Beware of Greeks Bearing Gifts

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Beware of GreeksBearing Gifts

• By Martin A. Waltuch

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The Early Greeks

• Around 3600 years ago, Greeks started taking
  jobs as soldiers for the Egyptians, who paid
  them in gold.
• Greek graves from this time at Mycenae
  (my-SEEN-ay) have a lot of gold cups and
  jewelry and beautiful swords in them. Greeks of
  this time are sometimes called the Myceneans
  (my-sin-AY-ans).

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The Myceneans

• These were the Greeks who fought in the famous
  Trojan War.
• King Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks, came
  from Mycenae.
• King Menelaus and his wife Helen, whose beauty
  caused the Trojan War, came from Sparta.
• Odysseus, Achilles, Ajax and the other heroes of
  the Trojan War were also Myceneans.
• After the war, their palaces and possessions all
  disappeared. No one knows what happened. The
  world of Helen of Troy became myths and legends.

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Enter the Dorians

• During this Dark Age, neighbors from the north
  invaded Greece.
• The Greeks called these invaders the Dorians
  (DOOR-ee-anns), and called the old Mycenean,
  Greeks the Ionians (i-OWN-ee-anns).
• Sparta, in Lakonia, became the main city of the
  Dorians.

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The Spartans

• Some Dorians had found their way to the lands
  which once belonged to King Menelaus.
• These new Spartans built a temple, that they
  called the Menelaion, to honor Menelaus.
• Sparta was ruled by two kings. The Spartans
  claimed their first kings were the great-great
  grandsons of Heracles (Hercules). It was this
  pair of twins who took the land away from the
  grandchildren of King Agamemnon.

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The Spartan Life

• Spartan society was one of the most extreme of
  the ancient world.
• Spartan society was like a military training
  camp
• All Spartan men would fight. And when not
  fighting, they would train. And when they
  weren't, training they would enjoy the
  companionship of their fellow fighters instead of
  with their own families.

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The Athenians

• Unlike the fortresses of Lakonia, Athens was
  not overrun by Dorian invaders.
• It became a center for Greeks who spoke Ionic.
  
• After the Dark Ages, instead of kings, the
  Athenians had an oligarchy, the rule by the few.
  Those few were the people who were richer and
  more powerful than the others. After a while the
  others didnt like this and changed this to a
  democracy.

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Athenian Democracy

• In the democracy of Athens, ordinary citizens
  could make all the most important decisions, like
  whether to go to war, in an Assembly.
• You had to have 6000 men at a meeting of the
  Assemby, called the Ekklesia (ek-LAYZ-ee-ah).
• Elected officials took care of specific things.
  Nine were called Archons (AR-kons), they mostly
  took care of religious things.
• Ten generals, called strategoi (STRAT-eh-goy)
  were elected by the Assembly, every year.

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The Persian Wars

• About 2500 years ago the Persians attacked
  Greece. The Athenians fought the Persians in a
  new way, with the wall of shields. Athens beat
  the Persians at a place called Marathon.
• Ten years later the Persians attacked again,
  this time with a much bigger army.
• This time most of the cities in Greece banded
  together and formed a league to fight the
  Persians.

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Thermopylae

• Three hundred Spartans, with others, agreed to
  fight the Persians at a place called Thermopylae
  (therm-AH-pill-aye), which means gates of fire.
• This gave the other Greeks time to gather an
  army big enough to beat the Persians. The
  Spartans died, but the Greeks won the war.

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Athens takes over

• The Athenians convinced the other Greeks that
  they needed to build a strong navy, in case the
  Persians came back.
• Then, the Athenians convinced the other cities
  to just give them the money to build the navy.
• The Athenians used some of the money on their
  own city. Since Athenians didnt have to pay
  taxes anymore, they grew rich. They built great
  temples, academies and theaters. During this time
  Athens led the Greeks into their Classic Age.

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The Peloponnesian War

• After a while, when the Persians didnt come
  back, some cities wanted to stop paying Athens
  for their navy. Athenians used their big navy to
  make the other cities keep sending money.
• The Athenians attacked the city of Miletus
  (my-LEE-tuss), when they tried to stop paying,
  and destroyed it.
• Other cities asked the Spartans to help stop the
  Athenians. Some cities took Athens side. The war
  lasted almost 30 years. The Spartans won and the
  Athenians lost, but Greece was wrecked, and the
  Classical period was over.

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Philip and Alexander

• In the north of Greece, in a country called
  Macedon (MA-suh-donn), King Philip had noticed
  that the Greeks were very weak.
• Philip admired Greek culture, so he and his son
  Alexander conquered and united the Greeks as into
  one kingdom, his.
• Philip did not get to enjoy his success long. He
  died, killed by an assassin.

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Greece gives her gifts

• When Philip died, his son Alexander became king.
  He wanted to bring Greek culture to other
  countries. He took an army of Greeks and
  Macedonians and attacked the Persian Empire.
• Alexander was a great general, he beat the
  Persians many times. Alexander conquered Persia
  and brought Greek civilization to the world.

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Image resources

• http//www.wsu.edu/.../ thematic_connections.html
• http//www.channel4.com/.../ H/history/n-s/spartan
  s.html
• http//www.historyforkids.org/learn/greeks/history
  /latebronze.htm
• http//www.springfield.k12.il.us/schools/southeast
  /pprojects/Group20820Projects/Group20820pics/g
  demo.JPG
• http//uts.cc.utexas.edu/sparta/topics/galleries/
  The2030020Spartans/lobby/slides/C20120copy.htm
  l
• http//www.peplums.info/pep30a.htm
• http//historyforkids.org/learn/greeks/history/hel
  lenistic.htm