Chapter 2

The Greek Beginnings of Western Civilization

Overview
The origin of the Greeks
 City-state
 Influence of religion
 Warfare
• Fighting among city states
The European Barbarians
 By 4000 B.C. farming and village life had spread throughout the continent
 By 3500 B.C. people of western Europe were constructing ceremonial
monuments and using the plow
• Stonehenge – constructed over several hundred years to 1550 B.C.
 Migratory herders inhabiting the steppes
 The horse
• 3500 B.C. Steppe people harnessed horse to wheeled vehicles
• 1200 B.C. Steppe people learned to ride and concentrated more and more on
herding
• Nomads: moved west across the grasslands for animal-grazing and water
Indo-European people
Originated in the Russian steppes and migrated south and west
between 4000 B.C. to 1000 B.C.
By 1000 B.C. occupied most of Europe
From 2500 B.C. onward the settled people began to form
themselves into new ethnic groups and lived in villages
Elites of warriors (often charioteers and horsemen)
Dominance of mother-goddess deities
Warrior turned to gods of fatherhood and thunder
Burial and afterlife
Role of women
Farming
 Villages widely scattered
Barbarians
The Greek Homeland
The Aegean Background
Greek landscape and climate
 Rocky soil, hot dry summers, cold wet winters
 Islands
Minoan Civilization
 Crete
Indo-European people
Mycenaean Civilization
 Warlike
Dark Ages
Greek emigration, 800-600 B.C.
Greeks and Phoenicians trading and colonizing
Greek borrowing from civilizations of Asia and Africa
Greek and Phoenician Overseas Migration
The City-State: Citizenship
within a community
Sets Greek city-states apart Tradition and myth
from those of other peoples
Religion
Physical structure
 Protecting hills Social affairs
 Acropolis Government
 Monarchy
Sovereignty
Military  Oligarchy
 Hoplites  Tyranny
 Phalanx  Democracy
Sparta: the Military Ideal
Laconia
Helots
 Use of terror
Government (oligarchy)
 Dual kings
 Council of elders
 Ephors: five official “overseers”
 Assembly
Military service
Family life
 Boys
 Girls
 Women liberated
Other oligarchies
Athens: The Glory of Greece
Contrasts between Athens and Sparta
Political growth
 Reforms of Solon (600 B.C.)
 Cleistehenes (500 B.C.)
The Persian Wars
 Darius I
• Marathon, 490 B.C.
 Salamis, 480 B.C.
 Thermopylae, 480 B.C.
The Golden Age
Pericles (460 – 429 B.C.)
Democracy
 The Assembly
 Direct democracy
 The Generals (Strategoi)
 Law
• Courts
 Citizenship
Slavery in Democracy
Slaves in all city states
 Chiefly non-Greeks
 Justified by Greeks being superior to non-
Greeks
 Household slaves in Athens
• some worked the fields
• some were craftsmen
• in the mines
 Legally property of their owners
Daily Life in Athens
Economy, diversified and balanced
 Wine and olive oil
 Manufacturing
 Small shops
Daily life
Women
 Marriage
 Male sexual liberty
 Hetaerae (female companions)
Homosexuality
Children
The City-State Way of Life
 Barbarians (did not speak Greek)
 View of the Individual
 Personal Liberty
 The “good life”
 Optimism
Greek Religion
 Hades or Pluto (Dis)
No dogma
• The underworld
No special class of  Hera (Juno)
priests  Athena (Minerva)
Gods and Goddesses  Leto
 Polytheistic and • Apollo and Artemis
anthropomorphic (Diana)
religion  Aphrodite (Venus)
 Mount Olympus  Ares (Mars)
 Moira (Fate)  Hermes (Mercury)
 Zeus (Jupiter)  Dionysos (Bacchus)
 Poseidon (Neptune)
Priests, Oracles, and Mystery Cults
Temples Mystery cults
Ceremonies Dionysos
Omens Ritualistic
experiences
Oracles
Ever-lasting life
 Delphi
Mortality
No consolation or
promise of life after
death
Pioneers of Rational Thought
What are the elements from which all material things are
made?
Thales of Miletus
 Water the basic element
Democritus of Abdera
 Atoms
Hippocrates of Cos
 Environment and health
Parmenides of Elea
 Permanence versus eternal and unchangeable
Heraclitus of Ephesus
 Universe in continuous motion
The Sophists
Professional teachers
Problems of human life
Protagoras
 Skeptical of general truths
 Pointless to look for absolute truth about
• either nature or morals
 Truth is relative, important to only know
• what one finds agreeable and useful
Aristippus of Cyrene
 Success is equated with pleasure
Fear of the Sophists
Socrates and Plato
Socrates
 Often mistaken for a
Sophist because he was
skeptical and interested in
human affairs
 Questioning, “Socratic
method”
 Phaedo by Plato
• Charges of corrupting the
youth and doubting the
gods
Plato
 A student of Socrates
 The Academy
 Attacks Sophist theory of
relative truth
 The imperfect surface of
things conceal perfect,
absolute, and eternal order
 Doctrine of Ideas
• It is in the Ideas that we
will discover absolute
truths and standards
Plato’s Republic
Views on education, literature, arts, social
and political thought
Human institutions should aim, not at
complete individual freedom and equality,
but at social justice and order
 The state must be structured according to
natural capacities
Workers and Guardians (Philosopher-kings)
Aristotle
Student of Plato
Accepted Plato’s notion of the existence of ideas
but held that physical matter also is a part of
reality
By logical thinking, people can gain knowledge of
the purposes of things and their interrelations
Politics
 Analysis of major types of political organizations
• Monarchy
• Oligarchy
• Democracy
 The Golden Mean
Greek Literature
Epic and Lyric Poetry Drama: Tragedy and
Comedy
 The Greek epic  Dionysiac tradition
 Homer  Aristophanes: Comedies
• Iliad ridiculing politicians, poets,
and philosophers
• Trojan wars • The Clouds
• Odyssey • Lysistrata
 Solon Dionysiac festivals
• Individual happiness, Playwrights
won and lost  Aeschylus
 Sappho of Lesbos  Suffering and death turned
into inspiration and the will to
• Romantic love live
Creates trilogy
Aeschylus
 Transforms suffering and death into inspiration and the
will to live
Sophocles
 Consequences of exaggerated pride
 Oedipus the king
Euripides
 Insight into human character
 Challenged the traditional religious and moral values of
his time
History
Herodotus
 Persian Wars
 Historia
Thucydides
 “Scientific history”
 Peloponnesian Wars
 Human nature can be understood through careful
• study of the past – this knowledge can guide the future
• be useful as a guide to understanding the future
 Presented facts from both sides
Architecture and Sculpture
Greatest architectural achievement: the
temple which represented the bond between
religious and patriotic feelings.
Public buildings
Private buildings
Construction
 Limestone and marble
 Post-and-lintel method
Temple Building: The Parthenon
Parthenon of Athens
 Shrine for Athens designed in 450 B.C.
by architect Ictinus
 Exterior columns set in Doric order:
meets demands of both engineering and
aesthetics
Images of Gods and Humans
Statues
Egyptian influence
• Naturalism
Phidias, the sculptor
• Parthenon sculptures
• Athena in the Parthenon
Myron, The Discus Thrower
Praxiteles, Hermes with Infant Dionysus
Aphrodite from Melos (Venus de Milo)
Portraiture, emotional expression, and representation of
ordinary people
Decline of the Greek City-States
The Peloponnesian War (431 – 404 B.C.)
 Delian League
 Peloponnesian League
 Plague, 430 B.C.
 Syracuse
 Aid of Persia, defeat of Athens
 Disillusionment
• Democracy
• Decline of traditional values
Rise of Macedonia
 King Philip II
• Use of the phalanx, improved weapons, built up cavalry
 Demosthenes’ warning to Athenians
 Battle of Chaeronea (338 B.C.)
 Assassination of Philip, 336 B.C.
The Peloponnesian War
Alexander the Great and the Wider
Spread of Greek Culture
Succeeded his father in 336 B.C.
 Crossed into Asia Minor in 334 B.C.
 Army of 35,000 Macedonians and Greeks
 Defeated the Persian king and conquered Asia Minor,
Syria, Egypt, Persia and reached the frontiers of India
Alexander’s Dream of “One World”
 Fusion of East and West
 Established cities and colonized them
 Military garrisons would maintain order
 Encouraged intermarriage
 Breakup of the empire
The Hellenistic States
Fusion of Greek Culture and that of Mesopotamia
and Egypt
An imperfect mixture
 Greek the language of business and government
 Ways of the East persisted
 With immense resources available Greek rulers were able
to support researchers in many fields and build libraries
 Absolute rule replaces democracy and oligarchy
 Religion
 Economy encourages large scale production
• Far-flung commerce
• Metropolis
The Greeks in the Middle East
Discussion Questions
What are the characteristics of the Greek city-state? How do these
help the city-state grow and develop? What are the differences
between the city-state of Athens and Sparta? What can explain these
differences?
In the development of Greek philosophy, what were the main areas of
concern and investigation? Why would the Greek philosophers focus
on these areas? What are the philosophical differences between the
Sophists, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle?
Who were the greatest writers in Greek literature? What were the
main themes of each? How do these themes reflect on the life of the
Greeks?
What was the Hellenistic period and how did it contribute to the
development of civilization?