Civilization #8: Rat Utopia and the Peloponnesian War

okay so um we are starting an overview of Greek history we remember the story so far U we talked about the bronch age um and where m in gree um was trading and fighting with the rest of the world and then the Bronze Age collapse happen and Myan gree came to an end and because of its destruction this allowed for massive innovation throughout Greece so we saw the introduction of the polus the city state okay um we saw the beginning of the use of the alphabet and so literacy rates increased radically uh throughout uh Greece and we saw Homer uh who gave us the Iliad and the Odyssey um so today I'm just going to go over um the overview of um Greek history mainly focusing on the pois okay um so one thing to understand about the pois is that geography is Destiny Okay geography is Destiny and this basically means that the your geography will determine the culture the economy and the political structure of your Society and we see that um with the Greek polus uh the Greek geography is very diverse there are mountains there are rivers there are Plains and there are coastlines okay and this and depending on where you are geographically in Greece you will have a different type of polus and so the two classic examples are Sparta and Athens uh spart and Athens are the two most dominant polist in about the year 5 00 BC okay so let's first talk about Sparta so Sparta is located on the peles uh this is Sparta and the land around Sparta it's basically Plains which makes it makes it ideal for agriculture okay so for most of its history spart Sparta was an agricultural uh Nation and because it uh is ideal for agriculture it needs people to work the land and through its um Conquest Sparta developed a slave system okay and these people are call helots and helots are just slaves um in Sparta that work the land they're farmers and these are people who have been conquered by Sparta and because there are so many Hots okay the ratio is about 10 to one so for every one hot sorry for every one Spartan there's 10 Hots Spartan had to become a military Society in order to control the hots so it created um an education education system in order to train its citizens to be soldiers so so the system worked like this um about age s about age s you left your family and you were put into a boarding school where you watched over by kids who are older than you okay maybe 11 or 12 and obviously you put young kids with older kids the older kids will beat the crap out of these young kids who are about seven seven or eight and this instills the idea of emotional discipline into the children now when these children became teenagers they were peered with a mentor who was maybe 25 to about 30 okay an older adult and they became lovers um the sparts do not consider this homosexuality we would consider it homosexuality but they themselves do not consider this homosexuality okay they just considered this as a way to build emotional cohesion uh love among its soldiers and about age 18 or 19 the students would graduate and they would go on to marry and have their own families but the Spartan soldiers were all required to eat together okay so the soldiers even though they had families they were still required to train together and to eat together Spartan Spartan had no private property everything including the hots belong to everyone okay so it's basically communism or Proto communism they had no money system they had no wealth everything belonged to uh everyone and it was a brutal State okay the spaans were notorious for being brutal people so an example is uh the hots so they had a they had a campaign of Terror to maintain control over the hots so um young soldiers would often be required to uh Patrol at night okay they would they would maybe lie in the field because now and then some Hots would break curfew they would at midnight try to sneak out and have some fun and and if you as a spawning young man saw a hellot be uh out at night well they would kill you they would take on a knife and stab you in the neck okay and this was meant to instill Terror in the hots to prevent them from rebelling okay but the the problem is because there were so many Hots and the SP were so brutal rebellions and revolutions would break out often okay so this created a society um which focus on maintaining control in the pelan so the spars were not at all interested in foreign policy okay they had Absol no interest in a in the world outside Sparta the for were were as a culture was very conservative okay they liked the way that F they liked the way they wanted things to stay the way uh they they are okay um so it was a very conformist culture now and then you had some Kings um or individuals who tried to change society and the Spartans would kill those people okay you were not allowed owed to question uh Authority you were not allowed to promote change in Sparta the Spartans were also isolationists okay their entire policy was if you leave us alone we'll leave you alone okay and so that was the um Society of Sparta if you think about it in many ways it's very much like China throughout its history okay so the analogy is China which China has always been throughout the his its history very conservative and very isolationist China is just not interested in the outside world why because it's focused on maintaining control over um its peasantry okay there's too much internal chaos China just is not interested in the outside world so China for its history has both both been conservative does not like change okay and very isolationist is that concern about the outside world does that make sense guys any questions so far about Sparta before I move on to Athens okay so Athens was a completely opposite Society to Sparta and the reason why again it's geography this is Sparta sorry this is Athens and Athens is in Attica um and it's by the coast and Athens the country side is very hilly so it's bad for growing crops but aens has two major advantages the first major advantage is it has a very good Harbor okay and also it's um it's Healy but the Healy terrain is actually good for growing olive trees okay olives um it's it's also very good at Pottery so because of this Athens for most of its history focus on trade right it was a trading nation and because they are Traders and Merchants they have a very different culture to the uh Spartans okay so the first thing is they're very expansionist okay they're aggressive and the idea here is the ath will go and seek out new markets they also uh plant new colonies throughout the uh a aan this is to the West is the aan sea to the South is the Mediterranean okay and they will plant colonies um throughout this area um and they have to encourage their citizens to go out and explore the world in order to find new markets in order to get to bring goods and ideas back to um Athens okay um because Athens was expansionist its cultural system its cultural beliefs was very different from the Spartans okay so whereas the Spartans were very conservative the uh Athenians had a policy had a belief in the idea of udonia udonia so udonia is a Greek word and it means human flourishing flourishing and the idea idea here is to be the best that you can be all right so the example of udonia the most famous example of udonia is this in Homer's Iliad the main character is Achilles and achilles is the best warrior uh of the Greeks against Troy and achilles says this in the book he says before I came to Troy I saw a prophet I saw a fortune teller and he told me my fortune he said I could choose to not come to Troy and live to be a live a very long healthy life but I'd be a nobody if I came to Troy I would die young but I would die as a hero I would be remembered by everyone everyone would sing of my glory and my Triumph so that was my choice I could live forther a long time and just be a nobody or I could be a hero and die young and he said well for me that's not a choice okay for me to be alive means to achieve udonia I have to be the best I can be and therefore my only option is to come to Troy and die a hero and that's the mentality in Athens it is much better to die young as a hero to than to live a long time as a nobody whereas in Spartans were the complete opposite okay it's just better to be a nobody uh and get along with everyone than it is to die as a hero okay so very so very opposite societies um but and what this did this idea of udonia it made Athens into a very competitive Society okay because if everyone's trying to achieve yonia then you're going to have a lot of competition okay because they they're going to be one hero everyone cannot be a hero there can only be one hero so again the example is um Homer's Iliad and when Achilles got into a fight with egam Menon okay Achilles basically says I don't like you you're a dog I'm not going to fight for you again says I don't need you what Achilles did was he went to his mother who was a goddess and achilles said to thetus um his his mother could you please get the gods to help the Trojans so that eanon would have to come beg for my help again against the Trojans okay he was basically committing treason and in the Greek world you're allowed to do that because the most important thing is udonia to achieve yonia okay does that make sense it's a very weird world but in Athens it's extremely competitive where everyone's trying to backstab each other in order to become the hero and because of this because there so much competition Athens created a new system called OST ostracized okay so the idea here is because the Athenians were so at each other's throat if someone was breaking the rules or if someone was being too competitive in the pursuit of yonia the Athenian people could choose to ostracize this person and what this meant was you be banished okay banished or exiled from Athens for 10 years and this was considered even worse than death okay this punishment was worse than death the reason why is in the PO system the only people that matter were citizens okay and the Greek world was very chauvinistic or close which meant that you could not be you you could not earn the right to be a citizen you had to be born to become a citizen you understand you have to be born into into citizenship you cannot become a citizen for your own hard work and for your Merit okay does that make sense so in other words if you were banished from your polish you became a nobody you were basically dead to everyone because only citizens had rights in the Greek world if you were a slave or you were a foreigner you had absolutely no right you could not own land you could not even speak in public okay does that make sense all right um so Athens was a democracy where everyone had the right to speak and to vote okay but really when we talk about democracy in this world we're not saying that everyone could become president or everyone could become a leader really political power can only be held by people of um nobility okay so democracy democracy usually was a battle between different factions of the nobility usually between the upper nobility and then lower nobility okay and this is a lesson that's true throughout history okay so remember usually we think history societies um the conflict is between the halves and the half Nots right the poor and the rich all right halves versus half Nots what I would teach you in this class one important thing I would teach you in this class is this is not true okay if you look at history the conflicts in society are usually between the half a lot and have somewhat more does that make sense okay it's usually between the half a lot versus the half sum but I want more okay and throughout history we call these people different names so um in this Society these are basically the low nobility okay these are PE the nobility who have money but they want more okay and um in the French Revolution we will call them the petite B and today we call them the middle class okay does that make sense the poor people do not Rebel they might Riot but they do not Revolt It's usually the middle class or the lower nobility or the P petite B that re VT does that make sense all right so aens is a democracy and it's usually conflict between the upper nobility and the low low nobility um Sparta is anarchy okay which is basically means rule by the few and they hate democracy so so these systems these cultures Spartan aens are diametrically opposed to each other they hate each other uh they're always in conflict with each other okay does that make sense any questions so far about Spartan and Athens are you guys clear about this these two different cultures all right so this is about the year 500 BC um around this time the Greeks are colonizing uh the Mediterranean and the agan okay and this territory belongs to Persia the Persian Empire is considered one of the greatest Empires ever in human history we will do the Persian Empire uh later this semester okay but I want to focus on the Greeks for now all you need to know is the Persian Empire spread throughout most of the world including Egypt uh Mesopotamia um and what we call Iran today okay it was a huge huge Empire that was extremely enlightened for its age okay it was really considered um the best Empire at that time um and there were Greeks who lived in U Anatolia or what they call Asia Minor back then the thing about the Persian Empire is if you were a subject City you could do whatever you want but you have to pay taxes and these people did not like to pay taxes so they revolted and in their Revolt they went to Sparta and to Athens and S thought help okay they basically said look we're all Greeks uh we're being oppressed by the Persians could you please help us what did the Spartans say what was the Spartan response no because we don't care okay your problem not my problem what and what Did the Athenians say yeah sure let's achieve udonia man let's be Achilles let's go over and help them and maybe make a lot of money for ourselves okay so because of Persian Empire were so powerful they destroyed the Rebellion okay and in 490 BC uh the Persians decided to attack Greece to teach the Athenians a lesson and this was called the Battle of Marathon and in the Battle of Marathon um we actually don't know that much about it okay the sourcing is very limited but what they say okay is in the Battle of Marathon there about 10,000 Ians versus 25,000 Persians that's a huge Advantage for the Persians right well the Athenians destroyed the Persians okay the Athenians lost about 192 men the Persians lost about 5,000 it was a Slaughter and a lot of the reason why is in military tactics so the Persian Empire is huge okay lots of flat land and in this geography the your main advantage is Cavalry right horse archers that's what the PES were known for men on horses who would run around and shoot arrows at you okay the geography of Greece was different it was hilly so you didn't really use calry it was more mainly infantry fighting against each other and what the Greeks did over hundred hundreds of years was develop a new military tactic called HPP lights hopl lights so hoplight comes from the word hoplin hoplin is Greek for shield so these are men with large Shields and Spears okay the way they fought was using the phing formation phic and the innovation of the phic um Innovation was it was basically a wall okay so men would stand together and behind each other so that they made a wall and because have the shield and Spears it was a moving wall okay and the Persians didn't have armor so when men of armor went to battle with with men without armor usually armor wins okay so the Greeks the Athenians destroyed the Persians at the Battle of Marathon that made the Persians even more Angry okay so in about 480 BCE Persia organized a massive Invasion Force against Greece and this massive in invation force again um the numbers the data we can't confirm it but we think it's it's about half a million people half a million soldiers that's huge okay but not only that you had a huge navy and basically um Persia called on every nation of its Empire to fight against Greece which included Egypt okay which included the Phoenicians which also included Greeks who lived in the territory of Persia okay and these Greeks are called the ionian uh Greeks okay so was a massive Invasion force and Sparta and Athens became allies to resist the Persian Invasion but there were also some Greek Poes that sided with uh the Persians including uh thieves okay the macedonians to the north was also siding with the Persians so The Invasion came North from Macedonia down here and um you may have heard of the battle of thermop pil okay the thermop P um this was made famous by a movie called 300 I'm not sure have you seen the movie 300 okay but basically it was about 300 Spartans uh and about 5,000 other Greeks who tried to make a stand against the Persian Invasion and they got destroyed okay they so the Spartan so so the Persians came in and the Greeks decided okay you know what uh their numbers are so much bigger than ours let's Retreat okay back to Sparta and here at cor they decided to build a wall to stop the uh Persian events the problem though is Athens is here okay so the Persians came in and burned down Athens now what's important to understand is the Greeks have the the concept of aus it's not a place it's a community okay Aus is wherever the Greeks choose to be so what happened that's very interesting is even though the Athens came destroyed sorry even though Persia came to destroy Athens the Athenians just got into their ships okay they just boarded their ships because Athens is a naval power and they just are sailed away okay do you understand so Athens was not destroyed the city of Athens was destroyed but not the community the polus of Athens and so um but now the Greeks are in a lot of trouble okay because the what the Persians can now do is um basically take their ships and saell around and attack Sparta from behind this is a huge problem for Sparta because why what is Sparta's ultimate weakness why is it so easy easy to defeat Sparta in a war what's the problem do you guys remember what are what are the spers really afraid of the helots right okay the hots remember there's 10 hots for everyone Spartan and the hots hate the Spartans because the Spartans are terrorizing have terrorized them for centuries so all that person has to do now okay very easy is take their ships land and Sparta and build forts defenses and the HS would run into run to them then the king K King xeres of Persia says I the benedic King of Persia declare the H to be free people now now you have a revolution okay the helots now are now armed by the Persians and then guess what the Persians are going to the hels are going to go kill the Spartans game over okay you understand the war is over that's all the pers have to do take their ships sell around to the coast of Sparta build forts and defenses so the hel can run to them give the helot weapons and then let the hots run loose against the Spartans and the war is over Greece is forever destroyed okay you understand very simple right the Persians did not do that okay the Persian king King Xerxes had a war council and there were a lot of gen generals who who said to King Xerxes King we've won the war okay we're over Greece we have half Milli men in Greece there's nothing the Greeks can do about this okay so the pers were feeling very confident and the Greeks uh the Greek navy was on an island called salamis okay salamis and everyone was freaking out okay and what the Spartans wanted to do was say let's take go Navy and defend the coastline of Sparta because we know the persons are going to invade Sparta at some point they're going to land their ships on Sparta let's s our Navy and defend um Sparta there's one Athan General okay his name is f f f and he said you know what that's great for you guys okay but remember our city Athens has been destroyed we need to take on the Persians head on we can't wait and the Spartans are like yeah that's fine but they outnumber us three to one they have three more ships they have three ships for every one ship we have there's no way we can beat them in a naval battle and F he says we either fight the Persians now and Achieve udonia or we Athens we'll be like screw you Spartans we're going to go take our ships and sell off West to Sicily or Africa who cares okay but we're going to go away and we're going to leave the Persians to kill you guys okay so spart saying that we have a choice but to listen to Athenians and fight then what from mexic did was he sent a spy to King Xerxes and King Xerxes was having this war council about what to do and most of his generals were like my great king we've won the war let's just take our ships and attack spart and the war is over okay then a spy set by fames says to king xeres oh great king the entire Greek navy is stuck in salamis but they're but they want they want to run away now should chance to attack them and destroy the Greek navy once and for all okay and at this point King xeres made the decision to send his entire Navy okay to destroy the greatek Navy at salamis and his generals were like don't do that man that's a risk you don't have to take why do that why take the Greeks on why why F fight the Greeks um head on when we can just star them out and King said no I I came to defeat the Greeks okay I'm the great king I want to defeat the bamus and build a monument to celebrate my great victory over the Greeks my father King Darius set an Army in 490 BC and the Athenians killed or destroyed his army at Marathon I'm going to prove I'm a greater King than my father by defeating the Greeks at salamis okay I don't want this war of attrition the L War I want one great battle so that history will remember me forever okay so he sends his entire force about a thousand ships to salamis and salamis it's it's a straight okay it's very narrow so the ships have to line up and attack the Greeks one by one okay and and Salam Miss and a headlong battle okay the Greek ships were heavier and the Greek ships were maned by pooplets with armor and in this Battle of Salamis the Greeks destroyed the Persian navy okay do you understand the persan Army had won the war and as salamis they lost the war okay now the problem is when now that the Virgin Navy has been destroyed supply lines are in trouble okay you understand because Greek is Greece is very poor Greece is a very poor Nation you cannot resupply yourself in Greece how do you feel what half half million people well you need to bring in supplies from Persia but now your Navy has been destroyed so now King Xerxes freaks out and he goes home he's like you know what I burn down Athens that's good enough for me okay and he leaves his cousin General Mardis to fight the um Greeks okay and at this point mardones could have chosen to not fight the Greeks right because because Athens has been destroyed and Sparta is still under threat so all mardones had to do was he was in thieves okay he was in thieves all he had to do was stay in thieves and wait out the war okay this is what we call a war of attrition where you wait out the other enemy because the other enemy has basically less resources than you okay does that make sense again really easy for the person to win but um madonas chose to fight the Greeks at the Battle of ptia and here it was about equal forces 100,000 Greeks versus 100,000 Persians and the Greeks destroyed the Persians the Persians lost five times more men than the uh Greeks okay and King uh General Mardon was killed in this battle so this war that the Persians should have won very easily the Persians uh lost and were completely destroyed okay does that make sense okay any questions so far about the Persian Invasion okay and because of this war Greece now became extremely wealthy the reason why is Persia is forced to retreat from Asia Minor and the Greeks were able to capture a lot of treasure okay now um after this Persia switches strategies okay Persia never again invades Greece because they think this is stupid to invade Greece okay but the Greeks don't know this the Greeks think okay the Persians will come back at any point okay so the Athenians say let's take the battle to Persia and what do the Spartans say say no we're going to go home and that's it okay so to to battle against the Persians theth create something called The daan League the Delan league is a defensive alliance between Athens and these colonies and islands in the agian the idea is if the Persians come back we will Master forces and fight the Persians at Sea the problem is that only Athens had a Navy everyone else we have a Navy so everyone else is like we don't have a Navy but we'll contribute money okay and they agreed that this money this treasury would be could be only be used against Persia if Persia invades okay so they put all this money on a place called delos okay an island called delos that's why it's called the Delan league right does that make sense so basically Athens would put up a navy and everyone else would put up money and this money um this treasury of the dlan league can only be used in a war against Persia okay does that make sense okay so while this is happening Athens is the rising power in this world and in 461 BCE a new political leader called per comes into power and as you should know from your research paricles is considered um the father of Athenian democracy he is the one who spreads democracy throughout Athens and historians today worship U Pericles okay Pericles is considered one of the greatest leaders ever in Western in Western history okay um I'll talk more about Pericles and democracy in future classes okay but I want to show you that Pericles was first and foremost a politician who was concerned about amassing and keeping power does that make sense so he did a lot of Wonder wonderful things for uh Athens but I want to show you these things that he did even though they seemed great they really were about him amassing power for himself okay so um the first thing he did was he spread democracy to everyone okay he basically gave every citizen the right to vote and you're like okay that's great direct democracy Athens creates democracy this is great right but the reason why he did that was to change the balance of power in Athens so he basically represent the lower nobility versus the upper nobility right usually upper nobility has more power because it has more money okay it has more Prestige so the way for the lower nobility to defeat the no the upper nobility is by aligning itself with the people okay doesn't make sense you do that by giving people the right to vote and so by doing this Pericles basically made himself king of Athens does that make sense in fact he stayed in power from 461 to 429 okay doesn't make sense all right and to please the people even more he basically made corruption official what he did that was very important was he basically took the money from delos and brought it to Athens basically perally said to the Delan League you know what this money in delos it's a lot of money I'm afraid that the person come and steal it so let's take it to Athens okay when he brought to Athens the next thing he did was he spent all of it okay he built a lot of really impressive buildings including something called the parnon um the paron is this Great temple to Athena which is a patron goddess of Athens they made uh the Athenian statue out of gold okay they spent B millions and billions of dollars on this Temple the reason why is when you do that right you give people jobs and you give uh people who support you money okay so this is basically official corruption now there are people in the upper nobility who thought what Peres was doing was terrible for Athens and basically uh in meetings they want to ostracize Pericles right they want to they they accuse paricles of Corruption of basically bribing the city of Athens and they said you are corrupting our morals okay you are hurting our democracy therefore we want to ostracize you and there was this vote against Pericles and what happens you guys know the people voted to Exile Pericles opponents okay those who criticized Pericles were now exiled from a therefore Peres no longer has any political opponents and per can do whatever he wants and so the two big Innovations of Pericles is democracy okay right let's give people the right to vote and let's give people more money okay but also Empire the reason why is after Perle basically stole the money from the daan league the allly we're obviously angry right you store money so we are out of this league empirically said well if you leave our league we're going to come and invade you so Athens start this expansionist campaign in order to maintain its Empire so the Dalian League basically became the Athenian Empire and now Athens got basically 20% of its revenue from its allies okay doesn't make sense so that's that's what Pericles was doing he was promoting democracy in order to make sure people voted for him he was Pro promoting Empire in order to maintain the easy money flow into Athens Empire is important because remember um Athens has a culture of udonia so Empire makes the rich extremely wealthy you understand Empire makes everyone rich but it makes the wealthy even more so and so the lower nobility okay the lower nobility became very jealous and so the way to we resolve this issue is the low nobility could choose to uh invade other places okay and if they win they could make a lot of money money for themselves so one place they chose to invade was um Egypt but that failed okay so throughout this time you had a lot of Athenian Expeditions throughout the world in in looking to conquer a new territory and sometimes they succeeded but some but a lot of times they failed as well okay does that make sense all right so as Athens is expanding and becoming much wealthier other Greek uh colonies other Greek polies start to get angry at Athens okay an Athens is basically the big bully they were afraid of Persia before but Persia didn't really bother the Greeks whereas Athens um was a big bully they wanted to control all of Greece okay they basically were a mafia organization that um was forcing these islands in the agen C to pay tribute to Athens they were trying to take more more territory from other Greek Poes so in 431 the Greek puses United around Sparta and start started something called the P pelian War okay and historic what most historians will tell you is this war was started because Sparta was afraid of an emerging Athens okay Sparta was the hedgemon sparta was was most dominant power uh in Greece at that time and now that Athens was Rising Sparta felt threatened by Athens and therefore declared war on Athens um that's not true okay that's not the reason the reason why is because Athens was an Empire and they was going around and bullying everyone and so you didn't have a choice in the matter you got either fight Athens now or wait for Athens to invade you okay so it was because Athens was a imperial power and so other nations had to other Greek poets had no choice but to stand against um Athens okay and Athens was an imperial power because of its theory of udonia okay so the Great irony here and you will see this pattern um repeat itself throughout history is the thing the culture that allows a nation to rise okay in this yonia will also cause it to decline does it make sense okay because it's because of the pelian war which lasts from about 431 BC to 404 BCE 27 years that Athens loses its Empire okay so the culture udonia that causes Athens to rise will ultimately lead to its decline as well all right so are you guys clear so far please let me know if this is clear to you if you have any questions before before I continue okay so even though Sparta and Athens are now at war with each other um this war again should have been pretty easy won by Athens why what can Athens do D do to destroy Sparta do you guys know what can Athens do really easy they destroy Sparta helot right the Athenians have ships they can choose to do what the Persians should have done but they they didn't do which is to basically take its Navy land its Navy on the coast and support the hellot in a rebellion okay if that would have happened Sparta would have been destroyed very quickly The Atheist didn't do that right do you understand theth didn't do that now Sparta to counter this threat against Athens what should it have done to counter this threat against um from um Athens exactly thank you okay its only option in this scenario is to fre the hots and say the hots if you fight for us against Athenians we will give you your Liberty okay and the helot would have been yeah let's go fight for the for for for the Spartans okay so Sparta would have increased his army 10 times and it could have destroyed Athens Sparta didn't do this either okay you understand so from a military strategy perspective the way the pelian war didn't make any sense the only way to understand what happened is to understand that the very basis of conflict in society is between the upper nobility and the lower nobility okay do you understand the upper nobility is only interested in maintaining the status quo they're very conservative they don't like Wars because you could lose Wars and also because if you win Wars you have people who are now richer than you are okay do you understand so nobility is very conservative in both Athens and Sparta the L nobility can only become upper nobility through war or revolution okay so they're always looking to upset the status quo so even though this war is going on internally there's still conflict between the upper nobility and the lower nobility okay and that's why you look at the palpan war a lot of the military strategy doesn't make any sense because Sparta isn't really trying to win a war against Athens Sparta is trying to maintain the status quo in Sparta okay Athens is not really trying to win a war against Sparta Athens is trying to main maintain the status quo within Athens all right an example is Pericles the war starts in 431 BC and a lot of people are saying Pericles hey let's go invade Sparta and what pericle says instead is oh no no no the Spartans are the greatest warriors in the world we have no chance against Sparta so what we'll do is we have these walls okay we have these walls we'll we'll hide behind our walls and let our Navy protect us in the sea okay that was the defensive strategy of paricles and so what the spars could do was they could come to Atta and destroy all the farmland and the Athenians could only watch as the Spartans destroy the Farmland this was this was a disaster for the Athenians because if you think about it over time the Spartans could starve out the Athenians right the other problem is you have too many people in one place what happens you have too many people living in in a city what happens usually disease right disease so because of the over population in Athens they had the plague which killed onethird of the Athenian population okay you understand onethird of the Athenian population if the Athenians went to war against Sparta um and they lost they would have at Lo at most lost about 10% of of the population okay but because they chose not to fight and hide behind the walls not only did they lose their Farmland but they lost a third of their population including Pericles who died because of the plague Pericles died as well as his two sons okay doesn't make sense right so again the strategy makes no sense if you think of from a military perspective it only makes sense if you understand there's a internal conflict in Athens between the upper nobility and the low lower nobility ility okay Peres represents the upper nobility he wants to maintain the status quo there's a war going on but he doesn't really want to fight this war okay he just he just wants to wait it out because he does not want to change the status quo does that make sense so after um Pericles dies the low nobility become ascendant okay and because of this war they proposed an aggressive strategy against the Spartans okay basically it's like let's go attack um the Spartans and caused a revolution in Sparta okay and this was the um this was proposed by Cleon who after um Pericles died became uh basically the de facto leader of Athens and he was considered a demagogue okay if you look at the history um everyone says bad things about this guy okay but really what he is he's l nobility who's trying to achieve udonia okay and he's basically like f pleas okay all right and he's a great military strategist as well so Cleon proposes this aggressive strategy against Sparta and guess what happens Athens is now destroying Sparta okay now Sparta is under under a lot of pressure it's losing the war so now what sp sp um what spart does is it picks a new general brassus and says to brassus listen we're losing a war what can we do so bradus um goes north and he starts to win these victories against Athens and his policy is this listen um we need to change our social structure in order to win against Athens so so what he does is he tell the hot if you fight for me I'm gonna give you your freedom and so so a lot of Hots fight for bradus and brassus wins a lot of wars and this is and and how how do the Spartans feel about this brasses who's a Spartan is now winning wars against Athens and so how do the Spartans feel about this are they happy about this no they're really unhappy about this okay because it's changing their social structure you understand they don't want this crap they want the hots to be slaves they don't want the hots to be free citizens who helps them win Wars okay so what ultimately happens is even though Cleon and bradus have both prop both strategies that allow Athens and Spar to win the war ultimately what happens is Cleon and brassus get into a battle with each other and they both died in this battle that's extremely convenient guys okay that's really really convenient so I'd be very surprised if they actually did both die in battle my guess is what happened is they were both assassinated during the battle against each other does that make sense because ultimately um both were the bigger threats to the social structure of Spartan and Athens than losing the war itself does that make sense guys okay any questions so far okay doesn't make sense okay okay so um now so this war keeps on going and then what happens is the Persia gets involved and gives Sparta a Navy basically Persia gives Sparta a blank check and because Sparta is so conservative and insular it doesn't really know how to um how a Navy okay it doesn't know how to fight with a navy in fact Sparta is militarily like in terms of strategy it's actually very weak okay if it's like Spartan Soldiers by themselves are very strong but in terms of like overall milit military strategy Sparta because it's so conserva insular it's very weak against it's very weak compared with Athens but Persia has a lot of money and Persia is bankrolling Sparta okay and eventually Persia says to Sparta hey guys what are you try a new strategy the strategy is this if a general is winning against the Athenians promote the guy okay and you're like okay well that makes total sense the Spartans didn't do that okay the Spartans were not concerned about winning the war they were concerned about maintaining their social order do you understand there's a social hierarchy in Sparta that's what's important not with in the war and then there was this Spartan Commander L sander and he was really the only Spartan who knew how to win Naval battles the problem with lender was he was a half citizen which meant that his his his father was a Spartan but not the mother you understand only if both your parents are citizens are you allowed to be a citizen so lend was really looked up looked down upon in Sparta but he could win Naval battles so he wasn't promoted the Persians said to the spans listen this is stupid okay lenter is a great Commander you have to promote him the spans didn't really have a choice in the matter and so lender after he was promoted single-handedly won the war against Athens he laid SI to Athens in 404 BCE and then um Athens had no choice but to surrender because they were out of food okay does that make sense now for 27 for 27 years Sparta and Athens were at war with each other they were killing each other now Athens had finally been defeated so what do you think should should happen now what should be what should happen to Athens now okay the answer is nothing happened to Athens okay usually if you lose the war in this world what happens is they come and kill all the men and enslave all the woman and that's what the Persians wanted okay that's what that's what the other Greek cities wanted to happen to Athens the Spartans didn't do anything to Athens they left Athens alone okay and there are many different explanations for this one explanation is Sparta wanted to maintain a balance of power in the Greek World okay if they destroyed Athens then Persia could come back and Destroy Sparta okay um um but another explanation is well guess what guys the upper nobility of Sparta and the upper nobility of Athens they're good friends with each other okay do you understand rich people tend to marry each other they T to be good friends of each other okay so Athens and Sparta weren't really enemies do you understand they to fight this war because of the internal pressures from the no l low nobility but because this war is killing off so much low so much lower nobility it maintain a status quo does that make sense all right you guys understand so far any questions all right so I'm going to conclude with evidence for this Theory okay so uh what what I just said like war is really about um killing off internal descent not really about beating another enemy that's very controversial okay so I will give you some evidence for this Theory and it's called rat Utopia so in in the 19 um 60s and 70s there was an American researcher American scientist his name is James B kahun okay and he was interested in the question what would it be like for humans to live in a world of abundance what would it mean for humans to live in a world where everything was perfect where you didn't have to fight for food where food was just given to you okay a Utopia what what would it be like well he couldn't really experiment on humans so he decided to experiment on rats instead okay so he built this universe okay basically this big house and food was plentiful for rats the food the water was plentiful for rats so rats can just play all day okay now I'm not sure if you know about anything about rats but the thing about animals and this is a very important idea is that animals live in a heavily ritualized and rules based World it doesn't make sense guys we think of animals as chaotic no no no if you actually study their societies ants monkeys rats they live in an extremely rule based heavily ritualized World okay so let me let me give you an example of this so uh rats when they meet with each other what happens is this um a female rat is interested in having sex okay so she's going out and then and then a male rat spots this he sees the female rat in heat so what he does is he gets on a he gets on a mount okay where she can see him and he starts to dance okay he starts to dance and the female rat becomes interested and he sees she's interested so he comes down and they start chasing each other okay they're having fun together and and then what she does is she runs home and hides her hides herself in her burel the M rat just stands outside and waits for her to come out after some time she comes up and they run again run together again and then she runs back again they do this many many times until finally she lets him catch him and then they have sex okay and then and then after they have sex they have children and they start a family together okay does that make sense okay that's how rats usually behave when they they often like to play with each other and they fight but it's very playful okay so there's lots of rules there's lots of rituals in this rat Society but that's out in nature in the world of James B Hoon he creates rat Utopia okay where everyone has enough to eat and at some point the society breaks down okay these these rituals these rules all break down what happens is male rats when they start fighting each other they become very violent they're no they're no longer playing they're actually trying to kill each other and some actually die okay and this like mating ritual it breaks down so the male rats don't even try to dance okay they're not dancing they just see a a female and they rape her okay and it's like gang rape it's not one male it's like lots of males raping her these gangs of rats they try to break into burls homes and try to rape the wife okay the mother and at first the husband is fighting off these other rats right but eventually what happens is he gets tired and he just runs away okay he just AB bands the family now the female rat is responsible for fighting off now the other rats but she becomes so traumatized she starts to beat everyone up including her own children so she kicks her children out of the house it is a complete social breakdown and after a few more months of this crap the entire colony of rats dies the entire Society collapses does that make sense all right this so this is what we call Utopia it's been done many times and each time they do this this happens at some point the society will collapse okay and this makes no sense to us everyone has enough food to eat everyone should be happy okay why does why does society collapse okay so there are different explanations for this um James boun his argument is if there's too much food there's overpopulation there's over overpopulation then that creates conflict then the conflict causes the rules to collapse okay the problem though with this theory is the colony never became overpopulated okay there was space for everyone but at some point everyone started to fight each other all right so this is my theory and this and this goes back to the P pelian War it has to do with the idea of status so if in a world of abundance in a world of wealth who benefits the most it's the elderly old people okay old people can live a lot longer in a society that is wealthy and abundant an abundant okay doesn't make sense okay but then what happens is the status becomes locked in which prevents younger rats younger people from ascending into power and Status does that make sense okay so the idea is the metaphor is these rats are online okay I'm I'm waiting for to climb the mountain okay this is the mountain top you're waiting and waiting to climb the mountain and evence moving along it's slow but you're still moving along okay and eventually you will reach the mountain top which is where you want to be but let just say for whatever reason the line stops moving okay everyone's stuck in place well then you get very anxious you get very stressed out you get very agitated you're like when is it my turn and it's never going to come because the people at the top won't leave okay so what do you do well you start kicking the people behind you right you start fighting with with with with with each other you understand that's this is what we call rat Utopia in a world of abundance in a world of extreme wealth old people do not die if they do not die it is impossible for young people to ascend into power and status and so they have all these energies and because they cannot reach their potential they become violent and start attacking each other okay so that's R Utopia that's what rats do but if you look at the P War and what happened between Athens and Sparta it's really no different okay it's really no different they were killing each other for no reason extreme violence which led to nothing okay 431 BCE the political world was no different from 404 BC the only difference is a lot of young people died okay and Wars against each other so that's my argument to you if societies become too wealthy you have a problem of rat Utopia okay if rat Utopia societies will then engage in wars that will lead eventually to its collapse that's what happened to Athens does that make sense guys all right any questions about thises does it make sense to you guys all right any questions yeah okay so um the question is in the r Utopia why do the mothers want to start attacking the kids okay um okay so this is actually a complicated question the answer is this humans are different from rats okay so humans have the ability to reason and to uh adapt to new circumstances okay does that make sense rats don't these there are these rules in place okay and if these rules are broken then the rats don't know how to adapt so if you're a rat mother you have a husband okay your understanding is the husband will protect you from strangers okay your also your understanding is if some is if someone is violent towards you you to be violent against that person okay so in a situation where the husband leaves the husband runs away or or his dead the mother does not understand this New Order anymore so the mother becomes the word we use is traumatized if you're traumatized you can no longer reason okay you're so focused on protecting yourself you attack everything and everyone including your own children does that make sense yeah this is experiment because obviously this would not happen in real life okay there's no way the rats get free food in real life so they have this experiment where the experimenters gave the rats free food every day and this is what happened no no so the experiment is the rats were left by themselves okay the rats could do whatever they wanted the only thing the expers did was feed them every day okay if you do that if there's abundance and there's wealth there then you have complete social collapse okay um okay okay all right so okay all you need to understand is this okay the entire Society collapses okay how it collapses can be different from family to family but the entire cyclopsis everyone dies at the end okay do you understand okay okay any more questions any more questions so I I know this is a lot to take in okay this is very confusing and this is very hard uh but it's okay just ask any questions or points where you want me to clarify okay so next class we will do Greek Theater and then after that we'll do Greek philosophy which includes Playdoh um socres aoso okay