t Type
Democracy
Oligarchy
Military State?
NO
YES
Allows foreigners?
YES
NO
Who Can Vote?
Free men who
own land
Men in the army
Voting Age?
20
30
Location
Life of Women
Stay inside, have
male guardian
More freedom
and power
ATHENS
•
•
•
•
•
Located: Peninsula of Attica
Gov’t type: Democracy
Military state?: NO
Foreigners?: YES
Who can vote: Free men who
own land
• Voting Age: 20
• Women: Expected to stay
inside, must have a male
guardian
SPARTA
• Located: Peninsula of
Peloponnesus
• Gov’t type: Oligarchy
• Military state?: YES
• Foreigners?: NO
• Who can vote: Men in the
army
• Voting Age: 30
• Women: have more freedom
and power
The Persian Wars
• (490 BC - 479 BC)
• Persian emperor Darius decides to invade
Greece
• First Persian Invasion – 490 BC
– Battle at Marathon – Athenians attack the Persians
while they are unloading and the Persians retreat
– An Athenian messenger runs 26 miles from
Marathon to Athens to announce the victory
• He dies after delivering the message
• Second Persian Invasion – 480 BC
– Battle at Thermopylae
• Greeks are afraid they won’t have enough time to
prepare
• A group of 300 Spartans decide to hold off the
entire Persian army at the mountain pass of
Thermopylae
• Are successful for several days until a local shows
the Persians an alternate path through the
mountain and they kill all the Spartans
– In 479 BC a large Greek army led by the might of
Sparta crushes the Persians, ending the war
The Peloponnesian War
• War between Athens and Sparta
– Sparta and allies dominate the land
– Athens and allies dominate the sea
• Spartans surround Athens hoping for an open battle
– Athens avoids any battles on land
– Knowing they can’t compete in open battle, they
hide behind their city walls, relying on supplies from
their navy and colonies
• Sparta eventually destroys the Athenian navy and
Athens surrenders
– The walls of Athens are torn down and the Empire
destroyed
• Costs of the war
– Weakened major Greek city-states
• Athens nearly destroyed, Sparta exhausted as well
– Struggle for power in Greece led to a long cycle of
warfare that left all of Greece vulnerable
– Ignored the growing power of Macedonia to the
north
– Loss of freedom
Greek Culture
• Philosophy = the search for wisdom and knowledge
– Greek word meaning “the love of wisdom”
• Socrates
– First of the great Athenian philosophers
– Everything known about Socrates comes from the
writings of his students
– Interested in broad concepts of human life
– Best way to learn is to ask questions
• Use question-and-answer format to acquire
knowledge
• Known as the Socratic method
– Socrates was charged with disrespect for religion and
corrupting the city’s children
• Thought he caused children to question the
actions of the gods
• Believed the displeasure of the gods caused
Athens to lose the war
– Sentenced to death by drinking a cup of hemlock, a
poison
• Plato
– Student of Socrates
– His most famous work was the Republic
• Gov’t should be led by the people most qualified
to make good decisions - philosophers
– Plato founded the Academy, a school where
respected philosophers could teach their students
and hold debates
– Questioned reality and believed in ideal Forms
• Every material object in the world was only the
reflection of a perfect ideal
• Aristotle
– Student of Plato
– Emphasis on reason and logic to study the natural
world
• Reason = clear and ordered thinking
• Logic = the process of making inferences
– Aristotle believed in analyzing through observation
and investigation
• People should use reason to learn about the world
by making careful observations
• Influenced the development of science in Europe
• History
– A systematic analysis of past events, created by the
Greeks
– The Greeks were one of the first people to write
about and analyze the past
– Herodotus – First historian, wrote about the Persian
Wars
– Thucydides – considered to be the greatest historian
of the ancient world
• Included many primary speeches and looked at
his sources critically
– Homer
• One of the greatest poets of all times, wrote epic
poems based on the Trojan War that became the
basis for Greek education system
–Epic poem = a long poem that tells the deeds of
a great hero
• Iliad – tale of the Greek hero Achilles
• Odyssey – long journey home of Greek hero
Odysseus
• Greek Drama
– Used for entertainment, two distinct forms of drama
• Tragedies – usually focused on hardships faced by
Greek heroes
• Comedies – satires, written to expose the flaws of
society
– Several well-known Greek playwrights
– Sophocles – concentrated on the suffering people
brought upon themselves
• Many of his characters had fatal flaws
• Famous play = Oedipus Rex, the story of a king
who accidentally kills his father and marries his
mother
Alexander the Great
• Macedonia was a powerful kingdom to the north of the
Greek city-states
• Philip II reorganized the Macedonian army and adopted
the phalanx system
– Conquered all of the major Greek city-states except
Sparta and became the new leader of Greece in 338
BC, he was assassinated in 336 BC
– After his death, his son Alexander came to the throne
(356-323 BC)
• Alexander was a great military leader and
strategist
• Decided to fulfill his father’s dream of conquering the
Persian Empire
– Destroyed the Persian army and emperor Darius III
fled – he was later murdered by one of his own
officers
• After this victory, Alexander led his army deeper into
Asia
– Went and conquered parts of India
– When his army refused to go any further, Alexander
agreed to go home
• On his way back home, Alexander fell ill in the city of
Babylon and died a few days later
– He left no heir, so his generals began to fight for
control
– In the end the empire was divided among the three
most powerful generals
• Macedonia and Greece, Persian Empire, and Egypt
• Legacy of Alexander
– Created new cities, most of them named Alexandria
• Built Alexandria as the Greek capital of Egypt –
important city which had a famous library
– Alexander envisioned a world in which many cultures
would live together
– Made a conscious effort to bring people and ideas from
different places together
• Encouraged Greeks to move to the Alexandria cities
– Created a new type of culture
• Blended elements of Greek civilization with ideas from
Persia, Egypt, and Central Asia
• Created the Hellenistic Era
– Hellenistic means “to imitate the Greeks”
– Expansion of Greek language and ideas to other parts of
the world
– Massive spread of Greek colonists to Asia
Alexander’s empire fell apart soon after his death, and the
different Hellenistic kingdoms were shortly conquered by
the Romans