Ancient Greece Assignments
Assignment #1 : Map
Label Map of “Ancient Greece and the Aegean World as indicated below:
Black Ink – regions – Thrace, Attica, Macedonia, Thessaly, Peloponnesus, Asia
Minor, Laconia
Blue Ink – Bodies of Water – Mediterranean Sea, Aegean Sea, Ionian Sea, Black
Sea, Hellespont, Gulf of Corinth, Bosporus Straight
Brown Ink – Mountains/peaks – Dinaric Alps, Balkan Alps, Mt. Olympus
Green Ink – Islands – Crete, Rhodes, Ithaca
Red Ink – Cities – Athens, Sparta, Delphi, Piraeus, Corinth, Thebes, Olympia, Troy,
Sardis, Knossos, Byzantium, Megara, Argos
Purple Ink – Peninsulas – Balkan Peninsula, Anatolian Peninsula
Questions:
1. Identify two dominant topographical features of the Greek (Balkan)
Peninsula
2. What types of climate, vegetation, and agricultural cultivation is found in the
Aegean region
3. What advantages and disadvantages does the geography pose for the ancient
Greek peoples?
4. List the ways that geography and climate shaped Greek life and possibly
Greek History?
Due date:
Assignment #2 : Ancient Sparta Reading and Athens reading
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What is a polis? Identify some general characteristics
Identify different ways the polis could be governed.
How did the Spartans achieve the domination of the Peloponnesus?
Why did the city-state of Sparta develop into a military state?
What skills were required of an Athenian citizen?
What subjects were taught to Athenian boys? Girls?
What were the military requirements for Athenian men/boys?
What were the characteristics of the “Greek Ideal”?
Fill out the Venn diagram to compare and contrast Athens and Sparta.
Due Date:
Assignment #3 : Religion of Ancient Greeks /Greek Art reading
1. Make a list of the major characteristics/beliefs of the religion of the
ancient Greeks.
2. How was it different in emphasis from Judaism? Form Confucianism? Form
Christianity?
3. What was the ancient Greek view of the afterlife? How did it change over
time?
4. What does it mean when something is called “classic”?
5. Make a list of the major characteristics of classical Greek art and
architecture.
6. In your opinion, what three words could be used to describe the values of
the ancient Greeks that are reflected in their art and architecture?
7. What is meant by the “Golden Mean”, according to the ancient Greeks?
Due:
Assignment #4: excerpt from Sophocles play, Antigone
1. Why was Herodotus called the “Father of History?”
2. Why could it be argued that Thucydides more rightly deserved that title?
3. What was the original purpose of the Greek drama?
4. Why does Antigone feel that she was justified in breaking the law? Does an
individual have a moral right to break laws that he/she thinks are unjust?
Defend your position.
Due:
Assignment #5: Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates
1. Why didn’t Socrates write any of his ideas down himself?
2. What is the only thing that Socrates admits he “knows?”
3. What were Socrates basic principles of philosophy outlined by Plato in “The
Apology”?
4. What does Plato mean when he talks about the world of Forms?
5. What I justice? Who defines its meaning?
6. How does Socrates challenge this definition, according to Plato?
7. Into which groups does Plato divide human beings? What is Plato’s criteria
for this division?
8. Who rules the ideal society?
9. Why does Plato feel that a democracy is not the ideal form of government?
10. According to Aristotle, how do we know that something is “true”?
11. What are the four things that cause motion and change in the universe,
according to Aristotle?
12. Why does Aristotle feel it is harder to be certain about the truth of major
ethical principles?
13. How does Aristotle resolve this problem?
14. How are Aristotle’s, Plato’s, and Socrates philosophies fundamentally
different?
Due: