Video Transcript: Lesson 10

 

Unit 06 02 Greco Roman

Hello, Welcome today to this next session in the Christian leaders Institute course, history 101. In this course, we are covering a world history and from the beginnings of civilization until the year 1500. And we have most recently looked at China, India Mesoamerica, Peru, as well as the Greco Persian conflict that ended at around 480 ad, BC. So today, we're going to continue and take up with the Greco Roman culture. And we're going to try and look at this as a unified culture, even though certainly Greece and Rome are very different places, and very different civilizations, they shared so much in common and their history is intertwined. So it seems to me reasonable that we talk about the Greco Roman culture and world. And we'll do that to the beginning today from about 500 BC, through 101,080. So as I mentioned, these are two very different civilizations, and yet in many ways, a very unified culture. And that is mostly because the Romans adopted so much of the Greek culture, the Greek culture existed, and really got going prior to, to the Roman world. One of the main factors, as we mentioned, is the existence of coin, a Greek. And coinage is the word for common. So it's just the common Greek that was spoken. It's wasn't considered sophisticated, or the like. The New Testament is written in this in quite a. And grammatically, both Latin and Greek are very similar. The Romans seem to have adopted of Greek grammar in significant ways, a Greek religion, and their various gods and goddesses. were adopted by the Romans and pre existed the Romans, they're renamed but they are basically the same gods as well as a lot of the mythology. And certainly the art forms, the sculpture and the like, are very similar. The Romans were highly advanced, militarily more advanced than the Greeks, although the Greeks had significant naval power. The Romans are well known for their law and rhetoric, Cicero and the like famous, famous lawyers and rhetoric petitions, to be able to deliver a persuasive suite as speech that would, the Senate would just swoon over you and you would become famous in Rome, Roman architecture also took some significant advances, the AquaDuck with the arches, the Roman arch, as well as the dome, dome ceilings, the Greeks did not employ domes. So that is different technology. But also it is the case that the Romans understood or they discovered or accidentally came upon a formula to make concrete. And this is, this concrete was different from other mortar that was used to put stones together, this concrete did not deteriorate. And it's, of course, a mixture of sand and lime. But also they use is what made it special was a special kind of volcanic ash, that they mixed with their concrete so that even today, the Roman buildings that stand are made from that concrete. Some people tell the story of Rome by telling the story of their special concrete. We'll see different kinds of political institutions come and go in the Greco Roman period. But in many respects, they lay the foundations for western style democracy. The founding fathers in the United States, Madison and Jefferson and the like, in particular, were historians and studied Rome in particular, and adopted many of the Roman practices. So Rome is the real ideal, in many ways. So today, we begin that journey. We'll start with ancient Greece, and here's the reading assignment. It's an article by Joshua marks, entitled Ancient

 

Greece. The thing to know about Greece, one of the main factors is that it is a mountainous country, and the mountains come all the way down to the sea and there is very little arable or farmable land And so they are constantly pushing out in order to find a food, places to produce food. They become a major seapower early on, inheriting some of that from the earlier cultures of the Mycenaeans and Minoans, and they are traders, they will ship all over the Mediterranean area, but particularly around the Aegean Sea. One of the earlier places that they expanded was actually into Asia Minor. So we can think about the peninsula of Greece, but also, the coastline of Asia Minor, was known as Ionia. It had significant Greek settlements. And different places were called different things, but generally it's known as Ay, ay Ania. One of the primary things to remember about early Greece is that they are not a unified nation or country. They really are a collection of city states and to be a member of the city state was the essence of being a good citizen, and the essence of being free for them. They called their cities, the polis, and the polis is the ideal situation for Greek early Greek culture. So some of those early city states include places like Athens and Sparta, Corinth, Ephesus, roads, and many others. Often they're in conflict with each other, often they are allies with each other, often trade brings together them together, or War brings together or that divides them. This is a good map of early Greece. You'll see Sparta down here in this area, and this is where Athens is, this is Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor, you'll see that they were are, of course, all about the GMC, and trade specialists note, Sparta developed a distinctive arrangement, the city of Sparta. They had many, many slaves, often captured in war, but also people born into slavery. And their slaves were known as he lots. They were the primary the dominant population freeborn were the males were taken away from the families or given by the families to the state and trained from the age of seven aren't up to be in the military. So either you were a slave, or you were a soldier. And that is the story of Sparta. There's a constant threat, of course of slave rebellion in that sort of situation. And with the majority of the population being slaves, they worried constantly about the slaves revolting, and taking up arms against them. So Sparta always had this really strong military Ristic background, they were much less about trade, much less about farming. Slaves did all the farming for them, but they built up their military when one thinks of Spartan and that notion today once you think of a very militaristic point of view, as well as a very austere point of view. This again is that map just wanted to show you again, Sparta here, this peninsula is called pilafs, or the Peloponnesian Peninsula. And it along with the main area of Greece here and Attica, are two of the primary regions. As I said, there's this constant search by the Greeks for other places to settle. And one of the, we talked about Asia Minor and Ionia. But they also pushed west and that is called Magna greyscale, or greater Greece. And so they in the, from 600, to about 185 BC, they colonized many places, including much of Italy, and the island of Sicily. They brought with them of course, their Greek culture, their religion or politics, west into the Mediterranean basin. And this is how much of the Roman world is affected by Greek culture.

 

This is a map of Magna Greg Recchia greater Greece, you'll see the mainland Ionia but also now here in the southern boot of Italy, as well as Sicily. They even have colonies, Greek colonies up in southern France, they found the Riviera, and here in Marseille is actually a Greek colony. Marcela, and some area here in the Iberian Peninsula, we should get used to talking about Iberia that will come up in significant ways later on current nations of Spain and Portugal, but it's known as the Iberian Peninsula. And they also the Greeks were very influential in parts of northern Africa. I thought this was a helpful map for us to see just how influential the Greeks are in Italy. During this period of time, the little red dots are all significant cities of Greek culture, coming all the way up, even north of Rome. And so, the Greco Roman world is early established, that the Greeks had significant influence, culturally, linguistically, in the Italian peninsula, where they announced that leadership in the Greek polis or the Greek city state, was distinctive from other other arrangements that we've talked about in this course, leadership, and they had various kinds, sometimes it was a king, sometimes it was a ruler, sometimes the generals, sometimes it's a tyrant, sometimes it's a dictator. These are all different names or titles that they applied to their leaders. But for the most part, the leaders are selected, they are chosen from the prop from the very prominent and wealthy class. And they are chosen by other prominent wealthy people who are collected in a council. And they are voted upon their chosen by vote. Generally, they are called into action for a very specific length of time, and often to meet a very specific threat. But this is this is a distinctive way of having leadership in the polis, you are chosen by your fellow citizens to do that. And theoretically, rarely the case that theoretically, every male over 20 years old who owned property had the franchise could vote. And in many ways, this is the foundations of modern democracy where each person has a vote. So we can thank those ancient Greeks for that beginnings of that kind of leadership. While the notion of being first among equals, actually comes later, under Alexander, it still applies in some ways here. So the leader that was selected is different from a number of the other types of leadership that we looked in other cultures. First of all, it's not dynastic. It did not pass from father to son or to another family member. People are chosen by in each generation, again, for generally a specific time or a specific reason. They did not rule by divine right. Nor were they ever considered the embodiment of the gods. Now, that's not to say that they didn't claim to have the favor of the gods or that the gods weren't with them or something like that. But in other countries and other civilizations were often the emperor or the ruler would say that the God put them in place, or that they were the embodiment of the God or son of God. For instance, in Egypt, that did not occur in Greece, they were always humans, and we're always warned against too much hubris, too much pride. And that's a constant theme. In Greek literature, for instance, they were not worshipped as for instance, darious. And and the Persian emperors were worshipped. They people did not have to fall on their face in front of them or grovel like a dog in front of them. They were saluted, they were honored, they were obeyed. They often had great authority and power, particularly those that were tyrants or dictators, and kings, but they were not worshipped. And so in many ways, the Greek style of leadership is quite distinct from Eastern or Egyptian rulers.

 

And now we have to say, at least for a while. So the classical area of era of Greece is generally understood to be from about 500 BC through 305. 50 BC. We talked earlier in the course about the Persian Wars, and that basically lasts about 10 years into the into the fifth century BC. Athens is a leading state, with spider coming next, after the Persian Wars are finished, there is the great division among the city states. Athens develops a league of allies and they have great trading and significant armies, as well as Sparta, and Athens and Sparta go into a war. It's called the Peloponnesian War. And the conflict basically lasts most of the fifth century BC, it ends basically, in a stalemate, they sort of wear each other out, at least that at the beginning of the first stage, and in the second Peloponnesian War, that lasts until 404 BC, Sparta eventually does overcome Athens,

 

and takes control, but that is very short lived. So this is a classical period of Greece, this is when architecture

 

learning, this is the time in which there's so much flowering of what we think of as Greek culture, with literature, with building the temples, with developing of the political systems. All of that comes during the classical period. That draws to an end when a king by the name of Philip, who is from Macedon, that's north of the areas that we looked at on the map, Philip of Macedon, comes into the power vacuum that's left when both Sparta and Athens wear each other out. And he takes control a lot of it is through warfare. Some of it is through other alliances. And Philip of Macedon, his son is Alexander, the one will know is Alexander the Great. These are just some examples of classical Greek productions. Some of these are in the British Museum, some are in the loop. And I just would like you to observe how fine and intricate and beautiful they are. The notion of beauty is very deep within the Greek culture. Great statuary of massive scale. Much of the art and much of the sculpture is about the mythology and the stories of the Greek people. And it's a little bit unsure how seriously, in some respects the Greek, the Greeks took their mythology, I think they understood them often as mythological, not necessarily being real. But stories that rooted them in their culture. They did practice all the forms of worship. They practice the Olympic Games and other games in particular. And those were all actually religious events. Here a center grabs some poor fellow by the throat. Trade is a huge part of Greek culture. And these are examples of the trading vessels, these are called amphora, particularly the ones that have the sort of the pigs at the bottom, and they would be filled with generally fluid or some kind of olive oil for instance. But also some of the some of them are filled with grain. And these are quite small ships these days, that are being recovered Greek ships through archaeology and the like. Many on the bottom of the Mediterranean in various places are filled with these and some of them are huge, they would fill a huge area the the amphora these how this is how the Greeks transported their goods. Of course, the black and red pottery is a very famous Greek production. The scenes depicted are almost all mythological almost all about the various gods and goddesses in their actions. is quite amazing to see it in person. This is Artemis, one of the many Goddesses. She's a hunter, known to the Greeks as Artemis to the Romans as Diana. Sometimes that's enough. They all kind of get mixed up together. But here she is with her catch. A center with a cupid on the back. We think of Cupid's As a very gentle and nice little angelic sort of figures. But for the Greeks, the Cubans could also be very devilish. And very, very troubling. Here you have Cupid pulling the hair back of a center. And these are the three graces depicted in so many different ways in Greek culture. They're understood as sort of the flowering the best of human endeavors.

 

So I mentioned that, around 380 BC, Philip of Macedon, is gaining control over all of Greece. That's the Greece Greek mainland. And he passes that on, although not willingly, he passes that on to his son, Alexander, whom we know history knows, as Alexander the Great. And Alexander was the king, from 336 to 323 BC, that's a short 13 years. And he is a very young man, he's in his 20s and early 30s. During this period of time, he dies in 323. In Babylon. Alexander is one of those figures that is in truly larger than life. He is raised often in opposition to his father. His father and his mother were at odds with each other, most of the time, he's educated by Aristotle, and given a incredible view of the world. Alexander takes the armies of Greece and adds many mercenaries along the way, so that they become huge armies and they're well trained, and well, General. The generals are all those of Philip of Macedon who Alexander has inherited, and he takes his armies first of all, consolidates his own power within Greece, but then moves over and attacks Persia. And through a series of battles, as well as making alliances with other kingdoms, he takes control of the Persian Empire and comes to Babylon. And that is a significant event. It is the end of Persia. You keep but he doesn't stop there. He keeps going. And he goes all the way east. He keeps going east until he gets to India, and to the Indus Valley and consolidates his control there. He even pushes farther east to the Ganges, but on the banks of the Ganges, he's mad by formidable armies, including armies that have elephants, and his men. Mutiny, they finally are nearly mutiny. They finally say to him enough, Alexander, we want to go back home. And so they began the trek back home, Alexander Mason, as far as Babylon. But he dies there of some mysterious disease. It's unclear, something, perhaps he was poisoned. Some things maybe it was cholera, typhoid, some sort of illness, but he dies a young man during his conquests, he is in Egypt, and he has crowned the prince or Pharaoh in Egypt. And the famous great city, Alexandria is of course established in his honor. And Alexandria becomes the flower of the Mediterranean world in so many ways. It is the academic center. It is the Center for medicine, for literature, is the center of culture. So Alexandria, in Egypt, and they said, Alexander the Great is educated by Aristotle. And he understood, Alexandria, understood that the concept of the polis, while applied to the Greek city states, could also be expanded and his vision Alexander's vision is that the whole world the cosmos, would become one unified culture, Greek culture, his culture. People could practice in some of their own ways, but he wanted that Greek culture to be extended. And so he had a vision that is literally cosmopolitan, that is the world city, the world polis under his control, and in many ways, through the advancement of Hellenistic culture, and the placement particularly of his veteran, Since founding cities or living in cities, he encouraged many of his veterans to marry local women and to stay put where they were. He planted Hellenistic cities throughout the Mediterranean and Asian world. This is a map of Alexander's Empire at its greatest extent. It goes, as you see all the way here to the Indus, includes Egypt, and here's Macedonia at all, almost all of Asia.

 

At that time is one of the largest empires ever in the world. But I think it needs significance lies less in its military greatness, and more in its cultural greatness. Alexander himself was told by his mother that Zeus was his father. And he sort of reluctantly began to accept that but over the evolution of his leadership and during his conquests, the real changes, notice he starts out first among equals that typical Greek notion of leadership, but over time, he adopts more and more in eastern point of view in which he does act like at least one of the Eastern emperors, which is an Egypt for instance, he is proclaimed and allows himself to be proclaimed to be Zeus and son. And there again is debate about how seriously he took that blood from from Egypt dawn. As he went east, he presented himself more as the son of Zeus. And so what we see in Alexander is really a hybrid, it's a combination of that Eastern understanding of leadership, and the Western understanding or Greek understanding. And he embodies and becomes the, the paradigm, he becomes the model of what an emperor can look like. Now, Greece did not want Emperor's and most of the time, Rome did not want furs. But when Rome goddess emperor, and the Empire is established under Caesar Augustus, they very purposely copy Alexander's point of view. He did unify much of the world, Mediterranean world at that time in Asia, it has a culture, even though it has many nations and and met many gods many different practices. It's a unified Greek empire, and a unified Greek culture. And this is known historically as Hellenistic. Classical Greek is known as Hellenism, Helen is how Greeks refer to themselves their Helene's. So that's Hellenism in classical Greek. But during Alexander and following period of time, and really almost all the way through the Greco Roman period, it is a very strong Hellenistic culture. Here's a reading assignment on Hellenistic culture, written by Anthony Simonton, and you will find that on the website there. And so the Hellenistic world we're just going to begin at about at the the end of Alexander's life 323, the Hellenistic world, particularly the Greek side, through 30 BC, and 30 BC is just taken because that's the end of the kingdoms that followed after Alexander. So some of the common characteristics, certainly clan, a Greek, but also wherever the Greeks went, they brought their gymnasiums, their athletes and their wrestling and their games. The practice of these games is is quintessential to the Greek culture. They brought their their baths and people think of Roman Baths but the Greeks also were very dedicated toward that they brought their theater. They brought the concept of the Stila which is the pillared columns and marketplace area where people would gather and cities are the city states are often organized around various stoah there was a group of philosophers who would go to the stoah and talk about their philosophy and teach their philosophy and public and they were called the stoics because they worked in the stone And they brought their gods wherever they went after Alexander died mysteriously, no one is really certain how, who he wants to be his successor, he does not leave clear instructions. And so his empire is immediately divided among

 

immediately among four of his really in generals, but one of them soon overwhelms another. And so we'll just going to talk about three of the kingdoms that follow the integrity in Greece, the Potomac and Egypt and the Salou kids in the Middle East, and India. This map shows the division of those three empires after Alexander the Great, this is this pinkish color is the saluted empire. This map comes from around 275 BC, but, and is accurate, of course, it this empire soon shrinks. And so by the end of it, all, that the silk is really control are this, what is called this area of Syria, and they're in constant battle with the Ptolemies in Egypt. And so they're fighting back and forth in this area the entire time. They lose control of Ionia, to others, and the like. So basically, they end up with just have the Ptolemies keep Egypt. And the most famous Ptolemy, that you'll know is Cleopatra, she's the last in that line. And while they control Egypt, they are very Greek. They don't speak any native language, as a matter of fact, a native Egyptian language, they speak Greek. And here is the Antigone then Macedonia. And that lasts until about 176, I think when the Romans come in, all three of these kingdoms eventually fall to Rome. The Seleucid Empire there silicone control, I just thought would be interesting for this course, Christian leaders Institute, because it is a period of time when the Jewish population under the control of this Greek Greek political system, in some respects, tried to establish their independence, and did rebel. One of the saluted leaders by the name of Antichrist epiphanies decided that he would go to the that he would ban the services in the temple in Jerusalem that he would, as a matter of fact, put his own statue there. And rather than the worship of the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, they would have to worship him there and the Jews saw this as just the height of defaming the temple, and offending God, as so this is the period of the Maccabees, the period of the freedom fighters, when they do gain Jewish independence, and from the salute kids for about 100 years or so. And well known in the letters of the Maccabees, it also is probably reflected in the book of Daniel, particularly the second half of Daniel, where the notion of the idol of desolation is put up in the temple. That is what the image the idol of Antichrist epiphanies, was known as. And so the the Jewish folks at this time, and this is when the various groups like Sadducees, and Pharisees begin to really develop the Jewish culture this time is so helpful to to know in order to sort of prepare for an understanding of the New Testament, not the least of which is the constant battles back and forth between the salute kids and the Ptolemies. And one of the things that they insisted upon whoever the political leader was, is they would appoint a different priest or high priest in Jerusalem. And of course, over a period of time, this became intolerable to the Jewish people that their high priest was actually appointed by these pagan Greeks with a period of great conflict. I'd like to move on now to Rome. And your reading assignment to be is twofold here there are two articles both by Joshua mark. One is entitled ancient Rome, and the others entitled The Roman Empire.

 

To look at both of those early Rome, early Rome, Rome is a trading post on the Tiber River in central Italy. It is a mud village, not very wealthy, the people are sort of known as being backward. In the early stages. They are ruled by a series of Kings during the first early stage, the dark ones, from 750 to 509 BC. They borrowed significantly from a more developed sophisticated culture to the north of them called the Etruscans. They borrow language and a few other things. Probably some of their religions, some of their gods. Just you know, briefly note, at this point that, while the Romans of course had the official gods, and the gods that they borrowed from Greece, they also had many of their own local gods and many other household gods. These are the ones who are in many ways more significant for day to day life in Rome. One of those gods is named Janice. And Janice is the god of God portals or of doorways. And so they would have an image of Janice on a door, one facing out and one facing in, because you go either way, facing out is fearsome. Because you're warning away, people who might come to do you harm. And the one facing in is welcoming, so that they welcome into your household. So Janice is the goddess of the portal, we have the month of January, as the doorway month, named after this God, they also have their household gods, whom they usually have places within their household that they have niches for, and they would worship they would make sacrifices. And in many respects, these are more significant to them, than the official Gods borrowed from Greece. From the very beginning, they borrowed the Romans were great at borrowing and adapting from other cultures. So this is a map of early, early Rome. This comes from about 400 BC. You'll see here Rome in the center, and it does not have a port on its own, it has to build a port later on. But it is on the Tiber River, here are the Etruscans up to the north, and other tribes who live throughout. And you'll remember this is also very much a period of time that the Greeks are settling many cities. Much of the early history of Rome, is the story of how Rome with its armies in particular, begins to expand in all different directions, and begins to conquer and overwhelm other tribes of being on the Italian peninsula. And bring them into the fold, bring them into the Roman Republic. Republic is a period of time that lasts from about 500 BC to 27 BC, and 27 as a bit of a arbitrary date, but that is when a man by the name of Octavian is finally proclaimed to be Caesar Augustus, the first emperor, full fledged, no questions asked, and so we'll just take that as the end date of the Roman Republic. As I mentioned, the during this period of time, the power of Rome expanded primarily through warfare after conquering most of the rest of the Italian peninsula, they move to Spain, and even other places, but they really get a huge jump after their battles with Carthage and you probably have heard of Hannibal, Carthage is a major, major power of the Northern African coast in Tunisia. They probably founded by the Phoenicians, and they develop great sea power as well as great trading power. They are Rome's rivals for power in the in the Mediterranean in many respects. Rome and and Carthage goes through a series of different wars that last

 

basically about 100 years. They're called the various Punic Wars. Famous name from that as Hannibal Hannibal is a is a Carthaginian general who takes US troops up through Spain, and comes around down the Alps, and threatens Rome itself. Eventually, in all these battles wrong is the victor. And once they destroy Rome, and their call for more than a more than a century is that Carthage must be destroyed, they destroy the city of Carthage. And then assume, really complete sea control over the western Mediterranean. So this is the expansion of Rome, after the Punic Wars, and you see that they have now control all over the Iberian Peninsula, mostly up into Gaul. And if you know the story of Julius Caesar at all, you know, later on, that Julius Caesar will conquer the rest of Gaul. They control all of Italy. They take care of Carthage, and the Carthaginian lands, and as well as they take care of the integrated kingdom of Greece, and they take over Greece, and they take over much of what was I Ania, to the Greeks. I think that for today, we'll just pause here and pick it up with the notion of how Romans governed themselves during this time of the Republic. Thank you very much. We'll see you next time.