World History

Unit 1
“Early People of the Aegean”

• How did the continent of Europe get it’s name?

Greek legend states that Europa, the daughter of the king of Phoenicia, was gathering
flowers when she saw a bull grazing with her father’s herd. The bull was actually Zeus,
the king of the gods, who had fallen in love with Europa. When Europa reached to place
flowers on his horns, Zeus quickly carried her across the Mediterranean to the island of
Crete – she gave her name to the continent.
• Crete was home to a very early civilization. We don’t know what the people there called
themselves; however, the British archeologists who uncovered its ruins called them Minoans
after Minos, a legendary king of Crete.
• The success of the Minoans was based on trade.
o Through contact with Egypt and Mesopotamia, they acquired ideas and technology
which they adapted to their own culture.
• The rulers of this trading empire lived in a vast palace at Knossos. There were religious shrines
at the palace.
• Shrine – areas dedicated to the honor of gods and goddesses.
• The walls of the palace were covered with colorful frescoes.
• Frescoes – watercolor paintings done on wet plaster
• The frescoes tell us important things about the Minoan society.
o For example, leaping dolphins reflect the important of the sea.
o Religious images indicate that the Minoans worshiped the bull and a mother goddess.
o Other paintings show young men and women strolling through gardens or jumping
through the horns of a charging bull.
 They suggest that women appeared freely in public and may have enjoyed more
rights than women in most other ancient civilizations.
• The Minoan civilization had vanished by 1400 BC
• Invaders played a large role in the destruction of the civilization. These intruders were the
Mycenaeans, the first Greek-speaking people of whom we have a written record.
• The Mycenaeans were an Indo-European people who conquered the Greek mainland before
overrunning Crete.
• Like the Minoans, the Mycenaeans were sea traders.
• They learned many skills from the Minoans, including the art of writing.
• They also absorbed Egyptian and Mesopotamian influences, which they passed on later to the
Greeks.
• The Mycenaeans lived in separate city-states on the mainland.
o In each a warrior king built a thick-walled fortress from which he ruled the surrounding
villages.
• The Mycenaeans are best remembered for their part in the Trojan War, which took place around
1250 BC.
o The conflict may have had its origins in economic rivalry between Mycenae and Troy, a
rich trading city in present day Turkey.
o Troy controlled the straits, or narrow water passages, that connect the Mediterranean and
Black seas.
o However, Greek legend attributes the war to a more romantic cause.
 After the Trojan prince Paris kidnapped Helen, the beautiful wife of a Greek king,
the Mycenaeans sailed to Troy to rescue her. For the next 10 years, the two sides
battled until the Greeks finally seized Troy and burned the city to the ground.
o Many people have regarded the Trojan War as purely a legend for centuries; however, in
the 1870s, a wealthy German businessman, Heinrich Schliemann, set out to prove that the
legend was rooted in fact. Schliemann found evidence of fire and war dating to about
1250 BC as he excavated the site of ancient Troy.
o Most of the details were lost in legend; however, modern scholars agree that the Trojan
War was an actual event.
• Not long after the fall of Troy, the Mycenaean civilization fell under the attack of sea raiders.
• About the same time, another wave of Greek-speaking people, the Dorians, invaded from the
north.
• As the Mycenaean power faded, people abandoned the cities and trade declined.
• For about 300 years after that, from around 1100 BC to 800 BC, Greek civilization seemed to
step backward.
o People forgot many skills, including the art of writing.
• We get information about life during this period from two great epic poems: the Iliad and the
Odyssey.
o These epics may have been the work of many people; however, they are credited to the
poet Homer, who probably lived about 750 BC.
 o According to tradition, Homer was a blind poet who wandered from village to village
singing of heroic deeds.
o However, Homer’s tales were passed orally for generations before they were finally
written down.
• The Iliad is our chief source of information about the Trojan War, even though the story involves
gods, goddesses, and even a talking horse.

Ticket Out the Door: Which tale of the Trojan War do you believe is true and why?
 World History
Unit 1
“The Rise of Greek City-States”

• Bell Work: “We live around the sea like frogs around the pond” – Plato
o The Mediterranean and Aegean seas were as central to the development of Greek
civilizations as the Nile was to the Egyptians.
• The earliest civilizations rose in fertile river valleys; However, a different set of geographic
conditions influenced the rise of Greek civilization.
• Greece is part of the Balkan peninsula, which extends southward into the eastern Mediterranean
Sea.
o Mountains divide the peninsula into isolated valleys.
o Hundreds of rocky islands also help to make up Greece
o The Greeks who farmed the valleys or settled on the rocky islands built many small city-
states, cut off from one another by mountains or water.
o Each included a city and its surrounding countryside.
o Greeks fiercely defended the independence of their tiny city-states.
o Endless rivalry led to frequent wars.
• While mountains divided the Greeks, the seas were a vital link to the world outside.
o Greece has hundreds of bays; therefore, the coastline provided safe harbors for ships.
o Greeks became skilled sailors, carrying cargoes of olive oil, wine, and marble around the
eastern Mediterranean.
o They returned with grains and metals and also with ideas, which they adapted to their
own needs.
 For example, the Greeks expanded the Phoenician alphabet. The resulting Greek
alphabet became the basis for all western alphabets.
• With the population increasing rapidly, many Greeks were forced to leave their own
overcrowded valleys.
o With fertile land limited, the Greeks expanded overseas.
o Gradually, a scattering of Greek colonies took root all around the Mediterranean from
Spain to Egypt.
o Wherever they traveled, the Greeks settlers and traders carried their ideas and culture.
• The structure of the city state:
o The Greeks evolved a unique version of the city-state, which they called the polis.
  The city itself was typically built on two levels.
o On a hilltop stood the acropolis, or high city, with it’s great marble
temples dedicated to different gods and goddesses.
o On flatter ground below lay the walled main city with its
marketplace, theatre, public buildings, and homes.
• Between 750 BC and 500 BC, the Greeks evolved different forms of government.
o At first, the ruler of the polis was a king.
 A government in which a king or queen exercises central power is a monarchy.
o Slowly power shifted to a class of noble landowners.
 They were also the military defenders of the city-state because they were the only
ones who could afford bronze weapons and chariots.
 At first these nobles defended the king; however, in time, they won power for
themselves.
• The result was an aristocracy, or rule by a landholding elite.
o As trade expanded, a new middle class of wealthy merchants and farmers emerged in
some cities.
 They challenged the landowning nobles for power and came to dominate some
city-states.
• The result was a form of government called an oligarchy.
o In an oligarchy, power is in the hands of a small, powerful elite,
usually from the business class.
• Changes in military technology increased the power of the middle class.
o By about 650 BC, iron weapons replaced bronze ones.
o Since iron was cheaper, ordinary citizens could afford iron helmets, shields, and swords.
o A new method of fighting also emerged.
 The phalanx was a massive formation of heavily armed foot soldiers.
 The new type of warfare led the two most influential city-states to develop very
different ways of life.
• While Sparta stressed military virtues and stern discipline, Athens
glorified the individual and extended political rights to more citizens.
• ******* NOTE: refer to transparency
• Strong local ties, an independent spirit, and economic rivalry led to fighting among the Greek
city-states.
• Despite these divisions, Greeks shared a common culture. They spoke the same language,
honored the same ancient heroes, participated in common festivals, and prayed to the same gods.
• Like most other ancient people, the Greeks were polytheistic.
o They believed that the gods lived on Mount Olympus in northern Greece. The most
powerful Olympian god was Zeus, who presided over the affairs of gods and humans.
His children included Aphrodite, goddess of love, and Ares, god of war.
o His daughter Athena, goddess of wisdom, gave her name to Athens.
o Greeks honored their gods with temples and festivals.
• As trade and colonies expanded, the Greeks came in contact with people with different languages
and customs.
o Greeks felt superior to non-Greeks and called them barbaroi, people who did not speak
Greek.
o The English word barbarian comes from this Greek root.
o These “barbarians” included such people as the Phoenicians and Egyptians, from whom
the Greeks borrowed important ideas and inventions.
Ticket Out the Door: How did geography influence the Greek city-states?
World History
Unit 1
“Victory and Defeat in the Greek World”

• In 492 BC, King Darius I of Persia sent messengers throughout Greece

o The messengers demanded gifs of “earth and water” – symbols of submission to Darius I
o Many of the city-states obeyed the demands considering that Persia was the most
powerful empire in the Mediterranean world.
o However, Athens and Sparta did not submit.
 Instead, the Athenians threw Darius’ messengers into a well and the Spartans
tossed them into a pit.
 They said the Persians could collect their own earth and water.
The Persian Wars
• Athens emerged as the wealthiest Greek city-state around 500 BC
o However, Athens and the entire Greek world soon faced a fearsome threat from the
Persians.
 Persians ruled the Greek city-states of Ionian.
 These city-states were still largely self-governing
 Rebelled against Persian rule
 Athens sent ships in to help them
o The Persians crushed the rebelling cities.
o Darius I was furious at Athens’ role in the uprising.
o Darius eventually sent a huge force across the Aegean to punish Athens.
 They force landed near Marathon
• Athens asked for help from surrounding city-states, but was offered little
support.
• Persians greatly outnumbered Athenian forces
• The Athenians were mostly unarmed on foot.
• The Persians shot arrows at them but the Greeks kept on pushing forward.
• They broke the lines and engaged the Persians in hand to hand combat.
 • Persians retreated.
• Thermistocles, the Athenian leader, urged his people to build a fleet of
warships and prepare other defenses.
 Darius I died before he could plan another attack.
• His son Xerxes (Zerk seez) sent a much larger force to conquer Greece.
o However, by this time Athens had persuaded Sparta and other city-
states to join in the fight against Persia.
• When the Persian force landed, a small Spartan force, led by the king
Leonidas, stood heroically.
• However, the Persians defeated the Spartans and marched south and
burned Athens – the city was empty though because people had drawn to
safety.
 Now the Greeks depended on the fleet of ships they had built.
 The Athenians lured the Persians into the narrow strait of Salamis where the
Athenian warships drove into the Persian boats with underwater battering rams.
• The Persian fleet sank
 The Greeks again later defeated the Persians on land
o The results
 The Greeks believed that the gods protected them
 Athens emerged as the most powerful city-state in Greece.
 It organized the Delian League, an alliance with other Greek city-states.
• An alliance is a formal agreement between two or more nations or powers
to cooperate and come to one another’s defenses.
 Athens dominated the League and slowly used its position of leadership to create
the Athenian empire.
• It moved the treasury from the island of Delos to Athens
• It used money contributed by other city-states to rebuild its own city
• When its allies protested and tried to withdraw from the league, Athens
used force to make them remain.
• After the years of the Persian Wars, Athens was under Pericles.
o The economy thrived and the government became more democratic
o Periclean Athens was a direct democracy – a large number of citizens take direct part in
the day to day affairs of the government.
o Athenian assemply
o He believed that all male citizens, regardless of wealth or social class, should take part in
the government
 Athens began paying a stipend, or fixed salary, o men who help public office.
o Athenians also served on juries, a panel of citizens who have the authority to make the
final judgment in a trial
o Athenian citizens could also vote to banish, or send away, a public figure whom they saw
as a threat to their democracy.
 This process was called ostracism.
• An ostracized individual would have to live outside the city, usually for a
period of 10 years.
The Peloponnesian War
o Many Greeks outside of Athens resented Athenian domination.
 The Greek world soon split into rival camps
 To counter the Delian League, Sparta and other enemies of Athens formed the
Peloponnesian League.
 Sparta encouraged oligarchy in the cities o the Peloponnesian League, while
Athens supported democracy among it’s allies.
 Warfare broke out between Athens and Sparta.
• The fighting would drag on for 27 years.
 Ultimately, the war ended Athenian domination of the Greek world.
 For the next century, fighting continued to disrupt the Greek world.
• Sparta soon suffered defeat by Thebes, another Greek city-state.
 As civil wars continued, a new power rose in Macedonia, a kingdom to the north.
 World History
Unit 1
“The Glory that was Greece”
Vocabulary – Define:
Logic:

Rhetoric:

Tragedy:

Comedy:

Identifications:
Play that told a story of human suffering:
Founded the Lyceum:
Wrote The Persian Wars:
Wrote The Republic:
Multiple Choice:
Socrates used the Socratic method of questioning to
A. help others seek truth and self-knowledge
B. amuse his followers
C. make threatening challenges to tradition
D. influence the thinking of the city’s youth

According to Plato, rational thought was necessary

A. to rebuild fallen temples
B. to organize an ideal society
C. for enforcing ethical values
D. for creating realistic sculptures

Greek sculptors developed a style that combined realistic, natural poses with
A. Egyptian influences
B. dramatic scenes of human suffering
C. images of ordinary people
D. an idealistic approach

Greek dramas were often based on

A. poems from Egypt
B. popular myths
C. newly developed ideas
D. philosophical theories
 World History
Unit 1
“The Glory that was Greece”
Vocabulary – Define:
Logic: rational thinking

Rhetoric: the art of skillful writing

Tragedy: plays that told stories of human suffering that usually ended in disaster

Comedy: humorous plays that mocked people or customs

Identifications:
Play that told a story of human suffering: tragedy
Founded the Lyceum: Aristotle
Wrote The Persian Wars: Herodotus
Wrote The Republic: Plato
Multiple Choice:
Socrates used the Socratic method of questioning to
A. help others seek truth and self-knowledge
B. amuse his followers
C. make threatening challenges to tradition
D. influence the thinking of the city’s youth

According to Plato, rational thought was necessary

A. to rebuild fallen temples
B. to organize an ideal society
C. for enforcing ethical values
D. for creating realistic sculptures

Greek sculptors developed a style that combined realistic, natural poses with
A. Egyptian influences
B. dramatic scenes of human suffering
C. images of ordinary people
D. an idealistic approach

Greek dramas were often based on

A. poems from Egypt
B. popular myths
C. newly developed ideas
D. philosophical theories
 World History
Unit 1
“Alexander and the Hellenistic Age”

Identifications:
Developed the theory that a2 + b2 = c2 :
Defeated Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea:
Mastered the use of the lever and pulley:
Created an oath that set ethical standards for doctors:
Developed basic geometry:
Multiple Choice:
How was Philip of Macedon able to take control of the Greek city-states?
A. Greek citizens elected Philip to be their ruler
B. Philip joined forces with Persia to defeat the city-states
C. He inherited control of the Greek states through his father
D. Philip formed alliances with some states; others he overthrew

Why was Alexander the Great easily able to capture the Persian empire?
A. The satraps surrendered their provinces to Alexander without a battle
B. The emperor Darius III was weak, and his satraps were rebellious
C. Alexander tricked the Persian emperor into giving up his land
D. Alexander captured Persia with help from the Indian king Porus

Which cultures contributed to the new Hellenistic civilization?

A. Greek and Indian
B. Greek, Persian, Indian, and Egyptian
C. Greek, African, and Italian
D. Indian and Persian

What was the main idea of the Stoic philosophy?

A. to establish an ideal government
B. to promote the equality of all people in society
C. to avoid desires and calmly accept whatever life brought
D. to seek truth and self-knowledge through questioning

Which of the following was not developed during the Hellenistic age?
A. the Pythagorean theorem
B. the Hippocratic oath
C. Euclidean geometry
D. the Arabic number system
 World History
Unit 1
“Alexander and the Hellenistic Age”

Identifications:
Developed the theory that a2 + b2 = c2 : Pythagoras
Defeated Athens and Thebes at Chaeronea: Philip of Macedon
Mastered the use of the lever and pulley: Archimedes
Created an oath that set ethical standards for doctors: Hippocrates
Developed basic geometry: Euclid
Multiple Choice:
How was Philip of Macedon able to take control of the Greek city-states?
A. Greek citizens elected Philip to be their ruler
B. Philip joined forces with Persia to defeat the city-states
C. He inherited control of the Greek states through his father
D. Philip formed alliances with some states; others he overthrew

Why was Alexander the Great easily able to capture the Persian empire?
A. The satraps surrendered their provinces to Alexander without a battle
B. The emperor Darius III was weak, and his satraps were rebellious
C. Alexander tricked the Persian emperor into giving up his land
D. Alexander captured Persia with help from the Indian king Porus

Which cultures contributed to the new Hellenistic civilization?

A. Greek and Indian
B. Greek, Persian, Indian, and Egyptian
C. Greek, African, and Italian
D. Indian and Persian

What was the main idea of the Stoic philosophy?

A. to establish an ideal government
B. to promote the equality of all people in society
C. to avoid desires and calmly accept whatever life brought
D. to seek truth and self-knowledge through questioning

Which of the following was not developed during the Hellenistic age?
A. the Pythagorean theorem
B. the Hippocratic oath
C. Euclidean geometry
D. the Arabic number system