Classics

Study Guide to Martin

Chapter 1: Background of Ancient Greece

Important themes, concepts, ideas to carry away from your reading of Chapter i:

• geography of Greece. What constituted the place we call Greece (Hellas)? What about mainland Greece's geography led the area to develop as it did?
• p.4 KEY: Greek cultural identity. What are the components of Greek Identity?
• Egalitarianism and the role of gender. How did technology purportedly affect both egalitarianism in society and gender? What changes did technology bring?
• Agricultural Revolution. Specialization of Labor. The concept of diffusion. (p. 13)

Chapter 2: From Indo-European to Mycenaean

Know the following peoples:
Minoans (named after King Minos. In Egyptian records they are called the land of Keftiu, hence Keftians (?)).
Mycenaeans (named after the most famous palace site of the period, Mycenae. Often called Achaeans in Homer.)
Know the following period term:
Bronze Age
Know the following places:
Crete (and the palace site of Knossos)
Thera (and the town of Akrotiri)
Mycenaean Greece (Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, Thebes, Athens)
Troy (northwest Anatolia near the Dardanelles)

"Indo-European roots" (see map on page 18). Look at the hypotheses proposed regarding the Indo-European tribes and their effect on the people they purportedly replaced (i.e., the indigenous population called Pelasgians by Thucydides). See pages 19 and following.

What are the two arguments put forth? What is your conclusion?

Study the question of cultural influence (p. 21)

What is meant by redistributive economy? How would you characterize the economies of Knossos and Mycenae?

What is meant by "Mycenaean warrior culture?"

Know the following terms:
megaron
tholos
Linear B
chariots

What happened at the end of the Bronze Age? (1200-1100 BCE). What are the possible reasons for the downfall of the palace sites? What are the consequencies for Mycenaen society once the palace sites no longer functioned? Who are the "Sea Peoples"?

Chapter 3: The Dark Age

Set "foundations for values, traditions, and new forms of social and political organization that would characterize them [the Greeks] in later ages."

Consequences of collapse of Mycenaean world

• loss of writing
• further development of oral poetry as means of transmission of history, values, etc.
• social hierarchy. (Note evidence found in Lefkandi on the island of Euboea. Burial of couple under a 150' building.
• developement of hero cults

Economic Recovery and Technology
By 900 BCE wealthy enough to have objects buried with body. For men usually weapons of war, especiall iron weapons. What is the significance of iron? What kind of world do we have based on what was found in graves?

Social Values
What does Martin mean by 'aristocracy'? (from the Greek aristoi meaning "the best")? Who were the elite? Elite found in the poems of Homer.
What is xenia? arete? kleos?
Olympic Games
Tie in with video shown in class. What do they tell us about the nature of Greek society? What is an 'agon'? What is meant by 'agonistic society'? Who is Milo of Croton? In what ways are the games communal in aspect?

Religion and Myth

• communal feasting
• conceptual basis found in myth about the gods and their relationship to humans.
• Near Eastern influence.
• Hesiod: Works and Days and Theogony
• role of persuasion, i.e., public speaking in Greek life (important in the development of democracy)

Chapter 4: Archaic Age 750-500/480

Martin is somewhat misleading on his discussion of the term 'archaic'. The ancients themselves used the term to define the art of the archaic period. Features

• Rise of the polis (poleis is plural form). What factors contributed to the development of the polis? Who belonged? What does citizenship mean? How can women be considered citizens of the polis if they cannot participate in public life?

Characteristics

• included city and countryside=a political state
• members were obliged to honor the state's patron deity. For example, the patron deity of Athens is Athena. The Panathenaic games were held in her honor and the whole community participated.
• preeminent form form of political and social organization from Greece 750 BCE (with Sparta being an exception)
• independent but formed leagues or federations in time of need.

• Colonization
  

• Chattel Slavery

• Marriage and Households

Chapter 5: Oligarchy, Tyranny, and Democracy (pages 70-93)

What were the diverging paths toward political developments of the polis? Is there a common pattern to development of poleis? How does Sparta differ?

Polis: shared features: citizenship, slavery, political exclusion of women, predominance of wealthy elites, and I would add law-based.

How would you define the following terms: oligarchy, tyranny, democracy

Early Sparta Oligarchy was the political base for society devoted to military readiness. Syneocism; kings, gerousia, assembly, ephors. Know the following people and terms: Lycurgus, Tyrtaeus, perioikoi, helot, Messenian Wars.
What was the Spartan way of life?

Rise of Tyrants

Why and when did tyrants come to the fore? Who were they. Know the following people: Cypselus, Polycrates, Pisistratus, and Hippias

Athens Know Draco (621), Solon and his reforms, Cleisthenes

Lyric Poetry: Archilochus, Alcaeus, Sappho. Presocratics: Thales.

Chapter 6: From the Persian Wars to Athenian Empire

Persian Wars 490/480-79 Athenian blundering led to Athens later problems with Persia. In 507 Athens offered earth and water as a token of submission in return for Persian protection against Sparta. Why did Athens feel it needed protection against Sparta? The dynamics reveal forces motivating the conflicts that would dominate military and political history of the mainland.

First campaign: Marathon. What did Darius I hope to accomplish in his campaign against Eretria and Athens in 490? Where is Marathon? What were the consequences of Athenian victory against the overwhelming numbers of Persians?

Xerxes (486-465) How did the second Persian campaign differ from the earlier one? Know the scenes of the pivotal battles: Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea. Know where these sites are.

Key figures:
Miltiades
Themistocles
Mardonius
Pausanias
Aristides the Just
How did the success of the city-state shape the development of Athenian democracy in Athens? What does it tell us about the Greeks and the other 30 city-states who formed the Hellenic league against Persia? What do we learn from Demaratus' putative remarks to Xerxes? [See your document text.]

Athenian Empire
How and for what reasons did the Athenian Empire come into being? What is the Delian League? What was the Peloponnesian League?

Key Figures:
Cimon (510-450)
Ephialtes
Pericles
Democratic Reform of 461
What did Ephialtes do in 461? What is the court of the Areopagus? Who served on the juries? How were they selected? What is the role of persuasive speech in the radical democracy of Athens? What do we mean by radical democracy? What is ostracism and how does it work?

Pericles

Who was he? What elective office did he hold? What reforms did he institute in the 450s? What were his significant achievements in foreign and domestic policy? What was involved in the rebuilding of the Acropolis? What was Pericles role in the building program? What do we know of domestic architecture of the period?

Chapter 7: Culture and Society in Classical Athens

What is the Golden age?
What is the nature of the Greek gods? How did humans interact with the gods? In what way was religion important to the community? What was the role of ritual?
Drama: When and in what context were tragedies performed? Who are the greatest tragedians? What was the purpose of tragedy in life of the polis? What can tragedies tell us about social roles?
Athenian Life for women: Could women inherit property? What roles could women play in the polis? Why was access restricted to upper class women? Who are the hetairai? What was the purpose of marriage?
Training for Public Life: How where men socialized? What was the role of the gymnasia? What was the mentor-protege role? What purpose did it served? How did Plato characterized the ideal relationship? What is a symposium? Who are the sophists? Why were they seen as a destabilizing factor in the polis? What two related views were taught by sophists? How would we view such arguments today? Who was Protagoras? What were his views?
Know the following figures:

• Protagoras
• Anaxagoras
• Hecataeus
• Herodotus
• Hippocrates of Cos
• Pericles
• Aspasia
• Medea
• Antigone
• Creon
• Oedipus

Know the concept of nomos and physis.Chapter 8: Peloponnesian War and Its Aftermath

Besides the Persian Wars, no other war has so dominated Greek History as the Peloponnesian War. Indicative of the competitive, fractious spirit of the Greeks, the war would prove to be disastrous not only to the Athens who lost but also to the other Greek poleis. Once Athens was removed as the greatest source of fear to Sparta and her allies, Sparta then became the source of fear. The fourth century is a series of wars amongst individual poleis and alliances, or leagues as they are called. Philip II of Macedon put an end to the wars by his defeat of the Greeks at Chaeronea in 338 BCE. Philip is assassinated in 336. His son Alexander picks up his mantle and pursues war against the Persians.

Much of what we know about the war is due to the account by Thucydides the historian. (There was a politician in Athens who also bore the same name.) He was an Athenian general who was exiled in 424 for the failure of Athenians to prevent a Spartan victory. He then turned his attention to writing a monograph on the war. His monograph became the model for the premier historians of the ancient world, for he eschewed myth and divine causes for events. Thucydides had a keen sense of human nature and although he was an Athenian, he does not fail to show the ethical and political errors of his fellow citizens. So far we have read two passages from his work. "Pericles Funeral Oration" and "The Plague in Athens".

Questions on Chapter 8

• What does the Peloponnesian War show us?
• What were the causes of the war?
• What was Pericles' strategy
• Did the Athenians follow his strategy?
• What unforeseen disaster befell the Athens early in the war and what were the consequences of that event?
• What was the Peace of Nicias? When?
• What was the Sicilian Expedition and what were the consequences for Athens?
• What is the significance of the amnesty of 403

Know the following people, places: Pericles
Cleon
Alcibiades
Nicias
Brasidas
Lysander
Thirty Tyrants
Sphachteria
Amphipolis
Melos
Syracuse
Segesta (Egesta)
Corinth
Cocyra (Corfu)