Who are the Greeks?
Greeks vs. Persia, Greeks vs. Troy
Global Leadership Program for Students 15th
Kyu Bo Shim, Class 25
January 2011
Table of Contents
I. Introduction
II. Countries
III. Cultures
IV. Wars
IV.1. Trojan War
IV.2. Persian War
V. Greeks?
V.1. What makes Sparta Greek?
V.2. What makes Athens Greek?
V.3. What doesn’t make Macedonia Greek?
V.4. What doesn’t make Persia Greek?
V.5. What doesn’t make Troy Greek?
VI. Conclusion
VI.1. Comparison
VI.2. My Opinion
VI.2. My Opinion
VII. Bibliography
VII.1. Primary Sources
VII.2. Secondary Sources
I. Introduction
Ancient Greece is the most interesting and controversial civilization that was once flourished around the east of Mediterranean Sea. It’s about 6000 B.C. to 146 B.C. about 5000 years old. During those 5000 years of time, there are many periods; Neolithic, Early Bronze, Minoan, Mycenaean, The Dark Ages, Archaic, Classical and Hellenistic. There were many countries and thousands of wars happened. In this report, I will suggest the reasons why the certain countries whether Greek or not and I will also suggest 4 standards that will be helpful to decide such things.
II. Countries
In ancient Greece, there were hundreds of city-states, poleis, therefore it’s unwise to describe all those poleis. Thus I will describe 2 big city-states that represent ancient Greece; Athens and Sparta. Athens was the largest city in Greece, and controlled a region called Attica. Between the many mountains were fertile valleys, with many farms. Athens became rich because Attica also had valuable sources of silver, lead and marble. Athens also had the biggest navy in Greece.
Athens was a beautiful and busy city. People came to the city from all over Greece, and from other countries, to study and to trade. The city's most famous building was the temple called the Parthenon. It stood on a rocky hill called the Acropolis. Inside the Parthenon stood a statue of the city's protector-goddess Athena.
While Athens was trying democracy as a form of government, its rival Sparta had two kings. One king might stay at home, while the other was away fighting battles. Fighting battles was what the Spartans did best. Greeks said that in a battle one Spartan was worth several other men.
The Spartans spent so much time training for battle that they would have starved without slaves called helots. The helots worked on the Spartans' farms. They grew the food for the Spartan soldiers and their families.
Athens was democratic operation but in contrast, in Sparta’s case, it’s kind of mixed. Even it had two kings, the kings didn’t have all the power. Sparta has Parliament called Gerousia. Even the king made a decision and if people in Gerousia disagree, the decision can’t be made. By doing this, it stopped power to go to only one man. This democratic poleis system is the typical point that decides whether the country is Greek or not.
III. Cultures
The culture of Ancient Greece is too big and large, so I thought it’s unwise to list all those Greek culture. So things that I did were compare the culture of Greek countries and find the similarities. First they use same language. Second they believe in same gods. They believe in 12 gods of Olympus which’s Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Hera, Ares, Athena, Apollo, Aphrodite, Hermes, Artemis and Hephaestus. However they don’t pray to all those 12 gods. The regions or countries god is different. For example, Athenians pray to Athena, the goddess of war. So we can say those ancient Greek temples are biased. Still there is exceptional case. Apollo temple in Delphi isn’t. It allows everyone to ask their questions and predict their future.
IV. War
The point that must be remembered is that the country that fought against the Greek union is not Greek. For example, Persia’s not Greek. The facts of two wars, Trojan and Persian, will be described briefly.
IV.1. Trojan War
History described that Trojan War incited because Helena and Paris. However I disagree with his idea. The main food source of Greeks was bread and they required wheat to bake it. As many land of Greeks were rocky, so they had to import wheat. The place where they imported wheat was Ukraine, west of Russia. The fastest way is to sail across the Aegean Sea, go through Hellespont then go through the Sea of Marmara and finally sail through the Black sea. However right next to Hellespont there was Troy. So Trojan asked for tributes. Greek merchants had to give them tributes. In those days there weren’t any money so things they did were trading. Therefore Greek gave some of their goods. In this process of paying Greek goods to Trojans, they happened to share their cultures. However later they fed up with paying tributes so they decided to conquer Troy.
IV.2. Persian War
The reason for Persia’s attack was that when Persia’s fighting with Ionian city states rebellion, Athens helped them. The king Darius, the king of Persia that time, got really angry and planned to conquer Greece, but first they conquered Thrace, the north of Greek. After few years, Persia’s attack incited. Ancient Greek city states united together and protest. Because even only Athenians helped, the other Greek poleis thought that Persian army was not coming for only Athens. They first attacked Attica and Eretria. Then they were defeated by Athens in Marathon. Athens used various tactics. According Herodotus, Persia lost 6400 men and in contrast, Athens lost only 192. Then Darius died and his son Xerxes prepared for the war but they spend 10 years preparing and Greek nations could prepare it.
V. Greeks?
V.1. What makes Sparta Greek?
l Sort of democratic operation. They had kind of parliamentary system that controls Sparta. It stopped power to go to only one man.
l Used Greek language.
l Same Greek Religion; 12 gods of Olympus.
l Played a great role in defending Balkan from foreign invasion
V.2. What makes Athens Greek?
l Perfect democratic operation
l Used Greek language
l Same Greek Religion; 12 gods of Olympus.
l Played a great role in defending Balkan from foreign invasion
V.3. What doesn’t make Macedonia Greek?
l Not city-state
l Common enemy of Greek city-states
l Not democratic operation, they had kings
V.4. What doesn’t make Persia Greek?
l Not city-state
l Common enemy of Greek city-states
l Different religion
l Different region
l Not democratic operation
V.5. What doesn’t make Troy Greek?
l Enemy of Greek city-states
VI. Conclusion
VI.1. Comparison
I will compare my view of Trojans and Persians and historians view of Trojans and Persians. First of all Herodotus viewed Persians as complete foreigners and I completely agree with his idea because as I stated above, Persia’s completely different culture. All the things they did were invading Balkan. Secondly, Homer also viewed Trojans as complete foreigner but this time, I disagree with this. The reason is as I explained before, Trojans had similar cultures with Greeks and they had also same religion. Therefore, it’s wrong to consider Trojans as complete foreigners.
VI.2. My Opinion
The standards that I made to decide whether the country is Greek or not are 4 things. Language, religion, common enemy and city-state. If any country is missing one of those we cannot say that they are Greek. For example, Macedonia is not city state and Macedonia was common enemy of Greek city-states. Trojan is kind of Greek, because in the process of paying tributes, the Greek cultures kind of mixed with Trojan culture but Troy was also enemy of Greek city-states. There aren’t only countries that are Greek and countries that is not Greek. Not like black and white. There are grey zones too. And I think that Macedonia and Troy are in those grey parts. In Persia’s case it’s not Greek, because Persia does not fit in those 4 standards I suggested above.
VII. Bibliography
VII.1. Primary Sources
Ø The Iliad by Homeros, translated by E. V. Rieu, Penguin Classics, published in 1950
Ø The Histories by Herodotus, translated by Aubrey De Selincourt, Penguin Classics, published in 1954
VII.2. Secondary Sources
-Ancient Greece: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_greece
-Sparta: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta
-City-state: Mr. Ganse
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