Early European History. Hutton Webster
noteworthy of these local unions. It included twelve tribes and cities of central Greece and Thessaly. They established a council, which took the shrine of Apollo under its protection and superintended the athletic games at Delphi.
A NEW AGE
The seventh and sixth centuries before Christ form a noteworthy epoch in Greek history. Commerce and colonization were bringing their educating influence to bear upon the Greeks. Hellenic cities were rising everywhere along the Mediterranean shores. A common language, literature, and religion were making the people more and more conscious of their unity as opposed to the "barbarians" about them.
THE GREEK WORLD, 500 B.C.
Greek history has now been traced from its beginnings to about 500 B.C. It is the history of a people, not of one country or of a united nation. Yet the time was drawing near when all the Greek communities were to be brought together in closer bonds of union than they had ever before known.
STUDIES
1. On the map facing page 66 see what regions of Europe are less than 500 feet above sea level; less than 3000 feet; over 9000 feet.
2. Why was Europe better fitted than Asia to develop the highest civilization? Why not so well fitted as Asia to originate civilization?
3. "The tendency of mountains is to separate, of rivers to unite, adjacent peoples." How can you justify this statement by a study of European geography?
4. Why has the Mediterranean been called a "highway of nations"?
5. Locate on the map several of the natural entrances into the basin of the Mediterranean.
6. At what points is it probable that southern Europe and northern Africa were once united?
7. Compare the position of Crete in relation to Egypt with that of Sicily in relation to the north African coast.
8. Why was the island of Cyprus a natural meeting place of Egyptian, Syrian, and Greek peoples?
9. What modern countries are included within the limits of the Balkan peninsula?
10. Describe the island routes across the Aegean (map between pages 68- 69).
11. What American states lie in about the same latitude as Greece?
12. Compare the boundaries of ancient Greece with those of the modern kingdom.
13. What European countries in physical features closely resemble Greece? What state of our union?
14. Why is Greece in its physical aspects "the most European of European lands"?
15. What countries of Greece did not touch the sea?
16. Tell the story of the Iliad and of the Odyssey.
17. Explain the following terms: oracle; amphictyony; helot; Hellas; Olympiad; and ephors.
18. Give the meaning of our English words "ostracism" and "oracular."
19. Explain the present meaning and historical origin of the following expressions: "a Delphic response"; "Draconian severity"; "a laconic speech."
20. What is the date of the first recorded Olympiad? of the expulsion of the last tyrant of Athens?
21. Describe the Lions' Gate (illustration, page 70) and the François Vase (illustration, page 77).
22. Compare Greek ideas of the future life with those of the Babylonians.
23. Why has the Delphic oracle been called "the common hearth of Hellas"?
24. What resemblances do you discover between the Olympian festival and one of our great international expositions?
25. Define and illustrate these terms: monarchy; aristocracy; tyranny; democracy.
26. Why are the earliest laws always unwritten?
27. What differences existed between Phoenician and Greek colonization?
28. Why did the colonies, as a rule, advance more rapidly than the mother country in wealth and population?
29. What is the origin of the modern city of Constantinople? of Marseilles? of Naples? of Syracuse in Sicily?
FOOTNOTES
[1] Webster, Readings in Ancient History, chapter iii, "Early Greek Society as Pictured in the Homeric Poems"; chapter iv, "Stories from Greek Mythology"; chapter v, "Some Greek Tyrants"; chapter vi, "Spartan Education and Life."
[2] See pages 16–17.
[3] For the island routes see the map between pages 68–69.
[4] See page 42.
[5] See the illustration, page 10.
[6] See the plate facing page 70.
[7] See pages 29, 48.
[8] See page 5.
[9] See the map, page 76.
[10] The Greek name of the Black Sea.
[11] Iliad, xviii, 607.
[12] Odyssey, xiv, 83–84.
[13] Odyssey, xi, 488–491.
[14] See page 227.
[15] See pages 88,90.
[16] Herodotus, i, 53.
[17] See page 37.
[18] The first recorded celebration occurred in 776 B.C. The four-year period between the games, called an Olympiad, became the Greek unit for determining dates. Events were reckoned as taking place in the first, second, third, or fourth year of a given Olympiad.
[19] Iliad, ii, 243.
[20] Aristocracy means, literally, the "government of the best." The Greeks also used the word oligarchy—"rule of the few"—to describe a government by citizens who belong to the wealthy class.
[21] "Pelops's island," a name derived from a legendary hero who settled in southern Greece.
[22] Xenophon, Polity of the Lacedaemonians, 13.
[23] The Spartans believed that their military organization was the work of a great reformer and law-giver named Lycurgus. He was supposed to have lived early in the ninth century B.C. We do not know anything about Lycurgus, but we do know that some existing primitive tribes, for instance, the Masai of East Africa, have customs almost the same as those of ancient Sparta. Hence we may say that the rude, even barbarous, Spartans only carried over into the historic age the habits of life which they had formed in prehistoric times.
[24] See page 82.
[25] The name of an individual voted against was written on a piece of pottery (Greek ostrakon), whence the term ostracism. See the illustration, page 97.
[26] See the map facing page 50.
[27] See page 49.
[28] Cicero, De republica, ii, 4.
[29] Greek barbaroi, "men of confused speech."
CHAPTER V
THE GREAT AGE OF THE GREEK REPUBLICS TO 362 B.C. [1]
31. THE PERILS OF HELLAS
ASIATIC GREEKS CONQUERED BY CROESUS
The history of the Greeks for many centuries had been uneventful—a history of their uninterrupted expansion