Table of Contents

Unit 3 - Topic 1: Overview........................................................................................................................................................... 1

Unit 3 - Topic 1: Goal, GLE's, & Description.............................................................................................................................. 2

• Essential Content - GLEs

• Ancillary Content - GLEs

Homework: What Did You Learn in Unit 2 - Topic 5................................................................................................................ 3

Student Strategies....................................................................................................................................................................... 4

• Caterpillar Writing

• Thinking Like a Historian

• C.E.R. Strategy for Reading and Stating Claims (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning)

Introducing Greece......................................................................................................................................................................5

Lesson Activity: Vocabulary Words - Homework.....................................................................................................................6

Lesson Activity: Prior Knowledge Physical and Political Map.............................................................................................. 7

Latitude and Longitude, Pg. 7A

Political Maps of Greece, Pg. 7B

Physical Map of Greece, Pg. 7C

Major Mountains and Major Rivers Map, Pg. 7D

Climate Zone Map, Pg. 7E

Time Zone Map - With Latitude and Longitude Lines, Pg. 7F

Lesson Activity: Developing a Claim/Formative Assessment............................................................................................... 8

Building Context: Athenian Democracy SAC........................................................................................................................... 9

Developing a Claim/Summative Assessment........................................................................................................................ 10

Topic 2: Athenian Democracy

To be or not to be? Was Athens a democracy or not?

Unit 3 Description: Students examine the growth of civilization in ancient Greece; the birthplace of democracy, the achievements of the ancient Greeks, and the spread of the Hellenistic civilization and its contributions to Western civilization. Additionally, this unit focuses on the rise of the Roman Republic, its government structure and its contributions to the development of democratic principles, its transition into an empire, the reasons for its expansion and decline, and its contributions to western civilization. Students explore how permanent settlements can only thrive with common rules and organizational structures. They will also explore the role war play in advancing civilizations. All characteristics of civilizations will be covered and analyzed.

Topic 2: Goal

Our goal for topic 2 is for students to examine and explain whether or not Athens was truly democratic by investigating the material provided. Students will describe the most important information about Greek government that influenced the development of democracy.

Students will be able to write a response to the question, "Was ancient Athens truly democratic?"

Topics (GLEs) for the unit & pacing:

Unit 3: Approximately 7 Weeks

Topic 2: Approximately 6 class periods

Connections to the Unit Claim:

Students examine the emergence of democracy as a form of government in Greece. Students will evaluate the extent to which ancient Athens was truly a democracy.

Key Connections:

• Geographic factors shaped the development of ancient civilizations,

• Resources and land use contributed to the development and expansion of trade between civilizations and world regions,

• Political factors influenced the economic, social, and cultural development of ancient civilizations,

• Territorial expansion, the growth of trade and taxation influenced migration patterns, and the spread of cultures, ideas, and religion, and

• The Greek city-states and the Roman Republic influenced the development of democracy.

Claim:

What factors make a civilization influential?

Sub-Claim:

• Was ancient Athens truly democratic?

6.1.1 - Produce clear and coherent writing for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences by completing the following tasks:

• • Conducting historical research

  • Evaluating a broad variety of primary and secondary sources

  • Comparing and contrasting varied points of view

  • Determining the meaning of words and phrases from historical texts

  • Using technology to research, produce, or publish a written product

6.1.2 - Construct and interpret a parallel timeline of key events in the ancient world

6.1.3 - Analyze information in primary and secondary sources to address document-based questions

6.1.4 - Identify and compare measurements of time in order to understand historical chronology

Ancillary Content not addressed in the textbook at this time. Teachers should include Ancillary Content with the Topic.

Citizens probably accounted for 10-20% of the polis population, and of these, it has been estimated that only 3,000 or so people actively participated in politics. Of this group, perhaps as few as 100 citizens - the wealthiest, most influential, and the best speakers - dominated the political arena both in front of the assembly and behind the scenes in private conspiratorial political meetings (xynomosiai) and groups (hetaireiai). Critics of democracy, such as Thucydides and Aristophanes, also pointed out that the dēmos could be too easily swayed by a good orator or popular leaders (the demagogues) and get carried away with their emotions. Perhaps the most famous bad decision from the Athenian democracy was the death sentence given to the philosopher Scorates in 399 BCE.

Public Officials

In Athens, the law was devised and enforced by magistrates (archai). All citizens were eligible for the position, and indeed there may well have been a certain expectation that the honorable citizen would play his active part in civic life. For the Greeks, the state was not seen as an interfering entity that sought to limit one’s freedom but as an apparatus through which the individual could fully express his membership of the community. The regular turnover of archai, due to limited terms of office and the prohibition of re-election, meant abuse of power was kept in check and the rulers would, in turn, become the ruled. Various boards of officials also existed to make administrative decisions; members of these were usually taken from each of the ten traditional tribes. Many civic positions were short-term and chosen by lot to ensure bribery was kept to a minimum. Importantly, positions of power often required not only free time but also financial layout to fund municipal projects such as shipbuilding and festivals. Therefore, it was probably the case that public positions were in reality dominated by the wealthier citizens.

In Sparta, the most important state officials were the five ephors. These were probably elected by the assembly of Sparta and they held office for only one year. However, during that time they had power over most areas of civic life and they could appoint and check on all the other public officials.

Military commanders also held public office in some city-states. In Athens, the board of ten elected generals, known as the strategoi, could influence the agenda of the assembly and so prioritize their own causes. They were subject to votes of confidence by the Assembly but this didn’t stop Pericles, for example, holding office as strategos for 15 consecutive years.

Students will read the Excerpt from The Rise of Classical Greek Civilization to learn more about how the governmental changes occurred in Ancient Greece. Please use the SOAPStone Graphic Organizer or Sourcing Guide when reading. Please write out or type words that you need to be clarified. Write or type out key ideas.

Excerpt from The Rise of Classical Greek Civilization c. 800-500 BCE^[1]

The traditional date for the beginning of Greek civilization is 776 BCE, the year of the first pan-Hellenic Olympic Games. Of course, an entire civilization did not suddenly spring into being in a single year, but this date does provide a convenient marker.

From about 800 BCE the Greek population began to expand. The causes of this are not known, but the effect was to create a shortage of good farmland. At the same time, Phoenician merchants were developing their trade links with the Greeks. The inhabitants of several coastal Greek states responded by developing overseas trading connections of their own. Given the Phoenician dominance of the eastern Mediterranean, this meant looking to the west.

Colonization

The Ionians (that is, those Greeks who had migrated to the coast of Asia Minor, also known as Anatolia or modern Turkey, after 1200 BCE) were the first to take up this challenge, while the city-state of Kyme (key-may) dispatched a colony to the west coast of Italy in around 750 BC. The aim was probably to establish a trading station in the west, but very soon the potential for solving the land shortage was recognized. Other states followed Kyme’s example, and soon a string of Greek colonies had been founded along the coast of southern Italy and Sicily.

These new city-states, frequently situated on broad, fertile plains, flourished. In due course, some of them, above all Syracuse in Sicily, grew to be amongst the wealthiest and most influential states in the Greek world, and almost immediately they were exporting corn to their mother cities. This stimulated commercial and industrial development in Greece and the Aegean, to produce luxury goods to pay for the corn. (These Greek cities in southern Italy and Sicily also had a profound impact on the history of Italy, by carrying Greek cultural influence there.)

Greek craftsmanship and artistry reached new heights, maritime trade expanded enormously, and the wealth of the Greek cities rose. Greek colonies were soon established in the east as well, notably on the shores of the Dardanelles, the entrance to the Black Sea, and the northern African coast, west of the Nile Delta.

This process was accompanied by the rebirth of literacy amongst the Greeks. At first, the new sea-going Greeks used the alphabet which the Phoenicians had perfected to aid them in their commercial transactions. However, by 700 BC at the latest, they had adapted it to suit their own language better. As with most early scripts, this would first have been used for everyday business purposes, but within another hundred years, the long, brilliant tradition of Greek literature had begun.

Society Transformed

Population growth and the inflow of new wealth caused many cities to grow into true urban communities, with many thousands of inhabitants. Many people benefited from the economic expansion, but others suffered. The introduction of metal money sometime during the seventh century BC, streamlined business transactions, quickened economic activity, and gave a large boost to the market economy; but it also led to more and more people falling into debt.

Social Tensions

Differences in wealth were becoming far more apparent than before. Many poorer people lost their farms, and some even had to sell themselves and their families into slavery. In the cities, numbers of landless aristocrats grew. So too did a new class of able, ambitious, often widely traveled merchants whose wealth challenged that of the old landed aristocracy.

Perhaps the most momentous changes happened in the political sphere when in most of the city-states the Greeks began to get rid of their kings.

The First Republics

It was the Greeks who invented republics. As greater wealth and higher material culture began to flow into the city-states in Greece and the Aegean, their kings began to enlarge their ambitions – it would have been natural to transform themselves into palace-based rulers, just like their Bronze-Age predecessors had done.

However, this was not the Bronze-Age. Iron, unlike bronze, was plentiful and cheap, and weapons were no longer expensive. This meant that every nobleman could arm his followers. So, alarmed by the growing ambitions of the king, the nobles organized and drastically reduced his power or, in most cases, ousted him altogether.

The result was the first republics. These began to appear by about 750 BC. These were originally oligarchies, ruled by small groups of aristocrats. However, iron weapons were not just affordable by aristocrats, and the ceaseless wars between the states meant that it was not long before they were arming ordinary farmers and forming them into armies – the extremely effective armies of Greek “hoplites”, or heavy-armed infantry.

This gave the common people a potential power they had never had before.

The Tyrants

The aristocrats, being human, governed in their own narrow interests, frequently at the expense of other groups within the state. For example, they used their control of the law courts to deal harshly with those in debt to them. They were able to extend their own estates at the expense of their poorer neighbors, and even to force them and their families into slavery.

The simmering resentment that this sort of rule had created was easily tapped by a bold and ambitious noble, and in city after city, backed by the common people – now armed – tyrants seized power.

The word “tyrant” did not then have the pejorative meaning it has today. It simply meant “leader”. Indeed, the Greek tyrants usually did a great deal of good for their states – at least in the first generation. They ensured that the larger landowners could not take ordinary farmers’ land, and many tyrants carried out some measure of land distribution in favor of the poorer sections of the community. Many of them also beautified the cities they ruled; it was above all these rulers who gave their cities their new temples, marketplaces, city walls, and so on. This was not only to glorify themselves but also to give employment to the poor, especially in times of famine. Also, they encouraged trade and favored the merchant classes at the expense of the old landed aristocracy.

Things often started to go wrong for the tyrants in the second generation, when a capable ruler was followed by his less capable sons. Too often these were quite unfit for their jobs, and in some cases fiendishly cruel to their opponents. All sections of society grew sick of them. So, another revolution would oust the tyrant and bring to power another group.

Towards Democracy

Sometimes this was a faction of the old group of aristocrats, in other cases, it was members of the new merchant elite. In either case, intelligent leaders knew that power in the state had to take account of the common people, and so they set about creating a more broad-based constitution, moving the state down the road towards democracy. By no means did all city-states follow this pattern. Some never got rid of their monarchies; others fluctuate between tyranny and oligarchy. But many in the course of time developed a fully democratic form of government.

While these political developments were transforming the political landscape, the artistic, material and philosophical culture of the Greeks was going through revolutionary change. Hand in hand with the social and political transformation of the Greek world came a cultural revolution that was to have the most profound implications for the future of western civilization.