Ch. 5 & 6 notes 1

WORLD HISTORY Class Session 3 – Classical Greece and Rome -- Chapters 5 and 6 Chapter 5 – Classical Greece 2000 BC – 300 BC (Don’t get confused by the span of dates in the title. The chapter’s about Greece, whose civilization developed and was independent until about 300 BC. The “golden age” of Greece was actually a period in Athens during the 5th century BC, from 479 to 431 BC.) Section 1 – Cultures of the Mountains and the Sea Geography Shapes Greek Life

• There were differences between the Greek areas of settlement and areas of settlement in the river-valley civilizations we’ve studied so far. The difference is caused by the geography.

• Greece – especially the mainland peninsula of Greece -- is very mountainous and has little fertile soil. The only place where crops can grow are found in the small areas along the relatively small rivers (which are tiny compared to the Nile, Indus, or Tigris and Euphrates or Huang He) that ran through some of the little valleys.

• They did get rain, though. The climate was very temperate and mild. (Called the “Mediterranean climate,” it’s the same as along the coast in southern California.)

• The mountains surrounding the valleys were like walls. They protected the early settlements, but they isolated the city-states from one another. It was almost impossible to build roads between the mainland city-states.

• So the Greeks relied on the sea for transportation and trade. They became excellent sailors. (Other major sailing civilizations in the region were the Phoenicians and the Minoans. The Greeks may have learned to sail from their example. Greek merchant ships looked pretty much like Phoenician ships (see page 75) – minus the horse head. Greek warships – like the ones that took the Greeks to the Trojan War, looked pretty much like this:

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 2

Mycenaean Civilization Develops • When the migrations of the Indo-Europeans happened (like we discussed in

Chapter 3), some of them came south and west to Greece. • Around 2000 BC, these Indo-European migrants headed down the west coast of

Greece and ended up settling in the southern part of Greece, on the large offshore peninsula called the Peloponnesus, or the Peloponnesian peninsula. The peninsula was named for a (mythical?) leader named Pelops. In Greek, the name means “Island of Pelops.” It’s not completely an island, but almost.

• The reason these migrants settled in Mycenae was because there’s flatter land in that area. (The better to raise crops.) They had horse chariots (like the Aryans in India (Indo-Europeans) and the Hittite migrating groups, right?, like from Ch. 3).

• After 1500 BC, these early Greek settlers had contact with the Minoans (the civilization on the island of Crete). The Minoans were more advanced at that time, and the early Greeks apparently adopted their writing system (called Linear A and Linear B) as well as sea trade (linchpin of the Minoan economy). As your text points out, the early Greeks borrow a lot of their religion, art, politics, and literature (meaning their style of story-telling and the values it promoted as heroic or admirable). [What they didn’t adopt was Minoan dress for the ladies or “bull-dancing” – and the Greeks were definitely patriarchal rather than having a strong Earth Mother goddess like the Minoans did.]

• The Greek name for Greece is Hellas – or, in their writing:

Hellas – in Greek letters Achaea So the name of the woman who supposedly caused the Trojan War, Helen, means, simply “Greek.” For a long time, historians thought the Trojan War was a complete myth – until Heinrich Schliemann dug it up the ruins in the 1870s. (see p. 125) Historians now agree that there was a Troy and there was a war (they disagree about whether there was a real person like Helen or not). However, the historians now think the war was all about which group got to dominate trade in the region – Troy (look at its location) or Greece (which, at that time, was largely Mycenaean city-states in the Peloponnesian peninsula and a few early cities on the mainland). Note that the main characters of The Iliad are from the Peloponnesian. Most of the time, in The Iliad, Homer calls the Greek fighters “the Achaeans.” (See map, above. Achaea is located in the northwest part of the Peloponnesian peninsula.)

• For a long time, historians spoke of a “Dorian invasion.” Many no longer think that this was a military conquest (just like most Indian historians say that there

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 3

was not an Aryan “conquest” of India). However, there’s no doubt that the Dorians were not as advanced as the Minoan-influenced Mycenaean Greeks.

• Take a look at the map above. (NOTE: Don’t forget to go online and look at this document – called “Ch5&6-notes” -- on my website: http://mythwrite.wordpress.com/ -- because you’ll be able to see and interpret the map better from the colored map rather than this black and white copy.) This map results from the kind of “study the dialects to see where various people came from” study that led to the discovery of the relationship of Indo-European languages. Note that the Dorians settled primarily in the southern and eastern parts of the Peloponnesian peninsula, the island of Crete, and the southwestern tip of what is now Turkey (including the islands of Rhodes and Kos). Point is: When we get to the Peloponnesian War – between the Spartans and their allies vs. the Athenians and their allies – the alliances divide Greece pretty much along these same dialect-group lines.

• Historians don’t really know for sure what caused the Greek “dark ages.” All we know for sure is that they started out as migrants to the area about 2000 BC, met up with the Minoans about 1500 BC and adopted a lot of that more advance civilization’s amenities, then – around 1000 BC – suddenly there’s a period of

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 4

abandoned villages and no writing for about 200 years. Some people think it was an earthquake or volcano eruption (that caused the civilization on Crete to collapse as well) or a plague or a drought or some other specific cause. Whatever it was, it really messed up early Greek advancement for a couple of centuries!

• Around 800 BC, the Greeks were suddenly back! They adopted and adapted the Phoenician alphabet and started writing all kinds of things. One of those things was The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer. (Nobody’s really sure if there was really this one blind minstrel guy named Homer who composed these stories, but that’s the traditional way of explaining it. Supposedly, about a hundred years after these tales were first told, somebody wrote them down.) They’re the most famous Greek classics – the precursor of all our epic tales of adventure.

• Greek myths are way cool. Most people – even today – find them entertaining and interesting. One characteristic is that their style and point of view is a real departure from the writings that characterized the other civilizations (the 4 river civilizations): The gods are portrayed like people – and the people have a lot of personality, motivation, imagination, creativity. Everybody else’s literature, up to this point, was mostly prayers and stories about the gods – particularly how you’d better behave or else. But the Greek point of view was different. They saw things from a very human point of view. They even pointed out the flaws of the gods! Pretty bold.

Section 2 -- Warring City-States Rule and Order in Greek City-States

• By 750 BC, the Greek civilization had entered the city-state phase big time. (They called a city a “polis” – which is the root for words like politics, political, or even metropolis – meaning “a capital or chief city of an area.”)

• The concept of “tyrant” was different in ancient Greece. Actually, the word “tyrant” is an English word. Greeks used a term that meant something closer to “usurper” – meaning that this was a person who had overturned the existing regime and had taken over. Aristotle describes a tyrant as a degraded kind of king who came to power because the ruling noble class – the aristocracy – were cruel or obnoxious to the people. The people (or demos, in Greek) got fed up, and then found a tyrant to champion them. Note that your textbook describes how many Greek tyrants found projects that provided jobs for the people.

Athens Builds a Limited Democracy

• Draco – 621 BC – first Athenian written legal code –see vocab note on draconian • Solon – 594 BC – considered a very good ruler – outlawed debt slavery and

organized economic groups into classes and top three could rule. This may not sound all that “equal” – but it was a lot better than it was before. Debt slavery meant that the poor could be “owned” if they owed money, so this was a considerable step up for them – and they could participate in the assemblies (which had previously been denied them). Also this extended participation to include what we’d call the middle class (tradesmen, shopkeepers, etc.) whereas previously, it was only the top landowners who could participate.

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 5

• Solon’s introduction of the rule that any citizen could bring charges against another is the basis for our civil justice system today (you can sue anyone who has done wrong to you – and also do a “citizen’s arrest”). This is where that started.

• Cleisthenes’ basing citizens’ participation on where they lived is related to the idea behind our way of electing congressmen to the U.S, House of Representatives – where the number of representatives per state is set by the state’s population, and then divided by district (aka “congressional districts”).

• Yeah, OK. Admit it: The Greeks were male chauvinists. They didn’t allow women many rights or any political participation for the most part.

Sparta Builds a Military State

• In many ways, Sparta’s rule over local territory (and causing farmers to be virtual “land slaves”) is kind of what developed into the feudal system of the middle ages, where only the top ruling class had the weapons and the power and the farmers were not allowed to leave their work on the land without permission.

• Some historians think that “the Spartan over-reaction to challenge to their power” cause and effect is stated backwards here. They say the Spartans started out that way, and then Messinians revolted – and lost – and the Spartans just leaned on them harder after that.

• The Spartans, unimaginative as they were, did have some interesting traditions. In their own way, they believed in a certain kind of equality. One was that all the men ages 7 to 30 lived in barracks (like an army – well, they WERE the army!) and anyone else who needed food when it was served (even helots) were fed in the mess hall without any questions asked.

• The Spartans were tough and demanding. When a child was born, boy or girl, it was examined by a committee, and if the child was thought to be less than perfect, it was abandoned on a hillside to die. That kind of tough.

• Have you ever heard the joke of “go tell it to the Marines”? The basis for the humor is the concept of a Marine being so determined to do his duty that you’re wasting your breath. Well, this originates in the Greek joke, “go tell it to the Spartans.” You did NOT joke with the Spartans. No sense of humor. Or, even worse, they might think you’re challenging their authority and kill you!

The Persian Wars • The phalanx formation was a close-rank, dense grouping of warriors armed with

long spears and interlocking shields. (The name comes from the Greek name for “fingers,” phalanges.) The Spartans invented it. They spent years training their soldiers to use it effectively – and they were good at it.

• Most of the other city-states didn’t have a full-time military like Sparta did. Instead, as they prepared for invasion by Persia, they depended on their citizens to take up arms and defend the state. Instead of pay, they gave these citizens additional rights and more political power.

• The Greek hoplite soldier provided his own weapon (a seven or eight foot spear known as a doru) and shield as well as breast plate, helmet and greaves. There was no official “training” for a Greek hoplite and it was the responsibility of the

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 6

individual commander to make sure his troops could fight in a unified formation, usually 64 soldiers, 8 rows of 8 soldiers, like this:

Greek city-state (like Athenian) hoplite phalanx

• The Spartan phalanx looked like that, only scarier (more uniform and better at it than common foot-soldiers of the city-states).

Spartan phalanx – uniform, tightly knit, and effective

• Outnumbered, how did the Greeks win the Persian Wars? First Persian War o In the first Persian War, in 490 BC, the Greeks were very lucky. The

Persians hit some bad weather! A big storm sank much of the Persian fleet as soon as it crossed over to the Greek lands from Anatolia.

o However, the Persian army, continued south, and in the battle at Marathon, the Greeks were outnumbered (25,000 Persians vs. 10,000 Greeks). But the Greeks were fighting on their home territory. This increased Greek motivation, and it also helped because they knew where to fight so that they could make the Persian cavalry useless and the Persian navy couldn’t be of any help to the army, either. [Classic question: How do you beat an army much bigger than yours? One way is to find a way to make their bigness a liability, not an asset. The Greeks did that. There were so many Persians that they were getting in their own way.]

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 7

o The Greeks had superior military strategy. The Persians were overconfident – because a big army was previously enough for them to win. The Persians would show up – anywhere in their territories – and any opposing group would run away. Not only did the Greeks not run, they would do unexpected things – like with a small group attacking parts of the Persian army (in the rear of a marching group, for example) and then disappearing into the countryside (which is what they did, making guerilla-style raids on the Persians as they marched down the Greek’s east coastline). By the time the Persians got to the area nearer the large Greek cities, they’d had a lot of punishing attacks that shook the Persian soldiers’ confidence. When the small Greek army made a disciplined (phalanx) attack, the Persians folded first – and they actually stampeded over some of their own soldiers trying to flee the battle (6000 Persian dead vs. 200 Athenians).

Second Persian War o The Persians were a bit more prepared the second time around. They

moved slowly down the coast, with their fleet (navy plus ships carrying supplies) following them closely along the coast.

o This time it was clearly better strategy that won. Thermophylae was carefully chosen – by the Greeks – as the place where they’d meet up and fight the Persians. It was a narrow mountain pass, so only a few Greeks could hold off a whole lot of Persians. (The Persian army’s numbers worked against it, because they couldn’t win by simply throwing more soldiers into the battle.)

o The Greeks eventually lost the battle at Thermopylae – but the Spartans’ valiant 300 held the Persians back (and cost the Persians a lot of casualties) before the Spartans were betrayed and their position compromised. All (except 1) of the 300 were slain. (It was sort of like the Greek Alamo.) But the Spartans’ defense let the rest of the Greek army re-group to fight again at a time and place when they thought they had the best odds. The Persians burned Athens, and the Athenians retreated over the Gulf of Corinth – and the next year they came back and beat the Persians, first in a sea battle at Salamis (where they really trashed the Persian fleet and destroyed a lot of their supplies), and then on land at Plataea. (By then, even Xerxes could see that they were losing and he left his armies to his generals and went home. The Persian army was demoralized, tired of being away from home for a year, and without adequate supplies. They gave up.)

• The Delian League – At first, this was a very successful alliance. It was mostly the Athenians (the Spartans were not interested in the upcoming naval war, and not in Athens leading the alliance). The Athenians, though, wanted to push the Persians out of Lydia, where they had a lot of allied cities. The Athenians were great sailors, while the Persians were mostly landlubbers. The Delian League won – and they got a lot of Persian treasure doing it, too. (Persia was a LOT richer than Greece.) So the Athenians wanted to keep going. (They eventually got too big for their britches.)

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 8

[NOTE: Athens – abolished kings around 500 BC. Rome did too, soon after.] Section 3 -- Democracy and Greece’s Golden Age

Pericles’ Plan for Athens • Pericles was an interesting leader. He was born a wealthy aristocrat, but he

helped the less wealthy citizens gain more of a say in the government. • He accomplished his three major goals, to some degree. These were

1. to strengthen Athenian democracy [accomplished this by introducing direct democracy, where the citizens could have more participation and more control]

2. to hold and strengthen the empire [for the time being, this worked – but not in the long run; Athens’ empire did not last very long]

3. to beautify Athens [this one, Pericles accomplished thoroughly – but he used the money from the Delian League treasury and many of the “member” city-states resented Athens’ using the funds for building projects in Athens (even when they sincerely admired the results, they were aware that it was “their” money that Athens was using]

• The Athenians led the Delian League, with about 200 other city-states (mostly on the mainland, not near Sparta) as members. Each city-state had a choice: send men to be fighters or send money. Most sent money. Athens sent the most men. Eventually, Athens appropriated all the money. (This is what paid for the “Golden Age” of Athens. They felt they deserved it, though. Remember that Athens had been burned by the Persians, and the city needed a lot of re-building. )

Glorious Art and Architecture

• No question: Greek art and architecture IS glorious. (The U.S. Supreme Court building and many other official U.S. government buildings copy the Greeks.)

• Virtually all the famous art and architecture of Athens was built or sculpted during this time period. (Take a look at the images on p. 140-141.)

Drama and History

• The major point your text is making is that the Greeks invented “theater” as we know it. In addition, they “invented” history – meaning that they didn’t just write down what happened (names, dates, places), they analyzed what happened and tried to explain what it meant.

• Point is: Theater used as its subject a number of the Greek myths and legends – but it wasn’t like a religious ritual (as it was in all the other 4 river valley civilizations and even in the Cretan “bull-dancing” (which had a religious meaning). Instead, the Greeks were more exploring human psychology – like, what is someone’s motive for doing something drastic? (murder, suicide, etc.) what happens if someone has a passionate obsession about someone and can’t control themselves? (The Greeks thought “love” as we conceive it and depict it in our modern books, plays, movies, TV, etc. was a kind of madness and always led to trouble!)

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 9

Athenians and Spartans Go to War • Just as a frame of reference – the Parthenon was finished in 432 BC. The

Spartans declared war on Athens in the next year, 431 BC. • The Peloponnesian War was a disaster for Greece. Note that Spartan raids on the

Athenian countryside forced Athens’ farmers to take refuge within the city walls – then there was a plague. (Historians think the two are connected, like that bringing the “country folk” into the city more than doubled Athens’ population, so either countryside “disease vectors” (like mice or other contaminants not common in the city) or the overcrowding (causing sewage, garbage, and other things that could harbor disease to multiply) may have led to cholera or other problems. OR, since Athens had to rely on sea trade for their food, perhaps they were just unlucky that a ship from someplace else brought a disease-bearing contaminant to Athens at a time when its ecostructure was vulnerable anyway.)

• Point is: The fighting weakened Greek civilization overall. (What if the Persians had decided to attack them then? Would they have been able to defeat the larger empire then? Most likely not!)

Philosophers Search for Truth

• These 3 philosophers are the “big guns” of Greek philosophy (which is pretty much the philosophy range of Western civilization).

• Socrates was different from earlier Greek philosophers (who were more like Greek scientists and were focused on figuring out how the world works). Socrates’ basic interest was in how people should behave. He didn’t write down anything – he just asked questions. (One of his main points was that people should shed what they’d been taught or told and really think. Basically, Socrates with his asking of pertinent questions (called “the Socratic method”) was trying to get people to question their assumptions. He thought this was the only method of getting to the truth of things. He never actually claimed to be wise, only to understand the path a lover of wisdom (definition of the Greek word philosopher) must take in pursuing it. A favorite saying of his: “Know thyself.”

• I think the Athenians of Socrates’ time would never have condemned Socrates to death if the Spartans were not in control at that time. [Compare this to the Legalists in China under Shi Huangdi executing the Confucian scholars.]

• Plato is the best known, most widely studied and most influential philosopher of all time. He is called an idealist (“Platonic idealism”) because he believed that behind what we see in the world was an often unseen ideal, and that the ideal was the real thing, rather than its “shadow” – what we see around us. (His most famous example is called “The Allegory of the Cave,” comparing humanity's condition as a man being chained in the darkness of a cave, with only the false light of a fire behind him. The man can perceive the outside world only by watching the shadows on the wall in front of him, not realizing that this view of existence is limited (after all, it’s all he knows). Plato imagined what would occur if the chained man were released from bondage into the world, to the sunlight where he could perceive “true” reality. He thought a lot of people would be fearful and immediately run back to the familiar dark existence in the cave, while the few who were bolder and more enlightened would look at the sun and finally

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 10

see the world as it truly is. If these enlightened ones were then to return to the cave and try to explain what they had seen, they would be mocked mercilessly and called mad. In the allegory, Plato saw the outside world, which the cave's inhabitants glimpsed only secondhand, as the timeless realm of Forms, where genuine reality resides. [In the Renaissance, these ideas became part of scientific thinking – the search for the “universal laws” of science, etc.]

• Aristotle wrote extensively, but only about one-fifth of his works have survived. He wrote about all kinds of things (like, in The Poetics, he was the first to analyze the components of what makes a good tragedy in drama). However, he’s probably best known for his work on logic. His aim was to develop a universal method of reasoning by means of which it would be possible to learn everything there is to know about reality. Aristotle defined logic as "new and necessary reasoning" –"new" because it allows us to learn what we do not know, and "necessary" because its conclusions are inescapable. He invented the syllogism as a means of using deductive reasoning to work out a problem. Aristotle disagreed with his teacher Plato over the problem of universals. Aristotle held that Form and Matter are inseparable, and that neither exists apart from each other, but only together. Aristotle's classic answer to the question of what reality really consists of was that reality = stuff + structure. Stuff without structure was mere chaos, while structure without stuff was no more than the ghost of being. Aristotle’s conception of Logic has had a strong influence on the history of Western thought. is aim was to develop a universal method of reasoning by means of which it would be possible to learn everything there is to know about reality. Aristotle defined logic as "new and necessary reasoning", "new" because it allows us to learn what we do not know, and "necessary" because its conclusions are inescapable. [In the Renaissance, these ideas became part of scientific thinking – the search for “universal laws” of science, etc. His methods are considered a precursor to the scientific method.]

Section 4: Alexander’s Empire

Philip Builds Macedonian Power • Philip II of Macedonia loved Greek culture – especially Athenian-type culture.

(He was educated in Corinth, an ally and sometimes rival of Athens, where he not only got a good Greek education, but also excellent military training.)

• Philip was convinced that the Persians would come back – and that after the Peloponnesian War, Greece was too weak to win next time. He was determined to prevent that from happening. When he couldn’t get the Greeks to listen to him, he decided he had to conquer them, for their own good, and whip their army into shape – and then go attack the Persians while they were unprepared.

• Philip took over an area north of Macedonia (Thrace) where there were some gold mines. He used the gold to pay for training and preparing a full-time army. He did two new things: (1) he re-invented the phalanx (instead of 8 men in 8 rows, he doubled the size and he doubled the length of their spears. The Macedonian phalanx was 16 men in 16 rows; and (2) Philip added two well-trained cavalry “wings.”

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 11

The Macedonian phalanx

• Philip’s major battle tactic was to send four phalanxes towards the enemy’s position. Sometimes the front two phalanxes were the least-trained – because Philip knew they’d eventually fold and retreat. When the enemy tried to advance to pursue the fleeing phalanxes, their formation would start to unravel (because the opponents were usually not well trained). When their formation got sloppy, then Philips two cavalry “wings” would dash in on each side and crush the enemy advance (as the reserve two phalanxes of Philip’s group stopped his fleeing newbie phalanx guys and then re-pressed the forward attack on the now-fleeing enemy trying to escape the cavalry). Or, sometimes, Philip changed things up and sent the experienced two phalanxes forward to punch through the front lines of the enemy, causing the enemy front lines to lose formation, then the cavalry would sweep in behind the enemy formations and sweep them forward, crashing into their own front-line men as they attempted to flee the cavalry advance. All of these maneuvers relied on excellent training of the army. Philip’s guys had it and his opponents didn’t.

• Philip wanted his son Alexander to be trained as he was. He hired Aristotle to be Alexander’s teacher, and he also provided practical as well as theoretical military training. At 16, Alexander was in command of Philip’s cavalry. He was good at it, too.

• About Bucephalus, Alexander’s horse. The point wasn’t that Alexander “calmed” the horse (as your textbook describes it (inset, p. 143). It was a magnificent, beautiful, and very spirited horse – also very expensive. Philip was disgusted when even the horse handlers who brought it to show him couldn’t handle it. Alexander (age 12 or 13 at the time) wanted that horse. He challenged his dad, making a bet that he could handle that horse. His dad liked Alexander’s courage, but didn’t think the kid could do it. He took the bet. Point was: Alexander had paid attention. He figured out that the horse was shying violently away from its own shadow. Alexander stepped up, unafraid of the huge rearing horse, and gently but firmly turned the horse’s head so it was facing the light and couldn’t see its shadow. He then calmed the horse, speaking to it and rubbing its neck. The horse calmed down – and then Alexander’s dad bought it for him, making the comment as given in your textbook. (I miss “fun details” that the text leaves out!)

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 12

• On becoming king, Alexander had to spend about 2 years securing his throne, including all the Greek city-states that his dad had conquered. He had a number of rebellions on his hands (like the Illyrians, the Thebans (as mentioned in your book) and many others). Only when Greece, Macedonia, and his other “homelands” were secure could Alexander head off to conquer “the world.”

• Alexander stayed in touch with his old teacher, Aristotle, through most of his conquests. They had couriers going back to Greece all the time, taking little presents (like botanical specimens, animals, maps, information, etc.) for Aristotle. According to tradition, Aristotle gave Alexander his own copy of The Iliad, with Aristotle’s notes in the margins, to take with him (and this was the copy Alexander is said to have kept under his pillow).

• Alexander identified with the hero of The Iliad, Achilles. According to the tale, there was a prophecy about Achilles’ choices in life: he could have a long and happy life and die in bed in old age – or he could go off to war where he would be the Greeks’ greatest hero and be famous forever as one of Greece’s best heroes, but he would die in the war. Achilles decided to go, saying that dying young, heroic, and famous was worth it. The Greeks were glad – because the prophecy also said that that if Achilles went, the Greeks would eventually win.

• When Philip hired Aristotle to teach Alexander, they set up a whole little school, with about 30 students. The other boys were sons of Philip’s generals. Alexander considered himself Achilles, his best friend as Patroclus, and all of his school-chums as Achilles’ elite squadron, the Myrmidons. Alexander’s school-chums eventually became his own cavalry wing. They were his generals and companions on his conquests through the new empire conquered – and they were the ones who took over his empire when he died. (They were called The Diadochi – “the successors” in Greek.)

• Alexander was said to have conquered “the world” – but of course not all of it. Still, he conquered a LOT! Here’s a map of the modern countries, with the red outline (look at this one via my website) showing the outline of Alexander’s empire.

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 13

• Alexander wasn’t perfect, but his story is fascinating, and I love all the details. His conquests had some major effects on world history -- and that’s what we’re doing in this class, so I won’t dwell on the details (sigh) even though I’d like to – except for how it fits into the big picture. And the big picture is that – even though Alexander tromped and triumphed all over the middle east, he didn’t live long enough to rule the empire he created. However, some of his generals did create fairly long-lasting regimes in various chunks of Alexander’s empire. We’ll talk about those, next.

• How did Alexander do it? How was he able to do this? In my opinion, Alexander’s conquests mostly succeeded because he ruled like Cyrus the Great. He exhibited great respect for the customs and concerns of the people he conquered. In many cases, the people considered him a liberator. For example, in Egypt, the people considered him as someone who freed them from the Persian Empire (which, at that time, was no longer as kind and respectful as Cyrus had been). When Darius fled the battle of Issus, he left behind (in the royal tent) his mother, his wife, and his daughters! The royal Persian women were terrified, when their conqueror entered the tent, but he immediately made it clear that they would be treated with the greatest respect – and word of Alexander’s chivalry and generosity towards these royal women spread. (Great PR, there.) Darius, meanwhile, looked like a total dork. He kept trying to “ransom” his women, but Alexander kept refusing his offers for various reasons (most of which made Darius look cheap or stupid). The royal Persian women stayed with Alexander as his honored guests (not prisoners!) all the way aback to Persia. Darius’s mother said that she actually liked Alexander better than her own son! (Poor old Darius.) Alexander eventually married one of Darius’s daughters.

Section 5 – The Spread of Hellenistic Culture

Hellenistic Culture in Alexandria • Alexandria was a Greek city, ruled by Ptolemy, a Greek general. Alexander had

paid for its construction before he left Egypt. It was a marvelous place! (If I could borrow the Tardis, that would be my first stop. I’d want to go to the Library!)

• The Library of Alexandria had the largest and most complete library of “books” (papyrus scrolls) in the world. They had an amazing system – as soon as any ship landed in Alexandria, the customs officers would “borrow” any book found onboard. Then the scribes at the Alexandria library would copy, by hand, that book and return it to its owner on the ship within two days. In this manner, the Library got a copy of almost every “book” in the ancient world. The Library was an incredible center of learning. Many of the Greek mathematicians (like Pythagoras and Euclid – the “father of geometry”); scientists (like Aristarchus, Ptolemy, and Archimedes – all mentioned in your book); and physicians (like Hippocrates) studied in Alexandria. At the time, it was like the equivalent of MIT for science, medicine, and math.

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 14

Hellenistic Culture in Alexandria

Classical Greek sculpture – a bit formal, fairly elegant, emotion not shown

Hellenistic Greek sculpture – bodies in more natural poses, expressed emotion

• During the Hellenistic period, Greek styles, language, and culture blended with the cultures of Persia and India and, to some extent, Egypt. Look at the two sets of sculptures, above, and see if you can see the difference. Now take a look at the Nike on p. 140. Which style is it? [It’s Hellenistic – the draped cloth hugs the body in a more natural manner than in a classical sculpture.]

• We already mentioned the Greek philosophy of classical Greece (big guys were Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle). During the Hellenistic period, there were two more: The Stoics and the Epicureans. (The Stoics were sort of like a cross between Confucianism and Daoism in China – they believed in individual

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 15

responsibility, control of your emotions, doing your duty, and so on. The Epicureans weren’t just the “live it up” guys (today, epicurean, is often defined as “devoted to the pursuit of sensual pleasure, especially to the enjoyment of good food and comfort” – but the Greek Epicurean philosophers weren’t quite that hedonistic. They believed in harmony and balance and “nothing to excess,” and “moderation in all things.” But they also believed in having and appreciating the best, whenever possible.

Chapter 6 – Ancient Rome and Early Christianity 500 BC – 500 AD Section 1 – The Roman Republic The Origins of Rome

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 16

The City of Rome and Its Expansion [map on previous page] 1 Rome and allied areas in 500 BC – mostly the city itself, but including Ostia, the

port and close-in farming areas surrounding Rome 2 Around 338 BC, after the “Latin wars” when Rome took over areas from

surrounding tribes 3 Around 298 BC, at the start of the 3rd Samnite War 4 Around 290 BC, at the end of the 3rd Samnite War 5 Around 272 BC, at the end of the Pyrrhic War (against Pyrrhus, ruler of Epirus, in

Greece), Rome took over all of the former “Magna Grecia” (or Greater Greece) area of southern Italy (including Naples and the city of Pompeii)

6 Around 264 BC, at the start of the 1st Punic War (meaning war with Carthage) 7 Around 218 BC, at the start of the 2nd Punic War (this is the one when they fought

Hannibal, the general from Carthage)

• What do you see on the map? Rome grew rapidly. In about 500 BC, Rome was just a city-state (not unlike the city-states of the 4 early river civilizations). Then it grew – fast!

• As Rome, the city-state grew, it needed supplies for its growing population. Unlike Greece, the Italian coast where Rome was located was an area of rolling hills. The Romans could easily head up the road to attack their neighbors and add them to their territories – and they did.

• Rome took a lot of its ideas from Greece. Early on, the Romans had kings. About 510 BC, Athens got rid of its last king, Rome followed Greece’s example and abolished kings, too, the next year (509 BC). Not a coincidence.

The Early Republic

• Your book does a pretty good, succinct job of explaining the political set-up of the Roman Republic.

• Note that “dictator” in ancient Rome (p. 157) does not mean the same thing as the modern use of that term. In ancient Rome, the guy was appointed to be dictator (the word means “he who says”), for a limited time (usually 6 months) to deal decisively with a specific crisis.

• The Roman army was – in the early days – mostly composed of relatively poor Roman citizens led by aristocratic generals (who were usually senators). Problems arose later, when Rome got too big to be able to field an army in the same manner.

Rome Spreads Its Power

• During the Punic Wars, the flaws in Rome’s system of the military become more obvious. Like the Consuls, the Roman army usually had 2 generals, who were supposed to share command. Sometimes – as in fighting Hannibal after he crossed the Alps into Italy – this set-up caused problems, like when one of the generals was a dope.

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 17

• Hannibal knew about and brilliantly used these flaws – especially at Canae (216 BC). He just waited until it was the dope’s turn to be general and then wiped out practically the whole Roman army.

• Rome finally re-grouped and re-organized the army. (They had to let some of the people in the areas closest to Rome become citizens to expand their army base before the Third Punic War that wiped out Carthage. Later, when it was time for the army veterans to retire and the Romans had to make good on the promise to provide them with land to retire on, they finally gave the veterans land in north Africa. You’ll see this on the map on page 163. The grain-growing areas near where Carthage used to be were settled with Roman army vets! Carthage was completely gone.

Section 2 – The Roman Empire

• My main complaint about this section is that it doesn’t really tell the story of what happened with Julius Caesar. I agree with the book that Caesar was the pivotal guy in this chain of events when the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire – but they left out a lot of details, and in this case, some of the details are kind of important, in my opinion.

• Julius Caesar has been a controversial person for more than 2000 years! Some people see him as a bad guy who made a grab for power (and your textbook kind of paints him that way). But the common people loved Caesar. They felt he was their champion against the power of the elite. The Roman system, by that time, was very corrupt. For example, Roman Senators often sold their votes to the highest bidder, including “client states” – like Anatolia – where the rulers wanted treaties that favored them (like allowing them to bring in goods not taxed as high as many imported items -- which meant that Roman citizens who were artisans couldn’t compete). The point is, Roman Senators were doing things that were n not in the best interests of the people of Rome or even of Italy.

• Also, when Romans finished their term as Consul (one year terms) it was traditional to go out to one of the provinces and be governor for a year or two. Your book (p. 161) says that Caesar, after being Consul, “appointed himself governor of Gaul (modern France)” as if he did something unexpected or wrong. No! That was traditional practice. Caesar’s problem, at that point, was that when he was Consul, he tried to initiate reforms that limited the power of the elite Senators – and they hated him for it. (In the 60 years before Caesar’s time as Consul, the two “party factions” in the Senate had routinely practiced “sanctions” – meaning having a Roman citizen declared a traitor and confiscating his property (after killing him) – on both sides. Caesar had, as a young man of 18, had go into hiding for two years to avoid being assassinated – because he refused to divorce his young wife (age 15) whose father had been assassinated by the ruling party.

• So: Caesar went to Gaul to get out of the clutches of his enemies who planned to kill him. If he’d stayed in Rome, they would have gotten him. Once in Gaul (France), he didn’t rob the place to fill his pockets – and Caesar wasn’t a rich guy. Instead, he listened to the locals and offered to help them with their biggest problem – Germanic tribes invading from the north. Caesar sent to Rome for troops, and his enemies in the Senate refused to send any. So Caesar hired his

Ch. 5 & 6 notes 18

own army, promising the guys who signed up shares in whatever booty they got. His army guys loved him. He always led them into battle (as opposed to some Roman generals who just sat on a hill looking on as their army fought). And the army got lots of booty, too – from the attacking German tribes.

• In my opinion, the textbook is giving a really biased view of Julius Caesar. I admit that to talk about how Caesar intended to be a better ruler for Rome than it had had before, you’d have to go into detail, and that’s not the main point in the “broad view” we’re taking of history.

• One point, though. All of the reforms instituted by Caesar’s heir, Octavian (later called Augustus Caesar, the first Roman Emperor), were those exact reforms (including the civil service) that Caesar had planned to institute. If Julius was such a bad guy, then how come all his plans were clearly an improvement of the system and a reduction of the corruption when Augustus put them into effect? (Maybe it’s not important to the course, but it matters to me.)

• Otherwise, your textbook does a pretty good job of explaining what the Roman Empire did and what made it so successful. The Roman Republic lasted about 500 years and the Roman Empire lasted about 500 years as well.