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Ancient Greece Flashcards
Ancient Greece
Themes of Ancient Greece: Democracy
Democracy is the biggest takeaway from ancient Greece for Western civilization.
However, democracy in ancient Greece was unique and raises questions about the system.
Is democracy a natural form of government? No, it's unique.
Where does democracy come from?
Is democracy always doomed to fail? In Athens, democracy eventually fell, leading to chaos and the rise of strong leaders.
Can democracy exist outside of a moral rule or system?
What values led to the disregard of democracy?
In times of crisis, individuals or oligarchies often took power, promising stability.
The ancient Greeks sometimes sacrificed rights for the sake of defeating enemies like the Persians.
Democracy in Athens was imperfect:
It was not a constant, ongoing system; it ebbed and flowed.
Not everyone was included; it was mainly for freeborn Athenian males who were members of the polis (city-state).
Women were not allowed to participate.
Outsiders were not considered citizens.
There was a large number of slaves.
Democracy, in the modern sense, implies equal rights, freedom, and liberty, which contrasts with the large number of slaves in ancient Greek culture.
Still, the desire for self-government was significant, as the main ways of ruling in the past were:
Lugals: Warlords who gained power through battle and protected the people.
Bureaucracy: As seen with the pharaohs, power was associated with divine rule.
The idea that people can choose their own leader was a big change, even if the system was imperfect.
Four Main Topics in Unit
Archaic Greece and the emergence of the Polis (city-state).
The Polis included the central city (e.g., Athens) and the surrounding hinterland.
Starts with the Sea Peoples and the Bronze Age collapse (circa 1200 BCE).
Examples of Athens and Sparta.
The Persian Wars and Greek independence.
Classical Athens.
Classical Athens represents the common perception of ancient Greece.
It was a half-century-long period with a flourishing of philosophy, art, and democracy.
Athens eventually declined due to failures, such as the Peloponnesian War.
The war between Greek city-states weakened them all.
Athens was unable to maintain its power in the long term.
Alexander the Great from Macedonia conquered Greece, spreading Greek culture, philosophy, art, and language throughout a wider world.
Archaic Greece and the Emergence of the Polis
The Mycenaeans in mainland Greece and the Minoans on Crete collapsed, leading to a 90% population decline.
This era is known as the Dark Age of Greece (circa 1000-750 BCE).
The Dark Age was a period of collapse resulting from violence.
Greece became desivilized; Linear B, the Mycenaean writing system, disappeared, and the culture reverted to an oral tradition.
Most knowledge of this period comes from handed-down mythology.
Urban spaces collapsed, and there were no monumental architectural projects.
Trade decreased significantly, although new technology like iron products was adopted.
People reverted to small farms and lost their language and administration.
The collapse may have created roots for a new outlook that later led to democracy:
People started looking inward as trade and civilization collapsed.
Living in smaller tribes or villages may have led to a sense of equality and community.
Hard living meant people had to rely on cooperation to survive, influencing them later on.
Leadership became more competitive, with opportunities for talented individuals (warriors, public speakers) to rise in the system.
Dark Age Examples: Hero and Olympic Games
The idea of the hero developed during this time.
The Trojan War (circa 1300-1100 BCE) was a legendary conflict, likely happening around the time of the Bronze Age collapse.
Agamemnon raised a Greek army to attack Troy after Prince Paris abducted his brother's wife.
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, written centuries later, interpreted the Trojan War.
Homer may or may not have been a real person, but these works were attribute to this person.
The Iliad is about the Trojan War:
Achilles was offered the choice to return home alive without glory or die in battle with glory.
Achilles chose to die in battle with glory, illustrating the meaning of being a hero.
The Odyssey tells of Odysseus's journey home after the Trojan War, filled with trials and tribulations.
The Greeks viewed the idea of a hero as someone who is brave and acts right in battle.
The stories emphasized the role of the gods and the importance of fate and destiny.
Olympic Games: Date back to around July 800 BCE (end of the Dark Ages).
They took place at Olympia, an area dedicated to Zeus.
Every four years, people from throughout Greece met to honor Zeus and compete.
The games imitated acts of war for sport, showing honor.
Events included running, wrestling, jumping, throwing, horse and chariot racing.
Athletes competed as individuals rather than nations.
Winning brought prestige, with the only prize being a garland made of wild olive leaves.
In early years, mostly sons from elite families competed.
Later, professional athletes emerged, earning money through appearance fees and prizes in other games.
The Olympic Games were male-only events; women could not even be spectators.
There was a separate Olympic festival for women in honor of Hera, the queen of the gods, but women had to be unmarried to compete.
Archaic Greece (800-500 BCE)
Formulation of Greek identity:
People started to think of themselves as Hellenic or Greeks.
They saw themselves as culturally similar.
They shared common myths, heard Homer's works, and heard about their Greek forefathers who were heroes.
They participated in the Olympic Games.
Culture: Common language, adoption of the Phoenician alphabet.
Seafaring: Revival of seafaring culture, possibly aided by the Phoenicians.
Polis: Emergence of the city-state.
Religion:** Similar religions, polytheistic (Zeus and Hera at the top), Greek mythology.
Gods for everything, e.g., Hephaestus (god of fire and the forge, later known as Vulcan by the Romans).
Oracles, such as the oracle at Delphi (temple to Apollo), provided advice in the form of riddles.
Family: Patriarchal society, viewed women as a necessary evil.
The story of Pandora represents women as a punishment for men.
Monogamy was expected of women but not of men.
Men could have relations with slaves, prostitutes, and Crete males (boys).
Relationships between adult men and young boys were normative, with the idea of grooming boys.
The Rise of the City State
As the archaic period developed, there was increased trade, population growth, and expanding towns.
The question was how to politically organize people used to independence in growing cities.
A polis is a social group of people usually identified with the main city. Note that Polis the root of politics.
It is more accurately the citizens of the Polis.
It includes people living in and around the city and in the hinterland.
People became very attached to their specific polis.
Structure of the Polis:
Acropolis: The high point in the city, with important religious and civic buildings (e.g., the Parthenon in Athens).
Agora: The open market space, a common public area.
Aura: The land surrounding the Polis, the hinterland with small villages.
All females in Aura were Athenian citizens but seldom visited Athens proper.
Democracy
Unique concepts of citizenship
Citizenship was granted to all free male inhabitants
Slaves were not citizens
Women were not full citizens, but they were protected by laws, had some rights, and did have opinions. But they were viewed as having inferior judgment and was banned from voting and could not take part in the political process.
Some places limited office holding to property owners.
They rejected monarch
Democracy meant an expectation for citizens to attend political assemblies, vote, and serve on juries.
Sometimes these systems devolved into a tyranny or an oligarchy. Note: meaning different from its modern meaning.
Tyranny: One man rule.
Tyrants could be good or bad.
Kings will become more common.
Setting a precedent for democracy.
Theories about why the Greeks became democratic:
People at their core are community oriented.
Religion
The priests and priestesses were chosen from the public to perform rituals and sacrifices.
Greek polytheism has no scripture. It has no uniformity.
Less formality in terms of the structure.
The hoplite revolution (citizen soldiers).
The hoplites were the soldiers. They were the citizen soldiers. You can think about them as being like a militia or almost like a national guard today.
They are not professional soldiers. They are citizens who served with the military when they were called up in need of it.
Greek men bought their own equipment, and they trained.
The Hoplites trained, the way that they fought is that they stood shoulder to shoulder, and this created a sense of community.
Historians for a long time have said that this probably led to an idea about democracy. Note: there are some problems with this theory.
What about poor, free men who could not afford equipment? They could still be called up for military service.
The tyrants often backed the rights of poor men to get more freedom of citizenship rights. Everytime that this happened, the tyrant essentially appeals, like, the poor masses to stay in charge.
Slavery
How can slavery and democracy even exist?
Slavery likely sharpened the idea of citizenship.
It served as a foil to citizenship.
Citizens learned to appreciate their rights more because they literally saw people in their society who had no rights.
Slavery was extremely prevalent in ancient Greece.
One in three people were slaves.
Many of them were war captives.
Greek speakers in particular were prized the most due to communication skills and educational background.
Slaves could be owned by individuals or by the state.
Slaves did various jobs in the society.
Did not happen on big agricultural plantations.
Wealthy Greeks did not own a large number of slaves.
Slaves worked alongside the master, especially in small craft industries or on farms.
They often did some of the most dangerous jobs in these societies, things like gold and silver mine.
Slaves had no rights; they were property.
They could be beaten or killed at will.
They, at times, were subject to sexual exploitation.
They lived alongside the master's family.
Harsh punishments were unusual.
There were possibilities in the society of a master freeing slave. So it does happen every once in a while.
Even free slaves are considered to be a noncitizen.
There were few large revolts of slaves.
They were diverse.
They spoke in different languages.
They did not have a lot of chance to coordinate events.
Colonization
Only about 20 to 30% of Greece that is actually farmable.
Much of land is essentially worthless for producing agricultural crops.
What the Greeks decide to do is that they will look outward.
They will look to trade.
They eventually establish colonies.
When they create colonies throughout the Mediterranean, they are not political colonies, but they are cultural colonies.
Meaning, they are not tied to a polis by government.
People from Athens go out and create a colony. Athens itself is not governing that colony. That colony is now a unique, independent, political entity. It has its own government, but they are cultural colonies.
They establish colonies throughout the Mediterranean. This is known as Magna Gracia, so bigger or Greater Greece.
Areas outside of Mainland Greece, outside even of the Aegean Sea.
Areas in Italy, parts of France, and Spain, a little bit in North Africa, all around the Black Sea, too that they're establishing all these little homes.
Syracuse in Sicily founded around July by Corinthian colonists.
Greek colonists forfeit colony in Sicily.
Agrigento, one of the best preserved temples, ancient Greek temples in the world.