Chapter 3 - The Greek Golden Age 500-400 B.C.E. - The Making of The West - HIST 1111

Socratic method

The Athenian philosopher Socrates' method of teaching through conversation, in which he asked probing questions to make his listeners examine their most cherished assumptions.

Peloponnesian War

(431-404 BCE) The war between Athens and Sparta that in which Sparta won, but left Greece as a whole weak and ready to fall to its neighbors to the north.

mystery cults

(Ancient Greek) Religious worship that provided initiation into secret knowledge and divine protection, including hope for a better afterlife. Mystery cults initiated members into "secret knowledge" about the divine and human worlds. Initiates believed that they gained divine protection both while alive and after death. The Athenian mystery cult of Demeter and her daughter Persephone was internationally famous. The cult's central rite was the Mysteries, a series of initiation ceremonies. They were so popular that an international truce — as with the Olympic Games — allowed people to travel from distant places to participate. The Mysteries were open to any free Greek-speaking individuals — women and men, adults and children — if they were clear of ritual pollution (for example, if they had not committed sacrilege, been convicted of murder, or had recent contact with a corpse or blood from a birth). Some slaves who worked in the sanctuary were also eligible to participate. The main stage of initiation took more than a week. A sixth-century B.C.E. poem explained the initiation's benefits: "Richly blessed is the mortal who has seen these rites; but whoever is not an initiate and has no share in them, that one never has an equal portion after death, down in the gloomy darkness."

Kroisos from Anavysos

- c. 540-515 BCE - Marble - Pre-Classical Period - Fallen young soldier (closed eyes means no longer living) - Idealism (how a subject "should look") The statues originally were painted to look lifelike, they were not plain white marble, the paint simply did not last as long as the statues did.

The Kritios Boy

480 BCE Early Classical Period marble statue. More naturalistic style (less idealistic than Kroisos from Anavysos). More focus on natural posture than perfect ideal body.

hubris

A Greek term for violent arrogance that transformed one's competitive spirit into a self-destructive force.

metics

A foreigner granted permanent residence status in Athens in return for paying taxes and serving in the military. Women, slaves, and metics made up the majority of Athens's population, but they lacked political rights. Slaves and metics performed a variety of jobs in agriculture and commerce; some metics started their own successful businesses.

hetaira

A witty and attractive woman who charged fees to entertain at a symposium. Some women escaped traditional restrictions by working as a hetaira ("companion"). Hetairas, usually foreigners, were unmarried, physically attractive, witty in speech, and skilled in music and poetry. Men hired them to entertain at a symposium (a drinking party to which wives were not invited). Their skill at clever teasing and joking with men gave hetairas a freedom of speech that "proper" women did not exercise in public. Hetairas nevertheless lacked the social status and respectability that married women possessed. Sometimes hetairas sold sex for high prices; they could control their own sexuality by choosing their clients. Athenian men (but not women) could buy sex as they pleased without legal hindrance. Men (but not women) could also have sex freely with female or male slaves, who could not refuse their masters. The most skilled hetairas earned enough to live in luxury on their own. The most famous hetaira in Athens was Aspasia from Miletus, who became Pericles' lover and bore him a son. She dazzled men with her brilliant talk and wide knowledge of society and politics. Pericles fell so deeply in love with her that he wanted to marry her, despite his own law of 451 B.C.E. restricting citizenship to the children of two Athenian parents. Great riches freed a woman from traditional restrictions. The most outspoken rich Athenian woman was Elpinike. She once criticized Pericles to his face by sarcastically remarking in front of a group of women who were praising him for an attack on a rebellious Delian League ally, "This really is wonderful, Pericles. ... You have caused the loss of many good citizens, not in battle against Phoenicians or Persians ... but in suppressing an allied city of fellow Greeks."

Iliad characters

Achilles - Greatest Greek Hero Hector - Greatest Trojan Hero Priam - Trojan King, Hector's Father Agamemnon - Greek (Mycenaean) King Briseis - Widowed slave concubine of Achilles Patroclus - Achilles's best friend, 2nd fiddle Odysseus - Greatest Greek liar....er....sailer (character fleshed out in the sequel) expert of deception (e.g. the Trojan horse).

ostracism

An annual procedure in Athenian radical democracy by which a man could be voted out of the city-state for ten years; its purpose was to prevent tyranny. In Athenian radical democracy, the majority could overrule legal protections for individuals. In ostracism, all male citizens could cast a ballot on which they scratched the name of one man they thought should be exiled for ten years. If at least six thousand ballots were cast, the man whose name appeared on the greatest number was expelled from Athens. He suffered no other penalty; his family and property remained undisturbed. Usually a man was ostracized because a majority feared he would overthrow the democracy to rule as a tyrant. There was, however, no guarantee of motives in an ostracism.

Praxiteles

Ancient Greek sculptor (circa 370-330 BC), a sculptor who lived after Phidias who sculpted figures that were more lifelike and natural in form and size. He wrote a book on how to accurately depict the human form. The "praxitelean curve" (the way the statues spines were curved into a natural posture) was a major change in the realism of statues.

The Parthenon

Architects Iktinos and Kallikrates The most prominent building on Acropolis and all of Athens. Commissioned after the destruction of Athens during the Persian Wars. A temple dedicated to the goddess Athena.

Where did the decisive engagement that ended Persian king Xerxes I's invasion of Greece occur? Please choose the correct answer from the following choices, and then select the submit answer button. Answer choicesAt seaIn Spartan territoryIn Athenian territoryIn Ionia

At sea Only a month or so after the naval battle at Artemisium, the Greek fleet met the Persian armada at Salamis, an island across from Athens. Though outnumbered, the Greek navy won an overwhelming victory by outmaneuvering the Persians. The remnants of the Persian fleet retired, and in 479 B.C.E., the Greeks overwhelmed the Persian army at Plataea. The Greek victory at Salamis was the turning point in the war.

Pericles

Athenian leader noted for advancing democracy in Athens and for ordering the construction of the Parthenon. In the late 460s B.C.E., the trireme rowers decided that in their own interest they should make Athens's court system as democratic as its legislative assembly, in which all free adult male citizens participated. They wanted to prevent the elite from rendering unfair verdicts in legal cases. Members of the elite pushed this judicial reform, to win popular support for election to high office; the measure passed in 461 B.C.E. Pericles (c. 495-429 B.C.E.), from one of Athens's most distinguished families, became Golden Age Athens's dominant politician by spearheading reforms to democratize its judicial system and provide pay for most public offices.

Themistocles

Athens's leader during the great Persian invasion of Greece. A Greek military leader who convinced the Athenians to build a navy. This helped Athens win a major battle against Persia, the Battle of Salamis. He was ostracized around 471 BCE.

Sophists

Competitive intellectuals and teachers in ancient Greece who offered expensive courses in persuasive public speaking and new ways of philosophic and religious thinking beginning around 450 B.C.E.

Persian Wars

Conflicts between Greek city-states and the Persian Empire, ranging from the Ionian Revolt (499-494 B.C.E.) through Darius's punitive expedition that failed at Marathon.

The Thirty Tyrants

Following Athens's surrender, the Spartans installed a regime of anti-democratic Athenians who collaborated with the victors. The collaborators were members of the social elite; some, including the violent leader Critias, infamous for his criticism of religion, had been well-known pupils of the Sophists. Brutally suppressing democratic opposition, these oligarchs embarked on an eight-month period of murder and plunder in 404-403 B.C.E.

The Acropolis

Greek for "city in the sky". The chief temples of the city were located here.

triremes

Greek wooden warships rowed by 170 oarsmen sitting on three levels and equipped with a battering ram at the bow. Over time, more and more Delian League members voluntarily paid cash because it was easier. Athens used this money to construct triremes and pay men to row them; oarsmen who brought a slave to row alongside them earned double pay. Drawn primarily from the poorest citizens, rowers gained both income and also political influence in Athenian democracy because the navy became the city-state's main force. These benefits made poor citizens eager to expand Athens's power over other Greeks. The increase in Athenian naval power thus promoted the development of a wider democracy at home, but it undermined the democracy of the Delian League. The Athenian assembly could use the league fleet to force disobedient allies to pay cash dues. Athens's dominance of the Delian League has led historians to label it Athenian Empire. By about 460 B.C.E., the Delian League's fleet had expelled all Persian garrisons from northern Greece and driven the enemy fleet from the Aegean Sea. This sweep eliminated the Persian threat for the next fifty years. Military success made Athens prosperous by bringing in spoils and cash dues from the Delian League and making seaborne trade safe. The prosperity benefited rich and poor alike — the poor with good pay, the elite commanders by enhancing their chances for election to high office if they spent their war spoils on public festivals and buildings. In this way, the democracy of Golden Age Athens benefited from what modern scholars often call imperialism.

Which of these describes Athens in the decades following the Persian invasion? Disengaged from wider Greek politics Increasingly monarchial Correct: Increasingly imperialistic Increasingly imperialistic An agent of democratization

Increasingly imperialistic As the Athenians drove the Persians out of the Aegean, they also became increasingly imperialistic. Athens began reducing its allies to the status of subjects and collecting tribute, and the Athenians placed the economic resources of the Delian League under tighter and tighter control.

Aphrodite of Knidos

Praxiteles. Roman marble copy after an original of ca. 350-340 BCE. First nude statue of a goddess. praxiteles turns marble into "flesh" late classical. Not meant to be erotic Considered ideal for the time.

radical democracy

The Athenian system of democracy established in the 460s and 450s B.C.E. that extended direct political power and participation in the court system to all adult male citizens. Historians have labeled the changes to Athenian democracy in the 460s and 450s B.C.E. radical ("from the roots") because the new system gave political and judicial power to all adult male citizens (the "roots" of democracy, in the Greek view). This direct democracy consisted of the assembly, the Council of Five Hundred chosen annually by lottery, nine archons (higher-level officials) chosen by lottery, the Council of the Areopagus of ex-archons serving for life, an executive board of ten "generals" elected annually with political and military responsibilities, hundreds of other annual minor officials (most chosen by lottery), and the court system. Athens's radical democracy balanced two competing goals: (1) wide participation by as many male citizens as possible through attendance at the assembly and service in official positions filled by lottery, and (2) effective political and military leadership in elective positions by citizens with education and international experience. These highest-level officials received no pay, only public acclaim — or criticism. All public offices had an annual term limit, but a successful "general" could be reelected indefinitely. Officials exercised power as members of committees, never as sole operators. The changes in the judicial system strongly supported radical democracy. Previously, archons and the Council of the Areopagus had decided most legal cases. Reform happened when, as with Cleisthenes before (see Chapter 2), an elite man proposed it in support of greater political influence for poorer citizens — to win their votes against his rivals. In 461 B.C.E., it was Ephialtes who convinced the assembly to establish a new system taking jurisdiction from the archons and giving it to courts manned by citizen jurors. To increase participation and prevent bribery, jurors were selected by lottery from male citizens over thirty years old. They received pay to serve on juries numbering from several hundred to several thousand members. No judges or lawyers existed, and jurors voted by secret ballot after hearing speeches from the persons involved, with every trial completed in a single day. As in the assembly, a majority vote decided; no appeals of verdicts were allowed.

agora

The central market square of a Greek city-state, a popular gathering place for conversation. Generals won votes by spending their war spoils on public running tracks, shade trees, and buildings. The super-rich commander Cimon (c. 510-c. 450 B.C.E.), for example, paid for the Painted Stoa to be built on the edge of Athens's agora, the central market square. There, shoppers could admire the building's paintings commemorating the military achievements of the family of Cimon. This sort of financial contribution was voluntary, but the city-state also required wealthy citizens to pay for festivals and warship equipment. This obligation on the rich was essential because Athens, as usual in ancient Greece, had no regular property or income taxes.

Parthenon

The massive temple to Athena as a warrior goddess built atop the Athenian acropolis in the Golden Age of Greece. On Athens's acropolis (the rocky hill at the city's center), Pericles had the most famous buildings of Golden Age Athens erected during the 440s and 430s B.C.E.: a mammoth gateway and also an enormous marble temple of Athena called the Parthenon ("virgin goddess's house"). These two buildings cost well more than the equivalent of a billion dollars today, a phenomenal sum for even a large Greek city-state. Pericles' political rivals slammed him for spending too much public money on the project and diverting Delian League funds to beautify Athens. Research in surviving financial records reveals this accusation was false: Athens's own revenues financed the building program.

Delian League

The naval alliance led by Athens in the Golden Age (500-400 B.C.E.) that became the basis for the Athenian Empire. It began as a democratic alliance, but Athens soon controlled it because the allies allowed the Athenians to command and to oversee the financing of the league's fleet. At its height, the league included some three hundred city-states. Each paid dues according to its size; Athens determined how the dues were spent.

Which of these helps explain why the Greeks were able to defeat the Persians? a. They had a much larger army. b. The Persian Empire was wracked by civil war. c. Their soldiers had stronger weapons. d. They had the help of the Greek city-states in Italy.

Their soldiers had stronger weapons. The Greeks won their battles against the Persians because their generals had better strategic foresight, their soldiers had stronger weapons, their warships were more effective, and enough of them united to preserve their independence.