Bucephalus Dies

India: Alexander invaded India in 327 BC, and sadly during this battle, his horse Bucephalus died.  Wah ): The Indians fought with elephants, and they still lost.  Alexander was begged by the General, General Coenus to back off and let the men return home because they conquered just about everything.  He finally agreed and they returned home, but lost many soldiers due to loss of heat, thirst and just natural causes, or in battle.  On their way home they took the Hydaspes and Indus River and battled against those who lived on the river as well.  In Malli he was injured.  Death:  He died on either the 10th or 11th of June in 323 BC.  His death is still a mystery and there are many theories, but all just theories.  His body was laid in a gold sarcophagus but was later replaced by glass so they could make coins out of it.  Treatment:  His empire was the largest of it's time.  After his death it remained under Macedonia for the next 200-300 years.  He believed and instigated intermarrying.  He wanted his people to mix with the others.  Alex wanted to combine cultures to see the outcome.  At first people didn't believe his death was real.  Alex passed Perdicus his signet ring.  When he died he was not specific as to whom he wanted to rule, so they fought to see who was most powerful.  The possession of the ring basically meant all the power.  Alex IV was born and he and Phillip II both were murdered.  In 321 Perdicus was assassinated.  Macedonia collapsed after 40 years of War.  Education, government and art were all based on the classic Greeks.

Watched Movie

All we did in class was watch the movie about Alexander the Great.  We didn't get to finish but we watched the parts about when Bucephalus dies in the battle against the Indians.  We saw some other battle scenes and also the part where is men tried to change his mind and go home.

Presenting

We presented our PowerPoint Friday and only got through a couple.  We basically talked about how Olympius  Alexander's mother had her husbands wife killed as well as her child.  This was to make sure Alexander would become king.  Then we talked a little about Bucephalus was tamed by him when no one else could.  Also, Alexander was taught by Aristotle.  And he and his mother ran away when Phillip tried to kill him.  When he came back to take control he had the man who killed his father assassinated.  Olympius also claimed Alexander was the son of Zeus. Darius was who they fought against the Persians.  Died at the age of 32, and he was poisoned.  Think one of his wine pourers did it to him.  Just a theory though.  encouraged people to mix.  Hellenistic: combined culture.

Presentations

We got in partners or groups of 3 to do a presentation for Alex the Great. Lucy and I are partners and we got the one about his war life and all of his accomplishments in that general area. The thing is worth 50 points so maybe it can boost my grade up.

Make up Test

I had to take my make-up test today, so I took most of the class to do that.  When I came in we talked about Alexande the Great and how he conquered so much of the land, but everyone had doubts about them.  He started rule at the age of like 20, and died around 34 I believe.  Some say it could have been caused from alcohol poisoning.  He also tortured and killed the people who were planning on rebelling against him.

Chaper 5

Hellenistic: Relating to Greek history, language, and culture from the death of Alexander the Great

 



Sparta dropped out of fighting and Athens created alliances with other city states.  The other city states that formed the alliances agreed to contributing money for the construction of triremes.  The Persians accepted their defeat in 445 BC because of a Greek city-state--Anatolia being freed, also around the time the city-states paying trubute to Athens got a little annoyed being ruled by and oligarchy.  They appealed to the Spartans to put a check on Athens, they finally agreed.  This therefore led to war.  This war was from 431-404 BC, and Pericles led Athens.  Athens and nearby city-state Piraeus formed a single stronghold.  Athens tried to block off any supplies from the sea but that would eventually fall.  Spartans won! WHOO!  The Athenians baisically gave in to the Spartans and were ruled by their oligarchy.  But they could not prevent Athens from going back to their democracy and independence.  Greek civilization flourished, Plato and Aristotle followed after the Peloponnesian War.  Power was rising in the noth of Grece,called Macedonia, this would soon stop the alliances of city-states.  Athens should not have gone up against Sparta because they were not as strong as they were previously, they needed to regain their strength, rather than rushing into it.  Also they should have thought through their plans.

No Class for Me

I wasn't in class today because I wasn't feeling super well.

Death of Socky

Socrates trial was held in the Athen's market.  He was super stubborn and when he was on his trial, he didn't apologize for his "crimes", instead he told them that they should be thanking him.  Actually, buying him dinners for the rest of his life.  He was the only one in Athens who callenged their way of life.  When he had a short amount of time to speak, he basically said that Athens was a big stupid lazy horse and he was a horsefly trying to get them moving.  If he apologized he would have been aquitted because everyone really liked him.  When he was in jail the gaurds didn't want him to die either, so Socrates' friends asked them to just turn away.  They did.  When they told him, "Let's leave!", he said that he was going to stay here and take the punnishment.  He had  multiple chances to leave, but he denied both.  He drank the hemlock and died.  In the end of class we talked about gay people.

Socy

Socrates had a big head, big eyes, wierd nose and just odd porportions in all.  Greeks soon realized that the gods weren't actual humans but objects and people put reason to all the earth's things.  They also calculated moon size, and the height of the pyramids.  (Thalies did all that).  Socrates loved the city and talked to anyone and everyone.  "Unexamined life is not worth living"-Socrates most famous quote.  We also talked about how Pericles got stupid and wanted to attack Sparta--bad idea.  They lost, partly due to the fact that the plague hit them, he became a hubris, and Spartans are just better.  The plague wiped out about 1/3 of Athens, including Pericles.  It took him 6 months to die, and he did so in the fall of 429 BC.  People tried to gain power after this but it just became chaos.  Also, when Athens destroyed Sicily and came home the generals were executed, not worshiped.  This is because they didn't bother collecting the men in the water, dead or alive.  Once they lost to Sparta they had to blame it on someone so they blamed Socrates.  He was arrested for corrupting youngins and undermining their religion.  Athens never had a good leader after Pericles, and Socrates tried to stop the generals from being executed.  Thusidius wrote all about the plague becuase he survived it.  The Palapalesian war caused Sparta to become an even greater threat to Athens.

Talk

We talked about the movie today,  not watched it. We covered what we missed and then, watched it.  Darius' son Xerxes was the next leader of Persia.  There was another war between Persia and Athens, except this time they fought on ships, and Persia came with say 600,000 men.  Some scholars say 2 million, but who knows?  Again they won, but this time they won by a trick.  An Athenian acted as a traitor to his home people, and told the Persians if they go in now they will be able to defeat them easily, only if you spare me.  Well, they went in and surrounded them, and killed them while the last few ran home.  They were trapped in the straits of Salamis.  Oh, also, everybody evacuated Athens and so when Persians saw this they burned and wrecked the entire place.  And before the war they found silver, so they got rich and Themistocles built 200 more triremes.  Thank heavens he did too.  After the War, Themistocles was ostracized because the people thought he might try and gain power.  This is a little contradictory/ironic because he was an amazing leader and he saved them all.  After this he went to other places including Persia basically asking help me and I will help you formulate really great war plans.  They killed him.  Delin was a big organization basically that combined city-states.  The Parthenon was worth approximately 1 billion dollars to build.  The pole things are 40 feet tall and get smaller at the top to perceive it to be taller.  Aspasia was a prostitute who was really smart and nice!  People took her to a really nice dinner and then slept with her.  Paracles left his wife for her and she probably helped him write a lot of his speeches.  Everyone looked down upon this.  Any ways the play Oedipus was where the dude was told by the fates he was going to kill his father and sleep with his mother and be a horrible leader.  He didn't believe this but he accidentally did both.  When he realized he killed his father he was greatly saddened and depressed, and when he realized he slept with his mother he gauged out his eyes so he would see the faces of everyone.  You cannot escape the fates.  Achilles was invulnerable because they dipped him in this special river, but missed his ankles, because that is what they held him up by.  He ended up dying by a poison arrow to the ankles.  Hubris=peopple in power who think they can get away with anything.

Not here

I wasn't there Friday because I was on a field trip to D.C.

More Movie

We watched more of the movie and so a guy named Pheidippides ran 140 miles in two days to get to Sparta to ask them to help them defeat Persia.  Sadly, when he got there though, they said no, we don't want to we're on a holiday.  Persia was a huge empire that had loads more of people and therefore means a larger army.  Even though Athens was outnumbered 2- in the war they still won because it was also just ordinary people who were fighting, and they had their hearts in the fight, Persians didn't.  In one day Athenians killed 6000 Persians.  In the end Athens won the war!!! Whooo!!  The Persian Empire stretched from India to Turkey and they were known to have the greatest power.  The reason the Persians attacked Athens was because they were gaining power and became a threat.  Darius was known as the great king of Persia.  Except he was a tyrant.  People who walked near him or talked to him had to cover their mouths because no one dared to "infect" the air around him.  The Greeks believed in more freedom than the Persians did (more about obedience).  Which is kinda odd because Greeks had slaves and Persians didn't.  Also, a marathon is called this because the trek from Athens to Marathon was 26.2 miles.  Themistocles seemed to be the only one who realized Persia might come back even more strong and their hearts and minds would be in it this time, he was also one of histories great leaders.  That's all.

Movie

All we did was watch more of the movie. Here are some notes on it:

• Pisistratus reduced taxes and gave loans to people
• Olives are valuable and helpful, everyone seemed to want Athenian oil
• Romans were on the western side
• Eastern Mediterranean was a great trade area
• Vase= 1st artistic legacy, people soon really got into their pottery and decorated immensely
• Pottery was made in the same place that prostitutes worked, the makers were the lowest of the low
• 527 BC: Pisistratus died and was buried in the Athenian graveyard, his son Hippias took over
• 514 BC: Hippias' brother was murdered so he killed the killers and tortured one of their wives
• Hippias soon became evil so Cleisthenes took over and was one of the most powerful men in
  Athens
• Olympics-776 BC, way before Cleisthenes
• Arete: Olympics
• Running, wrestling, boxing and Chariot riding were popular in Olympics
• Ordinary people came to compete in Olympics
• Isagoris tried to take over from Cleisthenes so he went to the Spartans; he was friends with a ruler because they shared a wife.  So the Spartans gave him their best armies to take control
• He became a strict tyrant and ostracized Cleisthenes
• People started to realize their rights were being taken away and so they revolted
• FIRST TIME PEOPLE REBELLED AGAINST THEIR LEADER
• On the third day, Isagoris gave up and was removed from his leadership position (508 BC.)
• Brought Cleisthenes back and that is when they started to form democracy