The Age of Homer The Early Greeks

1. The Age of HomerThe Early Greeks

2. Objectives • What were the early characteristics of Greek civilization involving colonization, military development, etc., and how did they contribute to building a new civilization • How did Sparta and Athens develop differently? One along the militaristic side the other on the more aristocratic/republican side • How did Tyrants eventually lead to the structural changes in Greek governance in either Sparta or Athens.

3. The Early Greek Civilization • Homer: Source Illiad & Odyssey • Ballads source of History • Government: power of Kings/ Nobel Councils • People’s role limited • Society • Class divisions: Nobles/Thetes/ Slaves • Homeric Values: • Powerful influence in School (History) • Physical prowess, courage, and protection of one’s family • Highest Value was Arête – manliness • Central Ethical Idea: “always be the best and distinguished above other.”

4. The Polis • City-State • Does not adequately describe the city • More than Agricultural Town • But not a “city” • Independent Political Units – • Community of common relatives/common ancestor • Subgroups, clan, tribe, • Polis original meaning: a citadel, an elevated defensible roc that farmers/others would retreat to in case of attack

5. The Polis • Polis: The Acropolis in Athens and the Acrocorinth in Corinth, highest places adjacent to farms. • No Urban planning • Location of Polis depended on land and natural fortress • Emergence of Agora – marketplace and civic center • Emerged around 8 BCE, common by at least 750 BCE • Cities governed by kings and or aristocratic republic

6. The Hoplite Phalanx • Emerges in the late 8th Century BCE, Crucial Military Strategy • Who were the Hoplites? Infantryman, spear, shield • Soldiers arranged in close orders, 8 ranks deep to form Phalanx. • Close order discipline • Early Battles Between Polis’ • Invasion around harvest • Decisive battles • Spared houses, livestock and capital of Farmers who were/ made up the phalanx. • Minimized casualties/ suited to farmer-soldier citizen, kept wars short and limited destructiveness

7. Expansion of the Greek World • From the 8th to the 6th centuries BCE, Greeks expanded their territory of control, wealth, and contacts • From Spain to the Black Sea marks their territory with trading posts in Syria, where they learned new techniques in art and craft from other civilizations. • 750 BCE They borrowed a writing system from Semitic Scripts and added vowels to create the first alphabet. The Greek alphabet was easier to learn than any earlier writing system and made possible a widely literate society.

8. Expansion of the Greek World • Greek Colonies • Colonies spanned Spain to Black Sea, However, they became concentrated in Sicily and Southern Italy (Magna Craecia) • By 7th Century BCE The Greeks colonized the Northern coast of the Mediterranean, The Black Sea and the straits that connected them • Why Colonize? Colonization was a powerful influence, It relieved pressure at home for land and a growing population, • Prevent Civil wars • Cultural Identity, Pan-Hellenic (all Greek) sprit. Evolved and lead to est. of festivals, Olympia, Delphi, Corinth, and Nemea.

9. Expansion of the Greek World • Greek Colonies • Encouraged Industry and Trade • Manufacturing of Goods (pottery, tools, weapons, metalwork's, perfumed oils, soap) • Non-nobles could become wealthy • Tyrants (700-500 BCE) • New economic conditions lead to Political /factional divisions within the ruling aristocracy. • Tyrant: Greek, a monarch who has gained power in an unorthodox way, exercises strong one man rule that might be popular.

10. Expansion of the Greek World • Tyrants (700-500 BCE) • Founding Tyranny Characteristics • Member of ruling class • Rise to power through through his military ability/support of military • Support of the politically powerless • Upon ascension: expelled aristocrats, destroys aristocratic privileges, foster trade and colonization • Usually provides over a period of urban & population growth and public works projects • Patrons of the Arts • Peaceful alliances with other Tyrants were established.

11. End of Tyrants • By the end of 6th century, Tyrants had disappeared from Greece, not to return in the same form. • Modern notion of Tyrant derived from the last cruel tyrants. • Rule of Tyrant was arbitrary and unpredictable. • Tyranny came into being in defiance of tradition and law, tyrant governed without either. • Did contributed to Greek civilization encouraging economic changes that helped secure the future prosperity of Greece. • Tyrants broke the gripe of aristocrats and put the productive powers of the most active and talented of its citizens to the service of the Polis

12. Life in Ancient Greece • Greece enters the 5th Century, features that would distinguish Greek society took shape • The role of the artisan and merchant grew more important as contact with the non-Greek world became easier and more prevalent. • Greeks continued to make their living from the land; wealthy aristocrats and large estates, powerful households, families clans • Poorer peasants and the independent farmers who had smaller and less fertile lands had a different life

13. Life in Ancient Greece • Farmers, rarely leave records • Hesiod presented himself as a small farmer and wrote Works and Days giving some idea of life of a farmer • Crops included grain, chiefly barely, wheat, grapes, olives, etc. • Sheeps and goats: milk and cheese • Farmers work was hard, October the worst season, at the start of the rainy season, the time for the first plowing • Autumn and winter were times for cutting wood, building wagons, and making tools • Summer was a time for some rest, but by September came round it was time to harvest grapes.

14. Life in Ancient Greece • Aristocrats • Had hired hands/sharecroppers/ slaves to run their lands • More time for a social life, the Symposion (Drinking party). Symposion structured occasion often with a :king” who chose the order of events and to determine that nights mix of wine and water • Party for men only with games involving Kottabos, Dancing girl with flues,, participants often participated with their own poems, or songs, or philosophical disputes. • Aristocratic values always involved competition and the need to excel Athletic competitions and games. • Only the Rich could afford to raise, train, and race horses, or have chariot races.

15. Life in Ancient Greece • Religion • Pantheon of Gods existed, Greeks were polytheists • Worship did not involve great emotion • Sense of Justice: Lay in paying one’s debts • Civic Virtue: worshipping the state deities in traditional way, performing required public services, fighting in defense of the state. • Private morality meant to do good one’s friends and harm to one’s enemies • 6th century BCE influence of the Cult of Apollo (noting in excess) • Hubris: “arrogance brought on by the excessive wealth or good fortune and leads to moral blindness and to divine vengeance

16. Major City-States (Sparta) • Emerged in 725BCE after First Messenian War. Sparta now had much land to confront the land lust of its inhabitants. • Imprisoned Messenians became helots or Serfs, who would later rebel in the Second Messenian War about 650 BCE, • 2nd Messenian War became a bitter struggle and Spartans learned the lesson that changes needed to take place,

17. Major City-States (Sparta) • Spartan Society • Emerged in 6th century exerting a tremendous control over citizens, from birth • At Birth: officials decided which infants were physically fit to survive • At 7 Spartan boys were taken from their mothers and turned over to the instructors of the state. • At 20 Boys were enlisted in the Army and lived in the barracks with his companions until 30 • At 30, became a full citizen, an “equal” and allowed to live in his own house with this wife, but took meals at a public mess in the company of 15 comrades.

18. Major City-States (Sparta) • Spartan Society • At 60, he could retire from the military service and live in his own home with his family • Girls received military training, & had greater freedom than other Greek women • Girls were indoctrinated into service of the state. The entire system of Sparta was designed to change the notion of family and enlarged that to the state. • Privacy, luxury, and even comfort were sacrificed to the purpose of producing soldiers whose physical prowess, training, and discipline made them the best in the world • Neither family or money was allowed to interfere with the only ambition permitted to a Spartan male: to win glory and respect by bravery in war.

19. Major City-States (Sparta) • Spartan Government • Combination Aristocracy, Monarchy, and Democracy • Had 2 Kings. Rivalry between the two kings usually limited them along with law • Council of Elders - 28 men over 60 who were elected for life, judicial functions sitting in cases involving the kings. And the council was consulted before any proposal as put before the assembly • Assembly: all men over 30, and theoretically the final authority, it usually only ratified the decisions of magistrates, elders, and kings.

20. Major City-States (Sparta) • Spartan Government • Council of Ephors • Suppression of Helots required al the efforts of Spartans, and problems on the Peninsula. • Tegea illustrates change in Spartan Policy, Tegea was defeated by the Spartans. • Peloponnesian League: every city-state on the Peloponnese except Argos. By 500 BCE this alliance would be capable of facing mighty threats.

21. Major City-States (Athens) • By the 7th Century BCE Athens and Attica constituted a typical aristocratic polis. • Aristocrats held most and best land and dominated religious and political life • No written law • Areopagus: Council of Nobles, (name from the hill where it held session) • Archons: 9 magistrates who joined the Areopagus after their year in office.

22. Major City-States (Athens) • Crisis • 7th BCE quarrels began to breakout in Attica between nobility. Also an agrarian crisis • After planting and plowing wheat for many years, without crop rotation or fertilizers, there was a sift in AG. More intensive agricultural techniques and cultivation of trees an vines forced the less successful farmers to borrow from wealthy neighbors. • Debtors ledged their wives, children, and themselves as surety for new loans. Many defaulted.

23. Major City-States (Athens) • Crisis • Among the poor revolutionary pressures grew and they began to demand the abolition of debt and redistribution of land • Reforms of Solon • 594 BCE elected as sole Archon with power to revise the governing institutions of Athens • Program was called “shaking off the burden”, cancels debt and forbade future loans secured by the person of the borrower. • Brought back many Athenians enslaved abroad and freed those in Athens enslaved for debt. • Some of his actions were profoundly successful in the long run. He encouraged commerce and turned Athens in direction that would lead it to great prosperity in the 5th BCE

24. Major City-States (Athens) • Reforms of Solon • Commerce turned city into a great prosperous one by end of 5th century BCE. • Forbade the export of wheat, making it more available in Attica • Encouraged export of Olive Oil and wine, much of the Athenian land diverted to olive trees/grape vines • Solon offered foreign citizenship to artisans, stimulating development of outstanding pottery in Attica • Expanded citizenship – previously limited to adult males whose father’s were citizens- include immigrants artisans and merchants.

25. Major City-States (Athens) • Reforms of Solon • Divided the citizenry into 4 classes based on wealth, only wealthiest group could be Archons and sit in the Areopagus • Men of the 3rd class could be hoplites and sit on a council of 400 chosen by the assembly of all male citizens.. • 4th class the Thetes, voted into assembly and sat on a new court of appeals that would hear almost all cases in Athens by the end to the 5th century BCE