The Greek: Crucible of Civilization

Today in class we watched a video called The Greeks: Crucible of Civilization. It is narrated by Lain Neeson, but has many professors  and  scholars talk in it.  It talks about how in 508 BC in the Athens the ordinary people turned against their rulers. The ruler at the time was named Cleisthenes.  He was born around 570 BC and was brought up as a ruler and taught he was an aristocrat. When the people revolted he realized that ordinary people should have freedom, so he sent the Greeks on the road to civilization. In Athens in the 6th century BC the aristocrats ruled Athens. Athens had public places but was mostly village life. Athens was built around  an acropolis. In Athens reading and writing was not common and there was no science. The average life expectancy was 15 years and that is very low. Ancient Greek life was tough for ordinary people because the aristocrats had power of the citizens. 3/4 of Greece was covered in mountains, so it was not possible to have one ruler. There was alot of individual city states with different rulers. Argos was one of the very powerful city states. Corinthians was a city state that dominated Greek trade. Sparta was the city state that had military power. The boys of Sparta were brought up from birth to be soldiers and were brought up to put up with anything. They had very bad tasting food in Sparta. In battle they dyed their cloaks red in case blood got on them so it didnt show. Sparta conquered about 4000 miles of land around them.  To the Greeks the Spartans were always a threat. Homer was a man who would sing the stories, The Illiat and The Odyssey to the different city states. In the middle of the 6th century a man named Pisistratus seized control of Athens as a Tryanny. He rode in with a neighboring village girl and claimed she was the goddess, Athena. The Athens welcomed him as their leader because they believed he had a goddess to protect him. Pisistratus was an excellent politician and was extremely smart. he turned to the common Athenians for support. he reduced taxes and leaded them money. Now the people worked for themselves instead of Aristocratic and this was the beginning of free enterprise. The land around Athens produced the best olives. Athens first artistic legacy was the vase. The artisans live din the red light district.