Classical Greece
Classical Greece
Overview
-Classical Greece
-The Greek polis
-Greco Persian Wars
-Second Persian Invasion
-Classical Greek Society and Culture
-Philosophy: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
-Classical Greek society
-Classical Greek culture
-Prelude to the Peloponnesian War
-The Peloponnesian War
The Greek polis
Overview
- Greek city-states
developed different forms of governance with very different political
structures and strengths.
- Greek colonization led to the spread of the Greek language and Greek
culture, but it also resulted in tensions with the neighboring Persian
empire, culminating in the Persian Wars.
- Athens developed democratic institutions and a culture of philosophy,
science, and culture; it emerged as a powerful state and allied with
other city-states, forming the Delian League.
- Resistance to Athens’ power among the other Greek city-states,
particularly Sparta, prompted the Peloponnesian War.
The rise of the polis
The territory of Greece
is mountainous; as a result, ancient Greece consisted of many smaller
regions, each with its own dialect, cultural peculiarities, and
identity. Regionalism and regional conflicts were a prominent feature of
ancient Greece. Cities tended to be located in valleys between mountains
or on coastal plains and dominated the countryside around them.
According to the legendary poet Homer, whose historical authenticity is
debated, around 1200 BCE, the Mycenaeans were involved in a conflict
with the city of Troy in Anatolia, called the Trojan war. As Homer wrote
in his famous work, the Iliad, at the same time as the war, various
foreign “Sea Peoples” began invading Mycenaean settlements, prompting
the inhabitants to migrate to islands in the Aegean, Anatolia, and
Cyprus. At that time, writing seemed to have disappeared, and life in
the Greek peninsula and Greek islands was characterized by conflict and
instability.
This instability was the context for the emergence of Greek city-states.
Without a powerful, centralized state, smaller governing bodies created
political order. One such type of governing body was the city-state or
polis. Initially, the term polis referred to a fortified area or citadel
which offered protection during times of war. Because of the relative
safety these structures afforded, people flocked to them and set up
communities and commercial centers. Over time, poleis—the plural of
polis—became urban centers whose power and influence extended to the
surrounding agricultural regions, which provided resources and paid
taxes.
By around 800 BCE, there
were many poleis which functioned independently. In response to their
own specific contexts, each city-state created a different form of
governance, ranging from monarchies and oligarchies to militaristic
societies and proto-democracies. Monarchies were sometimes ruled by a
tyrant—a ruler who did not follow any set laws. Oligarchies were small
groups of powerful individuals who ran city-state government. Oligarchs
and tyrants often competed for power. Democracies were governments that
allowed citizens to vote on and participate in making state decisions.
Some of the most important city-states were Athens, Sparta, Thebes,
Corinth, and Delphi. Of these, Athens and Sparta were the two most
powerful city-states. Athens was a democracy and Sparta had two kings
and an oligarchic system, but both were important in the development of
Greek society and culture.
What were some of the effects of the lack of a powerful central state?
Sparta
Located in a fertile
area of the Peloponnesus, a peninsula in southern Greece, Sparta’s
population steadily grew between 800 and 600 BCE. As Sparta developed a
complex and strong economy, it extended its power throughout the
Peloponnesus and brought the people of neighboring villages under its
control. The people in these villages, however, were not accorded equal
status with Spartans. Instead, they became helots, who were a class of
unfree laborers. Unlike enslaved people who were owned privately, helots
were subjects of the Spartan state. They were able to have families and
exercised some degree of freedom, but they were tied to the land and
were required to supply Sparta with food.
Spartans expended vast resources to develop a powerful and structured
military apparatus to prevent and subdue rebellions.
Though there was a very sharp distinction between Spartans and helots,
Spartan society itself did not have a complex social hierarchy, at least
in theory. Instead of wealth being a distinguishing marker, social
status was determined by military achievements. Strength and discipline
were emphasized, even in children at a very young age. At age seven,
Spartan boys were separated from their families and sent to live in
military barracks, where they underwent serious military training,
leading up to active service when they were barely out of their teens.
Though Spartan society did not have a rigid social hierarchy, it still
had some influential groups. Like all Greek societies, Sparta was
dominated by male citizens, and the most powerful of these came from a
select group of families. The Spartan political system was unusual in
that it had two hereditary kings from two separate families. These
monarchs were particularly powerful when one of them led the army on
campaign.
The kings were also
priests of Zeus, and they sat on the council of elders known as the
gerousia, which was also the highest court in Sparta. There was also an
executive committee of five ephors chosen by lot from the citizen body,
able only to serve for a maximum of one year after which point they were
ineligible for future office. Two of the ephors also accompanied one of
the kings when on campaign. Just how these different political elements
interacted is not known for certain, but clearly a degree of consensus
was necessary for the state apparatus to function.
Women in Sparta had more
rights than women in other Greek city-states. In Sparta, they could own
property, which they often gained through dowries and inheritances. Some
women became rich when the men in their families were killed in war. In
fact, women eventually controlled nearly half of Spartan land. In
addition, Spartan women could move around with reasonable freedom, wear
non-constricting clothing, enjoy athletics, and even drink wine.
How were Spartan helots different from enslaved people?
How was social status primarily determined in Sparta?
Athens
Athens emerged as the
dominant economic power in Greece around the late sixth century BCE, its
power and wealth was further bolstered by the discovery of silver in the
neighboring mountains. Athens was at the center of an efficient trading
system with other Greek city states. Trade was incredibly important for
Athens, as it did not have the agricultural conditions to cultivate
enough grain for its population.
Athens transitioned through different systems of government as its
population grew and became wealthier through maritime trade. This wealth
became increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few members of the
aristocracy, who were also political leaders, leaving other members of
society in debt, sometimes to the point of being forced into debt
slavery. Further, there was a perceived lack of consistency among the
laws of the city.
The first series of laws written to address these inequities was
provided by the statesman Draco around 621 BCE, but the laws were
considered too severe—the penalty for most infractions was death! This
is where we get the term draconian! An aristocrat named Solon was called
upon to modify and revise these harsh laws; he created a series of laws
which equalized political power. Two of the changes for which Solon was
responsible were the cancellation of debts and the abolition of debt
slavery. He also created opportunities for some common people to
participate in the government of Athens. In doing so, Solon laid the
groundwork for democracy in Athens.
Pericles led Athens
between 461 and 429 BCE; he was an incredibly well-liked leader known
for encouraging culture, philosophy, and science and for advocating for
the common people. Under Pericles, Athens entered its golden age and
great thinkers, writers, and artists flourished in the city.
Herodotus—the “father of history”—lived and wrote in Athens.
Socrates—the “father of philosophy”—taught in the marketplace.
Hippocrates—“the father of medicine”—practiced there. The sculptor
Phidias created his great works for the Parthenon on the Acropolis and
the Temple of Zeus at Olympia. Democritus envisioned an atomic universe.
Aeschylus, Euripides, Aristophanes, and Sophocles wrote their famous
plays. This legacy continued as, later, Plato founded his Academy
outside the walls of Athens in 385 BCE and, even later, Aristotle's
Lyceum was founded in the city center.
Still, Athenian democracy was limited to its male citizens. Foreigners,
enslaved people, and women were excluded from these institutions.
Women’s roles were largely confined to the private sphere, where they
were responsible for raising children and managing the household,
including enslaved people if the household could afford them. While
women of the upper classes were often literate, most were not likely to
receive an education beyond what was needed for the execution of their
domestic duties. They required male chaperones to travel in public.
Enslaved people, while not involved in political affairs, were integral
to the Athenian economy. They cultivated food, worked large construction
projects, and labored in mines and quarries. Enslaved people were
present in most Athenian households, carrying out an array of domestic
duties.
Where does the term
draconian come from?
Colonization and the
Persian Wars
Due to the increasing
populations of the city states and the insufficient resources available,
many Greeks began to look outward and create settlements outside of
mainland Greece. Between the eighth and sixth centuries, hundreds of
colonies were established on the coasts of the Mediterranean and Black
seas. Later, Greek communities would settle in modern-day Sicily and
southern Italy, even as far as modern-day southern France. Eventually,
more Greeks lived in these settlements than on mainland Greece.
Greek colonization invigorated the networks of trade and exchange
throughout the Mediterranean. Greek language and culture spread
throughout the region. However, it also brought conflict and tensions
with the Persian empire, inaugurating the two-decade long Persian Wars
from 500 to 479 BCE. As Persia consolidated its control over its
conquests in Anatolia, Greek communities living in that area, called
Ionia, resisted Persian rule. To support the Ionian Greeks, the
Athenians sent their impressive fleet, which prompted retribution from
the Persians. The ensuing conflict drew in other Greek city-states, most
notably, Sparta. Conflict between the Greeks and Persians continued for
over 100 years.
The Delian league and
the Peloponnesian War
Though the Greek
city-states were unified to some extent in the face of an external
threat, as that threat waned, conflicts between the city-states made a
resurgence. Following the wars, Athens emerged as the supreme naval
power in Greece. It formed the Delian League, ostensibly to create a
cohesive Greek network among city-states to ward off further Persian
attacks. Under the leadership of Pericles, Athens grew so powerful that
the Athenian Empire could effectively dictate the laws, customs, and
trade of all her neighbors in Attica and the islands of the Aegean.
The might of the Athenian Empire encouraged an arrogance in Athenian
policy makers of the day which grew intolerable to the other
city-states. When Athens sent troops to help Sparta put down a Helot
rebellion, the Spartans refused the gesture and sent the Athenian force
back home in dishonor, thus provoking the war which had long been
brewing. Later, when Athens sent their fleet to help defend its ally
Cocyra—Corfu—against a Corinthian invasion during the Battle of Sybota
in 433 BCE, their action was interpreted by Sparta as aggression instead
of assistance, as Corinth was an ally of Sparta.
The Peloponnesian War—which took place between 431 and 404 BCE between
Athens and Sparta, though it involved directly or indirectly all of
Greece—ended in disaster for Athens when it was defeated. Its empire and
wealth decimated, its walls destroyed, only Athen’s reputation as a
great seat of learning and culture prevented the sack of the city and
the enslavement of the populace.
Classical Greek society
Overview
- Greek society was
comprised of independent city-states that shared a culture and religion.
- Ancient Greeks were unified by traditions like the panhellenic games.
Greek architecture was
designed to facilitate religious ceremonies and common civic spaces.
Independent cities
Ancient Greece was
comprised of hundreds of essentially independent city-states, partly due
to the geography of Greece. Communities were separated by mountains,
hills, and water. Rather than a unified nation, Ancient Greece was more
like a network of communities with a shared religion and language that
sometimes led to a sense of common belonging.
Despite these cultural commonalities, affiliations between city-states
were loose and short-lived. The Delian and Peloponnesian Leagues, for
example, were dominated by one strong city-state. Another good example
is how conflict with Persia prompted several city-states to unify
against a common enemy, but not all Greek city-states were involved;
further, once the external threat was diminished, conflict between the
city-states resumed.
Even as Greeks colonized the Mediterranean and Black seas, new colonies,
while recognizing a “mother” city-state, were largely independent. Even
after Philip II of Macedon brought mainland Greece under his League of
Corinth, the individual city-states still retained much of their
essential independence.
Why did the geography of Greece prevent city-states from being
geographically unified?
Shared culture and
religion
Ancient Greeks were
unified by traditions like the panhellenic games and other athletic
competitions. These competitions also had religious significance and
were often tied to Greek mythology. The most significant of these games
were the Olympic Games.
The ancient Olympic Games were a sporting event held every four years at
the sacred site of Olympia in honor of Zeus, the supreme god of Greek
religion. Involving participants and spectators from all over Greece and
beyond, the Olympic Games were the most important cultural event in
ancient Greece and were held from 776 BCE to 393 CE, a run of 293
consecutive Olympiads.
In the ancient Greek world, religion was personal, direct, and present
in all areas of life. It revolved around myths which explained the
origins of mankind and gave the gods a human face. Temples dominated the
urban landscape and city festivals and national sporting and artistic
competitions were frequent, so religion was never far from the mind of
an ancient Greek.
Individuals in Greek
society probably had varying degrees of religious belief—and some may
have been skeptics—but Greek society could only function as it did
because certain fundamentals were generally accepted throughout society:
the gods existed, they could influence human affairs, and they welcomed
and responded to acts of piety and worship.
The temple was the place where, on special occasions, religion took on a
more formal tone. Gods were worshipped at sacred sites and temples in
all major Greek communities during ceremonies carried out by priests and
their attendants.
At first, sacred sites were merely a simple altar in a designated area,
but over time massive temples were built in honor of particular gods.
These temples usually housed a cult statue of the deity being honored;
two famous examples are the huge statue of Athena in the Parthenon of
Athens and the statue of Zeus at Olympia.
Athletic Games and competitions in music and theatre—both tragedy and
comedy—were held during festivals honoring particular gods, such as the
City Dionysia of Athens and the Panhellenic games at the sacred sites of
Olympia, Delphi, Nemea, and Isthmia. These events were attended by
visitors from all over Greece, and the experience was perhaps more akin
to a pilgrimage rather than a modern sports event. Warfare was
prohibited during these sacred events and pilgrims were guaranteed free
passage across Greece.
Life in the polis
Although individual
poleis—plural of polis, or city-state—each had their own particular
institutions and practices, there were several features common to the
majority of Greek city-states. In most poleis, the majority of the
population lived in the city rather than being spread across small farm
communities in the surrounding territory; also, the heart of the urban
area was usually a sacred space with one or more temples.
From the seventh century BCE, cities were usually fortified with city
walls—Sparta being a notable exception—and the agora space, a common
public area, was created for civic and commercial activity. From the
fifth century BCE, many poleis displayed evidence of town
planning—especially in newly established colonies—with specific areas of
the city designated for private, public, and religious functions. Many
poleis also had designated spaces for public assembly, either for
political purposes or for entertainment—for example, a theatre or a
gymnasium.
In Greek society, men were the most powerful group, but other social
groups—women, children, enslaved people, freed people, labourers, and
foreigners—could make up as much as 90 percent of the total polis
population. All of these groups had to be included and involved in the
polis in order for it to function as a cohesive community.
One way of doing this
was to create a sense of solidarity by fostering a social identity that
differentiated the polis from all others. This identity was achieved in
various ways, such as the creation of a communal space where people
could mix and socialize—the agora. Polis-specific festivals and
celebrations on specific dates in the year—usually of a religious
nature— reinforced the idea that the polis had a unique, often mythical,
founder and patron deity.
What were some common features of Greek city-states?
Classical Greek culture
Overview
- The Greeks made
important contributions to philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and
medicine.
- Literature and theatre was an important aspect of Greek culture and
influenced modern drama.
- The Greeks were known for their sophisticated sculpture and
architecture.
Greek culture influenced
the Roman Empire and many other civilizations, and it continues to
influence modern cultures today.
Philosophy and science
Building on the
discoveries and knowledge of civilizations in Egypt and Mesopotamia,
among others, the Ancient Greeks developed a sophisticated philosophical
and scientific culture. One of the key points of Ancient Greek
philosophy was the role of reason and inquiry. It emphasized logic and
championed the idea of impartial, rational observation of the natural
world.
The Greeks made major contributions to math and science. We owe our
basic ideas about geometry and the concept of mathematical proofs to
ancient Greek mathematicians such as Pythagoras, Euclid, and Archimedes.
Some of the first astronomical models were developed by Ancient Greeks
trying to describe planetary movement, the Earth’s axis, and the
heliocentric system—a model that places the Sun at the center of the
solar system. Hippocrates, another ancient Greek, is the most famous
physician in antiquity. He established a medical school, wrote many
medical treatises, and is— because of his systematic and empirical
investigation of diseases and remedies—credited with being the founder
of modern medicine. The Hippocratic oath, a medical standard for
doctors, is named after him.
Greek philosophical culture is exemplified in the dialogues of Plato,
who turned the questioning style of Socrates into written form.
Aristotle, Plato's student, wrote about topics as varied as biology and
drama.
Why did Greek philosophers value logic so highly?
Art, literature, and
theatre
Literature and theatre,
which were very intertwined, were important in ancient Greek society.
Greek theatre began in the sixth century BCE in Athens with the
performance of tragedy plays at religious festivals. These, in turn,
inspired the genre of Greek comedy plays.
These two types of Greek drama became hugely popular, and performances
spread around the Mediterranean and influenced Hellenistic and Roman
theatre. The works of playwrights like Sophocles and Aristophanes formed
the foundation upon which all modern theatre is based. In fact, while it
may seem like dialogue was always a part of literature, it was rare
before a playwright named Aeschylus introduced the idea of characters
interacting with dialogue. Other theatrical devices, like irony, were
exemplified in works like Sophocles’ Oedipus the King.
In addition to written
forms of theater and literature, oral traditions were important,
especially in early Greek history. It wasn’t until around 670 BCE that
Homer’s epic poems, The Iliad and Odyssey, were compiled into text form.
Greek art, particularly sculpture and architecture, was also incredibly
influential on other societies. Greek sculpture from 800 to 300 BCE took
inspiration from Egyptian and Near Eastern monumental art and, over
centuries, evolved into a uniquely Greek vision of the art form.
Greek artists reached a
peak of excellence which captured the human form in a way never before
seen and much copied. Greek sculptors were particularly concerned with
proportion, poise, and the idealized perfection of the human body; their
figures in stone and bronze have become some of the most recognizable
pieces of art ever produced by any civilization.
Greek architects provided some of the finest and most distinctive
buildings in the entire Ancient World and some of their structures—
including temples, theatres, and stadia—would become staple features of
towns and cities from antiquity onwards.
In addition, the Greek concern with simplicity, proportion, perspective,
and harmony in their buildings would go on to greatly influence
architects in the Roman world and provide the foundation for the
classical architectural orders which would dominate the western world
from the Renaissance to the present day.
The legacy of Greek
culture
The civilization of
ancient Greece was immensely influential in many spheres: language,
politics, educational systems, philosophy, science, and the arts. It had
major effects on the Roman Empire which ultimately ruled it. As Horace
put it, "Captive Greece took captive her fierce conqueror and instilled
her arts in rustic Latium."
Via the Roman Empire, Greek culture came to be foundational to Western
culture in general. The Byzantine Empire inherited Classical Greek
culture directly, without Latin intermediation, and the preservation of
classical Greek learning in medieval Byzantine tradition exerted strong
influence on the Slavs and later on the Islamic Golden Age and the
Western European Renaissance. A modern revival of Classical Greek
learning took place in the Neoclassicism movement in eighteenth- and
nineteenth-century Europe and the Americas.
Can you think of modern-day art, architecture, or theater that may have
been influenced by Greek culture?
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/world-history/ancient-medieval/classical-greece/v/overview-of-ancient-greece
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