Alexander and his totally radical empire.

King Philip II, after the Pelopponesean Wars, had his eyes set on invading the weakened Greece, as well as Persia. He wanted to avenge the Persian invasion of Greece as well. Demosthenes warned the Greeks of impending danger form the Macedonian armies. The city states, however, had trouble agreeing on a single policy to unite. By the time they did, it was too late. After defeating the Greeks in many battles, the Macedonians had control over Greece. They were no longer a free people.

Philip had plans to invade Persia next, but was murdered at his daughter's wedding. His son, Alexander, immediately proclaimed himself the King of Macedonia.

Since Greece was secure, Alexander decided to carry out his father's plan to invade Persia. In 334 BCE, he led 35,000 soldiers across the Hellespont into Anatolia. Persian messangers sent word of the army, and an army of about 40,000 men rushed to defend Persia. He won a GLORIOUS VICTORY over the Persians. He went on to defeat even more of Persia's armies despite being greatly outnumbered. Alexander's brilliant battle tactics won the day, not his numbers. He conquered Persia, which was pretty darn cool.

Presentations Day 2.

Today more people presented cut to the fact that we didn't have enough time to have everyone present  the first day. Some of the most interesting information I learned form today's presentations, was about Greek theatre. I learned abut the history and lasting effect on today's theatre. The Greeks focused on two types of Dramas. Tragedies and Comedies. Tragedies were, as the name suggests, tragic. Many characters died over the course of these tragedies. Comedies, again as the name suggests, were comedic. Usually involving one or more comedic character in situations that would relate to the Greek people watching the play. I also learned about the stadiums themselves. How they were enormous stone stairs and seats, fitting thousands of people, surrounding the stage in a kind of half circle. The stage itself was large an impressive, with usually a large stone structure behind the stage. This structure has a particular name, but I forget to copy it down in my notes. Shame on me. Of course there were more presentations today, but that was the one I got the most information from. It was also my favorite. Anyway, have a great day and say golden. Or silver. I guess it's really a preference regarding your favorite precious metal. Me personally, I like silver or even bronze. What am I even talking about? Sorry about that. I can sometimes go off on their random thoughts. But anyway, marmalade is evil, goodbye.

Presentation Day.

Today we presented our google slides about the Delian League. I think it went pretty good, although it seems we had a lot less slides than some of the other presentations. Our slides were good though. We packed a lot of content into them. As for the other presentations today, I learned a good amount of information form them. For example, I learned about Pericles and how he led Athens during its golden age, turning Athens into one of the most beautiful and prominent cities of the time. However, his hubris eventually led him to make terrible decisions. He thought he could take on the city state of Sparta, and failed. He walled his people within Athens for protection, only receiving trade and supplies from the sea. The sea trade eventually brought the plague, decimating Athens' population and leading to constant destress. The plague eventually took his own life, and his son's. So yeah, I got some useful information form their presentations. Of course this isn;t all the information, just the reasonable amount to put in one post. Anyway, have a great day snd stay golden.

Today

Today in class we continued to work on our presentation in slides. Our presentation will be on the Delian League. Hope it goes well.

SUPER RADICAL AWESOME SPECTACULAR POST. Not really though......

The Greek Acropolis was a stone high rise in the center of Athens which housed several iconic and historical buildings.

The Acropolis was used for prayer by the Athenians, or in times of war, protection from invading forces..

The Parthenon was built over 2500 years ago as a temple to the Goddess Athena, the goddess fro which Athens was named.

The Parthenon was ordered to be built by Pericles, an important Greek politician.

Construction began in 447 BCE.

The Parthenon was composed of 30 tons of fine, white marble.

By Doric - style constriction we mean simple, unadorned style characterized by simple columns.

Some things found inside the Parthenon are a 40 foot statue of Athena,

The Parthenon was damaged in 1687 by the Venetians.

post # 7 Super radical party fun time.

1. An aristocracy was a small group of powerful, wealthy landowners in power, while an obligarchy was on a few powerful people in charge. So, they were pretty similar, but slightly different.

2. Solon reformed the set of laws made by Draco, making them less harsh and most importantly not allowing citizens to own the citizens as slaves. Cleisthenes introduced the system of direct democracy  after his supporters overthrew the tyrant that had seized control and banished him from Athens.

3. Living in Athens was different form living in Sparta for several reasons. The first major reason, is that in Sparta, service in the military was mandatory for men starting at the age of seven, while Athens being a Democratic State for most of its reign, had no such rule. Athenian adult men were however, sometimes called to fight in the event of a war. As mentioned before Athens was a Democratic City State, while Sparta had a monarchy of sorts, having two kings ruling the military and several government branches with elected officials. Besides the two kings, it was kind of like a Republic in my opinion...........I say "in my opinion" because I'm not sure, ok!.......jeez. Also the Spartans had LOTS of slaves, while slavery was a big no-no in Athens for most of its history.

Post 6. Athens in it's golden age. Super COOL.

A wise statesman named Pericles led Athens in much of its Golden Age.  He had three goals in ruling Athens. To strengthen the democracy of Athens, to hold and strengthen the ever growing Athenian Empire, and to further glorify Athens. One of Pericles most important acts, was that of introducing Direct Democracy. In a Direct Democracy the citizens rule directly and not through representatives.

After the defeat of Persia in the Persian Wars, Athens organized the Delian League, an alliance of several city states including Athens. Eventually, Athens took over leadership of the league, and dominated all city states within it. The Athenian empire was growing.

Pericles used some of the league's money to create beautiful art and architecture in the city of Athens. Of course, this was without the League's approval, seeing how it was doubtful they would allow this. He persuaded the Athenian assembly to do this, and began to further glorify the awesome, super totally radical, Athenian Empire.

Of course, nothing good ever lasts forever. The Spartans formed the Peloponnesian League and went to war with the Delian League. Both sides fought valiantly, and they eventually signed a truce. Of course, this peace didn't last forever. Athens attacked one of Sparta's closest allies, Syracuse, and failed miserably. There army, navy, everything was wiped out. Very few of Athen's men returned home. They were able to to defend against Spartans attacking Athens for nine years, but eventually the could defend no longer. The Athenians and their allies surrendered. The Golden Age had come to an end.

Post #5 Athens. Democracy. Fun!

Hippias was a tyrant of Athens, who when his brother was murdered, became very paranoid and began a very harsh rule over Athens. Eventually, the people had had enough and ostracized him form the city. In revenge he began working with King Darius I to invade Marathon.

With Hippies out of the picture, two aristocrats named Isagorus and Cleisthenes began to "run for office." Isagoris had support form fellow aristocrats, as well as form Sparta. Cleisthenes had support form the majority of the Athenian people. Isagoris became the tyrant, and ostracized Cleisthenes from the city. However, Cleisthenes' supporters and the ordinary citizens of Athens revolted against Isagoris' tyranny. THIS WAS THE FIRST TME A PEOPLE REVOLTED AGAINST THEIR LEADER IN RECORDED HISTORY! They trapped Isagoris on the acropolis for two days and on the third day he fled and was banished. The date of all this cool stuff was 508 BCE.

Cleisthenes', now in power, saw the value of the knowledge and talents of everyday citizens, and the seeds of DEMOCRACY were planted.

Post Number #4

In the seventh and sixth centuries, BCE, aristocrats were the dominate political power. Aristocrats were wealthy landowners, who had political power and control of the people of a city state simply due to the fact that they were wealthy and influential.

Aristocrats attended meetings in the symposium, a kind of fancy meeting room within a palace, where the elite men would enjoy wine and poetry and performances by dances and acrobats. These men also had the company of prostitutes, in the modern terminology.

In Aristocratic society, the women held no power and were not welcomed in the Symposium, unless they were entertainers. No people from the middle class, even men, were allowed to have power. There were certainly no slaves even with little power or voice. Sometimes, even other Aristocrats were cast out, due to there opinions regarding certain issues, or even if they starting running low on wealth and falling out of favor with other Aristocrats. These excludes Aristocrats would sometimes team up with Hoplite, elite soldiers, to overthrow the others and set up a form of government known as a tyranny.

A leader of a tyranny was known as a tyrant, but not in the modern sense. A tyrant was simply someone who assumed power in the way mentioned before.

Blog #3

Notes for Ancient Greece:

Mycenaeans - their influence began around 200 B.C. Mycenae was located on a rock ridge on Peloponnesus, protected by a 20 for thick. Mycenaean king dominated Greece form 1660-1100 BCE. They controlled trade in the region.

In 1440 BCE, the Mycenaeans invaded Crete and absorbed Minoan culture.


The Trojan War.

The Trojan war is believed to have been fought in the 12th or 13th century BCE. It was thought to only be part of Greek mythology until the 19th century when evidence of a real war during the assumed time period it occurred was found. The reason people thought of it as a myth was due to the fact that the story of the Trojan War had to do with a quarrel between the Gods and Goddesses when Paris decided to judge who among the Goddesses was the fairest. Paris judged Aphrodite as the fairest, who then made Helen fall in love with Paris, who took her back to Troy. This is how, in Ancient Greek Mythology, the Trojan War started.

But now today, we do know for a fact there was some kind of large scale war fought in the time period. It's highly likely the Trojan War was a real conflict in Ancient Greece.

Around 2000 BCE, a mysterious culture only known as "the sea people" began to invade Mycenae and burn down palaces and other buildings.

The Dorians, seeing an opportunity, moved into the war torn region and claimed it as their own, dominating form 1150 - 750 BCE.

Of course, the Dorians weren't necessarily beneficial to Ancient Greek society. The Dorians were far less advanced than the Mycenaeans and other Greek states. They hadn't developed the skill of writing, and due to this, the art of writing disappeared for 400 years in the Dorian dominated region. They also eliminated one of the best economies of the Ancient world by allowing the trade business to collapse. These times were known as the "Dark Ages." We have little knowledge of what actually happened during these dark ages due to the lack of written records.

There was, however, one man, or possibly several people, who are believed to have composed and passed down the famous stories of "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey".  The man most associated with creating and telling these stories through Greek Oral Tradition, was a blind wanderer named Homer. It is said that he would go from town to down, presenting his incredibly long stories to audiences, in return for money, food clothes, etc. Whether Homer existed is still a mystery. It seems that he, in the classical sense, may be some kind of mythological figure. A blind man who wanders around, telling amazing, detailed stories of the warriors and adventurers of the past, seems like some kind of Hero form Greek mythology.

If Homer possibly didn't create these stories, then who did? Some theories suggest the stories are a product of several people telling different and similar stories, which through centuries of Oral Tradition, developed and amalgamated into what we now call The "Iliad" and "Odyssey".



That's it for now, have fun reading.