Ancient Greece
Greek Components
Government Religion
Art
Cities
Trade &
Transportation
Daily Life
Technology
Writing
The Greek World
• Creative people
• Time thinking about
purpose of life
• Organizing and doing
• Democracy
• History, philosophy,
drama and theater ideas
born.
• First olympics.
• Map of Ancient Greece
Greek Timeline
• B.C. and A.D.
– 1500 years ago, a monk worked
out a Christian system for dating
events, starting with the year he
believed Christ was born. He
called the years after this event
anno Domini (in the year of the
Lord) and the years before
Christ’s birth are before Christ.
– To data an event before Christ
we count backwards from 1.
• Ancient Greek Timeline
Great Greeks!
Math & Science
Aristarchus
Euclid
Archimedes
Eratosthenes
Hipparchus
Pythagoras
Galen
Democritus
Thales
Literature
Homer
Hesiod
Sappho
Aescchylus
Sophocles
Euripides
Menander
Aristotle
Pindar
Government &
Philosopy
Alexander the Great
Socrates
Phillip II
Plato
Zeno
Epicurus
Pyrrho of Elis
Diogenes
Solon
Revolutionary Ideas
• Freedom (every district separated by
mountains or the sea = distinct groups)
• No one leader, believe in worth of the
individual
• Each person do their very best (excellence)
at any task he/she undertook
• Balance Mind and Body
• “Nothing in excess” and “Know thyself”
Greek Pottery
• Large deposits of clays available
• Red-figured (background painted black and figures left in natural red
of clay)
• Black-figured (painted in black over red clay)art
• Functional and beautiful
• The Greek word for ceramics comes from keramos. This name came
from Keramikos, a part of Athens near or around the Dipylon Gate.
Potters lived and produced their wares in this area.
Greek Architecture
• Columns
– Doric
– Ionic
– Corinthian
• Seen in several
of the buildings
– Parthenon
– Temples
– Theaters
• Closer Look
The Acropolis
View the Acropolis
• City of Athens built
around a flat-topped
limestone rock call the
Acropolis=“high city”
• Built a wall around it,
dedicated it to Athena
(Battle Goddess and later
Goddess of reason,
wisdom and purity)
• Religious shrine and
fortress, lots of temples to
honor their gods &
goddesses
City-States
• City-States (polis=political organization) meaning the city,
land around it and all the population.
• Symbolized home, nation, country and religion
• Every citizen participated in the life and government of the
polis
• Small enough for every citizen (only males who could vote
counted), around 5,040 citizens totalling around 50,000
including women & children
• All came together as a unit when threatened by foreign
power
• Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes (check out the cities)
Athens
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Virtual Tour
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First democracy
Golden Age (grew, five miles from
the sea)
Governed by a king that later
became a member of the
Areopagus, a council of statesmen.
Statesmen prepared political
matters for the general assembly to
vote on and also judged murder
trials.
City grew, problems between the
farmers and aristocrats, so
economic and social reforms to
make Athens first democracy in
594B.C.
Survived two Persian Wars,
surrendered to Sparta during
Peloponnesian War in 404B.C.
Sparta
• Second best known city-state
• Military state, closed society
• Valleys of Peloponnesus,
fertile & well-watered, three
sides surrounded by
mountains (great defense)
•Three classes of people:
–Spartans, decendents of Dorians,
rulers (best soldiers in the world)
–Helots, slaves of the state (not able
to vote)
–Free farmers and craftsmen (not
able to vote)
History of Spartans
Spartans:
Male/female rigorouslytrained from
birth, physically
Boys taken from families at age 7 to
live in barracks, began their only
career, a soldier
Learned total obedience,
superhuman endurance, and skills of
a soldier.
Close-shaved heads, marched
barefoot.
Life as a Spartan boy…
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Male/female rigorously trained from birth, physically
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Boys taken from families at age 7 to live in barracks, began their only career, a soldier
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Learned total obedience, superhuman endurance, and skills of a soldier.
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Close-shaved heads, marched barefoot.
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Story of a Spartan boy who stole a fox, hid it under his garment and it ate a hole in his
stomach, but would never show pain or admit theft.
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Age 20 - 30 cadet, guarding the borders, policed the country and controlled the slaves.
Kill anyone who was rebellious or showed potential leadership (Crispin)
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Age 30, married, mature enjoyed rights and duties of a citizen until 60, military duty
over then train youth or public service
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Lost only two battles in 500 years, terrifying in combat, wearing garlands on their
heads and marching to a piper’s religious hymn, total order, now fear
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Life as a Spartan Family
Marathon
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Bay of Marathon 20, 000 Medes and Persians
landed
Greeks meet them with 10,000 Athenians and
1,000 Plateans
Before the battle Athenians, sent the fastest
runner in Greece to bring help from Sparta
(150 miles away)
Spartans wouldn’t come, religious festival
(took only two days of running)
Greeks watching Persians from the hills
around Marathn, outnumbered, but decided to
take them by surprise
Persians thought Greeks crazy and retreated
to ships and destroyed 7 of their ships, they
retreated.
Persians thought Greeks crazy and
retreated to ships and destroyed 7 of
their ships, they retreated.
Sent Pheidippides (already exhausted)
to race the 25 miles back to Athens to
tell of their victory
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Uttered “Rejoice, we conquer” and
died.
April 10, 1896 twenty-five young men
started running toward Athens from
Marathon to recreate that 25 mile run.
1908 changed from 25 miles to 26
miles, later Boston Marathon changed
to 26.2 distance from it’s starting to
ending points.
Life as a Spartan Girl…
• Freest in Greece
• Participated in many sports
in public
• Throw the discus, wrestled,
learned to use javelin
(instrument of war)
• Healthy mothers = healthy
children for their state
Sparta details
First Olympics
Motto: “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Latin: “Faster, Higher, Braver”)
in 1895 by Father Didon, a French Educator
• Goal: to contribute to a peaceful
and better world by educating
youth through sport, which is
practiced without discrimination of
any kind and in the olympic spirit
of friendship, solidarity and fair
play.
• Creed: “The most important
thing in the Olympic Games is not
to win, but to take part, just as the
most important thing in life is not
the triumph, but the struggle. The
essential thing is not to have
conquered, but to have fought well.
First Olympics
Olympic Rings Symbol
• Five rings symbolize the five continents
represented in the games (Europe, Asia, Oceania
and the Americas)
• Colors of the rings: Blue, Yellow, Black, Green
and Red (every country’s flag in these continents
has at least one of these colors in it)
Greek Mythology
• Myths are symbolic stories
created by the ancient peoples
to explain their world. When
the ancient Greeks were
frightened and did not
understand what was going on,
they created a story to explain it
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How well do you know
your Gods & Goddesses?
example: did not understand thunder,
so created a story about a god that was
angry and shook the heavens
• Gods and Goddesses
• Exciting stories, well-defined
characters, heroic action,
challengin situations and deep
emotions (magic, beauty, strong
visual images)
Aesop’s Fables
• Aesop was a Greek
slave who wrote fables
• Fables are short stories
that teach a moral
truth.
• Simple plots, animal
characters symbolizing
human traits and
explicitly stated
morals
Ancient Instrument
• Greek lyre
• Made from large tortoise
shell
• Similar to Harp of today
• Apollo, the God of Music,
played for other Gods on
Mount Olympus
Greek
Roots
• Many of our words today are borrowed from the
Ancient Greeks
• The root of many words like telescope (tele=far
off) or thermometer (thermo=heat)
Greek Alphabet
• The word alphabet comes from alpha and beta, the
first two characters in the Greek alphabet.
Greek Literature
• Iliad and the Odyssey, by blind poet Homer
• Written and recited as songs
• Iliad means “poem about Troy”, tells a tale
of a great hero or many great heros
• Odyssey, brother to Iliad