Week 4 Overview and Assignment / Chapter 3

 

Welcome to Ancient Greece 

Note that Ancient Greece was not a single place bound by a river or mountain range, as in Mesopotamia, but a place scattered over the Aegean Sea and taking in the Greek mainland,
Crete, hundreds of islands, and the western coast of present-day Turkey. 

It's good to have you here.  

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  Chapter 3 Learning Objectives 
  

  After reading and studying this chapter, students should be able to:

  1. Explain the causes of the wars between Persia and the Greeks.
  2. Explain the rise of the Athenian Empire.
  3. Identify the ideas of Athens’s Golden Age.
  4. Analyze the causes and consequences of the Peloponnesian War.

   

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  The Greek Golden Age - 500 b.c.e. / b.c. to 400 b.c.e. / c.e.
  
  

  In the Greek peninsula and in the Aegean islands, the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations preceded the formation of the Greek city-states, the most famous of which were Sparta and Athens. Minoan and Mycenaean cultures were the root cultures from which the Greek Golden Age would arise.

  Why "golden"? 

  Like most great steps in human civilization, the scene was set by a mighty war between the reigning Middle Eastern empire, the Persians, and what at the time (500 b.c.e.) was an upstart collection of noisy city-states. At the head of the city-states were Athens and Sparta. Persia, taking offense when Athens sided with rebels against Persian authority in Ionia, soon were bearing down on the Greek mainland.

  We know what happened: the Persians were defeated, temporarily, but convincingly. At the time (480 b.c.e.), the Persian Empire was the United States of its day. Imagine if the U.S. were defeated by, say, New Zealand. That would be a shocker, and it was similarly a shocker when the Greeks threw the Persians on their back. 
  
  Because of this amazing upset, the Greek Golden Age took flight under the capable hands of Pericles the Athenian. It was under Pericles that Athens established an empire, built the Parthenon, and went about creating entire disciplines which we now take for granted. (Such as history!) 

  Along the way they set in place the first democracy anywhere in the world. At the heart of this new form of government was the polis, a self-governing community based on consensus, shared values, and citizenship. Ironically, Athenian freedom was rooted in widespread slavery and the oppression of women. Hunt devotes several pages to setting forth how slavery functioned: read these carefully.

  Before you condemn the Golden Age, take in fully what it created -- medicine, philosophy, history, drama, and much else. If you've ever been to a play and enjoyed it, thank the Greeks. They turned what was a fairly primitive religious ceremony into a mass entertainment that was a place of learning and activism and the questioning of convention.

  Then, almost as soon as it arose, the Golden Age ended in famine, military reversals, and dictatorship. How could that be? And what does this experiment in democracy tell us about our own democratic form of representative government? What can we learn from the Greeks?

   

  Some Common Misconceptions About the Ancient Greeks
  
  

  1. Athens is of course famous for its democracy, and you may be aware of how it has been celebrated in the modern era for its system of governance. You should know that there were limitations on this democratic system. Democracy was for adult male citizens only. Women, slaves, and foreign residents (even those born in Athens) were excluded from political participation. Even so, the Athenians, although not the only city-state to have democracy, did extend political rights to a broader range of people than other states. Most of the Greek city-states had some combination of oligarchy and democracy, and even Sparta, usually considered Athens’s polar opposite, allowed some political rights for citizens.

  2. Another myth: Many often assume that because Athens was a democracy and Sparta was a militaristic society, that Sparta was responsible for the Peloponnesian War. While it would be overly simplistic to say that Athens bears sole responsibility for the war, we frequently need to be reminded that the Athenians played an important part in creating and extending the conflict. Spartans, for all their militarism, were also known among the Greeks for their virtue and restraint. Spartans in the Classical era generally used their military for defense more often than for expansionism or imperialism.
  
  

  

   

  Read

  For Week-4, carefully read in our textbook all of Chapter 3.
  
  Browse the Resources on our Resources page. These will suggest new avenues of discovery and research and deepen the knowledge you are gaining in our textbook.
  
  

  Discuss

  Go to the Discussion Forum for Week 4 and contribute to this week's Discussion topics. One Discussion assignment covers the material in the chapter. The other is on the Funeral Oration of Pericles -- a short excerpt that reveals much about the Athenian leader and Athenians.
  
  In the forums please post your initial posts by Friday. Be aware of what makes for a good Discussion post. See the Syllabus for the Discussion Grading Table, also viewable under the First Week's Module. Then, after circling back to the forum topics later in the week, several times, post for each forum topic at least two response posts to two posts of your fellow students. See the Grading Table for guidelines.
  
  
  The Quiz

  Finally, please take the Chapter Quiz for this week. It is over all of chapter 3. 

  
  The Field Trip Project
  
  Yes, the Project is worth a good size chunk of your grade. The proposal deadline for it is coming up. To access it, merely click on this hyperlink.

 

The Deadline

As ever, the deadline for all of your work (except your initial Discussion post) is
Sunday, before 11 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. Note this well.