Transcript No part of mainland Greece is more than 35 miles from the sea. In contrast to the welldefined states of Mesopotamia and Egypt, with their.

No part of mainland
Greece is more than 35
miles from the sea.
In contrast to the welldefined states of
Mesopotamia and
Egypt, with their great
rivers and flat, alluvial
plains, Greece is a
land of diversity.
Geographically,
Greece has a pattern
of fragmentation.
Page 88.
The Emergence of the Greeks
European Bronze Age
ca. 2500-1200 B.C.
Minoan Age
ca. 2200-1400 B.C.
Indo-European incursions
ca. 2300-2000 B.C.
Mycenaean Age
ca.1600-1100 B.C.
Dark Ages
ca. 1100-800 B.C.
Evolution of the polis and settlement of
Greeks overseas (the colonial movement)
ca. 750-500 B.C.
Evolution of the hoplite (heavy infantry or
phalanx style of fighting
Archaic Age
ca. 700 B.C.
Arrival of the Persians in the Aegean
545 B.C.
Classical Age
ca. 500 B.C.-300 B.C.
ca. 800-500 B.C.
In 1900 A.D., Sir Arthur Evans
discovered the massive palace
complex at Knossos on Crete.
Knossos
Knossos (c. 1500 BC)
Knossos
Bull Jumping (c. 1500 BC)
In the 1870s A.D. great interest in
early Greek history was stimulated
by the spectacular finds of amateur
archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann
at the sites of ancient Troy and
Mycenae.
Troy
Mycenae
Tomb of Clytemnestra -- Mycenae
Grave Circle A (burial site of Agamemnon) -- Mycenae
tholos of the
Treasury of
Atreus -- Mycenae
Acropolis of Mycenae
Megaron -- Mycenae
Corbelled vault to
intramural cistern -Mycenae
Mycenean Liongate
Tiryns’
Walls
Tiryns Interior galley
Mycenean dagger
Boar's tusk helmet
Funerary Mask
(c. 1559-1500 BC)
The Lion Gate, Mycenae (1250 BC)
Protogeometric pottery
The Polis:
The development of citizenship.
Authority rested on the people. The community was sovereign.
Origins of the polis:
Quasidemocratic character (kings: 1st among equals.)
1. The equalizing affect of the hoplite
2. The absence of any major rival military power that could
have swallowed up the entire Greek world.
3. Traditional ability to articulate problems.
4. Luck.
See pages 107-108.
Social Transformations
One of the many consequences of the rise of the polis was a decline in
the visibility of upper-class women. Another was the rise in the selfconsciousness and exclusivity of polis citizens.
Public vs. private spheres. (The main decision-making site shifted
from the houses of the aristocracy to the public places of the city.)
By definition the assembly consisted of armed men of the
community—the property owners who made up the bulk of the
phalanx.
See pages 108-109.
Militarization
The polis led to the widening of the base of the military class in both
number and ideology. The ideology or aristocratic combat was
appropriated by the citizens at large. Paradoxically, militarism grew.
War went from the activity of a small group of professionals to the
business of an entire community.
The “democratization” of war.
Another consequence of the rise of the polis was the narrowing of the
definition of who belonged to the community and who did not.
Metics: free people or slaves who were not citizens.
See pages 108-109, 114.
Sparta
Helots
Sparta assumed a permanent wartime position in order to subordinate completely
the community to the demands of the most effective method of fighting then
known, hoplite warfare.
Two hereditary kings provided military leadership, and together with 28 elected
men, they constituted a permanent council, the Gerousia. The assembly voted on
key issues such as war and peace, and some judicial competence; it elected the
members of the Gerousia and other magistrates.
A lack of high culture.
In key areas of constitution building and military practice the Spartans were
trailblazers, and they gloried in the term they gave themselves as citizens: Equals
(Homoioi).
Social engineering: Spartans had eliminated most of the obstacles to social
harmony, such as glaring economic inequalities, individual ambition and greed, and
even family ties. Ironically, as the world’s first effort in communism it was
dependent on the enserfment of the vast majority of the inhabitants of Sparta—the
helots of Messenia. See pages 109-111.
The Rise of Athenian Democracy
Solon: The first steps toward change were taken by Solon in 594 B.C., when he broke the
aristocracy’s stranglehold on elected offices by establishing wealth rather than birth as the basis
of office holding, abolishing the economic obligations of ordinary Athenians to the aristocracy,
and making the assembly a court of appeal in certain cases.
The Pesistratids: succession of tyrants (Peisistratos => Hippias)
Cleisthenes overthrows Hippias
Isagoras and the Spartans
Uprising in 507 B.C. Cleisthenes was recalled from exile and asked to build the world's first
government of the people - the demos - a system of government we now know as democracy.
Cleisthenes formed a general assembly of all Athenian free men, with each man having one vote a type of government we now call direct democracy. These men would then meet regularly to
discuss and vote on all aspects of their city, from the price of olives to the raising of taxes and
declarations of war. Though we do not know for sure, it was probably Cleisthenes who
established the Pnyx, the small hill in the shadow of the Acropolis, as the location of this general
assembly.
The impact of Cleisthenes' reforms was felt almost immediately, revolutionizing all aspects of
Athenian life. Democracy released unheard of potentials in its citizens and ushered in an age of
achievement and prosperity.
See pages 111-112 and review notes on documentary.
Pnyx Hill
The Greek polis did not have civil society (semipublic
bodies such as business corporations, unions, churches,
universities, professional societies and newspapers). The
polis was a highly integrated type of community in which
society and state were so closely linked that it was
difficult—and mostly unnecessary—to make a distinction
between them. In fact, the two generally coincided. The
state was the citizenry and the citizenry was the state.
Citizenship in the polis was a privilege and was exclusive.
Unlike the modern state, which tends to regard the
individual’s right to accumulated money as something
privileged, the polis looked on wealth with a
communitarian eye. Thus, citizenship was important.
(Nagle, p. 113.)
The Greek Wars with Persia
Persian conquest of Asia Minor
546 B.C.
Ionian Rebellion
499-494 B.C.
Battle of Lade and destruction of Miletus
494 B.C.
Battle of Marathon
490 B.C.
Invasion of Xerxes
480 B.C.
Battles of Thermopylae, Artemisium, and Salamis
480 B.C.
Battles of Plataea and Mycale
479 B.C.
Delian League founded
478-477 B.C.
Battle of Marathon, 490 B.C.
Themistocles
Battle of Salamis
The Delian League
Thasos
Lesbos
Delos
Naxos
Melos
Ostraka
Pericles
The Peloponnesian War
(460-404 B.C.)
Plague in Athens, 430 B.C.
Sophists: professional educators who prepared students for a political
life. “They taught a man to reason dialectically, to argue back and
forth all sides of a case, to discover the more effective arguments for
which side he needed to present, and then to convert this into a
persuasive speech.” (Nagle, p. 160.)
Nomos vs. Physis
Is morality merely convention (nomos), or is
there a higher sanction to be found in something
else, say, in nature (physis)? Quickly the terms
conventions (nomos) and nature (physis)
became the poles of a great debate that went
on for centuries. (See Nagle, pp. 160-161)
The Sophists
Socrates (470? – 399 B.C.
Unlike the Sophists, though,
Socrates believed that by asking
questions and subjecting the
answers to logical analysis,
agreement could be reached about
ethical standards and rules of
conduct. Consequently he
questioned passers-by about
everything; he felt his purpose in
life was to be the "midwife
assisting in the birth of correct
ideas" (to use his own figure of
speech). Taking as his motto the
famous inscription on the temple
of Apollo at Delphi, "Know
thyself," he insisted that "the
unexamined life is not worth
living." To Socrates, human
excellence or virtue come from
knowledge, and evil and error are
the result of ignorance.
Olympias
Phillip II of
Macedonia
Alexander the Great’s Army
Persepolis, the dynastic capital
built by Darius I
Alexander
slays Cleitus,
Autumn of 328
Callisthenes was executed for criticizing
Alexander’s adoption of proskynesis.
Alexander assuming
Persian manners
Proskynesis: Greek name of the ritual greeting at the eastern courts.
Alexander had established a
number of cities and military
colonies named Alexander to
guard strategic points and
supervised wide areas. Most
of the settlers were Greek
mercenaries. It has been
estimated that, in the course
of his campaign, Alexander
summoned some 60,000 to
65,000 additional mercenaries
from Greece, at least 36,000
of whom took up residence in
the garrisons and new cities.
Eudoxus demonstrated that the planets obeyed regular laws
and moved in circular fashion within a number of spheres.
Eudoxus
See Nagle,
p. 227.
Heracleides Noted that Venus is never more than 47°
from the Sun, and Mercury is never more than 28°
from the Sun. He “speculated that the earth, a
sphere, revolved on its own axis daily and that
Mercury and Venus revolved around the sun (also a
planet), although all three, along with the remaining
planets, revolved around the earth.” See p. 227
Astrology: the belief
that the movement of
the heavenly bodies
influence human lives.
See p. 227
Diogenes of Sinope (ca. 400-325
B.C.), the founder of Cynicism.
Epicurus of Samos
(370-340 B.C.)
“There is nothing to fear in
God nor anything to feel in
death. Evil can be endured,
good achieved.” Nagle, p. 229.
“Thank blessed nature that
she had made essential things
easy to to come by and things
attained with difficulty
unnecessary.” (p. 230)
“If you wish to make [a man]
rich do not add to his money
but subtract from his desires.”
(p. 230)
Zeno of Cittium
(366-280 B.C.)
The founder of
Stoicism
The remains of some baths and the gymnasium at Pergamum
Priene
Queen Arsinoë II
Arsinoë II, sister and wife of King
Ptolemy II, played an active role in
Egyptian political affairs. This statue
from 2770-240 B.C. shows the Queen
in the traditional style of a pharaoh.
She became so important that she
was featured on Ptolemaic coins
Cleopatra