Transcript Ancient Greece

Greek City-States
750 – 500 B.C.
Polis (city-state)
 Polis = city + surrounding
countryside
 Center of political, social, and
religious life
 Acropolis – fortified part of a city,
usually on a hill
 Agora – below acropolis, open area
for market and/or assemblies
 Polis was made of people with a
similar background and similar
goals
 Adult men had political rights,
women and children were citizens
without political rights, and slaves
were noncitizens
Transition of Political
Rule
 Aristocracy – wealthy land
owners
 Tyrants – took power by
force
 Hired soldiers to gain power
 Built up city-states
 Favored merchants and
traders
 Democracy – rule by
many
 Athens
 Oligarchy – rule by a few
 Sparta
Sparta
 Southern Peloponnesus
Peninsula
 Took over Messenians @ 740
B.C.
 Messenians revolted, put down by
Spartans
 Strict military society
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Raised in military discipline
Age 20 could get married
Age 30 could vote and move out
Age 60 could leave the military
 Women had more power than
other societies
Sparta (cont.)
 2 kings – led army
campaigns
 5 ephors – elected each
year, in charge of
education
 Council of elders (2
kings, 28 citizens 60+)
 Assembly – voted on
issues decided by the
council of elders
 Rejected outside world’s
ideas
Athens
 Attica Peninsula
 Originally ruled by a king,
became an oligarchy of
aristocrats (archons)
 Tyrants – Solon
(canceled debts),
Pisistratus (took land from
nobles and gave to poor)
 Assembly (Cleisthenes) –
500 male citizens, voted
on laws (foundation of
democracy)
Classical Greece
Persian Wars
 Ionian Greeks (Asia
Minor) – revolt against
Persia in 499 B.C.
 Darius
 Battle of Marathon (490
B.C.)
 Phiedippides
 Xerxes
 Thermopylae – Spartans
 Athens burned
 Island of Salamis
Athenian Empire
 Delian League
 Defensive alliance between
city states
 Athens led
 Defeated Persians
 Athens forced other citystates to remain in league
 Pericles (page 135)
 Assembly general from 461
to 429 B.C.
 Expanded democracy, gave
more power to the poor
 Ostracism
 Athens
 Democracy, Delian League
Peloponnesian
War
(431 – 404 B.C.)
 Sparta
 Oligarchy, strict military
 Spartans attack Athens for
28 years!
 430 B.C. – plague hits Athens
(Pericles dies)
 405 B.C. – Athenian navy
destroyed at Aegospotami
 Athens, Sparta, and Thebes
fight for control of Greece for
next 70 years before being
taken over by the
Macedonians
Daily Life in Classical
Athens
 Male dominated (only 15% of
population)
 Slavery common, most families
owned at least one
 Economy based on farming and
trade
 Grains, fruits, grapes (wine), olives
(oil)
 Had to import most of their food
 Port of Piraeus and the Long Walls
Daily Life (Continued)
 Crafts
 Pottery
 Factories for weapons
 Family
 Nuclear family
 Function to produce more citizens
 Women
 Took part in religious festivals, but kept out of
other public life
 Controlled by men, could not own property
 Married at 14 or 15
 Take care of family and house, not educated
Religion
 Polytheistic
 Based on Homer’s accounts
 12 main gods and goddesses
living on Mt. Olympus
 Each polis choose one as their
guardian (i.e. Athena = Athens)
 Gloomy afterlife (Hades)
 Rituals to make gods happy
 Festivals to honor gods
 Olympics
 Oracles – find the future from
the gods (Delphi)
Drama
 Western drama started in
Greece
 Focus on the story, not the
action
 Good vs. Evil, rights of the
individual, human nature
 Dramas were told in trilogies
 Aeschylus (Oresteia –
Agamemnon)
 Sophocles (Oedipus Rex)
 Euripides – wanted a more
realistic story
 Dionysus – the Greek
comedies
Philosophy
 Early philosophy focused on
understanding the universe
 Sophists – taught individuals to
improve themselves (rhetoric)
 Socrates
 Socratic method – question and
answers
 Sentenced to death for teaching youth
to think for themselves
 Plato (student of Socrates)
 Looked for the ideal form
 The Republic
 Aristotle (student of Plato)
 Politics