CLEP Exam Set 2: Ancient Greece and Hellenistic Civilization

Ancient Greece was dominated by which two city states?

Athens and Sparta

Athens: coastal city state made wealthy by overseas trade

- had a ________ form of government

- leaders in _______ & _________

- famous for its architecture, mainly the ____________

- stressed the good of the ___________

- democratic

- philosophy, arts

- Parthenon

- individual

Sparta: city devoted to __________ & the __________

- governed by _________ in which people worked the land of others

- _________ training was mandatory

- stressed the good of the __________

- agriculture, military

- a strict class system

- military

- group

Most of the great contributions to the Western Culture were made during what period? (Philosophy of Socrates, medical work of Hippocrates, great dramatic works)

the Periclean Age

The most impressive towns in early Greek civilization were at _________, a site known for the Lion's Gate, its sculpted entryway, its huge "Cyclopean" walls, and its royal tombs with beehive shaped interiors

(other early Greek towns included Athens, Tiryns, and Pylos)

Mycenae

Many Mycenaens who were overrun by Dorian Greeks fled to Anatolia and established Greek culture in an area called _________.

Lonia

During the transition in which the Mycenaens fled to Anatolia after being overrun by Dorian Greeks, their art of writing and related administrative skills were lost and thus, the cultural achievements of these Greeks declined leading to a historical era from 1100 to 800 B.C.E. known as _____________.

The Dark Ages

Between 800 and 750 B.C.E., a Greek cultural revival began and the ___________ (city-state) emerged as the central unit of economic, social, and political structure and organization; these city-states were small, self-governing units

Polis

became an important geographical core of Greek civilization in that it stood between the Balkan Peninsula and Anatolia; sea travel was much more efficient than land travel due to the terrain of the land surrounding this early Greek civilization

Aegean Sea

As the population and trade both increased and farming declined in the ____ Greek period, a large spread developed between the rich and the poor leading to threats of anarchy between classes

Archaic

As Greek military techniques changed from small, wealthy cavalry units to large infantry groups, soldiers who would buy spears and armor became known as hoplites who were organized into large units able known as ____ that were able to resist cavalry charges.

Phalanxes

After fighting with and enslaving neighboring Messenia, a Greek city-state known as ____ came to control the Balkan Peninsula c. 620 B.C.E.

Sparta

The Lycurgan code of which Greek city-state dictated that all males ages 7 to 30 live in military barracks and undergo military training?

Sparta

Male Spartans were able to dedicate their lives to full-time military training and service because:

(A) Sparta supported itself with treasure and tribute from foreign conquests

(B) Sparta's foreign colonies provided financial support for the army

(C) Sparta had extensive silver mines

(D) non-Spartan slaves (helots) provided the labor for the Spartan economy

(E) non-Spartan merchants paid taxes based on foreign trade

D

Sparta lead a system of alliances known as the ___ League that was composed of other city-states and served to guard Sparta from outside revolts and threats.

Pelopponesian

Spartan government included which of the following characteristics? (there may be more than one right answer)

(A) An elected board that was active in foreign policy and monitored the kings' and generals' exercise of military authority

(B) Assembly of all male citizens over age 30

(C) two kings with limited authority

(D) Voting using precise counts

(E) Council of Elders

all except D

____ was the only Mycenaean Greek city state to survive when the Dorian Greeks invaded the Balkan Peninsula

Athens

In order to deal with the socio-economic crisis occurring in Athens during the seventh century B.C.E., a certain man known as _____ was given a tyrant-like status; this leader was faced with revolutionary-type violence and responded with a severe law code with severe punishments.

Draco

The socio-economic turmoil facing Athens in the seventh century B.C.E. included which of the following (there may be more than one right answer):

(A) small farmers struggling to produce crops often resorted to borrowing from the wealthy nobles

(B) wealthy Athenian nobles were able to remedy the crisis by redistributing land and reducing indebtedness

(C) farmers unable to repay high interest debts were forced into slavery or faced with loss of their land

(D) Oppressed farmers began to threaten violence and demand that debts be cancelled and land returned to its owners

all except B

Like Draco, _____ (594 B.C.E.) was elected as archon and given a great deal of power to deal with the agrarian crisis facing Athens.

Solon

While the Athenian Draco is known for his strict "Draconian" law codes, Solon is known for the _____ which he brought to Athens; Solon structured Athenian government into a Council of 400 members (boule), a general Assembly (ekklesia), and public courts of law

Constitution

In 546 B.C.E., a benevolent dictator named ______ gained control of Athens and won support of the people through public works funding, new religious celebrations, and expansion of the agora, the marketplace for the Council of 400.

Peisistratus

The Nobleman ____ emerged into power in Athens during a time of revolutionary unrest and worked to reform the structure of society and replacing the aristocratic brotherhoods (phratries) who ruled the Council with the demes (townships of the people), changed the four tribes of Athens, which all had ties to aristocracy, to ten tribes made up of the demes, and altered the size and structure of the Council.

Cleisthenes

A policy of ____, exiling an individual for ten years, was used by the Athenians to make sure that no one politician gained too much power.

ostracism

Cyrus the Great expanded his Persian empire into Greece in 546 B.C.E. when he gained control of a region in Asia minor known as ______.

Anatolia

In 499 B.C.E., the Ionian Greeks in Anatolia, who had been invaded by the Persians in 546 B.C.E., rebelled against Persian control and were aided by the city-state ______ on the Greek mainland.

Athens

Through a series of battles at land and at sea, the Athenians were able to defeat the Persians with the assistance of the city-state of _____.

Sparta

The word "________" came from a battle in 490 B.C.E. in Attica in which greatly outnumbered Athenians defeated the Persian army under emperor Darius I and afterward, a messenger ran 26 miles to report this remarkable victory

marathon

The Greeks prevented further westward expansion of the Persian empire when they defeated the army of King Xerxes at the battle of ____ in 480 B.C.E.

Salamis

In order to protect themselves and neighboring city-states from future attacks from the Persians, the Athenians formed the _______ _______ (478 B.C.E.), a naval alliance made up of over a hundred poleis (city-states) all located along the Aegean Sea shores.

Delian League

After the polis (city-state) of ______ decided to leave the Delian League in 465 B.C.E., Athens invaded this city-state and overthrew its government as an example to others who may in the future try to leave the league.

Thasos

The Delian League led to the formation of the Athenian Empire as Athens, led by the general _____ conquered city-states who attempted to secede from the league; the Delian League treasury was moved from Delos to Athens in 454 B.C.E

Pericles

popular/influential Greek statesman, orator and general of Athens during its golden age (between Persian and Peloponnesian Wars)

Pericles

In the fifth century B.C.E., Greek ruler Pericles ordered the construction of the _______, a temple to the goddess Athena, on the hill known as the Acropolis

Parthenon

Which of the following actions did NOT occur under Athenian ruler Pericles?

(A) was guided by imperialistic ambitions and democratic reforms

(B) led the Athenians through the entire Peloponnesian Wars

(C) Gave political power to the poorest Athenian citizens who had served in the Battle of Salamis against the Persians

(D) led building projects such as the construction of the Parthenon

(E) transferred judicial power from the Areopagus to the people's courts

B

Athens was made into a complete democracy under the ruler Pericles and entered into a time of prosperity known as the _______ ______ of Athens.

Golden Age

The ________ _________ (431-404 B.C.E.) are generally thought of as an attempt of Sparta, whose military power was land-based, to prevent rival Athens, whose military power was sea-based, from taking over all of Greece.

Peloponnesian Wars

Pericles' strategy against the Spartan invasion of Attica, the peninsula on which Athens was located, in 431 B.C.E. early in the Peloponnesian Wars involved which of the following? (there may be more than one correct answer):

(A) avoidance of open battle with the Spartans

(B) retreat of Athenians behind city walls

(C) use of the strong Athenian navy to battle with the Spartans at sea

(D) exhaustion of the Spartans

all except C

The Athenians were defeated in 413 B.C.E. after Alcibiades, Pericles' nephew, led them in a failed invasion of Spartan allies at the city of ____ in Sicily.

Syracuse

Following defeat by the Spartans in the Peloponnesian Wars, a Spartan oligarchy known as the "_____ Tyrants" took control of Athens for several years

Thirty

Greek culture established in the fourth and fifth centuries B.C.E. became known as "______" - as later generations used it as a standard by which they could measure their own accomplishments; Greek culture influenced Roman literature, art, and language, Medieval church theology, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment

Classical

Which of the following is NOT a characteristic of the religion of the ancient Greeks?

(A) respect for all the gods in each city-state

(B) public officers of the city-state fulfilled priestly duties

(C) social events, holidays, poetry, and drama were used as times to honor the gods

(D) each city-state held a patron god that deserved special worship above the other gods

(E) an extensive theology that addressed questions relating to life and death

E

After the formerly illiterate Greeks acquired literacy through trading contacts with a group known as the ______, they were able to write down and record early poetry, which has been passed down through the generations as oral traditions.

Phoenicians

a blind poet who lived between 850 and 700 B.C.E., has been attributed with writing the great Greek epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey

Homer

Homer's epic poem the ____ and the _____ describes the siege of Troy by the Mycenaeans.

illiad, odyssey

Greek poet (c. 700 B.C.E.); wrote the Theogony, a work describing the birth of the gods, and Works and Days, which tells about the life of a farmer

Hesiod

Seventh century B.C.E. Greek poet; devised the new poetic form of writing lyrics, short poems with themes that describe a certain human experience

Ovid