The Rise of the Golden Age of Greece

despite the lack of natural resources

By: Channing Schoneberger

Questions:

What contributed to the rise of the Golden Age of Greece?

What contributed to the fall of Greece or the end of its Golden Age?

Ancient Greece

Greece

Contributing Factors:

• Geographical

• Districts or City-States were separated from the next by mountains or the sea. – Hard to subject a large population to a single ruler and function in a unified system.

• The people were force to be not specialists in his trait or profession, but a master of a wide range of crafts and accomplishments.

A Time Line to the Golden Age• 776 BCE – First Olympic Games• 594 BCE - Solon (Statesman, Lawmaker, and Poet)

replaces the Draconian law in Athens and lays the foundation for Democracy. He introduced to Athens the first coinage and a system of weights and measures

• 510 BCE - Alcmaeonid family (Pericles) and Spartans free Athens from tyranny. Introduction of Democracy.

The Golden Age• 508 BCE - Kleisthenes begins reforming Athenian

code of laws, and establishes a democratic constitution

• 499 BCE – Ionian Revolt• 494 BCE – Ionian revolt defeated by Persians• 497-479 BCE – Persian Wars• 490 BCE - Battle of Marathon, Athenians defeat

Darius and his Persian army• 480 BCE - Xerxes marches on Greece, Battle of

Thermopylae, Persians burn the Acropolis, Athens and allies defeat Persian fleet at naval battle of Salamis

• 477 BCE - Delian league (Association of Greek City-States) lead by Athens

The Golden Age• 461-445 BCE – First Peloponnesian War• 449 BCE - Acropolis and other major building

projects begin in Athens, Construction of Parthenon (449-432), Sophocles produces the tragedy "Ajax”

• 446 BCE - Thirty-year peace treaty signed between Athens and Sparta in winter 446/445

• 431BCE - Peloponnesian War (431-404) resumesEuripides produces "Medea" in Athens

• 430 BCE - Plague epidemic in Athens• 429 BCE - Death of Pericles• 420 BCE - Construction of Temple of Athena (420-

410)

The Golden Age• 418 BCE - Athenians resume hostilities Spartans defeat

Athens at Mantinea• 416 BCE - Athens razes Melos• 415 BCE - Athens expedition to Syracuse Alcibiades defects

to Sparta• 413 BCE - Syracuse defeats Athens• 404 BCE - Athens surrenders to Sparta • 403 BCE - Democracy restored in Athens• 399 BCE - Trial and execution of Socrates• 380 BCE – Plato establishes The Academy• 371 BCE - Sparta defeated in Leuctra• 362 BCE - Thebes defeats Sparta at Mantinea (Sparta Falls)• 338 BCE - Macedonian army defeats Athens and its allies at

Chaeronea League of Corinth founded

The Golden Age• 336 BCE - Phillip II Assassinated.• Alexander the Great becomes king of Macedonia• 334 BCE - Alexander the Great defeats Persian army at

Granicus river in Anatolia• 333 BCE - Alexander the Great defeats Persians at Issus• 331 BCE - Alexander invades Egypt, City of Alexandria

founded in Egypt, Alexander defeats Persians at Gaugamela• 329 BCE - Alexander's army reaches Bactria (Afghanistan)• 326 BCE - Alexander's army reaches India

The End of the Golden Age

323 BCE – The death of Alexander the Great

The End of the Golden Age

• Sparta was militaristic and xenophobic

• Athens was dynamic and open to the world.

• These ideological differences between the two Greek superpowers, it was inevitable that mutual mistrust would start a civil war.

• The Death of Alexander the Great

Resources• Sakoulas, Thomas. maps; history; timeline. n.d. April 2013. <http://www.ancient-

greece.org/>.

• Cartledge, Paul, et al. The Cambridge Illustrated History of Ancient Greece. Ed. Paul Cartledge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

• de Souza, Philip. The Greek and Persian Wars 499-386 BC. Botley : Routledge, 2003.

• the Spartans. Dir. Melanie Archer. Perf. Bettany Hughes. Prod. Tim Kirby. 2004.

• Time Inc. Classical Greece. Canada: Rhett Austell, 1965.