CLAS 1000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Cyrus Cylinder, Ionian Revolt, The Persians

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Classical Studies
• Course: CLAS 1000
• Professor: John Walsh

Document Summary

In the middle of the 5th century (athenians) achieved the great heights of classical culture. Period of itme begins with war (often a driver for human creativity and progession>compels culture forward) In twilight of 6th century cleisthenes constituted the first democracy, at the same time in the east a huge empire had been built (greeks considered them barbaric) (owever they weren(cid:495)t barbaric, they were incredibly sophisticated and technically advanced. Held together hundreds and thousands of ethinically different cultures (united nations of the persian empire) Founded by cyrus the great (lasted 550bc-ad650), reborn 1500-1979) Cyrus joined together many nations, was a great conquerer but also an enlightened liberator. Conquers everything around him including the kingdom of lydia. This conquest brought him adjacent to ionia (where greeks lived) )onians believed it was there (cid:494)home(cid:495) as they had been there for (cid:883)(cid:882)(cid:882)+ years. Cyrus establishes persian (cid:494)rule(cid:495) over the area, lydia folded over tiny greek town.