Ancient Greece
The Big Idea
Through colonization, trade, and conquest, the Greeks
spread their culture in Europe and Asia.
Main Ideas
• Early Greek culture saw the rise of the city-state and the
creation of colonies.
• The golden age of Greece saw advances in government,
art, and philosophy.
• Alexander the Great formed a huge empire and spread
Greek culture into new areas.
Main Idea 1:
Early Greek culture saw the rise of the
city-state and the creation of colonies.
City-States • City-states were political units made up of a
city and all the surrounding lands.
• Usually built around a hill called the acropolis
that held a fortress, temples, and other public
buildings
• Most people thought of themselves as
residents of a city-state, not as Greeks.
Colonies • Greeks established colonies around the Black
and Mediterranean seas.
• Trade between cities and colonies helped keep
Greek culture strong all over Europe.
Main Idea 2:
The golden age of Greece saw advances in government, art,
and philosophy.
•
The period between 500 and 300 BC in Greece was a
golden age, a period marked by great achievements.
•
The golden age began after the Greeks banded together to defeat the powerful
Persian Empire.
•
Athens, the city-state that had led the fight against Persia, became the cultural
center of Greece.
– Famous politicians, artists, and thinkers lived in Athens.
– Leaders like Pericles supported the arts.
– Athens was the world’s first democracy. People elected their leaders and helped make
government decisions.
Golden Age Achievements
Architecture
• Greeks built magnificent
marble structures all over
Greece.
• Most famous building is the
Parthenon, a huge temple in
Athens.
• Greek buildings were symbols
of the glory of the cities in
which they were built.
Art
• Greek art is still admired
today.
• Greeks are most famous for
their statues and carvings.
• They wanted their art to look
realistic. Artists studied the
human body to make their
work as lifelike as possible.
Golden Age Achievements
Science
Philosophy
• Greeks wanted
to learn how
the human
body works.
• Philosophers
tried to figure
out how people
could be happy.
• Made advances
in many fields:
• Socrates, Plato,
and Aristotle
were some of
the most
influential
thinkers in
world history.
–Medicine
–Biology
–Math
–Astronomy
–Other sciences
• Their ideas still
shape how we
think today.
Literature
• Wrote timeless
classics
• Created stories
about great
heroes and
adventures,
poems about
love and
friendship, and
fables meant to
teach lessons
• Created drama,
or plays, as a
form of popular
entertainment
End of the Golden Age
• The golden age ended due to conflict between Athens and its rival citystate, Sparta.
– Sparta was a military city with a powerful army.
– Jealous of the influence Athens had over other city-states, Sparta attacked
Athens.
• The war between Athens and Sparta ripped Greece apart. In the end,
Sparta won.
• After the war, Greece was in shambles. Thousands of people had been
killed and whole cities had been destroyed.
Main Idea 3:
Alexander the Great formed a huge empire and spread Greek
culture into new areas.
Alexander the Great conquered Greece in the 330s BC.
From Greece, he set out to create an empire. At its
height, the empire stretched from Greece to India and
included all of Central Asia and Egypt.
Alexander worked to spread Greek culture through his
empire. As a result, a new culture formed that blended
Greek and other cultures. Historians call this culture
Hellenistic, or Greek-like.