Athens Flashcards
Where is Athens located?
Coast of the Aegean Sea
Who was Athens ruled by at first
The kings
Who ruled Athens after 750 BCE
Nobles, merchants and artisans
What is an oligarchy
A form of government where only certain people had a say in the government.
Land ownership
People had disagreements of this
Why did the nobles agree to make reforms which changed the government style of Athens?
So there wouldn’t be any uprisings
Who was the first reforming leader of Athens
Draco
How was Draco as a ruler
His reforms were too harsh
Some of his laws included Slavery
Gave the death penalty
His punishments caused a revolution
Who was the second ruler in 594 BCE
Solon
Who is Solon
The ruler after Draco. He repeated all of the same laws as Draco
What was the constitution written by Solon?
Showed how the rules for the government will work
This was the first ever in the world
What did Solon do for the government
Sets limits to land ownership and said you could only be a citizen if you owned land
Ordered fathers to teacher their sons to trade to improve their education
More athenians were involved in gov and trade increases.
How could you become an Athens citizen
You had to own land - but women, children and slaves couldn’t be citizens
The assembly
Had the power to pass laws
Who moved to Athens by they could have citizenship rights
Many artisans and from all over Greece
What class of people didn’t like Solon
The rich, because they thought his reforms went too far. They didn’t like what he did about the rules of land ownership because it gave more people citizenship rights
The poor too, because they thought his reforms didn’t go far enough. They couldn’t be citizens because they couldn’t own land
Who was the third leader of Athens
Piesistratus
Peisistratus
The poor really liked him because he further limited land ownership and forced the rich to sell pieces of their land to farmers
You don’t have to own land to be a citizen anymore
What happened to peisistratus sons?
They were killed by Spartans because they said that they could
Take over Sparta if they wanted to
Who was the fourth leader
Cleisthenes
Cleisthenes
New leader who didn’t anger Sparta
What did cleisthenes do
He created worlds first democratic constitution
What is democratic constitution
It gave all citizens equality, except not women, children and slaves
He also gave athenians freedom of speech
How old were males in the assembly
Over 20
How many generals ran the army
10 generals
The council of five hundred
Ran the daily business of Athens
They were chosen by lottery randomly
All Athenian names were put into a pot and 500 names were chosen
You could only be on the council twice in your life.
Why did athenians choose the council of 500 this way
They didn’t think elections were far because they thought the rich people had an unfair advantage
Athenian education
Citizens sent their sons to school
They had a tutor or went to private school - there weren’t public schools
When did kids start school
School started @ 7 years old and boys learned all subjects
18 year old boys
Became full citizens and swore an oath at the temple of Zeus to make Athens a better place and show their honor, follow the constitution and respect the gods
Persia
In Asia Minor or present day turkey
Who was at war with Persia
Ionia
What did the Ionians want from Greece
They wanted Greece to help them gain freedom from Persia
King Darius
King of the Persians who wanted to punish the Greek city states for interfering with their war
Darius’s plan to attack Athens
Sent 600 ships to Greece to invade Athens and thought that the city states would surrender. The athenians waited and watched the Persians and then attacked them from behind in the Battle of Marathon.
The Persians were defeated and Darius decided to leave since he didn’t have an army anymore so left and went back to Persia
The battle of marathon
Persians were defeated by the athenians when they steadied them from behind. This made Darius retreat.
Silver mines
Athens found silver minds and invested the money to make new warships
New Athenian warships
Thremes; they had three levels of towers on each side and gave Athens the largest army in Greece
What happened after Darius died?
His son, Xerxes, returned to Athens with 250,000 troops. 20 city states teamed up against Persia to stop them.
Who lead the army against Persia
Sparta
Who lead the army against Persia
Athens
Thermopylae
A very narrow mountain pass
The battle of Thermopylae
7,000 soldiers from 20 city states went north to stop the Persians and prepared to fight in the narrow mountain pass.
300 Spartans held the Persians for 3 days, but eventually they were all nurseries by the Persians.
Then the Persians got to Athens, they burned it to the ground
The battle of salamis
Greek navy got the Persians into a narrow strait between Athens and salamis
The Greeks defeated them because the Persians weren’t as fast
Xerxes went back to Persia after this
The Delian league
Many city states came together to be protect each other from
Persia.
Sparta didn’t join.
The headquarters were in Delos
Athens controlled the navy
Athens and the Delian leagues
Athens became
Too controlling and paranoid about other ships sailing in the Aegean Sea so told city states that they had to request permission to sail.
All criminal cases were now brought to Athens
Trade was controlled by Athens
What did the other Delian league city states become
Apart of the Athenian empire
Who was the main leader during the Delian league
Pericles
Pericles
Really popular ruler in Athens and was given the nickname the “first citizen”
He got the Delian League to pay to rebuild Athens. This is when the Parthenon was built
Built long walls to protect Athens
Lead Athens for 30 years
The Peloponessian League
Created to form an alliance for city states in the Peloponnesus. Sparta was a member
Helots
Spartan helots rebelled and Athens sent help - this made Sparta mad
Corinth vs Megara
Trade Rivals
Megara and Athens attacked Corinth
Sparta and Corinth were against Athens and Megara - started peloponnessian war
What happened in Athens with the plague
A plague attacked and killed 1/3-1/4 of the athenians and Pericles.
Athens surrendered after this and lost the war.
What happened to the athenians after the war?
Some moves to Ionia and became mercenaries for Persia
Sparta helped put Athens back together and didn’t punish them badly out of respect
Effects of the war
Greeks started to lose a sense of community and they had spent a lot of money on war
Phillip of Macedonia
Conquered Greek city states.
