3.2 People of Greece

• History
• Middelbare school
• havo, vwo
• Leerjaar 1

AGE 2. The Time of Greeks and Romans

3.2 People of Greece

What is this lesson about?

The Greeks viewed inhabitants of the poleis differently, as some were citizens, slaves, foreigners or women. Most important were the citizens that were trained as hoplites and made their money from owning land. The Greeks did a lot of trade, in oil and wine, but also looked down on this.

What you can explain /  do after this lesson

• make a social pyramid of the people of a Greek polis
• explain how people could become slaves
• explain why Greeks traded oversees
• explain why only wealthy Greeks could be hoplites

Word Duty

Metoiks: people that were born in a different polis

Slave: person owned by someone else, slaves were at the bottom of the social pyramid

Lower class: (poor) working people with little power

Upper class: ruling class of people

Middle class: social layer of merchants and such individuals

Hoplite: Greek citizen-soldier, heavily armoured

Phalanx: close hoplite formation

Link to WRTS wordlist for all the other difficult words: WRTS HISTORY

KEY WORDS

1a. Read "Free men and foreigners"
What were 'metoiks'?

1. soldiers
2. foreigners
3. slaves
4. women

1c. What other group was there?

1b. Into which four social layers or categories of men were
the people of Athens divided?

2. Did women have the same rights as men everywhere in Ancient Greece? Explain your answer.

3a. Read "Slaves".
What was the status of slaves in Ancient Greece?

3b. Which of these is NOT a way to become a slave in Ancient Greece?

1. You were taken prisoner during a war
2. You were born as a slave, because your parents were slaves
3. You had too many debts
4. You had broken the law

4. In the theory the layers of the social pyramid are discussed.

Create the social pyramid in the scheme below.

foreigners

citizens

slaves

free men

5. The women and children are not in the pyramid you made. Do you think there should be a fifth layer for women and children? Or do you think the women and children should have their own layer for each group you wrote down?

6. Read "Trading across the Mediterranean"

If you were an Ancient Greek farmer that grew olives, what was the smartest thing to do with your olives?

7. In this exercise you will practise Skill 7: Drawing conclusions
from studying sources.
Greek merchants sold wine and oil in beautifully painted pottery.
You can find a drawing of such a vase here.
Vases such as these prove that there was specialised labour in Ancient Greece.
Explain how.

8a. Look up a map of Greece on the internet, for instance via Google Maps.
Make sure you put it on Satellite image instead of roadmap!
Why did Greek traders sail around Greece? Use the map in your answer.

8b. If you sail from Igoumenitsa on one side of Greece to Thessaloniki on the other side, how far do you actually travel?

9a. In this exercise you will practise Skill 7: Drawing conclusions from studying sources.
Look at the source to answer the questions.

What are these people doing?

9b. What information can you get from the source about this trade?

9c. So is trade in Ancient Greece very different from when you buy (for example)
apples at the local supermarket? Explain your answer.

10. Read "Hoplites". Why did only wealthy people fight in the phalanx?

11.

return

shield

expensive

on it

hoplon

heavy

armour

mothers

hoplites

12a. In this exercise you will practise Skill 3: Causes and effects: explaining events and developments. 

In question 8 you had to find out why only rich people fought in the phalanx. In the theory, it says that the phalanx was the most powerful part of the army.

You can identify series of causes when things happen in history. Example: John dropped his apple. > An apple tree started to grow. > Now we can pick apples here.

Now you create a series of causes from the following facts. Drag the sentences at the bottom to the correct place.

Some rich Greek soldiers had bronze armour made

Soldiers in bronze armour 

were better equipped than others

Bronze was the strongest material the Greeks knew, but it was very expensive.

12b. What effect do you expect this had on Greek society?

1. Rich people were happy to fight, but they wanted to have a bigger say in the fighting and therefore in politics too.
2. Poor people were very happy, as they did not need to fight often.
3. Rich people became angry, as they always had to bring their armour to the smithy to get all the dents out after fighting.
4. Poor people were angry because they felt that they too had the right to fight for their polis

Write down one question about something from this lesson that you find difficult.

congratulations