In the eyes of
empire builders
men are not men
but instruments.
Napoleon Bonaparte
Empire
“a major political unit having a territory of great
extent or a number of territories or peoples under
a single sovereign authority; especially : one
having an emperor as chief of state “
~ Merriam-Webster Dictionary
The Persian Empire
Homeland lay on the Iranian plateau
 Famous monarchs
-Cyrus (reigned 557-530 BCE)
-Darius (reigned 522-486 BCE)
 Persian conquests reached from Egypt to India
 A single state of some 35 million people
 Cultural diversity
 Centered on an elaborate cult of kingship

Effective administrative system
Persian governors (satraps) were placed in each
of the empire’s twenty-three provinces
 Lower-level officials drawn from local authorities
 System of imperial spies
 Respect for non-Persian cultural traditions
-Cyrus allowed Jews who had been exiled in
Babylon to return to their homeland and rebuild
their temple in Jerusalem in 539 BCE
 Model for future regimes with its administrators,
tax collectors, record keepers, and translators

System of standardized coinage
 Predictable taxes levied on each province
 Newly dug canal linking the Nile with the Red
Sea
 A “royal road”, some 1,700 miles long
-Facilitating communication and commerce

The Greeks
Small competing city-states due to mountainous
terrain (seas allowed for trade)
 Like Persians, an Indo-European people
 Classical Greece emerged around 750 BCE and
flourished for about 400 years
 Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, etc.
 Calling themselves Hellenes
 Fiercely independent city-states
-Speaking the same language
-Frequently in conflict

Expansive people, but expansion took the form of
settlement in distant places
-Greek traders in search of iron
-Impoverished farmers in search of land
 Most distinctive feature – popular participation
in political life
 In Athens, direct democracy eventually
developed
-All citizens could directly participate in the
affairs of government
-However, women, slaves, and foreigners were
not citizens
 The city-state facilitated greater participation as
opposed to centralized state of empire

Solon, a reforming leader, in 594 BCE pushed
Athens in a more democratic direction
-Debt slavery was abolished
-Public office was opened to a wider group of
men
-All citizens were allowed to take part in the
Assembly
 Cleisthenes and Pericles, later reformers,
extended the rights of citizens even further
 By 450 BCE, all holders of public office were
chosen by lot and were paid
-Even the poorest could serve

In Athens, all free men born in Athens were
eventually granted citizenship
 Nonetheless, dictators known as tyrants had
periodically emerged
 And of course, in Sparta, extreme forms of
military discipline and its large population of
helots or slaves led to most political authority
being placed in its Council of Elders
-twenty-eight men over the age of sixty
-served for life and provided political leadership

Greco-Persian Wars
 Conflict grew out of patterns of expansions
 Number of Greek settlements on the Anatolian
seacoast, known to Greeks as Ionia
-By 499 BCE, some Ionian Greeks revolted
against Persian domination and found support
from Athens
 Outraged Persians launched major military
expeditions, twice in ten years (490 and 480
BCE) to punish Greeks
 Against all odds, Greeks held them off, defeating
the Persians on both land and sea
The wars were a source of enormous pride for the
Greeks
-triumphed in momentous Battle of Marathon
in 490 BCE
 Greeks viewed victory as triumph of their
freedoms
-Persia represented despotism (East/West
divide)
 Greeks also radicalized Athenian democracy
-poorer Greeks in a position for full citizenship
 Fifty years or so afterwards – the Golden Age of
Greek culture
-built the Parthenon
-Greek theater (Aeschylus, Sophocles,
Euripides)
-Socrates, the quintessential philosopher

Decline of Greeks
Athens led a coalition of Greek city-states
 But leadership led to imperialism
 As Athenians tried to solidify dominant position,
resentment ensued
 Bitter civil war (431-404 BCE)
-Sparta taking the lead in defending the
independence of the city-states
-known as Peloponnesian War
 Athens was defeated
 Paving the way for Macedonian conquest of cities

Alexander the Great
Alexander’s father, Philip II, conquered Greeks in
338 BCE
 At death of father, Alexander, continued
conquests
 Ten-year expedition (333-323 BCE)
-Conquered Egypt and Anatolia
-Conquered Persian Empire
-Conquered Afghanistan
-Arrived in Indian subcontinent
(Soldiers insisted on returning home)
 Alexander died on the returning journey

Spread of Greek culture (Hellenism)
-Particularly in many cities that Alexander and
later Hellenistic rulers established
-Greek monuments, theaters, and markets
-Greek learning flourished (library in
Alexandria of some 700,000 volumes)
-Indian ruler, Ashoka, published some of his
decrees in Greek
-Buddha was depicted in human form due to
Greek influence
 Cultural influence disappeared as Hellenistic
kingdoms weakened
 Replaced in western part with Roman Empire
that became a vehicle for the spread of Greek
ideas

A Theme of World History
 Interaction between humans and the
environment
Demography and disease
 Migration
 Patterns of settlement
 Technology

How did the interaction between humans and the
environment impact the development of Greek
culture?
Another Theme of World History
 State-building, expansion, and conflict



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Political structures and forms of governance
Empires
Nations and nationalism
Revolts and revolutions
Regional, transregional, and global structures and
organizations
Compare the political structure of the Persian Empire
to that of Greece.
The Persian Empire was
also known as the Achaemenid
Empire.
Discuss the reasons for political and social
fragmentation in classical Greece.
Questions from Strayer:
 How did Persian and Greek civilizations differ in
their political organization and values?
 Why did semidemocratic governments emerge in
some of the Greek city-states?
 What were the consequences for both sides of the
encounter between the Persians and the Greeks?
 What changes did Alexander's conquests bring in
their wake?
Aristotle on a “Good Wife”
“A good wife should be the mistress of her home, having
under her care all that is within it, according to the
rules we have laid down. She should allow none to
enter without her husband's knowledge, dreading
above all things the gossip of gadding women, which
tends to poison the soul. She alone should have
knowledge of what happens within. She must exercise
control of the money spent on such festivities as her
husband has approved---keeping, moreover, within
the limit set by law upon expenditure, dress, and
ornament---and remembering that beauty depends
not on costliness of raiment. Nor does abundance of
gold so conduce to the praise of a woman as selfcontrol in all that she does. This, then, is the province
over which a woman should be minded to bear an
orderly rule; for it seems not fitting that a man should
know all that passes within the house. But in all
other matters, let it be her aim to obey her husband;
giving no heed to public affairs, nor having any part
in arranging the marriages of her children.”

Compare the class and gender systems of the
Persian Empire and Athens.