Book 1 Shorter, Chapter 3, Set 2 Flashcards
Who was Pericles and what did he do? (page 100)
A brilliant orator, Pericles presided over a “Golden Age” of Athens (451 - 429 BCE). He consolidated the democratic “constitution” by compensating the poorer citizens for time on jury service or in the ecclesia, and limiting citizenship to those with two Athenian parents.
Describe the major events that led to Greek history (as opposed to Greek mythology). (page 101)
The first Greek writing may date to some time after 1400 BCE, in a script known as “Linear B”. However, during the Greek “Dark Age” (c. 1100 - 750 BCE), the art of writing was lost to the Greeks. After this period, however, the Greeks developed writing and their own alphabet, leading to the Greeks’ first historical records.
Describe Greek mythology before writing. (page 101)
Before the 6th century BCE, Greek history was largely recorded orally and in the form of poetry. Folklore and myth were mixed with truth, making facts hard to determine.
Who was Homer? (page 101)
Homer was one of the most famous poets of ancient Greece. Little is known about his life, other than he is believed to have lived in the 8th or 7th centuries BCE. He is said to have been blind, and to have recited his poetry as he traveled around Greece. He probably never wrote down his own poems, and his subjects were a mixture of myth, folk memory, and fact. His epic poems, “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey”, were both inspired by the Trojan War, an event that may have actually happened in the 13th century BCE. The actual events of this war, if they occurred at all, were never written down, leading to the intermixture of myth and legend into the actual history.
Describe some of the first Greek historians other than Herodotus. (page 101)
Hecataeus of Miletus (c. 550 - 490 BCE) wrote down Greek stories that had been orally passed down through the generations. He also recorded family genealogies. Another writer, Simonides (c. 556 - 469 BCE), referred to events of the Persian invasion of 480 BCE in his poems.
Describe Herodotus. (page 101)
Widely considered “the father of history”, Herodotus (484 - 425 BCE) wrote “The Histories”, which focused on the origins of the war between Greece and Persia that took place at the beginning of the 5th century BCE. He was also a prolific traveler and inquirer into human nature. He is largely remembered as the first writer to write about events of his own time in prose rather than verse, and to organize his material systematically. His work inspired later historians to write in this style and break from traditional verse. His writing cannot be entirely taken as fact, but he made a groundbreaking contribution to the recording of history.
