Greece Test Flashcards
The Greek Dark Ages
(1100-800 BCE) Trade declined and trade faltered.
Homeric Epics
Examples being The Iliad and The Odyssey, used to describe social conditions of Dark Ages.
Civic Virtue
Moral idea that the community was more important than an individual person.
Tyranny
Government led by a person who had no right to power but has it anyway.
The Olympics
Greeks from across the nations would gather here to watch sports, such as fighting, where getting anything but 1st Place was bad.
The Polis
A political unit centered on a city and including the surrounding lands
Aristoi (Greek Aristocracy)
The “best people,” the Greek elite that held most political power, usually hereditary.
The Reforms Of Solon
Eliminated debt slavery, wrote laws on wooden panels to be hung up for all to see, taxes lifted on the poor, established the idea that politicians are temporary but the law is eternal.
Cleisthenes And Democracy
Allowed all male citizens to vote in public matters and to be able to run for office, establishing democracy.
Sparta
Military state, training began at a very young age, selective society that left undesirable babies to die, rival to Athens.
Athens
Celebrated art, music and drama, birthplace of democracy, rival to Sparta.
Hoplites & Phalnax
Phalanx: A military formation where men with spears would use shields to protect the man on their left. Hoplites: Men in the Phalanx.
Peloponnese League
A meeting place for spokespeople of The 10 States to decide on how to go about matters, mainly war, with Sparta in charge.
The Delian Leauge
“a confederacy of Greek city-states, numbering between 150 and 330, founded in 478 BC under the leadership of Athens, whose purpose was to continue fighting the Persian Empire after the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea at the end of the Second Persian invasion of Greece.”
Persia
Founded by Cyrus I the Great, the largest empire of the time, conquered basically all Ancient Civilizations.
Cyrus
Founder of the Persian Empire known for his willingness to let the people he conquered continue to use their culture and just being peaceful towards them.
Darius
Expanded empire further, roads and postal services, standardized currency, first Persian invasion of Greece
Xerxes
Oversaw his Father Darius and oversaw Persian defeat in Persian War.
Greco-Persian Wars
Conflict between the Greeks and the Persians around the 400-500s BCE that ended in Greek victory.
Satraps
“The satrap was the political governor, advised and supplemented by a military general who reported directly to the king.” Satrapies were essentially the provinces these satraps ruled over.
Zoroatrianism
Taught that the world was being fought over by Ahura Mazda (goodness, honesty, etc.) and Ahriman (dishonorability and dishonesty).
Battle Of Marathon
The Athenians had won against the Persians despite the lack of Spartan help, popularized by the possibly fabricated story of the runner Pheidippides who was sent 26 miles to Athens to report the victory, dropping dead of exhaustion.
Pericles
Instituted the payment of public servants and defined Athenian citizenship as being born from an Athenian.
Leonidas
Spartan king that fought alongside his soldiers at the Battle of Thermopylae in which all 300 were killed. Also the guy who said “This is Sparta!”
