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- [Salman] I am now
going to give an overview

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of ancient Greece.

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In future videos we're gonna
go into a lot more depth

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on a lot of these events and ideas.

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But this one is to give you
context on the big picture.

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And just to start, let's
begin with the name Greece.

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It turns out that the Greeks do not call

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where they live, Greece,
neither did the ancient Greeks.

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They called it Hellas.

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Hellas, Hellas.

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And the word Hellas comes from Hellen,

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so this comes from Hellen,

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which is this legendary
figure who is viewed

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as a progenitor of the Greek people.

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You could kind of view him

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as the father of the Greek people.

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And it's not well established
in the historical record

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when Hellen actually existed,

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but this is where we get
the name Hellas from.

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And it's very important.

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Do not confuse this Hellen, who was a man,

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with Helen of Troy.

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Helen of Troy was a different person.

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When I was a child and I
heard about Hellenic things

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or the Hellenic period, or the Hellenes,

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I was like, oh,

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maybe that's something
to do with Helen of Troy.

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No.

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That's referring to the
Greek progenitor Hellen.

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And so that's where the
word Hellas comes from,

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and ideas like Hellenes,
which is the Greek people.

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Or Hellenic, which is referring
to something that is Greek,

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or the Hellenistic Period,

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which we'll talk about
many videos from now,

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which is this period of Greek influence.

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Not just over Greece and
the Anatolian Peninsula,

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but over Persia and over Egypt.

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So with that out of the way,

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let's now talk about
the big arc of history

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of ancient Greece.

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And it's believed that the Greek Peninsula

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has been settled by human beings

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for thousands and thousands of years.

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And as time goes on we'll
hopefully understand

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more and more about them.

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But my timeline right over here

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starts with Mycenaean Greece,

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or it starts with the
end of Mycenaean Greece.

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In other videos we might talk more

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about the Mycenaean Empire.

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And as that empire falls,

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we enter into the Greek Dark Ages.

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And the reason why it's
called the Dark Ages,

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is there's not a lot of
historical record of this period

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roughly between 1100BCE and 800BCE.

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Now there's one event,

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and I'll kind of say that
with a slight emphasis

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or a question that is worth noting here.

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I have Trojan War question
mark around 1200BCE.

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Once again, there's not
a strong historic record

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for the Trojan War,
but it is a famous war,

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that was chronicled by Homer.

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And even Homer, we don't
know if he really existed,

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or whether he was an
entire literary tradition.

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But it was chronicled in the Iliad

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in the aftermath in the Odyssey.

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And once again,

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this was chronicled many
hundreds of years later,

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and even Homer is a semi-legendary figure.

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But when people talk about the Trojan Wars

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or you see movies about it,

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we're talking about something that,

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if it happened the way it happened,

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it's on the order of 1200BCE.

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Now as we exit the Greek Dark Ages,

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that's when we start to have
some of the institutions

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that really, that we now
identify with the ancient Greeks,

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get established.

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You have the Oracle at Delphi.

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The Oracle of Delphi, or Pythia,

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often known as the Oracle of Delphi.

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This is where leaders
of the Greek city-states

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went for direction to understand
what was likely to happen,

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to get prophecies.

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And this institution,
the Oracle at Delphi,

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lasts through this entire
period I have on my timeline,

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into Roman rule, for over 1000 years,

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where the Oracle at Delphi is
a very, very prominent figure

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in influencing Greek leaders.

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At around the same time, you
also have the Olympic Games,

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where they're held at Olympia,

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where people compete to
show their athletic prowess.

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And this ancient Olympic Games once again,

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it continues on for over 1000 years.

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Our modern Olympics are just
kind of a flash in the pan,

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and it was obviously modeled
after the ancient Olympics,

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compared to how long this lasted.

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Now when most people think of Greece,

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they're actually talking
about classical Greece.

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So this is the Classical
Period right over here.

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And we're gonna do videos
on a lot of these events,

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but it's roughly the period
between the Persian invasions

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that were successfully put off,

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and the rise of Alexander
and the fall of Alexander.

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And that's where you
have all of these ideas

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of Greek democracy really
kind of coming to the surface.

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Pericles, the Strategos of Athens,

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who had the influence to
really help democracy flourish.

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Under his leadership, or
during his leadership,

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you have the Acropolis and the Parthenon,

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these famous icons of Greek
culture being established.

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But once again, this is in this period.

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That's in this period right over here.

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This is also the period that we associate

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with the famous Greek philosophers.

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These lines right over here

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are the lives of Socrates and Plato,

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who is Socrates' student,

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established the famous academy.

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Aristotle who was Plato's student

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and famous tutor of Alexander the Great.

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Now as I mentioned, you
had these city-states,

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and the ones that are worth mentioning,

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all of them are worth mentioning.

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But I have in this diagram,

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the most significant
city-states of ancient Greece

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that you'll hear a lot about.

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We talked about the Oracle at Delphi,

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the Olympic Games at Olympia.

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A lot of the conversation
tends to focus around Sparta

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and around Athens.

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And then you'll also hear a
lot about Corinth and Thebes.

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Sparta is famous for its
militaristic society.

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It's often glorified.

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But it's also worth noting that they were

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significant slave owners.

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At different parts in Spartan history,

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they had somewhere between
seven and 20 slaves

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for every Spartan.

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Athens is famous for its philosophy.

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It's famous for the
birthplace of democracy.

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It's famous for its art, it's
famous for its architecture,

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all of these areas are
famous for its architecture.

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But it's also worth noting
that during the Golden Age,

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and you have the Athenian Empire,

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they were also pretty brutal
in putting down rebellion

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and in some ways subjugating
different people.

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So it depends how you want to view things.

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And we're gonna have a lot of videos

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on all of these things.

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But at that time, we talk
about these city-states,

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even though they shared a common language

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and common culture,

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they sent folks to the Olympic games,

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they went to the Oracle of Delphi,

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they were independent states.

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And it wasn't until you
have Philip of Macedonia

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in the fourth century right over here,

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where he starts to really
unify these Greek city-states,

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and it culminates with his
son, Alexander the Great.

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And Alexander the Great
not only unifies Greece,

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but he takes over the Persian Empire,

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and really kind of with his death,

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and he has a very short life,

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he ushers in the Hellenistic period,

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where you have Greek culture influencing

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that entire region.

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Not only Greece, not only
what was the Persian Empire,

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the Middle East, Egypt,

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that whole region gets
influenced by Greek culture.

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And Greece, I guess you
could say, at the end,

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finally gets under Roman control,

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and it depends which
date you wanna use it.

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In the middle of the second century BCE

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is when Greece itself falls to Rome,

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but then other parts of,
I guess you could say,

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the Hellenistic world,
finally succumb to Rome.

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For example, Ptolemaic Egypt
in the first century BCE.

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But even then,

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even when it becomes
part of the Roman Empire,

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it influences the Roman Empire
very, very, very heavily.

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Now other things that you
will hear us talk about

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when we discuss the Greeks,

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besides the democracy and the philosophy,

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we're gonna talk a lot about wars.

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And it's worth noting what
Greek warriors looked like.

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So this is a depiction of Hoplites,

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which are Greek citizen
soldiers in ancient Greece.

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And you'll also here about a phalanx.

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A phalanx is a formation where they walked

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or they marched very tightly together.

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And when archers came they
would put all their shields up,

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and they'd almost be
like this armored tank.

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And it was a very effective
method of warfare.

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Another word that you will hear associated

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with Sparta and those slaves is Helots.

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Those were the names of those slaves.

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They weren't owned by individuals,

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they were actually owned by the state.

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Now some of the other cities here,

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Corinth, will come up a lot.

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It has a very strategic location

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in the Isthmus of Corinth.

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Notice to get from the mainland,

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or I guess into the
Peloponnesian Peninsula,

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you have to go through this Isthmus.

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Thebes right here was a
significant rival to Athens

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at different periods of Greek history.

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It was the dominant city.

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Now the last thing I wanna mention

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is there is a ton of culture
that comes from the Greeks,

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and a lot of words that we even use today.

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For example, the word draconian,

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which is used for something
that's very harsh.

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Well that comes from Draco's law,

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which came in the seventh
century BCE from Athens.

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He was an Athenian legislator

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who composed a very harsh series of laws.

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That's where the word
draconian comes from.

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When people say something is spartan,

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they kind of imagine it's
something that's very basic

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or you just have the necessities.

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And it comes from the
idea of Spartan culture

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that they really,

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everything revolved
around military necessity.

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Even the word laconic,

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which means someone who says just enough

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to get their meaning across.

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It comes from the region
where Sparta is, Laconia.

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The Spartans were famous for their kind of

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very terse speech.

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Famously, when Philip of Macedon

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was threatening the Spartans,

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and he's saying, "If you
don't come on to my side

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"I'm going to do this and that to you

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"if you don't become part
of my kingdom, my empire,

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"I'm going to do this to your city,

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"I'm going to do that to your people."

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And the Spartan's famous reply was, "If."

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which is kind of a good
example of laconic speech.

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With that one word they
were able to convey a lot.

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So I'm going to leave you there.

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In the next few videos,

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we're going to go into some depth on this.

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But it's important to realize

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that when people talk
about ancient Greece,

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they're talking about a
large span of history,

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and most of what we associate
with ancient Greece,

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the Acropolis, the
Parthenon, the Persian Wars,

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the great Greek philosophers,

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most of that is associated
with the classical period,

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often associated with the Golden Age.

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Which is right around there.

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Well before this period,

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the Greeks weren't all these philosophers

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sitting around in togas.

257
00:11:31,192 --> 00:11:32,388
They might've been wearing togas,

258
00:11:32,388 --> 00:11:34,071
but at these earlier periods

259
00:11:34,071 --> 00:11:37,023
they were more adventurers and conquerors,

260
00:11:37,023 --> 00:11:39,002
and they might have
been in small villages.

261
00:11:39,002 --> 00:11:42,224
And eventually those
evolved into the city-states

262
00:11:42,224 --> 00:11:44,373
that especially in Athens and Sparta

263
00:11:44,373 --> 00:11:47,880
had their Golden Age in
this period right over here.