hello my name is Kylie and welcome to
ancient history the ancient Greeks part
1 in this video we'll take a look at the
basic events in ancient Greek history
from just before their city-states were
beginning to form in 800 BC until 146 BC
when the Romans conquered them we will
first touch on the time period right
before the Greek city-states were formed
the time period when these city-states
thrived and how they eventually fell
apart
amid war and conflict ready to journey
into the past let's go
before Greece was organized into
city-states smaller separated
communities existed small villages kept
to themselves and tried to be
self-sufficient as much as possible a
lot of small communities that made up
Greece spread over an area of land far
beyond what we now call the modern
country of Greece but over time these
small villages began to struggle to feed
their people get resources to build and
maintain houses and defend themselves
from enemies one of the reasons it was
so hard to grow enough food was that the
land they lived on was super rocky and
really dry around 800 BC Greek
city-states began to form small farming
villages began to grow and trade with
other communities much of the trade was
done by sea as travel over the rocky
train or land was very difficult these
larger communities began to be called
Polis in Greek Polis our city-states
which were small farming villages that
grew into bigger cities we now refer to
these cities as city-states city-states
were like a city and a state
all rolled into one they had their own
government and ruled themselves think of
all the places or towns around where you
live today it would be like each one had
its own president and the rules were
completely different in each one as
these city-states our Polis grew they
began to become more organized often
there was a huge fort on a large hill
this fort was huge and was called a
necropolis the word acropolis comes from
the Greek words Accra which means high
and Polis which you already know what
that means
City so Acropolis literally means high
city in Greek the Acropolis was also the
center of religion and where farmers and
other residents took shelter during
times of attack outside the Acropolis
where
houses apartments and a large gathering
place with a market called an Agora
in the beginning of these city-states
many were ruled by a tyrant or someone
who ruled by force
each city-state had its own way of
governing some had a system where rich
wealthy men shared power with a king or
tyrant other city-states had a system
where all freemen took part in the
government in groups called assemblies
to make rules and laws assemblies met in
a part of the Acropolis in their City
most city-states had about 5000 people
if the city-state became too big with
too many people it became very difficult
to get enough food and resources for the
people when this happened many
city-states sent people to live in
colonies in other areas some were as far
away as North Africa southern Europe and
Asia Minor which is part of Asia close
to Greece then the city-state would
trade with its colonies so there would
be enough resources for everyone two
famous city-states that became larger
and powerful were sparta and athens they
were very different in terms of how they
govern themselves and how their culture
or social structure developed Sparta was
a city-state
that was very militaristic this meant it
focused a lot on its resources time and
money on keeping up a strong army
Spartans valued physical fitness boys on
to training camps at seven years old and
served in the military until the age of
30 girls were also expected to keep
physically fit learn gymnastics and to
become the head of their household women
often dealt with business Spartan
culture expected women to be strong and
raise strong children slaves were kept
by the government and not private people
they were called helots and were usually
people the spartans had captured during
war spartan government was made up of an
assembly of men all the freemen who were
in the assembly were wealthy and heads
of large
powerful families they all had a vote on
decisions made by the government but the
final decisions were made by the men
called effers
a force were the most powerful of these
men they were often the older men and
were considered wise they could decide
to go against the votes of the others if
they felt it was in the best entrance of
Sparta
this type of government system were only
a few men made decisions is called an
oligarchy Spartan rulers did not like
ideas from outside of Sparta they wanted
to keep their city and culture tightly
controlled Athens was a city-state that
was very different from Sparta it was
where one of the first democracies was
created all freemen aged 20 and older
could vote the majority ruled which
meant the idea that received the most
votes would be chosen women and slaves
could not yet both Athens also had
slaves
however slaves in Athens were considered
private property they could be bought
and sold by private citizens they too
were often made up of people the
Athenians concurred they did most of the
labor or work in Athens Athens only made
men serve in the military if there was
an attack they valued art and
entertainment very much having public
debates where two or more men discussed
politics religion art farming or other
ideas were very popular most city-states
got along until resources started to run
out when this happened city-states began
to compete with each other for land and
resources for the 100 years between 500
BC and 400 BC the Greek city-states
were at constant conflict and often
fought small battles with one another
over land and resources then in 480 BC
Persian invaders attacked Greece the
Greeks realized that if they stayed
separate no one city-state would be able
to defend itself against the Persians
they decided to unite and band it
together to defend themselves as a group
despite joining together the Greeks were
still outnumbered but they managed to
defeat the Persians in a sea battle
after this the Greeks decided it would
be best to form alliances with one
another and defend Greece together the
time that followed was to be known as
Golden Age of Greece the Golden Age of
Greece began in about 479 BC and lasted
until about 431 BC this was a time of
prosperity in Greek history prosperity
means a time when people had a pretty
good amount of money were healthy happy
new ideas were encouraged and they were
not at war at the beginning of the
Golden Age Greeks were very proud they
had defeated the Persians Athens
especially enjoyed a time when people
became wealthier healthier and lived a
more relaxed lifestyle a famous leader
Pericles was elected leader of Athens
for 15 years in a row he was very
popular and thought no one should live
too lavishly meaning they shouldn't buy
things they didn't need or show off
their wealth he also invented a system
used in the u.s. today the jury system
in a court case jurors were people who
would decide if someone was innocent or
guilty based on the facts and ideas
presented by lawyers they were paid for
missing a day's work Pericles wanted to
make sure even the poorest member of
Athens could afford to participate in
the government during this time
education was valued schools were built
and great thinkers were encouraged to
come up with new ideas and solutions to
the city's problems plays poetry art
philosophy and medicine flourished
during this time this means that these
subjects were valued by the people they
invested money and a lot of time and
effort into learning about them we will
explore more with these topics in
ancient history
the Greeks part 2 unfortunately the
Golden Age ended when Athens and Sparta
started to disagree once again both of
these cities wanted to out
to the other and become the strongest in
431 BC a war broke out that lasted for
27 years this became known as a
Peloponnesian War because a group of
smaller cities that support is Farda was
called the Peloponnesian League on top
of the war a plague or a deadly sickness
spread and killed many maiming people
Athens was very crowded because of the
war farmers had moved into the city for
protection
this eventually spread the plague even
more and 25% of the entire Athenian army
died Pericles also passed away and the
people of Athens were without a leader
because they were desperate in times of
war the Athenian people chose people to
lead them that turned out to be horrible
leaders these types of leaders are
called demagogues demagogues make
promises that they cannot keep and also
make bad decisions from 326 to 332 BC
Alexander the Great came into power over
all the Greek city-states
Alexander took over the rule of Greece
from his father Philip who defeated the
Athenians in 338 BC Philip was
assassinated in 336 BC while attending
his daughter's wedding Philip and ale
Alexander ruled their own country called
Macedonia Alexander's parents had raised
him to learn everything he could about
Greece and when it came into power he
was well prepared to rule over the
Greeks Alexander also wanted to rule
over as many other lands as possible he
fought to free colonies that were once
Greek that had been taken over by Persia
despite having great success in taking
over huge areas of land that stretched
from Egypt to the edge of India
Alexander wanted even more his greed was
making his soldiers angry and they were
tired of fighting on his last push to
get more land to rule they refused to
follow just after that he fell ill and
died in 323 BC no one was strong enough
to take over such a large Empire and it
broke up
generals who were in his army fought for
control because of this the Greeks
weren't united or strong enough to fight
against the Romans who would eventually
rule over much of the area the ancient
Greek Empire was gone as a Romans took
over in 146 BC remember this is just an
overview of ancient Greek history from
the time period from 800 BC until 146 BC
if you would like to learn more you have
many options first watch the second part
of this series
ancient history the ancient Greeks part
to your local library we'll have a lot
more information as well ask an adult to
help you research the topic on the web
you can also check out our other ancient
history videos practice what you've
learned using our fun online games and
quizzes remember to think about the past
connected to the present and to always
be clever
