Greece and Persia, 1000-30 BCE Tracy Rosselle, M.A.T. Newsome High School, Lithia, FL

1
Greece and Persia, 1000-30 BCETracy Rosselle,
M.A.T.Newsome High School, Lithia, FL

• Beginning the Age of Classical Civilizations

2
Indo-Europeans in conflict

• This presentation deals mainly with the Greeks
  but also looks in part at the rivalry and wars
  between the Greeks and Persians from the sixth to
  the fourth centuries BCE.
• Traditionally viewed as a classic clash of
  civilizations of two peoples with ways of life
  fundamentally different and thus almost
  preordained to come into conflict these
  civilizations had more in common than is often
  realized
• Both spoke in tongues belonging to the same
  Indo-European family of languages found
  throughout Europe and western and southern Asia.
• Many scholars believe that ancient peoples who
  spoke languages belonging to this family
  inherited fundamental cultural traits, forms of
  social organization and religious outlooks from
  their shared past.

3
Ancient Iran

• Iran, the land of the Aryans, links western
  Asia and southern and Central Asia a key
  mediating geographical fact.
• Around 1000 BCE, Persians one of several
  Iranian peoples settled in southwest Iran and
  in the sixth century BCE created the largest
  empire the world had yet seen.

4
Persian Empire
This map shows the extent of the Persian Empire
in relation to its predecessor, the Assyrian
Empire (outlined in red), the Kush Empire and the
later Qin Dynasty in China.
5
aka Achaemenid

• What many refer to as the Persian Empire was
  actually the Achaemenid (a-KEY-muh-nid) Empire
  the first of a succession of Persian empires
  ruling much of southwest Asia for more than a
  millennium.
• The Achaemenids ruled c. 550-330 BCE, followed by
  Seleucids (323-83 BCE), Parthians (247 BCE 224
  CE) and Sasanids (224-651 CE).

6
Cyrus leads the way

• Cyrus the Great (550-530 BCE) Persias first
  ruler who redrew the map of western Asia,
  conquering among others the Lydians (whose
  capital was in western Anatolia).
• Lydians are notable in world history because
  they were first to coin money ? idea quickly
  spread, leading to monetary system of consistent
  prices, the ability to save vast sums of money
  for the future.
• Cyrus established the Persian practice of ruling
  in a tolerant, practical manner (e.g., showed
  respect to conquered Babylonians by having his
  son crowned king in accordance with native
  traditions).

7
Darius was da man

• Cambyses (kam-BIE-sees) son of Cyrus during
  his short reign (530-522 BCE) extended Persian
  Empire into northeast Africa.
• Darius I (duh-RIE-uhs) Following Cambyses
  death, ruled for 36 years (522-486 BCE).
• Extended Persian control eastward to Indus Valley
  and westward into Europe.
• Put forts in Thrace (modern-day northeast Greece
  and Bulgaria) and by 500 BCE on doorstep of
  Greece.

8
Darius skilled, energetic, ruthless

• Darius
• developed maritime routes and completed a canal
  linking Red Sea with the Nile.
• presided over vast empire with multitude of
  ethnic groups and different forms of political
  and social organization.
• is considered a second founder (after Cyrus) of
  the Persian Empire because of the innovative
  organizational structure he imposed.

9
(No Transcript)
10
Satrap (say what?)

• Darius ruled in a decentralized fashion by
  dividing the empire into 20 provinces, each
  supervised by a Persian satrap (SAY-trap), or
  governor, usually related or connected by
  marriage to the royal family.
• Satraps ruled locally, tolerant of each subject
  peoples traditions, and had much autonomy but
  inspectors (i.e., spies) were sent out to be the
  Kings Eyes and Ears and ensure the loyalty of
  the local officials.
• Among most important duties of the satraps
  collect and send tribute (i.e., gold and silver)
  to the king.

11
Persepolis
A magnificent capital was built at Persepolis,
which served as an administrative center and,
more importantly, a monument to the grandeur of
the Achaemenid dynasty.
12
The Royal Road

• The famous Royal Road was constructed to
  facilitate fast communication across distant
  parts of the empire.
• The road, along with the manufacturing of metal
  coins of standard value (which freed people from
  having to weigh and measure odd pieces of gold or
  silver to pay for what they bought), also
  promoted trade, which in turn helped hold the
  empire together.

13
(No Transcript)
14
Zoroastrianism

• It is thought that Darius and his successors
  (including his son Xerxes, who retreated from the
  policy of toleration toward subject peoples)
  practiced a Persian religion called
  Zoroastrianism, founded on the teachings of the
  prophet Zoroaster (zo-roe-ASS-ter), who may have
  lived anytime between 1700 BCE and 500 BCE
  (generally regarded as a historical figure and
  sometimes referred to as Zarathustra).
• It is clear from inscriptions that Darius and his
  empire stood on the will of god, Ahuramazda
  (ah-HOOR-uh-MAZZ-duh), who had made Darius king
  and gave him a mandate to bring order to a world
  in turmoil.

15
Good and evil sound familiar?

• Zoroaster revealed that Ahuramazda, the wise
  lord, created the world, which is threatened by
  Angra Mainyu (ANG-ruh MINE-yoo), the hostile
  spirit thats backed by a host of demons.
• In this dualistic universe, the struggle between
  good and evil plays out for 12,000 years, at
  which point god prevails, the world returns to a
  state of pure creation, and people are either
  rewarded or punished by god in the afterlife
  depending on their actions during the cosmic
  struggle.

16
Great religions

• Zoroastrianism was one of the great religions of
  the ancient world and is still practiced today
  (the relatively few followers are mostly in Iran
  and India).
• It may have exerted a major influence on Judaism,
  and later Christianity and Islam
• God and the Devil, Heaven and Hell, angels and
  demons, reward and punishment, the Messiah and
  the End of Time all appear to be legacies of
  this belief system.

17
The rise of the Greeks

• Weve already described the geography of and
  early influences on Greek civilization in our
  discussion of the Minoan and, even more so,
  Mycenaean civilizations.
• The Greek Dark Age lasted from about 1150 to
  800 BCE, at which time Phoenician ships began
  re-establishing contact between Aegean and Middle
  Eastern peoples.
• A huge population explosion occurred in the
  eighth century BCE (perhaps partly because of
  more intense agricultural practices and almost
  certainly because of increased food and raw
  material imports). The subsequent Archaic
  period lasted from about 800 BCE to 480 BCE.

18
The polis

• The fundamental political entity was the polis,
  or city-state
• ancient Greece had hundreds of them.
• most had several thousand people but the largest
  and most influential Athens and Sparta were
  much larger (Athens boasted several hundred
  thousand people).
• usually covered 50 to 500 square miles, with the
  urban center surrounded by rural territory it
  controlled.

19
Acropolis

• Most urban centers had a defensible hilltop
  acropolis (top of the city) that offered refuge
  in an emergency.
• An agora was a gathering place for discussing
  politics or military matters which later
  evolved into a marketplace.

Acropolis at Athens
20
The Parthenon
The Parthenon a temple to Athena (goddess of
wisdom and favorite daughter of Zeus) sits atop
the acropolis at Athens. Built c. 440 BCE, the
Parthenons architecture reflects the Greeks
sensibility and desire to express harmony,
symmetry and balance which they found in nature.
21
Greek warfare

• Each polis was jealous of its independence and
  suspicious of its neighbors ? frequent conflict.
• Hoplites heavily armored infantrymen who fought
  in close formation, protected by helmet,
  breastplate and leg guards and armed with a spear.

22
Warrior farmers

• Hoplite warfare was closely tied to agricultural
  basis of Greek society
• armies were private citizens mostly farmers
  called up for brief periods of crisis when
  agricultural cycle allowed.
• citizen-soldiers needed no special training.
• professional class of soldiers therefore not
  needed (but well talk about the unique culture
  of Sparta soon).

The absence of a professional military class in
the early Greek states was essential to
broadening the base of political participation
and the later rise of democracy.
23
and colonists

• A wave of colonization occurred and spread Greek
  culture to distant lands from about the
  mid-eighth through mid-sixth centuries BCE as
  population surpassed the local agricultural
  capacity.
• Indigenous populations ? driven away, reduced to
  semi-servile status, or subsumed into culture
  through intermarriage.
• Greeks began referring to themselves as Hellenes
  (HELL-leans) to distinguish themselves from
  barbaroi (root of the English barbarian)
• from which we get Hellenism and Hellenistic
  Age Romans later called them Graeci.

24
Evolution of political organization

• Dark Age kings ruled societies ? later
  superseded by councils of noble families.
• Society debt-slaves, peasant serfs, free peasant
  landowners, urban-based craftsmen and merchants
  (who were constituents of emerging middle
  class).
• Mid-seventh and sixth centuries BCE ? city-state
  tyrants gained control often disgruntled or
  ambitious members of aristocracy, but had the
  approval of middle class (and thus not
  necessarily tyrannical in the normal sense of the
  word today).

25
The seeds of democracy

• With new economic opportunities and the cost of
  metals declining, middle class men (whod already
  been hoplite soldiers in local militias)
  increasingly able to acquire arms ? must have
  demanded some political rights as the price of
  their support for their local tyrant.
• Some tyrants able to pass power to sons, but
  tyrant-family eventually toppled.
• Authority then developed along two lines
• oligarchy political privilege of wealthy few.
• democracy political power of all free adult
  males.

26
Myths, religion and sacrifice

• Greek religion ? wide range of cults, beliefs
  gods often anthropomorphic representations of
  forces in nature (Zeus sent storms and lightning
  Poseidon was master of sea and earthquakes)
  larger than life but with human failings.
• Worship of gods at state-sponsored festivals as
  much civic identity as personal piety.
• Sacrifice was central ritual gave gods simple
  gifts (small cake or cup of wine poured on the
  ground), or would kill one or more animals, spray
  the altar with the victims blood, burn parts of
  its body so aroma would ascend to the gods, and
  enjoy a rare feast of meat.

27
An artists rendering of the statue (left) and
the ruins today.
A temple with a 40-foot-tall statue of Zeus the
father of all Greek gods and goddesses was
built at Olympia in the fifth century BCE. The
Olympics date back to the eighth century BCE, but
the games were expanded to five days in 472 BCE.
28
Intellectual development

• During Archaic period of Greek history (c.
  800-480 BCE), a growing sense of individuality
• shift away from family dominance and centrality.
• tyrant seizing power for himself alone, colonist
  embarking on the distant frontier ? rugged
  individualism.
• humanism a valuing of the uniqueness, talents
  and rights of the individual

29
Intellectual developmentPre-Socratic
philosophers

• Began challenging traditional religious ideas
  (e.g., Xenophanes questioned the kind of gods
  popularized by Homer).
• Sought rational explanations for origins and
  nature of the world.
• Concerned mainly with how world was created, what
  its made of came up with a theory amazingly
  similar to modern atomic theory (atom, from a
  Greek word meaning indivisible).
• Pre-Socratic means before Socrates, who
  shifted focus of philosophy to ethical questions
  in fifth century BCE.

30
Intellectual developmentLog it for historys sake

• In sixth century BCE, a group of men later
  called logogaphers (loe-GOG-ruff-er) were the
  first to begin writing in prose (the language of
  everyday speech) instead of poetry, which had
  long facilitated the memorization essential to an
  oral tradition.
• They took advantage of writings infinite
  capacity to store information (remember, the
  Greeks adapted the Phoenician alphabet) by
  recording
• ethnography descriptions of a peoples physical
  and cultural characteristics.
• geography of Mediterranean lands.
• origins of famous families and important cities.

31
Intellectual developmentThe father of history

• Logographers called the method they used to
  collect, sort and select information historia.
• Herodotus (c. 485-425 BCE) published his
  Histories, the latter part of which focused on
  his previous generations wars with the Persian
  Empire.
• Herodotus narrowed the meaning of the word
  historia to the modern sense of the word history
  by doing this He clearly stated that he wanted
  to find out why Greeks and Persians had fought
  one another.

32
A study in contrastsAthens and Sparta

• The two main city-states competing for power in
  the late Archaic and Classical periods were
  Athens and Sparta. They were vastly different
  communities
• Athens was the political, commercial and cultural
  center of Greek civilization.
• Sparta was an agricultural and highly
  militaristic region where citizens led austere,
  highly disciplined lives (hence the modern
  expression, a Spartan existence or
  lifestyle).

33
Sparta

• Initially followed the Greek path of trading and
  participating in the arts, but responded to
  population pressures not by sending out colonists
  but invading the fertile plain of Messenia to
  their west.
• Messenians then became helots peasants forced
  to stay on the land they worked (and thus the
  most exploited population on Greek mainland).
• Around 650 BCE, the resentful Messenians revolted
  and the outnumbered Spartans were just barely
  able to put down the uprising.

34
Military preparedness

• Their vulnerability shockingly exposed, the
  Spartans resolved to boost their military
  preparedness and thereafter became a giant,
  permanent military camp.
• Boys taken from their families and put into
  barracks at age 7, where they would stay until
  they reached 30.
• They were toughened by extreme regimen of
  discipline, beatings and deprivation marching,
  exercising, fighting, serving the military until
  they reached 60.

35
Stopping the clock

• Spartans declined to take part in the economic,
  cultural and political renaissance found
  elsewhere in Archaic Greece.
• No longer artists and poets in Sparta.
• Effort to maintain equality among citizens ?
  metals and coinage banned, commerce forbidden.
• Interestingly, Spartan women had greater freedom
  and more opportunities born of running family
  estates while husbands were active in military
  than women from other Greek city-states,
  including Athens.
• Sparta had best military but rarely flexed its
  own muscle, practicing a cautious, isolationist
  foreign policy.

36
Athens

• When we think of Greece as the birthplace of
  democracy and the fountainhead of Western
  culture, were thinking of Athens.
• Athens possessed an unusually large and populous
  territory (with moderately fertile plains suited
  for olive trees) the entire region of Attica,
  which provided buffer against initial stresses of
  Archaic period.
• Draco nobleman who in 621 BCE developed a legal
  code based on idea that all Athenians, rich and
  poor, were equal under the law ? first step
  toward democracy.
• But by early sixth century BCE, threat of civil
  war was in the air and Solon (SO-luhn) was
  appointed lawgiver and granted extraordinary
  powers.

37
Solon and so on toward democracy

• Solon
• outlawed debt slavery (no citizen should own
  another citizen).
• organized Athenians into four social classes
  according to wealth ? all could participate in
  Athenian Assembly, but only top three could hold
  political office.
• introduced legal concept that any citizen could
  bring charges against wrongdoers.

38
Solon and so on toward democracyCleisthenes
(KLYS-thuh-neez)

• Broke up power of nobility by organizing citizens
  into ten groups based on where they lived rather
  than on their wealth.
• Increased power of the Assembly by allowing all
  citizens to submit laws for debate and passage.
• Created Council of Five Hundred body that
  proposed laws and counseled the Assembly council
  members chosen by lot (randomly).

39
Solon and so on toward democracyPericles
(PER-eh-kleez)

• Skillful politician, inspiring speaker,
  respected general ? held popular support for 32
  years, called the Age of Pericles.

40
Pericles

• He and political allies took final steps in
  evolution of Athenian democracy
• transferred all power to popular organs of
  government (Assembly, Council of Five Hundred,
  Peoples Courts).
• From then on, and because Pericles increased the
  number of public officials who were paid
  salaries, men of moderate or little means could
  hold office and participate in political process
  (because they now could afford to do so).

41
The democratic system

• Sovereignty of the people embodied in the
  Assembly, which consisted of all male citizens
  over 18 (about 40,000 of total population of
  300,000).
• Meetings held every 10 days on a hillside east of
  the Acropolis (attendance seldom reached 6,000).
• Direct democracy in action Assembly passed all
  laws and made final decisions on war and foreign
  policy.
• Board of 10 officials known as generals elected
  to guide affairs of state usually wealthy
  aristocrats, their power depended on respect
  theyd attained (Pericles re-elected 15 times).

42
546-323 BCEThe struggle of Persia and Greece

• The Greeks of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE
  viewed the larger Persian Empire as the great
  enemy.
• Their conflict was a decisive historical event
  across two centuries for the Greeks, but the
  Persians were probably more concerned about
  events further east.
• The ultimate outcome, however, was profoundly
  important for the eastern Mediterranean and
  western Asia.
• The notion of an East-West dichotomy traces to
  the Greek tradition.

43
Persian Wars

• Cyrus conquered Lydia in 546 BCE and subjugated
  Greek cities on the Anatolian seacoast (Ionia),
  and nearly 50 years later Greeks and other
  subject peoples rose up in what was called the
  Ionian Revolt.
• Darius sent naval fleet to punish Athens and
  another Greek city-state that had helped the
  Ionian rebels.
• Athenian hoplites in 490 BCE turned back
  lighter-armed Persian troops at Marathon
  (tradition says young runner named Pheidippides
  raced 25 miles to Athens to bring the news,
  Rejoice, we conquer! then promptly collapsed
  and died of exhaustion).

44
Spartan sacrifice at Thermopylae

• Darius son Xerxes (ZERK-seez) returned 10 years
  later with an enormous invasion force (1,200
  ships and 100,000 men).
• Disunity in defense Some Greek city-states
  agreed to fight, others thought it best to let
  Xerxes destroy Athens, some even fought alongside
  Persians.
• But 7,000 Greeks fought Persians in a narrow
  mountain pass at Thermopylae after three days of
  fighting, 300 Spartans sacrificed their lives as
  other Greeks retreated.

45
Athens at sea

• Athenians evacuated the city (which Xerxes and
  his men then destroyed) but eventually used
  their naval prowess to badly damage Xerxes
  larger, less nimble fleet.
• The next year, in 479 BCE, the Persian land army
  suffered defeat at Plataea (plu-TEE-uh) and
  thereafter was in retreat.
• Athens and its naval capabilities replaced
  land-based, isolationist Sparta as leader of the
  campaign against Persia ? voluntary alliance of
  city-states known as Delian League formed in 477
  BCE and, led by Athens, swept away the Persian
  threat from eastern Mediterranean within next 20
  years.

46
Triremes link to democracy
The trireme was a sleek, fast vessel powered by
170 rowers and armed with a metal-tipped
battering ram. Rowers came from lower classes
(middle- and upper-class hoplites could afford
own weapons, protective gear), and since they
were providing chief source of protection could
insist on full rights.
47
Athenian power on the rise

• Athens soon came to dominate the other
  city-states of the Delian League, moving the
  capital from Delos to Athens and using military
  force against its challengers and to promote its
  commercial interests.
• Weaker, poorer city-states paid Athens taxes to
  build the expensive triremes, but some became
  dissatisfied when expensive building projects
  were undertaken to glorify Athens.
• But it was during this time, in the decades
  following its successful efforts against the
  Persians, that the golden Age of Pericles
  produced a cultural legacy thats still with us
  today. Until the conquest of Greece by Philip II
  of Macedon in 338 BCE, this is known as Classical
  Greece.

48
Art, architecture,and drama

• Greek sculptors tried to capture the grace of the
  idealized human body.
• They valued harmony, order, balance and
  proportion ? ideal beauty rather than realism.
• This standard is called classical art.

49
Architecture

• Thomas Jefferson once wrote that design
  activity and political thought are indivisible.
  He believed that architecture was an important
  vehicle for expressing political ideals, and he
  worked to ensure that Washington, as the seat of
  the American democracy, would become a city of
  stately and sophisticated buildings based on
  classical precedents.
• Martin Moeller, Curator, National Building
  Museum

As youve already seen, the Parthenon is the
classic example of Greek architecture and its
legacy remains patently obvious to this day!
50
From Aeschylus to E.R.

• The Greeks originated drama as we know it in
  Western culture.
• Plays were presented in outdoor theaters as part
  of religious festivals, but notion of drama for
  its own sake eventually emerged.
• Male actors wore masks that exaggerated human
  expressions.
• Two kinds of drama tragedy and comedy.

51
Tragedy

• Greek tragedies were plays based on the suffering
  of a hero and usually ended in disaster.
• Tackled universal themes nature of good and
  evil, rights of the individual, nature of divine
  forces, nature of human beings.
• Repeated theme ? humans free but can operate only
  within limitations imposed by the gods.

52
The playwrights

• Aeschylus (EHS-kuh-luhs) wrote more than 80
  plays, including the trilogy Oresteia, which
  examined the idea of justice and concerned
  Agamemnon, the Mycenaean king who led the Greeks
  at Troy.
• Sophocles wrote Oedipus the King (Oedipus
  suffers fate of gods but as free man must own up
  to his actions ? unwittingly killed his father
  and married his mother) and Antigone (chorus
  chant Is there anything more wonderful on
  earth, our marvelous planet, than the miracle of
  man?).
• Euripedes created more realistic characters,
  complex plots controversial for questioning
  traditional religious and moral values (e.g.,
  portrayed war as barbaric rather than glorious).

53
Those whacky Greeks

• Greek comedy developed later than tragedy.
• Contained slapstick situations and crude humor
  but also satirized politicians and intellectuals.
• Aristophanes In Lysistrata (411 BCE), when
  Athens was in serious danger of losing the
  Peloponnesian War, wives go on a sex strike to
  get husbands to end the war.
• Fact that Athenians could listen to criticism of
  themselves and tolerate antiwar political
  messages shows openness of public discussion that
  existed in democratic Athens.

54
Sophists and Socrates

• Philosophy is a Greek word that originally meant
  love of wisdom.
• Early Greek philosophers wanted to explain the
  universe according to unifying principles, but
  Sophists emerged in fifth century BCE to argue
  only worthwhile subject of study was human
  behavior.
• Sophists
• questioned traditional values.
• said there was no absolute right or wrong.
• argued that true wisdom came from being able to
  perceive and pursue ones own good.

55
Sophists and SocratesRhetoric gets a bad name

• Sophists were traveling teachers who provided
  instruction in logic and public speaking
  (rhetoric art of persuasive oratory) to young
  pupils who could afford it.
• Greek masses came to call someone who uses
  cleverness to distort and manipulate reality a
  sophist.
• Socrates (c. 470-399 BCE) a critic of democracy
  and of the Sophists (he believed there were
  absolute truths) but encouraged Greeks to
  challenge authority and their own beliefs.
• The unexamined life is not worth living.
• Socratic method (questions, questions, questions
  )
• Wise in that he knew that he knew nothing.

56
Sophists and SocratesOn trial for dubious charges

• The defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War
  (well get to that shortly) led to soulsearching
  and less tolerance for debate ? Socrates put on
  trial as an old man for corrupting the youth of
  Athens and neglecting the citys gods.
• He was really a scapegoat for the controversial
  Sophists and several of his aristocratic students
  who had tried to overthrow the Athenian democracy.

57
Sophists and SocratesRewarded with hemlock

• Athenian juries of hundreds of citizens often
  swayed by emotion.
• Vote on Socrates was close 280-220 but he was
  condemned to death by drinking hemlock.

The Death of Socrates
Socrates probably could have avoided his fate had
he offered exile as his punishment instead of
his suggestion that he be rewarded for his
actions or, short of that, that he pay a modest
fine.
58
Plato

• The safest general characterization of the
  European philosophical tradition is that it
  consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
  Alfred North Whitehead, 20th-century British
  mathematician and philosopher, reflecting the
  widespread belief that Plato is the greatest
  Western philosopher.

(c. 429-347 BCE)
59
PlatoA student of Socrates

• Socrates left no writings, but his student Plato
  wrote a lot We know of Socrates through Platos
  dialogues (theres disagreement about the
  degree to which Socrates words reflect the ideas
  of Socrates or of Plato).
• The Republic Platos most famous work, in which
  he lays out the ideal society (not a democracy
  three classes 1. farmers and artisans, 2.
  warriors, and 3. ruling class ? chooses person
  with greatest insight and intellect
  philosopher-king).

60
Forms and shadows

• Plato was fascinated with the question of
  reality.
• He believed that a higher world of eternal,
  unchanging Ideas or Forms has always existed
  and to know these ideal Forms (which constitute
  reality) is to know truth.
• The goal of philosophy is to apprehend these
  Forms, which can only be done by a trained mind.

The Allegory of the Cave
Are the objects we perceive with our senses
simply reflections shadows of the ideal Forms?
61
Aristotle (384-322 BCE)

• One of the big three classical Greek philosophers
  (along with Socrates and Plato).
• A student for decades at Platos Academy in
  Athens, he rejected Platos theory of ideal Forms
  ? instead, said we can examine objects, perceive
  their form and arrive at universal principles
  that are not on a separate, higher plane of
  reality.
• His interests lay in analyzing and classifying
  things based on thorough research and
  investigation.
• Wide-ranging interests he wrote treatises on
  ethics, logic, politics, poetry, astronomy,
  geology, biology and physics.

62
Aristotles Politics

• Like Plato, Aristotle wished for an effective
  form of government but unlike Plato and his
  metaphysical approach, he rationally analyzed
  existing governments to see what worked best.
• Politics conclusions drawn from examining
  constitutions of 158 states ? three good forms
  are monarchy, aristocracy and constitutional
  government, which he favored for most people.
• Warning monarchy can easily lead to tyranny,
  aristocracy into oligarchy, and constitutional
  government into radical democracy or anarchy.

63
A lasting influence

• Aristotle was chosen by King Philip II of
  Macedonia to tutor his son, Alexander (who youll
  see shortly went on to great things), and later
  returned to Athens to found his own school, the
  Lyceum.
• Aristotles philosophical and political ideas
  played a huge role in development of Western
  thought during the Middle Ages as did his ideas
  on women.
• Unlike Plato, who believed men and women should
  have the same education and equal access to all
  positions, Aristotle thought women inferior The
  association between husband and wife is clearly
  an aristocracy. The man rules by virtue of merit
  

64
Greek inequality

• While theres much greatness to be found in
  Classical Greece, inequality was significant in
  Athens.
• Citizens were free adult males of pure Athenian
  ancestry (only 10-15 of society) democracy
  didnt apply to women, children, slaves and
  foreigners.
• Athenian direct democracy made possible by slaves
  (mostly foreigners and perhaps 1/3 of Atticas
  population in fifth and fourth centuries BCE)
  needed to run the shop or work the farm while
  master attended meetings, served on boards that
  oversaw the day-to-day activities of the state.

65
Secondary status of women

• The position of women varied across Greek
  communities (remember that in Sparta they enjoyed
  a level of public visibility and outspokenness
  that shocked other Greeks), but in Athens women
  were exploited and dominated by men.
• Husbands and wives had limited contact marriages
  meant to produce children, preferably male.
• The appearance of bold, self-assertive women on
  the Athenian stage (in plays written by men)
  probably suggests a male fear of strong women.

66
Peloponnesian War

• War broke out between Greek alliance systems in
  431 BCE (i.e., Sparta and Athens went to war).
• Athenian imperial power and cultural achievement
  had aroused suspicions and jealousy.
• A quick, decisive hoplite battle was avoided when
  Pericles refused to engage Sparta on land Athens
  retreated behind its walls, kept shipping lanes
  open with its fortified port ? so the war dragged
  on for three decades with great loss of life and
  squandering of resources.

67
Peloponnesian War
War is a savage schoolmaster that brings the
characters of most people down to the level of
their current circumstances. Thucydides, The
Peloponnesian War
It was a war of unprecedented brutality,
violating even the rugged code that previously
had governed Greek fighting and breaking through
the thin veneer that separates civilization from
savagery. Anger, frustration, and the desire for
vengeance increased as the fighting dragged on,
producing a progression of atrocities that
included maiming and killing captured opponents,
throwing them into pits to die of thirst,
starvation, and exposure, and hurling them into
the sea to drown. Bands of marauders murdered
innocent schoolchildren. Entire cities were
destroyed, the men killed, the women and children
sold as slaves. Donald Kagan, On the
Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace
68
Sparta wins or does it?

• A plague soon swept through Athens, killing
  perhaps 1/3 of its population (including
  Pericles).
• The Persian Empire eventually bankrolled the
  construction of a navy for the Spartan alliance,
  so it finally was able to take the conflict into
  Athens own element, the sea.
• Athens lost its empire, power and wealth when it
  surrendered in 404 BCE, but the victorious
  Spartans were also greatly weakened and
  subsequently became highhanded with other
  city-states ? ensuing decades brought almost
  continuous internal conflict among the Greeks
  (remember that this was the time of the great
  philosophers and playwrights, the end of the
  golden age, the Trial of Socrates).

69
Threat from the north

• While disunity and factionalism permeated Greece
  following the Peloponnesian War, Philip II (r.
  359-336 BCE) was transforming his previously
  backward kingdom of Macedonia into a military
  power that would conquer Greece by the time of
  his death (he was assassinated at his daughters
  wedding by a former guardsman).

The region in 359 BCE
70
Military maneuvers

• Philip was a military
• innovator
• improved hoplite formation.
• experimented with coordinated use of infantry and
  cavalry.
• had engineers develop new kinds of siege
  equipment, including the first catapult ? could
  now storm fortifications instead of waiting for
  starvation to take over.

Troops were organized into phalanxes of 16 men
across and 16 deep, each armed with an 18-foot
pike to break through enemy lines. Philip trained
his soldiers against northern enemies before
preparing to invade Greece.
71
After conquering Greece, Philip planned to move
on and conquer the larger Persian Empire but
that task was left to his 20-year-old son,
Alexander.
The region in 336 BCE
72
(356-323 BCE)Alexander the Great

• Came to power at 20, and in a little more than a
  decade had amassed an empire stretching from the
  Mediterranean to Egypt, across Syria and
  Palestine, through Persia and as far east as the
  Punjab region of modern Pakistan.
• Variously viewed as idealistic visionary,
  ruthless Machiavellian.
• Warrior hero was Achilles (he kept a copy of
  Homers Iliad under his pillow).
• Apparently planned to fuse Greeks and easterners
  ? adopted Persian dress, used Persians as
  administrators, encouraged soldiers to marry
  easterners (he had several Iranian wives with
  useful royal or aristocratic connections).

Click on the icon below to see Alexanders
conquests.
73
The Hellenistic synthesis

• Empire split among his generals after Alexanders
  death Antigonus became king of Macedonia and
  Greek city-states Ptolemy (TAHL-uh-mee)
  established a dynasty as pharaoh in Egypt
  Seleucus (sih-LOO-kuhs) took most of old Persian
  Empire.
• Historians call the era ushered in by the
  conquests of Alexander the Hellenistic Age
  (323-30 BCE) ? lands in northeastern Africa and
  western Asia Hellenized, or profoundly
  influenced by Greek culture.

74
Alexandria
The Pharos

• Located at a strategic place on the western edge
  of the Nile delta, the Egyptian city of
  Alexandria was the foremost center of commerce
  and cultural vitality in Hellenistic
  civilization.
• Population nearly 500,000.
• Attractions Alexanders glass coffin, the
  Pharos, a library with a half-million papyrus
  scrolls and a museum for advanced study
  (dedicated to the Muses, the Greek goddesses of
  arts and sciences).

(350 feet tall)
The fiery beacon of Alexandrias lighthouse the
first of its kind and one of the seven wonders of
the ancient world could be seen by sailors from
a distance of 30 miles.
75
AlexandriaScience and technology

• Archimedes lever, compound pulley, value of pi,
  the Archimedes screw (for raising water from the
  ground)
• Advances made in astronomy (Aristarchus and
  Eratosthenes) and geometry (Euclid).
• Philosophy Stoicism and Epicureanism concerned
  with how people should live their lives ?
  personal happiness, satisfaction and fulfillment
  could be achieved independent of the polis.

Archimedes of Syracuse studied at Alexandria.
76
Hellenistic art

• Hellenistic sculptors moved toward more emotional
  and realistic art and away from the ideal beauty
  prized by Greek classicism.
• This statue of an old market woman carrying
  chickens and a fruit basket realistically shows
  her dealing with the grind of poverty.

77
Romans on the horizon

• The Greeks had a profound cultural impact on the
  peoples and lands of the Middle East, facilitated
  in part by their system of easily learned
  alphabetic Greek writing (which led to more
  widespread literacy and far more effective
  dissemination of information).
• Hellenism persisted as a cultural force for a
  thousand years but the Greek attitude of
  superiority kept them largely separated from the
  native masses of the Hellenistic kingdoms, and
  rulers continued to engage in inconclusive wars.
• Alexanders empire and Greek culture would soon
  be inherited by a rising power to the west the
  Romans.

78
Sources

• The Earth and Its Peoples A Global History
  (Bulliet et al.)
• Traditions Encounters A Global Perspective on
  the Past (Bentley Ziegler)
• World History (Duiker Spielvogel)
• Patterns of Interaction (McDougal Littell,
  publisher)
• AP World History review guides The Princeton
  Review, Kaplan and Barrons