Flashcards
Ancient Greece
Cards in this deck (8)
- 1Ancient Greece Geography• Geography helped shape early Greek civilizations.
• Greece is a peninsula in southern Europe
• Surrounded by three bodies of water:
o Mediterranean Sea
o Ionian Sea
o Aegean Sea
• Contains rugged mountains and rocky coastlines which make farming and travel difficult.
• People settled in flat areas along the coast and in river valleys for farmland.
• Because travel was difficult, comminutes were isolated from each other.
• Early Greeks used the sea as a source for food and a way of trading with other communities.
• They became skilled shipbuilders and sailors. - 2Trading Cultures• MINOANS:
o Around 2000 BC, Island of Crete
o Most time spent at sea, excellent ship builders
o Traded wood, olive oil, and pottery for copper, gold, silver, and jewels.
o 1600s BC huge volcanic eruption caused waves and flooded Crete.
o Huge clouds of ash ruined crops and buried cities leading to the end of the Minoan civilization.
• MYCENAEANS:
o First people to speak Greek.
o Built many fortresses
o Largest was Mycenae
o Took over Crete around 1400s BC and became major traders in the eastern Mediterranean.
o Colonies in northern Greece & Italy.
o Attacked many other kingdoms
o Some historians think they attacked the city of Troy & started the Trojan War
o Society began to fall apart around 1200s BC when invade arrived from Europe & earthquakes destroyed many cities.
DARK AGES: After the the Mycenaeans crumbled, Greece entered a time of disorder and warfare called the Dark Ages. - 3City-States• After the Dark Ages, Greeks started to join together in small groups for protection & stability which became city-states or polis.
• Often built around a fortress in on top of high hill or acropolis.
• Farmers typically lived outside the city walls near their fields.
• Life center around the market place or agora. Farmers traded crops for goods made by craftsmen.
• Marketplace provided any area for meeting & discussing political & religious ideas.
• City-sates not only provided security but also identity.
• After the Dark Ages, many Greeks began to think and reached the same idea: Greeks should establish colonies.
• Groups from city-sates began to set up colonies in distant lands—spreading around the Mediterranean and Black seas—Istanbul in Turkey, Marseille in France, and Naples in Italy.
Colonies traded with city-sates which caused city-states to become very wealthy and great trading centers. - 4Oligarchy“Rule by few!”
• A government in which only a few people have power—aristocrats.
• Aristocrats are rich landowners.
• Early Athens was governed by a small group of powerful aristocrats.
• Aristocrats were the richest men in town, ran the city’s economy, and served as generals & judges. - 5Tyranny“Rule by tyrant!”
• Athenians were not pleased with the aristocrats so Peisistratus overthrew the oligarchy in 546 BC.
• Athens became a tyranny.
• Tyranny means “rule by a tyrant”—a strong leader who has power.
• Today the word tyrant means a ruler who is harsh, but the word had a different meaning in Ancient Greece.
• Tyrants were able to stay in power because of the support of the people & the strong armies.
• Peisistratus brought peace & prosperity to the city.
• He increased the strength of the navy.
• He made Athens beautiful by creating the Parthenon and the temple of Athena.
After Peisteatus died, his son took over, but many aristocrats who upset because their power was gone—some of these angry aristocrats convinced a rival city-state to attack Athens. - 6DemocracyRule by the people!”
• The people of Athens tried many different forms of government before creating democracy.
• By 500 BC Athens became a democracy when Cleisthenes gained power & didn’t want aristocrats ruling—with the help of the people he overthrew the aristocrats
• Democracy means rule by the people.
• This government is based on the votes of its free citizens.
• Cleisthenes is considered the “father of democracy”.
Democracy under Cleisthenes:
• Citizen had the right to participate in assembly and speak their opinions.
• Only free male citizens were members of the assembly with the right to vote—women, slaves, & foreigners could not participate.
• For major decisions, 6,000 people were needed to vote & it was difficult to get that many people together.
• Major votes required everyone—slaves would be sent to gather the people in the market with a red painted rope—if you had red on you, you had to vote or pay a large fine.
• Officials helped decide which laws the assembly should discuss & they helped the government run more smoothly. - 7Greek Gods and Myths- They believed the natural disasters like storms, lightening, seasons, earthquakes, & volcanoes were caused by the gods.
- They used myths & gods to explain the world (nature & history).
- Mythology—a body of stories about gods & heroes that try to explain how the world works—now a days people have scientific to natural and historical events.
- Gods were good & bad—affected agriculture.
- Zeus—god of lightening
- Poseidon—god of the seas
- Greeks honored gods by holding sporting contests—that’s how the Olympics began—held every four years in the city of Olympia in honor of Zeus.
- Greeks also built great temples all around Greece to keep the gods happy but they expect the gods to help them when needed.
- They not only believed in gods but also heroes—many of which that had special abilities and faced terrible monsters.
- Hercules was the most famous hero.
- Some heroes were real and from the Trojan war.
- Oracle—at Delphi—leaders asked for advice on how to rule their cities.
- Oracle—a person who is in communication with the gods. - 8Greek Literature
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- Flashcards on Ancient Greece, created by Etsub Afework on 22/05/2016.
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- Etsub Afework
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