Nov. 5- Nov. 9

11/5-

Persian Wars(Greco-Persian) 499-449 BCE
- fought between the Persian Empire and Greek city-states(Athens, Sparta, Thebes)
Why did Persia want Greece?
- wealth and resources
- increase the prestige of the King
- end the numerous rebellions in the western part of their empire
Ionian Revolt 499-493 BCE
- the Ionians(Greeks) led a revolt against the Perians after Cyrus the Great died
- led by the Athenian General Miltiades
- Ionia asked Athens to help them which they did
- Darius the Great(Persian leader) quickly ended the Ionian Revolt but was very angry at the Greeks
- Darius vowed to burn Athens to the ground before he died for helping the Ionians
Miltiades Escapes
- Miltiades escaped back to Athens and told the Athenians that the Persians were coming to burn Athens
Persian "Peace" Envoy
- Darius sent an envoy to the Greek city-states in 491 BCE asking then to submit to the Persians
- What did Athens do in response?
  - they killed the Persian envoys
- Darius responded with a naval invasion of 600 ships and 25,000 men
Ancient Greece vs. Civilization of Persia
- Persia was the largest empire in the world at the time and consisted of millions of people
- Ancient Greece was about 500,000 total people
- it was truly a David vs. Goliath battle
Athens and Sparta united
- Athens and Sparta had been enemies for hundreds of years
- they now fought not for Athens or for Sparta but for Greece
Battle of Marathon- 490 BCE
- 90,000 Perisans
- 10,000-20,000 Greeks
- Greek hoplites vs Persian archers- Who won?
  - the Greek hoplites won
- How did they win?
  - longer spears, heavier swords, better armor, and the phalanx formation
Pheidippides
- after the battle ended, he ran from Marathon to Sthens to tell the Athenians of the victory over Peria
- Just over 26 miles form Marathon to Athens
  - thats how the Marathon runs today got their name
Battle of Thermopylae- 480 BC (the movie 300 is based on this battle)
- 10 years after the Battle of Marathon, Persia once again invaded Greece
- Darius the Great's son, Xerxes, made it a goal to destroy Athens
- The Persians won the Battle of Thermopylae but not before the Spartan soldiers held out for days allowing many Greek troops to retreat
- it also allowed Greek cities time to prepare
- every Greek person died
Aftermath of the Battle of Thermopylae
- even though the Persians won this battle, it slowed the Persians down enough for the Greek city-states to build up their defenses
- The Persians moved into Greece and sacked Athens
The Battle of Salamis- 480 BC
- at the naval Battle of Salamis, the Greeks destroyed the Persian navy
- the Persians were never the same after that and were eventually driven out of Greece
- After the Persian Wars, the Delian League was established setting up an alliance between the Greek city-states
- Starting around 470 BC, Greece, and Athens specifically, entered a golden age
The Peace Treaty- 449 BCE
- all Greek city-states of Asia were to be free
- Persia couldn't come close to certain areas in Greece
  - Persian satraps(governors and armies) were not to travel west of the Halys River or closer than a day's journey on horseback to the Aegan Sea or closer than three days' journey on foot to the Aegean Sea
  - No Persian warship was to sail west of Phaselis, nor west of the Cyanaean rocks
  - If the terms were observed by the Persian king and his generals, then the Athenians would not send troops to the Persian lands

11/6- Democracy and Greece's Golden Age- after the persian wars

The Golden Age of Athens
- 477-431 BC
- came about after Greece defeated the Persians
- drama, sculpture, poetry, philosophy, architecture, and science flourished
- also known as the "Age of Pericles"
  - led Athens in the Peloponnesian War
Pericles' Plan for Athens- 461-429 BC
- three goals for Athens
  - strengthen Athenian democracy
  - hold and strengthen the empire
  - glorify athens
- Goal #1: Stronger Democracy
  - increased the number of paid government jobs which benefitted people who were not wealthy
  - instituted direct democracy- everbody that is a citizen votes
    - citizens rule directly and not through elected representatives
- Goal #2: Strengthen the Empire
  - helped establish and eventually led the Delian League after the Persian Wars
    - alliance of Greek city-states
  - grew Athen's navy
  - started dominating other city-states which led to conflicts
- Goal #3: Glorify Athens
  - used money from the Delian League to buy gold, marble and ivory
  - used money from the Delian League to hire artists, architects, and workers to build buildings and sculptures
  - Phidias was hired to build the Parthenon
  - Greek sculptors focused on beauty, not realism
  - Classical art focused on simplicity and being well proportioned

11/7- talked about the election results

11/8- more notes

Greek Drama- Tragedy and Comedy
- A tragedy was a serious drama about common themes such as love, hate, war, or betrayal
  - the hero usually was an important person and often gifted with extraordinary abilities
  - a tragic flaw usually caused the hero's downfall, usually excessive pride
  - Sophocles wrote Oedipus the King, a famous tragedy
- A comedy contained scenes filled with humor
  - playwrights often made fun of politics and respected people and ideas of the time
  - Aristophanes was a famous writer of comedies
  - the fact that Athenians could listen to criticism of themselves showed the freedom that existed in democratic Athens
The start of the greatest subject in recorded histroy
- History
- Herodotus pioneered the accurate reporting of events
- Thucydides believed that certain types of events and political situations recur over time-History repeats itself
Peloponnesian(Attic) War
- what we know about this war came from historian Thucydides
- fought between Athens and Sparta
- came about as a result of Sparta not liking Athens growth of wealth and power in the area after Persian War
- Athens was acting like a bully to other city-states
- Sparta had a better army, Athens had a better navy
- with the help of a plague that hit Athens, Sparta eventually won
Three Stages of the Peloponnesian War
- Stage 1
  - Sparta launched repeated invasions of Attica starting in 431 BCE
  - Goal was to take over their land and eventually starve the Athenians if they would not meet them in battle
  - Spartans would only occupy Attica for around three weeks at a time as they had to go back and harvest crops
  - Spartans also had to worry about helot revolts, so they needed to be supervised constantly
- Pericles Plan for Athens Victory- Stage 1
  - wanted to avoid land battles with Sparta
  - Get begind Athen's wall
  - Use the Long Walls(3.7 miles) to access the sea in order to trade and get resources
  - use the Athenian navy to invade cities in the Peloponnese
- The Plague
  - in 430 BCE, a plague hit Athens
  - the plague wiped out over 30,000 citizens, sailors and soldiers, including Pericles and his sons
  - roughly one-third to two-thirds of the Athenian population died
  - the fear of plague was so widespread that the Spartan invasion of Attica was abandoned
- Peace of Nicias-First Stage Peace Treaty
  - this period of the war ended in 421 BCE(10 years after war started) with the signing of the Peace of Nicias
    - the treaty basically said that both sides would give back most everything that they took from the other during the war
    - temples throught Greece would be open to worshippers from all cities
    - Athens could continue to collect tribute from the states from which it had received
  - Athens agreed to come to Sparta's aid if the helots revolted
- Peace Treaty was abandoned by 414 BCE

11/9-notes

Stage 2 of the Peloponesian War
- Sicilian Exhibition
  - in 415 BC, Athens invaded Syracuse, Sicily
    - 100 ships, 5,000 soldiers, 30 horses
  - wanted to help ethnic allies(Ionians) that were on the island
  - Athens enemy were the Syracusan and Spartans
  - Athens wanted to take the entire island for resources
  - an Athenian general defected to Sparta and told them that Athens wanted Sicily so they could launch an invasion of Itlay, Carthage and the Peloponnese
  - the attack failed badly, with the destruction of the entire force in Syracuse harbor in 413 BC
Stage 3
- known as the Decelian War 413-404 BCE
- the Spartans moved into Attica and eventually took oer the city of Decelia and fortified it
- their goal was to take over the land and prevent Athens from getting supplies into the city over land
- this would force Athens to rely on supplies via the sea
- due to this, Sparta started focusing on attacking areas that Athens got resources from
  - areas around athens- silver mines
  - Dardenelles- grain
- Sparta was now also getting helf from the Syracusans and Persians Athens followed the Spartans with their navy as the Spartans went to attack their strongholds
- in 405 BCE, the Athenians were defeated in the naval Battle of Aegospotami
- the Athenians surrendered, ending the Peloponnesian War
Aftermath of the Peloponnesian War- 405 BCE
- Sparta took over the Athens empire
- Sparta got all the riches from the war and Sparta's allies got little to nothing
- for a short period of time, Athens ruled by Sparta and the Thirty Tyrants(Oligarchy)
  - killed 5% of Athens population, seized land and dismantled the democracy
- In 403 BC, the Thirty Tyrants were overthrown and a democracy was restored
- The Corinthian War(395-387 BCE) was a war between Sparta and Athens, Corinth and many other city-states
  - Persia's role
- Sparta was later soundly beat by Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE ending Sparta's dominance in the areas
- Philip II of Macedon conquered all of Greece except Sparta in 338 BC
- Philip's son, Alexander, took over Sparta by 331 BCE- and then more places

Blogs

Nov. 5- Nov. 9

Comments