Social Sciences and History / Unit 3 SSH 0209 short lesson, about 20 seconds
The Polis and the Hoplite
Captions available
The idea
The Greek Dark Age ended about eight hundred BCE. Archaic Greeks took the Phoenician alphabet, founded colonies, and built the polis: independent city-states sharing language, gods, citizenship and the Panhellenic games.
In practice
The phalanx, citizen spearmen each shielding the man to the left.
Where people slip
Hoplites paid for their own arms and were not all aristocrats. Weight in battle became weight in politics.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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