Discussion Questions

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Discussion Questions

• Compare life in ancient Sparta and Athens.
• Discuss some of the important rulers in ancient
  Greece and Macedon.
• What were some of the cultural attainments of
  Greek society and who were some of the
  contributing characters?

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Minoans

• Minoan Society
• Crete
• Major city Knossos
• Expansion Cypress
• C. 2200 BCE maritime trade
• Phoenician-type ships
• Undeciphered alphabet

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Mycenaean Society

• Indo-Europeans into Peloponnesus, c. 2200 BCE
• Mycenae
• Military expansion

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The Greek Dark Age (c. 1100-c. 800 B.C.E.)

• Agricultural collapse
• Migration
• Homer
• Iliad
• Odyssey
• Heroic values

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Classical Greece, 800-350 B.C.E.
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The Greek City-States (c. 750 c. 500 B.C.E.)
The Polis

• Autonomous
• Acropolis and Agora
• Citizens, non-citizens
• Military
• Hoplites, phalanx

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Rise of Tyrants

• Unconstitutional rule - 7th and 6th c. B.C.E.
• Support merchants
• Peasant indebtedness
• Tyrants favored merchants
• Later participation by citizens

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Sparta

• Military
• Wealth obscured
• Helots
• Serfs

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Spartan Society

• Austerity
• Boys - barracks
• Homosexuality
• Home life after 30

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Classical Athens

• Early democracy
• Free, adult males
• 43,000/ 150,000
• Agriculture and trade
• Family
• Women controlled
• Homosexuality

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Athenian Democracy

• Solon mediated class conflict
• Aristocrats keep land, forgive debts, ban debt
  slavery
• Increased participation
• Civil service
• Pericles, 461-429 BCE
• High point
• Public works, Cultural development

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Athenian Empire

• Delian League formed 478-77 B.C.E.
• Defense
• Athens controlling

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Classical Greece and the Mediterranean basin,
800-500 B.C.E.
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Effects of Greek Colonization

• Trade
• Spread of ideas
• Language, culture
• Political and social effects
• NOT highly centralized

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The Challenge of Persia

• Darius (522-486 B.C.E.)
• Put down Ionian revolt
• Attacked mainland Greeks
• Battle of Marathon, 490 B.C.E.
• Xerxes (486-465 B.C.E.)
• Invasion of Greece, 480-479 B.C.E.
• Spartan league and Athenian navy
• Battle of Thermopylae, 480 B.C.E.
• Battle of Salamis, 480 B.C.E.
• Battle of Plataea, 479 B.C.E.

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Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE)

• Sparta and allies v. Athens and allies
• Athens defense
• Plague takes Pericles
• Battle of Aegospotami, 405 B.C.E.
• Athens surrendered, 404 B.C

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Kingdom of Macedon

• King Philip II (r. 359-336 BCE)
• Pushes south, 338 BCE, assassinated
• Alexander the Great (336-323 B.C.E.)
• Conquered Persia
• Spread Greek culture
• Troops mutinied in India
• Died, 323 BCE

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Alexander's empire, ca. 323 B.C.E.
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The Hellenistic Empires

• Antigonus Greece and Macedon
• Ptolemy Egypt
• Seleucus Persian Achaemenid Empire

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Culture of Classical Greece

• History-Herodotus (Father of History)
• Greek Drama
• Tragedy
• Comedy
• The Arts The Classical Ideal
• Architecture
• Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian columns
• Temples
• Parthenon
• Sculpture
• Subjects of male nudity
• Proportional and life-like

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Panhellenic Festivals

• Useful for integrating far-flung colonies
• Olympic Games begin 776 BCE, last for nearly
  1,000 years
• Sense of collective identity

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Patriarchal Society

• Women as goddesses, wives, priestesses,
  prostitutes
• Limited exposure in public sphere, however, some
  women businesses
• Sparta partial exception
• Sappho-poet
• Role of infanticide in Greek society and culture

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Slavery

• Scythians (Ukraine)
• Nubians (Africa)
• Chattel
• Sometimes used in business
• Opportunity to buy freedom

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The Greek Language

• Borrowed Phoenician alphabet
• Added vowels
• Allowed for communication of abstract ideas
• Philosophy

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Socrates (470-399 BCE)

• The Socratic Method
• Integrity is more important than fame
• Encouraged honorable behavior
• Student Plato
• Public gadfly, condemned on charges of immorality
• Forced to drink hemlock

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Plato (430-347 BCE)

• Systematized Socratic thought
• The Republic
• Philosopher-rulers
• Parable of the Cave
• Theory of Forms/Ideas

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Aristotle (389-322 BCE)

• Student of Plato, tutored Alexander the Great
• Broke with Theory of Forms/Ideas
• Emphasis on empirical findings, reason
• Massive impact on western thought
• Greek Science

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Greek Theology

• Polytheism
• Zeus principal god
• Religious cults
• Eleusinian mysteries
• The Bacchae
• Rituals eventually domesticated

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Greek Theology

• Was necessary for the well-being of the state
• Mount Olympus
• No body of doctrine or focus on morality
• Festivals
• Oracle of Apollo at Delphi

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Tragic Drama

• Evolution from public presentations of cultic
  rituals
• Major playwrights (5th c. BCE)
• Aeschylus
• Sophocles
• Euripides
• Comedy Aristophanes

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Hellenistic Philosophies

• Epicureans
• Pleasure, distinct from Hedonists
• Skeptics
• Doubted possibility of certainty in anything
• Stoics
• Duty, virtue
• Emphasis on inner peace

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The World According to Erathosthenes (275 BCE-194
BCE)