Classical Greece Part 2

All right, so welcome back to part two of Classical Greece. We're going to be talking about Greek city-states. So, kind of setting the stage here, during the Dorian period Greek civilization had experienced decline, and we looked at that in the first part. However, two things changed life in Greece. First, the Dorians and Mycenaeans alike began to identify less with their culture from their ancestors and started to create kind of a culture with the local area in which they lived, and we'll start to see that. The second point here is that by the end of this period the method of governing areas has changed from more of a tribal setting or clan control to more kind of formal governments, and we start to see city-states. So, by 750 BC the city-state or polis was the fundamental political unit in ancient Greece, and a polis was made up of a city and its surrounding countryside, which also included numerous villages. The agora, or marketplace, was often found on fortified hilltop called an acropolis, and this is where citizens gathered to discuss city government. So, during this time that we had, the city-states had many different forms of government. In some, we start to see a monarchy-style system where you have a king which ruled the government. In others, they adopted what's known as an aristocracy, which is a government ruled by a small group of noblemen, which are land-owning families, and then later we also see some merchants and artisans that become dissatisfied with this kind of aristocracy system. They sometimes took power or shared it with the nobility and formed what was known as an oligarchy, which is a system that's ruled by a few powerful people. So, in Athens, they actually started to build what was known as a limited democracy. The idea of a representative government began to take root in some of these city-states, and particularly Athens itself. Like other city-states, Athens went through power struggles between rich and poor. However, Athenians, which were the citizens of Athens, avoided major political upheavals by making timely reforms. They would do it fairly quickly, and the Athenian reformers moved toward a democracy, which is a rule by the people. So, in Athens, citizens participated directly in political decision-making. So, building this democracy in Athens, we have a few notable leaders here, and I'm going to talk about each of these guys for just a moment. So, when we're building this democracy, the first step toward democracy came when a nobleman named Draco took power. So, around 621 BC, Draco had developed a legal code based on the idea that all Athenians, whether you're rich or poor, were equal under the law. So, Draco's code dealt very harshly with criminals, making death the punishment for practically every crime. It also upheld such practices as debt slavery, in which debtors worked as slaves to repay their debts. The next one here, we have Solon. He came to power around 594 BC and stated that no citizen should own another citizen. So, he actually outlawed debt slavery, which was put into place by Draco. He organized all Athenian citizens into four social classes, according to wealth. So, only members of the top three classes could actually hold political office. Solon also introduced a legal concept that any citizen could bring charges against wrongdoers. And this was important because, again, he's kind of setting to practice that everyone was equal, whether rich or under the law. So, around 500 BC, the Athenian leader, Clisthenes, introduced further reforms. So, he broke up the power of the nobility by organizing citizens into 10 groups based on where they lived, rather than on their wealth. He also increased the power of the assembly by allowing all citizens to submit laws for debate. Clisthenes also created the Council of 500, and this body proposed laws and counseled the assembly. So, these council members were chosen by random. Now, one important thing to keep in mind here is that only free adult males were considered citizens. So, at the time that Athens was building its democracy, we have another very important state that is beginning to grow. And this is the city-state of Sparta. Located in the southern part of Greece, known as the Peloponnesus, Sparta was nearly cut off from the rest of Greece by the Gulf of Corinth. So, the only access to this area, or to the mainland, was across this Isthmus. So, the interesting thing about Sparta is that it contrasted sharply with other city-states, and especially Athens in particular. Because, instead of a democracy, Sparta decided to build a military state. So, looking at the Spartan government and society a bit here, the Spartan government had several branches. An assembly, which was composed of all Spartan citizens, elected officials, and they voted on major issues. The Council of Elders, made up of 30 older citizens, they're the ones who proposed the laws on which the assembly voted. One last addition here, we have two kings that actually ruled over Sparta's military forces. Looking at the social order, it consisted of several groups. The first were citizens descended from the original inhabitants of the region. This group included the ruling families who owned the land. A second group, non-citizens who are free, worked in commerce and industry. And then we have the helots. At the Spartan society, they were a little bit better than slaves, but they still worked the fields or as house servants. So, Spartan daily life from around 600 until all the way up to about 371 BC, Sparta had the most powerful army in Greece. However, the Spartan people paid a high price for their military supremacy. All forms of individual expression were discouraged. As a result, Spartans did not have value in arts, literature, or any other artistic and intellectual pursuits. Spartans valued duty, strength, and discipline over freedom, individuality, beauty, and learning. Since men were expected to serve in the army until the age of 60, their daily life centered on military training. Boys left home when they were about seven years old and moved into army barracks, where they actually stayed until they reached the age of 30. They spent their days marching and exercising and fighting, and they undertook these activities in all weathers, wearing only light tunics and no shoes. At night, they slept without blankets on hard benches. Their daily diet consisted a little more of a bowl of coarse black porridge, and those who were not satisfied were encouraged to steal food. So, such training produced tough, resourceful soldiers. Spartan girls also led hardy lives, and they received some military training, and they also ran, wrestled, and played sports just like the boys. Like the boys, the girls were taught to put service to Sparta above everything else, even the love of their family. So, a legend says that a Spartan woman told husbands and sons going to war to come back with your shield or come back on it. As adults, Spartan women had a considerable amount of freedom, especially in running the family estates when their husbands were on active military service. Such freedoms surprised men from other Greek city-states, and this was particularly true of Athens, where women were actually expected to remain out of sight and quietly raise children. The Persian Wars. Danger of a helot revolt led Sparta to become a military state. Struggles between rich and poor led Athens to become a democracy, and the greatest danger of all were invasions by Persian armies. This moved Sparta and Athens alike to their greatest glories. So, during the Dorian Age, only the rich could afford bronze spears, shields, breastplates, and chariots. Thus, only the rich served in armies. Iron later replaced bronze in the manufacture of weapons. Harder than bronze, iron was more common and therefore cheaper. Soon, ordinary citizens could afford to arm and defend themselves. The shift from bronze to iron weapons made it possible for a new kind of army composed not only of rich but also of merchants, artisans, and small landowners. Foot soldiers of this army, called the hoplites, stood side by side, each holding a spear in one hand and a shield in the other. This fearsome formation was known as the phalanx. At the time, this became the most powerful fighting force in the ancient world. The Persian Wars between Greece and the Persian Empire began in Ionia on the coast of Anatolia, where the Greeks had been settled. So, around 546 BC, we see the Persians conquering the area and Athens sent aid to the Ionians. The Persian king Darius the Great defeated the rebels and vowed to destroy Athens. So, around 490 BC, a Persian fleet carried about 25,000 men across the Aegean Sea and landed northeast of Athens on a plane called Marathon. There, 10,000 Athenians, neatly arranged in phalanxes, waited for them. Vastly outnumbered, the Greek soldiers charged the Persians, who wore light armor and lacked training of this kind of land combat, were no match for the disciplined Greek phalanx. After several hours, the Persians fled the battlefield and the Persians lost more than 6,000 men, in contrast to the Athenian casualties numbering fewer than 200. About 10 years later, in 480 BC, Darius the Great's son and successor Xerxes assembled an enormous invasion force to crush Athens. The Greeks were badly divided at this point. Some city-states agreed to fight the Persians, others thought it was wiser to let Xerxes destroy Athens and return home. Some Greeks even fought on the Persian side. But nonetheless, consequently, Xerxes' army met no resistance as it marched around the coast of the Aegean Sea and directly into Greece. When Xerxes came to a narrow mountain pass at Thermopylae, 7,000 Greeks, including 300 Spartans, blocked his way. Xerxes assumed that his troops could easily push the Greeks aside. However, he underestimated their fighting ability. The Greeks stopped the Persian advance for three days. Only a traitor's informing of the Persians about a secret path around the pass ended their brave stand. Fearing defeat, the Spartans held back the Persians while the other Greek forces retreated. The Spartans' valiant sacrifice, in which all of them were killed, made a great impression on all Greeks. The Greeks returned to Athens and decided to flee the city and fight the Persian army at sea. The Greeks were successful and sank one-third of Xerxes' fleet into the Saronic Gulf off of the Aegean Sea. Xerxes returned in 479 BC and was defeated again at the Battle of Plataea. After this major setback, the Persians were always on the defensive and never decided to attack again. The following year, several Greek city-states formed an alliance called the Delian League. The alliance took its name from Delos, which is an island in the Aegean Sea where it had its headquarters. League members continued to press for war against the Persians for several more years. In time, they drove the Persians from the territories surrounding Greece and ended the threat of future attacks. During the 470s, Athens emerged as the leader of the Delian League, which had grown to some 200 or so city-states. Soon after, Athens began to use its power to control the other League members. Following the Persian Wars, for close to 50 years, Athens experienced a growth in intellectual and artistic learning. This period is often called the Golden Age of Athens. And during the Golden Age, drama, sculpture, poetry, philosophy, architecture, science, all of these things that we're familiar with from classical Greece reached new heights. The artistic and literary legacies of the time continued to inspire and instruct people around the world. A wise and able statesman named Pericles led Athens during much of its Golden Age. Honest and fair, Pericles held onto popular support for 32 years. He was a skillful politician, an inspiring speaker, and a respected general. He also dominated the life of Athens from 461 to 429 BC, and at this period, often called the Age of Pericles, he had three goals. One, he wanted to strengthen the Athenian democracy, so he increased the number of public officials by election, and he introduced direct democracy, allowing citizens to rule directly and not through representatives. The second point was to hold and strengthen the empire, so his goal was to strengthen Athens' navy. He felt that this was going to assist in strengthening the safety of his empire and to assist with trade. And the last point was to glorify Athens, so he bought lots of gold and ivory and marble to create art and architecture. So in this process of glorifying Athens, at the center of Pericles' plan was to build what was known as the Parthenon, and the Parthenon was built to honor Athena, the goddess of wisdom and the protector of Athens. It housed a 30-foot statue of Athena, decorated with ivory and gold. Artists of this time valued aspects of beauty, harmony, order, balance, and proportion that came to be the standard for classical art. The Greeks also invented drama as an art form and built the first theaters in the West. They wrote two kinds of drama, known as tragedy and comedy. A tragedy was a serious drama about common themes such as love, hate, war, or betrayal, and then a comedy contained scenes filled with slapstick situations and crude humor. They often made fun of politics and respected people and also ideas of the time. The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC, Athens continued to grow in wealth, prestige, and power, and other city-states began to view it with hostility, especially Sparta. So Sparta decided to declare war on Athens in 431 BC, and this became known as the Peloponnesian War. So when this war began, Athens had a stronger navy and Sparta had a stronger army. Sparta marched on Athens and burned their crops. The second year of the war, Athens was struck with a plague. This killed about one-third of the population, but Athens continued to fight for several more years. About 10 years later, in 421 BC, the two sides, worn down by war, signed a truce, but that truce did not last. In 415 BC, the Athenians sent a huge fleet carrying more than 20,000 soldiers to the island of Sicily to attack one of Sparta's wealthiest allies, the city-state of Syracuse. The Athenians were defeated in 413 BC, and as the Greek historian Thucydides recalled, the Athenians were destroyed with a total destruction. Their fleet, their army, there was nothing that was not destroyed, and few out of many returned home. Athenians continued to fend off attacks from Spartans for nine more years. Finally, in 404 BC, the Athenians and their allies surrendered, and Athens lost its empire, power, and wealth. Even following the glory of Athens, Greek philosophy continued for many years. Socrates is one of the most well-known Greek philosophers of his time. He believed in questioning themselves and their moral character. In 399 BC, at 70 years old, he was brought to trial for corrupting the youth of Athens and was sentenced to death. Socrates took it upon himself to carry out his death sentence by drinking a poison hemlock concoction. Plato came next. He was a student of Socrates, and he shared his version of a perfectly governed society in his famous work, The Republic. And it turns out his ideal society turned out to not be a democracy. Finally comes Aristotle, a student of Plato's. He questioned the nature of the world and of human belief. His work provides the basis of the scientific method that we still use today, and he mentored a young prince named Alexander of Macedonia.