Ancient Greece
• Mainland Greece is a
peninsula
• There are hundreds
of islands offshore
• Mountains and rocky
soil
1. Geography
• Mountains made it hard to travel
2. Mountains
Natural harbors made it easier to travel by sea
They became fishers, sailors, and traders
Others settled in farming communities
The rocky soil was not ideal for growing crops, but
since the climate was mild they were able to grow
barley, wheat, olives, and grapes
• They also raised sheep and goats
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3. How did they make their living?
• Being separated by both mountains and
seas, the Greek communities grew up very
independent from one another
4. Independent Cities
• Natural harbors made travel by sea easier
• Mediterranean Sea enabled trade and interaction with
other areas
• Mountains provided protection from enemies
5. Advantages of Greece’s
geography
• Isolation of citystates
• Lack of
resources
• Lack of unity
6. Disadvantages of
Greece’s geography
• Terrace farming is a way to grow crops on a steep slope
without everything sliding downhill
• It prevented soil erosion and the washing away of crops
• The Greeks did this because they had very limited
fertile soil and flat land
7. Terrace Farming
• The Minoans were not Greek, but they were the first to
live in the area that would become Greece
• They made their wealth from trade
• Built ships of oak and cedar and traded with Egypt
and Syria
• Civilization collapsed around 1450 BC
8. The Minoans
• Originally from Asia
• Invaded Greek mainland
• Mycenaean leaders became the first Greek Kings
9. The Mycenaeans
• By 1200 BC earthquakes and fighting had destroyed the
Mycenaean kingdoms
• Poverty took hold and trading slowed
• Many people left the mainland and settled on islands in
the Aegean Sea
10. The Dark Age
• The Dorians, a Greek-speaking people, moved South
from the mountains to Peloponnesus
• They brought iron weapons, and farm tools
• Trade increased and the Greeks picked up the idea of
an alphabet from the Phoenicians, one of their trading
partners from the coast of the eastern Mediterranean
11. The Dorians
• As Greece recovered from the Dark Age, farmers could
no longer produce enough grain to feed everyone
• Cities began sending people outside Greece to set up
colonies
• A colony is a settlement in a new territory that keeps
close ties to it’s homeland
12. Recovering from the
Dark Age
• Nobles who owned large estates overthrew Greek
Kings and created city-states
• Each Greek city-state, known as a polis, was like a tiny
independent country
• Each had an acropolis, an area that stood on top of a
hill and provided a safe refuge in case of attack
• Sometimes the acropolis also served as a religious
center
• Below each acropolis was an agora, an open space that
served as a market and a place where people could
meet and debate issues
13. What is a Polis?
• Greek city-states were run by its citizens
• Citizens are members of a community who treat each
other as equals and who have rights and responsibilities
• Only native-born men who owned land could be
citizens
14. Greek Citizenship
• Rights included voting, holding office, owning property,
and defending themselves in court
• Responsibilities included serving in government and
fighting for their polis as citizen soldiers
• Hoplites were armies of ordinary citizens
15. Rights and
responsibilities of citizens
• Small farm owners are unhappy and challenge the rule
of Nobles and tyrants arise
• A Tyrant is someone who takes power by force and
rules with total authority
• Most Greek tyrants ruled wisely and fairly
• By 500 BC people got tired of the tyrants and citystates became either oligarchies or democracies
16. Tyrants
**Start the Types of
Government Foldable**
Tyranny
Monarchy
• A form of government in
which ruling power is in
the hands of someone
who has seized control
• A form of government in
which ruling power is in
the hands of one person
17. Tyranny vs. Monarchy
• An oligarchy is a government where a few people hold
power
• Sparta had an oligarchy
18. Oligarchy
• Founded by the Dorians- Greeks who entered
Peloponnesus during the Dark Age
• As Sparta grew, they needed more land
• Instead of setting up colonies, they conquered and
enslaved their neighboring lands
• Helots: their captive workers
• Fearing that the helots would someday rebel against
them, the Spartan government firmly controlled it’s
citizens and trained the boys and men for war
19. Sparta
• Boys left their family to live in barracks at age 7
• They entered the regular army at age 20 and remained
in the military barracks for ten more years
• They returned home at age 30, but remained in the
army until age 60
• They expected to either win on the battlefield or die,
but never to surrender
20. Spartans were
warriors
• Girls were trained in sports like wrestling and running
• They kept fit in order to be healthy mothers
• Wives lived at home while their husbands lived in the
barracks
• Women were freer in Sparta than other Greek women
• They could own property and go where they wanted
without their husband’s permission
21. Women in Sparta
• The Spartans had an oligarchy
• Two kings headed a council of elders
• The council included 28 citizens over age 60 who were
elected annually
• All men over age 30 belonged to the Assembly
• The Assembly voted on the Council’s laws and chose 5
Ephors, who enforced laws and managed tax collection
• The Spartan government forbade foreign travel unless
it was for a military reason
• Since Sparta put so much emphasis on military
training, they knew less about science and other
subjects
22. Government in Sparta
Complete the Sparta
reading
• A democracy is a government where all citizens take a
share in running the government
• Athens had a democracy
23. Democracy
• ALL citizens had to vote before anything could become
a law, majority ruled!
• There were three main bodies of government: The
Assembly, The Council of 500, and the Courts
24. The Direct Democracy
of Athens
The Assembly
The Council
The Courts
• All adult male citizens
• Meetings held 40
times a year
• Made decisions about
war and foreign policy
• Wrote and revised
laws
• Made decisions about
ostracism
• Ostracism: a citizen
could be expelled
from an Athenian citystate for 10 years
• Consisted of 500 men
• Names were drawn to
determine who would
be on the council
• Met every day
• Supervised
government workers
• Also chosen by
random lottery
• In charge of navy
ships and army horses
• More than 500 jurors
chosen every day
• Had almost unlimited
power
• Brought court cases,
argued for the
prosecution and
defense, and delivered
sentences / verdicts
• Paid a wage for their
work but it was less
than what an average
worker earned in a day
25. The Three Parts of Athenian
Government
• Athenians and Spartans raised their children very
differently
• Athenian boys went to school to learn how to read,
write, and do arithmetic
• A different teacher taught them sports, and they had
another teacher who taught them to sing and play
music
• Athenian girls stayed at home and learned household
duties from their mothers
26. Athenians were
scholars
• Athens didn’t have enough farmland to support all of
it’s people, so they had to bring in crops from other
places
• Because of the large amount of trading that they were
doing, Athens became the trading center of the Greek
world
27. Athens is a trading
center
• Girls married at 14 or 15 and were expected to have
children and take care of household duties
• Some poor women worked in the fields with their
husbands
• Women could only leave the house with their
husband’s permission and even then they had to have
a male relative with them
28. Role of Women in
Athens
Complete the Athens
reading and the travel
brochure assignment
• When Greek city-states grew, they quickly depleted
resources and had to get them from other places
• They established trade with other settlements along
the Mediterranean Sea and these settlements became
Greek colonies
• This was a good thing because these colonies provided
food and more land for people to settle and farm
29. Growth and Expansion
• Coin money instead of bartering
• Economic opportunities
• Improved means of transportation and
communication
• Spread of culture and ideas
30. Impacts of
Colonization
• Sparta vs. Athens!
• Sparta conquers Athens and tries to control all of Greece
• City-states rebel against Sparta, causing fighting
among many Greek city-states
• Meanwhile…
31. Peloponnesian War
• While the Greeks are fighting amongst themselves,
they fail to realize that a kingdom to their north,
Macedonia, is gaining power!
32. Macedonia
• Phillip II, from Macedonia, attacks Greece in an effort
to grow his military so that he can defeat the Persian
Empire
• The city-states of Greece are weakened from fighting
each other, and are crushed by Phillip II’s army
• This leads to Phillip II being in control of most of
Greece
• When Phillip II is murdered, his son Alexander takes
over as the King of Macedonia
33. Phillip II
• Alexander conquered the Persian Empire and built the
city of Alexandria as a center of business and trade
• He did not stop with the defeat of the Persian Empire
and marched on as far as India
• Eventually his soldiers became tired of fighting and
Alexander agreed to lead them home
• Despite plans of attacking southern Arabia, Alexander
was weak from wounds and came down with a fever
• He died at age 32
34. Alexander the Great
• Conquests of Alexander the Great marked the
beginning of the Hellenistic Era
• The Hellenistic Era was a time when Greek language
and ideas spread to the non-Greek people of Southwest
Asia
• Scientists, philosophers, poets, and writers all came to
the new Greek cities in Southwest Asia to study and
take advantage of the Greek culture and the library in
Alexandria, which had over 500 scrolls
35. Hellenistic Era