Greek political, social, and cultural experimentation was threatened by the vast Persian army moving west in 490 B.C.E.

Few Greek states except Athens had supported Ionians against their Persian conquerors

Many Greeks saw the Persians as potential allies or rulers preferable to the more powerful Greek neighbors and rivals within their own states

The Persian campaign initially followed the pattern established in Ionia

An almost miraculous victory at marathon against the Persians had 3 consequences on the Greeks and Athens in General

• Established the superiority of the hoplite phalanx as the finest infantry formation in the Mediterranean world

• Greeks expanded this belief in military superiority to a faith in the general superiority of Greeks over the barbarians who were those that spoke other languages

• The victory of the Athenians solidified and enhanced the democratic reforms of Cleisthenes

Athenians selecting chief officers by lot prevented an individual from rising to power by creating powerful faction

Persians paid little attention to Greeks for 6 years

• After Darius I’s death his son Xerxes began to amass foodstuffs, weapons and armies for a land assault on his Greek enemies

• Greek cities began to close ranks against the invaders in response to these Persian preparations

• Greek forces were small against Xerxes’ forces

• Xerxes lost his appetite for fighting Greeks after events occurring at Salamis

Sparta, not Athens should have emerged as the leader of the Greek world after 479 B.C.E.

• Sparta had provided the crucial military force and leadership

• Emerged unscathed from Persian Wars

The Athenian fleet was the best hope in liberating the Aegean from Persians and pirates

Athens accepted control of the Delian League in 478 B.C.E.

• A religious center that housed the league’s treasury

• Athens’s prosperity was ensured due to its domination of the Delian League

• The Delian League was too important to Athenian prosperity to stand and fall with the Persian threat

• League became an empire with Athens's allies being its subjects

Athenian empire was an economic, judicial, religious, and political union held together by military might

Controlled flow of grain through the Hellespont to the Aegean

Ensured its own supply

Heavily taxed cargoes to other cities

Controlled the law courts of member cities and used them to repress anti-Athenian groups

Control over empire depended on Athenian fleet to enforce cooperation

Athens sold the population of another city into slavery

Persian tyranny was hardly worse than Athenian imperialism

Athens was an important, crowded capital drawing merchants, artisans, and laborers throughout the Greek world during the second half of 5th century B.C.E.

Over a quarter of the total population consisted of slaves

• Greek slaves weren’t distinguished by race, ethnicity, or physical appearance

• Anybody could be a slave

• Prisoners of war, foreigners who failed to pay taxes, and victims of pirate raids

• Slaves were as much the property of their owners as land, houses, cattle, and sheep

About half of Athens’s free population were foreigners (metics)

• Primarily Greek citizens of the tributary states of the empires

• Lydians, Phrygians, Syrians, Egyptians, Phoenicians, or Carians

• Number of metals increased after the middle of 5th century B.C.E.

• Metics couldn’t own land in Attica or participate directly in politics

More than half of the women born into citizen families were entirely excluded from public life

• Triumph of democracy reduced the public role of all women

• Every female citizen lived under the protection of a male guardian from birth to death

Male citizens in 5th century B.C.E. were free to an extent unknown in the world previously

• Athenian freedom = freedom in community

• Essence of freedom lay in participation in public life, especially self-government which was their passion

• Participation always occurred with a network of familial, social, and religious connections and obligations

Not all Athenians were socially or economically equal

Real political leadership came from generals and popular leaders

• Demagogues

Demagogues tended to be wealthy aristocrats who could afford to put in the time demanded by voluntary services

• Many Demagogues competed for power and attracted the support of the people

Athenian political system of radical democracy reached its pinnacle under leadership of the general Pericles

• While its imperial program drew it into a long and fatal war against Sparta

Pericles was president of the commission that constructed the statue of Athena that stood in the Parthenon

• Pericles was a general, he never ruled Athens

• With his influence, Athens abolished the last property requirements for office holding

Sparta invaded Attica, triggering the Peloponnesian War, which would destroy both powers

Series of wars and rebellions

• Athens and Sparta waged 2 devastating 10 year wars

• At the same time cities in the alliance used war as an advantage to revolt

Sparta and Athens both hoped for a quick victory

• Sparta’s strength was its army

• Athens was a naval power

The first phase of the war was called the Archidamian War

• Sparta pillaged Attica

• Wasn’t able to breach the great wall or starve Athens

• Spartans received help from plague in 430 B.C.E. which ravaged Athens for 5 years

• A third of the Athens population had died by the time the plague ended

• Both sides contracted peace in 421 B.C.E.

The Peloponnesian War showed the limitations of Athenian democracy and the potential brutality of the oligarchy as well

• Demonstrated catastrophic effects of rivalry and disunity among Greek cities of the Mediterranean

Most of what is today called Greek is actually Athenian

The glory of the Athenian Empire was manifested in art and architecture

Writers, thinkers, and artists came to Athens from throughout the Greek world

Critical and rational nature was a primary characteristic of Athenian culture

Ionian interest in natural philosophy continued throughout the 5th century B.C.E.

• Philosophers started to turn their attention towards the human world

• Particularly the power s and limitations of the individual’s mind and individual’s relationship with society

Art of persuasion was significant in the political world

• Key to political influence

Teachers called Sophists traveled throughout Greece and offered to provide an advanced education for free

• Gained negative reputation later on

• Sophists taught a generation of wealthy Greeks the powers and complexities of human reason

Socrates was a teacher

• Reacted against what he saw as the amoral and superficial nature of sophistic education

• Was superior to the sophists as he recognized his ignorance while the Sophists professed wisdom

• Refused to commit any of his teachings to writing

• Never doubt the moral legitimacy of the Athenian state

Condemned to death in 399 B.C.E. for charges of corrupting the moral legitimacy of the Athenian state

Two writers established spectrum of how to understand the past

• Herodotus: first historian

  • Sought to preserve the memory of the past by recording achievements of both Greeks and Eastnersrs

• Thucydides: second historian

  • Central subject was human society in action

  • Passion was the open self conscious political life characteristics of the Greek polis

Drama became popular not only in Athens but throughout the Greek world since its introduction in 6th century B.C.E.

• Athenian drama became more secular and less mythic due to dramatists beginning to deal with human topics

Aeschylus’s mature plays were tragedies in which religion didn’t play a really important role

Sophocles was the most successful tragedian in the 5th century

Politics ruled the world of Greek comedy

Athenian comic playwrights caused on the political and social issues of the time

Humanity in Greek drama had a parallel in art

• Traditional black figure technique revolutionized vase painting in late 6th century B.C.E.

• Interior details of figures were also in black

Sculptures reflected development towards balance and realism within an ideal of human form

• Greatest sculptural program of 5th century B.C.E. was produced for Athenian acropolis

The sense of overwhelming Athenian superiority and grandeur that the acropolis was meant to convey was an illusion

Writers and artists focused on human existence, seeking a proper proportion, order, and meaning

• A blend of practical and the ideal

Peloponnesian War touched all aspects of Greek Life

Conduct of war and nature of politics changed over decades-long struggle

• Brought forth new conflicts for the victors and those that were vanquished

Spartans and their allies slaughtered all men, enslaved the women, and razed the city when they captured Plataea in 427 B.C.E.

Moment of Greek unity experienced during second Persian War was forgotten due to horrors concerning Peloponnesian conflict

Spartans proved to be unpopular imperialists

Persia turned against its former ally when Sparta supported an unsuccessful attempt of Cyrus to unseat his brother, Artaxerxes II

Unstable alliance of Athens, Corinth, Argos, Thebes, and Euboea was financed by Persia

• Entered series of wars against Sparta

Envy, greed, and distrust which had devastated other Greek powers, also devastated Thebes

Athenian philosophers were affected by failure of Greek political forms, oligarchy, and democracy

• Plato was aristocratic student of Socrates

Plato used dialogue in the form of discussions for transmit his teachings

Plato argued that true knowledge was impossible as long as it focused on the constantly changing, imperfect world of everyday experiences

Much of ancient philosophy was dominated by Plato’s idealist view of knowledge

Aristotle’s teachings didn’t have a large effect on his famous student, Alexander, the son of King Philip of Macedon

Polis had never been the only form of Greek state

• Traditional hereditary chieftains and monarchs

Macedonian people spoke a Greek dialect

• Macedonian kings and elite identified with Greek tradition and culture

Philip intervened in war between Thebes and Phocis

• Ended conflict by forcing himself into the center of Greek affairs

• Success was based on his powerful military machine which combined Macedonian military tradition and new mercenary forces

Philip intended to lead a combined Greek force in a war of revenge and conquest against Persia

• Before he could carry out his plan, he was assassinated

• Alexander, King Philip’s son conquered the world within 13 years

  • “Alexander the Great”

Alexander’s teacher was Aristotle

Alexander’s military genius, dedication to troops, reckless disregard for his own safety, and ability to move men and supplies across large distances at great speeds inspired the war machine developed by Philip

• Left it on an odyssey of conquest that stretched from Asia Minor to India

After conquering Persia, Alexander intended to conquer the whole world

• Reorganized and founded cities

Alexander worked to unite Greek and Persian culture and society

Traditions of Persian government and Zoroastrian toleration and openness combined with Greek culture in novel ways

Alexander died after his return from India at the age of 32, in 323 B.C.E.

• His empire didn’t outlive him

• Fighting broke out among his generals and his kin

• Alexander’s wife and son were killed along with all other members of the royal family

Three large kingdoms dominated Alexander’s former kingdom by 275 B.C.E.

Alexander’s conquests transformed the political map of southern Europe, eastern Asia, and Egyptian Africa

Large parts of the Hellenistic world had been united at different times by the Assyrian and Persian Empires

Hellenistic kings ruled kingdoms already accustomed to centralized government

Hellenistic kingdoms lived in perpetual state of warfare with one another

• Kings needed Greek soldiers, merchants, and administrators

• Hellenistic cities were Greek in physical organization, constitution, and language

Had agoras (marketplaces), temples, theaters, baths, and gymnasiums

Hellenistic cities different fundamentally from Greek cities and colonies of the past

Hellenistic cities were never politically sovereign

Great social and geographical mobility possible in new cities extended to women and men alike

Women began to assume greater roles in the family, economy, and in public life

Most powerful women in Hellenistic society were queens, especially in Egypt

Monarchs vied in making their cities centers of Greek culture

• Queens in particular patronized poets and dramatists

• Cities and wealthy individuals endowed gymnasia and libraries

Alexandria was the most vibrant center of social change and culture

• Alexander the Great had founded it

Royal agents looked through the book markets of Greece and Asia Minor and paid top prices for rare and obscure texts

• By royal order, ships arriving in Alexandria were boarded and searched for books to copy

Generations of poet-scholars spent their careers in the Museum

• Studied, edited, and commented on the classics

• Standardized texts

• Invented basic aspects of writing; punctuation, accent marks, etc.

Hellenist writers developed new forms of literature

• Such as romance

Alexandria attracted the greatest scholars and poets of the Hellenistic world

• Political rivalry encourage architectural and artistic rivalry

• Temples, porticoes, and public building crew in size and ornamentation

Architects experimented with multi-tiered buildings

Hellenistic architects developed more elaborate and monumental buildings and combined the buildings in harmonious urban ensembles

Freestanding statues and murals and mosaics adorned public squares, temples, and private homes of Hellenistic cities

• Artists continued traditions of Hellenistic age while showing more freedom in portraying tension, restlessness, and individuality in the human form

Philosophy thrived in the Hellenistic world

• Cynics, Epicureans, and Stoics advocated types of morality less directly related to the state and society

Cynics

• Believed that individual freedom came through renunciation of materialistic things, society, and leisure

• The more that one had the more vulnerable one would be to the whims of fortune

• Goal was to reduce possessions, connections, and pleasures

Epicureans

• Sought freedom from pain rather than from conventions of ordinary life

• Pleasure was to be pursued rationally

• Real goal was to reduce desires to those desires that were simple and attainable

Stoics

• Followed nature

• Nature led them to greater participating in it

• Believed that human society was ordered and unified like the universe

• Believed everybody had a role in the divinely ordered universe and all roles were of equal value

All three philosophical traditions emphasized importance of reason and the proper understanding of nature

Ptolemaic Egypt became center of mathematical studies

Aristarchus of Samos theorized that the sun and fixed stars were motionless and that the earth moved around the sun

• His theory wasn’t taken into account as it wasn’t supported by math

Hipparchus of Nicaea placed the earth at the center of the universe and was supported by more mathematically acceptable arguments

Hellenistic medicine combined theory and observation

Continuing hostility between kingdoms and within kingdoms in the west made way for the new power of the west: Rome

Rugged slopes, fertile plains, and arid islands of the Greek world gave way to characteristic forms of social, political, and cultural organization that show up in different forms wherever Western civilization has taken root

The interminable wars amongst the Greek states left eh Greek world open for conquest by a powerful semi-Greek monarchy which went on to spread Athenian culture throughout the known world