Chapter 7 Notes

Lesson 1 - Geography of Ancient Greece (p. 287-290)

1. Mountains cover nearly three-fourths of Greece.

2. The Geography of Greece made inland travel and trade nearly impossible for the ancient Greeks.

3. Because the villages were so isolated from each other, they had to be very independent.

4. Because Greece is so mountainous, there is little room for farming.

5. The seas brought people together through trade and they got goods and ideas from each other.

Lesson 2 - Early People of Greece (p. 291-297)

1. The earliest people of Greece were the Minoans who lived on the island of Crete and the Mycenaeans who settled on the Greek mainland.

2. Most of what we know about the early people comes from the work of archaeologists.

3. The Minoans built huge palaces, which were centers of government and religion. The largest palace was called Knossos and was the size of 20 football fields and housed 12,000 people.

4. The paintings in the palaces tell us much about the way the Minoans lived and traded.

5. The Mycenaeans borrowed many of the Minoan customs and adapted them to fit their way of life.

6. The Mycenaeans also built palaces, but put up walls to protect them.

7. The Mycenaeans were more warlike than the Minoans.

8. The poet Homer wrote long story-poems, or epics, about the early Greeks.

Lesson 3 - City States and Greek Culture (p. 300-306)

1. Ancient Greek cities often joined with small towns, villages, and nearby farms to form a kind of large community called a polis, or city-state.

2. To protect themselves from invaders, most Greek city-states built a fort on top of a large hill, called an acropolis, which was the center of religion.

3. Outside of the acropolis, you could find an open-air market and gathering place called an agora.

4. In many Greek city-states, an assembly, or law-making group, made the laws.

5. Sparta had a strong military culture, which forced boys to leave their families at age 7 to attend training camps and discouraged citizens from ever leaving Sparta.

6. Athens was well known for its democracy, or rule by the people. All decisions were made by majority rule.

7. Greek city states had many differences, but they had many things in common such as:
          a. they all had an agora
          b. they all were surrounded by a walled fortress
          c. they all shared myths and a common language
          d. they all formed their own way of governing
          e. they all took part in the Olympic Games
           f. they all had the same religious beliefs

Lesson 4 - The Golden Age of Athens (p. 307-313)

1. The Greeks in Asia Minor were defeated by the Persians in about 500 B.C.

2. The Persians, led by Darius I, then attacked the Athenians at Marathon because they had helped fight the Persians.

3. The 26.2 mile long Olympic race called the marathon, was named after a messenger who ran all the way to Athens from Marathon to report the Athenian victory over the Persians.

4. The son of Darius I, Xerxes, sent 800 ships to attack the Greeks, and his forces were also defeated.

5. The Greek city-states formed leagues, or groups of allies, for protection.

6. Pericles led Athens during its Golden Age and allowed more men to take part in their government.

7. Achievements during the Golden Age included advances in architecture, art, writing, plays, science, and medicine.

8. During the Golden Age, Athens and Sparta became the most powerful city-states in Greece and the Peloponnesian War broke out between the two.

9. Bad leaders, or demagogues, began trying to rule.

10. Great thinkers and teachers called philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, lived in Athens at this time.

11. The Golden Age of Athens was ended by the Peloponnesian War.

Lesson 5 - Alexander's Great Empire (p. 317-323)

1. The King of Macedonia, Philip II, defeated Athens in the Battle of Chaeronea and gained control of most of Greece.

2. Philip respected Greece and wanted to preserve the Greek culture by uniting the Greek city-states.

3. After Philip was assassinated, his son, Alexander, took over the rule.

4. Alexander wanted to rule the whole known world and spread Greek culture to his new cities.

5. The period of Alexander the Great's rule and and the next several centuries after his death became known as the Helenistic, or "Greek-like" Age.

6. Great thinkers made Egypt the center of learning, worked out new ideas in math, discovered the Earth moves in a path around the sun, made advances in medicine and surgery, and made improvements in geography.

7. The Romans finally took control of the Mediterranean world.