Chapter 3 Outline
I. The European Barbarians (LO1)
A. The Earliest Europeans
1. by 4000BC, farming and village life had
spread throughout the continent
2. by 3500BC, increased population and
wealth led to complex religious structures
B. The Barbarian Way of Life
1. common way of life as result of migrations of Indo-European
nomads (c.2500BC onward) from the steppes
that bordered Europe on the east
2. languages
a. ancestor languages of Greek and Latin
3. elites of warriors
4. farming and village life
5. In this way, Europe came to be inhabited
by peoples who spoke mostly
Indo-European
languages; who were skilled in farming, metalworking, trade, and warfare; and
who were fairly well organized on the local level, but had no cities, written
records, or fixed structures of government
6. c.2000BC-1000AD these barbarians came
into contact with civilization
7. the first such European barbarian people
to make contact with civilization were the Greeks - their
civilization, the first to emerge in Europe, was the first to definitively be
labeled “Western”
II. The Aegean Encounter (LO2)
A.
Minoan Civilization
1. c.2200BC a distinct civilization known as
Minoan arose on the Aegean
island of Crete
2. Minoans drew wealth from control of the
seas and trade with eastern Mediterranean
lands, especially Egypt
B. The Arrival of the Greeks: Mycenaean
Civilization
1. when the Greeks made their way to the
Aegean, they seem to have been a European barbarian people much like any other
2. eventually they came under the influence
of nearby Crete
3. by c.1600BC Greek chieftains had
established settlements along the mainland’s southern shore and on some
islands
4. Mycenaean Greeks
5. struggles between Mycenaeans and Minoans
for control of the commerce of the eastern
Mediterranean lasted until c.1400BC, with the destruction of Minoan towns, perhaps as a result of
Mycenaean conquest
C. The “Dark Ages”
1. Mycenaean civilization lasted until
shortly after 1200BC due to the conquest of the Sea Peoples
2. c.1150 BC Myceneae was sacked and all
settlements deserted - in addition, the population dropped, and writing fell
out of use
3.
this led to the eclipse of civilization for almost 400 years, known as the Dark Ages (1150 - 750 BC)
4. but the Greeks themselves survived and
even expanded their territory
D. The Renewal of Greek Civilization
1. c.800 BC the Aegean region recovered
2. population expansion led to founding of
colonies, c.800-600 BC
3. the Greeks joined the Phoenicians as the
leading commercial and seafaring nation of the
Mediterranean
4. a common religion
5. new developments
a. use of iron tools and weapons
b. coined money
c. borrowing of Phoenician shipbuilding and
warfare techniques
d. writing and the alphabet formed the Greek
language
III. Citizens and Communities: The Greek City-States (LO3)
A. City-States and Citizens
1. notion of citizenship seems to have
originated partly in geography
2. hoplites: Greek infantrymen equipped with
bronze helmets and armor, round
shields, long spears, and short swords
3. city-state, citizens, tradition, and myth
B. Monarchy, Oligarchy, Tyranny, Democracy
1. in the earliest times, communities were
ruled by kings
2. monarchy then gave way to new forms of
government that distributed power more widely among male citizens
a. oligarchy: a minority
of citizens dominated the government, and the power of the majority was limited in various ways
3. but other city-states gave more power to
the majority (particularly those
that developed into large
commercial centers)
a. in these city-states the common people
were too numerous and
active
to ignore,
b. in these cities, social conflicts
sometimes led to the emergence of tyranny (rule by a dictator)
c. but tyranny was often only a passing
phase on the way to democracy
(all government decisions were made by the majority of male citizens)
4. although Greek city-states had many
features in common, each was individual in character
C. Sparta: The Military Ideal
1. Spartans were descendants of Greeks who
had conquered part of the
Southern
mainland: Laconia
2. by 800BC they were a minority of
landholders ruling over a majority of helots (noncitizens forced to work for landholders)
3. Messenian helots, however, frequently
rebelled
a. this forced Spartans to accept a
governmental system that put them
under almost total domination by a few among themselves
4. by 500BC, policy decisions had been taken
over by a council of elders
5. thus the Spartan government was a leading
example of oligarchy
6. Spartan male life was dedicated entirely
to the service of the state
7. the relative freedom of Spartan women
aroused both admiration and disapproval among other Greeks
8. to protect this way of life, Spartans
tried to seal off their city-state from outside influences
D. Athens: Freedom and Power
1. c.800BC many old-established communities
in the Attica peninsula merged to form a single city-state
that was known by the name of the most important
community: Athens
2. over the next 300 years, Athens grew to
become the wealthiest and one of the most powerful city-states, largely as a result of overseas
trade
a. produced and exported wine and oil
b. workshops produced weapons, pottery, and
articles of silver,
lead,
and marble
c. these were trade overseas for metal, timber,
and grain
3. with a rising population and greater
wealth came social and political conflicts
a. usually between aristocrats and
increasingly numerous dēmos
b. in conflicts with the aristocracy, the dēmos could generally find aristocrats to lead them whom they
respected and who wanted their support
4. as a result, Athens passed through
several stages of political growth, beginning with monarchy and
including both oligarchy and tyranny
a. eventually political power was extended
to all adult male citizens,
with aristocrats becoming leaders instead of rulers
5. The Persian Wars
a. in the sixth century BC, the Persians had
conquered a realm that stretched
from the border of India to the Nile and the Aegean
b. now the empire was within striking
distance of the Greeks, and Persia conquered the Greek
city-states in western Asia Minor
c. when Athens aided a rebellion by these
city-states, Persian king
Darius
sought to extend his empire into mainland Greece, c.494BC
d. the Persians lost the decisive battle of
Marathon in 490BC
e. then in 480BC, the Athenian navy crushed
the Persians at
Salamis,
and the Spartans faced the Persians on land at Thermopylae and then at Platea
6. when final peace was made with Persia in
445 BC, Athens was the controlling power of the Aegean Sea
7. after Persia’s defeat, Athenian democracy
entered a “Golden Age”
8. the workings of democracy
a. a Council of Five Hundred and roughly one
thousand public
officials
were chosen annually by lot
b. chief military officers, the Ten Generals, were chosen each
year by vote of the male citizens
c. adult
male citizens were a minority of the population of Athens
i. the rest of the population was composed
of adult female citizens,
adult noncitizens, and children
ii. adult male citizens probably made up no
more than one-
fifth
of the total adult population
iii. the remaining four-fifths had no say in
government
9. men and women in Athens
a. women were highly visible in religious
affairs
b. not much is known of women’s life lower
down the social scale or outside the city
10. slaves
a. were a diverse group; not all of them
lived lives of total subjection
and powerlessness
b. most slaves were non-Greeks, or the
descendants of non-Greeks
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