1. Chap 4 – The Rise of Ancient Greece
Section 1: Beginnings

2. The Aegean Area
Greece is made up largely of low lying rugged mountains and a long indented coastline.
The mountains both protected and isolated Ancient Greeks on the mainland, who never united under one government.
Many Greeks earned their living on the sea.

3. Aegean Civilizations
Greek myths refer to the existence of an early civilization on the island of Crete.
Archeologists have recently unearthed remains of this Minoan civilization, which flourished from B.C.

4. Aegean Civilizations (cont.)
The Minoan earned their living from the sea trade, reaching its peak in 1600 B.C.
The Mycenaeans, who originated among the Indo-European peoples of central Asia, began moving from their homeland around 2000 B.C.

5. Aegean Civilization (cont)
The Mycenaeans intermarried with local people, known as the Hellenes, and set up a group of kingdoms.
By the mid 1400s B.C., the Mycenaeans had conquered the Minoans and controlled the Aegean area, but were soon conquered by the Dorians from the North around 1100 B.C.

6. Aegean Civilization (cont)
Historians call the next 300 years of Greek history a “dark age” because overseas trade stopped, people lost skills, and poverty increased.
By 750 B.C. the Ionians had reintroduced culture, crafts, and skills to Greece.
A new Greek civilization, the Hellenic, flourished from 700 B.C. until 336 B.C.

7. Poets and Heroes
According to tradition, an 8th century B.C. blind poet named Homer composed the two most famous Greek epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, set during and after the legendary Trojan War in the mid-1200s B.C.
Schools in ancient Greece used Homer’s epics to teach values.

8. A Family of Deities
In Greek religion, the activities of gods and goddesses explained why people behaved the way they did and why their lives took a certain direction.
More than other civilizations, the Greeks humanized their deities and tried to emulate them by doing everything to the best of their abilities.

9. A Family of Deities (cont)
The Greeks believed that the 12 most important Greek deities lived on Mount Olympus and that each controlled a specific part of the natural world.
As Hellenic civilization developed, certain religious festivals became a part of Greek life – including the Olympic Games and drama.

10. Section 2: The Polis

11. The Typical Polis
A typical polis included a city and the surrounding villages, fields and orchards.
On top of the acropolis in the center of the city stood the temple of the local deity, and at the foot of the acropolis citizens gathered to carry out public affairs.

12. The Typical Polis (cont.)
The citizens of a polis had both rights and responsibilities.
Citizens made up only a minority of the residents; slaves, foreign born residents, and women had no political or legal rights.

13. Greek Colonies & Trade
By 700 B.C. Greek farmers no longer grew enough grain to feed everyone, so each polis sent out groups of people to establish colonies in coastal areas.
Each colony kept close ties with its mainland metropolis, supplying grain and exporting the mainland’s excess wine, olive oil, and other cash crops.

14. Greek Colonies & Trade (cont.)
Soon, the Greeks replaced their barter system with a money economy, and expanded overseas trade.
The cities of Ionia in Asia Minor assumed leadership in a growing textile industry; pottery made in Ionia was the earliest Greek pottery to be exported.

15. Political & Social Change
Economic growth changed Greek political life; where once kings had ruled, landholding aristocrats took power.
Disputes arose between the aristocrats and farmers, who demanded political reforms.

16. Political & Social Change (cont.)
As Greek armies came to rely on foot soldiers (generally farmers) more than cavalry (generally aristocrats), aristocrats began to lose influence.
As a result of the unrest, tyrannies arouse, in which one man seized power and ruled the polis single-handedly.

17. Political & Social Change (cont.)
After the reign of the tyrants, most city-states become either oligarchies or democracies.
The most famous democracy in Greece was Athens, the most famous oligarchy was Sparta.

18. Section 3: Rivals

19. Sparta
The descendants of the Dorian invaders of the dark age founded Sparta, located in Peloponnesus, a peninsula of southern Greece.
Instead of founding overseas colonies, the Spartans invaded neighboring city-states and enslaved the local people.

20. Sparta (cont.)
Around 650 B.C. the slaves revolted against their Spartan masters; after quelling the revolt, the Spartans decided to maintain power by establishing a military society.
All life in Sparta revolved around the army.

21. Sparta (cont.)
The Spartans brought up women to be, like the Spartan men, as healthy and strong as possible; Sparta gave its women more personal freedoms than the women of other Greek city-states received – but women could not take part in government.
The Spartans maintained control over their subject peoples for almost 250 years, but lagged far behind other Greek city-states in economic development.

22. Athens
On a peninsula of central Greece named Attica, Mycenaean descendants established the city-state of Athens.
Unlike Sparta, Athens gradually expanded its definition of citizenship to include more people.

23. Athens (cont.)
Eventually, all free, Athenian-born men were members of the Assembly regardless of what class they belonged to.
Four successive leaders brought most of the changes in Athenian government; the first, Draco, issued an improved code of written laws, so that aristocrats could no longer dictate what was legal.

24. Athens (cont.)
Solon improved economic conditions, promoted trade, fostered industry, and introduced political reforms that moved Athens toward democracy.
Pesistratus divided large estates among landless farmers, extended citizenship to men who did not own land, and offered the poor loans and jobs.

25. Athenian Democracy
Cleisthenes, the forth leader to help reform Athens, established democracy for Athens; under Cleisthenes’ constitution, the Assembly won increased powers and fully emerged as the major political body.
Each year in a lottery, Athenian citizens chose members of the Council of 500, who carried out daily government business.

26. Athenian Democracy (cont.)
Although only 20 percent of Athenians were citizens, ancient Athens laid the foundation for the Western concept of democratic government.
Because Athens expected every citizen to hold public office at some time in his life, it required Athenian citizens to educate their sons; girls rarely received a formal education.

27. Section 4: War, Glory, and Decline

28. The Persian Wars
In 546 B.C. the Persian armies conquered the Greek city-states of Ionia, in Asia Minor.
The Ionians, with help from Athens and another mainland polis, revolted against the Persians in 499 B.C. but were defeated; Darius I of Persia then decided to punish those who had helped the rebels.

29. Persian Wars (cont.)
The Athenians defeated the Persians on the plain of Marathon by sending foot soldiers down the hills to attack the Persian infantry.
Ten years later, the Persians invaded Greece; to execute their plan to challenge the Persians at sea, the Greek army set up a delaying action on land, led by King Leonidas of Sparta.

30. Persian Wars (cont.)
Knowing that a traitor had showed the Persians a way to attack the Greeks and realizing that he would soon be surrounded, Leonidas nevertheless stayed to face his death.
Meanwhile, a Spartan general led the attack at sea, destroying almost the entire Persian fleet near the island of Salamis.
After the battle at Salamis, the Persians returned to Asia Minor for good, and Athens emerged a powerful and self-confident city-state.

31. The Golden Age of Athens
Most historians refer to the period from 461 B.C. to 429 B.C. as the Golden Age of Athens because most Greek achievements in the arts and sciences took place in Athens during this time.
After the Persian war, the Athenian general Pericles rebuilt Athens into the most beautiful city in Greece; its most famous structure, the Parthenon, still stands.

32. The Golden Age (cont.)
Athenian men usually worked in the morning as farmers, artisans, and merchants, before attending the Assembly or exercising in the gymnasium; slaves generally did the heavy work in craft production and mining, while women worked at home or in the market.
In spite of restrictions, many Athenian women were able to participate in public life; however, Aspasia’s attempts to gain more education and greater freedom for women aroused great opposition.

33. The Peloponnesian War
Athens began to dominate the other city-states, transforming the anti-Persian Delian League into an Athenian empire.
As Athens’s trade and political influence grew, Sparta formed an alliance with several city-states to oppose Athens.

34. Peloponnesian War (cont.)
the Spartan-led alliance eventually destroyed the Athenian fleet and laid siege to Athens itself. The Athenians surrendered in 404 B.C.
The Peloponnesian War brought disaster to the Greek city-states, both victors and the vanquished.

35. Peloponnesian War (cont.)
Populations would soon decline, much land was destroyed, and unemployment caused many men to become hired soldiers in the Persian army.
Soon, the Greeks began to lose faith in their democratic ideas and principles.