Greek City-States                          Prof. Horowitz

 

Greek calendar was in Olympiads, 4 year intervals beginning in 776 BCE, year of lst Olympic Games

War

Wars of Hellenic Greece

  Persian Wars  Early 5th c. BCE  490-445 BCE,

                Battles of Marathon 490; Salamis & Thermopylae (Spartans) 480

                                                           Historian: Herodotus

                       Delian League—Athens moves treasury from Delos to Athens in 454                 Peloponnesian War   432 – 404      Historian: Thucydides

                Between Peloponnesian League led by Sparta and Delian League led by Athens

                    431 Pericles’ funeral oration

                    404 Athens surrenders to Sparta, brief period of thirty tyrants before  

                      democracy restored.

                    399 Socrates sentenced by Athenian  jury

Wars of Hellenistic Era

    Philip of Macedon conquers Athens 338  

                336-323 Alexander the Great spread conquest to Asian Minor

    Romans conquered Hellenistic States, 2nd and 1st centuries BCE

 

Types of Government in self-governing city-states (authors Athenians)

 Aristotle, Politics:                                For Good of State             For Good of Ruler                                 

                          Government by 1                      Monarchy                       Despotism

                          Government by Few                  Aristocracy                     Oligarchy

                           Government by Many               Polity                             Mobocracy

 

 Athens,  Law makers Solon (increase power of poor) and Cleisthenes  (30 regions of polis for voting, ostracism for expelling potential tyrant)

              Golden Age of Pericles      Considered by Greeks to be a Democracy 

                                   Popular Assembly, Ecclesia of about 5000 votes directly on hillside                   

                                   Council of 500; Board of 10 Generals elected annually (leading

                                   General Pericles)

               Citizen women “secluded” in women’s quarter, yet playwrights imagine

                   strong women characters.

                Tradesmen and tradeswomen.

                 Slaves

                                  

 Sparta  Legislator Lycurgus in account of Xenophon.   

                                                             Considered by Greeks to be an Oligarchy.

         2 kings, council of  elders, all men 7 to 50 in military barracks

         Citizen women control property and are known for health

          Helots—subjugated agricultural workers.

 

Greek Speculation on Justice

 

Pericles, “Funeral Oration” as recorded by Thucydides

"Melian Dialogue" as recorded by Thucydides (

Sophocles, Antigone    Arbitrary ruler’s law versus divine law

Plato, Republic, Apology, and Crito (on Socrates refusing to sneak out of Athens after trial)

Aristotle Politics (Wiesner) and Nicomachean Ethics