World History

Unit 2: Civilizations of the Mediterranean World

Chapter 5: The Greek City-States

Mon, Oct 7, 2013

11. Tue, Oct 8, 2013

Greek civilization has long been seen as standing at the head of "the Western Tradition", and whether it is really valid to talk about an absolute beginning to such a tradition or not, there are certainly many things about Greek civilization that are still with us today and strongly influence our ideas of citizenship and civic organization, justice, philosophy, science, art, poetry, medicine, and the nature of what it means to be human. Such a legacy is inevitably important, and at least some of the Greeks seemed to know that they were in a sense special; and if the Greeks thought they were special in all the world, the Athenians thought they were the most special of the Greeks. Though perhaps it belongs more properly with next week's material, it's a view over the whole of Hellenic culture: if you have a chance, take a look at Pericles' famous funeral oration linked here. It is important to understand a few things, but chief among them is that this was not held on the occasion of Pericles' funeral, but for a public event that was more or less the equivalent of our Memorial Day, where the leader of the state was expected to say something fitting about those who had died in the previous year especially. The other fact to note (though there's really nothing to be done about it) is that these may not really be Pericles' exact words: Thucydides admits that when he doesn't have documented the speeches he reports, he makes up something appropriate. This may, therefore, be less Pericles' work than Thucydides'. Irrespective of source, however, it has a certain magnificence, perhaps verging on arrogance, but nevertheless articulating a noble set of aspirations for Athens and her people. The most memorable few sentences from the speech are these ("Hellas" refers to that collection of independent city-states that we would now call "Greece"):

"In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I doubt if the world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility, as the Athenian. And that this is no mere boast thrown out for the occasion, but plain matter of fact, the power of the state acquired by these habits proves. For Athens alone of her contemporaries is found when tested to be greater than her reputation, and alone gives no occasion to her assailants to blush at the antagonist by whom they have been worsted, or to her subjects to question her title by merit to rule. Rather, the admiration of the present and succeeding ages will be ours, since we have not left our power without witness, but have shown it by mighty proofs; and far from needing a Homer for our panegyrist, or other of his craft whose verses might charm for the moment only for the impression which they gave to melt at the touch of fact, we have forced every sea and land to be the highway of our daring, and everywhere, whether for evil or for good, have left imperishable monuments behind us. Such is the Athens for which these men, in the assertion of their resolve not to lose her, nobly fought and died; and well may every one of their survivors be ready to suffer in her cause."

Is this arrogance, or just a clear sense of the greatness of his city and the age in which he lived? Pericles himself died not long after this speech; he had lived long enough to get Athens embroiled in a war (the Peoloponnesian War) from which it would never entirely recover. National greatness may be a fleeting thing.

We'd like to consider a few things with you this time:

• Geography as one of the great shapers of history and historical consciousness.
• Geography and consciousness: the sense of space and place. This may seem like a peculiar thing even to talk about, but it makes itself felt very strongly at various junctures throughout the early history of Greece: Greek civilization seems in general to have been less aware of mainland Greece as its defining space than it was of the Aegean Sea.
• The origins of Greek civilization and especially Bronze-Age Greece, together with the Trojan War as a source of historical material on the one hand and powerful catalyzing myth on the other.

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