Transcript ANCIENT GREECE - Palmdale School District

ANCIENT
GREECE
Prepared by Anita Billeter
Palmdale School District
with funding from
Jordan Fundamentals Grant
Keeping History Alive Grant
THE EARLY
GREEKS
GEOGRAPHY
THE LAND AROUND THE SEA
 The area in which the
ancient Greeks lived
centered on the Aegean
Sea.
 Greece was ideally located
for sea trade, and the sea
became the Greeks’ link to
other peoples, products, and
ideas.
 Most people in ancient
Greece were farmers,
growing grapes, olives,
wheat and barley.
EARLY CIVILIZATIONS
 The Minoans developed a
system of writing, carried on
rich trade, and were master
builders.
 The Mycenaeans learned
from the Minoans and
became the dominant
civilization in the Aegean
region.
 From about 1100 B.C. to 800
B.C. Greece was in a decline
called the Dark Age, when
trade stopped and written
language disappeared.
THE RISE OF THE CITY STATES
 During the Dark Age,
Greece’s population
increased and isolated
villages grew into cities.
 City-states were
independent, self-governing
units that included the
territory around the city.
 As the city-states grew, they
began to fight over
boundaries and other things,
and some Greeks left to
found new city-states.
ATHENS:
A CITY-STATE
THE EVOLUTION OF
DEMOCRACY
 The Athenians developed a
form of government that
enabled citizens to make
decisions, called a
democracy.
 Tyrants taught citizens that
by uniting behind a leader,
they could gain the power to
make changes.
 Citizens in Athens proposed
new laws, voted on laws,
and served on juries.
 Several other city-states in
Greece also developed
democracies, but Athens’
version was the most
successful.
CITIZENSHIP IN ATHENS
 Citizenship was limited
to men over the age of
18, and usually to those
men whose fathers had
been citizens.
 Wives, children,
unmarried women,
foreigners, and slaves
were not citizens,
though they were
protected by Athenian
law.
THE ECONOMY OF ATHENS
 Most Athenians were
farmers, with just enough
land to support their families.
 As Athens became an
international trading center,
the barter system changed to
the use of coins.
 Wealthy Athenians were
expected to contribute large
amounts of money to
government projects, and
this kept money flowing
throughout the city-state.
ANCIENT GREEK
CULTURE
THE FAMILY OF GREEK GODS
 The Greeks believed their
gods controlled both the
natural and human world.
 All Greeks worshipped Zeus
and his family of gods, each
of whom had a specific role
with particular duties and
powers.
 The Greeks built sacred
places called sanctuaries to
honor their gods.
SANCTUARIES TO THE GODS
 The Greeks used
sanctuaries to make
sacrifices to specific
gods.
 Some sanctuaries were
also places where
oracles, or predictions
of the future, were told.
 The Greeks also
honored their gods and
goddesses by holding
religious festivals.
GREEK DRAMA
 Greek Plays were written
and performed twice a year
at festivals in Athens
honoring Dionysus.
 Most of the plays were about
Greek gods or heroes,
combining religion and
history with entertainment.
 Plays were either tragedies,
in which the hero was ruined
by a character flaw, or
comedies, which made fun
of a variety of topics.
A TALE OF TWO
CITY-STATES
SPARTA AND ATHENS
 The Spartans built a strong
army because they feared
slave uprisings from the
many slaves they owned.
 Unlike Athens, Sparta’s
government was an
oligarchy, with power
remaining in the hands of a
few families.
 Sparta’s emphasis on
maintaining a strong army
shaped its economy.
EDUCATION IN SPARTA AND
ATHENS
 Spartan education focuses
on physical skills and military
training and began at an
early age.
 Wealthy Athenian education
included reading, writing,
arithmetic, poetry, music,
and dance, as well as
athletics.
 In both city-states, formal
education was reserved for
boys.
ALLIES AGAINST PERSIA
 Although quite different,
Athens and Sparta
joined to fight against
Persia.
 After several losses, the
Greeks finally defeated
the Persians at sea,
and a year later, on
land.
THE GOLDEN
AGE OF ATHENS
THE AGE OF PERICLES
 Pericles was Athens’
most outstanding leader
during its Golden Age.
 Pericles worked to
protect Athens, to make
it beautiful, and to
strengthen democracy.
 During the Golden Age,
Athens was a center for
art, literature, and
ideas.
LIFE IN A CITIZEN FAMILY
 Men spent time debating
issues, selling wares,
serving as jurors in the
Assembly, and exercising in
outdoor gymnasiums.
 Women spent time weaving
clothes, preparing food, and
caring for children.
 In the evenings, men either
socialized with each other, or
attended plays or religious
festivals with their wives.
LIFE FOR NONCITIZENS
 Metics were foreigners who
were allowed to attend
theater and religious
festivals, and use the law
courts.
 Slaves had no legal rights in
Athens, but some were paid
for their work and a few
bought their freedom.
 In contrast to other slaves in
Athens, those who worked in
the silver mines labored
under terrible conditions.
THE PELOPONNESIAN
WAR
ATHENS AND SPARTA
 Concerned about an
increasingly powerful
Athens, Sparta declared war
in 431B.C.
 A plague which killed many
in Athens, including Pericles,
and Sparta’s yearly
destruction of food supplies,
greatly weakened Athens.
 Still, it took 27 years of
yearly battles, before Athens
surrendered to Sparta in
404B.C.
END OF THE GOLDEN AGE
 After their defeat by Sparta,
Athenian democracy was
weakened.
 Socrates was an important
teacher and philosopher
challenged his students to
examine their own beliefs by
asking questions.
 Athenian leaders believed
Socrates was encouraging
students to challenge
government authority, so
they tried him and sentenced
him to die.
ALEXANDER THE
GREAT AND HIS
INFLUENCE
THE RISE OF MACEDONIA
 King Philip turned
Macedonia into a military
power by creating a full-time
professional army and
developing new weapons
and battle plans.
 Philip defeated the Greek
armies and became ruler of
Greece in 338B.C.
 Philip reorganized the Greek
army, combined it with his
Macedonian troops, and set
out to conquer Persia.
ALEXANDER’S CONQUESTS
 Though only 20,
Alexander took firm
control of his fathers
kingdom.
 With his troops,
Alexander began a
20,000-mile journey of
conquest.
THE SPREAD OF GREEK
CULTURE
 As Alexander conquered
lands, he established
colonies and cities modeled
after Greek cities, and left
Greeks to rule the
conquered lands.
 During the Hellenistic Age,
the center of Greek culture
shifted from Athens to
Alexandria.
 Alexandria’s library became
the largest in the western
world, lasting seven
centuries.
AFTER ALEXANDER
 After Alexander’s death
in 323B.C., Greek
culture still united the
empire, but politically it
broke apart.
 Alexander’s generals
divided the empire and
fought each other for
control.
 Eventually three
generals and regions
emerged as the
strongest.
CONTRIBUTIONS
OF THE GREEKS
GREEK ARTS
 The Greeks are known for
their lyric poetry, epic poetry,
and plays– both tragedies
and comedies.
 Painters and sculptors
throughout history have
learned from Greek art and
sculpture.
 The Greeks examined and
wrote about the past critically
and our word “history”
comes from a Greek word.
GREEK IDEAS
 Greek philosophers
developed ways of seeking
knowledge and asking
questions that are still used
today.
 Greek scientists believed
they could understand the
workings of the world, and
made important discoveries
in astronomy, medicine, and
mathematics.
 In addition to achievements
in the arts and sciences, the
Greeks’ ideas about
democracy and government
have also influenced
Western civilization.