Introduction
The Greek evolution is traced back to the ”Dark Age,” also called the Archaic Age, which led to significant political reforms. The most significant political change is the development of the city-state called a polis (poleis in plural). During this archaic period, there was significant transformation, but the formation of the city of polis initiated a large amount of civilization in the country. Following the development of the polis, the Greeks initiated the formation of different political structures in the country. Communities of citizens governed themselves by making their laws and customs after (800 B.C.E.). Food was distributed to the polis to boost the economy. The polis also had the acropolis (temple and alters) and the Agaro, where market activities took place, public buildings, and courts.
Athens and Sparta were the main polis in the land of Greek and rose distinctly. Sparta gained prominence and became the leading military power in Greek and later expanded to Messenia (Petrakis et al. 44). Later on, Sparta changed to conquer Messenia’s helots. The rebellion sparked a significant political change in Sparta. After Sparta’s unfolding, all the citizens were made equal after they were led by two kings who ensured that they played a role in the counsel of the noble, five Ephors, and military leaders. Sparta trained their children as a military at seven while the helots worked in the land. In (612 B.C.E), Draco made public the first law code for Athens.
The four forms of government that existed in the polis were democracy, monarchy, Oligarchy, and tyranny. The forms of government changed because they wanted to have a form of government that would fit all its citizens and avoid any form of rebellion. The similarities between Sparta and Athens are that they had the same form of government; they both had an assembly with members elected by the people (Bottalico 67). Athens had a government while the oligarchy form of government was that of Sparta. Athens had a mighty navy, while Sparta had a dynamic land army. Athens is the center of learning, psychology, and art. At the same time, Sparta is a warrior society; in Athens economy was mainly growing from trade, while in Sparta economy was from conquering and agriculture, and the women had less freedom and status.
In contrast, in Sparta, women had more status and freedom. The two states were different because they had different leadership beliefs and governance. Athens played a vital role in the Persian war by defeating the Persians in the salamis and the marathon. Sparta was a trained military and hence provided the soldiers for the war and fought in the Thermopylae, which provided time for Athens to prepare (Petrakis et al. 44). The Greeks repelled the Persians because they could not allow other countries to invade their country, and also, the city-states empire created skills for the Greeks to win. After winning the war, Athens united all the islands and the city-states in Greek into alliances, the Delian league. Athens had achievements that contributed to mathematics, philosophy, literature and medicine, and astronomy in the Greek civilization. Due to tension, Athens lost their preeminent political role when the Peloponnesian war broke out in the Delian league (431-404 B.E.C.). Secondly, Philip II’s armies defeated the Greek city-states weakening Athens.
Greek Religion and how the Greeks Conceptualized their gods
The Greek religion had a striking characteristic of believing in a multiplicity of anthropomorphic deities answerable to one supreme god. As highlighted above, the Greek religion was categorized as polytheistic, with multiple deities. The gods and goddesses are the Olympian gods (Apollo, Athena, and Hades, to mention a few, which Zeus leads), which were viewed as being at the core of their belief. Hellenic culture was represented by the Hellenism period which depicted classical ideas and a humanistic body (Braund 457). The culture upheld the values of the Greeks, which were referred to as orthopraxis and pluralistic religion. The Greeks imagined that the gods resided together at mount Olympus. They conceptualized the gods as ordinary people and not perfect as they had a myth that the gods fall in love, argue, make mistakes, and get jealous.
Religion impacted the gods since they believed that they would have a good life while still breathing or rather living. The Greeks also believed that the gods would protect them in their death and place them in a holy place (Braund 457). On behavior, religion helped shape the behaviors of the people of ancient Greece. Co-existence among themselves was the order of the day with a lot of respect for others. The gods ensured justice was practiced and was accountable to Zeus, demanding men to be morally upright, respect the elderly and the dead, adhere to the oaths, and obey the gods.
Fate was a representation of the personification of authority going contrary to the gods. It represents three sisters who are Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos. In the homer Iliad, Hesiod, Socrates, and Plato portrayed religion and god differently. The Iliad portrays religion and God as super-powered, controlling, heroic, humankind, and miraculous (Weiss 161). Hesiod believed in the power of equity, ethics, and justice; they also believed that God is a civilized being and can control them effectively. Socrates believed that religion was conformist and often called the supernatural being God and not gods. A specific example is during the formation of the new order, which depicted that punishment was initiated by Zeus in case of violence or any cruel deeds. Secondly, they relied on Zeus as their real place of refuge.
The Hellenistic Period
In 336 B.C., Alexander the Great was transformed to become the head of the Greek kingdom of Macedonia. Alexander the Great died after 13 years; thanks to him he had built an empire that extended to India from Greece. With the building of the empire, the world could adopt new ideas and hence civilization from the Eastern Mediterranean to Asia. Alexander’s leadership is also referred to as the Hellenistic period, which means speaking Greek or identifying with Greek. This period was traced from 323BC to 31BC. This period is also identified with the Roman troops who conquered the Macedonian king’s areas (Shalev 149). King Philip II was assassinated in 336 BC by his bodyguard Pausanias, and as a result, his son jumped to the chance while still twenty years.
Alexander played a significant role in maintaining the culture of the Greeks throughout the Persian Empire. He also spread the culture to other parts of Africa and Asia. Alexander allowed the local culture’s flow and respected the people conquered; Alexander also married Persian women, wore Persian clothes, and embraced the local culture. He also advised the soldiers to marry the Persian women as he created the Hellenistic age. The Hellenistic age was at the helm of bringing the Greek culture to the near eastern world (Shalev 149). Religion was a very instrumental aspect of Alexander the great regime as he did enough to ensure that he kept the gods appraised. He also sacrificed for the gods which was not generally done by the kings hence promoting his regime through religion. The successor states of Alexander are; Seleucid Syria, Antigonid Macedonia, Attalid Pergamum, and Ptolemaic Egypt. They ruled with the use of kings, where some declared themselves such as the pharaoh. The significant achievements of the period are the innovation in mathematics, artwork, poetry, geography, music, physics, and astronomy. In philosophy, the kings built the temple for old Olympians and encouraged the ceremonies. The Hellenistic culture had some impacts on the Mediterranean culture; the Greek culture influenced the way of power in the Mediterranean region (Patterson et al., 92). Secondly, it experienced progress and prosperity in astronomy, arts, exploration, and literature; it also transformed farming and trade, and due to this impact, the people of the Mediterranean culture lived well and with an improved lifestyle.
The Organization of the Roman State under the Republic
The roman republic organization is based on democracy, and its government entails the state and four assemblies, namely, comitia Centuriata, the Comitia Tribute, and the Concilium-Plebis. The name comes from the time the Rome city-states existed in republican government (509 B.C. – 27 B.C.). Some three main elements of the republic are the Senate, the assemblies, and the consuls. Senate included leaders from the patricians, the rich families of Rome, and the noble (Gentry et al. 1148). They functioned as the center of the administrative power and presided as the king’s consul and the congressional body. An assembly had a broad function of legislation and acted as a check of the Senate’s power. Thirdly, the consul presided over the Senate, commanded the army, and represented Rome’s states in international affairs.
The government of Rome was not a monarchy or a direct democracy. A monarchy type of rule is ruled by one, and direct democracy was ruled by all that was not practiced in the Roman government. The society was entirely undemocratic despite having some democratic features where a categorized group of wealthy aristocrats dominated the society. Some of the social problems affecting Rome during the war were the economic crisis, farming problems developed from the existing soil over cultivated, and the barbarian attacks made on the empire were a way of ambush where they were caught unawares. Another widespread social problem from the war of Carthage (146B.E.C) to the end of the war of Actium (31B.E.C) was the inequity between the poor and the rich in the empire.
Lastly, the over-reliance on slave labor brought about economic recession. Tiberius sponsored the agrarian reforms to bring back the position of the small-scale farmers; Gaius Marius was also a council member who was elected seven times in the Rome Empire (Gentry et al. 1152). They are referred to as reformist brothers because they introduced land reforms and other legislations in ancient Rome. Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus failed because they failed to listen to the baser notes of human beings’ nature and failed to identify how the Rome society was selfish and corrupt in all sectors; hence they could not initiate their reforms.
The Rome army was very instrumental in the empire’s politics and is considered the most trained and disciplined army globally. An army has a role in maintaining the emperor’s loyalty and, hence, ordering the empire. The Roman military came to dominate the empire because of the weapons that they had and the tactics that the army had the most advanced war equipment than any other in the other empires (Shalev 149). The republic failed because it had corruption in almost all government sectors, economic problems, private armies and crimes, and the rise of Caesar Julius’ emperor, which significantly contributed to its fall in 27 B.C.E.
Works Cited
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Patterson, John. “Military Organization and Social Change in the Later Roman Republic.” War and Society in the Roman World. Routledge, 2020, pp. 92-112.
Petrakis, Panagiotis E., and Pantelis C. Kostis. The Evolution of the Greek Economy: past challenges and future approaches. Springer Nature, 2020.
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