Greek Engineering An Empire Summary

To a certain degree the characteristics of his youth, despite his own affirmation of ‘breaking and training’, beneficially prevail to adulthood. The roman biographer Cornelius Nepos ascertains that ‘The vices of his early youth were compensated by great virtues’. These same vices, his impulsive attitude in the public life, were responsible for the very virtuous achievements he is referring to. In fact these character traits foreshadow the decisions he would make years later in the Persian Wars. Comparatively, his impulsiveness matured into a cunning and uncontrollable determination in the face of authority. He was cleverly deceitful in the construction of a fleet of triremes, he was uncompromising against the Spartan commander Eurybiades at the first gathering at Corinth in 480 BC, and he was determined to get his own way in vital battles such as Salamis and Artemisium whether that required deceiving those authorities above him or not. Plutarch, Nepos, and Themistocles himself all refer to a degree of uncontrollable yet cunning determination that serves a great purpose in Greece’s victory over Persia.

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.

Just before you go to sleep, you image yourself taking a ride to the White House. You then notice it's beautiful columns. As you look through columns, this type of architecture is ancient Greek. There are other place to find these Greek columns. Besides architecture, other developments from ancient civilizations have an impact on our world today, such as roads and Gregorian calendar.

Greece was a very high-class civilization, where the government was based on city-states. Perhaps their greatest invention of all was the form of government they came up with, which we still use today-democracy. However these Greek democracies are nothing like our democracy today. The probably most well known ruler of Greece was Alexander the Great. He was the leader of Macedonia, the city-state that took control over Greece, and he eventually gained control over Greece as a whole. Alexander the Great was probably the best leader of all time in Greece. He conquered new lands, but he was the first person to adopt the new land's customs, instead of forcing his customs on the new territory. This is why many of the civilizations he conquered actually were glad he took them over. He also encouraged his soldiers to marry the women from the new territories to show cultural involvement.

Pericles (494-429 b.c.e.) was a prominent politician and general of the Greek city-state of Athens (McKay 123). Pericles held the dubious distinction of having presided over Athens during its classical period from 461 b.c.e until his death in 429 b.c.e. and also during a portion of the Peloponnesian War (McKay 122, ). Athens’ classical period is attributed with fostering a Hellenic culture that was known for tremendous contributions to Western society, including; the political system known as democracy, the birth of scientific history, philosophy, naval military strategy, and imperial strategy (McKay 117, 122, 123, 141, Park 99, Walling 47). Pericles may best be known for his contributions to political and military strategy, or his endowments to the arts; however, Pericles was also largely responsible for the imperialist ambitions of Athens that led to its eventual downfall at the hands of Sparta.

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?

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.

Using this passage as a starting point, discuss whether Athens or Sparta played a more important role in the beginning of the Persian Wars, up to Xerxes’ invasion in 480 BC. The ancient Greek city-states of Athens, a rising naval force, and Sparta, a formidable land power, were the two most powerful and influential in the 5th century BC. Both played significant roles in the Persian Wars, the major conflict between the Persians and the Greeks, 499-449 BC, as well as the events leading up to it. This essay will analyse the preliminary stages of the Persian Wars using historical sources such as the ‘Histories’ of Herodotus to provide a detailed understanding of all facets of their respective contributions, and determine which city-state played

Assess the reasons for the Greek victory over the Persians in 490 to 480/479 BC. Make a judgement based on outcome, results and values.

The Persians not only held Athens, but had an even larger army now and Themistocles stuck with his plan of defeating the Persians at sea, but it would be hard to get them there since the Persians weren’t

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

The ancient Greeks only experienced major external invasions be the Persian Empire. The first Persian war happened when Darius I sent a small force to punish the Greeks. This force was easily defeated by the Athenian General Miltiades. Years later, Darius’ successor, Xerxes, would mount a full-scale invasion of Greece. Xerxes led a much larger force, looking to conquer and subjugate the Greek city-states. This would bring forth an alliance between the Greek city-states under the premise of defending their land and driving off the Persian invaders.

     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.

The Persians wanted to conquer the Greeks after the Greeks were allies to Aristogoras. Darius, the king of Persia, started to send agents to determine any potential allies in the Greek city-states. They found Argos and supplied the with men and money to get the job done. They failed as Spartans sliced and diced every soldier, as shown in the movie “300.” Spartans always came out on top due to their aggressive and “perfect” military. Athens had their entire fleet destroyed and were controlled by Sparta from there on

The video on YouTube named “THE ANCIENT GREEKS - ENGINEERING AN EMPIRE - Discovery History Science (full documentary)” by AncientDiscoveryHistory tells the story of the Ancient Greece. The video mentions that for over one thousand years, the charismatic and strong people of Greece made the most advanced technological wonders that the world has ever seen. Greece is a country of islands and city-states that was ruled by leaders whose thirst for greatness united people. However, Persia was the world’s superpower of that time. Persians were self-confident and multi-ethnic. Persia was a land power. A Persian invasion force of epic proportions came to Greece to add it to its empire, but Greece was ready to battle.