A brief introduction to ancient Greek history

1. The Rise of Ancient Greek Civilization Ancient Greece is located in the eastern Mediterranean, and its geographical scope roughly includes the Greek Peninsula, Aegean Islands, ionian islands and the western coastal zone of Asia Minor Peninsula.

Aegean civilization is the earliest civilization in Greece. It is the collective name of bronze civilization in Aegean Sea and its surrounding areas, and its centers are successively in Crete and Mycenae.

Around 2000 BC, the earliest country appeared in Crete.

There have been human activities in the Aegean region of Greece for a long time.

Early human skulls were found in Cassidis, northern Greece, and some scholars think they belong to the Nepalese type.

Paleolithic cultural relics are scattered in the Greek peninsula.

In the Frankti Cave in Argolis, southern Greece, there is a Mesolithic site about 7000 BC. Residents use stone tools made of obsidian to catch marine fish.

Neolithic settlements are distributed in Greece and Aegean Islands, which can be traced back as early as 6000 BC. The famous sites are Neonikedia, Thessalyskro and Crete Knossos in Macedonia.

The lifestyle of residents in the Neolithic period was roughly the same. They grow crops such as barley, wheat and beans, domesticate domestic animals such as sheep and goats, and worship clay sculptures symbolizing high yield.

Agricultural technology probably came from West Asia by land and sea through Xiaoya Peninsula, and may be accompanied by agricultural immigrants.

It is worth noting that there is a lack of hard flint in Greece. Most residents of Neolithic culture use obsidian to make sharp-edged stone tools, while obsidian is only produced in Milos Island, cyclades.

This shows that at least in 6000-7000 BC, the Aegean Sea began to exchange needed goods.

In 3000 BC, the Aegean region entered the Bronze Age, and slave countries appeared.

The use of bronzes led to the emergence of magnificent buildings in Crete civilization at that time, and the ruins of Knossos Palace unearthed in the19th century were typical buildings at that time.

Crete script is generally called Eteocretan ("Primitive Crete"), and it may be written in linear script A that has not been cracked.

In later cultures, due to the invasion of Mycenae civilization, they turned to linear letter B, an early Greek letter, to keep records.

About 1200 BC, another Greek (Dorian) invaded Mycenae civilization. After 300 years, Greece was completely silent, closed and poor, and Greek history entered the so-called "dark age".

Because the understanding of this period mainly comes from Homer's epic, it is also called Homer's era.

At the end of Homer's era, ironware became popular, replacing bronze ware. Maritime trade has also been re-developed, and new city-states have been established.

The Greeks created their own characters with Phoenician letters, and held the first Olympic Games in 776 BC.

The Olympic Games also marked the prosperous period of ancient Greek civilization.

About 750 years ago, with the increase of population, the Greeks began to colonize abroad.

In the following 250 years, new Greek city-states spread all over the Mediterranean coast, including Asia Minor and North Africa.

Among these cities, Sparta and Athens are the most powerful.

2. During the Persian War, while the Greek city-states expanded to the Mediterranean coast, the Persian Empire in West Asia also expanded, and the powerful Persian Empire conquered the Ionian Greek States in Asia Minor Peninsula.

In 499 BC, Miletus and other Greek city-states in Asia Minor launched an uprising, which was supported by Athens.

Darius I, king of Persia, prepared to attack Athens after suppressing the uprising.

In the first 490 years, Persian troops invaded the west across the sea, but were defeated by Athenian heavy infantry in the marathon.

The Greeks won the first Greek-Persian war.

480 years ago, King Xerxes I of Persia led 500,000 troops to attack Greece again.

Greek city-states also formed an alliance to resist strong enemies.

The army of the Greek Coalition forces is dominated by Spartans, while the navy is dominated by the Athenian fleet.

The Greek army stopped the Persian army at the hot spring pass. Although defeated, it bought time for the assembly of the Greek navy.

The Persians invaded Athens and burned the whole city, but the Greek navy defeated the Persian navy in the Salami naval battle. The Persians were in danger of being cut off from supplies and had to retreat.

The Greeks pursued the victory and liberated the Greek States in Asia Minor.

The second Greek-Persian war ended in the victory of Greece.

3. The Peloponnesian War

After the Greek-Persian War, Athens became the overlord of Greece.

The Athenian navy is the most powerful military force in the Greek city-state, and the democracy in Athens reached its golden age during the reign of Perikles.

During the Greek-Persian War, the Greek city-states established the Tyrol League headed by Athens, which gradually became a tool for Athens to achieve hegemony after the war.

The Peloponnesian League headed by Sparta was dissatisfied with the hegemony of Athens, and many frictions broke out between the two sides.

Before 43 1, Thebes, an ally of Sparta, attacked Pilate, an ally of Athens, which officially triggered the Peloponnesian War.

Athens relied on its powerful navy to blockade, while Sparta invaded Athens and tried to force it to fight a decisive battle.

The two sides won and lost each other, but failed to win a decisive victory, so they concluded a peace treaty in the first 42 1 year.

Peace didn't last long. In 4 15, Athens launched a large-scale expedition to Syracuse, an ally of Sparta in Sicily, and the result ended in fiasco.

The Sicilian expedition weakened Athens and made it unable to resist the Spartan attack.

In the first 405 years, the Athenian navy was completely annihilated.

The following year, Athens surrendered to Sparta, and Sparta became the new overlord of Greece.

The hegemony of Sparta did not last long, and the Greek city-states fell into melee.

4. The Rise of Macedonia Macedonia is located in the north of Greece, on the edge of Greek civilization, and is regarded as a barbarian by the Greeks.

But from the 4th century BC, Macedonia gradually became an important country in northern Greece.

In 395, Philip II ascended the throne.

Under Philip's rule, Macedonia became the leading military power in the Balkans.

Facing the rise of Macedonia, Greece established an anti-Macedonian alliance headed by Athens.

In the first 338 years, Macedonia defeated the Greek Coalition forces in Croatia and gained control over the whole of Greece.

Before 336, Philip was assassinated and his son Alexander acceded to the throne.

After Alexander ascended the throne, he quickly put down the uprising of the Greek city-state and consolidated the political power.

In the first 334 years, Alexander led a great army to cross the sea and crusade eastward, which started his conquest of the world.

Alexander's greatest enemy is the powerful Persian Empire.

Alexander defeated the Persian army in grani and the Kass River in Isus, and seized Syria and Egypt from the Persians.

Persian King Darius Iii tried to make peace, but was rejected by ambitious Alexander.

33 1 years ago, the decisive battle of Gauguin Milla broke out between Alexandria and Darius Iii.

Alexander won again, occupied Babylon, and the Persian Empire perished.

Alexander continued eastward until the Indus Valley turned back.

323 years ago, Alexander died of illness, and his huge empire fell apart. The history of ancient Greece ended and the Hellenistic era began.

5. Influence/kloc-During the Italian Renaissance in the 5th century, many intellectuals (mainly monks and nobles) began to relearn the gradually forgotten ancient Greek works, such as Homer's epic, Aristotle's Poetics and some articles of the ancient Christian church, in order to get rid of the increasingly decadent secular rule and ideological imprisonment of Christianity.

The spiritual heritage of ancient Greece was fully revived and inherited for the first time.

But in the 18~ 19 century, with the rise of the Enlightenment, scholars no longer regarded what was written in the Bible as truth, but also classified the knowledge of ancient Greece into one category, and regarded everything before the first Olympic Games in 776 as myth, not history.

1870, heinrich schliemann excavated cultural relics in Troy, Greece. This archaeological discovery made westerners realize that ancient Greece was not an illusory myth and legend, but actually experienced a splendid civilization.

From then on, scholars began to carefully study the works handed down from ancient Greece, distinguishing myths, legends and history.

6. In the 8th to 6th centuries before the ancient Greek city-state park, Greece embarked on the road of revival, and the city-state gradually developed. City-state refers to a form of state in Greece, generally centered on a city, including several surrounding villages.

The main characteristics of the Greek city-state system are small countries and few people, and each state has long been independent and autonomous.

Regime: nobility, democracy, monarch, oligarchy and tyranny.