https://www.pbs.org/show/ancient-invisible-cities/
I saw the Byzantine episode a few days ago; and, got online to find the other two episodes about Athens, Greece, and Cairo, Egypt
- I should probably talk about the Egypt episode first. I remember some Egyptian shaft; but, I forgot where it was. Too say the least, Josher, the maker of the first stepped pyramid had the right idea to keep robbers from robbing his tomb; make a deep shaft, and stick himself and his treasure way down there!
They also solve the Sphinx mystery - it was Khufu's son, Khafu. Khufu is the maker of the central "Great Pyramid". Khafu is the majer of the Sphinx.
- Moving on to the Greek episode,
Some of what's not explained is why the Greeks were on the Persians short list. The city of Miletus rebelled and broke free of the Persians. Thales of Miletus had gone around and learned of some mathematical knowledge. Really, he seems to have gone all over, the Persians, the Egyptians, and it appears the Indians and put it all together. Either that, or there were many Greeks that travelled all over the ancient cultures. The Greeks were upstarts, and were going around trying to get all the knowledge they could. It appears to have come together in Thales. The mathematics of the Persians and Egyptians was more empirical. But, it appears that the Indians may have had deductive proof. But, they didn't take it nearly as seriously as Thales and then the Greeks did. Thales applied this new thinking, logic, to a handful of mathematics. The Thales theorems, off the top of my head, were the vertical angles, the two angles of an isosceles, the diameter of a circle divides the circle into 180 degrees, the angle in a semi-cirlce is always a right angle.
Thales also used Babylonian astronomical knowledge to predict a solar eclipse, and stopped a Persian/Greek war. The Persians probably didn't like all this stealing of knowledge and stopping of wars, and Melitus breaking away from their empire. They held a real grunge against the Greeks for several generations of Kings!
The first Greek/Persian battle was the famous Marathon battle. Then, as more or less described in the Greek video of this PBS series was the battle against Xerxes.
The host pretty much describes what a remarkable victory this was for the small Greeks. In a remarkable democratic move, the Athenians actually voted to use their new-found silver mine wealth to build a fleet of trireme ships. These triremes were used as naval battering rams. They tipped the ships with bronze tips. And, I remember reading a long time ago how much more physically fit the rowers were than most people today. They could get these triremes moving at a very high velocity. The Greeks sunk the Persian army in the sea with these At least most. The host didn't mention step two in the Greek defeat of Xerxes - the 300 Spartans.
Like how the Athenians met the Persian boats with all those Persian soldiers they decided to not combat on land, the Spartans were stationed at a narrow pass on a mountain. 300 spartans met thousands of Persians and held them off.
Altogether an epic war accomplishment. The Athenians would form the Athenian league, and take in most of the Greek wealth. They used it to build the Parthenon on the Athens mound. The mound that just a generation earlier two warring Athenian tribes were fighting over. One tribe said, "we're going to get ourselves a handful of Spartans, and you'll be sorry", the other tribe turned around to his citizens and said, you join me, you'll be part of a Democracy. The Democracy beat back the three or five Spartans and led to a spark of Democratic culture. A culture that couldn't navigate its way through each wave of hugh dictatorships.
The Spartans were to get other Greek city-states that the Athenian League had stripped of their riches, and then the Romans came. It was just too much. But, remarkably, a son of a slain Macedonian, Alexander the Great actually arose to create Hellenistic society for three hundred years. The Romans would spend the next three hundred years reconquering the whole of Hellenistic society.
I suppose I've gone far enough trying to put all this in my head. I had seen this before; but, I had forgotten the flow of it all till now!
- The Byzantine video is possibly more spectacular than the previous two in terms of great historic relics. The history of all three is equally fascinating
