so the entire story that leads us to Plato actually starts in Lydia now to you and me that would be Turkey but in ancient Greece Lydia was the place across the Aegean sea where most of the food came from Lydia was the breadbasket of Greece a major farming location and a place that shipped large amounts of food across the Aegean Sea it was an important economic and and food-based ally now one of the area's highly reliant upon Lydia was Athens if you look on the map you'll see that Athens located of Clare on the eastern side of the peninsula Greece would have been one of the major receiving ports for Lydia's food and grain supplies the problem happens of course is that when Lydia the major food supplier is conquered by the Persian Empire trouble comes to a degree at least for Greece as part of their food supply is no longer available the let me try that again the Persians come in and conquer Lydia and they put in a petty dictator they call him basically he's a puppet leader his name is Aristagoras he is appointed by the Persians mostly because well to put it indelicately he's a bit of a suck-up he tells the Persians what they want to see he tells them exactly that he'll serve faithfully he'll do what they want him to he'll send them all of the food and tribute that they need all he needs is to be put in charge now Aristagoras is actually working both angles here he wants to become the actual king of an independent Lydia and if that means sucking up to the Persians until he gets the opportunity he's more than willing to do it so after the Persians head back to conquer another area Aristagoras waves farewell faithfully to the Persians and as soon as they're gone he immediately decides he's going to start a rebellion he's going to overthrow the Persian government and he's going to introduce themselves himself as the hero of Lydia he immediately goes looking for allies because he knows he needs allies in order to get rid of the remaining Persian troops the Persians system that they have implemented in Lydia even though he is their puppet dictator he can't just get rid of all of the things he's agreed to without a little bit help he immediately goes to what he views as the strongest military ally he can find that would be oh yeah it's Sparta now there's no leather hot pants it's not like the movie but Sparta is a remarkable military power now later on the people of Athens are going to want to make it sound like Sparta is a dumb place where you know the Spartans are just full of dumb jocks that is so not true Sparta is an area a city-state in Greece which is actually quite intelligent quite innovative in a lot of ways for example I mean Sparta actually has two kings and the two of them often have different views different political points of view and the two of them balance each other out preventing anyone from ever becoming a dangerous dictator Sparta is completely focused on military which is why Aristagoras is so interested in getting Sparta on his side boys go into military training when they're extremely young they spend their entire lives until their 30s living in military barracks focused on military activities they don't even have homes or a formal family that they live with until that point of their lives there are also remarkable warriors who specialized in combat using a heavy shield and a spear unlike the movie the Spartans actually use an extremely strong heavy armor which makes them less mobile they can't move around in march long distances in it because the armor is simply too heavy however on the other hand it means that they are immobile they're very hard to move when they line up with that heavy armor and the shields they are extremely extremely difficult to get through now Aristagoras shows up in Sparta and asks for their help in getting rid of the Persians who have horribly taken over his country and he's helpless now the Spartans say no we don't know why the excuse the Spartans give is that they've got a religious festival going and they can't take off and go help him in Lydia because they have to take care of things at home in Sparta now historically we have no evidence a religious festival at the time when Aristagoras arrives so it is possible that the Spartans just see this whole thing as a bunch of junk and they refuse to go because they know Aristagoras is playing them regardless the Spartans turn Aristagoras down so Aristagoras goes to option number two option number two would be the Athenians they're not as powerful military but they are intelligence and they're easily susceptible to flattery so Aristagoras goes to Athens he flatters them he tells them that he knows that they're inspired by Athena the goddess of strategy he tells them that they are just so wise and so capable and he desperately needs their help and shearing off the Athenians agree to help him they send twenty ships over to Lydia they take the Lydian capital and the revolt against the Persians really starts the Persian government is overthrown and Lydia is liberated the Athenians then lose interest they've done what they set out to do they feel they've done the wise thing they've liberated the city and they head back home now the ultimate fallout the reason any of that matters is that essentially by attacking Lydia the Athenians have just put themselves on the map for the Persians the Persians I'm sure we're aware of them before this but the Persians weren't really considering them a threat or a power in general you don't want the Persians to notice you you don't want the Persians to consider you a threat or anything else the Persian take up a very large area of the world see map they own the two major food growing areas Turkey and Egypt they rule over a massive Empire which is from the few sources we have and unfortunately we do not have a lot of sources on Persia from the few sources we have Persian culture is extremely elegant extremely advanced it is well-organized with a lot of bureaucracy around a powerful ruling family they rule over a variety of different cultures all subsidiary to the central emperor of Persia when the Athenians come in and helped to liberate Lidia they draw the attention of the Persians the Persians promptly proceeded to come right back to Lydia and restore control under King Darius the first and basically the Persians are interested their curiosity is piqued who exactly are these Greeks these Athenians who came in and kicked them out of their newly conquered territory Persian pride we believe was bruised and they were interested so the Persians proceeded to launch an attack on assets now the Persians have a secret weapon here the Persians have a guy on their side named Hippias that guy remember Hippias was the dictator of Athens who got chased to the top of the Acropolis and Cleomenes and his revolutionaries threw him out of town and set up a democracy well Hippias promptly proceeded to go over to Persia and make friends with the Persian king as an advisor he's willing to tell the Persian game everything about Athens about its defenses about its walls about its military about its government in exchange for the help and friendship of the Persian King the Persian king is pretty darn sure he's got Athens sewn up they're tiny and he knows everything about them when he arrives however it turns out that the Greeks also have a secret weapon the Greeks the Athenians have a guy on their site named Miltiades Miltiades actually is a Persian general who had ticked off the Persian King Darius and King Darius threatened to kill Miltiades so Miltiades is left and he went over to the Athenians and said hey guys I'll tell you everything about the Persians their strategy their King their government if you let me help you guys out and keep me safe so basically both the Persians and the Athenians have a guy on their side who knows the other side and they're both helping out opposing sides now for the Greeks one of the advantages one of the things Miltiades tells them is that the Persians are powerful and unstoppable they consider themselves almost invincible they land their troops usually by boat and they simply steamroll they simply go forward and no one can resist them now the Athenians specialized in strategy Athena the goddess of wisdom and strategy is their patron goddess so the Athenians say okay okay Persians come straight on Persians are Steamroller we can handle that and the Athenians come up with a strategy they decide to meet the Greeks that or the Persians rather at a particular landing point called Marathon and they have this plan to take those Persians on the Greeks know that they're extremely outnumbered now numbers in ancient history are really questionable because the winners tend to exaggerate how many numbers they have the the their enemies have because then when they win it makes them look more important more epic contemporary sources sources though estimate that the Greeks have around eleven thousand soldiers and the Persians have somewhere between 20,000 and 60,000 so the Greeks are outnumbered at least two to one possibly six to one the Greeks set up a force to meet the Persians and when the Persians come ashore they see Greek forces in front of them what they don't know is the forces directly in front of them are actually the worst of the Greek soldiers the Greeks put their weakest soldiers in front of the Persians the Persians unload their troops their weapons their transportation from the ships and they go forward they do exactly what Miltiades said they would he's they steamroll they move directly forward they engage with the Greek troops and sure enough the Persians are more powerful in the Greek troops the Greek troops begin to break and fall back and the Persian troops move forward now this means technically if you can picture in your imagination the Persian forces have now formed a triangle shape a wedge with a point at the center of the beach moving inland this is exactly what the Greeks thought was going to happen this is the plan when the Persians have engaged with the Greek soldiers and the Persian soldiers have created this triangle this wedge heading inward the expert Greek soldiers come in and they've been hidden on both sides of the battlefield they sweep in in a pincer movement attacking the Persians unexpectedly from the sides when the Persians are already engaged in the front with the first wave of Greek soldiers because the Greeks outmaneuver they outwit they out think the Persians the Persians are defeated at marathon they were not expecting this kind of strategy they were expecting to go forward that Greeks to push back and the Greeks to lose when the Greeks win and the Persians lose one man supposedly runs back to the city of Athens to tell them that the Greeks of one he runs about 21 to 24 miles from Marathon to Athens and he brings the news and then he dies that messenger is actually where weak the idea of the modern marathon which is actually the length of the run from marathon to the city of Athens only in our marathon you're not supposed to die then just just saying it's a little bit different now for the Greeks this is a huge victory the city of Athens celebrates they honor Athena they praise Athena for her wisdom and giving them the strategy they pride themselves they basically say that they're better than the Persians they're amazing and the proof for the people of Athens is the fact that the Persians are gone this war doesn't continue they withdraw now the people of Athens are marching around with a chest puffed out all proud of themselves what they don't realize is that the Persians have their own problem the Persian King King Darius has passed away and there is a complicated fight over succession over who next it gets to be the next Persian King the Persians are more concerned with their own internal struggles and making sure their government remains stable and strong the Greeks are kind of an afterthought at this point it's not that the Greeks are so amazing they put equip scared away the Persians it's that the Greeks have not yet become a priority to the Persians that doesn't happen until 481 when exert seize launches a punitive expedition to go back and basically kick the butt of these stupid Punk's that had caused his dad so many problems now Xerxes is the new Persian king and he launches an estimated 150,000 soldiers and about 600 ships this is terrifying fortunately for the people of Greece in Athens a young man by the name of Themistocles has actually been expecting this now Themistocles actually argues against a plan that the rest of the Athenian government is in favor of they've discovered a silver mine outside of Athens and the government of Athens highly highly highly suggests that they used this silver from the silver mine to invest in a huge temple to Athena because of course she helped them to beat the Persians and chase the Persians away forever because Athens is awesome Themistocles says I don't think so guys they're coming back we need know that they're gonna be back so Themistocles leaves actually advocates using the silver to help the Athenians build a bigger Navy he wins the debate he wins the argument go democracy and they actually fund a Navy about 200 ships so when Xerxes launches this expedition the Athenians are able to know that they're coming they see the Persian ships and they warn the rest of the Greeks now the Greeks are not okay with us they're terrified Persia is very large and Greece is very small now we know about this whole fight thanks to a historian named Herodotus who's actually incredibly important historian he tells us a lot of important details about Greek history in fact he's often referred to as the father of history because he's one of the first true historians who's actually trying to record historical events he's a fantastic storyteller Herodotus tells wonderful stories I mean everything I told you guys about mummification with ancient Egypt all of that is based on Herodotus accounts from ancient Egypt he tells these great stories I mean he's the one that tells us about the Persian King Xerxes when he's angry because a storm blows up in the Mediterranean Sea Xerxes supposedly orders his men to beat the waters of the Mediterranean Sea his punishment for the sea not obeying him the problem with Herodotus is that the facts are often questionable because Herodotus is willing to change the facts in order to make a great story this is why when we talk for example about how many troops Xerxes sends against Greece we have to put a question mark beside it because it's Herodotus telling us and according to Herodotus Xerxes and the Persians are horrible barbarians which we know is not true but Herodotus is kind of Greek so he's cheering for the Greeks and making the Persians the baddest of the bad bad guys he's still a vital source and in some cases he's the only source we have and he always has a great story now Herodotus tells us that the Persians are coming and the Greeks are afraid in fact according to Herodotus only about thirty one of several hundred different Greek states agreed to resist the Persians the rest ready to cave and just go ahead and give in because the Persians are terrifying there's a lot of them among those who will not cave and give in is better called the Greek league that's Sparta Corinth and Athens Athens and they agree that Sparta should be the leader of this league against the Persians because the Spartans have the greatest amount of military experience this part of the Greek league decides there's no way they can beat the Persians straight out but they can delay and demoralize the Persians if they can prevent the Persians from effectively getting inland and resupplying for long enough for Greek troops to reach the points where they need to defend against the Persians the delaying tactic against the Persian landings is given to the Spartans and the Spartans meet the Persians at the small narrow pass called Thermopylae so the Spartans set themselves up in a narrow passageway that we today call Thermopylae now if you've seen the movie 300 the picture on the bottom right is actually what Thermopylae looks like for real which kind of makes the hot gates from Zack Snyder's film 300 kind of amusing because it looks nothing like that it's not nearly so grand and dramatic however it served as a battleground now those 300 Spartans who led this stalling action against the Persians were actually backed by about 3,000 other Greeks but it was the Spartans who led the attack they're the ones who stood strong against the Persian attack they stand for about seven days four of those days of the Persians wandering around going come on guys wimp out and leave come on guys wimp out and leave but the other three days are days of battle and the fight is dramatic the fight is epic the fight shows the Spartan determination and their skill as land troops infantry troops now that Spartan skill for infantry troops was a vital part of the war in Greece everywhere not just at Thermopylae Thermopylae allowed a delaying action that got the rest of Greece time to be prepared for the overall invasion however the Persians did come onto the peninsula of Greece and the blood of Greek troops led by the Spartans with their expertise in a land warfare stay in the blood the ground of Greece it was a bloodbath it was horrifying it was difficult and it seems like the Greeks are not going to win against the massive force at the Persians that is until the Athenians decide to do something with their Navy now the Athenian Navy was the best in Greece it was expanded of course after the Battle of Marathon thanks to the into the intervention of the Themistocles Themistocles a manages to convince the people of Athens to fund about 200 more ships and those ships are of a very very specific type and design there's something called triremes triremes are fairly small wooden boats on average about 120 feet long but they're powered by a hundred and seventy rowers and three rows now guys the boat is 120 feet long there's a hundred and seventy dudes rowing it those 170 guys are laid out in three different rows of actual rowers for the ship thus trireme tri means three you can see in the illustration at the bottom right the location of those three different rows top middle and bottom now those 170 rowers are the primary crew of your vote there are approximately fourteen spearmen four archers and twenty-five assorted officers and crew on this boat that number compared to 170 rowers is a big difference those hundred and seventy rowers are what these boats were all about because these boats were not boats that went out and engaged other ships fought hand-to-hand boarded other ships instead a trireme served a very specific purpose if you look both in the illustration on the bottom right and on the modern version of the trireme the mock up that's actually an photograph on your upper left you will notice that the front of the boat has a pointed area at the waterline or slightly below the waterline and you can see it up on the picture you can see a the ship has little angry eyes and then in front of it it has something they almost look like nose and you can see something just under the water the thing just under the water is a giant spike the whole point of a trireme is that you get those hundred and seventy guys running together you get the boat going incredibly fast and you Ram other people's boats under the water you punch holes in them and because you've got a hundred and seventy guys rowing you can back up and Ram it again over and over and over again until you perforate the other person's boat this was the Athenian specialty the Spartan specialty was hand-to-hand combat land combat but the Athenians specialized in naval combat and they hatched a plan to decimate the Persians forces their reinforcements and their supply line here's what happens the Athenian general who actually came up with the idea for these boats in the first place Themistocles goes to the king of the Persian army and says oh great Xerxes king of Persia I realized now we Greeks are just dumb and weak and we're never gonna win this battle and because I know we're gonna wait loose I'm coming to you I the mystically it's the great Athenian general I'm coming to you and begging you for mercy please please please please please let me live I'll tell you everything about the Greek plans I'll tell you wherever they're hiding everything I'll tell you where their boats are I'll tell you everything you want to know just please let me live now at this point Themistocles is not actually betraying the Greeks this is a trap he is pretending to sell out his people so that he can tell Xerxes where all of the supposed Greek resupplies are located he's wanting to make sure that Xerxes believes him when he tells him where to go to de finally destroy the Greek army it's not destruction it's a trap the place Themistocles King Xerxes all the Greeks final resources are located is in a small bay called Salamis now Salamis is unique because it has a long spit of land that covers the entrance to the bay so you can't see into the bay Salamis doesn't allow any sight lines between a small island and a spit of land that concealed the entrance to the bay makes it a wonderful place for storage because it is protected from the sea the oceans the storms that come into many other bays Themistocles swears to King Xerxes that all of the remaining Greek end forces are hiding at Salamis and that they've got everything stacked up all their reinforcements and it'll be an easy battle and they'll have destroyed the Greeks ability to continue to fight Xerxes sends his ships big heavy supply ships loaded down with reinforcements soldiers food and other cargo to the Bay of Salamis on the way there they encounter terrible storms and they lose a number of ships but they think when they arrive it's all will have been worth it because they can actually go ahead and destroy the Greeks now as the Persians come in the Persian king sends their ships around the island that's blocking the way into the bay and they think everything is going well they hear the sounds of battle they see dead bodies and pieces of ships and washing out and then someone realizes those soldiers that are washing out those pieces of ships those are those are Persian those aren't Greek something something's wrong and what's wrong is that the Athenians and their allies have the triremes and other backup ships waiting just around the corner and they are perforating the Persian ships breaking them into pieces and then they have Spartan troops on land at the end of the bay so if any of those Persians do manage to swim to shore the Spartans kill them this battle turns the tide it destroys the Persian reinforcements it basically keeps the Persians from being able to resupply the troops in Greece and gradually gradually the Persians stranglehold begins to loosen now even though this is one battle it's a heck of a battle smaller numbers against greater numbers it's showy they estimate that about 40 Greek ships are lost and between two and three hundred Persian ships are destroyed it's a definitive victory by strategy by wisdom and the Athenians claim as theirs they claim that they're the ones who turn the tide against Persia they enter an era where the Athenians begin claiming that they are the best the smartest the most amazing thinkers and warriors in all Greece during that era the city of Athens is actually run by a general named Pericles Pericles is both the military and social leader of Athens he claims that he is there to lead Athens into a golden age now in all of his rhetoric about Athens and its gloriousness Pericles begins changing the dialogue in an interesting way the whole Salamis battle that Athenians won Athens won the victory Athens rules everyone else drools he's actually an entirely unfair interpretation the Spartans fight for every inch of land on the peninsula of Greece the Spartans are actually the ones who too much of the heavy lifting and holding the Persians away the Athenians however have they showey the shiny the flashy Battle of Salamis where they defeat a larger number but it is not what actually in the long run grinds down the Persians to a point where the Battle of Salamis actually makes a significant difference up to this point when we read documents from Greece most of the documents most of the rhetoric the talking is Greece versus Persia from the Battle of Marathon from the invasion of Lydia the rhetoric is that the Greeks are fighting against the Persians the Greeks are portrayed as the intelligent ones the Persians are created as the barbarians which is untrue but it's the way that the rhetoric goes they're talking smack about their enemies when Pericles takes over Athens and we enter what we call the Periclean age all of a sudden that rhetoric changes that instead of Greece versus Persia it becomes Athens versus Sparta the Athenians begin presenting themselves as the intellectuals as the balanced people whereas the Spartans are just the dumb jocks now that is completely unfair and not true Sparta's a remarkable city it is in some ways as advanced or more advanced than Athens but the Athenians certainly do not present it that way they present Sparta as being hopelessly damaged in fact one of the things that they repeatedly slam Sparta for is the fact that Spartan women have more rights than women anywhere else in Greece and read it writers from Athens repeatedly state that Sparta will fall because their women will eventually destroy the city by having too much freedom now with this Peroclean age Sparta and Athens ultimately come to war because each one of them is trying to lead Greece as a whole each one is trying to be a city-state that leads the peninsula forward in a new direction ultimately Pericles starts a war with Sparta naturally the Athenians want to keep that war on the water their specialty is the Navy the Spartans want to keep that war on the land in the end we don't know what might have happened because a terrible plague breaks out in Athens Athens has a lot of problems with plagues partially because for all their wisdom and brilliance and intellect they're often not as practical as they could be in positioning their drainage fields for sewage in relation to their freshwater sources it's terrible outbreak happens and to this day we do not know exactly what disease it is but it is terrifying in that disease outbreak the great general Pericles actually dies leaving the city of Athens to its own ends but those ends are that Athens loses Sparta wins this war defeating Athens now for the people of Athens the people who were so sure that they were the intellectuals they were the smart ones they ruled Spartans drool Spartans were dumb jocks Spartans would never get anywhere Sparta would just be destroyed Sparta was all about strength and they didn't acknowledge wisdom and intellect for those people Sparta winning Athens losing is devastating beyond words many of the thinkers the intellectuals in Athens desperately begin looking for answers questing to try and find out what on earth went wrong what could have they done better what on earth happened how did Sparta win in Athens lose what system of government should have had in place to do what was seemed so natural to win to show the gate Greece that they had the right way of doing things that question raising that question seeking for those answers is what inspires both Plato and Aristotle Plato's works and Aristotle's work Plato's Republic in particular specifically deals with the question of how do we run a city the best way possible what is the right government system in fact what would be the perfect government system what should we strive for he is the thinkers of Athens trying to find out how should they try to run a city what would be the right way that would prevent something like this horrible tragedy of Sparta winning and taking over as the leaders of Greece now that sets you up for your next quiz which is Plato and Aristotle now this whole idea of Plato and Aristotle trying to create a perfect government let's make it you here next quiz now your next quiz is it's an easy simple quiz it asks you to watch a video about Plato and Aristotle and answer a number of pretty basic questions about what they think the perfect system would look like now as you do the quiz remember this entire thing is about how did Athens lose how did Sparta win they're looking for an ideal just as they do in their artwork they're looking for what would the best possible system be now this whole dead Greek that guy thing is actually important in relevant to us because we still look back to those ideas that Plato and Aristotle float and we look back to their systems of government even today as we begin constructing governments as we begin looking at how to run things and the ideas that they come up with realistic or not to tap into a very important parts of human nature so go watch that little short video answer the questions on that one and then we will move on now there is another quiz on Plato and Aristotle and that will get back to a little bit later on in Greece it's much more in-depth that deals specifically with Plato's Republic and what he calls the allegory of the cave but that's much more philosophy and specific leadership less about the perfect political system so we're going to start with the kiddy pool basic baby quiz first do that one first and then we'll move on to greed artwork Greek artwork and then we'll finally move on to Plato's Republic