Midterm Review
Examples of Identification Passages
Passage 1
And, first of all, the Athenians being accustomed to divide amongst themselves the revenue proceeding from the silver mines at Laurium, he was the only man that dared propose to the people that this distribution should cease, and that with the money ships should be built to make war against the Aeginetans, who were the most flourishing people in all Greece, and by the number of their ships held the sovereignty of the sea; and [he] thus was more easily able to persuade them, avoiding all mention of danger from Darius or the Persians, who were at a great distance, and their coming very uncertain, and at that time not much to be feared; but, by a seasonable employment of the emulation and anger felt by the Athenians against the Aeginetans, he induced them to preparation. So that with this money a hundred ships were built, with which they afterwards fought against Xerxes. And, henceforward, little by little, turning and drawing the city down towards the sea, in the belief, that, whereas by land they were not a fit match for their next neighbors, with their ships they might be able to repel the Persians and command Greece, thus, as Plato says, from steady soldiers he turned them into mariners and seamen tossed about the sea, and gave occasion for the reproach against him, that he took away from the Athenians the spear and the shield, and bound them to the bench and the oar. These measures he carried in the assembly, against the opposition, as Stesimbrotus relates, of Miltiades; and whether or no he hereby injured the purity and true balance of government, may be a question for philosophers, but that the deliverance of Greece came at that time from the sea, and that these galleys restored Athens again after it was destroyed, were others wanting, Xerxes himself would be sufficient evidence, who, though his land-forces were still entire, after his defeat at sea, fled away, and thought himself no longer able to encounter the Greeks; and, as it seems to me, left Mardonius behind him, not out of any hopes he could have to bring them into subjection, but to hinder them from pursuing him.
Answer:
This passage is from Plutarch’s Life of Themistocles. (1 mark)
The event being described is the use of the Athenian silver from Larium to build a fleet of ships to defend Athens from Persian attack (2 marks)
The relevance of this passage relates to:
(1) the Second Persian War where Xerxes launched an attack on Greece.
(2) Prior to the Xerxes arrival, the Athenians sent a delegation to Delphi to ascertain what their defense should be and the oracle foretold that “the wooden walls” would save Athens. Themistocles interpreted this as a fleet of ships.
(3) Themistocles, who was a dominant political figure in Athens, was able to convince the Athenians that this was the best alternative using his oratory and playing on their fears and anger.
(4) The strategy that the Athenians adopted was to abandon the city of Athens and sail to the island of Salamis to protect the citizenry.
(5) When the Persians arrived they burned down the city of Athens, but their navy was ultimately defeated in 480 BC in the bay between the city and the island of Salamis where the superior fleet of the Persians was limited in mobility. (5 marks)
Midterm Review
Examples of Identification Passages
Passage 2
At the first, as has been said, when he set himself against Cimon's great authority, he did caress the people. Finding himself come short of his competitor in wealth and money, by which advantages the other was enabled to take care of the poor, inviting every day some one or other of the citizens that was in want to supper, and bestowing clothes on the aged people, and breaking down the hedges and enclosures of his grounds, that all that would might freely gather what fruit they pleased, [he], thus outdone in popular arts, by the advice of one Damonides of Oea, as Aristotle states, turned to the distribution of the public moneys; and in a short time having bought the people over, what with moneys allowed for shows and for service on juries, and what with other forms of pay and largess, he made use of them against the council of Areopagus, of which he himself was no member, as having never been appointed by lot either chief archon, or lawgiver, or king, or captain. For from of old these offices were conferred on persons by lot, and they who had acquitted themselves duly in the discharge of them were advanced to the court of Areopagus. And so [he], having secured his power and interest with the populace, directed the exertions of his party against this council with such success, that most of those causes and matters which had been used to be tried there, were, by the agency of Ephialtes, removed from its cognizance, Cimon, also, was banished by ostracism as a favorer of the Lacedaemonians and a hater of the people, though in wealth and noble birth he was among the first, and had won several most glorious victories over the barbarians, and had filled the city with money and spoils of war; as is recorded in the history of his life. So vast an authority had [he] obtained among the people.
Answer:
This passage is from Plutarch’s Life of Pericles. (1mark)
The event being described is the conflict between Pericles and Cimon for political dominance in the city of Athens. (2 marks)
The relevance of the passage relates to:
(1) the methods used by Pericles to secure his power in Athens. He used his own money and public funds to bribe the citizenry, so that they would support him rather than Cimon.
(2) His biggest issue with Cimon stemmed from the fact that Cimon supported Sparta, while Pericles did not.
(3) Pericles felt that Athens continued success would come from even greater trade and their biggest competition was the city of Corinth. Whereas Cimon felt that Sparta was most needed to protect Athens should the Persians return.
(4) Pericles used the Delian fleet to protect his trade routes and force those states which tried to secede from the League to stay.
(5) He used the treasury of the Delian League to beautify Athens and build the Long Walls to protect Athens from land attack.
(5) Once he had successfully ostracized Cimon, he was the single, dominant political force in Athens and eventually fomented war with Sparta (the Peloponnesian War). (5 marks)Midterm Review
Examples of Identification Passages
Passage 3
Amongst the many changes and alterations which [he] made, the first and of greatest importance was the establishment of the senate, which, having a power equal to the kings' in matters of great consequence, and, as Plato expresses it, allaying and qualifying the fiery genius of the royal office, gave steadiness and safety to the commonwealth. For the state, which before had no firm basis to stand upon, but leaned one while towards an absolute monarchy, when the kings had the upper hand, and another while towards a pure democracy, when the people had the better, found in this establishment of the senate a central weight, like ballast in a ship, which always kept things in a just equilibrium; the twenty-eight always adhering to the kings so far as to resist democracy, and, on the other hand, supporting the people against the establishment of absolute monarchy. As for the determinate number of twenty-eight, Aristotle states, that it so fell out because two of the original associates, for want of courage, fell off from the enterprise; but Sphaerus assures us that there were but twenty-eight of the confederates at first; perhaps there is some mystery in the number, which consists of seven multiplied by four, and is the first of perfect numbers after six, being, as that is, equal to all its parts. For my part, I believe [he] fixed upon the number of twenty-eight, that, the two kings being reckoned amongst them, they might be thirty in all. [6] So eagerly set was he upon this establishment, that he took the trouble to obtain an oracle about it from Delphi, the Rhetra, which runs thus: "After that you have built a temple to Jupiter Hellanius, and to Minerva Hellania, and after that you have phyle'd the people phyles, and obe'd them into obes, you shall establish a council of thirty elders, the leaders included, and shall, from time to time, apellazein the people betwixt Babyca and Cnacion, there propound and put to the vote. The commons have the final voice and decision. " By phyles and obes are meant the divisions of the people; by the leaders, the two kings; apellazein, referring to the Pythian Apollo, signifies to assemble; Babyca and Cnacion they now call Oenus; Aristotle says Cnacion is a river, and Babyca a bridge. Betwixt this Babyca and Cnacion, their assemblies were held, for they had no council-house or building, to meet in. [He] was of opinion that ornaments were so far from advantaging them in their counsels, that they were rather an hindrance, by diverting their attention from the business before them to statues and pictures, and roofs curiously fretted, the usual embellishments of such places amongst the other Greeks. The people then being thus assembled in the open air, it was not allowed to any one of their order to give his advice, but only either to ratify or reject what should be propounded to them by the king or senate. But because it fell out afterwards that the people, by adding or omitting words, distorted and perverted the sense of propositions, kings Polydorus and Theopompus inserted into the Rhetra, or grand covenant, the following clause: "That if the people decide crookedly, it should be lawful for the elders and leaders to dissolve;" that is to say, refuse ratification, and dismiss the people as depravers and perverters of their counsel. It passed among the people, by their management, as being equally authentic with the rest of the Rhetra, as appears by these verses of Tyrtaeus,–
These oracles they from Apollo heard,
And brought from Pytho home the perfect word:
The heaven-appointed kings, who love the land,
Shall foremost in the nation's council stand;
The elders next to them; the commons last;
Let a straight Rhetra among all be passed.
Answer:
This passage is from Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus. (1mark)
The event being described is the beginning of Lycurgus’s Great Rhetra, the constitution of Sparta, and the establishment of the two new branches of Spartan government; the gerousia (the Spartan senate) and the Apella (the Spartan legislature). (2 marks)
The relevance of the passage relates to:
(1) Lycurgus’s reforms of Sparta from a common monarchy into a military-centred constitution.
(2) Lycurgus was guardian of his nephew Charilaus, the infant king of Sparta, who was recalled from his self-imposed exile to reform Spartan society.
(3) Besides his reforms of government, Lycurgus was credited with the establishment of the agoge, a military regiment for all the male children of the Spartans.
(4) The purpose of this practice was to protect Sparta from the inevitable revolt of their slaves (the helots).
(5) When his reforms were completed, he assembled the populace of Sparta and had them swear an oath not to change his reforms until his return, at which point he made a pilgrimage to Delphi, from which he never returned. (5 marks)