The Land of Greece The Minoans The Mycenaeans Schliemann The Dark Ages The Phoenicians The End of the Dark Ages Sparta Athens The Olympiad Greek Warfare The Persian Empire The Classical Age The Athenian Empire The Peloponnesian Wars Sparta’s Rule Philip and Alexander’s Conquest The Presocratic Philosophers The Paradoxes of Xeno Socrates Plato Aristotle  Project - a song in the Ancient Greek style
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When God made the earth, he allotted rivers and other geographical features to each country. When he got to Greece, all that was left was rocks.
That is the Greeks' reason their country is so rocky and dry. Greece is made up of many small islands. The mainland is very mountainous and there are many small rivers that are impossible to navigate. There are only some small farming sections. The winters are cold and windy, and the summers are very hot. There is adequate rainfall for the little farming they do.
What kind of society grows in this type of climate? It is easier to get around within the country by sea rather than by land because the mountains make a very difficult trip. Even though they relied heavily on their ships to get around, they weren't great sailors. They only knew how to navigate if they could see land. As soon as the land was out of sight, they were lost. Horses don't do too well in this weather. They had goats and sheep instead. The olive tree is very important. There are many vitamins in an olive as long as it isn't processed and put in a can. Greece has a lot of coastline which makes for a lot of trade with other lands. Trade was a big part of Greek life. They met many other people from many other countries through their trading. This had a great influence on the culture of Greece.
The Greek culture was based on conflict. They always had to be fighting with someone or competing with someone. They enjoyed the tension. This was a very big and important part of Greek life.
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The Minoan culture flowered around 1900 BCE. It was centered in the island of Crete. At this time period, the first cities with individual leaders started. The culture was related to other Middle Eastern cultures of the time. This culture got its name from their king, Minos. The king lived in a palace. Everything that went on passed through the palace. From building plans to the actual grain people ate, it all went through the palace.
There was no ground defense around this palace or anywhere else on the island. There are two possible explanations for this. One is that the culture is peaceful, or two, that their defense was their navy in the ocean surrounding the island.
In the 1700s BCE, there was a major crisis in the culture which almost caused it to disappear. No one is sure exactly what happened. Maybe it was caused by volcanic activity? But the Minoans managed to pull through and rebuild the city. They lasted until 1450 BCE, when the Mycenaean culture had completely replaced the Minoan culture. This switching from one to the other is thought to be a slow process, not an abrupt disaster or invasion.
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The Mycenaeans were centralized in Peloponnese. They were a warrior society, greatly different from the previous Minoans. But they were still a cultural society. They had architecture, jewelry, drama, music and the like.
According to a myth, every year, all the cities of Greece paid a tribute to Crete by sending seven men and women to the labyrinth to be eaten by the Minotaur. When the Mycenaeans came along, they were the first to break this tribute.
Around the 1300s BCE, the Mycenaeans sent a massive expedition to Troy. It is thought they realized the potential profits to be made in the key trade location of the river leading out of the Hellespont bay into the Mediterranean. After they returned, the Mycenaean society was attacked by the Dorians from Balkan which is just north. This is somewhat of a mystery, because there is not much evidence of physical warfare. It could be that the Dorians had been living undercover with them as serfs at the time, and they decided to make their move. In any case, the society fell apart after this attack. This was not the only society to fall at this time, there were many other cultures in other parts of the world that crumbled around the same time period. As a side note, this is one example of where myth and history match. In the myth, Agamemnon is away a long time fighting. When he returns, he is killed by Aegisthus. This is just what happened with the Mycenaeans. They were away fighting, and when they came back, they were defeated.
We learned a lot about the Mycenaeans when their writing called Linear B was translated. This language followed Linear A which has not been translated yet. Both languages have symbols represent syllables, instead of each symbol representing a letter or sound.
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In the 1900s CE, a German man named Schliemann proved the Trojan story was more than just a myth. Being curious, he bought the ruins where Troy would be and excavated. Sure enough. He found evidence supporting this story. With this success, he bought the land where Mycenae would have been and excavated there too. He found a tomb with a man, a woman, and some horses. He speculated it must be a king's tomb because of the gold mask on the man's face. He thought it was Agamemnon's face he was seeing. He managed to get big news stories about the discovery of Agamemnon's tomb in the papers. But today, we can tell how old things are with new techniques, and we know that this tomb was about 300 years off to be Agamemnon's.
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Starting at 1220 BCE, the next four or five hundred years were the "Dark Ages" of Greece. There is much less art found from that time, and the temples show signs they weren't used. The population falls greatly, possibly because of the attack from the Dorians, or because everyone moved away.
Beginning in the "Dark Ages," the family was the main political unit. This was also called the Oikos. The Oikos started out small. Each one was separated from the next. They would sometimes fight against each other, but they could also pull together to fight against a common enemy. The father was the head of the Oikos, and remained that way even when it grew.
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The Phoenicians were centered at Tyre. They, like the Mycenaeans, were a sea people. But they were only interested in the land near the sea. They had little or no settlements inland. A major portion of their land was where Israel is now. The Phoenicians were very cooperative with the Greeks. A little later, they were living side by side. Because of this, they shared many ideas. Somewhere between 1200 and 800 BCE, the Greeks took the Phoenician's alphabet and made their own. The Phoenicians used a system where each symbol represented a thing. The Greeks took this and made each symbol represent the first sound the Phoenician's word started with. This eventually developed into the alphabet we use today.
The first thing that was written down when the Greeks discovered writing was Homer's Iliad and Odyssey that had been previously only sung. There were many other stories that could have been written, but Homer's was first. These books became their bible and their basis for their history. They believed everything that was written in them was actual fact. The characters in them were looked at as examples for their own behavior.
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The first signs of recovery from the dark ages were in Attica in about 800 BCE. By 700 BCE, the dark ages were over. By this time, these families were large enough to occupy a sizeable chunk of land and they became city-states. Each city-state was one Oikos. Some of the main ones were Athens, Sparta, Corinth and Thebes. This was also the "orientalizing period" of Greece. Some big changes took place in Greece. The gryphon and sphinx come into the culture from the east. The people began to worship Dionysus, the god of ecstasy and wine. Dionysus became a "popular" god as opposed to Zeus who was a more classical god.
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The city-states Sparta and Athens developed very differently from each other. The people of Sparta began to group into cities which they called polis. That is where we get the suffix on modern-day cities like Indianapolis. The ruler of the time decided that in order to keep the cities together, there had to be some form of general laws to follow everywhere. He established the form of justice they used.
In 650 BCE, they went to war with Messinia. Generally in wars, a few men from each side were sent to a battlefield and the country with the winners would dictate what the other side had to do for a period of time. Land was not captured, and it the loser accepted the loss gracefully. But, with this war, after the Spartans won, they decided to take over the land of Messinia and put the Messinians in slavery.
The people of Sparta were divided into three distinct classes. There were the Spartiates, who were considered "full citizens," and they had all the rights. Just under them were the Perioci, meaning friends, but they didn't have nearly as many rights as the Spartiates. The lowest class was the Helots. They were the slaves and had no rights. Most of the people in Sparta were Helots. In the Spartiates, the men were raised from birth to be warriors. They were taught how to be hardy and endure pain. The whole society was based on supporting the Spartiates. They were the ones who had the power and influence. All the commanders and generals and other main leaders of the military came from the Spartiate class. The helots were the ones who were forced to fight and did most of the dirty work. As part of their training, the teenagers were given a dagger and placed in the woods and they had to survive. At this time, they also served for the "secret police" force called the Cryptaea. If they found any Helots on property they weren't supposed to be on, the warrior-in-trainings were not only allowed, but expected, to kill the Helots. If anyone wasn't able to keep up with the expectations of their class, they were bumped down to the next lower level on the social scale.
There was a constant threat of the Helots rebelling against the Spartiates. A constant eye had to be kept on them. Most of the Helots were about ready to kill the Spartiates. This made them always paranoid not only about the rebellion, but of everything else also. They were very afraid that strangers from other countries visiting would influence their state in undesired ways. The state kept a right to expel all foreigners at a moment's notice if they felt it was necessary.
In 454 BCE, as anticipated, there was a massive slave revolt. It was so bad that the Athenians had to come in to help. But the Athenians had a very different way of thinking. They were democratic. They had a more just system of law. During the middle of the battle, the Spartans decided to expel the Athenians because they thought the Athenians ideas were more dangerous to them than the Helots.
As part of their warrior side, there was no art in Sparta. No pottery. It would be dangerous to their military. Naturally, as the men are raised to be fighters from their birth, they would have a lot of well trained people. It was shameful for a warrior to run in a battle. The Spartiates would never show cowardice, they would never run.
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In the city of Athens, the Oikos grew bigger until they became factions. Within the city, the factions would constantly fight amongst themselves. This fighting always went on, and they called it stasis. If a farmer had a bad crop one year, and he couldn't make enough money to pay for his food, he would sell himself into slavery to pay back his debt. That seems almost like working for someone, but it was harsher than that.
The Aristoi were a group of factions who fancied themselves as the best men. They were the ones who wanted to preserve the social structure Athens had, mostly because it was good to them. But one man, named Solon, saw that Athens was having a hard time keeping up with the rest of Greece, so he decided to make some changes. First, he made it impossible to sell yourself into slavery. People still worked for other people to pay their debt, but it was more like work and less like slavery. Solon tried to minimize the fighting between the factions. He also adopted the Boetian system of weights and measurements. This was quite a change, because previously, every state had its own standard for measuring things. Now, Athens decided to join the Boetians. Solon changed the law around to be more fair and just. He formalized the law and formed the court system they used. Athens was having trouble supplying itself with enough grain to go around. But the farmers didn't like to sell their grain in Athens because they found they could get more money it if they sold it out of the state. So Solon banned all agricultural exports except for olive oil. He let olive oil be exported because it was a big source of money for all of Athens and there was plenty of it.
Eventually - this was a slow process - Solan's new ideas made changes for the better in Athens. He put an end to the stasis.
In 546 BCE, the Tyrant Pisistratus took over the throne. Just because he was a tyrant doesn't mean he was necessarily a bad ruler, he just took power without being elected. In this case, he did a pretty good job while he was ruling. He obeyed all the laws of the state, and even started the yearly Dionysian festival which the people enjoyed. He built up the power Athens had. But in 528 BCE, he died and his sons took over. They didn't do too well and Athens went back to its previous state of stasis.
In 510 BCE, a new ruler decided to make some changes again. Cleisthenes initiated great political reforms. He made some very intricate laws, and instead of gradually introducing them, he put them all out at once.
Cleisthenes was the creator of Athenian democracy. To break up the stasis the state was in, he divided it into 10 tribes. This division was done geographically, and each tribe got some coast and mountains. Each tribe was then broken down into deames. In this way, each faction would be split up and the deam would be powerful. One thing he put into the law books was the ostracism event. Once a year, all the Athenians would assemble and write the name of one person they wanted to be kicked out of the country on a scrap of pottery. These were all collected, and if there were more than 6000, another meeting would be held in two months. At this meeting, they would do the same thing, but this time, the person with the most votes would have to leave the country for ten years. It was a friendly thing, and the unlucky person would get to keep his citizenship and property in Athens. But he would be forbidden to live in the country for ten years.
The changes Cleisthenes made once again broke up the stasis Athens was in.
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All the states of Greece fought with each other, but there were two major things that kept them united. Every four years, the Olympics were held. All the states would stop fighting no matter what was going on between them at the time. There was no thought of war or attacking during the Olympics. It was a very sacred time for all. The Greeks would cease the political clashes and join together to compete against each other in sport. This goes along with the need the Greeks had for tension and competition. Each state would send its best athletes to compete. All the competition was done in the nude. It was considered very bad to compete with pants on. The Greeks looked down on the Persians because they would always wear clothes when they competed. Because of this, the Greeks wouldn't allow married women to watch their Olympics.
There was one other sacred thing that was done together without fighting. All the states supported the oracle of Delphi. The land there was neutral and no battles took place. When someone wanted advice from the oracle, they brought a tribute. As a consequence, Delphi was very wealthy.
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The Greeks had a unique way of fighting. Their army was entirely volunteer based, which meant that all sorts of different people were in it. Each soldier was called a Hoplite. They had armor, a helmet, a spear and a shield which all weighed about 60 to 70 pounds. They were completely covered except the neck area and the groin area. When they were in battle, they fought in a line. Each shield covered half of themselves, and all of the man to their left. In this way, the army would be forced to stick together. If one man ran off, he would be much more likely to be hit. There were usually several rows of these men. They would all charge together, and they were quite effective just when they slammed into their target.
The effective fighting time the Greeks had was very short. The best tactic to destroying a town was to burn their crops. The fields would burn best in early September. Other times it would be too wet, or the crops wouldn't have grown yet. So most of the fighting went on in this time.
The Greeks liked to storm their enemies all at once. They weren't much for slow lengthy battles. They went in, burned whatever they could, maybe took some livestock, then left when the town was defeated. This might be because they didn't want to give themselves time to second-guess their decision. They would kill as quick as they could, then run away from the fact.
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In 540 BCE, Darius was the great ruler of Achaemenids, the Persian empire. The Persian territory covered a huge area. it included what is now Russia, Israel and Syria, Egypt, and the Caucasus mountains. At the same time Athens' power and culture was swinging up and down, Persia was solidifying. The Persian empire was divided into provinces called Satraps. The ruler of each was relatively mild, and he was called the Satrap. The people had to pay taxes, pay tribute to their king, and agree to their overlord's decisions. The Persians were pretty relaxed. In one Greek city they took over, they let a Greek tyrant rule.
As they built up a huge army, the Persians moved west and began to expand their empire. They conquered some little islands on the edge of Greece. In 494 BCE, the island of Ionia revolted against Persia. Other provinces followed suit, and they rallied together and burned the capital of their Satrap. Surprisingly, the some of the Greeks helped the Persians take back the land.
In 490 BCE, Darius sent an army to Attica of 10000 soldiers just to give them a demonstration. They burnt a few farms and fields, but didn't destroy the whole city. They continued on and were met by a small group of mostly Athenian soldiers, and some Spartans. The Persians were totally wiped out. From then on, Athens was renowned for defeating the Persian army.
At this same time, Themistocles came to power in Athens. He saw the problem with the Persians and decided it would only worsen. It was obvious the Persians had much more land power in fighting, mostly because they had so much more land. So Themistocles decided the navy would be a vital support. But there were a few problems with the navy idea. It would cost more than Athens had, and there was a man who wanted the money they raised to be used for something else besides the navy. Luckily enough, on Mt. Laurium, a huge silver vein was found, which made Athens a lot richer. But there was that guy. So by appealing to all the lower class and using some good techniques, Themistocles managed to get his opponent ostracized using the law Cleisthenes put in effect. So that solved both his problems. There was a revolt in Egypt which distracted Persia long enough for Athens to build 200 ships for battle. They called the ships Trireme. There were 45 oarsmen on board. Their strategy was to ram other ships in the side, splitting them down the middle. They would also shoot burning tar onto ships. The Greek ships were very fast and maneuverable, much more than the Persians'.
Back in Persia, Darius died, and his son Xerxes took over the command. There were rumors going around in Athens that Persia was building up a huge army of about a million men. Their plan was to capture and enslave all the people of Athens. They didn't know what to do. There were many ideas coming from all over and no one could agree on what to do. As a hopeless gesture, Athens built a wall around the city, hoping that would protect them.
In 480 BCE, the Persian army crossed the Hellespont river on their bridge of ships. They walked up north and west a very long way until they came to Tempe. Tempe would have been an ideal place for the Greeks to set up an army and hold back the Persians, but they couldn't agree on it. So the Persian army just waltzed right through and down through Thessaly. Before they reached Thermopylae, the Athenians got 300 Spartan soldiers to guard the passing. Even though there were tens of thousands of Persian soldiers, only a few of them could actually be there at once. The Spartans managed to hold them off for three days. But then, an Athenian ruler who had been ostracized snuck inside information to the Persians of how to get around the hill. They snuck around and attacked and killed all 300 men soon after. The Persians then continued south, unstoppable, headed for Athens. Themistocles, the man who built Athens' navy, saw what was going to happen, so he convinced the Athenians to desert the land and jump on their 200 ships. This was a huge risk for the Athenians to take, putting everything they had on the water. The Persian land army sacked the town even though there were no people, but they couldn't get to the ships. The Athenian navy went into Salamis bay, and the Persian ships followed. Things were looking pretty bad for the Athenians, with so many huge Persian ships closing in on them. Many Athenians wanted to give up fighting there and head for Sparta. So Themistocles made a bold move. He sent a messenger to the Persians to tell them to close off the exits in the bay, trapping the Athenian fleet. It looked as though he was giving up and giving the Persians good advice, but he was more into the battle than ever. This move would also keep the Athenian ships from running away. As soon as the Persians moved into position, the Athenian ships attacked. Since the Persian ships were so slow, it took a lot for them to get themselves in that position, which meant it would take a lot for them to get out. The Athenians went slamming and burning the Persians with their maneuverable ships. After that battle, 200 Persian ships and only 40 Athenian ships were destroyed. The bay was a mass of broken sunken ships and dead bodies. You could practically walk across the whole thing on the remains of the ships.
Athens was renowned for defeating the huge Persian army against little odds. Not only that, but the fact that they gave up their city got them great fame also. The next year, the Spartans had a land battle at Plataea with the Persians. The Spartans won, and the Persians retreated. Later that year, the Athenians moved their navy up to the Persian empire and attacked and won. Greece was now looked upon as more of an equal with Persia. Persia decided it was in their best interest to not try to take Athens anymore.
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The defeat of the Persians brought massive changes into the Greek society. From then on, the Greeks saw themselves as much better than the Persians, not only in war, but everything else, also. Both Athens and Sparta got to share the glory, but they did so in different ways because of their different nature.
This also marked the beginning of the Classical Age in Greece, the time when Athenian culture flowered. At this time, all the great plays were written, and the sculptures were done. The Parthenon was also built at this time. In 474 BCE, the father of Greek drama, Aeschylus, wrote a play about the recent battle called "Persians." This was the first Greek tragedy based on actual history. Many people felt sympathetic towards the Persians after they saw this play. It was told through the Persians' eyes. At one point in the play, the queen said, "Who are these people that could defeat us?" A messenger responded, "They have no king. They are free men." At this line, the Athenian audience erupted into roars of approval. But when the Spartans heard it, they were less than happy because it went against their ideals.
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The Athenians were a bit worried that Persia might attack again. They wanted to keep their navy maintained and ready to go at a moment's notice. So they talked to the Greek islands near Persia, and formed the Delian league. All the states in the league paid once a year to the treasury on Delos. They could either give a ship, or the money to build one. Since it was very complicated to build one, you needed builders, designers, inspectors and the like, most of the time they just gave money. More and more states began to join the league. But even though it was supposed to be a league, it was clearly being run by Athens. The state of Naxos decided it didn't want to be a part of this anymore, but Athens forced them to stay. More and more, the league began to look like an empire. A few more states wanted to leave, but Athens took care of them with their navy. It is ironic that the money the states paid went to the navy that was keeping them paying.
A unique thing in the ancient world was the way Athens kept democracy. They were able to change rulers regularly in peace. The leaders served a term, then a new leader was elected. The only people who were considered citizens were a specific group of men. The group was about 6000 people, and four times a month, they held an assembly. All citizens were required to go, but they were paid for their time. A council of 500 people decided the agenda. The council was made up of 50 people from each of the ten tribes. With that many people in the room, you had to be an effective speaker for the people to listen. This of course led to the development of the study of speech. New courses in schools dealt with speech.
Pericles was the main political figure of the time. He said it may have been morally wrong to build the empire, but Athens would be a fool to give it up. Pericles made it very easy for just about anyone to live in Athens. He wanted it to be big.
Athens had a unique jury system. All jurors were paid for their time. For civil cases, the jury was 501 people. For more serious crimes such as crimes against the government, bribery, not doing one's duty of serving the state, the jury was 1001 people. For the most serious crimes such as treason, the jury was 1501 people. No other state used this jury system.
The women were not part of the government at all. In fact, the ideal woman was one who stayed at home and was not seen or heard except by her husband.
Changes happened in the way Athenians felt about work. At this time, it was common for the middle and upper classmen to own at least one slave. The Athenians believed thinking was more important than doing work. The slaves did all the manual labor for their owner. This gave more time to the owner of the slave. There was actually a name for this time, it was called the Scholae. The Scholae was intended for the men to improve themselves and the state. Most of the time, this time was spent at the meetings.
Once a year, Athens sent out 700 ministers to collect the tributes the so called allies were to pay. Any state that didn't, they would destroy and then send Athenian citizens to live there.
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The first Peloponnesian war started in 460 BCE. It was a war between Athens and Sparta. Not much happened except a little fighting, and there wasn't a big deal made out of it. But there was a debate in Athens of whether to ally with Sparta or be enemies. They chose the latter. Some advice given by Pericles comes back to haunt Athens later. He said to beware of conquering new territory. They should focus on keeping what they have strong. This war ended in 445 BCE with no clear winner.
The second and much bigger Peloponnesian war began in 431 BCE. For the first few years, Sparta would march into Attica. The people would play the defense and take cover in Athens behind their very strong walls. They would let the Spartans devastate the countryside and burn the fields. What surprised the Spartans was that they chose to do this. The Spartans didn't know what to do. It was too easy, but nothing was settled. It became an annual thing. Every year, the Spartans would march in, burn the fields, and leave because they didn't know what to do. They couldn't get inside the walls.
In 429 BCE, Pericles died. Soon after, the plague hit Athens. Many people died, and those who didn't were too afraid to do anything. But the war continued.
The state of Melos was a neutral state; neither for Sparta or Athens. Athens decided it wanted to make them part of its empire. Melos would have preferred to stay neutral. But Athens said, "We're stronger than you, you have to join." Melos' counterargument was, "Why turn a neutral state into an enemy?" But Athens replied with, "It doesn't matter. We're stronger." Athens was caught up with their whole empire. They didn't actually realize what they were doing, but they knew they were strong. The battle went badly for Athens at first, but they turned it around. In a fit of rage that any state would dare to think it was stronger than them, they killed all the men and sold the women and children into slavery. Except for the money they got from the slaves, this was pointless because there was no one left to pay the annual tax.
In 412 BCE, Athens sent an expedition to Sicily to make it part of their empire. There were also mines they could use as a source of money there. This mission ended in complete disaster for the Athenians. The navy was trapped in the bay, and any surviving men died in the mines. This was exactly what Pericles had talked about. Athens tried to conquer new land without solidifying what they already had. This time also marked the climax of the Peloponnesian war. First it showed Athens' arrogance, now it showed Athens' ignorance.
In 404 BCE, Athens and Sparta were both weakened. Athens wanted peace with Sparta and the war ended.
At this time, two men, Herodotus and Thucydides, started looking at history as a study. Herodotus wrote about the Persian war and believed that everything has a moral order. Persia lost the war because they were decadent. Thucydides was the "modern" scientist of the time. He wrote about the Peloponnesian war and tried to determine why things happened. What were the factors that made Athens lose the battle.
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In 404 BCE, after winning the war, Sparta was the main power in Greece. They changed the political structure of all the states to that of Sparta. They threw out democracy and installed a dictatorship in Athens of 30 men. After two years, the 30 men were thrown out because none of the Athenians liked them. In Athens, anything associated with that group was looked down upon. It was bad for you to be related in any way to one of them. Quickly, Sparta became more hated by the states than Athens was when it held its empire. Sparta even sold some cities to Persia for the money. For the next 60 or 70 years, little alliances formed and were broken between the small states. Persia decided to play all the sides of these little squirmishes and didn't ally with anyone.
After the war, Athens was so weakened that it couldn't keep control of all its little islands anymore. The ones that wanted to be neutral were allowed to do so, only because Athens didn't have enough fighting power to keep them in line. Sparta got some of the islands also. Even though Athens lost the war, it remained the center of Greek culture.
In Athens, there was a need to place the blame for the loss of the war on someone. The teachers and artists were accused of corrupting the youth. Socrates was a great philosopher of the time. He fancied himself as the wisest person alive. He never took pay for his teaching. One of his students became one of the 30 dictators of Athens. Socrates was told to arrest someone who had not done anything wrong according to himself. He refused and was put on trial. Along with that crime, he was put on trial for corrupting the youth by his teaching. He had a smart-aleck attitude which didn't help him any in front of the jury. He was tried before a jury of 1501. One of his arguments was that he never got money for his teaching. Also, he knew some of the men in the jury had sons who were his students. He asked those jury members if they thought their sons had been corrupted, and they said no. The main reason he was found guilty was because one of his students was a member of the 30 dictators who were now hated. After hearing the verdict, Socrates suggested his own punishment. First he suggested Athens feed him for the rest of his life. That didn't exactly endear him to the jury, so he suggested a small fine. At this point, the jury was upset and sentenced him to death. But he refused to even try to escape. He said the political system was so good in Athens, that it wouldn't be wise to disturb it. Within a year of his death, Athens realized they had made a big mistake, and brought the jury that gave him his sentence to trial.
In 371 BCE, the main power of Greece shifted to Thebes, but Sparta was still big. Thebes defeated Sparta in a land battle, and founded a new city called Megalopolis, meaning big city. They told the Spartans to release all their Messinian slaves and refounded the city of Messene. For the next 30 years, Athens rebuilt some of what it once had. It got much richer, but was never able to exert the same kind of power it once had.
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The fighting between the states continued. Meanwhile, Philip from Macedonia had just taken over Thessaly. He had one goal in mind: he wanted more power. He shared this goal with his 16-year-old son, Alexander, later to be known as Alexander the Great. Now that they owned Thessaly, they had a right to protect Delphi. So they slowly sent soldiers in to the sacred city. Athens and Thebes realized they had to put a stop to this, or their states would be taken over, too. But no one could agree on exactly what to do. In 338 BCE, the battle of Chaeronea began. Philip and Alexander each led half of their army. It was a decisive win for the Macedonians. They marched into Athens mostly peacefully, only killed a few key people, and made the state their allies.
Both conquerors liked Greek culture so much that they wanted to be Greek. Wherever they conquered, they would make sure they left Greek culture behind.
This victory led Philip and Alexander to believe they could conquer Persia. But, Alexander thought he was ready to rule and lead on his own without Philip. They weren't happy with each other. It is thought that together with Philip's wife, Alexander poisoned his father. After Philip's sudden death, Alexander led his army into Persia. They took over the cities along the coast, then moved east inland. They moved down into Phoenicia, Syria and Palestine and conquered them. They moved back up and continued east, never losing a battle. They conquered all the way to India, spreading Greek culture all the way. Alexander would have liked to continue this massive conquest, but his army revolted against him because they were tired of the years and years of fighting they had done. So they started to go home. But, when they went through the desert, most of the soldiers, and Alexander, caught malaria and died. Alexander died at the previous capital of Persia, Persepolis.
The Greek culture spread all over the east greatly influenced everything from other civilizations to some religions. The Greek culture had a tremendous influence on the bible.
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There were seven main philosophers before Socrates' time. They looked at the world differently. They wanted to be able to explain it without resorting to saying the gods made this and that. They dropped the whole idea of gods and myth and made some theories. Their question was, "What is the world and how does it work."
The Presocratic philosophers never wrote any of their ideas down. This makes it difficult to know their whole way of thinking. The only writing we have came from a later time from other philosophers studying them.
Thales believed that water is the key element, and everything in existence comes out of water.
Anaximander believed that air is the main element and everything comes from air.
Heraclitus said the universe is based on change. Everything is always changing. He said, "You can't dip your foot in the same river twice." He meant that the river isn't the same river the second time you put your foot in. Your foot isn't even the same foot. He also believed there is a balance to all the opposites. If something is hot, there must be something that is cold to balance it out.
Pythagoras took a mathematical view of the universe. He said that solid things are based on numbers. Somehow, numbers have the magical power in them to create objects. The objects come from a nothingness, a void.
Parmenides attacked Pythagoras' idea of void. He said it is impossible to create something from nothing. Either an object is or it isn't. If it is, then it always was and always will be. If it isn't, then it always wasn't and always won't be.
Anaxagoras believed that Mind and reality are two separate things. Sometimes, what is happening in one may match up with the other. But the truth is in the Mind.
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In order to talk about the paradoxes of Xeno, a student of Parmenides and also a presocratic philosopher, we have to understand two things. One, that the universe is either continuous or can be broken into chunks. If we talk about a line, it can be divided infinitely into infinitely small sections. Two, the same goes for time. One unit of time can be broken into an infinite number of smaller units.
The first paradox deals with walking across a stadium, or more generally, getting from point A to point B.  If we start at A, and want to walk to point B, it is reasonable to say that we have to reach the middle point. We'll call that C. In order to reach the point C, we have to reach the middle point of the line from point A to C. But to reach that, we have to get to the middle, and so on. Therefore we can say that it is impossible to move across the stadium.
The second paradox is set in a race between Achilles and a tortoise. It is obvious  Achilles can move faster that a tortoise, so we'll give the tortoise a head start. We will now prove that Achilles will never catch up to that tortoise. In order for him to do so, he has to move to where the tortoise started. While he is busy running that distance, the tortoise ever so slowly has crawled a little farther. The tortoise is still ahead. Now for Achilles to catch up, he again has to move to where the tortoise is. But in the mean time, the tortoise moved again. It continues like this, and Achilles will never catch up no matter how little a head start the tortoise was given.
Xeno's third paradox has to do with the movement of an arrow. Or, movement of objects in general. If an object takes up only its own space, then it is still. That makes sense. If you look at an arrow at any point when it is flying towards a target, it is taking up only its space. If, at all the points along the path of the arrow, the arrow is taking up only its own space, the arrow never moved. This partly makes sense, but when does any object ever take up more than its own space? That is the definition of an object. No matter if the object can change size, it is still taking up its own space, which happens to be bigger or smaller than before. The argument works only if you don't talk about one point of time, but a section,  such as a quarter of a second. Within that quarter second time, the arrow took up the space of its path, but the size of the arrow stayed the same.
These arguments make sense logically. They are true. But we know that we can walk across a certain distance, or that a faster runner will overtake a slower runner, or that an arrow can move. How can the logical view be true and also the reality be true? How can we not walk across a stadium, but at the same time, we can walk across a stadium? This led Anaxagoras to believe that our senses lie to our minds. What our eyes see are not necessarily what is there. And not only the eyes, but all other senses also. He said the Mind is the only pure place, where everything makes sense and works out. The harmony of the universe is provided by the Mind.
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Socrates' studies went away from the physical world, and moved into the moral world. He was concerned with abstract ideas such as truth and virtue. The Athenians suggested that Socrates invented ethics, what makes good behavior. Socrates liked to meditate and think about questions such as what is virtue and can it be taught? Often, people would see him leaning against a lamppost meditating. He would suddenly stop what he was doing and meditate.
When he argued, sometimes people would get so frustrated that they would attack him. But he just let them do it, he never fought back. He said they are just ignorant. You wouldn't try to get back at a donkey that was kicking you.
Socrates brought major changes to the Greek world of philosophy. He moved it away from how things move and work, and into the ideas.
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Plato was a very good student of Socrates. He was even less interested in the physical world. Socrates was involved in politics, but Plato stayed out of that entirely. He came from a wealthy family, and was politically conservative. He valued Socrates' idea of the soul. On his own, he searched for the idea of beauty. He also wrote a book of his idea of the ideal society. Amazingly, this society looked a lot like Sparta had. It was not democratic. It was ruled by an elite class of people trained in philosophy. There was no music or art to get in the way.
After Socrates died, Plato set up a school of philosophy in 386 BCE. Socrates never wrote anything on paper, but Plato wrote down what he remembered Socrates had said. To this, he added his own ideas. He also had his own writings which he was constantly reworking.
Plato looked at problems very methodically. He had a method of arguing that in the end, made the other person forget there ever was an argument. He would break apart the argument into little pieces. Then he would look at the first piece. He would go through and methodically prove that was not a valid point by relating it to other things more obvious in the world. He would continue with every point until the other person's argument had a bunch of holes. But in the end, Plato's idea would seem obvious.
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Plato's most famous student was Aristotle. He brought another change to philosophy. He took something that was already in the world, such as a play, and looked at it in detail. He called this a classifying. In the play, there is a plot, there are characters, there is thought, etc. In the plot, there is a beginning, a middle and an end. In character, etc. etc. He went through many, many things in this way. His classification of things and ideas were viewed as correct for thousands of years and even today.
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Hear this song! Download greek-song.mp3 The only time ancient Greeks used more than one instrument, with the exception of percussion, was to double up on the melody. There was no harmony in ancient Greek music. I attempted to write a song in this style, but I found it too boring. I kept the melody strictly following the Greek rules anyway, but I added some other instruments to spice it up.
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