Greeks and Romans

Western Tradition:
- Judeo Christian
- Germanic
- Greco-Roman

 Greeks:
- Greeks were Hellens = tribe of Indo-Europeans nomads (migrated to modern Greece +
Turkey).
- Greece’s dark ages: from the period we get Iliad and Odyssey, Trojan wars happened
during that time.
- Greek society develops along coastline => traded by sea => learned to be good sailors
- Greeks had obstacles: mountains => Greeks grow up separately in city-states.
- Greeks identified themselves coming from a city-state, + knew they were a Hellen.
***Forces that united the Greeks:
1) They understood that they had a common ancestor: they were all Hellens
(whether they were Spartan or Athenian).
2) They spoke different dialects, but could understand one another.
3) Shared literature: copies of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
4) Greek religion: same pantheon of gods (Zeus, Athena, Hera…), all the Greek gods
were common to the Hellens in all city-states.
5) Olympics (held every 4 years): physical games + intellectual games (art, drama,
poetry, music…). To compete in Olympics, must be Greek = Hellen

**Different Kinds Of Governments:

- There were as many governments as there were city-states.
--->Athens and Sparta governments:
 Sparta:
- Type of government: authoritarian and militaristic
- Spartans conquered Peloponnesians, Peloponnesians became slaves = Helots to the
Spartans (for every 1 Spartan, 20 Hellos). Spartans feared Helots would revolt and
overthrow them.
=> In response to that fear, the Spartans became militaristic. They developed a phenomenal
set of Spartan warriors:
- At 7, boys sent to military school (learn to handle weapons, improve endurance…),
by age 20 they became a real soldier, at 30 they become citizen of Spartan (can vote),
only at 60 they can retire from the army.
=> In Sparta, citizenship was earned thru military service, it was not granted.
 Athens:
- Type of government: early form of democracy
- Athenians put up law codes for judges, to ensure that people get a fair trial.
- Athenians helped out poor people: involved more of the poor in the legislature, get them
out of debt…
- Finally, Pericles, ruled over 50 years = golden age of Greece. During that era:
1) He passed rules that all citizens can hold public office.
2) People were paid for government service = way of opening up places in
government for average people.
**Who was a citizen in Athens?
- Population in Athens: 300,000
- About 150,000 = foreigners or slaves => ineligible for citizenship
- About 100,000 = women => ineligible for citizenship.
- About 50,000 = had citizenship (eligible to vote, serve government)
=> It was a DIRECT democracy = have to be PRESENT to vote (they had big arenas where
citizens would gather and vote).
- Of the 50,000 that could vote, only 5000-6000 would vote.

 Greco-Persian wars:
**Event that helped create classical Greece was the Greco-Persian wars.
- Herodotus (wrote about the Persian wars): Persians weren’t completely defeated; there
was still a Persian empire.

***Account of the wars:

PART 1
- Persians were conquering toward the west; the Greeks helped out the Ionians = a Persian
enemy.
=> This upset the Persian king Darius, so he promised to get revenge against Athens. He
sent his fleet to attack Athens (they anchored 26 miles from Athens to Marathon).
 But Athens beat the Persians at the Battle of Marathon. Darius defeated goes home, but
promises to come back next year; but he doesn’t and then he dies.

PART 2
- Battle of Thermopylae: Darius’ son Xerxes, makes it back to Greece with half a million
soldiers, and attacks by land. The Spartans (to help Athens) stand in the way against the
Persians. The Persians kill the Spartans (because of a traitor Spartan), make it to Athens and
destroy it.
=> Xerxes’ biggest regret: that Athens was burned.

PART 3
- After Athens loses the army battle, they build a navy. They win the naval Battle of Salamis.
Xerxes marches his army back home and this marks the END of the Greco-Persian wars.

=> Athens, with help from Sparta, defeats Persia and never again did Persia come back to
Greece to defeat it.
 As the victor, Greece will now flourish: they have a navy + control trade, which brings
them great wealth and fame.
Note: Hellenistic = Hellenic = Greek culture, derived from the Hellens.

**Hellenistic culture:
- Greek drama: told their history and history of others; purpose was to teach morality.
- Greek philosophy: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Idea behind Greek philosophy: what is
right/good + from ethics to politics.
- Greek history: Herodotus = father of history (told the Greco-Persian wars).
- Greek languages, learning

 Macedonia:
- Macedonians = culturally + ethnically related to the Greeks (but were not considered fully
Greeks by the Greeks).
**King Philip the 2nd:
- Macedonian king Philip the 2nd was a good conqueror. He conquered almost all of Greece
except for Sparta.
- Philip had a favorite child: Alexander the Great (his mother was not a Macedonian).
- When Alexander was 19, Philip the 2nd took a new Macedonian wife and had a son with
her, which he called his heir. Afterward, Philip was assassinated.
=> Alexander succeeds to his father because other son was too young.

**Alexander the Great:

- Alexander learned from Aristotle + has a great military mind. His intention was not to just
conquer, but to remake the conquered people as Greeks.
- Alexander came to throne in 336 BC: he invaded Persia, India, Egypt; he founded
Alexandria (named after him), and set up his capitol in Babylon.
=> He accomplished all his military goals; he gets a fever and dies at 33 years old. However,
he didn’t do as well at spreading Greek culture (but not a complete failure because he
spread Greek learning and culture in southeast Asia).

**After Alexander’s death:

- After Alexander’s death, his empire was divided among generals. The generals formed
small dynasties and ruled them.
- Ptolemy (one of Alexander’s top 3 generals) ruled Egypt. The Ptolemies will continue to
rule Egypt until the last pharaoh. Then came the Romans.
=> Romans will then rule Egypt.
 3 Major Periods in Roman History:
1) 1000-500 BC: Roman Origins: the Etruscans and Romans fighting
2) 500-31 BC: Roman Republic
3) 31BC – 476 AD: Roman Empire

 1) Roman Origins: Etruscans and Romans:

**Etruscans (not romans-lost origins) lived in north of Rome and fought with the Romans.
- They spread things that they knew. Romans learned this from them: the arch,
sewers, drains (bringing clean water and taking away dirty water), and a military
formation called “Phalanx”.
**Romans (=Latins): They will found city of Rome in 753.

 2) Roman Republic:
- At first, Rome was a Republic and was conquering/expanding. (After republic, Rome
becomes an empire because governed by an emperor: Octavian).
- During the Roman Republic, it was a bit like the Greek system: males of certain statuses got
to participate in government (you elect people who vote for you).
- Overtime, the Roman Republic expanded, and the military generals became very powerful.
**Romans were successful at conquering (learned a lot from the Etruscans):
1) As they moved to new areas, they built infrastructures (roads, bridge,
aqueduct…) to move the military; + they knew how to work in concrete.
2) Their military ability + Phalanx helped them be successful.
3) Treatment of the conquered people: they offered conquered people a way to
join Rome: allowed them to keep their government and religion, as long as they paid
taxes and observed roman feast days.

- At same time in Rome, the Republican system wasn’t going so well: inside conflict because
of social differences; slave rebellions => restless society.
- The Romans felt that even if the Roman Republic was mighty, they (Romans) didn’t have a
strong leader. The strong leaders ready were the military generals in charge of the army.
The most famous general was Julius Caesar.
**End of Roman Republic:
- The generals fought amongst themselves to rule Rome.
=> Julius Caesar finally defeated his rival generals and won full control of Rome (Rome is not
yet an empire; Julius is a dictator, not an emperor). Julius reformed the calendar (365 years
and 1 leap year every 4years), he tried to help out poor people, and he expanded the
definition of citizenship…

 3) Roman Empire:
- March 15, 44 BC: A group of senators stabbed Julius to death because they were afraid he
would make himself emperor for life.
- After Cesar’s death, everyone competes for the rule of Rome. In 31 BC, Battle of Actium:
Mark Anthony loses and Octavian is the sole winner, and he is renamed Augustus (most
high). He becomes Augustus Cesar, the 1st emperor of Rome.
 Now we have a roman empire.
**Christianity:
- It was the Roman Empire that gave Christianity its first acceptance and enabled it to grow
into the religion it became.
- The Roman government had one problem with Christianity: Christians did not want to
participate in feast days because they saw it as idolatry.
- Christianity first appealed to women, slaves, and the poor, because there it promotes
equality. Finally, emperors adopted Christianity. Constantine made it an official religion of
the Roman Empire, and later it became the only official religion of the Roman Empire.

 Fall of the Roman Empire:

- Under Diocletian, Roman Empire got big, so he decided to split it geographically into 2
halves: Western half (Roman Empire/capital = Rome), and Eastern half (Byzantine
Empire/capital = Constantinople, founded by Constantine).
=> This split caused a mess. In 476 AD, Rome fell: city of Rome was conquered by a tribe of
Barbarians (Germanic tribes).
 Western Roman Empire fell, but the Eastern Byzantine Empire stayed until 1453
(Constantinople became Istanbul).

 Why did Western Empire and Rome fall?

- Tax bind: Western Empire failed to collect all the taxes => great rise in number of poor
people => people can’t buy things => manufacture and trade declines => affects the
government revenue.
=> Government got into a tax bind => could no longer found the military => hired cheap
barbarian warrior tribes (Germanic tribes) but unreliable.
 Economic problem => creates military problem => East and West split => decline in
patriotism/loyalty.

***Why are Romans still important today?

- Romans were engineers/adaptors rather than inventors
----> Consequences/Legacy of Roman Empire:
1) Christianity
2) Etruscan arch + Use of concrete + Building of sewers and drains
3) Roman law: Romans were good at separating criminal law from civil law
4) Romance languages: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Romanian
5) The Jewish Diaspora: Romans started the Jewish diaspora because the Jewish opposed
roman rule.