The Ancient Greeks : Engineering An Empire

In early fifth century BC Greece, the Greeks consistently suffered from the threat of being conquered by the Persian Empire. Between the years 500-479 BC, the Greeks and the Persians fought two wars. Although the Persian power vastly surpassed the Greeks, the Greeks unexpectedly triumphed. In this Goliath versus David scenario, the Greeks as the underdog, defeated the Persians due to their heroic action, divine support, and Greek unity. The threat of the Persian Empire's expansion into Greece and the imminent possibility that they would lose their freedom and become subservient to the Persians, so horrified the Greeks that they united together and risked their lives in order to preserve the one thing they all shared in common, their

There are times in history that something will happen and it will defy all logic. It was one of those times when a few Greek city/states joined together and defeated the invasion force of the massive Persian Empire. The Greeks were able to win the Greco-Persian War because of their naval victories over the Persians, a few key strategic victories on land, as well as the cause for which they were fighting. The naval victories were the most important contribution to the overall success against the Persians. The Persian fleet was protecting the land forces from being outflanked and after they were defeated the longer had that protection. While the Greeks had very few overall victories in battle they

In examining the impact that the ancient world has had on modern Western civilization, the two ancient civilizations which are frequently understood as having had the greatest influence are Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. These two civilizations would eventually come to shape much of what would become the modern European culture, politics and society, and by extension, a vast proportion of global culture and society. In examining the trajectory of modern history in an era of globalization of Western ideas and modes of living, the importance of these civilizations in world history is extensive, contributing to cultural, political and social trends which may well dominate the globe in the future.

Promoting Greek unity gave the Greeks greater strength in numbers during the wars. Plutarch states “The greatest of all his achievements was to put an ending to all the fighting within Greece, to reconcile the various cities with one another and persuade them to lay aside their differences because of the war with Persia”. Themistocles’ relationship with naval commander Eurybiades also was very important. With Themistocles’ great foresight and decision making, the value of this working relationship with Eurybiades was the ability of Eurybiades to trust in Themistocles and his opinions. This proved very effective in the battles of Artemisium and Salamis. Thucydides praises this: “This man was supreme at doing precisely the right thing at precisely the right moment.” All of these pre-war efforts are contributions to which Themistocles played a great role in Greek victory.

In conclusion The Students off Socrates feel that by not rebuilding the fleet or wall we are making Athens a sturdier more dependent

     The ancient Greek and Roman civilizations of Europe began to progress toward a more civilized order of society. As there were no previous establishment to base their ideals on, it was understandable that there were some difficulties in their progression as a society. Although the ancient Greek and Roman governments fell, both had similar paths of creation, conquest, and destruction.

There were four great multicultural Empires in our world’s history Ancient Greece, The Roman Empire, Persia and China. I am going to focus on Ancient Greece and the Persian Empire, what geographical features did each region offer to help the people build these great empires, what were some of the cultures of this empires, and what changes did they have over time? Going further into details on the Persian Empire, who were two of the leaders and what contributions did they make to Persia, what methods did they use to expand the region and gain power? How did the political system change over time?

What was the military and government like in Ancient Greece? The Greek government was harsh, it could be cruel or just unfair. Until later, that’s just what it was and nobody could change it. The military was similar, and it was strict. Nobody could say no to enlistment in the military if they were of age. The soldiers held the highest of honors within just their armor. The Ancient Greek military and government was severe because of the unjust laws, the strict rules, and the harsh conditions of living.

Greece on the other hand was much smaller with a fraction of the Persian population with around 2-3 million people. Greece was made up of hundreds of small city-states and small settlements while Persia was one absolute monarchy. One way Persia became so powerful was with their rich agriculture while Greece destroyed all of their own rich farmland by causing deforestation and soil erosion. One of the biggest differences between these two states and the one I believe is the most significant was their approach to politics. Persia was controlled by the king and said king was in charge of all politics. Greece was one of the first places to use a system of government where the people managed the affairs and what went on in politics. I believe that this is significant because they both took a completely different approach to

“The Persian Empire was the most powerful and aggressive power in the eastern Mediterranean at the time.” (Many Europes; pg 51). Before expanding the land, The Persian Empire had land that expanded west of Asia and included Egypt. With the defeat of the Assyrians Empire around 550 BCE with the leadership of King Cyrus, this gave them the name of the Persian Empire. That’s when the Empire began to expand its land and power with overtaking many different city-sates, like Lydians, Mesopotamians, and Babylonians, and incorporating them into the Persian Empire. It wasn’t until King Darius, who ruled from 521 BCE to 485 BCE, started to rule that the invasions were directed to the Greece. Now many of the Greeks thought that the Persian Empire was different and that was for a good reason. Not only did the empire have a

These contributions, which are also the achievements of ancient Greece, include certain things in the areas of philosophy, art, architecture, math and science. The ancient Greeks were a remarkable civilization in that they have made all these contributions and achievements while simultaneously fighting two wars, the Peloponnesian wars and the Persian wars. Luckily for western civilization, Greece carried on through these hardships and managed to achieve one

Classical Greek culture had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts of the Mediterranean region and Europe. Greek culture influenced the development of Roman civilization because at first Rome absorbed ideas from Greek colonists in southern Italy, and they continued to borrow from Greek culture after they conquered Greece. Ancient Greece has had an enormous amount of impact on culture in the western world. For this reason, Classical Greece is generally considered to be the seminal culture which provided the foundation of Western civilization. Rome conquered the Greek empire and its civilization, but Greek culture conquered imperial Rome. Furthermore, the Romans willingly

War was thought to be of a disgrace to their intelligence - for the inhabitants of Athens were people of peace, thus they had no army and wanted to spread peace around the world. Greece was always guided into prosperity and fortune until greed had influenced General Sitacles. General Sitacles a man who wanted domination, had always told King Hephaestus that they should gear up and conquer other countries but received the same response every time “Domination is not the way, education and spreading peace is, and all of the world shall respect this and will follow us.” He had agreed with this until greed had consumed him, and inevitably changed him. Now he wanted power to flow through his very veins and he will do whatever it takes.

It is said that Rome was not built in a day. True. It took ambition, lust, murder and the unrivalled power of technology to make the Roman Empire span across three continents and many centuries. While the contributions of ambition, conquest and other political and militaristic factors remain important for the Roman Republic to transform into an Empire, none of this could have been possible without the immense contribution of engineering and technology. In this essay, we shall look into three engineering feats that I believe were crucial in building the Roman Empire. We shall be making use of the video “Rome: Engineering an Empire” as an aid towards the

Very few civilizations have had as profound an influence on the world as those of ancient Greece. The Greeks laid the foundations for fields varying from philosophy to political theory to war tactics. However, this influence was not just due to their intelligence or success, but their widespread presence in the Mediterranean. Greek culture was spread throughout their known world in two distinct manners, the foundation of apoikia in the Archaic Age (8th century to 500 B.C. ) and imperialists by poleis, primarily Athens of the Classical Age (490 - 323 B.C ). Though the culture of a mother city (mētropolis) may have spread through two very different manners of “colonization.” The word is not used in the literal sense, but rather hereafter used to mean “spreading of culture”, as the former can hardly be described using the contemporary definition of colonization and the latter was through Athenian empire-building. These developments had a significant impact on ancient Greece and our modern perception thereof. Like most of the ancient world, we can best analyze these methods of colonialism through extant artifacts. I will analyze an inscription of the foundation oath of Cyrene, which recounts the decision and manner in which the island of Thera sent its citizens to the form a new polis, and the fragments of the Lapis Primus, a marble monolith that documented tributes to Athens when the city was at the peak of its imperial age, evidencing the magnitude of their power and influence in the Greek region.