THE GLORY OF ATHENS MYTHS AND LEGENDS OF THE GODS, TITANS, ZEUS, OLYMPIANS AND MORE
GREEK CIVILIZATION
GENERAL ASPECTS ABOUT THE GREEK CIVILIZATION AND GREAT CHARACTERS
history QUARTELY TEST E.B.
contents 03
06 Archaic Period: Historiography
10 Classical Greece: The Persian War
04 Greek civilization: General Aspects
07 Archaic Period: Resume
11 Classical Greece: The Peloponesian War
05 Archaic Period: General Aspects
09 Classical Greece: General Aspects
12 Hellenistic Greece: General Aspects
2
Greek civilization: Introduction and general aspects
HISTORY / QUARTERLY TEST ENMANUEL BENAVIDES
Greek Civilization Ancient Greece was a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th-9th centuries BC to the end of antiquity (c. 600 AD). Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Roughly three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the period of Archaic Greece and colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the period of Classical Greece, an era that began with the Greco-Persian Wars,
lasting from the 5th to 4th centuries BC. Due to the conquests by Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Hellenistic civilization flourished from Central Asia to the western end of the Mediterranean Sea. The Hellenistic period came to an end with the conquests and annexations of the eastern Mediterranean world by the Roman Republic, which established the Roman province of Macedonia in Roman Greece, and later the province of Achaea during the Roman Empire.
HISTORY / QUARTERLY TEST ENMANUEL BENAVIDES 3
Classical Antiquity in the Mediterranean region is commonly considered to have begun in the 8th century BC (around the time of the earliest recorded poetry of Homer) and ended in the 6th century AD. Classical Antiquity in Greece was preceded by the Greek Dark Ages (c. 1200 – c. 800 BC), archaeologically characterised by the protogeometric and geometric styles of designs on pottery. Following the Dark Ages was the Archaic Period, beginning around the 8th century BC. The Archaic Period saw early developments in Greek culture and society which formed the basis for the Classical Period. After the Archaic Period, the Classical Period in Greece is conventionally considered to have lasted from the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 until the death of Alexander the Great in 323.
The period is characterized by a style which was considered by later observers to be exemplary, i.e., "classical", as shown in the Parthenon, for instance. Politically, the Classical Period was dominated by Athens and the Delian League during the 5th century, but displaced by Spartan hegemony during the early 4th century BC, before power shifted to Thebes and the Boeotian League and finally to the League of Corinth led by Macedon. This period saw the Greco-Persian Wars and the Rise of Macedon. Following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period (323–146 BC), during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East. This period begins with the death of Alexander and ends with the Roman conquest.
4 HISTORY / QUARTERLY TEST ENMANUEL BENAVIDES
Archaic period 1. GENERAL ASPECTS Archaic Greece was the period in Greek history lasting from the eighth century BC to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, following the Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical period. The period began with a massive increase in the Greek population and a series of significant changes which rendered the Greek world at the end of the eighth century as entirely unrecognisable as compared to its beginning.[3] According to Anthony Snodgrass, the Archaic period in ancient Greece was bounded by two revolutions in the Greek world. It began with a "structural revolution" which "drew the political map of the Greek world" and established the poleis, the distinctively Greek citystates, and ended with the intellectual revolution of the Classical period. The Archaic period saw developments in Greek politics, economics, international relations, warfare, and culture. It laid the groundwork for the Classical period, both politically and culturally. It was in the Archaic period that the Greek alphabet developed, that the earliest surviving Greek literature was composed, that monumental sculpture and redfigure pottery began in Greece, and that the hoplite became the core of Greek armies. In Athens, the earliest institutions of the democracy were implemented under Solon, and the reforms of Cleisthenes at the end of the Archaic period brought in Athenian democracy as it was during the Classical period. In Sparta, many of the institutions credited to the reforms of Lycurgus were introduced during the period, the region of Messenia was brought under Spartan control, helotage was introduced, and the Peloponnesian League was founded, making Sparta the dominant power in the region. HISTORY / QUARTERLY TEST ENMANUEL BENAVIDES 5
2. HISTORIOGRAPHY The word "archaic" derives from the Greek word archaios, which means "old". It refers to the period in ancient Greek history before the Classical. The period is generally considered to have lasted from the beginning of the eighth century BC until the beginning of the fifth century BC, with the foundation of the Olympic Games in 776 BC and the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC forming notional start and end dates. The Archaic period was long considered to have been less important and historically interesting than the Classical period, and was primarily studied as a precursor to it. More recently, however, Archaic Greece has come to be studied for its own achievements. With this reassessment of the significance of the Archaic period, some scholars have objected to the term "archaic", due to its connotations in English of being primitive and outdated. No term which has been suggested to replace it has gained widespread currency, however, and the term is still in use. Much of our evidence about the Classical period of ancient Greece comes from written histories, such as Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War. By contrast, we have no such evidence from the Archaic period. We have written accounts of life in the period in the form of poetry, and epigraphical evidence, including parts of law codes, inscriptions on votive offerings, and epigrams inscribed on tombs. However, none of this evidence is in the quantity for which we have it in the Classical period. What is lacking in written evidence, however, is made up for in the rich archaeological evidence from the Archaic Greek world. Indeed, where much of our knowledge of Classical Greek art comes from later Roman copies, all of the surviving Archaic Greek art is original. Other sources for the period are the traditions recorded by later Greek writers such as Herodotus.However, these traditions are not part of any form of history as we would recognise it today; those transmitted by Herodotus he recorded whether or not he believed them to be accurate. Indeed, Herodotus does not even record any dates before 480 BC.
6 HISTORY / QUARTERLY TEST ENMANUEL BENAVIDES
POLITICAL
Politically, the Archaic period saw the development of the polis (or city-state) as the predominant unit of political organisation.
POLIS The Archaic period saw significant urbanisation, and the development of the concept of the polis as it was used in Classical Greece.
ATHENS Though in the early part of the Classical period the city of Athens was both culturally and politically dominant,
SPARTA
c i a h c r A d o i per
Sparta's constitution took on the form it would have in the Classical period during the eighth century BC. The First Messenian War,
HISTORY / QUARTERLY TEST ENMANUEL BENAVIDES 7
"GOOD PEOPLE DO NOT NEED LAWS TO TELL THEM TO ACT RESPONSIBLY, WHILE BAD PEOPLE WILL FIND A WAY AROUND THE LAWS." PLATO
According to Wikipedia, Quote is the repetition of someone else's statement or thoughts. Quotation marks are punctuation marks used in text to indicate a quotation. Both of these words are sometimes abbreviated as "quote(s)"
8 HISTORY / QUARTERLY TEST ENMANUEL BENAVIDES
Classical Greece: G. Aspects was a period of around 200 years (5th and 4th centuries BC) in Greek culture.
Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years (5th and 4th centuries BC) in Greek culture. This Classical period saw the annexation of much of modern-day Greece by the Persian Empire and its subsequent independence. Classical Greece had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and on the foundations of western civilization. Much of modern Western politics, artistic thought (architecture, sculpture), scientific thought, theatre, literature, and philosophy derives from this period of Greek history. In the context of the art, architecture, and culture of Ancient Greece, the Classical period, sometimes called the Hellenic period, corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries BC (the most common dates being the fall of the last Athenian tyrant in 510 BC and the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC). The Classical period in this sense follows the Archaic period and is in turn succeeded by the Hellenistic period. 5th Century BC This century is essentially studied from the Athenian outlook because Athens has left us more narratives, plays, and other written works than the other ancient Greek states. From the perspective of Athenian culture in Classical Greece, the period generally referred to as the 5th century BC extends slightly into the 4th century BC. In this context, one might consider that the first significant event of this century occurs in 508 BC, with the fall of the last Athenian tyrant and Cleisthenes' reforms. 9 HISTORY / QUARTERLY TEST ENMANUEL BENAVIDES
CLASSICAL GREECE
THE PERSIAN WARS THE GREEK CITIES, WERE UNABLE TO MAINTAIN THEIR INDEPENDENCE AND CAME UNDER THE RULE OF THE PERSIAN EMPIRE. In 492 BC, the Persian general Mardonius led a campaign through Thrace and Macedonia. He was victorious and again subjugated the former and conquered the latter, but he was wounded and forced to retreat back into Asia Minor. In addition, a fleet of around 1,200 ships that accompanied Mardonius on the expedition was wrecked by a storm off the coast of Mount Athos. Later, the generals Artaphernes and Datis led a successful naval expedition against the Aegean islands. In 490 BC, Darius the Great, having suppressed the Ionian cities, sent a Persian fleet to punish the Greeks. (Historians are uncertain about their number of men; accounts vary from 18,000 to 100,000.) They landed in Attica intending to take Athens, but were defeated at the Battle of Marathon by a Greek army of 9,000 Athenian hoplites and 1,000 Plataeans led by the Athenian general Miltiades. The Persian fleet continued to Athens but, seeing it garrisoned, decided not to attempt an assault.
HISTORY / QUARTERLY TEST ENMANUEL BENAVIDES 10
11
HISTORY / QUARTERLY TEST ENMANUEL BENAVIDES
CLASSICAL GREECE: THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR ORIGINS OF THE DELIAN LEAGUE AND THE PELOPONNESIAN LEAGUE
In 431 BC war broke out between Athens and Sparta. The war was a struggle not merely between two city-states but rather between two coalitions, or leagues of city-states: the Delian League, led by Athens, and the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta.
The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) was an ancient Greek war fought by the Delian League led by Athens against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases. In the first phase, the Archidamian War, Sparta launched repeated invasions of Attica, while Athens took advantage of its naval supremacy to raid the coast of the Peloponnese and attempt to suppress signs of unrest in its empire. This period of the war was concluded in 421 BC, with the signing of the Peace of Nicias. That treaty, however, was soon undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnese. In 415 BC, Athens dispatched a massive expeditionary force to attack Syracuse in Sicily; the attack
failed disastrously, with the destruction of the entire force, in 413 BC. This ushered in the final phase of the war, generally referred to either as the Decelean War, or the Ionian War. In this phase, Sparta, now receiving support from Persia, supported rebellions in Athens' subject states in the Aegean Sea and Ionia, undermining Athens' empire, and, eventually, depriving the city of naval supremacy. The destruction of Athens' fleet at Aegospotami effectively ended the war, and Athens surrendered in the following year. Corinth and Thebes demanded that Athens should be destroyed and all its citizens should be enslaved, but Sparta refused.
HELLENISTIC PERIOD
The Hellenistic period lasted from 323 BC, which marked the end of the wars of Alexander the Great, to the annexation of Greece by the Roman Republic in 146 BC. Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until the advent of Christianity, it did mark the end of Greek political independence. During the Hellenistic period, the importance of "Greece proper" (that is, the territory of modern Greece) within the Greek-speaking world declined sharply. The great centers of Hellenistic culture were Alexandria and Antioch, capitals of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria respectively.
12 HISTORY / QUARTERLY TEST ENMANUEL BENAVIDES
HELLENIC PERIOD BACKGROUND Ancient Greece had traditionally been a fractious collection of fiercely independent city-states. After the Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), Greece had fallen under a Spartan hegemony, in which Sparta was pre-eminent but not all-powerful. Spartan hegemony was succeeded by a Theban one after the Battle of Leuctra (371 BC), but after the Battle of Mantinea (362 BC), all of Greece was so weakened that no one state could claim preeminence. It was against this backdrop that the ascendancy of Macedon began, under king Philip II. Macedon was located at the periphery of the Greek world, and although its royal family claimed Greek descent, the Macedonians themselves were looked down upon as semibarbaric by the rest of the Greeks. However, Macedon had a relatively strong and centralised government, and compared to most Greek states, directly controlled a large area.
HISTORY / QUARTERLY TEST ENMANUEL BENAVIDES 13