SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, AND SOCIETY
Ancient Civilizations
MODULE 1-Lesson 1.B
GREEK
CIVILIZATION
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COLA JANE I.
Greek Civilization
More than most societies, Greece
was shaped by its geography. In
ancient times it consisted of the
numerous, small islands of the
Aegean Sea, often called the
Cyclades Islands; the western end
of Asia Minor; and the
mountainous southern tip of the
European mainland.
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Greek Civilization
Most of this area had little land that was
suitable for large-scale farming, no broad
river valleys, and no expansive level plains.
No place within it was located more than
eighty miles from the sea. Dozens of
protected harbors and bays were scattered all
along the coast. From the beginnings of their
civilization on the Cyclades Islands and
Crete, the Greeks were expert sailors, so
ships and shipping were always a major
part of their livelihood. Because the
mountains of the peninsula made overland
travel there difficult, it usually was easier to
travel and trade by sea than by land.
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Greek Civilization
The history of the ancient Greeks can be divided into three epochs:
1. The Minoan-Mycenaean Age lasted from about 2000 B.C.E. to the conquest of the
Greek peninsula by invaders in the 1100s.
2. The Hellenic Period extended from the time of Homer to the conquest of the Greek city-
states by the Macedonians in the mid-300s. It includes the Classical Age, when Greek
philosophical and artistic achievements were most impressive.
3. The Hellenistic Age was the final blossoming of Greek cultural innovation, lasting from
about 300 B.C.E. to the first century C.E. During this age emigrant Greeks interacted
politically and intellectually with other peoples to produce a hybrid culture that was
extraordinarily influential on the arts and science of both Western and Asian civilizations.
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Greek Civilization
MINOAN COURT LADIES.
The so-called “Blue Ladies,”
photographed in the Palace of
Knossos, illustrates how
aristocratic women appeared.
Note the open bodices and the
elaborately coifed hair,
complete with strings of
pearls.
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Greek Civilization
GREEK VASE. This vase shows a fight
between a Greek hoplite (infantryman)
and his Persian cavalry enemy. A product
of the late fifth century B.C.E., the
appearance of this infantry formation
along with the notion of citizenship and
the citizen army revolutionized warfare
and community political life.
Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY
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Greek Civilization
ANCIENT MYCENAE. This is an artist’s reconstruction of how the citadel of Mycenae looked around 1300 B.C.E.
The town’s aristocracy would have inhabited these buildings, but the ordinary people, whose labors supported kings
like Agamemnon, Achilles, and other heroes of Homer’s epics, would have lived on farms below the fortified citadel.
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Greek Civilization
In Greek, polis means the community of adult free persons who make up a
town or any inhabited place. In modern political vocabulary the word is
usually translated as “city-state.” A polis could be almost any size.
The two poleis that dominated Greek life and politics in the Classical Age
were Athens and Sparta. They were worlds apart in their conceptions of the
good life for their citizens. Athens was the center of Greek educational,
artistic, and scientific activity as well as the birthplace of political democracy.
Sparta was a militaristic, authoritarian society that held the arts and
intellectual life in contempt and dreaded the extension of freedom to the
individual or the community.
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Greek Civilization
In general, the Greeks knew four types of government:
1. A monarchy is rule by a single person—a king or the equivalent (either sex)—who has the final
word in law by right. Most of the poleis were monarchies at one time or another, and many of them
apparently began and ended as such.
2. An aristocracy is rule by those who are born to the leading families and thereby are qualified to
rule, whether or not they are particularly qualified in other ways. Aristocrats are born to the
nobility, but not all nobles are born aristocrats.
3. An oligarchy is rule by a few, who are almost always the wealthiest members of society. Many
poleis were ruled by an oligarchy of landlords whose land was worked by tenant farmers.
4. A democracy is rule by the people—almost always by means of majority vote on disputed
issues. Voting rights in executive and legislative acts are limited to citizens; in the Greek poleis this
meant freeborn adult males.
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Greek Civilization
OSTRAKA SHARD. Each year, the
citizenry of Athens was allowed to vote
to ostracize any of their colleagues. The
ballot, or ostraka, was a ceramic token
inscribed in advance with a name or a
piece of broken pottery, like the one
shown here. If someone received a
predetermined number of votes, that
person was expelled from the polis.
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Greek Civilization
The Greeks fought intermittently among themselves for political supremacy
for generations. Whenever a strong contender emerged, the others would
band together against it. Once they had succeeded in defeating their rival,
they would begin to quarrel among themselves, and the fragile unity would
break down once again. The Greek passion for independence and
individuality had degenerated into endless quarrels and maneuvering for
power, with no clear vision of what that power should create.
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Greek Civilization
In his thirteen-year reign
(336–323 B.C.E.),
Alexander the Great
conquered most of the
world known to the
Greeks and proved himself
to be one of the most
remarkable individuals in
world history. His boldness
and vigor became the stuff
of legend among the Greeks
who fought under him.
Alexander’s break with
previous military tradition
regarding the status of the
conqueror is also
memorable.
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Greek Civilization
In addition to the concept of democratic government, the Greek
achievement was exemplified most strikingly in the fine arts and in the
search for wisdom, which the Greeks called philosophy (including science
and medicine).
In both areas the Greeks developed models and modes of thought that have
remained appealing for twenty-five centuries and are still valid and inspiring
today.
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Greek Civilization
HIPPOCRATES FORBIDDING
PRIMITIVE MEDICAL
PRACTICES.
This artistic rendering illustrates the
“empiricist” revolution
Hippocrates brought to medical
practice. He forbade the uses of
Aesculapian practices (healing
rituals) and encouraged new ones
based on observation.
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Greek Civilization
SOCRATES (470/469–399 B.C.E.). Perhaps no individual
symbolizes the greatness of ancient Greece better than
Socrates. Although not the first philosopher nor the
founder of a “school” of philosophy, his encouragement
of critical thinking among his pupils initiated the
golden age of ancient philosophy, particularly in the fifth
and fourth centuries B.C.E. In the end, his questioning of
prevailing religious ideas in fifth century Athens led to his
trial and execution for blasphemy.
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Greek Civilization
Fragments of the Antikythera
Mechanism were retrieved in
1901 by divers exploring a
first-century B.C.E. shipwreck
near the Greek island of
Antikythera. No one at the time
suspected that these corroded
bronze fragments belonged to
the world’s first analog
computer. This device was a
small, hand-cranked bronze
machine, with several layers of
differential gears resembling
the intricate inner workings of a
modern pocket watch.
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Greek Civilization
THE PARTHENON. Atop the hill in
central Athens called the Acropolis, the
Parthenon was designed to be the
center of Athenian spiritual life and its
most sacred temple. Constructed in the
fifth century B.C.E., the now-empty
interior once featured a massive statue
of the patroness of the city, the
goddess of both war and wisdom,
Athena. An explosion of gunpowder
seriously damaged it during a
seventeenth-century war between
Turks and Italians. The style of its
building has been praised and imitated
throughout the world.
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Greek Civilization
DISCOBULUS. This Roman copy of a fifth-century
Greek original by the great sculptor Myron is deservedly
famous for its combination of manly strength and
graceful control. The athlete prepares his body for an
extreme effort at tossing the heavy stone disc—one of the
feats at the original Olympic Games. Competition in the
nude was the norm for both Greeks and Romans.
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Greek Civilization
NOTABLE ANCIENT GREEK DISCOVERIES & INVENTIONS:
1. Water mill
2. Odometer
3. Alarm clock
4. Cartography
5. Olympics
6. Basis of Geometry
7. Earliest practice of medicine
8. Modern philosophy
9. Concept of democracy
10. Discoveries in modern science
20 https://etc.worldhistory.org/education/10-ancient-greek-inventions-discoveries-still-used-today/
Impacts of Greek Civilization
The civilization of ancient Greece was immensely influential in
many spheres: language, politics, educational systems, philosophy,
science, and the arts.
It had major effects on the Roman Empire which was considered
the successor to the Hellenistic Greek civilization.
We will be learning more about the Roman civilization in our next
lesson.
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END of Lesson 1.B
Ancient Civilizations
Source: Adler, P. J., & Pouwels, R. L. (2017). World Civilizations (8th ed.).
Cengage Learning US. COLA JANE I. BAGUIO
