Western Civilization

inhabitants located in the rural districts of Attica, the

coastal areas, and Athens. Each tribe thus contained a

cross section of the population and reflected all of Attica,

a move that gave local areas a basic role in the political

structure. Each of the ten tribes chose fifty members by

lot each year for a new Council of Five Hundred, which

was responsible for the administration of both foreign

and financial affairs and prepared the business that

would be handled by the assembly. This assembly of all

male citizens had final authority in the passing of laws

after free and open debate; thus, Cleisthenes’s reforms

strengthened the central role of the assembly of citizens

in the Athenian political system.

The reforms of Cleisthenes laid the foundations for

Athenian democracy. More changes would come in

the fifth centuryB.C.E. when the Athenians themselves

would begin to use the worddemocracyto describe

their system (from the Greek wordsdemos, “people,”

andkratia, “power”—thus, “power to the people”). By

500 B.C.E., Athens was more united than it had ever

been and was about to assume a more important role

in Greek affairs.

The High Point of Greek

Civilization: Classical Greece

Q FOCUSQUESTION: What did the Greeks mean by

democracy, and in what ways was the Athenian

political system a democracy? What effect did the

two great conflicts of the fifth centuryB.C.E.—the

Persian wars and the Peloponnesian War—have on

Greek civilization?

Classical Greece is the name given to the period from

around 500B.C.E. to the conquest of Greece by the

Macedonian king Philip II in 338B.C.E. It was a time of

brilliant achievement, much of it associated with the

flowering of democracy in Athens under the leadership

of Pericles. Many of the lasting contributions of the

Greeks occurred during this period. The age began with

a mighty confrontation between the Greek states and

the mammoth Persian Empire.

The Challenge of Persia

As Greek civilization expanded throughout the Medi-

terranean, it was inevitable that it would come into

contact with the Persian Empire to the east. The Ionian

Greek cities in southwestern Asia Minor had already

fallen subject to the Persian Empire by the mid-sixth

centuryB.C.E. An unsuccessful revolt by the Ionian

cities in 499, assisted by the Athenian navy, led the

Persian ruler Darius to seek revenge by attacking the

mainland Greeks in 490. The Persians landed an army

on the plain of Marathon, only twenty-six miles from

Athens. There a mostly Athenian army, though clearly

outnumbered, went on the attack. Led by Miltiades

(mil-TY-uh-deez), one of the Greek leaders who insisted

on attacking, the Greek hoplites charged across the

plain of Marathon and crushed the Persian forces.

Xerxes (ZURK-seez), the new Persian monarch after

the death of Darius in 486B.C.E., vowed revenge and

renewed the invasion of Greece. In preparation for the

attack, some of the Greek states formed a defensive

league under Spartan leadership, while the Athenians

pursued a new military policy by developing a navy. By

the time of the Persian invasion in 480B.C.E., the Athe-

nians had produced a fleet of about two hundred vessels.

Xerxes led a massive invasion force into Greece:

close to 150,000 troops, almost seven hundred naval

ships, and hundreds of supply ships to keep the large

army fed. The Greeks hoped to stop the Persians at

the pass of Thermopylae (thur-MAHP-ul-lee)alongthe

main road into central Greece. A Greek force number-

ing close to nine thousand, under the leadership of

the Spartan king Leonidas (lee-ON-uh-duss)andhis

contingent of three hundred Spartans, held off the

Persian army for several days. The Spartan troops

were especially brave. When told that Persian arrows

would darken the sky in battle, one Spartan warrior

supposedly responded, “That is good news. We will

fight in the shade!” Unfortunately for the Greeks, a

traitor told the Persians how to use a mountain path

to outflank the Greek force. King Leonidas and the

three hundred Spartans fought to the last man.

The Athenians, now threatened by the onslaught of

the Persian forces, abandoned their city. While the

CHRONOLOGYArchaic Greece: Sparta and Athens

Sparta

Conquest of Messenia ca. 730–710B.C.E.

Beginning of

Peloponnesian League

ca. 560–550B.C.E.

Athens

Solon’s reforms 594–593B.C.E.

Tyranny of Pisistratus ca. 560–556 and 546–527B.C.E.

End of tyranny 510 B.C.E.

Cleisthenes’s reforms ca. 508–501B.C.E.

The High Point of Greek Civilization: Classical Greece 59

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