Hi there.

Welcome to today's history lesson with me, Ms. Roberts.

I'm gonna be guiding you through this lesson about Ancient Greece today, and together we are going to explore what life was like for people that lived in the Ancient Greek city-state called Athens.

Together, we will investigate how the city of Athens grew and what was expected of different Athenian people.

I'm very excited to find out what life was like for people so long ago.

Are you? let's begin.

By the end of the lesson, you will be able to describe what life was like in the Ancient Greek city-state of Athens.

So let's begin with our key words for today's lesson.

We're going to use these a lot today, and you will be able to use them yourself to talk about life in Ancient Greece.

You've heard the first keyword today already, and of course it is Athens.

Can you repeat Athens? Well done.

Now, the next word is a bit longer and can be a bit tricky.

It's democracy.

Can you say democracy? Good job.

Well done.

Now, the next word I think you will recognise in English, but this word actually comes from Greek.

The word is assembly.

Can I hear you say assembly? Well done.

Now, the final key word is a short phrase made of two words, and it's enslaved person.

Can you say enslaved person? Good.

Don't worry if you haven't heard any of these words before.

I'm going to show you what they mean now and I will highlight them later when we come across them in the lesson.

So the first key word was Athens, and Athens was one of the largest and the most important of the city-states in Greece.

Earlier, you heard me use the word Athenian to describe the people.

Athenian means from Athens.

The next is democracy.

Democracy is a type of government where the people hold power.

The United Kingdom, for example, is a democracy.

The next word was assembly.

In Ancient Greece, which is the context that we are using The word assembly in, an assembly was a gathering or a meeting of lots of Ancient Greek men where they would make decisions, and this particularly happened in Athens.

We'll find out more about that later on.

The last of our keywords today is enslaved person.

Now, an enslaved person is a person that is owned by someone else.

An enslaved person is forced to work for their owner with no pay.

Today's lesson has two parts, and we are going to begin by asking the question, what was Athens like? Later, we'll be investigating what the Athenian people were like.

So let's begin with the first part of the lesson.

I'm going to start by showing you a map.

This map shows you the locations of three of the most important cities in Ancient Greece.

The cities are Athens, Corinth, and Sparta.

Today we are looking in particular at the city of Athens.

Athens was one of the largest city-states in Ancient Greece, and it was the most important.

Athens was so important because of its size and specifically because of its location.

Over time, Athens remained important, and even today, it is the capital city of the modern day country of Greece.

Look again at the map.

Look at the location of Athens.

What can you say about where Athens is located? Pause the video now and share some ideas with a partner.

You have excellent ideas.

Let's look some more at the location of Athens now.

Now, as you saw from the map, Athens is located at the coast.

Being located at the coast allows for lots of trade to happen by ship.

So seafaring was a common occupation in the city-state of Athens.

The illustration shows a boat in the port of Athens being bloated up by seafarers who are taking their goods to be sold elsewhere.

The coastal location also allowed the Athenian people to import food, otherwise they would not have had enough due to the surrounding landscape being very rocky and difficult to farm, seafaring brought great wealth to the city of Athens, so much so that the Athenian people actually had their own currency, and they melted metal to make their own coins.

Athens was so successful and so rich that it attracted many more people who wanted to go and live there.

This in turn helped Athens to grow and expand even further.

Now, you've already heard a lot about Athens, so let's have a quick check on our learning so far.

Multiple choice question here.

I'm going to read you a question and four options to choose from.

How did seafarers travel in Ancient Greece? Did they travel by walking, option A, by horse, option B, by ship, option C, or by Chariot, option D? Have a think now and make your choice Ready? Now, I don't think that seafarers travelled by walking or by horse, given that they travel through the sea.

Did you choose the next option, ship? That's right, seafarers travel through the sea, so they need a ship.

Seafarers don't use chariots.

They were used by soldiers in wars.

Let's continue our journey and find out some more about why Athens was so attractive for people to go and live there.

Another reason that many people wanted to live in Athens was because of how the society was organised there.

In Athens, things were done very differently than they'd been done in the past.

There was no longer one single ruler over Athens, but instead the people made decisions and held the power.

As a democracy, this meant that the men of Athens had a say in everything.

The photo shows a statue of an Athenian man called Cleisthenes.

He was the man that set up the first ever democracy in Athens in the year 431 BCE.

Being a democracy meant that the people could make suggestions about new laws, for example, and they could take part in debates about them.

Then they would cast votes as a way to reach important decisions together.

Voting in Ancient Greece was carried out, usually, by a show of hands or by counting stones or pieces of broken pottery.

Now, Aisha is remembering something we mentioned earlier.

I mentioned that the United Kingdom is a democracy.

When we were looking at the key words.

Today, many countries around the world are democracies, and it all began in Athens.

That's right, well done, Aisha.

It's not just the United Kingdom.

There are lots and lots of democratic countries around the world.

The debates and vote casting happened at a special monthly meeting called the Assembly.

The assembly happened at a place called the Pnyx, which was a hillside near the centre of Athens, and around 6,000 men attended each assembly.

The photo shows the remains of the Pnyx that can be seen today in Athens.

It looks like quite an empty place, doesn't it? But I'm sure that it would be much busier with 6,000 people gathered there.

Let's stop and have a quick check on our learning so far.

This is a true or false exercise.

I'm going to read a statement, and I want you to decide if it is true or false.

Listen closely.

The Ancient Greek city-state of Athens was a democracy.

Is that true or is that false? Have a think and make your choice.

Have you decided? Did you pick true? Well done, this is definitely true.

The Ancient Greek city-state of Athens was a democracy.

Now, as a historian, if we are going to make a statement about people from the past, then we need to also provide some evidence or some additional information to explain how we know what we are saying.

So I'm going to give you two possible sentences that we can use here.

I want you to decide which of these sentences is the most helpful.

Sentence A says that the Ancient Greeks had debates before making decisions.

Statement B says that the Ancient Greeks as a whole made decisions, not just one ruler.

Which of those sentences is the most helpful in this situation? Have you decided? Well done.

I think that option B is the most helpful here.

Option B explains what a democracy is.

The Ancient Greeks as a whole made decisions, not just one ruler.

It's true that the Ancient Greeks had debates before they made decisions, but that doesn't explain why Athens was a democracy.

The explanation is that it was the Greek people as a whole making the decisions and not just one ruler.

Well done.

We have just been talking about the assembly.

The assembly could also choose a council of 500 men who would run the city-state of Athens.

So there were about 6,000 men that would gather in the assembly, and they would vote for another 500 men who would be part of the council.

The council would then vote for 10 men who were called the strategoi, and they were the men that would be in charge of the army and the navy.

The strategoi was some of the most important men in Athens, And yes, Laura, that is true.

Women were not allowed to take part in the assembly, so that big gathering of 6,000 people was entirely men.

Women were also not allowed to join the army or the navy.

So without being part of any of that, they were never going to be able to be part of the council or the strategoi.

Now, here's another multiple choice question.

Were you listening closely to the information about the assembly? What was the assembly responsible for, A, debating and voting on important decisions, B, choosing a council of 500 men to run Athens, C, choosing one ruler for the whole of Ancient Greece, or D, voting for the strategoi? Now, be careful.

There could be more than one correct answer.

Have a think and choose now.

Ready? Let's see the answers together.

The assembly debated and voted on important decisions, chose a council of 500 men to run Athens, and they voted for the strategoi.

Did you correctly identify A, B, and D? Good job.

Now, we've heard so much already about Athens.

We're going to use what we know now for an activity.

The picture shows the remains of the Pnyx in Athens.

You saw this earlier in the lesson.

During the time of the Ancient Greek civilization, this was a very important location in Athens.

Why? What happened here? I want you to pause the video in a moment and talk to a learning partner to share your ideas about what happened here at the Pnyx.

Off you go, Great work.

You've got some excellent ideas.

I'm going to share my notes with you now.

You may have included things like these in your conversations.

Did you say that the assembly happened here, that men had debates here, that laws were made here, that men were elected here, that important decisions were made here, or did you say that democracy happened here? It really was a very important location, wasn't it? Okay, let's move into the second part of our lesson now.

We're going to investigate the question.

What was Athenian society like? When we talk about society, we are talking about the people that live in a place, how they organise themselves, and what is seen as important or not important by them.

The society that we are looking at is the Ancient Greek society of Athens.

In Athenian society, men were seen as the most important citizens.

For example, only men could take part in the assembly and cast votes.

Men had many duties.

Men were expected to work, to earn money, to buy land and property.

Men were also able to join the army and the Navy, and they could be elected or chosen to be on the council and to run city business.

Men were also expected to agree on the laws, to obey the laws, and to pay their taxes, as well as serving on juries.

The women in Athens were not considered to be as powerful as the men.

In Ancient Greece, the women were expected to spend a lot of their time at home.

Women would spend their days cleaning the houses, cooking the meals, looking after the children, and sometimes doing crafts like weaving.

Women would weave yarn and use that to make cloth that they could then turn into items of clothing for themselves, their husbands, or their children.

We know what we do about the roles of men and women in Athenian society, thanks to historical evidence that has been discovered.

Artefacts from Ancient Greece have helped us to understand what society was like.

You've now heard a lot about the expectations on men and women in Athenian society, so let's stop here and have some quick checks on our learning.

Here's a multiple choice question.

I want you to identify the correct answer from the four options.

Which duties were Athenian men expected to do? A, pay taxes, B, stay at home to look after the children, C, cast votes in the assembly, and D, serve on juries.

Now, be careful because there could be more than one correct choice.

Have a think now and make your decision.

Ready? Did you choose more than one option? Yes, I think there's more than one correct choice here.

Let's see.

Three of these options were correct.

The Athenian men were expected to pay taxes.

The Athenian men could cast votes in the assembly, and the Athenian men could serve on the juries.

So if they are all the things that the men could do, let's think now about what the women in Athens did.

Here's another multiple choice question with four possible answers.

Which duties were the Athenian women expected to do? A, pay taxes, B, stay at home and look after the children, C, cast votes in the assembly, and D, spend time on crafts like weaving.

Remember, there could be more than one correct choice.

Have a think and make your decision now.

Ready? Let's see.

There are two correct options this time.

The Athenian women were expected to stay at home and look after the children.

The Athenian women were expected to spend their time doing crafts like weaving.

Well done.

Good job.

Now, we found out about the expectations of men and women in Ancient Greece, but there was another group of people in Ancient Greek society.

The men and the women that we have been talking about so far are the men and the women that were the citizens of Ancient Greece.

However, other people lived in Ancient Greece, and they were known as enslaved people.

Do you remember hearing enslaved person earlier as a key word? We're going to find out more about those enslaved people now.

enslaved people were considered to be the least important people in Athenian society.

Enslaved people made up around a third of the population of Athens.

You would be able to find at least one enslaved person in every household.

Enslaved people were expected to carry out all the tasks that their owners demanded of them.

They were not paid for any of their work, and they were often treated very harshly by their owners.

And unfortunately, Sam has made a correct observation there.

Enslaved people included men, and women, and children.

We've been talking about the expectations of men, and women, and enslaved people in Ancient Greece.

I'd like you now to rank the three groups of people in order of importance, starting with the most important being number one, pause the video now while you complete the activity.

Ready? Okay.

Number one was the men.

They were considered to be the most important citizens in Athenian society.

Then we have the women.

They were the next most important in Athenian society.

And lastly, we have the enslaved people who were considered to be the least important in Athenian society.

Now, let's use everything we know so far about Athenian society to help us complete another activity.

This is a note making activity.

Your task is to complete the table with information that you know about the roles of each of these groups of people in the Ancient Greek city-state of Athens.

Pause the video now while you make your notes.

And when you finish, you could share your notes with a learning partner.

Are you finished? Good job.

You have some great ideas.

I'm going to share my ideas with you now.

You may have included notes like these in your table.

Starting with the roles of men in Athenian society, men were considered to be very important.

Men took part in the assembly.

Men could join the army.

Men earned money and paid taxes.

Now, the roles of women.

Women were considered less important than men, and they stayed at home cooking and cleaning, weaving cloth, and making clothes.

And the enslaved people, they were considered the least important in society.

They had an owner and they worked for them without pay.

Men, women, and children could be enslaved people in Ancient Greece.

This brings us to the end of this lesson about the city-state of Athens And what a lot of information we've covered today.

Let's review what we now know.

We know that Athens was one of the largest city-states in Ancient Greece.

It did a lot of trading by seafaring due to its location on the coast.

The Athenian people formed the first ever democracy.

Men gathered at a monthly meeting, called the assembly, where important decisions were made.

In Athenian society, men were seen as the most important.

They had duties to carry out, whilst the women were expected to stay at home, do housework and look after the children.

In Athenian society and slave people were seen as the least important.

They made up about one third of the population.

I found it so interesting in this lesson to look at how Athenian society was so different compared to life today.

I hope you found it interesting too, and I will see you again for another history lesson about Ancient Greece.

Bye for now.