-LO3- Citizens and Communities: The
Greek City-States
-Tribal communities of the Dark Ages
turned into city-states
-Greek city-states were small,
usually of no more than a town and a few square miles surrounding it
-Athens and Sparta
were each about the same size as a couple of U.S. counties
-Usually each town or city-state
consisted of a couple thousand, while Athens may have reached as many as
250,000
-Both fortresses and temples were
vitally important to the Greek city-states
-Fiercely competitive communities
that often fought
-Each community would worship a god
or goddess (Athens- Athena)
-City-States and Citizens
-Greek city-states developed at the
same time that Assyrians were reaching for power west of Mesopotamia
-Greece was not controlled by a
universal empire, allowing the city-states to fight among themselves
-Couldn’t afford professional
soldiers so they relied on infantry armies from their own males
-For the males who could afford it,
they would equip themselves with bronze helmets and armor, long spears with
iron blades and short iron swords
-Poorer citizens fought as
light-armed infantry, annoying the enemy before the stronger part of the army
would attack
-Each city-state was thought to be
developed by families or clans descended by a divine or semidivine founder
(Athens- King Theseus- Son of Poseidon)
-Most of citizens claimed to be
offspring of common forefathers
-Status of father determined that of
his children
-There was no reason to fight in an
individual state because they were all related somehow
-Monarchy, Oligarchy, Tyranny,
Democracy
-Earliest parts of Greek times
communities were ruled by kings
-Monarchy gave way to new forms of government that gave white
males more power
-These new forms were Oligarchy, Tyranny, and Democracy
-In Oligarchy a minority of citizens
dominated the government
-Many city-states that were in the
middle of land were Oligarchies (Sparta)
-But in most city-states the people
were too large in numbers and active to ignore
-Triremes were a big part of navies
and armies- consisting of majority of males
-In these large city-states
government would run into tyranny
-But tyranny didn’t last and
Democracy would come after
-Democracy was powered by the
majority of white male citizens (Athens)
-Women would attend community
affairs and had little to no power in government
-When a city-state would sail to
find a new colony, the new colony would become a new city-state
-When a city-state would conquer
another it would spread its control but not the citizens
-In summary city-states would battle
in an endless war
-Sparta: The Military Ideal
-Spartans were descendants of Greeks
who conquered the southern mainland
-They would push west for rich soil
-Spartan citizens were outnumbered
ten to one with noncitizens
-To hold the helots, Spartans would have to have a government that
allowed domination from their own kind
-Main executive authority were five
officials elected annually, and they were usually elder
-Their way of life dedicated male
citizens to the state
-The males were made as warriors
-At age of seven boys were taken
from their families and would go on an extreme life of physical and military
training
-They were allowed to marry after
20, and bachelors were punished
-Even married men were required to
live in barracks until the age of thirty
-Women would also have to go into
physical drills to become healthy and child-bearing women
-But they were given more freedom
from the state
-Women were praised if they gave
great military ideas
-After the Spartans were starting to
lose battles, Aristotle said that women were useless for war, so trying to
protect the Spartans tough life, they tried to seal off their state due to the
fact that there best trait, war, was losing out
-Most Spartans would pay to have
their system stay as is
-With this system, Spartans were the
dominant city-state of mainland Greece
-Athens: Freedom and Power
-According to the Athenians the
Spartan way of life was pointless
-A joke made was the fact that
Spartan life would lead to death
-Athens was not agricultural and
landlocked like Sparta but rather carried on prosperous commerce and access to
the sea
-Sparta- army and Athens- navy
-Sparta- closed and controlled:
Athens- open and free
-But even though Athens was peace
and freedom like they were also warlike
-Over a few centuries Athens was one
of the most wealthy and powerful states
-Citizens, immigrants, and slaves
worked together to make weapons, pottery, and articles of silver, lead, and
marble
-These products would be shipped to
various places
-Athenian aristocrats were proud to
be excellent humans
-Their families would marry mostly
among themselves
-The boys were physically fit in
anything and at age of 18 assigned to two years of military and civic training
-They were outstanding in body and
mind
-Even some aristocrat girls would
get an education
-Athens went through many stages of
government
-After democracy was made there were
two turning points in life of Athens and Greece
-First was Persian wars which Athens
lead Greece to victory, and then it came to the Golden Age (460 B.C. - 430
B.C.)
-This time was when Athens were
confident, strong, powerful and most successful in all Greece but it was cut
short cause of the Peloponnesian wars
-This war was between Athens and
Sparta in which Athens was defeated and never grew back the same confidence
-In the Sixth Century B.C. the
Persians were the first universal empire to attack Greece
-They conquered Greece until
revolutions were made by the Athenians causing Darius I to conquer mainland
Greece
-Son of Darius, Xerxes, sent two
expeditions by land and sea to conquer Greece
-The first was stopped by Athens at
Marathon in 490 B.C.
-Second was stopped ten years later
in Salamis near Athens in which Athenian ships destroyed the Persian ships
-On land a small Spartan force would
hold Xerxes and his army in their suicidal stand at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. but
the main portion of Spartan armies would defeat the Persians at Plataea
-Athens would liberate the Greeks of
Anatolia in 445 B.C. forcing Persia to make peace
-Democracy was their only way to
survive and thrive at the same time
-In Athenian Democracy power would
rest in adult male citizens
-Any decision made was made through
the Assembly
-Meetings were held once a week and
less than five thousand would attend
-Meeting place was first at agora
but later at a hill called the Pynx
-Voting was by show of hands
-Debates were very spirited and this
way of government lead to many governments present today
-To keep balance the people of the
government (Council of five-hundred and one thousand public officials that it
supervised) were chosen by lot
-Ten generals were voted each year
to command the armies and navies
-Cause of the amount of general’s,
military takeover of power was a very small chance
-For a court each trial was made up
of a draw of five-hundred men from a list
-This would guarantee a broad
judgment of the crime
-There were no lawyers and every
citizen would argue their own case
-Women power was the same as most
other places
-If the woman was to leave the house
she would be escorted by a close male relative
-They were protected more though by
close male companions
-They were important when it came to
worshipping gods and goddesses
-The fifty thousand or so resident
aliens were a varied group
-They could be wealthy men to
slaves, independent women to owner of stores
-The hundred thousand group of
slaves were also diverse
-Some could get and education and
were likely freed in the owners will
-While some slaves were treated
fairly there were many others who were not
-Athenian laws concerning aliens,
slaves, and women were not a part of democracy
-Greek Words
-Polis- Greek City- State
-Politēs- Citizen
-Dēmos- Common People
-Ephors- Overseers
-Agora- Marketplace
-Stratēgoi- Force Commanders
-Hataerae- Female Companions
-Vocabulary
-Colony-a new city-state settled in
an oversea territory by a group sponsored by a city-state elsewhere
-Oracle-a priest or a priestess who
was believed to give answers that were inspired by a god or goddess to
questions from worshipers at a temple
-Acropolis-the high fortified
citadel and religious center of an ancient Greek town
-Hoplite-a heavily armed and armored
citizen-soldier of ancient Greece
-Phalanx-a unit of several hundred
hoplites, who closed ranks by joining shields when approaching the enemy
-Monarchy-a state in which supreme
power is held by a single, usually heredity ruler
-Oligarchy-a state in which supreme
power is held by a small group
-Triremes-massive fighting vessels
with three banks of oars, used to ram or board enemy ships
-Tyranny-rule by a self-proclaimed
dictator
-Democracy-a form of government in
which all adult male citizens were entitled to take part in decision making
-Helots-noncitizens forced to work
for landholders in the ancient city-state of Sparta
-Aristocrats-members of prominent
and long-established Athenian families
-Ostracism-banishment for ten years
by majority vote of the Athenian Assembly
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