[Music]
we might think we already know
everything about ancient Greece the
Parthenon the 300 Spartans and blind
Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are familiar
to all yet there were far more than 300
Spartans the Parthenon was actually
built as a kind of central bank and no
such unified state as ancient Greece
with Athens as its capital ever existed
the Trojan War was as distant in time to
Alexander the Great as the Vikings are
to ourselves so let's try to get our
heads around ancient Greece and
hopefully a little quicker than in 2000
[Music]
3716 years ago the pyramids of Egypt
were already standing and Babylon was
the world's first mega palace home to a
prototype of the Tower of Babel on Crete
however a mysterious civilization was
flourishing
it had three storied palaces and all
this with no defenses the Cretans
apparently led a relatively peaceful
life admiring flowers blue monkeys and
beautiful women walk around topless
while the men preferred loin cloths or
skirts the cretins had a navy and their
own writing system and nobody has yet
succeeded in deciphering them until one
day on the island of Tara the modern day
wedding paradise of Santorini all this
ended
in the greatest volcanic eruption in
European history part of theorists sank
beneath the waves presumably giving rise
to the myth of Atlantis tsunamis hundred
metres high and vast ash clouds
stretching for thousands of miles around
Crete never recovered from this eruption
and invaders soon swarmed in the once
peaceful island then filled with bronze
weapons and tablets written in a new
strange language which turned out to be
the earliest known form of Greek spoken
by warlike tribes which had settled the
nearby Greek mainland building such
cities as feeds Atlas Mycenae and pilots
but these cities already sheltered
behind 6-meter walls life here was not
peaceful at all a few centuries later
the Greeks themselves explained them
with legends of cyclopean builders and
were no longer aware that any other
civilization had come before them on
crete by this logic even the half full
mine at all was half greek nobody batted
an eyelid at the fact that games with
clothes were a purely Cretan form of
entertainment Greeks appropriated
everything they met on their way with
great virtuosity in conquering Crete
they had conquered the seas marine trade
saw them grow even richer almost all the
inscriptions found among the heaps of
gold in the tombs of Mycenae are
financial accounts Mycenae took the lead
in the fight against Troy and Homer's
Iliad as recently as 150 years ago the
story was considered a fairy tale until
a millionaire and amateur archaeologist
Heinrich Schliemann excavated Mycenae
and Troy a replica of the legendary
Trojan horse now stands here
archaeologists have indeed found traces
of firing destructions at Troy but this
was accompanied by the decline of
virtually all regional settlements
unceasing attacks by barbarian tribes
turned the whole Mediterranean into a
war zone
[Music]
the next 400 years were a Dark Age
literacy fell into oblivion leaving us
with nothing to read about the event
then taking place fortunately what we do
have is Homer everybody has heard about
the blind poet the author of the Iliad
and the Odyssey in actual fact we don't
know what Homer looked like or when he
lived whether he was one man or many but
even though the Iliad and Odyssey were
written down after the dark ages
the daily routines of its characters
take us right back to this time but this
years for instance was only King by
virtue of his larger flocks of pigs and
jokes
his father slept on the ground in ashes
with his slaves Thurman's characters
were illiterate and used heads of cattle
in place of money a far cry from
creature Mycenae with their three-story
palaces what had happened and Mycenae in
civilization was destroyed by the
Dorian's
who no Greek were totally savage the
earlier population hide ahead in the
mountains are fled to the east of all
the achievements of the previous
civilization the Dorian's left only the
essentials the sailing ship and the
potter's wheel it took a further four
centuries for them to start adding the
most primitive depictions of animals and
people at around the same time the turn
of the ninth and eighth centuries BC the
Greeks in Ionia borrowed a completely
new alphabet from their Phoenician
neighbors this bore little resemblance
to the linear writing styles of Cretan
mycenae do you recognize the modern
Greek letters the fog of dark ages had
started to clear
[Music]
only here do we begin to recognize
ancient Greece the country that never
actually existed this was no state with
an established border or capital but
rather a multitude of distinct and
completely independent cities Tauruses
how did this come about Greece is a land
divided by sea and mountains into
separable parts of which only a handful
was suitable for agriculture even grain
had to be important but why not grow it
yourself over there across the sea thus
the great colonization began if the
first historians are to be believed
Miletus alone founded 90 colonies the
heel of the Italian boots was colonized
- followed by the alphabet that was
formed the basis for Latin and take over
the world
Greek civilization spread from the
modern-day rostov-on-don to Marseilles
laying the foundations of the French
wine industry fragments of amphorae eye
scattered from Gibraltar to Georgia
these were containers for grain and wine
the latter was diluted with water in
proportion to one two three
only barbarians were drinking me for
training purposes coins appeared like
the alphabet these two were borrowed
from their neighbors
according to Plato a few centuries so
the Greeks settled around the
Mediterranean like frogs around a pond
and yet two cities Athens and Sparta
almost did not participate in
colonization the Spartans descended from
the warlike Dorian's that had destroyed
the Mycenaean civilization they solved
the land issue by conquering their
neighbors in the broad flat out region
of Messina the locals were declared
helots something midway between slaves
and serfs and greatly outnumbered the
Spartans proper Sparta transformed from
an ordinary polis into a military camp
whose main task was the prevention of
any uprising things were quite different
in Athens land hunger there had forced
the aristocracy and the people to come
to terms and from this democracy was
born
but first the tyrants took power a Greek
tyrant did not necessarily terrorize
people rather the opposite typically he
was an aristocrat who had quarreled with
his peers holding our promises of a
better life
he used the common people's support to
seize power by force from then on all
his energies were focused on retaining
power the tyrant therefore made no
reforms and simply drove any rival
aristocrats from the polis to divert the
attention of the populace tyrants
introduced and fostered new festivals
and cults the dissatisfied who perished
in the brazen bull but you can't roast
everyone the tyrants were overthrown and
the suppressed are a stock recei
attempted to negotiate with the people
giving birth to Greek democracy if an
ancient Greek were to see modern
democracy he would just say one word
oligarchy ancient democracy was direct
with no representatives if a polis had
six thousand citizens they could all
freely participate in the assembly
immediately the number of citizens was
less than a quarter of all residents
excluding slaves women and the migrant
workers called metics
by the middle of the sixth century the
Ionian cities were most advanced
eclipsing Athens and Sparta they were
the first to master such eastern
innovations of the alphabet coinage
mathematics naval fleets and complex
trade logistics meanwhile a sudden
threat appeared to the rear the vast
Persian Empire Miletus still hoped to
preserve its independence and with the
Fenian aid attempted to resist
unfortunately this was in vain and the
Persians torched the city and pressed on
their attempts to subdue Greece lasted
20 years we owe our knowledge of this to
the first historian Herodotus according
to his account as many Greeks fought for
the Persians of supported Athens and
Sparta how did they win the first reason
was military innovation at the Battle of
Marathon the Greeks used the phallus
a body of troops fighting in close
formation the Persians allegedly lost
6400 men and the Athenians a mere 192
plus the messenger who ran the 42,000
192 meters to Athens to announce the
victory after which he dropped there the
second reason was already becoming a
meal at the narrow coastal pass of
Thermopylae King Leonidas led 300
Spartans who held back hundreds and
thousands of Persians for three days
sure a few thousand Greeks from other
cities and their helot subjects were a
big help yet the Spartan spirit was key
not for nothing they'd be live in
barracks even during times of peace and
the third reason was the peak several
years prior to the invasion silver
deposits had been found near athletes
this windfall might have been spent on
anything but it was decided to put
towards a construction of 203 Rome's
fast and maneuverable warships were
three rows of oars thanks to this new
naval force the Greeks broke the
Persians in a decisive naval battle
counter-offensive began the Greeks of
Sicily defeated their old rivals
Carthage a scattered array of poses thus
defended the Territory in which
classical Greek culture was worn to
permanently defeat Persia and liberate
the cities in Asia Athens founded a
maritime union finally Athens have
become the center of the Greek world 150
cities agreed to make annual payments
for the maintenance of a common army in
need the treasure was kept on Delos the
sacred island of Apollo
shortly afterwards however patronage was
passed to a teeny motivated by greater
fiscal reliability of course little
imagination is required to suppose which
polis was chosen for her headquarters
the most elite real estate in the fifth
century BC was the Parthenon it was
constructed not so much as a temple but
as a kind of central bank I was in all
the allied Treasury without these funds
the Greek classics wouldn't have existed
at all no sculpture drama philosophy the
strategists and orator Pericles became
the head of this new financial center he
concluded that 30 years peace with
Sparta restored the Acropolis that had
been sacked by the Persians and extended
fortress walls to the city hall this was
rebuilt to a grid layout a forerunner to
new york while the sculptor Phidias was
immortalized in greece in stone the
philosopher anaxagoras expressed an
outrageous idea that the Sun was not the
God Heelys but a burning body equal in
size developer needs a whole great
culture was created in half a century
[Music]
sparta and its allies grew jealous of
athens prosperity a cold war had spoiled
it between them ever since the victory
over the Persians and things warmed up
in 431 BC the Spartans and their allies
besieged impregnable athletes
to cover behind the walls the grain
supply from Africa was cut off and those
shipments that may brought either typhus
or the plane even Pericles himself
perish he was replaced by demagogues
whoever promised the most was elected
strategist so our sub IDs the
unscrupulous nephew of Pericles became
the heads of the Athenian armed forces
he proposed a short but victorious war
let's pack it all in and sail for Sicily
as if the altercations with Sparta
weren't enough the fleet was ready but
something inexplicable happened the
night before the voyage all around the
city is someone smashed off the most
prominent parts of the Hermes statues
Alcibiades was accused of provocation
but he fled to struck to beg political
asylum the chief strategist then
proceeded to advise the enemy the Allies
began to drop out one by one
Athens agreed to a humiliating peace
with the condition of demolishing its
defensive walls they had hugged it
Hermes and the micro battles was crushed
on the bright side this was the heyday
for Greek tragedy and comedy Aeschylus
Sophocles and Euripides the three great
resilience and the comedic playwright
Aristophanes created plays that are
still relevant today and yet they penned
them in the fall confidence that the
first production would be the last as
was the way in theatres at the time
classical drama was always about current
events and while things may have been
getting worse in the city culture
flourished
there was no winner in the Peloponnesian
War all Greek cities fell into decline
on the other hand unexpected surprises
would come from the Macedonians distant
relatives of the Greeks who had always
been regarded as semi barbarians and
then even the great philosopher
Aristotle went to work in Macedonia as
tutor to an extremely talented boy the
boy's father was Philip the second it
was he who built up the Macedonian
Kingdom defeating a Greek coalition he
almost managed to unite Greece in order
to fight the Persians but Philip was
killed his son known to us as Alexander
the Great blazed his way through Asia
broke the army of the Persian King
Darius but still refused to turn back
rich in India thus a new world was born
the Hellenistic world Greek and Eastern
culture blended to form a new hope as
cities by the name of Alexander II
sprang up in almost every land though
without any democracy all officials in
Asia spoke Greek and knew oriental gods
became neighbors with the old Greek once
at Mount Olympus Alexander was
proclaimed that God himself in Egypt
protocol obliged all to follow Eastern
tradition and fall at his feet
[Music]
we can only wonder on how this might
have ended Greek decrees have been found
urging the spread of Buddhism but
Alexander died young Babylon the place
of his death had become the capital of
an empire which immediately began to
crack at the seams while the successors
of Alexander Ward with one another a new
ambitious power was growing in the West
in 146 BC the Romans conquered Greece
and in 30 BC they conquered the last
stronghold of Hellenism
Egypt but Greek culture was victorious
even here spread by the Romans that
finally conquered the world Romans began
to read The Iliad and Odyssey in Greek
followed by the Greek New Testament - in
330 Emperor Constantine built a new city
on the site of the old Greek colony of
Byzantium Constantinople this was the
starting point of the history of the
Byzantium Empire which extended the life
of Greek culture another thousand years
leaving us the weird Russian alphabet
for instance did you like our video we
have another one this time about ancient
Rome or you can watch the shortest
history of Russian art of the 20th
century we've squeezed a hundred years
into just 25 minutes and that's not all
subscribe to the Arthur Maps channel and
you'll be sure not to miss out anything