University of Arkansas
Fall, 2001; CLST 1003
Introduction to Classical Studies, Greece
Professor Daniel Levine
T. R. Martin. Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times
Chapter 5: Oligarchy, Tyranny, and Democracy
1. What about Sparta's location made it into a strong land power?
2. What two other names are used for the territory of Sparta and the Spartans? What dialect of Greek did the Spartans speak?
3. What is 'synoecism,' and how did it occur at Sparta?
4. What was one of the results of the "compromises required to forge Spartan unity"? How did this result cause some problems for the Spartans?
5. In addition to the kings, what officials and groups made up the Spartan government? Where did the real power lie?
6. Who was the man whom the Spartans believed was responsible for their method of governance, and what do they think he did? What years did these innovations probably evolve?
7. Why did the Spartans have to "turn themselves into a society of soldiers constantly on guard"? (75) What did Tyrtaeus have to say about what was most important in life to a man?
8. Who were the perioikoi and the helots? What do their names mean, and what did they do? How did the Spartan citizens distinguish themselves physically from these people?
9. Who were the Messenians, and where did they live? How did they become important to the Spartans?
10. What were the duties of the helots? How did the Spartans emphasize their "otherness," and create "a moral barrier between themselves and the helots"? (76)
11. Why did the Athenian Critias say that "Laconia is the home of the freest of the Greeks, and of the most enslaved."? (77)
12. Where does our word "laconic" come from, and what does it mean? How does it apply to Spartans?
13. What was the childhood of a Spartan boy like?
14. What do we know of "Spartan cuisine" and the "common mess" (sussition)?
15. What was the educational purpose of the sussition?
16. How was the life of Spartan women different from that of other Greek women?
17. What was it about Spartan "heterosexual behavior that other Greeks found bizarre"? (79)
18. What caused the rise of tyrants in Greek city-states? What did tyrants generally do -- and generally not do?
19. Who were the tyrants of Corinth, and what did they do?
20. How did the Greeks view the word "tyrant" differently from our definition today?
21. What is 'synoecism,' and how did it occur at Athens?
22. Why was Athens oriented more towards the sea than Sparta was?
23. What about the legend of Theseus made him "particularly appropriate as the founder" of Athens? How did his accomplishments contrast with those of the hero Heracles? (82)
24. How was Athens different from other major Mycenaean sites at the end of the bronze age?
25. What political effect might have resulted from a rapid population growth in Athens during the Archaic period?
26. When poorer men were first allowed to join the Athenian ecclesia, why did their participation have "limited significance"? (83)
27. Who was Draco? What does his name have to do with his laws? What does the English word "Draconian" mean, and what does its etymology have to do with its meaning today?
28. How did poor Athenians fall into debt slavery? Who eliminated that problem? How?
29. How did Solon's classification scheme for Athenian citizens allow for upward mobility?
30. What rights did Solon's laws grant to Athenian citizens?
31. How did Pisistratus get support from poor Athenians in his attempt to become tyrant, and after he became tyrant? Please name four things he did.
32. How did the Alcmeonids take control of Athens from the tyrant Hippias, and what did Cleisthenes do to establish the Athenian democracy?
33. What village custom does Martin think contributed to the receptiveness of Athenians to a democratic process? (88)
34. What characterizes Lyric Poems? On what occasions were they performed?
35. What did Sappho write about? What characterizes her poetry?
36. What did Archilochus write about?
37. What influences affected "Ionian thinkers" of the Greeks? What was their contribution to the history of thought and science? Why does Martin say that Thales and Anaximander's conclusions were "revolutionary"?
38. What is a "cosmos"? What is "logic"? What Greek words do they come from? How are they related to the thought of the Ionian thinkers?
39. What did Xenophanes of Colophon think about the Greek anthropomorphic view of the gods?