Cours : Culture Antique.

18/09/2017
Greek world, 8th century.

The word "Greece" comes from latin ("graecia"). That's why we use it in french, because we speak a latin language. The greeks used to call themselves "hellas" (hellen).
Also, the words that come from latin are mon common, when the ones that come from greek are more like related to science.

Modern Greece is a country beacause it has borders, a territory, a state, people and a capital. According to our modern condition, ancient Greek isn't a country.

ATTICA & PELOPONNESUS are both regions of the ancient Greec. ATTICA has Athens and PELOPONNESUS Sparta.

Greece is composed of more than 4000 islands, they're called the Cyclades. Nowadays, Crete is the largest island of modern Greece.

The actual Asia minor is the old Eastern Greece, that's where philosophy was born first, meanwhile South Italy and Sicily are part of what we call the "Great Greece". But the more there are states in an empire, the more wars there are.

The unity that came from this huge "country" was the language : Greeks were very proud of it. For them, those who didn't speak greek were "barbares". Greek is a language which came with different dialects (like arabic, there is morrocan arabic, tunisian arabic, etc).

We are able to make the distinction between modern prehistory and historing thanks to the apparition of the firsts writings.

CHRONO.

(note : BC > BEFORE CHRIST, AD > ANNO DOMINI, BCE > BEFORE COMMON ERA).

~ - 3000 - 2000 BCE : Cycladics.
( 0 writing traces from that period).

- 2000 - 1400 BCE : Crete (Minoan).
( some writings from that period).

- 1600 - 1200 BCE : Continental Greece (Mycenaean).
( some writings from that period in greek).

~ - 1200 BCE : "People of the sea".

- 1200 - 900 BCE : low level of civilization : "Dark Age".
( 0 writing traces from that period, collapse).

REBIRTH.

- 8th - 6th century BCE : Archaic Period (City-State, writing).

- 5th - 4th century BCE : Classical Period. (Culmination, conflicts /external - glory - and internal - weakness - /). Macedonian conquest (Alexander).

- 3rd - 1st century BCE : Hellenistic Period (New politic order).

4th century CE : Division west/east > Byzantine (Constantinoples).

16/10/2017
Culture Antique

ARCHAIC PERIOD
8th - 6th century BCE.
- Rebirth of civilization after "the dark age"
----> Creation of a City State.  
⦁   Makes people citizen (women are not citizen, foreigners either.
----> Political power doesn't belong to old citizens. Strife (=conflit) between social classes that happened to create civil wars, in some way. (Aristocrats = the few / the Tyrants). Some of the Tyrants did behave in a positive way for the city (tyrant =/= the modern term). 7 wise.
----> Colonization = design people who freely live their city to go somewhere else in the mediterranean sea and settle there (=/= modern term).
⦁ "The Colony" and "Metropolis". The Colony is a polis (=city) is a complete new city different from Metropolis.
----> All Asia was dominated and was called : Persian Empire.

***

CLASSICAL PERIOD.
5th - 4th century BCE.
----> Persian kings :
- 490 Darius
- 480 Xerxes
Also called " Persian Wars".
⦁ Major cities in the war : Athens and Sparta. Different people, and different polices. Sparta = very conservative, considered as the prototype of the aristocratic city. Athens was democratic = power to the people.
----> Athenians tought that the Greek World was in danger because of the Persian neighbors who already tried to invade them. They asked for unity and created a League - their aim was to prepare common greek army and pulling greek ressources together in cas a new persian invasion would happen. Name = Delian League (=Ligue de Délos), ruled by Athens. It progressively corrupted itself as a form of imperialism
----> The Delian League participated in the construction of a fleet for Athens, so Athens used the League's ressources. Money, treasure > Parthenon. Athens used the money to reconstruct its monuments (like the Acropolis). Parthenon = Parthenos = virgin.
----> The Spartans were jealous of Athen's growth and wanted to build a League themselves so they could also get stronger. So they developped their own coalition in the Peloponnesus. It creates a war between Sparta and Athens - a war between greeks themsleves, and not the greek world against another "world".
⦁ Peloponnesian War - 431 - 404. The war went very far (geographically speaking). They fought very violently, and for a long time. Athens will lose, and Sparta will be victorious.
----> The Greek World was deeply weakened by this war. Macedonian world became a threat. King : Phillip II, Alexander (son ? didn't hear what françois said).
> 332 :
Conquest :
> Greece
> Persian Empire
>Egypt

***

HELLENISTIC PERIOOD.
3rd - 1st century BCE.