HST 1100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Iliad, Socratic Method, Peloponnesian League
Early Greece: One of the 3 Pillars of Western Civilization
Impact of Geography
• Mountainous and rocky in the center
o More independent city-states and more isolated
• Dense populations in small areas
o Only certain areas are habitable
• Harbors and bays
o Develop powerful maritime tradition
o Traders and culture transmitters
• Minoan Crete 2000 – 1450 BCE
o Minoan language lost
o Palace at Knossus
▪ Indoor plumbing
o Collapses suddenly in 1450 BCE
▪ Don’t know why
▪ Could be a volcanic eruption or Mycenaean invasion
• Volcanic eruption could be the genisus of the atlantis story
The First Greek States: the Mycenaeans
• Flourished between 1600-1100 BCE
• Indo-Europeans
o Indo-European language
• Had powerful monarchies
• Had fortified palaces. Like the palace at Knossus in Crete
• A war-oriented society led by powerful military kings
o Trojan war: an actual war the Mycenaeans carried out, remembered by the Greeks
o Become a hero people to the Greeks
o Like famous king Oedipus
• Mycenae destroyed c. 1190 BCE
o We don’t know what or why
Dark Ages
• Period of decline that centers around 850 BCE (1100-750)
o For a while there is sudden devastation
o Lack of farming
o Lack or literacy
• Darians come in and replace the Mycaenean kingdoms
o Revival:
o Farming revived
▪ Cash crop olives
o Migrations to Ionia
o Adoption of the Phoenician alphabet
▪ Literacy returning
o Revival of trade
o Use of Iron and iron weaponing
• Homer
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o The Iliad
o The Odyssey
o Reflects back to the golden Mycenae age, but with the values of Dark Age Greece
▪ Courage
▪ Excellence
▪ Pious
▪ Greek culture coming back
▪ Heroes
Greek City-States c. 750-500 BCE
• The Polis: City-state that forms from a central city made up of several other surrounding
towns
o Unit of political and personal identity
o Political unit through which you have certain rights and obligations
o What it means to have a city and a government
o Aristotle: the polis is a grouping of citizens and the citizens bleong to the polis
▪ Look out for one another and the state and the common good over individual
good
• New military system formed
o Hoplites and phalanx
▪ Hoplites: footmen, heavy infantry units, heavy armour, and long spears
▪ Phalanx: a tight knit square formation where each man protects comrades with
shields and fight with spears
• Hoplites join Phalanx
o Professional military
• Greek Polis form colonies nearby and overseas
o Military and mercantile expansion lead to overpopulation
o Sicily, Spain, Southern France, and Italy
o These colonies began to operate independently of their founding city states or
Metropolis
• The Age of the Tyrants
o The leadership of city-states were tyrants: a local aristocrat who rule the polis
▪ Response to when factions arose among aristocrats in greek city states
▪ Tyrants come forward to focus the city-states
o Outside the law: create law
o Favored the interests of merchants and traders
o Fall out of favor by the end of the 6th century
o Often hired philosophers to help them think about better ways to rule
Sparta
• Laconia: where Sparta was based
o The early Spartans were a confederation of small villages that banded together to
increase their farming ability
o Neighbors had food and land so Sparta expanded and took over the neighbors
▪ Forcing them to work as a surf class
• Two classes
o Spartans
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o Helots: the surf class (Mycenaean people)
• Lycurgos
o One-eyed law giver who create the Spartan reform
o Spartans were to live simply
o Men lived in barracks and military lifestyle – always ready to fight
o Spartan women
▪ More authority than other Greek women
▪ Freer
▪ Supposed to push their men to fight and die for their cause
▪ Come back a victorious warrior or dead
• Spartan males were born and if they were not deemed strong enough they were left to the
elements to die
o At the age of 7 moved to dormitory
o Had heads shaved
o Bath twice a year
o Act as a werewolf and survive on your own
• Male relationships
o Spartan men often had relationships between older men and young trainees
o Expected to marry and have children, but allowed to have same sex relationships
• Oligarchy: government in the hands of a select group of people
o Two kings from different families and a council – elders
▪ Jeriosia is the councel and appella ( group of male citizens) vote
▪ Ephors – in charge of supervising education of children and judging cases of
law
• Isolationist and xenophopic
o Used iron currency so strangers wouldn’t use it
o Also used military strength to get control of others
o Dominated the Peloponnesian league
Classical Greece
Ancient Greece: Athens
• Attica region
• Economic problems
o Hippeis: the aristocracy (because they have the ability to own a horse
o Lower class farmers had to borrow from them
o They couldn’t pay back their debts
o They had to start selling themselves as partial slaves to pay them back
o Political crisis arises because Athenians don’t want other Athenians to be slaves
o Hippeis don’t want a change though
• Solon’s reform
o In response to this economic crisis he pushes through reforms
o He cancels all current debt
o Outlawed human collateral and freed the enslave Athenians
o And allowed all adult males the right to vote
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