The CityStates of Greece

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The City-States of Greece

• Sparta and Athens
• The Persian Wars
• The Delian League
• The Decline of Athens

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The City-States of Ancient Greece

• Sparta and Athens
• The Persian Wars
• The Delian League
• The Decline of Athens

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Now thats tough!

• There is a story about a Spartan boy who, in
  order to conceal a fox which he had stolen, hid
  it beneath his cloak and allowed the fox to gnaw
  him rather than let the theft be revealed. He
  died of the wounds. If he had been discovered,
  the disgrace would not have been in the stealing,
  but in allowing it to be detected. The boy's
  action illustrates the main purpose of the
  Spartan educational system, which was to produce
  men capable of showing such bravery as soldiers.
  Military strength was felt to be necessary to
  Sparta for their very survival.

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Polis City-State

• Greece was divided into city-states, each known
  as a polis. The two main city-states were Sparta
  and Athens. The greatest of these was Athens
  which was a center of intellectual and cultural
  development - the nursery of western
  civilization. What do you think that means?

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Government Education

• Athenian democracy was for free, male Athenians
  only. Education for men was highly valued. Only
  boys of wealthy families attended schools. The
  term academy comes from Athens.

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Structure of the Polis

• Each polis was built around an acropolis, a
  fortified hill with the temple of the local god
  at the top.

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Structure of the Polis

• At the foot of the acropolis was the agora, an
  open area used as a marketplace. By 700 B.C.
  this inner part of the polis had become a city.
  With the villages and farmland around it, it made
  up a city-state.

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Athens

• Athens was knows for its great navy and was a
  rival of Sparta. Its ships were known as
  triremes because they had three levels of rowers.

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Battle of Marathon

• The Persians were defeated by the Athenians at
  the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians were so
  joyful in victory that they sent a professional
  runner, Pheidippides, back to Athens.

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A run extraordinaire. . .

• Pheidippidies ran about 26 miles to Athens to
  report the victory. When he arrived, he cried
  out, Nike! and died from exhaustion. Nike is
  the goddess of victory.

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The Marathon

• The 1896 Olympic marathon distance of 24.8 miles
  was based on the distance run by Pheidippides.
  At the 1908 Olympic Games in London, the marathon
  distance was changed to 26.2 miles to cover the
  ground from Windsor Castle to White City Stadium,
  with the 2.2 miles added on so the race could
  finish in front of royal family's viewing box.
  This added two miles to the course, and is the
  origin of the Marathon tradition of shouting "God
  save the Queen!" (or other words relating to the
  Queen) as mile post 24 is passed. After 16 years
  of sometimes angry discussion, this 26.2 mile
  distance was established at the 1924 Olympics in
  Paris as the official marathon distance.

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Sparta

• Sparta was known for its great army and was a
  rival of Athens. Their army was known for
  holding off the Persian army of 250,000 at
  Thermopylae for three days with only 7000
  soldiers. This gave the people of Athens time to
  escape before the Persians invaded there.

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Thermopylae
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Spartan Goal

• Sparta tried to become the strongest people in
  Greece. They also disliked change. This would
  later prove to be a weakness for them. Spartans
  preferred actions to words. A Spartan
  lifestyle both then and today is one that is
  simple and highly disciplined with few luxuries.

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The Delian League

• The Delian League, based on the island of Delos,
  was formed to unite the Greek city-states to
  defend against the Persians. Athens lead the
  league and gained more and more power over the
  other city states. Sparta refused to join.

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The Delian League

• The other city-states became resentful of Athens
  power over them. A group of city-states led by
  Sparta waged the Peloponnesian War against Athens
  for 30 years until Athens surrendered to Sparta.
  Later, under Spartan control, the Athenians
  revolted and once more set up a democracy but
  they never regained the power they once had.

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Greek Decline

• The Greeks began to lose their sense of community
  and fought with one another. In 338 B.C. Philip
  II of Macedonia north of Greece (Alexander the
  Greats father) conquered Greece.

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Geography In History

• The ancient Greek city-states never united
  because the land was very mountainous and hilly
  making travel difficult. This is one case where
  geography influenced history.

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The End.
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