The Ancient Greeks: Crucible of Civilization Episode 2 Golden Age

The Ancient Greeks: Crucible of Civilization Episode 2 Golden Age

PBS (2000)

Film Review

493 BC – This episode starts with the election of General Themistocles, a populist commoner, as archon (ruler) of Athens. Anticipating invasion by the vast Persian Empire (extending from Turkey to India), Themistocles built a fleet of 200 tiremes (see The Ultimate Warship of Ancient Greece). He also founded the Delian League with neighboring city-states.

490 BC – The first Persian invasion of the Greek Peninsula at Marathon. Immediately prior to the battle, the courier Pheidippides ran from Athens to Sparta seeking military support. Owing to a religious taboo against doing battle during the full moon, the Spartans declined to assist. With a population of 30,000 Athens had 10,000 Hoplites (citizen soldiers with swords, spears and shields) plus a comparable number of farmers with clubs and scythes. Despite being hopelessly outnumbered, they prevailed, slaughtering 6,000 Persians.

480 BC – During the second Persian war, Themistocles made the wise decision to avoid a land confrontation by ordering all Athenian citizens to leave the city. Finding Athens empty, king Xerxes he ordered the city and all the temples on the Acropolis burned. Although the Persian fleet was four times the size of the Greek navy (consisting of 200 tiremes), Temistocles cleverly lured Xerxes’ ships into the narrow Strait of Salamis. With no room to to maneuver, the Persians lost 200 ships, ran out of food and were forced to depart.

470 BC – Perpetually at odds with the wealthy Athenian nobility, Themistocles was ostracized in quaint annual ceremony in which every citizen citizen wrote a name on an otsracum (broken shard of pottery) and dropped it into a clay pot.*Whoever received the most votes was forced into exile.

461-429 BC – Pericles, born into one of Athens’ most elite families, was its leader at the height of its power. Twenty years after the Persians burnt the Athenian temples on the Acropolis, he recruited architect and sculptors from all over the known world to build the Parthenon in their place. Costing 5,000 talents ($1 billion) in the first year alone, it took 15 years to construct and required 20,000 tons of marble. Under his rule, the Delian League emerges as the center a vast trading network. Imports include mackerel and salted fish from Hellepont, ivory from Nubia, tattooed saves from Pagasae (in Thessaly) and ox hides from Sardinia, It was during this period, Anocles first recognized the moon was lit by reflected sunlight, Herodotus became the Western world’s first historian and Aeschylus and Euripides wrote the world’s first tragedies.**

*Alexander I of Macedon (r. 498–454 BC) temporarily gave Themistocles sanctuary at Pydna. From there, he he traveled to Asia Minor, where he entered the service of the Persian king Ataxerxes (r 465-424 BC). He eventually became governor of Magnesia in Ionia (a collection of Greek colonies the Anatolian peninsula).

**Despite the filmmakers claim that Athens gave birth to the world’s first theatrical performances, Egyptian theater dates back to 1980 BC and Chinese theater to before 1000 BC.

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