Midterm Review
Examples of Identification Passages
Passage 1
And, first of all, the Athenians being accustomed to divide amongst themselves the revenue
proceeding from the silver mines at Laurium, he was the only man that dared propose to the
people that this distribution should cease, and that with the money ships should be built to
make war against the Aeginetans, who were the most flourishing people in all Greece, and
by the number of their ships held the sovereignty of the sea; and [he] thus was more easily
able to persuade them, avoiding all mention of danger from Darius or the Persians, who were
at a great distance, and their coming very uncertain, and at that time not much to be feared;
but, by a seasonable employment of the emulation and anger felt by the Athenians against
the Aeginetans, he induced them to preparation. So that with this money a hundred ships
were built, with which they afterwards fought against Xerxes. And, henceforward, little by
little, turning and drawing the city down towards the sea, in the belief, that, whereas by land
they were not a fit match for their next neighbors, with their ships they might be able to repel
the Persians and command Greece, thus, as Plato says, from steady soldiers he turned
them into mariners and seamen tossed about the sea, and gave occasion for the reproach
against him, that he took away from the Athenians the spear and the shield, and bound them
to the bench and the oar. These measures he carried in the assembly, against the
opposition, as Stesimbrotus relates, of Miltiades; and whether or no he hereby injured the
purity and true balance of government, may be a question for philosophers, but that the
deliverance of Greece came at that time from the sea, and that these galleys restored
Athens again after it was destroyed, were others wanting, Xerxes himself would be sufficient
evidence, who, though his land-forces were still entire, after his defeat at sea, fled away, and
thought himself no longer able to encounter the Greeks; and, as it seems to me, left
Mardonius behind him, not out of any hopes he could have to bring them into subjection, but
to hinder them from pursuing him.
Answer:
This passage is from Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles. (1 mark)
The event being described is the use of the Athenian silver from Larium to build a fleet of
ships to defend Athens from Persian attack (2 marks)
The relevance of this passage relates to:
(1) the Second Persian War where Xerxes launched an attack on Greece.
(2) Prior to the Xerxes arrival, the Athenians sent a delegation to Delphi to ascertain what
their defense should be and the oracle foretold that “the wooden walls” would save Athens.
Themistocles interpreted this as a fleet of ships.
(3) Themistocles, who was a dominant political figure in Athens, was able to convince the
Athenians that this was the best alternative using his oratory and playing on their fears and
anger.
(4) The strategy that the Athenians adopted was to abandon the city of Athens and sail to the
island of Salamis to protect the citizenry.
(5) When the Persians arrived they burned down the city of Athens, but their navy was
ultimately defeated in 480 BC in the bay between the city and the island of Salamis where
the superior fleet of the Persians was limited in mobility. (5 marks)
Midterm Review
Examples of Identification Passages
Passage 2
At the first, as has been said, when he set himself against Cimon's great authority, he did
caress the people. Finding himself come short of his competitor in wealth and money, by
which advantages the other was enabled to take care of the poor, inviting every day some
one or other of the citizens that was in want to supper, and bestowing clothes on the aged
people, and breaking down the hedges and enclosures of his grounds, that all that would
might freely gather what fruit they pleased, [he], thus outdone in popular arts, by the advice
of one Damonides of Oea, as Aristotle states, turned to the distribution of the public moneys;
and in a short time having bought the people over, what with moneys allowed for shows and
for service on juries, and what with other forms of pay and largess, he made use of them
against the council of Areopagus, of which he himself was no member, as having never been
appointed by lot either chief archon, or lawgiver, or king, or captain. For from of old these
offices were conferred on persons by lot, and they who had acquitted themselves duly in the
discharge of them were advanced to the court of Areopagus. And so [he], having secured his
power and interest with the populace, directed the exertions of his party against this council
with such success, that most of those causes and matters which had been used to be tried
there, were, by the agency of Ephialtes, removed from its cognizance, Cimon, also, was
banished by ostracism as a favorer of the Lacedaemonians and a hater of the people,
though in wealth and noble birth he was among the first, and had won several most glorious
victories over the barbarians, and had filled the city with money and spoils of war; as is
recorded in the history of his life. So vast an authority had [he] obtained among the people.
Answer:
This passage is from Plutarch’s Life of Pericles. (1mark)
The event being described is the conflict between Pericles and Cimon for political dominance
in the city of Athens. (2 marks)
The relevance of the passage relates to:
(1) the methods used by Pericles to secure his power in Athens. He used his own money
and public funds to bribe the citizenry, so that they would support him rather than Cimon.
(2) His biggest issue with Cimon stemmed from the fact that Cimon supported Sparta, while
Pericles did not.
(3) Pericles felt that Athens continued success would come from even greater trade and their
biggest competition was the city of Corinth. Whereas Cimon felt that Sparta was most
needed to protect Athens should the Persians return.
(4) Pericles used the Delian fleet to protect his trade routes and force those states which
tried to secede from the League to stay.
(5) He used the treasury of the Delian League to beautify Athens and build the Long Walls to
protect Athens from land attack.
(5) Once he had successfully ostracized Cimon, he was the single, dominant political force in
Athens and eventually fomented war with Sparta (the Peloponnesian War). (5 marks)
Midterm Review
Examples of Identification Passages
Passage 3
Amongst the many changes and alterations which [he] made, the first and of greatest
importance was the establishment of the senate, which, having a power equal to the kings' in
matters of great consequence, and, as Plato expresses it, allaying and qualifying the fiery
genius of the royal office, gave steadiness and safety to the commonwealth. For the state,
which before had no firm basis to stand upon, but leaned one while towards an absolute
monarchy, when the kings had the upper hand, and another while towards a pure
democracy, when the people had the better, found in this establishment of the senate a
central weight, like ballast in a ship, which always kept things in a just equilibrium; the
twenty-eight always adhering to the kings so far as to resist democracy, and, on the other
hand, supporting the people against the establishment of absolute monarchy. As for the
determinate number of twenty-eight, Aristotle states, that it so fell out because two of the
original associates, for want of courage, fell off from the enterprise; but Sphaerus assures us
that there were but twenty-eight of the confederates at first; perhaps there is some mystery in
the number, which consists of seven multiplied by four, and is the first of perfect numbers
after six, being, as that is, equal to all its parts. For my part, I believe [he] fixed upon the
number of twenty-eight, that, the two kings being reckoned amongst them, they might be
thirty in all. [6] So eagerly set was he upon this establishment, that he took the trouble to
obtain an oracle about it from Delphi, the Rhetra, which runs thus: "After that you have built a
temple to Jupiter Hellanius, and to Minerva Hellania, and after that you have phyle'd the
people phyles, and obe'd them into obes, you shall establish a council of thirty elders, the
leaders included, and shall, from time to time, apellazein the people betwixt Babyca and
Cnacion, there propound and put to the vote. The commons have the final voice and
decision. " By phyles and obes are meant the divisions of the people; by the leaders, the two
kings; apellazein, referring to the Pythian Apollo, signifies to assemble; Babyca and Cnacion
they now call Oenus; Aristotle says Cnacion is a river, and Babyca a bridge. Betwixt this
Babyca and Cnacion, their assemblies were held, for they had no council-house or building,
to meet in. [He] was of opinion that ornaments were so far from advantaging them in their
counsels, that they were rather an hindrance, by diverting their attention from the business
before them to statues and pictures, and roofs curiously fretted, the usual embellishments of
such places amongst the other Greeks. The people then being thus assembled in the open
air, it was not allowed to any one of their order to give his advice, but only either to ratify or
reject what should be propounded to them by the king or senate. But because it fell out
afterwards that the people, by adding or omitting words, distorted and perverted the sense of
propositions, kings Polydorus and Theopompus inserted into the Rhetra, or grand covenant,
the following clause: "That if the people decide crookedly, it should be lawful for the elders
and leaders to dissolve;" that is to say, refuse ratification, and dismiss the people as
depravers and perverters of their counsel. It passed among the people, by their
management, as being equally authentic with the rest of the Rhetra, as appears by these
verses of Tyrtaeus,–
These oracles they from Apollo heard,
And brought from Pytho home the perfect word:
The heaven-appointed kings, who love the land,
Shall foremost in the nation's council stand;
The elders next to them; the commons last;
Let a straight Rhetra among all be passed.
Answer:
This passage is from Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus. (1mark)
The event being described is the beginning of Lycurgus’s Great Rhetra, the constitution of
Sparta, and the establishment of the two new branches of Spartan government; the gerousia
(the Spartan senate) and the Apella (the Spartan legislature). (2 marks)
The relevance of the passage relates to:
(1) Lycurgus’s reforms of Sparta from a common monarchy into a military-centred
constitution.
(2) Lycurgus was guardian of his nephew Charilaus, the infant king of Sparta, who was
recalled from his self-imposed exile to reform Spartan society.
(3) Besides his reforms of government, Lycurgus was credited with the establishment of the
agoge, a military regiment for all the male children of the Spartans.
(4) The purpose of this practice was to protect Sparta from the inevitable revolt of their
slaves (the helots).
(5) When his reforms were completed, he assembled the populace of Sparta and had them
swear an oath not to change his reforms until his return, at which point he made a pilgrimage
to Delphi, from which he never returned. (5 marks)