2.1 Ancient Greece: the start of European Civilisation -T-

AGE 2. The Time of Greeks and Romans
2.1 Ancient Greece: the start of European Civilisation

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HistoryMiddelbare schoolhavo, vwoLeerjaar 1

This lesson contains 24 slides, with interactive quiz, text slides and 5 videos.

Items in this lesson

AGE 2. The Time of Greeks and Romans
2.1 Ancient Greece: the start of European Civilisation

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Slide 1 - Slide

Slide 2 - Slide

What you can explain /  do after this lesson
  • What a polis is
  • Why trade was important for the Greeks
  • Why the Greeks created colonies

Slide 3 - Slide

Word Duty





Social layers: groups of people who differ from each other in wealth, power and prestige.
Colony: a new city that was started overseas
Polis (plural: poleis): Greek city-state
Agora: the main marketplace in a polis
Acropolis: the inner keep of the city where most of the temples were
Dark ages: time historians cannot “see”, because there is no information about it
Oral Tradition: stories are not written down, but passed on from person to person by telling
Metoiks: people that were born in a different polis
Social pyramid: graph to show the differences in power, wealth and/or influence in a country
Slave: person owned by someone else, slaves were at the bottom of the social pyramid
Middle class: social layer of merchants and such individuals
Lower class: (poor) working people with little power
Upper class: ruling class of people











KEY WORDS

Slide 4 - Slide

Assignment for the upcoming lessons:

Write down every word that you find difficult:
  1. You don't know what the word means in dutch
  2. You don't know what the word means/have never seen the word

Make your own personal dictionary, filled with the words you find difficult. 
It contains:
  1. The difficult word
  2. The dutch translation
  3. The meaning of the word


Slide 5 - Slide

Introduction

None of the societies that you read about in the previous chapter were in Europe. Most historians say that European civilisation starts with the Greeks. The people lived divided over independent city-states. Athens and Sparta were the most powerful. The city-states were filled with many people, all of them in different social layers. Slavery was normal to them and fighting in the army was only for the rich.


Slide 6 - Slide

Geography of Greece

  • Greece is a country that borders the Mediterranean Sea. It has many high mountains, rocky ground and islands.
  • No fertile ground close together > mainly herding sheeps and goats
  • Few patches of fertile ground > grains, olives and figs

Sometimes they needed to do something more drastic. 

  • Start a new city, or colony with strong links to the old city
  • The colony could trade food with the 'mainland'
  • Greece has difficult terrain (high mountains) > the sea as their highways
  • What is important if you travel a lot via sea? 

source 2.1.1
Map of Ancient Greece, around 500 BC, modern illustration
source 2.1.2
Today, Greece still has high mountains and rocky grounds.

Slide 7 - Slide

source 2.1.3
Greece and its colonies. Modern map.

Slide 8 - Slide

The Greek city states

  • Greek cities were so powerful that they also controlled surrounding lands. > these cities became independent states, with their own government, coins and army. 
  • Such a city is called a city-state. The Greek word for this is polis (plural: poleis). 
  • These poleis would act as small countries.
  • Not all poleis were exactly the same 
In China the priests wrote on turtle shells.
source 2.1.4
The Acropolis of Athens, painted by Leo von Klenze (1846)
source 2.1.5
Athens, 2018

Slide 9 - Slide

Slide 10 - Video

Write down the different districts you see in the video

What could've been the purpose of these districts?

Write it down in your notebook like this:
District 
Port

Watch the video about Athens
Use
Shipping and receiving goods like ceramics, food, weapons, etc. (trade)

Slide 11 - Slide

Slide 12 - Video

What do you remember about the previous lesson?

Slide 13 - Mind map

Can we say that ancient Greece was: 
A: one country (a unified state, like the Netherlands today) ? Or, 
B: a collection of different countries (city states) ?

There are arguments for both. For example:
A: One country, because: The people in the different poleis all shared the same:
              - language
              - gods
              - culture
B: Different countries, because the city states had different:
              - governments
              - coins
                And they often fought wars against each other.

Greece: One country or several countries?

Slide 14 - Slide

Trading across the Mediterranean

  • Merchants > people that sailed from harbour to harbour to buy goods cheap and sell these goods elsewhere for a lot of money. 

  • Most money could be made by trading olives.
  • Fresh olives were not that valuable, but olive oil was. It was sold all over the Mediterranean Sea, as was Greek wine
source 2.1.6
A trireme: a warship with three rows of rowers (present-day replica).
Classes in ancient Greece
In history we call groups of merchants the middle class. People who only work and do not have a lot of wealth are called the lower class. People with the most property, the rich and powerful, are called the upper class. This class owned land and made money by selling woods and crops from the land, or renting out land. Of course they did work with traders, but they said the land was their source of income.
source 2.1.7
Greek trading routes across the Mediterranean Sea
source 2.1.8
Terracotta neck-amphora (jar) 
ca. 540 B.C.

Slide 15 - Slide

Free men and foreigners

Assignment:

Draw your own social layer in the form of a pyramid with the following people: Woman and children, foreigners, aristocracy, farmers, tentant farmers, slaves.

Place them in order of who has the most power/influence. The most at the top, the least at the bottom.

Explain your answer!
source 2.1.9
Men discuss politics in the Athenian Agora (colour lithograph), Herget, Herbert M. (1885-1950), National Geographic Creative
source 2.1.10
Drinking cup (490-480 BC)
Women in the ancient Greek world had few rights in comparison to male citizens. Unable to vote, own land, or inherit, a woman's place was in the home and her purpose in life was the rearing of children. 

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Slide 17 - Slide

Free men and foreigners

  • Not everyone is equal > social layers
  • In Athens you have: citizens, foreigners (metoiks), free man and slaves
  • Metoiks were the people born in a different polis > not allowed to own land or have a say in politics.
  • Free man > allowed to own land or run a business, but not rich enough so no say in politics.
  • The rights that women had depended on the polis where they lived: in Sparta they were allowed to own land and run a business, but in most city-states they were not.
source 2.1.9
Men discuss politics in the Athenian Agora (colour lithograph), Herget, Herbert M. (1885-1950), National Geographic Creative
source 2.1.10
Drinking cup (490-480 BC)
Women in the ancient Greek world had few rights in comparison to male citizens. Unable to vote, own land, or inherit, a woman's place was in the home and her purpose in life was the rearing of children. 

Slide 18 - Slide

Slide 19 - Video

Slaves

  • Bottom of the social pyramid
  • Rights depended on the polis > some more important than others
  • Teachers, advisors > well educated and expensive.
  • Work hard in fields or mines 
  • Both scenarios no freedom!

  • How do you become a slave?
  • Too much debt,
  • Birth,
  • War prisoners.

Slaves could always be sold again. Sometimes slaves could even buy their own freedom: in this case they became free men.
2.1.11
A painting of slaves working in a silver mine (5th century BC).

Slide 20 - Slide

Why do we study Ancient Greece? Because of its legacy!  More info: go to this website.

LEGACY
: anything that is handed down from the past and that leaves a mark on the world today.

What was the legacy of ancient Greece?
The ancient Greeks left a long standing mark on the modern world by developing new government systems called democracy, architecture, sports, art, theater, philosophy, science, mathematics, and by inventing new technologies.

What is ancient Greece remembered for?
Ancient Greece is remembered for developing democracy, inventing Western philosophy, realistic art, developing theater like comedy and tragedy, the Olympic Games, inventing pi, and the Pythagoras theorem.

Why is ancient Greece important to Western civilization?
Ancient Greece helped explain the world through the laws of nature by inventing Western philosophy, democracy, the arts, and through several scientific inventions.

What did the ancient Greeks invent?
The ancient Greeks invented many things still used today. For instance, they invented Western philosophy, pi, the Pythagoras theorem, geometry, and the most important item they invented was a form of government called democracy.
Western philosophy
Philosophy = “the love of wisdom” 
Greek philosophers tried to explain the world, not by using gods and myths, but by rational thinking. 

Slide 21 - Slide

congratulations

Slide 22 - Slide

Slide 23 - Video

Slide 24 - Video