4 Life in Ancient Greco-Roman Civilization

I Reference Notes

Part A: Life in Ancient Greece

1 How Greek civilization started

a. Where is Greece?
i Greece lies on a peninsula in south-eastern Europe, to the northwest of
Egypt.
ii It is different from other parts of Europe:
 It has plains separated by mountains.
 It also has many small islands and a long coastline.
b. Minoan civilization (3000-1450 BC)
i Greek civilization developed from Minoan civilization.
 The Minoans started to live on the island of Crete in the
Mediterranean Sea in about 3000 BC.
 We call the Cretans Minoans after their king, Minos, and their
civilization, Minoan civilization.
ii How Minoan civilization started
 The Minoans were great traders and sailors.
 They traded with the ancient Egyptians and the people living in
the Fertile Crescent.
 After learning many civilized ways of life from these people, they
developed their own civilization called Minoan civilization.
 They worshipped a Mother Goddess and a Bull God, and knew
how to write, make pottery and jewelry, and build palaces.
iii How Minoan civilization spread to the Greek peninsula
 The Minoans also traded with the Greeks.
 In this way, they spread their civilization to the Greek mainland.
iv The Minoan civilization ended when Greek people called Mycenaeans
conquered Crete in about 1450 BC.
c. Mycenaean civilization (1450-1100 BC)
i The origins of the Mycenaeans

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  The Mycenaeans belonged to Indo-Europeans ( 印 歐 民 族 ) living to
the north of Mesopotamia.
 The Indo-Europeans were wandering tribes.
 In about 2000 BC, some Indo-Europeans came to live in the
Greek peninsula.
 They built a city named Mycenae in southern Greece.
 We call these people Mycenaeans, after the city they lived in.
ii How Mycenaean civilization started
 Through trade with the Minoans, the Mycenaeans learned the
Minoans' civilized ways of life.
 In 1450 BC, they conquered Crete.
 After conquering Crete, they copied the Minoans' civilized ways
of life, and developed their own civilization called Mycenaean
civilization.
iii Mycenaeans: a war-like people
 Many Mycenaeans were soldiers who loved wars.
 They built the ‘Lion Gate’ at the entrance to their city where they
held celebrations after each victory.
 They fought many wars, and the most famous one was the Trojan
War (1194-1184 BC).

The Trojan War (1194-1184 BC)

1 Why war started

a. A prince of Troy (a city in Asia Minor) called Paris met a very beautiful
woman named Helen in the Greek city of Mycenae.
b. Helen fell in love with Paris and Paris took Helen back to Troy.
c. This made King Agamemnon of Mycenae very angry because Helen was
his brother's wife.
d. Agamemnon led an army to attack Troy in 1194 BC.
e. This started the Trojan War.

2 How King Agamemnon took Troy

a. For ten years, the Greek soldiers could not defeat the Trojans.
b. They decided to trick the Trojans.
c. They built a big wooden horse and some of their best soldiers hid inside
this horse.

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 d. They left the horse outside Troy and pretended to go away.
e. The Trojans thought they had won the war, so they pulled the wooden
horse into the city.
f. When the Trojans were celebrating their victory, the Greek soldiers secretly
climbed down from the horse and opened the city gates.
g. The Greek soldiers waiting outside defeated the unarmed Trojans easily
and took the city.
h. Troy came under Greek rule.

3 Is the Trojan War a historical event or a myth?

a. Many people think that the Trojan War was a myth, and not a historical
event.
b. Myths are stories handed down from the past.
c. Yet we can find some evidence to prove the truth of this event.
 Firstly, a Greek poet named Homer ( 荷馬) wrote two poems about 500
years after the war.
 These two poems  the Iliad (伊利亞特) and the Odyssey (奧德賽)  described
why and how the Trojan War took place between the Mycenaeans and
the Trojans.
 Secondly, a German archaeologist unearthed the city of Troy in Turkey
in 1868.
 This discovery at least proves that Troy really existed some 3200 years
ago.
 Thirdly, the Turkish people have built a huge wooden horse in the place
where they believe the war was once fought.
 If you go there, you can still see this huge wooden horse.

iv How the Mycenaean civilization ended

 In 1100 BC, another Indo-European tribe called the Dorians (多利安
人) invaded Mycenae.
 They used weapons made of iron, so they could defeat the
Mycenaeans easily.
 This defeat ended the Mycenaean civilization which lasted about
350 years.

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 v The beginning of the Dark Ages (1100-800 BC) in Greece
 Unlike the Mycenaeans, the Dorians were uncivilized people.
 Under their rule, the people living on the Greek peninsula forgot
most of the civilized ways of life.
 Ancient Greece entered its Dark Ages.

2 The city-states of Greece

a. Rise of city-states
i How city-states developed in ancient Greece
 During the Dark Ages, the Greeks lived in small villages.
 Each village was built on plains cut off by hills or mountains.
 Slowly, the small villages developed into cities.
 As each city was cut off by mountains, so each of them developed
into an independent state with its own army, ruler and
government.
 Historians call these Greek cities city-states.
 There were about 150 city-states in ancient Greece, but none of
them was strong enough to unify Greece.

ii Most famous city-states in ancient Greece  Athens and Sparta

 Athens
 It lies on the southeast coast of Greece.
 It was the first state in the world to have democratic rule.
 Democratic rule first started in Greece in about 510 BC,
which was more than 2500 years ago.
 Athens was also famous for its fine pottery, beautiful
temples, thinkers, scientists and a great culture.
 Sparta
 It was an inland city-state in southern Greece, to the
southwest of Athens.
 It stands for another kind of city-state in ancient Greece.
 It was ruled by a king and did not have democratic rule.
 It did not have beautiful temples, buildings or a great culture
like Athens.
 Its people loved only wars, so few of them knew reading and
writing.

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b. Life in the city-states (800-338 BC)
i Although ancient Greece was not a unified country, people living in
the city-states had many things in common:
 They spoke and wrote the same language - Greek.
 They worshipped the same gods and goddesses.
 Their race, blood, customs and ways of life were the same.
ii Government
 Some city-states had democratic rule like Athens.
 Some were ruled by kings like Sparta.
 Others were ruled by nobles or councils formed by a small group
of people.
iii People
 Most of the Greek people were farmers growing wheat, grapes
and olives.
 Others were traders (trading in pottery, wine, clothes made of
wool) and craftsmen (making vases with paintings on them).
 Greek women had a low position in Greek society.
 There were many slaves in ancient Greece, and their position was
even lower than that of the women.
iv Religion
 Ancient Greek people were religious, so they built many temples
to worship god.
 They worshipped Zeus (the chief god), Athena (the Goddess of
Wisdom) and many other gods and goddesses.
 Each city-state worshipped its own gods and goddesses.
v Sports
 Ancient Greek people liked to hold games to honour the gods.
 They held games in Olympia in southern Greece in 776 BC in
honour of the god, Zeus.
 These games were called the Olympic Games. Only men
competed.
 Athletes coming from different city-states took part in the
Olympic Games.
 They ran nude (i.e. without wearing any clothes).
 The Romans (who conquered Greece in 146 BC) stopped the
Olympic Games in AD 394 because many athletes were
dishonest.

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  It was not until AD 1896 that the Olympic Games were held in
Athens again.
 We call these games the modern Olympic Games, and those that
were held between 776 BC – AD 394 the ancient Olympic
Games.
 The modern Olympic Games are held once every four years in a
different city.
 The next Olympic Games (the 27th Olympic Games) will be held
in Sydney in Australia in AD 2000.

The Programmes of the Ancient Olympic Games

Day 1
1 Athletes and judges to take the Olympic Oath.
2 Running and boxing contests (boys).

Day 2
1 Chariot and horse races (morning).
2 Discus, javelin, jumping, running and wrestling (afternoon).

Day 3
Foot races and sacrifice of oxen to the god, Zeus.

Day 4
Boxing, wrestling and race in armour.

Day 5
1 Winners to parade to the Temple of Zeus.
2 Crowning of winners with wreaths (花環) from olive trees.
3 Feasting and celebrations.

vi Building
 Ancient Greek people were great builders.
 They built large theatres in the open air to play dramas to honour

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 the gods.
 They also built many temples with large stone pillars (each pillar
is more than 11 metres high).
 Today, we can still see the remains of these temples at the
Acropolis in Athens.
 The most famous buildings at the Acropolis is the Parthenon,
which was built in 438 BC to honour the goddess, Athena.
vii Writing, Arts and Science
 The Greeks were highly civilized people.
 They wrote with an alphabet consisting of 24 letters.
 The word ‘alphabet’ comes from the names of the Greek letters A
(alpha) and B (beta).
 Famous writers and doctors once lived in ancient Greece:
 Homer (a famous poet);
 Aesop (a great story-teller);
 Herodotus (the Father of History and the world's first
historian)
 Hippocrates (the Father of Medicine);
 Famous mathematicians living in ancient Greece
 Pythagoras is famous for his Pythagoras Theorem.
 Euclid made great discoveries about geometry.
 Archimedes is famous for his Archimedes Principle which
stated that the amount of water an object displaced was equal
to the weight of this object.
 Famous thinkers
 Socrates taught people to find out the truth by thinking and
asking questions.
 Plato started a school for the study of philosophy.
 Aristotle taught people to find out the truth by studying facts.
viii Geography
 Ancient Greek people learned how to draw maps.
 They were also the first people to say that the world was round.

c. Relations with other people: the Persian Wars (490-479 BC)

i The Battle of Marathon (490 BC)
 From about 750 BC, some Greek city-states started to set up
colonies along the coast of the Black Sea.

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  In about 500 BC, the Persians conquered the Greek colonies in
Asia Minor and planned to conquer the Greek peninsula.
 The wars which followed were called the Persian Wars.
 The first battle between the Greek city-states and Persia took
place at Marathon near Athens in 490 BC, so it was called the
Battle of Marathon.
 Athens defeated Persia without the help of Sparta in this battle.
ii The Battle of Thermopylae (德爾摩比利戰役 480 BC)
 In 480 BC, the Persians invaded the Greek city-states again.
 This battle was called the Battle of Thermopylae.
 A Spartan traitor helped the Persians go through the mountains in
Thermopylae in northern Greece, so Persia defeated Sparta in this
battle.
iii The Battle of Salamis (薩拉米戰役 479 BC)
 The Persians conquered Athens and burnt the city.
 The Athenian navy defeated the Persian fleet at a sea battle near
Salamis, an island near Athens.
 In the end, the Athenian army drove the Persians away.
 The Persian Wars ended with a Greek victory.

3 The Golden Age of Greece (461-404 BC)

a. Pericles' rule (461-429 BC)

i After the Persian Wars, a great ruler named Pericles rebuilt Athens and
turned it into a centre of art and science.
ii Many great thinkers and scientists lived in Athens during his rule.
iii Pericles' rule marked the Golden Age of Athens and Athens became the
most powerful and prosperous city-state in Greece.
iv Historian call this period the Classical Age of Greece.

b. The Peloponnesian War (伯羅奔尼撒戰役 431-404 BC)

i Some city-states were jealous of Athens, so they attacked Athens in
431 BC.
ii As this battle mainly took place in the Peloponnesian peninsula (伯羅奔尼
撒半島) in southern Greece, it was called the Peloponnesian War.
iii Athens' Golden Age ended when it lost the war in 404 BC.

c. Philip II

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 i War went on among the city-states and the city-states were weakened
because of these wars.
ii Philip II of Macedonia was able to conquer all Greek city-states easily
in 338 BC.
iii He became the first king to rule over the whole of Greece.
iv Before he could build a great empire, he was killed in 336 BC.
v His son, Alexander, became the ruler of Greece.

d. Alexander the Great

i Alexander carried out the plan of his father.
ii He defeated the Persians, the Egyptians and the Indians and built up a
huge empire covering Macedonia, Greece, Asia Minor, Persia, Egypt
and the north-western part of India.
iii As he was able to build up such a huge empire within 10 years, he was
called ‘Alexander the Great’.
iv He spread Greek culture by introducing Greek laws in the places under
his rule.
v Alexander wanted to conquer more land, but his generals and soldiers
wanted to return to Greece.
vi On the way back home, Alexander fell sick and finally died in Babylon
in 323 BC at the age of 33.

e. End of Greek civilization

i After Alexander's death in 323 BC, his generals divided his empire
among themselves.
ii These generals were not able rulers, so ancient Greece grew weak.
iii Finally in 146 BC, it was conquered by the Romans.
iv This ended the Greek civilization.

4 Legacy of ancient Greece

a. Ancient Greeks built a great civilization in the period 800-146 BC.

b. When Alexander conquered Egypt, he built the city of Alexandria at the
Nile Delta.
c. He built a big library and a university there to spread Greek learning and
culture.
d. We have learned many things from ancient Greek people which include:
 democratic rule,

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  sports,
 building,
 art,
 writing,
 literature,
 history,
 drama,
 geography,
 mathematics,
 medicine, and
 philosophy.
e. We learn these things from the historical objects dug up in Greece by
archaeologists, from ancient written records and from artifacts which
survive in Greece.

Part B: Life in Ancient Rome

1 How Rome began

a. Where is Rome?
i Rome is built on the west coast of central Italy, on the southern part of
the River Tiber.
ii This river is on the west coast of central Italy.

b. How Rome was built

i A people called Latins built a village by the River Tiber in about 2000
BC.
ii Later, this village grew into a city called Rome.

c. Legend about Rome

i A legend tells about twin princes named Romulus and Remus.
ii After they were born, their uncle put them in a box and let it float
down the River Tiber.
iii A she-wolf saved them and later a shepherd took them home.
iv When they grew up, they killed their uncle.
v They decided to build a new city by the river, but they quarrelled and
Romulus killed Remus.
vi Romulus finished building the city in 753 BC and called it Rome after

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 himself.

2 The Roman Republic (509-27 BC)

a. How the Republic was formed

i At first, the Romans ruled the city themselves.
ii In 650 BC, the Etruscans from northern Italy conquered Rome.
iii They ruled Rome for about 150 years.
iv In 509 BC, the Romans made the Etruscan king leave the city and set
up a republic to rule Rome.

b. How the Republic was ruled

i The two consuls
 The Republic was ruled by the Senate formed by the patricians
(Roman nobles).
 Each year, the Senate chose two of its members as consuls.
 The two consuls made laws and ran the Republic.

ii The two tribunes

 The plebeians (free citizens of Rome) chose two of them as
tribunes to speak for them.
 The two tribunes could veto laws unfair to the plebeians.
iii The laws of the Republic were displayed in a large square called the
forum.

c. The Punic Wars (264-146 BC)

i Background of the wars
 The Romans grew in power and ruled over the whole of Italy in
270 BC.
 At this time, Carthage, a colony of Phoenicia, had also grown in
power.
 Both wanted to control the Mediterranean Sea, so they fought
three wars.
 We call these wars the Punic Wars because ‘punic’ is the Latin
word for Phoenician.
ii The First Punic War (264-241 BC)
 The Romans defeated Carthage in the First Punic War.

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  They took Sicily from Carthage in this war.
iii The Second Punic War (218-201 BC)
 A Carthaginian leader called Hannibal started the Second Punic
War against the Romans in 218 BC.
 He won many battles over the Romans, but he was finally
defeated.
 Rome took Spain from Carthage in this war.
iv The Third Punic War (149-146 BC)
 The Romans started this war to conquer Carthage.
 They took Carthage and burnt it down in 146 BC.
v Results of the Punic Wars
 After the war, the Romans ruled Italy, Sicily, Spain and Carthage.
 They controlled the Mediterranean Sea.

d. Under the rule of Julius Caesar (59-44 BC)

i In 59 BC, a great Roman general called Julius Caesar became a consul
of Rome.
ii The other consul named Pompey and the Senate were afraid that
Caesar would destroy the Republic, so they started a war against
Caesar in 49 BC.
iii Caesar defeated them in 45 BC, then he made the Romans live better
by:
 passing laws which were fair to everyone,
 building more roads and cutting taxes, and
 giving land to poor Romans.
iv His enemies killed him in 44 BC because they thought that he would
become king.

How Caesar was murdered on 15th March 44 BC in Rome

On the morning of 15th March when Caesar was murdered, one of his friends had
warned him that his enemies would kill him. But Caesar thought that nobody would
dare to kill him.

Later in the day, Caesar went to the Senate to attend a meeting. He was surrounded
by a group of people. Some of them were his closest friends. These people
pretended to argue with him. Suddenly, they struck at him with their daggers ( 短劍).

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 There were as many as 23 daggers striking at his back.

Some 60 men took part in the murder. The leader was a man called Marcus Brutus
(布魯特斯). The murderers struck at Caesar more or less at the same time. They did not
want a single person to be responsible for Caesar's death.

Caesar did not say anything after being struck at by the daggers. He fell on to the
ground and died. Although he died quickly, no one dared to come close to see if he
was really dead. His dead body was taken away by three slaves. This ended the
history of one of the greatest rulers in ancient Rome.

e. The Republic after Caesar's death

i After Caesar's death, his adopted son called Octavian and Caesar's
friend named Anthony ruled the Republic.
ii They divided the Roman lands between themselves.
iii In 31 BC, a war broke out between them and Octavian defeated
Anthony.
iv He ruled over the Republic.

3 The Roman Empire (27 BC-AD 476)

a. How the Roman Empire was formed

i In 27 BC, Octavian ruled over all Roman lands.
ii His generals called him emperor, meaning commander-in-chief.
iii He became the first Roman emperor and the Republic turned into the
Empire.
iv The Romans called Octavian ‘Augustus’, which is a Latin word
meaning majestic.
v Octavian called himself ‘Caesar’ to remember Julius Caesar.
vi From then on, all Roman emperors were called ‘Caesar’.

b. The Empire's Golden Age (27 BC-AD 180)

i It started with the rule of Augustus Caesar in 27 BC and ended in about
AD 180.
ii The empire declined from the 3rd century AD.

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 iii From AD 395, it was divided into the east and the west.

 The Western Roman Empire (AD 395-476)

 Its capital was in Rome.
 In AD 476, it was destroyed by a German tribe called the Goths.
 After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the Dark Ages (the
Middle Ages) began in Europe.
 The Eastern Roman Empire (AD 395-1453)
 Its capital was in Constantinople, the new name for
Byzantium, so it was sometimes called the Byzantine
Empire.
 Many emperors were Greeks and they helped to keep the
ancient Greco-Roman ways of life.
 In AD 1453, the Turks conquered Constantinople and
destroyed the Eastern Roman Empire.

4 Life in the Roman Empire

a. Government
i The Roman Empire was ruled by the emperor in Rome.
ii The emperor divided the empire into provinces and sent a governor to
rule each of the provinces for him.
iii When the emperor died, his generals chose one of themselves as
emperor.
iv All Romans were equal and were under the same law which was
famous for its fairness.

b. Daily life
i Rich Romans' lives
 They lived in large houses called villas.
 They ate the best food and wore the best clothes.
 They had much spare time because they had slaves to work for
them.
ii Poor Romans' lives
 They lived in small rooms in apartment blocks.
 Their life was hard.
 They did all kinds of labouring work because they did not have

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 slaves to work for them.

c. Language and writing

i The Romans used the Latin language.
ii They wrote with an alphabet based on the Greek alphabet.
iii The languages of France, Italy and Spain today developed from the
Roman language.

d. Numbers and calendar

i The Romans developed their own numbers which are still used today.
ii They also used a calendar of 365 days (366 days in a leap year).
iii Each Roman year had 12 months, like the one we use today.
iv The 7th month was named after Julius Caesar and the 8th month was
named after Augustus Caesar.

e. Religion
i Roman gods
 The Romans worshipped many gods and goddesses, who were the
same as those of the Greeks.
 They also worshipped their emperors as gods.
ii Christianity as the Roman Empire's official religion
 Jesus Christ started Christianity during Augustus' rule.
 At first, the Roman emperors persecuted the Christians because
the Christians did not worship them as gods.
 In AD 313, Emperor Constantine stopped this persecution.
 Christianity was made the Roman Empire's official religion in AD
395.
 From then on, the Romans worshipped only one god.

f. Building
i The Romans were great builders.
ii They built
 a network of roads with Rome as the centre,
 aqueducts to carry water from mountain valleys to cities,
 viaducts to carry a road across a valley,
 underground pipes to bring water to homes, and
 public baths, gymnasiums, stadiums, the Colosseum and temples.

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g. Entertainments
i The Romans had a lot of free time because they had slaves to work for
them.
ii In their free time, they enjoyed
 watching gladiator fights,
 watching chariot racing, and
 going to public baths.

h. What the Romans have given to the world

i The Romans built a great empire.
ii This helped the spread of their civilization to many places in Europe,
Africa and Asia.
iii The Roman civilization still has a great influence today and we learnt
many things from the Romans, such as
 law,
 government,
 language,
 writing,
 numbers,
 calendar,
 religion, and
 architecture.

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