The Greek Experience

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The Greek Experience

• Chapter 4

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Greek Civilization

• Greece shaped by its geography
• No place in modern Greece no more than eighty
  miles from coast
• Geography encouraged political fragmentation
• Hellas
• First Greeks arrive about 2000 B.C.E.

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Early Period

• Mycenaeans
• Knowledge of period comes from Iliad and Odyssey
• Homer
• Minoan Civilization
• Scribes kept records of court
• Class structure king to slaves
• Dark Ages

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Minoan Civilization
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Early Hellenic Society

• Early Hellenic Civilization
• Began to recover civilization about 800 B.C.E.
• Began to develop polis - city-state
• Each polis same basic structure
• City
• Farmland and pastures
• Woods

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City-states of Greece
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Political Developments

• Athens and Sparta
• Two city-states that dominated Greek life
• Four types of government
• Monarchy
• Aristocracy
• Oligarchy
• Democracy

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Athens

• Early Athens
• All forms of government after 750 B.C.E.
• Solon
• Pisistratus
• Tried to establish ruling dynasty but failed
• Winner of ensuing battle was Cleisthenes

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Democracy in Athens

• Athenian Democracy
• Powers distributed among three government bodies
• Deme
• Ecclesia (ekklesia)
• Boule
• Ostracism
• Many poleis adopted democracy

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Developments in Sparta

• Spartan Militarism
• By 500 B.C.E., Sparta and Athens different
• Messenian Wars
• Economic needs - Messenian captives
• Sparta admired by other Greeks
• Lycurgan System
• Allegiance to state, military emphasis

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Persian Wars

• Persian Wars
• Series of three wars
• Herodotus
• First war ended with Athenian victory
• Battle of Marathon
• Second war combination of Greek city-states with
  Greeks victorious
• Third war - Athens dominant naval power
• Delian League - Athenian imperialism

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Greek Religion

• Polytheistic, but different
• Greek gods less powerful
• No priestly class
• Each polis had its own deity
• Golden mean
• Hubris

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Hellenic Culture

• Fine arts, philosophy, government
• Philosophy The Love of Wisdom
• Entire spectrum of human knowledge
• Explain world in rational terms
• Divided into Pre-Socratic and Classical Age

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Pre-Socratic Culture

• Investigating origin and nature of universe
• Four Substances comprise universe
• Thales - explain world in natural terms (natural
  law)
• Start of scientific method
• Anaximander - natural evolution of species
• Democritus - basic element of the atom
• Hippocrates founder of scientific medicine

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Classical Age

• Socrates (470 399 B.C.E.)
• Ethical and epistemological questions
• Socratic method
• Executed rather than exiled
• Plato (427 347 B.C.E.)
• Pupil of Socrates
• How do you recognize and experience truth?
• Forms, ideas
• The Republic

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Classical Age

• Aristotle
• Pupil of Plato
• All areas of science
• Politics, Physics and Metaphysics
• Renowned by Christian and Muslim in Medieval
  world

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Literature

• Gave western world three major art forms
• The drama
• Lyric poetry
• Classical architecture
• Greek Tragedy
• Aeschylus - agony of the individual caught in
  conflict
• Sophocles - hubris and Fate
• Euripides - personal conflict in polis
• Comedy - Aristophanes

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Arts

• Most art was anonymous
• Parthenon and Acropolis
• Gods anthropomorphic - art honored human form
• Ancient Greeks prized craftsmanship

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Sports

• First people to look on the nurture of body
• First Olympics held in 776 B.C.E.
• Served as a reunion

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Peloponnesian War

• Peloponnesian War
• Thucydides
• Conflict between Athens and Sparta
• Sparta defeated Athens in 404 B.C.E. with naval
  help from Persia

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Hellenistic Civilization

• After Peloponnesian War
• Sparta is dominant
• Athens cultural center
• Battle between Sparta and Thebes (371 B.C.E.)
• Sparta defeated
• Thebian leaders dies, period of stalemate
• Opportunity for Philip II of Macedonia

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A New Era

• Philip II
• Philip united kingdom
• Turned attention - weakened Greek states
• 338 B.C.E. defeated combines Thebes-Athens army
• Goal to free Greek Asian Minor from Persians

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Alexander the Great

• Alexander the Great (336 323 B.C.E.)
• Conquered most of known world
• Reached India and conquered it to Indus River
• Died in Babylon at the age of 33

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Alexanders Legacy

• A mixed culture
• Founded largest empire in history
• Empire collapsed after his death
• Hellenistic kingdoms
• Culture blended
• Lasting effects on India

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Hellenistic Kingdoms

• Ptolemaic (Ptolemy) - Egypt
• Seleucid (Seleucus) - Persia
• Antigonid (Antigonius) - Macedonia and northern
  Greece
• Aetoloan League - Western Greece
• Achaean League - Peloponnese Peninsula

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Hellenistic Cities

• Hellenistic Cities
• True urban civilization
• Most of the population of cities was free
• Greek language of culture
• Problem - no polis
• City was possession of the king
• Given some local authority, but no foreign
  affairs
• Rights not equal

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Religion and Life

• Religion
• New religions modeled after Greek
• Eastern religions had more of a impact
• Blended with Greek
• Provided more than ritual of Greek
• Mystery religions
• Demanded faith rather than reason
• Egyptian cults
• Made way for Christianity

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Philosophy

• Followers tended to be upper class
• Cynicism
• Middle 300s B.C.E
• Diogenes
• Opposite of materialism, return to simple life
• People were citizens of the world

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Philosophy

• Epicureanism- Third century B.C.E.
• Epicurus
• Principle good of life is pleasure
• Naturalistic theory of the universe
• Stoicism - stoa
• Zeno
• Brotherhood of all men
• Good men had to participate in public life

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Science

• Came into its own during this time
• Exposure to Babylonian mathematics and
  astronomers
• Aristarchus - Heliocentric Theory
• Geocentric Theory
• Archimedes
• Euclid
• Elements of Geometry
• Eratosthenses - calculated circumference of earth
• Inventors not users of technology

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The World According to Eratosthenes
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Economy

• Hellenistic Economy
• Large-scale, long distance enterprises
• Commerce over land and sea
• In countryside - farming and related activities
• Large groups of people pulled into slave status
  for first time

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Greek Legacy

• Greek heritage adopted
• Infiltrated much of Europe
• Mixture produced Hellenistic Civilization

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Summary

• Geography shaped Greece
• Each poleis developed on its own
• Distinct periods based upon purity of culture
• Greek legacy for the world