Trial of the Hellenes: The Ancient Greeks, 1200 B.C. to A.D. 146
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Theme
The Greeks innovate in politics and culture while fighting among one another and with Persia.
Summaries
To the Sea
The Hellenes created a merchant economy and expanded out of the Balkan Peninsula to Europe, Asia, and Africa.
The Political Animal
Greek governance moved from aristocracy through tyranny to democracy (even in the more restrictive form of oligarchy).
Metamorphosis
Some Greeks managed to defeat the powerful Persian Empire; then the divisions between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta result in a civil war which provides the opportunity for Macedon to dominate both Greeks and the Eastern Mediterranean.
The Cultural Conquest
Despite the break-up of Alexander's empire, Greek art, literature, and philosophy infused their neighbors.
Keywords
To the Sea
Greeks, polis, colonization, Olympic Games, pan-hellenism, individualism
The Political Animal
democracy, aristocracy, hoplite, phalanx, land reform, tyrants and tyranny, citizenship, oligarchy, Sparta, egalitarianism, Athens, ostracism, Classical Age (500-338 BC)
Metamorphosis
Persian Wars (494-449 BC), Peloponnesian Wars (460-404 BC), Delian League, demagogues, factionalism, Macedon, Philip II, Hellenistic Age (338-146 BC), Alexander III “the Great”(r. 336-323 BC), deification
The Cultural Conquest
hellenization, realism, naturalism, Olympian gods, anthropomorphism, civic cults, oracles, mystery cults, rationalism, skepticism, hedonism, cynicism, Socrates, Plato, idealism, Aristotle, syllogisms and dialectic logic, humanism, sapphism or lesbianism, theater, epicureanism, stoicism
Review Questions
- How did the Greeks begin as a people and expand through the Mediterranean?
- How did the Greeks attain degrees of democratic politics?
- How did the Greeks enter a brief Golden Age, and how did it collapse?
- What Greek culture expanded through the ancient West?
Other Questions
- What did the ancient Greeks find so admirable about Spartan society?
- How does the fall of the Roman Republic compare with the collapse of democracy in ancient Athens?
- How can governments such as ancient Athens or Sparta (which stand for democracy and self-rule) justify domination over other peoples?
- On what basis can states with diverse ethnic groups such as the Hellenistic Kingdoms succeed?
