Early Civilization in India

The Impact of Geography

• Geography played an important role in the development of Greek civilization.

  • Compared with Mesopotamia and Egypt, Greece occupies a small area.

  • The mountains and the sea played especially significant roles in the development of Greek history.

• The sea also influenced the evolution of Greek society.

  • Greece has a long seacoast dotted by bays and inlets that provided many harbors.

• The Greeks lived on a number of islands to the west, south, and east of the Greek mainland.

• It was no accident that the Greeks became seafarers.

  • They sailed out into the Aegean Sea, the Mediterranean, and the Black Sea, making contact with the outside world.

The Minoan Civilization

• By 2800 B.C., a Bronze Age civilization that used metals, especially bronze, in making weapons had been established on the large island of Crete, southeast of the Greek mainland.

• At the beginning of the twentieth century, Evans discovered an enormous palace complex on Crete at Knossos

• The ships of the Minoans took them to Egypt as well as southern Greece in search of goods.

• The palace at Knossos, the royal seat of the kings, was an elaborate building that included numerous private living rooms for the royal family and work- shops for making decorated vases, ivory figurines, and jewelry.

• The centers of Minoan civilization on Crete suffered a sudden and catastrophic collapse around 1450 B.C.

  • Most historians, however, believe that the destruction was the result of invasion by mainland Greeks known as the Mycenaeans

The First Greek State: Mycenae

• The term Mycenaean comes from Mycenae, a fortified site in Greece that was first discovered by the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann.

• The Mycenaean Greeks were part of the Indo-European family of peoples who spread into southern and western Europe, India, and Iran.

  • Mycenaean civilization, which reached its high point between 1400 and 1200 B.C., was made up of powerful monarchies.

  • The Mycenaeans were, above all, a warrior people who prided themselves on their heroic deeds in battle.

  • The most famous of all their supposed military adventures has come down to us in the poetry of Homer.

• By the late thirteenth century B.C., Mycenaean Greece was showing signs of serious trouble.

  • In the twelfth century B.C., new waves of Greek-speaking invaders moved into Greece from the north.

  • By 1100 B.C., Mycenaean civilization had collapsed.

The Greeks in a Dark Age

• After the collapse of Mycenaean civilization, Greece entered a difficult period in which the population declined and food production dropped.

• During the Dark Age, large numbers of Greeks left the mainland and sailed across the Aegean Sea to various islands.

  • Many went to the western shores of Asia Minor, a strip of territory that came to be called Ionia (or Ionian Greece), which is in modern-day Turkey.

• Two other major groups of Greeks settled in established parts of Greece.

• Other important activities occurred in this Dark Age as well.

  • At some point in the eighth century B.C., the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet to give themselves a new system of writing.

• The Iliad and the Odyssey were the first great epic poems of early Greece.

  • An epic poem is a long poem that tells the deeds of a great hero.

  • The Iliad and the Odyssey were based on stories that had been passed from generation to generation.

    • Homer used stories of the Trojan War to compose the Iliad and the Odyssey.

  • The Iliad is not so much the story of the war itself, however, as it is the tale of the Greek hero Achilles and how the anger of Achilles led to disaster.

  • The Odyssey recounts the journeys of one of the Greek heroes, Odysseus, after the fall of Troy, and his ultimate return to his wife.

• Homer proved to be of great value to later Greeks.

  • The values Homer taught were courage and honor.

• A hero strives for excellence, which the Greeks called arete.

  • Arete is won in a struggle or contest.

  • Through his willingness to fight, the hero protects his family and friends, preserves his own honor and that of his family, and earns his reputation.

The Greek City-States

The Polis: Center of Greek Life

• By 750 B.C., the city-state—or what the Greeks called a polis—became the cen- tral focus of Greek life.

• The main gathering place in the polis was usually a hill.

  • At the top of the hill was a fortified area called an acropolis.

  • The acropolis served as a place of refuge during an attack and sometimes came to be a religious center on which temples and public buildings were built.

• Below the acropolis was an agora, an open area that served as a place where people could assemble and as a market.

  • City-states varied greatly in size, from a few square miles to a few hundred square miles. They also varied in population.

• Athens had a population of more than three hundred thousand by the fifth century B.C., but most city-states were much smaller, consisting of only a few hundred to several thousand people.

• The polis was, above all, a community of people who shared a common identity and common goals

  • Citizens of a polis had rights, but these rights were coupled with responsibilities.

• The Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that a citizen did not belong just to himself or herself: “We must rather regard every citizen as belonging to the state.”

• As the polis developed, so too did a new military system

  • By 700 B.C., however, the military system was based on hoplites, who were heavily armed infantry soldiers, or foot soldiers.

  • Hoplites went into battle as a unit, marching shoulder to shoulder in a rectangular formation known as a phalanx.

Greek Colonies

• Between 750 and 550 B.C., large numbers of Greeks left their homeland to settle in distant lands.

• Across the Mediterranean, new Greek colonies were established along the coastlines of southern Italy, southern France, eastern Spain, and northern Africa west of Egypt.

• The Greeks also settled along the shores of the Black Sea, setting up cities on the Hellespont and the Bosporus.

  • The most notable of these cities was Byzantium, the site of what later became Constantinople (now Istanbul).

  • In establishing these colonies, the Greeks spread their culture and political ideas throughout the Mediterranean.

• Colonization also led to increased trade and industry.

• The Greeks on the mainland exported pottery, wine, and olive oil.

  • The expansion of trade and industry created a new group of wealthy individuals in many of the Greek city-states.

Tyranny in the City-States

• The creation of this new group of rich men fostered the rise of tyrants in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.

  • The tyrants gained power and kept it by using hired soldiers.

  • Once in power, they built new mar- ketplaces, temples, and walls.

  • Although tyranny did not last, it played an important role in Greek history.

• In some Greek city- states, this led to the development of democracy, which is government by the people or rule of the many.

• Other city-states remained committed to government by an oligarchy, rule by the few.

• The differences in how Greek city-states were governed can be understood by examining the two most famous and most powerful Greek city-states, Sparta and Athens.

Sparta

• Like other Greek city-states, Sparta was faced with the need for more land.

• After their conquest, the Messenians and Laconians became serfs and were made to work for the Spartans.

• These captured people were known as helots, a name derived from a Greek word for “capture.”

• Between 800 and 600 B.C., the lives of Spartans were rigidly organized and tightly controlled (thus, our word spartan, meaning “highly self- disciplined”).

  • While their husbands lived in the barracks, Spartan women lived at home.

  • Many Spartan women upheld the strict Spartan values, expecting their husbands and sons to be brave in war.

• The Spartan government was an oligarchy headed by two kings, who led the Spartan army on its campaigns.

  • A group of five men, known as the ephors, were elected each year and were responsible for the education of youth and the conduct of all citizens.

• To make their new military state secure, the Spartans turned their backs on the outside world.

• Spartan citizens were discouraged from studying philosophy, literature, or the arts — subjects that might encourage new thoughts.

  • The art of war was the Spartan ideal.

  • All other arts were frowned upon.

Athens

• By 700 B.C., Athens had become a unified polis on the peninsula of Attica.

• Early Athens was ruled by a king.

  • By the seventh century B.C., however, Athens had become an oligarchy under the control of its aristocrats.

• Near the end of the seventh century B.C., Athens faced political turmoil because of serious economic problems.

• The ruling Athenian aristocrats reacted to this crisis in 594 B.C. by giving full power to Solon, a reform-minded aristocrat.

  • Solon’s reforms, though popular, did not solve the problems of Athens.

• Pisistratus, an aristocrat, seized power in 560 B.C.

  • The Athenians rebelled against Pisistratus’s son, who had succeeded him, and ended the tyranny in 510 B.C.

• Two years later, with the backing of the Athenian people, Cleisthenes, another reformer, gained the upper hand.

  • Cleisthenes created a new council of five hundred that supervised foreign affairs, oversaw the treasury, and proposed the laws that would be voted on by the assembly.

  • Because the assembly of citizens now had the central role in the Athenian political system, the reforms of Cleisthenes created the foundations for Athenian democracy.

Classical Greece

The Challenge of Persia

• As the Greeks spread throughout the Mediterranean, they came in contact with the Persian Empire to the east.

• The Ionian Greek cities in western Asia Minor had already fallen subject to the Persian Empire by the mid-sixth century B.C.

• In 499 B.C., an unsuccessful revolt by the Ionian cities—assisted by the Athenian navy—led the Persian ruler Darius to seek revenge.

• In 490 B.C., the Persians landed on the plain of Marathon, only 26 miles (41.8 km) from Athens.

  • There, an outnumbered Athenian army attacked and defeated the Persians decisively.

• According to legend, news of Persia’s defeat was brought by an Athenian runner named Pheidippides who raced 26 miles (41.8 km) from Marathon to Athens.

  • With his last breath, he announced, “Victory, we win,” before dropping dead.

  • Today’s marathon is based on this heroic story.

• After Darius died in 486 B.C., Xerxes became the new Persian monarch.

  • Xerxes led a massive invasion force into Greece. His forces included about 180,000 troops and thousands of warships and supply vessels.

• The Athenians, now threatened by the onslaught of the Persian forces, abandoned their city.

The Growth of the Athenian Empire

• After the defeat of the Persians, Athens took over the leadership of the Greek world.

• In 478 B.C., the Athenians formed a defensive alliance against the Persians called the Delian League.

  • Its main headquarters was on the island of Delos.

  • However, its chief officials, including the treasurers and commanders of the fleet, were Athenian.

• Under Pericles, who was a dominant figure in Athenian politics between 461 and 429 B.C., Athens expanded its new empire abroad.

  • This period of Athenian and Greek history, which historians have called the Age of Pericles, saw the height of Athenian power and brilliance.

The Age of Pericles

• In the Age of Pericles, the Athenians became deeply attached to their democratic system, which was a direct democracy.

  • In a direct democracy, the people participate directly in government decision making through mass meetings

• Most residents of Athens, however, were not citizens.

  • In the mid-fifth century B.C., the assembly consisted of about forty-three thousand male citizens over 18 years old.

  • However, by making lower-class male citizens eligible for public office and by paying officeholders, Pericles made it possible for poor citizens to take part in public affairs.

• A large body of city officials ran the government on a daily basis.

• The Athenians also devised the practice of ostracism to protect themselves against overly ambitious politicians.

• Under Pericles, Athens became the center of Greek culture.

• The Persians had destroyed much of the city during the Persian Wars, but Pericles set in motion a massive rebuilding program.

The Great Peloponnesian War

• After the defeat of the Persians, the Greek world came to be divided into two major camps: the Athenian Empire and Sparta.

• Sparta and its allies feared the growing Athenian Empire, and a series of disputes finally led to the outbreak of the Great Peloponnesian War in 431 B.C.

  • At the beginning of the war, both sides believed they had winning strategies.

  • In the second year of the war, a plague broke out in overly crowded Athens, killing more than a third of the people.

• A crushing blow came in 405 B.C., when the Athenian fleet was destroyed at Aegospotami on the Hellespont.

• The Great Peloponnesian War weakened the major Greek states and ruined any possibility of cooperation among them.

• During the next 66 years, Sparta, Athens, and Thebes (a new Greek power) struggled to dominate Greek affairs.

• In continuing their petty wars, the Greeks ignored the growing power of Macedonia to their north.

  • This oversight would cost them their freedom.

Daily Life in Classical Athens

• In the fifth century B.C., Athens had the largest population of the Greek city-states.

• Slavery was common in the ancient world.

  • Most people in Athens—except the very poor—owned at least one slave.

• The Athenian economy was largely based on farming and trade.

  • Athenians grew grains, vegetables, and fruit for local use.

  • Because of the number of people and the lack of fertile land, Athens had to import from 50 to 80 percent of its grain, a basic item in the Athenian diet.

• The family was an important institution in ancient Athens.

  • It was composed of a husband, wife, and children, although other dependent relatives and slaves were also regarded as part of the family.

  • Women were citizens who could take part in most religious festivals, but they were otherwise excluded from public life.

  • An Athenian woman was expected to be a good wife.

    • Her chief obligation was to bear children, especially male children who would preserve the family line.

• Women were strictly controlled.

  • Because they married at the age of 14 or 15, they were taught their responsibilities early.

  • Women were expected to remain at home, out of sight, unless attending funerals or festivals.

  • If they left the house, they had to have a companion.

The Culture of Classical Greece

Greek Religion

• Religion affected every aspect of Greek life.

  • Greeks considered religion necessary to the well-being of the state.

• Homer described the gods worshiped in the Greek religion.

• Greek religion did not have a body of doctrine, nor did it focus on morality.

• Because the Greeks wanted the gods to look favorably upon their activities, rituals became important.

  • Rituals are ceremonies or rites.

• Festivals also developed as a way to honor the gods and goddesses.

  • Certain festivals were held at special locations, such as those dedicated to the worship of Zeus at Olympia or to Apollo at Delphi.

• The Greeks also had a great desire to learn the will of the gods.

  • To do so, they made use of the oracle, a sacred shrine where a god or goddess revealed the future through a priest or priestess.

  • The most famous was the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, located on the side of Mount Parnassus overlooking the Gulf of Corinth.

• The responses provided by the priests and priestesses were often puzzling and could be interpreted in more than one way.

Greek Drama

• Drama as we know it in Western culture was created by the Greeks.

  • Plays were presented in outdoor theaters as part of religious festivals.

• The first Greek dramas were tragedies, which were presented in a trilogy (a set of three plays) built around a common theme.

  • The only complete trilogy we possess today, called the Oresteia, was composed by Aeschylus.

• Another great Athenian playwright was Sophocles, whose most famous play was Oedipus Rex.

• Greek tragedies dealt with universal themes still relevant today.

  • They examined such problems as the nature of good and evil, the rights of the individual, the nature of divine forces, and the nature of human beings.

• Greek comedy developed later than tragedy.

  • It was used to criticize both politicians and intellectuals.

Greek Philosophy

• Philosophy refers to an organized system of thought. The term comes from a Greek word that means “love of wisdom.”

• Early Greek philosophers were concerned with the development of critical or rational thought about the nature of the universe.

  • Many early Greek philosophers tried to explain the universe on the basis of unifying principles.

• In the sixth century B.C., for example, Pythagoras, familiar to geometry students for his Pythagorean theorem, taught that the essence of the universe could be found in music and numbers.

• In the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle raised basic questions that have been debated for two thousand years.

• The Sophists were a group of traveling teachers in ancient Greece who rejected speculation such as that of Pythagoras as foolish.

  • The Sophists sold their services as professional teachers to the young men of Greece, especially those of Athens.

  • To the Sophists, there was no absolute right or wrong.

  • What was right for one individual might be wrong for another.

• One of the critics of the Sophists was Socrates, a sculptor whose true love was philosophy.

  • Because Socrates left no writings, we know about him only what we have learned from the writings of his pupils, such as Plato.

  • Socrates used a teaching method that is still known by his name.

• The Socratic method of teaching uses a question-and-answer format to lead pupils to see things for themselves by using their own reason.

• Socrates questioned authority, and this soon led him into trouble.

  • An Athenian jury sentenced him to die by drinking hemlock, a poison.

• One of Socrates’ students was Plato, considered by many the greatest philosopher of Western civilization.

  • Unlike his teacher Socrates, who did not write down his thoughts, Plato wrote a great deal.

  • According to Plato, a higher world of eternal, unchanging Forms has always existed.

  • Plato explained his ideas about government in a work entitled The Republic.

  • Based on his experience in Athens, Plato had come to distrust the workings of democracy.

• Plato’s search for the just state led him to construct an ideal state in which people were divided into three basic groups.

  • At the top was an upper class of philosopher-kings

  • The second group in Plato’s ideal state were war- riors who protected society.

  • The third group contained all the rest, the masses, people driven not by wisdom or courage but by desire.

• Plato established a school in Athens known as the Academy.

• One of his pupils, who studied at the Academy for 20 years, was Aristotle.

  • Aristotle’s interests, then, lay in analyzing and classifying things based on observation and investigation.

  • Like Plato, Aristotle wanted an effective form of government that would rationally direct human affairs.

  • For his Politics, Aristotle looked at the constitutions of 158 states and found three good forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and constitutional government.

  • He favored constitutional government as the best form for most people.

The Writing of History

• History as we know it — as a systematic analysis of past events — was created in the Western world by the Greeks.

• Herodotus was the author of History of the Persian Wars, a work commonly regarded as the first real history in Western civilization.

  • Herodotus traveled widely and questioned many people as a means of obtaining his information. He was a master storyteller.

• Many historians today consider Thucydides the greatest historian of the ancient world.

  • Unlike Herodotus, Thucydides was not concerned with divine forces or gods as causal factors in history.

  • He saw war and politics in purely human terms, as the activities of human beings.

  • Thucydides also provided remarkable insight into the human condition.

  • He believed that the study of history is of great value in understanding the present.

The Classical Ideals of Greek Art

• The arts of the Western world have been largely dominated by the standards set by the Greeks of the classical period.

• In architecture, the most important form was the temple dedicated to a god or goddess.

  • At the center of Greek temples were walled rooms that housed both the statues of deities and treasuries in which gifts to the gods and goddesses were safeguarded.

    • These central rooms were surrounded by a screen of columns that made Greek temples open structures rather than closed ones.

• Some of the finest examples of Greek classical architecture were built in Athens in the fifth century B.C.

• Greek sculpture also developed a classical style.

  • Greek sculptors did not seek to achieve realism, however, but rather a standard of ideal beauty. Polyclitus, a fifth-century sculptor, wrote down systematic rules for proportions that he illustrated in a work known as the Doryphoros.

  • His theory maintained that the use of ideal proportions, based on mathematical ratios found in nature, could produce an ideal human form.

Alexander and the Hellenistic Kingdoms

The Threat of Macedonia

• The Greeks viewed their northern neighbors, the Macedonians, as barbarians.

• The Macedonians were rural people organized in groups, not city-states.

• By the end of the fifth century B.C., however, Macedonia emerged as a powerful kingdom.

• In 359 B.C., Philip II came to the throne.

  • He built a powerful army and turned Macedonia into the chief power of the Greek world.

• Fearing Philip, the Athenians allied with a number of other Greek states and fought the Macedonians at the Battle of Chaeronea, near Thebes, in 338 B.C.

• The Macedonian army crushed the Greeks.

• Philip quickly gained control of all Greece, bringing an end to the freedom of the Greek city-states.

• Before Philip could undertake his invasion of Asia, however, he was assassinated, leaving the task to his son Alexander.

Alexander the Great

• Alexander the Great was only 20 when he became king of Macedonia.

• Philip had carefully prepared his son for kingship.

  • By taking Alexander along with him on military campaigns, Philip taught Alexander the basics of military leadership.

• Alexander was taking a chance in attacking the Persian Empire.

  • Although weakened, it was still a strong state in the spring of 334 B.C. when Alexander entered Asia Minor with an army of some thirty-seven thousand men, both Macedonians and Greeks.

  • By the next year, Alexander had freed the Ionian Greek cities of western Asia Minor from the Persians and defeated a large Persian army at Issus.

• He built Alexandria as the Greek capital of Egypt.

  • It became, and remains today, one of the most important cities in both Egypt and the Mediterranean world.

  • It was also the first of a series of cities named after him.

• In 331 B.C., Alexander turned east and fought the decisive battle with the Persians at Gaugamela, not far from Babylon.

• Over the next three years, Alexander moved east and northeast, as far as modern Pakistan.

  • Alexander agreed to return home. He led his troops across the desert, through what is now southern Iran.

  • Alexander returned to Babylon, where he planned more campaigns.

• However, in June 323 B.C., exhausted from wounds, fever, and too much alcohol, he died at the age of 32.

• Alexander was a brave and even reckless fighter who was quite willing to lead his men into battle and risk his own life.

  • His example inspired his men to follow him into unknown lands and difficult situations.

• Alexander’s military skill created an enormous legacy.

• Alexander’s successors tried to imitate him, using force and claims of divine rule to create military monarchies.

• Alexander also left a cultural legacy.

• Due to his conquests, Greek language, architecture, literature, and art spread throughout Southwest Asia and the Near East.

The Hellenistic Kingdoms

• Alexander created a new age, the Hellenistic Era.

  • The word Hellenistic is derived from a Greek word meaning “to imitate Greeks.”

    • It is an appropriate way, then, to describe an age that saw the expansion of the Greek language and ideas to the non-Greek world of Southwest Asia and beyond.

• The united empire that Alexander created by his conquests fell apart soon after his death as the most important Macedonian generals engaged in a struggle for power.

• Macedonia, Syria in the east, the kingdom of Pergamum in western Asia Minor, and Egypt.

  • All were eventually conquered by the Romans.

• Alexander the Great had planned to fuse Macedonians, Greeks, and Persians in his new empire by using Persians as officials and encouraging his sol- diers to marry native women.

  • In his conquests, Alexander had created a series of new cities and military settlements.

• Hellenistic kings did likewise.

  • Hellenistic rulers encouraged a massive spread of Greek colonists to Southwest Asia.

• The Greek cities of the Hellenistic Era became the chief agents in the spread of Greek culture in Southwest Asia—as far, in fact, as modern Afghanistan and India.

Hellenistic Culture

• The Hellenistic Era was a period of considerable cultural accomplishment in many areas, especially science and philosophy.

• The library in Alexandria became the largest in ancient times, with more than five hundred thousand scrolls.

• Pergamum, the most important city in Asia Minor, also became a leading cultural center.

• The founding of new cities and the rebuilding of old ones presented many opportunities for Greek architects and sculptors.

• Both Hellenistic kings and rich citizens patronized sculptors.

• The Hellenistic Age produced an enormous quantity of literature.

  • Writing talent was held in high esteem, especially by Hellenistic leaders who spent large amounts of money subsidizing writers.

  • Appolonius of Rhodes wrote the epic poem called Argonautica, which tells the story of Jason and his search for the Golden Fleece.

• Athens remained the center of Greek theatre.

• The Hellenistic Age witnessed considerable advances in the sciences.

  • Astronomy and mathematics were two areas of progress.

  • One astronomer—Aristarchus of Samos—developed the theory that the sun is at the center of the universe while the Earth rotates around the sun in a circular orbit.

  • Another astronomer—Eratosthenes—determined that Earth was round and calculated Earth’s circumference at 24,675 miles (39,702 km), an estimate that was within 185 miles (298 km) of the actual figure.

  • The mathematician Euclid wrote the Elements, a textbook on plane geometry.

    • This work has been used up to modern times.

  • By far the most famous of the scientists of the Hellenistic period was Archimedes of Syracuse.

    • Archimedes was especially important because of his work on the geometry of spheres and cylinders, as well as for establishing the value of the mathematical constant pi.

    • Archimedes was also a practical inventor.

    • He may have devised the Archimedes’ screw, a machine used to pump water out of mines and to lift irrigation water.

    • Archimedes’ achievements inspired a number of stories.

    • Supposedly, he discovered specific gravity by observing the water he displaced in his bath.

• Athens remained the chief center for philosophy in the Hellenistic world.

• Epicurus, the founder of a philosophy that came to be known as Epicureanism, established a school in Athens near the end of the fourth century B.C.

  • Epicurus believed that human beings were free to follow self-interest as a basic motivating force.

  • Epicurus did not speak of the pursuit of pleasure in a physical sense (which is what our word epicurean has come to mean).

• Another school of thought was Stoicism.

  • It became the most popular philosophy of the Hellenistic world and later flourished in the Roman Empire as well.

  • Stoicism was the product of a teacher named Zeno.

  • Like Epicureanism, Stoicism was concerned with how people find happiness.

  • However, the Stoics approached the problem differently.

    • To them, happiness could be found only when people gained inner peace by living in harmony with the will of God.

    • Unlike Epicureans, Stoics did not believe in the need to separate themselves from the world and politics.

    • Public service was regarded as noble.

    • The real Stoic was a good citizen.