The Greeks

Today we watched "The Greeks" and these are the notes that I took:

• In 508 B.C Cleisthenes found that the people needed freedom
• Athens was on the peninsula thats now Greece 
• Reading and writing was a rare skill to Athenians 
• Sciences weren't even introduced yet
• Athenians lived under the rule of aristocrats
• In Greece,  there was mountains everywhere, so it was an unusual place for great colonies to form
• Corinthians dominated Greek trade
• Sparta was the colony that looked like they dominated the military in that area
• Spartan soldiers began training for the military at extremely young ages
• Spartan food was so bad, because eating the food was almost worse then dieing, so if they ate that, they wouldn't be afraid to die in battle
• Mythology was a huge part of the colonies everywhere in Greece
• Images of war heroes are found everywhere on Greek art
• In the middle of the 6th century, Pisistratus demanded that he became ruler of Athens 
• With Pisistratus became ruler, people saw that Athens became more successful 
• Pottery was huge in ancient Greece
• Back then, it didn't matter what the pot itself looked like, it mattered what actually was inside of it
• In 527 B.C Hippias took over Athens after his father, Pisistratus died
• Hippias' brother got killed, and he executed the murderers and tortured one of the wifes
• Since his brothers death, Hippias began to be much more of a tyrant 
• Hippias feared that someone would try to take him out
• Cleisthenes was this man that tried to do that
• Cleisthenes successfully took over Hippias and threw him out of Athens
• The Olympics were created here in ancient Greece, but back then there was no reward in winning
• Thousands of people came to watch the ancient Olympics 
• The Spartans backed up Isagoras to take over Athens from Cleisthenes rule.  
• While Cleisthenes was gone from Athens, the Athenians revolted against Isagoras and his Spartan soldiers and took their destiny into their own hands
• On the third day of fighting for freedom, the Athenians got Isagoras to surrender
• After the revolution, Athenians once again needed a person to be their leader
• Cleisthenes was recalled to become leader of Athens once again
• Athenians and Cleisthenes sat down and began talking about what they are going to do now
• Cleisthenes began the idea of democracy by giving power to the people to decide what they wanted
• The modern American Government and many other successful governments were based on Cleisthenes' start 
• Phidippides was sent from Athens to run 140 miles to Sparta to help them fight against the Persians
• The Persian empire was literally the place not to mess with, they aren't a joke when it comes to war
• Athens, at the time, didn't have a standing army so all the men in Athens had to come together
• Phidippides' run to Sparta in a desperate run for help, only to get denied by the Spartans
• Athenians were forced to fight by themselves, in a fight that was almost impossible to win
• In the end, Athenians realized they didn't need Spartan help anyways and made an amazing victory against Persia 
• Themistocles was an Athenian general that realized that Athens needed a strong navy because he knew they couldn't continue fighting the way they were
• Themistocles began to make a huge fleet of 200 triremes
• Darius I of Persia had died, leaving his son, Xerxes to take the throne 
• Xerxes swore that he would avenge his fathers death
• Xerxes began on a run to take over everywhere 
• Athenians heard about Xerxes' taking over and knew they would be his first target
• Athenians were in terror and their only option was to turn to their Gods
• Athenians asked their oracle what they could do to save themselves 
• The oracle gave negative answers and made people think that even the Gods have turned on them
• Themistocles declared that they had to fight Persia at sea
• Themistocles said that they should meet at Salamis, he also declared that everyone should leave their homes and go into exile
• Persians wen into an abandoned Athens, and burned everything