Roots Ch. 6 Flashcards
1
Q
Greek culture developed around what body of water?
A
Aegean Sea
2
Q
Why was there no unified, pan-Hellenic state?
A
The Ionian coast was too rough.
The islands were too isolated from each other and the mainland.
The mountains and inlets divided the Greek peninsula itself into a number of semi-isolated districts.
3
Q
What was the main form of political organization in ancient Greece?
A
City-state (polis)
4
Q
When did the Greek city-states rise?
A
c. 900–700 b.c.
5
Q
What word originally was used to describe a fortified place?
A
Polis
6
Q
Polis eventually came to mean what?
A
It came to mean a self-governing society, a political community of adult male citizens who lived with their families along with free non-citizens and slaves in a (normally) fortified city and its agricultural surroundings.
7
Q
What English words come from the Greek word polis?
A
“political,” “politics,” and “policy”
8
Q
Who said “Man is a political animal”?
A
Aristotle
9
Q
What was an ethnos?
A
It was a political unit in Greece that was not dominated by a single city but had villages or towns spread across a large area. It would have a common assembly which had some political powers, such as control of warfare.
10
Q
In the classical Greek era, approximately how many poleis were there? (Poleis is the plural of polis)
A
around 1000 (They ranged in size from approximately 10 to 3,000 square kilometers and had populations from under 1,000 to roughly 300,000 inhabitants.)
11
Q
Who was allowed to fully participate in the activities of the polis?
A
Adult males
12
Q
What was most important in keeping the polis running?
A
participation–it was vital that all adult males participate in the affairs of the polis
13
Q
What is an acropolis?
A
It literally means “high town”. The people of a small district would often erect, atop a central hill, a fortress (citadel). It would be the chief religious center of the district and its natural assembly place in time of war.
14
Q
What is the agora?
A
marketplace
It was usually set up at the foot of the acropolis
Many of the farmers whose fields were nearby built houses around the market, for reasons of sociability and defense.
15
Q
What was the chora or ge?
A
The agricultural area surrounding the village or city.
16
Q
Were there kings in classical Greek society?
A
By about 700 b.c. most Greek kings had been overthrown or they had lost all but their religious functions.
17
Q
Who usually controlled the polis?
A
The aristocracy–wealthy and powerful citizens.
18
Q
Who was under the aristocracy in the polis?
A
Farmers who had acquired old commonly held lands or who had started new farms. They were not that well off financially and had little power in the polis.
19
Q
What was agriculture like in Greece?
A
The soil was the least fertile in Europe so it was hard to grow crops there. The wealthy aristocrats grew grapes and olives on large farms. Smaller farmers often slipped into slavery because they couldn’t make a living.
20
Q
Who was Hesiod?
A
He was an eighth century b.c. poet and farmer.
He wrote Works and Days.
He described a world that had declined from a primitive golden age to the present “age of iron,” with a corrupt nobility.
21
Q
When was the age of Colonization?
A
c. 750–550 B.C.
22
Q
Why did the Greeks start sending out colonists in the 8th century?
A
They had an enormous increase in population.
23
Q
Why did the Greeks take to the sea around 750 BC?
A
Some were pirates in search of booty.
Some were merchants and traders in search of copper and iron (rare in Greece) and the profits of trade.
24
Q
What did Greek seafarers find?
A
Many fertile districts that could be colonized.
25
Greeks founded some settlements as trading stations which were known as what?
emporia
26
Greeks founded new cities when colonizing which were called what?
apoikiai
27
What was the relationship between the colonial polis and its mother city?
Although bound to its mother city by ties of kinship, sentiment, and commerce and by a common patriotic cult, the colonial polis was politically independent.
Its citizens often went to the new colony with equal political rights so the colonization movement helped to make Greek society more egalitarian.
28
What were the advantages of colonization for the aristocrats? For other citizens?
Colonization meant new opportunities for those with little or no land. Hard work could mean success.
It provided the aristocracy with a useful safety valve against the pressures of rising discontent among the citizens dealing with a shortage of land.
29
Where did the Greeks colonize?
The Greek polis spread out along the coasts of the Mediterranean and Black Seas.
30
What was called Magna Graecia (Great Greece)?
Southern Italy and Sicily--because there were so many settlements there.
31
What Greek colony became the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire 1000 years later?
The colonial polis of Byzantium, dominating the trade route between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, later became Constantinople.
32
Can you name any of the Greek colonies that we still know of today?
The Greek colony of Neapolis (New Polis) in southern Italy is now known as Napoli or Naples
Nikaia, on today’s French Riviera, became the modern Nice;
Massilia became Marseilles, France
Syracuse, in Sicily, remains to this day one of the island’s chief cities
33
What other famous ancient civilization did Greek greatly influence through its colonies.
Ancient Rome
34
How did the colonial experience affect the evolution of the Greek way of life?
Commerce developed between the far-flung settlements and brought renewed prosperity to Greece itself.
The needs of the new settlements stimulated the growth of industrial and commercial classes (smiths and potters, stevedores, and sailors) and transformed many poleis from quiet agrarian communities into bustling mercantile centers.
A new elite of merchants and manufacturers began to elbow its way into the councils of government alongside the old noble families.
35
What kinds of goods did the homeland supply to the colonies?
wine
olive oil
manufactured goods
36
Where was coinage invented?
Western Anatolia
37
How did coinage affect trade?
When introduced into the Greek world, it greatly increased trade because it was so much easier than bartering goods. (trading goods for other goods)
38
Who wrote “There’s nothing else that matters—only money.”
the Ionian poet Pythermus
39
More metal was available than before. What changes did this bring to the armies in Greece?
Because there was more metal, not just the rich people could afford to purchase the heavy iron armor necessary for the warfare of the day.
This means average people, with some money, could also be in the army.
The mounted aristocratic armies of earlier times began to give way in the early seventh century b.c. to citizens’ armies of well-drilled, armored foot soldiers.
40
What were the foot soldiers called?
hoplites--cane from the armor they wore, especially the shield called the hoplon--a round shield made of wood or leather which might be covered in bronze.
41
What was the tight formation of foot soldiers called?
phalanx
42
What was the baldric?
an ornamental belt slung over the left shoulder used by the hoplite soldiers.
43
Why did the colonial period come to an end?
By about 550 b.c., the best colonial sites were occupied.
| The rise of new powers such as Carthage in the west and Lydia and Persia in the east also prevented further expansion.
44
With no more colonization or room to expand, economic pressures started to bother the Greek city states again. What affect did this have on Greek society?
The pressures of economic and social discontent returned.
One after another, the poleis of Greece and Ionia were torn by civil strife.
Often, conflicts resulted in the overthrow of aristocratic control by tyrants who, with the support of discontented members of the polis, often claimed to govern in the interests of the common people.
45
Who were some of the best known tyrants?
Pheidon of Argos
| Cypselus and Periander of Corinth.
46
What did tyrant mean to the Greeks?
To the Greeks, a tyrant was not necessarily an evil ruler but simply one who rose to power without hereditary or legal claim.
Typically, the tyrants did not smash the machinery of government but merely controlled it.
47
Where did the tyrants in Greece usually come from?
They were usually from the aristocracy.
48
How did tyrants maintain control of the Greek city-states?
They used the new coined money to hire armies of mercenaries.
They owed their power to the masses so they gained their support by:
canceling or scaling down debts
sponsoring impressive public works projects
redistributing the lands of aristocrats
reforming taxation.
49
Why did tyrants not last too long in Greek society?
Some tyrants were overthrown by the older privileged classes.
Sometimes, the poorer members of the polis took control.
50
Who were the two most important city-states in the 5th century BCE?
Sparta and Athens
51
How did Sparta expand?
They conquered their neighbor Messenia, and made the Messenians slaves to the state, giving a share of anything they grew on the land to the state.
52
What were Spartan slaves called?
helots
53
What kind of society did Sparta become?
They became a military state, very conservative, and fearful of helot rebellions.
54
Who were the perioikoi in Sparta?
They were free non citizens who were allowed to engage in business, freeing up citizens to serve in the military.
55
How were Spartan women more free than women in other Greek city-states?
They were permitted to own land, manage farms, and engage in business. (This freed the men to be able to serve in the military.)
56
Who wrote the Spartan constitution?
Lycurgus
57
How was the government of Sparta organized?
Sparta had two kings.
One or the other served as supreme commander on every military campaign.
At home there were three political bodies:
(1) an aristocratic council of elders (the Gerousia), consisting of thirty men at least sixty years old, elected for life
(2) an executive board of five ephors elected annually from the whole citizenry
(3) an assembly of citizens, known as “equals” (homoioi), that included every eligible Spartan male over thirty.
58
What was life in Sparta like?
Spartan citizens were guided by the state from cradle to grave, to produce strong, courageous, highly disciplined soldiers.
Luxuries, and ideas from outside Sparta were strongly discouraged and tightly controlled--Spartan citizens seldom left their homeland except on military campaigns, and outsiders were discouraged from visiting.
Small or malformed infants were abandoned to die of exposure by state order.
59
How did Spartans pay for things?
While coinage was stimulating economic life elsewhere, Sparta used simple iron bars to pay for things.
60
What was the agoge?
It was a program of education in military skills, physical training, the endurance of hardships, and unquestioning devotion to the polis of Sparta. Boys were turned over to the state and were trained for 22 years.
61
What happened to the male citizens of Sparta at 20?
They lived in the barracks. They could marry but not live with their wives.
62
What happened to Spartan men at age 30?
They were allowed to live with their wives but they had to have their meals in the public mess called the syssitia.
63
How was the city-state of Athens formed?
By about 900 b.c., all the small communities
of Attica were unified politically into the larger Athenian community.
The Athenians called this combination synoikismos.
They attributed the political unification of Attica to the early king Theseus.
64
Who were the archons in Athens?
The power of the early kings was replaced by the institution of annual archons in 683/2 b.c.
The archons were the chief officers of the state and were from the wealthy aristocracy of Athens.
65
Who was Solon?
In 594 b.c., the Athenians granted extraordinary powers to an aristocratic poet-statesman named Solon to reform the laws of their polis.
66
What were the reforms Solon made in Athens?
His laws abolished enslavement for debts and freed all debtors who had been enslaved.
Most of the political power was in the hands of the wealthy but more people were eligible for public office.
The lowest classes of free Athenian males were now admitted into the popular assembly (whose powers were limited).
A system of popular courts was established whose judges were chosen by lot from among the all-male citizenry without regard to wealth.
67
Who was Pisistratus ?
Between 561 and 527 b.c., he was a popular tyrant who dominated the Athenian government?
68
Who took over for Pisistratus in Athens after he died?
His two sons but they were not as successful:
His younger son, Hipparchus, was slain in a love quarrel in 514 b.c.
Hippias, the elder son, was overthrown and banished in 510 b.c. by a Athenian aristocrats backed by Spartan troops.
69
Why was the tyrant Pisistratus so successful in Athens?
He honored the reforms made by Solon.
He sought the support of the poorer free people of Athens.
He granted them portions of the estates of exiled aristocratic rivals, making Athenian agriculture more stable and democratic.
He established Athenian mercantile outposts along the waterway linking the Aegean and Black Seas and started a commercial empire.
He encouraged the arts--poetry, drama, art.
He and his sons gave Athens peace, prosperity, and a degree of social and political harmony that it had long needed.
70
What were the Athenian "owls"?
They were silver coins with the head of Athena on one side and an owl symbolizing her wisdom on the other—that were to become famous throughout the ancient world.
71
Who was Dionysus?
He was the god of wine. There was an annual festival in the god’s honor in Athens called the Dionysia.
72
Who was Thespis?
He was the first playwright to have a separate actor speak apart from the chorus in a Greek drama. From his name we get the word "thespian" a word used for a theatre performer.
73
Who was Cleisthenes?
At the end of the 6th century BC, he was an aristocrat who helped organize the government of Athens with a new constitution.
74
How were people in Athens organized under the constitution of Cleisthenes?
Each citizen was assigned membership in one of approximately 139 local units called demes (most of which we would consider villages).
Clusters of demes were combined into groups of three trittyes (population centers)-- one each from the areas of the coast, the plain of Attica, and the city of Athens itself.
The trittyes were then assigned to ten new tribes.
75
What was ostracism?
Each year, any Athenian citizen might propose the name of a person whom he considered a threat to the well-being of the polis.
If as many as 6,000 votes were cast, the Assembly (ekklesia) banished from Athens for ten years whichever candidate received the most votes.
The ostracized person kept his citizenship and property but was excluded from Athenian politics for the next decade.
76
Who could decide matters of public policy in Athens?
Matters of public policy were decided by the Assembly, whose membership included all Athenian citizens, from landless laborers to aristocrats.
77
Who was considered a citizen in Athens?
At first, every native-born freeman of eighteen years and over.
(But later, citizenship was restricted to men whose parents were both Athenians.)
Less than 20% of the population was allowed to participate in governing.
78
How many citizens were there in Athens in the 5th century BCE? How many people lived there?
Citizen-- estimated at about 55,000 men.
| Together with their wives, kinswomen, and children, they would have numbered about 130,000.
79
Who were the metics in Athens?
They were free aliens living in the city-state.
While wealthy, they had no political rights.
There were about 70,000 living in Athens.
80
How many slaves lived in Athens?
There were perhaps 100,000 slaves, many of them Greeks from outside Athens and Attica.
81
Why was Athens the most democratic city-state and why was it more democratic than any modern country?
Despite many people not getting to participate, in Athens, citizens did not just elect the legislators; they were the legislators.
82
What was the Council of Five Hundred?
it was responsible for the day-to-day business of government.
Every male Athenian citizen over thirty was eligible to be a part of it.
The Council (boule) was made up of fifty men from each tribe, chosen annually by lot from a list of tribal nominees.
Each fifty-man tribal group served for one-tenth of a year.
83
What part did random selection play in Athens' government?
Which tribal group would serve in the Council for one month would be determined by a crude machine, which archaeologists have unearthed. It worked much like our modern bubblegum machines: a stone representing each of the ten tribes was put in the machine, and one stone was released each month.
Every day a different chairman for the fifty-man panel was chosen by lot.
Most of the various magistrates and civil servants also came to be selected by lot, for limited terms, and they were strictly responsible to the Council of Five Hundred and the Assembly.
Selection by lot of representatives and chairmen was an expression of the Athenians’ confidence in the ability of the average citizen to perform governmental tasks capably.
84
Because the Council became less effective, because its members kept changing, who really started to run the government in Athens?
The real leader became known as the prostates of the demos, or “leader of the people.”
His influence lasted only as long as his popularity.
85
Who was Pericles?
The most celebrated leader of fifth-century-b.c. Athens, ruling for nearly 30 years.
86
Why was Pericles a popular democratic leader in Athens?
1. He introduced pay for jurors.
2. He had an aggressive foreign policy.
3. During his period of political dominance in the 440s and 430s b.c., the great building program that transformed the Athenian Acropolis (including the construction of the Parthenon, which is still visible today) took place in Athens.
87
Who did Pericles rely on to get things done?
All of his actions had to be approved by the Council.
88
Which historian wrote about Athens and Pericles?
Thucydides -- from Athens
