7: The Classical Greek Poleis and The Achaemenid Empire 33-45, 115-151

Minoan Civilization

115-117 -The earliest civilization in the Aegean region emerged on the large island of Crete, southeast of the Greek mainland. A Bronze Age civilization that used metals, especially bronze, in making weapons had been established there by 2800 B.C.E. This civilization was discovered at the turn of the twentieth century by the English archaeologist Arthur Evans, who named it "Minoan" (mih-NOH-uhn) after Minos (MY-nuss), a legendary king of Crete. In language and religion, the Minoans were not Greek, although they did have some influence on the peoples of the Greek mainland. -enormous palace complex at Knos- sus (NOSS-suss), near modern Iràklion (Heracleion), that was most likely the center of a far-ranging "sea empire," probably largely commercial. We know from the archaeological remains that the people of Minoan Crete were accustomed to sea travel and had made contact with the more advanced civilization of Egypt. Egyptianproducts have been found in Crete and Cretan products in Egypt. Minoan Cretans also had contacts with and exerted influence on the Greek-speaking inhabitants of the Greek mainland. -Minoan civilization reached its height between 2000 and 1450 B.C.E. - The centers of Minoan civilization on Crete eventually suffered a collapse. Many historians believe that a tsunami triggered by a powerful volcanic eruption on the island of Thera was responsible for destroying towns and ships on the north coast of Crete, while volcanic ash devastated the land. Although people began to rebuild, there is evidence that mainland Greeks, known as the Mycenaeans, invaded and pil- laged many centers, including Knossus, which was destroyed around 1450 B.C.E.

Homer

117-119, 129, 125 -the most famous of all their supposed military adventures has come down to us in the epic poetry of Homer -near the very end of the Dark Age appeared the work of Homer, who has come to be viewed as one of the greatest poets of all time. -The Iliad and the Odyssey, the first great epic poems of early Greece, were based on stories that had been passed down from gen- eration to generation. It is generally assumed that Homer made use of these oral traditions to compose the Iliad, his epic poem of the Trojan War. The war was sparked by Paris, a prince of Troy, who kidnapped Helen, wife of the king of the Greek state of Sparta, outraging all the Greeks. Under the leadership of the Spartan king's brother, Agamemnon of Mycenae, the Greeks attacked Troy. After ten years of combat, the Greeks finally sacked the city. The Iliad is not so much the story of the war itself, however, as it is the tale of the Greek hero Achilles (uh-KIL-eez) and how the "wrath of Achilles" led to disaster. The Odyssey, Homer's other master- piece, is an epic romance that recounts the journeys of one of the Greek heroes, Odysseus, from the fall of Troy until his eventual return to his wife, Penelope, twenty years later. Although the Iliad and the Odyssey supposedly deal with the heroes of the Mycenaean age of the thirteenth century B.C.E., many scholars believe that they really describe the social conditions of the Dark Age. According to the Homeric view, Greece was a society based on agriculture in which a landed warrior- aristocracy controlled much wealth and exercised considerable power. Homer's world reflects the values of aristocratic heroes. -the importance of Homer to later generations of Greeks. Homer did not so much record history as make it. The Greeks regarded the Iliad and the Odyssey as authentic history. They gave the Greeks an idealized past, somewhat like the concept of the golden age in ancient China, with a legendary age of heroes, and the poems came to be used as standard texts for the education of generations of Greek males. -The values Homer inculcated were essentially the aristocratic values of courage and honor. It was important to strive for the excellence befitting a hero, which the Greeks called arete. In the warrior-aristocratic world of Homer, arete is won in a struggle or contest. Through his willingness to fight, the hero protects his family and friends, preserves his own honor and his family's, and earns his reputation. -In the Homeric world, aristocratic women, too, were expected to pursue excel- lence. Penelope, for example, the wife of Odysseus (oh-DISS-ee-uss), the hero of the Odyssey, remains faithful to her husband and displays great courage and intelli- gence in preserving their household during her husband's long absence. Upon his return, Odysseus praises her for her excellence: "Madame, there is not a man in the wide world who could find fault with you. For your fame has reached heaven itself, like that of some perfect king, ruling a populous and mighty state with the fear of god in his heart, and upholding the right."2 To later generations of Greeks, these heroic values formed the core of aristo- cratic virtue, a fact that explains the tremendous popularity of Homer as an educa- tional tool. Homer gave to the Greeks a single universally accepted model of heroism, honor, and nobility. But in time, as a new world of city-states emerged in Greece, new values of cooperation and community also transformed what the Greeks learned from Homer. -Theme of trilogy derived from him -The poetry of Homer gave an account of the gods that provided Greek religion with a definite structure.

Aristotle

119, 133-135, 139, 149-150 - The Greek philosopher Aristotle argued that the citizen did not just belong to himself: "We must rather regard every citizen as belonging to the state." -In Classical Greece, Athens became the foremost intellectual and artistic center. Its reputation is perhaps strongest of all in philosophy. Socrates, Plato, and Aristo- tle raised basic questions that have been debated for two thousand years, for the most part the very same philosophical questions we wrestle with today. -Like Plato, Aristotle wished for an effective form of government that would rationally direct human affairs. Unlike Plato, he did not seek an ideal state based on the embodiment of an ideal Form of justice but tried to find the best form of government by a rational examination of existing governments. For his Politics, Aristotle examined the constitutions of 158 states and arrived at general categories for organizing governments. He identified three good forms of government: monar- chy, aristocracy, and constitutional government. But based on his examination, he warned that monarchy can easily turn into tyranny, aristocracy into oligarchy, and constitutional government into radical democracy or anarchy. He favored constitu- tional government as the best form for most people. - Aristotle's philosophical and political ideas played an enormous role in the development of Western thought during the Middle Ages. So did his ideas on women. Aristotle maintained that women were biologically inferior to men: "A woman is, as it were, an infertile male. She is female in fact on account of a kind of inadequacy." Therefore, according to Aristotle, women must be subordinated to men, not only in the community but also in marriage: "The association between husband and wife is clearly an aristocracy. The man rules by virtue of merit, and in the sphere that is his by right; but he hands over to his wife such matters as are suitable for her."

Polis

119-121, 123, 136-137 -During the Dark Age, Greek villages gradually expanded and evolved into inde- pendent city-states. -Two major developments stand out in this era: the evolution of the city-state, or what the Greeks called a polis (plural, poleis), as the central institu- tion in Greek life and the Greeks' colonization of the Mediterranean and Black Seas. -a polis (POH-liss) could be defined as a small but autonomous political unit in which all major political, social, and religious activities were carried out at one central location. The polis encompassed a town or city or even village and its surrounding country- side. But each had a central place where the citizens of the polis could assemble for political, social, and religious activities. In some poleis, this central meeting point was a hill, like the Acropolis in Athens, which could serve as a place of refuge dur- ing an attack and later at some sites came to be the religious center on which tem- ples and public monuments were erected. Below the acropolis would be an agora, an open space that served both as a market and as a place where citizens could assemble. - Poleis varied greatly in size, -also varied in population. -most poleis were much smaller, consisting of only a few hundred to several thousand people. -the polis itself was much more than a political institution. It was a community of citizens in which all political, economic, social, cultural, and religious activities were focused. As a community, the polis consisted of citizens with political rights (adult males), citizens with no political rights (women and children), and noncitizens (slaves and resident aliens). All citizens of a polis possessed rights, but these rights were coupled with responsibilities. - City-states distrusted one another, and the division of Greece into fiercely patriotic independent units helped bring about its ruin. - large numbers of Greeks left their homeland to settle in distant lands. The growing gulf between rich and poor, overpopulation, and the development of trade were all factors that spurred the establishment of colonies. Each colony was founded as a polis and was usually independent of the mother polis (the metropolis) that had established it. - In many poleis, the expansion of trade and industry cre- ated a new group of rich men who perceived that the decisions of the polis could affect their businesses. -Tyrants -Colonization -The polis was above all a male community: only adult male Athens citizens took part in public life.

Plato

120, 132-135, 150 -In the world of the Greek city-states, war became an integral part of the Greek way of life. The Greek philosopher Plato described war as "always existing by nature between every Greek city-state."4 - According to Plato, a higher world of eternal, unchanging Ideas or Forms has always existed. To know these Forms is to know truth. These ideal Forms constitute reality and can be appre- hended only by a trained mind—which, of course, is the goal of philosophy. The objects that we perceive with our senses are simply reflections of the ideal Forms. They are shadows; reality is in the Forms themselves. -Plato's ideas of government were set out in his dialogue titled The Republic. Based on his experience in Athens, Plato had come to distrust the workings of democracy. It was obvious to him that individuals could not attain an ethical life unless they lived in a just and rational state. In The Republic, he constructed such an ideal state, in which the population was divided into three basic groups. At the top was an upper class, a ruling elite, the philosopher-kings: "Unless ... political power and philosophy meet together ..., there can be no rest from troubles ... for states, nor yet, as I believe, for all mankind."10 The second group consisted of the courageous; they would be the warriors who protected the society. All the rest made up the masses, essentially people driven not by wisdom or courage but by desire. They would be the producers—the artisans, tradespeople, and farmers. Con- trary to common Greek custom, Plato also believed that men and women should have the same education and equal access to all positions. - Plato established a school at Athens known as the Academy. One of his pupils, who studied there for twenty years, was Aristotle (AR-iss-tot-ul) (384-322 B.C.E.), who later became a tutor to Alexander the Great. Aristotle did not accept Plato's theory of ideal Forms. Instead, he believed that by examining individual objects, we can perceive their form and arrive at universal principles, but these principles do not exist as a separate higher world of reality beyond material things; rather they are a part of things themselves. Aristotle's interests, then, lay in analyzing and classifying things based on thorough research and investigation. His interests were wide-ranging, and he wrote treatises on an enormous number of subjects: ethics, logic, politics, poetry, astronomy, geology, biology, and physics.

Sparta

121 - 123, 127, 138, 145, 147 -two most famous and most powerful Greek city-states, Sparta and Athens. -Located in the southeastern Peloponnesus, Sparta, like other Greek states, faced the need for more land. Instead of sending its people out to found new colonies, the Spartans conquered the neighboring Laconians and later, beginning around 730 B.C.E., undertook the conquest of neighboring Messenia despite its larger size and population. -Between 800 and 600 B.C.E., the Spartans instituted a series of reforms that are associated with the name of the lawgiver Lycurgus - the lives of Spartans were now rig- idly organized and tightly controlled (to this day, the word spartan means "highly self-disciplined"). Boys were taken from their mothers at the age of seven and put under control of the state. They lived in military-style barracks, where they were subjected to harsh discipline to make them tough and given an education that stressed military training and obedience to authority. At twenty, Spartan males were enrolled in the army for regular military service. Although allowed to marry, they continued to live in the barracks and ate all their meals in public dining halls with their fellow soldiers. Meals were simple; the famous Spartan black broth con- sisted of a piece of pork boiled in blood, salt, and vinegar, causing a visitor who ate in a public mess to remark that he now understood why Spartans were not afraid to die. At thirty, Spartan males were recognized as mature and allowed to vote in the assembly and live at home, but they remained in military service until the age of sixty. -While their husbands remained in military barracks until age thirty, Spartan women lived at home. Because of this separation, Spartan women had greater free- dom of movement. Permitted to own and inherit land, Spartan women had greater power in the household than was common for women elsewhere in Greece and could even supervise large estates. They were encouraged to exercise and remain fit to bear and raise healthy children. Like the men, Spartan women engaged in athletic exercises in the nude. Many Spartan women upheld the strict Spartan values, expect- ing their husbands and sons to be brave in war. - The so-called Lycurgan reforms also reorganized the Spartan government, creating an oligarchy. Two kings from different families were primar- ily responsible for military affairs and served as the leaders of the Spartan army on its campaigns. A group of five men, known as the ephors (EFF-urz), were elected each year and were responsible for the education of youth and the conduct of all citizens. A council of elders, composed of the two kings and twenty-eight male citi- zens over the age of sixty, decided on the issues that would be presented to an assembly. This assembly of all male citizens did not debate but only voted on the proposals put before it by the council of elders. The assembly also elected the coun- cil of elders and the ephors. -To make their new military state secure, the Spartans deliberately turned their backs on the outside world. Foreigners, who might bring in new ideas, were dis- couraged from visiting Sparta. Nor were Spartans, except for military reasons, allowed to travel abroad, where they might pick up new ideas dangerous to the sta- bility of the state. Likewise, Spartan citizens were discouraged from studying philos- ophy, literature, or the arts—subjects that might encourage new thoughts. The art of war was the Spartan ideal, and all other arts were frowned on. In the sixth century, Sparta used its military might and the fear it inspired to gain greater control of the Peloponnesus by organizing an alliance of almost all the Peloponnesian states. Sparta's strength enabled it to dominate this Peloponne- sian League and determine its policies. By 500 B.C.E., the Spartans had organized a powerful military state that maintained order and stability in the Peloponnesus. Raised from early childhood to believe that total loyalty to the Spartan state was the basic reason for existence, the Spartans viewed their strength as justification for their militaristic ideals and regimented society.

Pericles

126-127 -After the defeat of the Persians, Athens took over the leader- ship of the Greek world by forming a defensive alliance against the Persians called the Delian League in the winter of 478-477 B.C.E. -Athenians favored the new imperial policy, especially after 461 B.C.E., when politics came to be dominated by a political faction led by a young aristocrat named Pericles (PER-i-kleez). Under Pericles, who remained a leading figure in Athe- nian politics for more than three decades, Athens embarked on a policy of expand- ing democracy at home and its new empire abroad. This period of Athenian and Greek history, which historians have subsequently labeled the Age of Pericles, wit- nessed the height of Athenian power and the culmination of its brilliance as a civilization. - During the Age of Pericles, the Athenians became deeply attached to their dem- ocratic system. The sovereignty of the people was embodied in the assembly, which consisted of all male citizens over eighteen years of age. In the 440s, that was prob- ably a group of about 43,000. Not all attended, however, and the number present at the meetings, which were held every ten days on a hillside east of the Acropolis, seldom reached 6,000. The assembly passed all laws and made final decisions on war and foreign policy. -Routine administration of public affairs was handled by a large body of city magistrates, usually chosen by lot without regard to class and usually serving only one-year terms. This meant that many male citizens held public office at some time in their lives. A board of ten officials known as generals (strategoi [strah- tay-GOH-ee]) was elected by public vote to guide affairs of state, although their power depended on the respect they had earned. Generals were usually wealthy aristocrats, even though the people were free to select otherwise. The generals could be reelected, enabling individual leaders to play an important political role. Pericles's frequent reelection (fifteen times) as one of the ten generals made him one of the leading politicians between 461 and 429 B.C.E. Pericles expanded the Athenians' involvement in democracy, which is what by now the Athenians had come to call their form of government. Power was in the hands of the people; male citizens voted in the assemblies and served as jurors in the courts. Lower-class citizens were now eligible for public offices formerly closed to them. Pericles also introduced state pay for officeholders, including the widely held jury duty. This meant that even poor citizens could afford to participate in public affairs and hold public office. Nevertheless, although the Athenians devel- oped a system of government that was unique in its time in which citizens had equal rights and the people were the government, aristocrats continued to hold the most important offices, and many people, including women, slaves, and foreigners residing in Athens, were not given the same political rights. - Under Pericles, Athens became the leading center of Greek culture. The Persians had destroyed much of the city during the Persian Wars, but Pericles used the trea- sury money of the Delian League to set in motion a massive rebuilding program. New temples and statues soon made the greatness of Athens more visible. Art, architecture, and philosophy flourished, and Pericles broadly boasted that Athens had become the "school of Greece." But the achievements of Athens alarmed the other Greek states, especially Sparta, and soon all of Greece was confronting a new war. -War of Sparta and Athens, The Spartans and their allies invaded Attica and ravaged the fields and orchards, hoping that the Athenians would send out their army to fight beyond the walls. But Pericles was convinced that Athens was secure behind its walls and stayed put. -In the second year of the war, however, plague devastated the crowded city of Athens and wiped out possibly one-third of the population. Pericles himself died the following year (429 B.C.E.), a severe loss to Athens.

Peloponnesian War

127-129 - the Greek world came to be divided into two major camps: Sparta and its supporters and the Athenian maritime empire. Sparta and its allies feared the growing Athenian Empire. - the Greek world came to be divided into two major camps: Sparta and its supporters and the Athenian maritime empire. Sparta and its allies feared the growing Athenian Empire. -At the beginning of the war, both sides believed they had winning strategies. The Athenians planned to remain behind the protective walls of Athens while the overseas empire and the navy would keep them supplied. Pericles knew that the Spartans and their allies could beat the Athenians in open battles, which was the chief aim of the Spartan strategy. The Spartans and their allies invaded Attica and ravaged the fields and orchards, hoping that the Athenians would send out their army to fight beyond the walls. But Pericles was convinced that Athens was secure behind its walls and stayed put. In the second year of the war, however, plague devastated the crowded city of Athens and wiped out possibly one-third of the population. Pericles himself died the following year (429 B.C.E.), a severe loss to Athens. Despite the losses from the plague, the Athenians fought on in a struggle that dragged on for another twenty-seven years. A final crushing blow came in 405 B.C.E., when the Athenian fleet was destroyed at Aegospotami (ee-guh-SPOT-uh-my) on the Hellespont. Athens was besieged and surrendered in 404. Its walls were torn down, the navy was disbanded, and the Athenian Empire was no more. The great war was finally over. The Great Peloponnesian War weakened the major Greek states and destroyed any possibility of cooperation among the states. The next seventy years of Greek history are a sorry tale of efforts by Sparta, Athens, and Thebes, a new Greek power, to dominate Greek affairs. Focused on their petty wars, the Greek states remained oblivious to the growing power of Macedonia to their north.

Socrates

132-134, 139, 150 -In Classical Greece, Athens became the foremost intellectual and artistic center. Its reputation is perhaps strongest of all in philosophy. Socrates, Plato, and Aristo- tle raised basic questions that have been debated for two thousand years, for the most part the very same philosophical questions we wrestle with today. -Socrates (SAHK-ruh-teez) (469-399 B.C.E.) left no writings, but we know about him from his pupils. Socrates was a stonemason whose true love was philosophy. He taught a number of pupils, but not for pay, because he believed that the goal of education was to improve the individual. His approach, still known as the Socratic method, employs a question-and-answer technique to lead pupils to see things for themselves using their own reason. Socrates believed that all knowledge is within each person; only critical examination was needed to call it forth. This was the real task of philosophy, since "the unexamined life is not worth living." -Socrates questioned authority and criticized some traditional Athenian values, and this soon led him into trouble. - Socrates was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens by his teaching. An Athenian jury convicted him and sentenced him to death. -

Mycenaean Civilization

34, 117-118 -The term Mycenaean (my-suh-NEE-un) is derived from Myce-nae (my-SEE-nee), a remarkable fortified site excavated by the amateur German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann (HYN-rikh SHLEE-mahn) starting in 1870. Mycenae was one center in a Mycenaean Greek civilization that flourished between 1600 and 1100 B.C.E. The Mycenaean Greeks were part of the Indo-European family of peoples who spread from their original location into southern and western Europe, India, and Persia. -Mycenaean civilization, which reached its high point between 1400 and 1200 B.C.E., consisted of a number of powerful monarchies centered in fortified palace complexes. Like Mycenae itself, the palaces were built on hills and surrounded by gigantic stone walls. These various centers of power probably formed a loose con- federacy of independent states, with Mycenae the strongest. -The Mycenaeans were above all a warrior people who prided themselves on their heroic deeds in battle. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Mycenaean monarchies also developed an extensive commercial network. Mycenaean pottery has been found throughout the Mediterranean basin, in Syria and Egypt to the east and Sicily and southern Italy to the west. But some scholars also believe that the Mycenaeans, led by Mycenae itself, spread outward militarily, conquering Crete and making it part of the Mycenaean world. The most famous of all their supposed military adventures has come down to us in the epic poetry of Homer - By the late thirteenth century, Mycenaean Greece was showing signs of serious trouble. Mycenae itself was burned around 1190 B.C.E., and other Mycenaean cen- ters show a similar pattern of destruction as new waves of Greek-speaking invaders moved into Greece from the north. By 1100 B.C.E., the Mycenaean culture was com- ing to an end, and the Greek world was entering a new period of considerable insecurity. -After the collapse of Mycenaean civilization, Greece entered a difficult era of declining population and falling food produc- tion.

Alexander the Great

38, 140 -147 - fifth century B.C.E. did Macedonia emerge as an important kingdom. But when Philip II (359-336 B.C.E.) came to the throne, he built an efficient army and turned Macedonia into the strongest power of the Greek world—one that was soon drawn into the conflicts among the Greeks. - Philip insisted that the Greek states end their bitter rivalries and cooperate with him in a war against Persia. Before Philip could undertake his invasion of Asia, however, he was assassi- nated, leaving the task to his son Alexander. -Alexander was only twenty when he became king of Great Macedonia. He had in many ways been prepared to rule by his father, who had taken Alexander along on military cam- paigns and had given him control of the cavalry at the important battle of Chaero- nea. After his father's assassination, Alexander moved quickly to assert his authority, securing the Macedonian frontiers and smothering a rebellion in Greece. He then turned to his father's dream, the invasion of the Persian Empire. -Alexander's first confrontation with the Persians, at a battle at the Granicus River in 334 B.C.E., almost cost him his life but resulted in a major victory. - Although the Persian troops outnumbered Alexander's, the Battle of Issus (ISS-uss) was fought on a narrow field that canceled the advantage of superior numbers and resulted in another Macedonian success. After his victory at Issus in 333 B.C.E., Alexander turned south, and by the winter of 332, Syria, Palestine, and Egypt were under his domination. He took the traditional title of pharaoh of Egypt and founded the first of a series of cities named after him (Alexandria) as the Greek administrative capital of Egypt. - In just twelve years, Alexander the Great conquered vast territories. Dominating lands from west of the Nile to east of the Indus, he brought the Persian Empire, Egypt, and much of the Middle East under his control. - By 330, Alexander was again on the march, pursuing Darius. After Darius was killed by one of his own men, Alexander took the title and office of Great King of the Persians. -But Alexander was not content to rest with the spoils of the Persian Empire. Over the next three years, he moved east and northeast, as far as modern Pakistan. By the summer of 327 B.C.E., he had entered India, which at that time was divided into a number of warring states. In 326 B.C.E., Alexander and his armies arrived in the plains of northwestern India. At the Battle of the Hydaspes River, Alexander won a brutally fought battle. When Alexander made clear his determination to march east to conquer more of India, his soldiers, weary of campaigning year after year, mutinied and refused to go on. Reluctantly, Alexander turned back, leading his men across the arid lands of southern Persia. Conditions in the desert were appalling; the blazing sun and lack of water led to thousands of deaths before Alex- ander and his remaining troops reached Babylon. Alexander planned still more campaigns, but in June 323 B.C.E., weakened from wounds, fever, and probably excessive alcohol consumption, he died at the age of thirty-two. - his military ability, extensive conquests, and creation of a new empire alone justify calling him Alexander the Great. Other his- torians also praise Alexander's love of Greek culture and his intellectual brilliance, especially in matters of warfare. -Alexander ushered in a completely new age, the Hellenistic era. The word Hellenistic is derived from a Greek word meaning "to imitate Greeks." It is an appropriate way, then, to describe an age that saw the extension of the Greek language and ideas to the non-Greek world of the Middle East. Alexander's destruction of the Persian mon- archy created opportunities for Greek engineers, intellectuals, merchants, soldiers, and administrators. Those who followed Alexander and his successors participated in a new political unity based on the principle of monarchy. His successors used force to establish military monarchies that dominated the Hellenistic world after his death. Autocratic power became a regular feature of those Hellenistic monarchies and was part of Alexander's political legacy to the Hellenistic world. His vision of empire no doubt inspired the Romans, who were, of course, Alexander's real heirs. But Alexander also left a cultural legacy. As a result of his conquests, Greek language, art, architecture, and literature spread throughout the Middle East. The urban centers of the Hellenistic Age, many founded by Alexander and his succes- sors, became springboards for the diffusion of Greek culture. While the Greeks spread their culture in the east, they were also inevitably influenced by eastern ways. Thus, Alexander's legacy included one of the basic characteristics of the Hel- lenistic world: the clash and fusion of different cultures. -The united empire that Alexander created by his conquests disintegrated after his death.

Athens

40, 44, 115-116, 119, 121,123-129,131-133,136-138, -By 700 B.C.E., Athens had established a unified polis on the peninsula of Attica. Although early Athens had been ruled by a monarchy, by the seventh century B.C.E. it had fallen under the control of its aristocrats. They possessed the best land and controlled political and religious life by means of a council of nobles, assisted by a board of nine officials called archons. Although there was an assembly of full citizens, it possessed few powers. Near the end of the seventh century B.C.E., Athens faced political turmoil because of serious economic problems. Increasing numbers of Athenian farmers found themselves sold into slavery when they were unable to repay loans they had obtained from their aristocratic neighbors, pledging themselves as collateral. Repeatedly, there were cries to cancel the debts and give land to the poor. -

Darius 1

40, 44-45, 125 -the Persian Empire was the largest the world had yet seen - Darius (duh-RY-uss) (521-486 B.C.E.) added a new Persian prov- ince in western India that extended to the Indus River and moved into Europe proper, conquering Thrace and making the Macedonian king a vassal. A revolt of the Ionian Greek cities in 499 B.C.E. resulted in temporary freedom for these com- munities in western Asia Minor. Aid from the Greek mainland, most notably from Athens, encouraged the Ionians to invade Lydia and burn Sardis, center of the Lyd- ian satrapy. This event led to Darius's involvement with the mainland Greeks. After reestablishing control of the Ionian Greek cities, Darius undertook an invasion of the Greek mainland, which culminated in the Athenian victory in the Battle of Marathon, in 490 B.C.E. - By the reign of Darius, the Persians had assembled the largest empire the world had yet seen. It not only included all the old centers of power in Egypt and western Asia but also extended into Thrace and Asia Minor in the west and into India in the east. For administrative purposes, the empire had been divided into approximately twenty satrapies. Each province was ruled by a satrap, literally a "protector of the kingdom." Satraps collected tributes, were responsible for justice and security, raised military levies for the royal army, and normally com- manded the military forces within their satrapies. In terms of real power, the satraps were miniature kings who created courts imitative of the Great King's. An efficient system of communication was crucial to sustaining the Persian Empire. Well-maintained roads facilitated the rapid transit of military and govern- ment personnel. One in particular, the so-called Royal Road, stretched from Sardis, the center of Lydia in Asia Minor, to Susa, the chief capital of the Persian Empire. Like the Assyrians, the Persians established staging posts equipped with fresh horses for the king's messengers. - In this vast administrative system, the Persian king occupied an exalted position. Although not considered a god in the manner of an Egyptian pha- raoh, he was nevertheless the elect one or regent of the Persian god Ahuramazda (uh-HOOR-uh-MAHZ-duh). All subjects were the king's servants, and he was the source of all justice, possessing the power of life and death over everyone. Persian kings were largely secluded and not easily accessible. They resided in a series of splendid palaces. Darius in particular was a palace builder on a grand scale. The policies of Darius also tended to widen the gap between the king and his subjects. -By the time of Darius, the Persian monarchs had created a standing army of professional soldiers. This army was truly international, composed of contin- gents from the various peoples who made up the empire. At its core was a cavalry force of ten thousand and an elite infantry force of ten thousand Medes and Persians known as the Immortals because they were never allowed to fall below ten thousand in num- ber. When one was killed, he was immediately replaced. -521-486 B.C.E Regin of Darius - The Ionian Greek cities in western Asia Minor had already fallen subject to the Persian Empire by the mid-sixth century B.C.E. An unsuccessful revolt by the Ionian cities in 499 B.C.E.—assisted by the Athenian navy—led the Persian ruler Darius (duh-RY-uss) to seek revenge by attacking the mainland Greeks. -

Zoroastrianism

45 -Of all the Persians' cultural contributions, the most original was their religion, Zoroastrianism. -According to Persian tradition, Zoroaster (ZOR- oh-ass-tur) was born in 660 B.C.E. After a period of wandering and solitude, he experienced revelations that caused him to be revered as a prophet of the "true religion." His teachings were eventually written down in the third century B.C.E. in the Zend Avesta, the sacred book of Zoroastrianism. -Zoroaster's spiritual message was basically monotheistic. To Zoroaster, the religion he preached was the only perfect one, and Ahuramazda was the only god. -Accord- ing to Zoroaster, Ahuramazda also possessed qualities that all humans should aspire to, such as good thought, right action, and piety. Although Ahuramazda was supreme, he was not unopposed; this gave a dualistic element to Zoroastrian- ism. At the beginning of the world, the good spirit of Ahuramazda was opposed by the evil spirit, later identified as Ahriman. -Ahuramazda, the creator, gave all humans free will and the power to choose between right and wrong. The good person chooses the right way of Ahuramazda. Zoroaster taught that there would be an end to the struggle between good and evil. Ahuramazda would eventually triumph, and at the last judgment at the end of the world, the final separation of good and evil would occur. Individuals, too, would be judged. Each soul faced a final evaluation of its actions. The soul of a person who had performed good deeds would achieve paradise; but if deeds had been evil, the person would be thrown into an abyss of torment. Some historians believe that Zoroastrianism, with its emphasis on good and evil, heaven and hell, and a last judgment, had an impact on Christianity, a religion that eventually sur- passed it in significance.