Comparing The Persian War And The Peloponnesian War

1.) Compare and Contrast the Persian War and the Peloponnesian War? Focus on answering the following questions: What led to the beginning of each war? Who were the major parties involved on either side of each of the conflict? At the conclusion of each war, who was victorious? Most importantly, how were the parties involved impacted immediately after each conflict? Why is each war important in the development of Ancient Greek history?

The Persian War was a war between the Greeks and the Persians. Even though the Greeks were still not united they fought to defend each territory that was theirs. The Peloponnesian war was a war among the Greek city states. That is the difference among the two; one was fought against an enemy who attacked the Greece land and the other was fought among the Greeks themselves. The Persian War begun because the Greeks made a military rebellion in Asia Minor which caused the Persians to face more conflicts themselves. This was known as the Ionian Revolt. After the Ionian Revolt, the Persians more than ever wanted to take over Greece Eventually leading to the Persian War. This was the reason why the Persian war began, basically of revenge. The major parties involved in the conflict of this war were the Persians and the Greek city states.

The Persians lost to the Athenians.

The Greeks were able to continue living the way they had done so. Themistocles, though, let his ambitions overpower him. This then resulted in a rage of the assembly. He was banned from Greece and forced to flee to the country he once had fought, Persia. There he became a Persian, being able to speak Greece and also serving as one of the administrators for the Persian king. The Persian war has a significant importance because if they would have lost this war then the values that we know even till today would have been lost. They extraordinary values gave us what is known to be the Classical

Age.
The Peloponnesian war was a war in where the Greek city states fought among each other. They fought for resource and power but most importantly they fought for the democratic reforms of Cleisthenes, which basically was the reason this war was led by. The two major parties involved in this specific war was the Athenians and the Spartans. At the end of the war the Spartans were the victorious of this war with the help of the Persians. Sparta was then considered the number one city-state Greece had although they didn’t last for long. Sparta’s ambition in the central and northern Greece, Asia Minor, and Sicily brought them to difficult conflicts which eventually lead to the Corinthians war. The Peloponnesian war was important for the development of Ancient history because the Spartans weekend the Athenians leaving them with little power. This will eventually open the door for the Macedonians to come and attack the Athenians again but since they were already weak enough they no longer were able to resist. They ultimately became dominated by the Macedonians.

2.) Theater was important to Ancient Greek Civilization. Please provide 3 reasons why this artform was central to the Greeks. Focus on the festivals, the playwrights, the theatrical conventions of the time, and the various purposes for theater in Ancient Greece.
The ancient Greek theatre was important to Greece because they were like rituals performed to honor their god of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility. These festivals were led by drunk men dressed in goat skin. They would compete with another tribe and the best would win at the end. There were 4 different festivals that would be celebrated according to the seasons. Some festivals would actually contain athletic competition known as the Olympic Games, which would be held in the honor of Zeus. Although they had few festivals they only allowed the plays to be presented in one festival which was the City of Dionysia festival. It is said to believe that the traditions come from Egyptian pageants honoring Osiris. Actors, directors and dramatist were all the same person in Greek festivals. Later it evolved to 3 people used in one play. There would be no movement. Thespis was the name of the 1st actor ever. He came in and added movement as well as mask, make up and costumes.
Theatre was not only used for entertaining though. It was also used to educate the public with news because there was no other way as well as to teach the audience etiquette, values attitude, etc. it also Provided income for those play writers who would dedicate and make a living to bringing out the information and entertainment to the people. Plays were held when there was a special occasion or religious festivals with the help of the rich who strongly believed it was their duty to support the plays. There were 3 types of plays in the theatre of Greece. These were Satyr plays, comedies and tragedy. The most important among all 3 was Tragedy. The first comedies mocked men in power for their vanity and foolishness. Aristophanes was the first one to master comedy plays. Menander later wrote comedies about people and made his plays more like sit-coms. Satyr plays were plays that would take place in between the acts of tragedy. Then lastly tragedy had a lot to do with themes of love, loss, pride abuse of power and the fraught relationship between men and gods. Usually the main character who makes the play alive commits some type of crime without realizing it. The 3 playwrights of this type were Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides.
Mask and costumes were an important part of the whole act the actors had to put together. Masks would work as amplifiers making the actors words clearer for the audience to understand costumes also were important because it gave the audience the idea to recognize the actor by social class or gender. The males would also wear prosterneda which would basically give them the image of breast since women were not allowed to participate in plays until later on in the years. Some of the plays were Oedipus by Sophocles which is known as probably the best known classical drama. Another would be The Oresteia by Aeschylus. Then there were those plays named Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus, Antigone by Sophocles, and Medea by Euripedes. Plays have become a big part of society even today.

3.) Select either the Sumerian OR the Egyptian civilization and by using the six characteristics of civilized societies discussed in Chapter 1, please explain how your selected civilization fulfilled these six characteristics.
The Sumerian is the oldest civilization known in history. It is said that it is the first civilization that ever existed. This civilization started 3,500 BC and is now known as southern Iraq. These extraordinary people who only lived for survival created a base for what we have become today. But how did these brilliant minds work together to build the urban civilization they created? That is something worth covering today. I will be explaining how the Sumerians fulfilled the 6 characteristics of civilized societies. These include the form of urban life, system of government, development of social class, and production of goods by tools and spec ialized skills leading to manufacturing and trade, written communication allowing perpetuation of information and lastly the religious beliefs.
We don’t really have many records that tell us exactly how it happened but there is one thing that is probably one of the oldest piece of literature found, the Epic of Gilgamesh. These poems are said to be the earliest living document. These pieces of art have helped us uncover what we know today. Why did they urbanize a certain area if back then they had to go hunt and move around food? The Sumerian found an important crop that would change history, wheat. They figured that they could urbanize that area and survive. They became an agriculture civilization. The Sumerian settled the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. They knew the land there was very flat so they had to build dikes and canals so they could have water to irrigate their crops.
In the Sumerian land priest governed. They controlled and administered economic as well as religious affairs. Later on it became to where on person would rule and be considered a representative of God on earth but unlike other gods it never became to him being the center of attention or divine. The Sumerian was thought to be made up of not 3 but actually 4 social classes. They were the nobles, which were slaves, clients and commoners. Then came priests, warriors, and the wealthy, who were families that owed a lot of land. The Sumerian used the rivers to their advantage, trade. They also had created boats and that’s how they were able to transport good and trade them to different parts of the land. They also used mud brick walls and dry stone foundations to make their homes. They also came up with different tools such as hammers, nails, hoes, knives, swords, etc. These tools were part of the amazing creativity and now we use them everywhere.
All of what the Sumerians have done has been incredibly astonishing but probably the most important of all will be the written communications that they left behind. This was known as the cuneiform, their system of writing. This eventually lead to what now today is how we modern society communicate. Without writing there would be no history. Of course they did not develop the English words that we now speak but they had what stated it of which were like signs or pictographs embedded in stones. The cuneiform system was a very fast and efficient way for the Sumerian to store information. This is what made everything possible for them when it comes to the trade and record keeping. Among these stones was The Epic of Gilgamesh.
Last but not least is their Polytheistic Religion. They believed their god was adoration to nature, sky and earth, sun and moon, lightning and storm. This is why everyone would go to the temple to worship these different gods. The names of their gods where Anu the god of the skies, Nanna the god of the moon and Abu the god of vegetation. They strongly believed that of they would not worship these gods then they will bring ruin upon themselves for they will no longer provide for them. Different rituals, food sacrifices where made in these temples, where the gods were kept, daily. Religion for the Sumerians was the most important thing on top of surviving for them. If they didn’t worship their gods they would not survive, is what they believed. We thank the Sumerians for all the history they have left us with today. If it were not for them our civilizations would have simply not been the same as what it is today.