Wars of Ancient Greece

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Wars of Ancient Greece
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Video Clips

• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vnBTeLJUlOlg
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?viks6lkzPb9g

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Question Of The Day

• How Long did the Trojan war last?
• 10 years.
• What Was Helens husband name?
• Menelaus
• Trojan Horse ..Who was the mastermind behind it
  and helped make it?
• Odysseus

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Questions Of The Day

• How long was the Trojan war fought?
• ?10 years
• Who was Helens husband?
• ?King Menelaus
• Who was the mastermind behind the design and use
  of the Trojan Horse?
• ?Odysseus

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Introduction

• There are three major wars in the history of
  Ancient Greece
• The Trojan War, 1250 BCE
• The Persian War, 497-479 BCE
• The Peloponnesian War, 461-445 BCE

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The Trojan War, 1250 BCE

• The Trojan War is considered one of the most
  important events in Greek history and mythology
• The Trojan War began when Helen fled her husband,
  King Menelaus of Sparta, with Paris of Troy
• Menelaus deployed a large fleet of ships to bring
  Helen back from Troy.
• It is said that the Trojan War lasted 10 years,
  with some believing that it would never end.
• Some theories suggest that the Trojans were
  victorious.
• To enter the city of Troy the Greeks constructed
  a large wooden horse, able to contain 30 Greek
  soldiers, and presented it to the gates of Troy
• The horse was accepted by the Trojans and brought
  inside the citys walls. The Greek soldiers
  exited the horse and opened the gates of Troy to
  the remaining soldiers during the following
  night, conquering the city and bringing about the
  fall of Troy.
•  

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The Trojan Horse

• The Trojan Horse is a creation of the Ancient
  Greeks. It was a large, hollow, wooden
  construction that resembled a horse.
• Odysseus helped design and construct the Trojan
  Horse
• The Trojans assumed the horse was a gift or peace
  offering to end the war and readily accepted it
  past their gates and into the city.
• The Trojan Horse was the key warfare weapon used
  by the Greeks to defeat the Trojans.

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Military Ships

• There were two main types of boats that played a
  role in everyday life during the times of Ancient
  Greece
• ?Military
• ? Cargo

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Trireme

• Propelled by manpower
• The trireme was a single tier ship with two tiers
  of oars per side. There were 25 rowers on each
  side of the ship, one man to an oar.
• Triremes were approximately 115 feet long and
  8.5 feet tall.
• In good weather conditions Triremes could travel
  up to14 knots per hour.
• The downside of Triremes was that they were
  rather light and could be blown off course in
  high wind conditions.

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Quinqueremes

• Quinqueremes had three to four tiers of oars with
  two men to an oar.
• The boats were significantly heavier than
  Triremes and were not as easily affected by high
  wind conditions.
• Quinqueremes were constructed of wood with metal
  spikes to hold the wood together. The most common
  wood used was fir, cedar, and pine.

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Hoplites

• Hoplites were citizen-soldiers of the Ancient
  Greek city-states.
• They were protected with bronze chest plates,
  helmet with cheek guards, and greaves.
• A hoplite was expected to buy his own protective
  armor.
• The armor could weigh between 50-70 pounds.

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Phalanx

• The phalanx is a Greek fighting formation
  (organized battle line) that focused on soldiers
  fighting as a closely ranked unit
• The first few ranks of soldiers would project
  their spears over the first rank of shields.
• The phalanx was essentially a formation of a
  shield wall and a mass of spears pointing toward
  the oncoming enemy.
• Frontal assaults were very difficult against a
  phalanx formation and it also allowed a higher
  proportion of the soldiers to be actively engaged
  in combat at a given time.

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Phalanx formation standing in a battle line,
awaiting the clash with enemy troops.
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The Persian War

• The Persian War is considered a defining moment
  in Greek history, with the Persians conquering
  everyone in their war path.
• The Persians attempted to conquer Greece by land
  in 514 BC by attacking the Scythians.

http//www.youtube.com/watch?vZHVWF4Hl9wEfeature
related
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The Persian War

• During 500 BCE onward the Persian Empire expanded
  to the borders of Greece.

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Battle of Thermopylae

• The Persian army marched into Greece under the
  leadership of King Xerxes. They encountered a
  small Greek force led by the Spartan commander
  Leonidas at a narrow mountain pass at
  Thermopylae. The Greeks were able to defend the
  pass against the much larger Persian forces until
  they were betrayed. A Greek traitor showed the
  Persians a secret passage around the pass. The
  Persians were able to attack from two sides.
  Realizing the battle was lost, Leonidas stayed
  back with 300 other Spartans to give time to the
  bulk of the Greek force to retreat safely. It was
  a tremendous act of sacrifice on the part of
  Leonidas and his fellow Spartans.

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Battle of Thermopylae
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A "Golden Age" is a period of peace, harmony,
stability, and prosperity.
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The Peloponnesian War 431-404 BCE

• The Peloponnesian War was a major Ancient Greek
  military conflict.
• The Athenian leader Pericles transformed Athens
  into the cultural center of Greece.
• The Spartan strategy to conquer Athens was to
  invade yearly.
• To combat the damages of Spartan invasions
  Pericles hired the best architects and had the
  Acropolis rebuilt.

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The Peloponnesian War

• The Athenian soldiers faced a serious geographic
  disadvantage from the start because Sparta was
  located inland, rendering the power of the
  Athenian navy useless in the battle.
• During Spartan invasions Pericles allowed
  Athenians from the countryside to move inside the
  city.
• Overcrowding led to a plague that killed a
  one-third of the people and internal struggles
  undermined the democratic government of Athens.
• Sparta allied with Persia, a former enemy,
  against the Delian League.
• In 404 BCE, with the assistance of the Persian
  navy, the Spartans captured Athens and conquered
  its entire fleet and empire.
• The Peloponnesian War is the longest and most
  bitter and costly war in the history of Greek
  conflicts.

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The Peloponnesian War

• Harmony among the Greeks dwindled after the
  Persian Wars.
• Athenians, under the direction of Pericles, were
  subjected to conflict with Corinth, a Spartan
  ally.
• Sparta assisted in defending Corinth, to which
  Pericles responded with war against the Spartans.
• Athenian soldiers thought they could defend
  against Spartan forces indefinitely.
• The war was essentially a deadlock until the 404
  BCE attack on Athens by allied Spartan and
  Persian forces.
• All forces involved in the Peloponnesian War
  suffered great casualties and losses

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The Aftermath of War

• The Peloponnesian War was effective in ending
  the dominance of Athenians in Greece.
• Democratic government suffered in Athens, with
  corruption and selfish interests replacing
  previous orderly ways.
• Following these three major wars fighting still
  continued to disrupt life in the Ancient Greek
  world.