cleisthenes

Today in class we learned about Cleisthenes and Hippias. Hippias was a tyrant modern day and greek definition from 527-510 b.c.e. His brother was murdered and his rule was harsh. eventually he was expelled from Athens ( ostracized ). He began working with the Persian king Darius 1, helping them invade marathon.  After he was ostracized two men Isagoras and Cleisthenes both ran against each ( both were aristocrats ) engaged in a power struggle. Isagoras had support from aristocrats and Sparta. Cleisthenes had the support of athenian citizens majority. Isagoras became archon eponymous and he ostracizes cleithenes. Cleisthenes supporters and ordinary athenian citizens revolt against his tyranny. They trap him at the acropolis for two days and he escapes on the third day being banished in the process, 508 B.C.E . Cleisthenes was a member of the elite, very rich, and saw value of tapping into the intelligence of regular citizens. He was also a crafty politician but was insulated from the " Hot poloi" or the middle class citizens.

politics

In Ancient Greece there were many rules for who could participate and influence politics. Things such as social class, wealth, and The amount of property you owned were all major rules. in Athens only wealthy citizens could participate in discussing and voting on laws. Then in 621 BCE Draco changed the laws into the pathway of the democracy we have today. In his changes he declared all athenians are equal under law and debt slavery is ok. Before only crimes against the wealthy called for harsh punishment which was usually death. But under this law if someone of a lower social class committed a crime against a wealthy person they would get the same punishment as if the wealthier person committed the crime against the lower class person. This was very important because it paved the way for equal rights among different social classes. Then is 594 BCE solons reforms were created . IN these reforms Solon stated the debt slavery is illegal, all athenian citizens can speak at the assembly and any citizens can press charges against any wrongdoers. This was important because it meant people of lower social class could speak out their opinions on certain laws and issues that need to be addressed. Then in 500 BCE more reforms were passed  which stated that all citizens can submit laws for debate at the assembly. This meant even more issues can be discussed and that laws that could make things better for lower class people could be passed. The council of 500 which were 500 citizens randomly selected to pass laws on the assembly. Clearly the greeks were very political.

warring city states

In Ancient Greece the city states which are like our counties were very different in politics and the place and rights of women. Athens which is dedicated to be the creator of democracy went through many political phases. Some of the other Govt. types of other city states were aristocracy, oligarchy, monarchy, and tyranny. Tyranny though was used differently back then. Back then it meant someone who came to power with the support of the people. Aristocrats which were people who lead aristocratic governments were usually people who were wealthy land owners. In Athens women did not have many rights and were left home to tend to the children and clean and make meals. Men were the only people who actually had jobs and depending on you social/ financial class affected what type of job you could have which most wealthy people ran the govt. in a aristocracy. In Sparta on the other hand women got military training since all men were forced to serve in the military from 6-60 years old, so women had to be able to defend Sparta its self while the men were at war. Sparta became a military state after it was barley to put down a revolt of farmers who were forced to give half of their crops to Sparta after Sparta conquered them. After this Sparta was classified a military state because unlike Athens who focused more on education, looks and social cultural features, Sparta focused on strength, bravery and loyalty. So Sparta would vigorously train their soldiers into the infamous spartan who would be the most powerful military force in Greece for a long period of time. This meant Sparta had a very good infantry force yet Athens had a very strong naval force, in which the banded together during the Persian wars to try and defend their city states.  300 spartans held off a Persian advance while athenian troops could retreat and help evacuate Athens before the Persians broke through the spartan lines and pushed onto Athens to burn it to the ground. So as you can see even though both city states had different focus points they still banded together to help and protect their people of greed by combining all of their military power, good infantry with a strong navy.

The odyssey

So today we listened to part of the odyssey. So we dint really take that much notes.But we did translate some of the events that happened in the story. In the story it described the hospitality of the greek people, It also described that the enemy in the story the cyclops docent care if odysseus is friendly. It also shows how crafty and skilled odysseus is when he kills the cyclops by tricking him, when the cyclops traps him and his men and feeds off them two by day. They also describe that the club was as big as a ships mast. The story ends when they blind the cyclops by drilling the club into his eye then they cling to the cyclops sheep as they walk out into the field to graze then they run to their ship and taunt the cyclops as they sail way to safety so really the notes just describe the way the greek people thought and acted.

New seats

So today at the beginning of class we got new seats in which we were able to pick our seats when Mr Schick called our names. Anyway today we learned about homer and the famous stories he told along with what happened during the Dorian age. The Dorian age was around 1200BCE. During this age the mysterious sea people began to invade Mycenae and burnt palace after palace so the dorians moved into this war torn region dominating from 1150-750 BCE. Some other facts about the dorians were that they were far less advanced, during this age the trade based economy collapsed and writing disappeared for about 400 years. During this age though the famous story teller homer lived. He is most famous for telling the stories of Odyssey and lliad.  The odyssey was the story of of odysseus and his journey he took to return home to his family after fighting for years in the trojan war. Poseidon the god of the sea was jealous of odysseus and threw everything at him to keep him from returning home to his family. During this time they used greek oral tradition which is the passing of stories on by word of mouth. Some believe Homer never existed and is a mythical person himself. This is called the Homeric question- homer may have been a mythical creation himself, but many believe he was a real person. as you can see we have learned a lot of info from this power point so I do have a lot of notes for this unit.

Notes Pt 3

So today we went over some more notes about Greece. So today we learned about the trojan war, The culture of Greece and other info. So we learned that the trojan war was thought to be fiction but it was real, the reason why was because they had mentioned that the greek gods had taken part in the battle/ war. Now the battle is thought to be real minus the part about the gods. We also learned that their diets consisted go grapes, olives, and grains. We also learned that in the winter the temp would be around mid 40's and in the summer around low 80's which is great weather for farming but we also learned that one fourth of the peninsula was covered in fertile valley but only 20% were arable or able to be farmed. We also learned that a 20 foot thick wall protected Peloponnese people. We also learned that during the Mycenae rain they invaded Crete and implemented their culture into their own  which is some what the basis for the speech and reading styles of Greece. This is all I have on Greece so far today but I know we are going to learn a lot more, I spent two whole months in 7th grade just on Ancient Greece.

NOTES PT2

so today in human geo we went over the power point the Mr Schick created which he says was one of the biggest powerpoint he has ever made. Anyway we learned how the athenians and spartans had very different govt. even though they were both very powerful greek nations. We also learned some of the differences, one of them being Sparta was a military state, so they trained their citizens to fight and be very powerful land fighting military. Athens was a city state who focused more on education but had a more powerful Navy. We also learned that it was very hard to travel across Greece because of the mountains and even though there were roads that connected the the city states it would be even more faster to take a boat and go around to reach a military state like Sparta. We also learned that during the peloponesian war Athens tried to create a boat barrier to try and keep Sparta from getting supplies and soldiers from countries and nations like Persia which was one of Athens most hated enemies. We also learned that because Greece was very mountainous it was hard unite the city states into one nation. we also learned about some of the very important seas, and land marks in Greece that affected their culture and daily life. We also learned that most people though Sparta was a island but it is actually connected by a small land bridge which makes it 90% surrounded by water but as I said before it was easier to travel by boat around the cliffs to reach Sparta.

western civilization ( Ancient Greece)

So today in class we started western civilization and our first unit is on Ancient Greece and its geography. Greece is primarily made up of mountain ranges that run along the balkans or from northwest to south east. Even though most of the country is on solid land a good part of the country is made up of small islands is the Mediterranean Sea. Three seas that surround Greece are the Adriatic, Ionian, Aegean. These seas and the rivers that flowed into them provided Greece with the ability to trade with many foreign traders and other countries. At the start of Ancient Greece there was not a single govt. but the regions that were divided by the mountains and their valleys had small township and village govt. Since the mainland of Greece was very mountainous Greece had very small amounts of timber and precious metals along with the ability to grow large farms and food/ crops. But since they had access to the Mediterranean Sea they were able to trade with foreign countries for supplies. This also meant that they were very good experienced and tough sailors/ voyagers. This meant they could potentially form a bond with transporting good for other countries, traders and towns with the owner of the cargo knowing there was a high probability of success for the goods to get to their locations. Since the terrain was very rocky, tough, and mountainous they were very few roads and many were only dirt covered roads that needed constant upkeep. We really didn't have much time to go through our teachers powerpoint but this is some information I did while taking notes before the powerpoint.

the test

so today we got the final notes that we need to study for our test on Friday which is on world leaders. I am partly stressed our because I have three other quizzes/stress on Friday and Thursday but I guess thats what happens at the end of the September. So some of the notes we went over were on south and North Korea and even though the say they are separate nations they are stilled called Korea, we also went over the different types of governments both separate independent states. We also talked about how north Koreas leader has had family members killed because of their actions to try and betray the govt. along with them trying to find traitors. We went over a lot of notes so I have to study a lot if I want to do well so this blog is going to be a little smaller than usual so yeah.

the project

So today in class we just worked on our projects not much ok bye.

The return

So today was the first day back to school after our winter break and we eased back into the routine pretty easily. Today we started a new unit on political geography. This means the organization of the world. There are three categories. Nation, State, and country. A nation is a group of people larger than a community which may share a common language, religion, institutions and or historical experiences culture group or identity. A state is a a population under a single government, synonymous with a country. A country is a identifiable land area. We also learned what a independent state is, it is a state that has space or territory, people live there on a ongoing basis, organized economy which regulates foreign and domestic trade, and issues money, power of social engineering such as education. today was pretty laid back and easy for being the first day back to school after a two week long break, but I already know of two upcoming quizzes and tests. We really weren't able to talk about many notes today people had a lot of stories and we had to sing happy birthday so I don't really have a lot for the blog.