A look at ancient greece

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Greece before 1000 B.C. was the site of several sophisticated cultures, including the Cycladic civilization on the Cyclades islands, the Minoan culture on the island of Crete and the Mycenaean culture on the mainland. Over time, other peoples migrated into the area, including a group called the Dorians. Starting in about 1000 B.C., these peoples began to form city-states, with their own rulers, armies and governments. Between 800 and 500 B.C., Athens and Sparta emerged as the most powerful city-states. The period between 500 and 00 B.C. was a time of great discoveries in science, mathematics and medicine and is known as the Classical Age in Greece. It produced many famous politicians, architects, sculptors, philosophers, dramatists and historians. This was also a violent time because the city-states fought amongst themselves. In the 4th century B.C., Macedonia arose as a new power within Greece. Philip of Macedonia conquered several of the city-states. His son, Alexander the Great, extended his fathers conquests and carried Greek culture to places as far away as Egypt, Persia and India.Did you know?

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Alexander the Great, one of the greatest military leaders of all time, accomplished his extraordinary conquests as a young man. He died at the age of .

History of Ancient Greece

One of the great paradoxes of history is that the next hesitant advance of European civilization - the development of the first city-states - took place not on the fertile open central European plains, but in a remote island to the south of the Aegean Sea which was completely lacking in metal resources. While the glittering mounted warrior-princes of central Europe dissipated their creative energy in warefare, a highly cultured yet peaceful society, built on trade and an agricultural surplus, emerged on Crete.

The history of Greece can be traced back to Stone Age hunters. Later came early farmers and the civilizations of the Minoan and Mycenaean kings. This was followed by a period of wars and invasions, known as the Dark Ages. In about 1100 BC, a people called the Dorians invaded from the north and spread down the west coast. In the period from 500-6 BC Greece was divided into small city-states, each of which consisted of a city and its surrounding countryside. Chronology

Neolithic Period (6000 - 00)

„h Neolithic Cultures Early Bronze Age (00 - 000) - The period in antiquity that corresponds to the introduction of metallurgy, notably bronze-working, for making tools, weapons, and ceremonial objects. The Prehistoric Archaeology of the Aegean the Bronze Age civilization that developed (c. 000-100 BC) in the basin of the Aegean Sea, mainly on Crete, the Cyclades, and the mainland of Greece.

„h The Early Cycladic Period small island group (Cyclades) situated in the center of the Aegean in Greece, which developed a unique and distinctive civilization that flourished from around 00-000 BC.

„h The Early Minoan Period The Settlements - Bronze Age civilization, centring on the island of Crete, that flourished c. 000 to 1100 BC. It was named after the legendary king Minos. Evans divided Minoan civilization into three periods Early Minoan (c. 000-c. 00 BC), Middle Minoan (c. 00-c. 1600 BC), and Late Minoan (c. 1600-c. 1100 BC).

„h The Early Minoan Period The Tombs

„h Western Anatolia and the Eastern Aegean in the Early Bronze Age Minoan Age (000 - 1400 BC ) - Bronze Age civilization, centering on the island of Crete. It was named after the legendary king Minos. It is divided into three periods the early Minoan period (c.000-00 B.C.), the Middle Minoan period (c.00-1500 B.C.) and the Late Minoan period (c.1500-1000 B.C.).

„h Middle Minoan Crete

„h The Minoans

„h The History of The Minoans Mycenaean Age (600 - 1100 BC) - Period of high cultural achievement, forming the backdrop and basis for subsequent myths of the heroes. It was named for the kingdom of Mycenae and the archaeological site where fabulous works in gold were unearthed. The Mycenaean Age was cut short by widespread destruction ushering in the Greek Dark Age.

„h Mycenaean Tholos Tombs and Early Mycenaean Settlements

„h The Collapse of Mycenaean Palatial Civilization and the Coming of the Dorians

„h Mycenaean Chronology

„h The Myceneans

„h 1185 Traditional date of Trojan War The Dark Ages (1100 - 750 BC) - The period between the fall of the Mycenean civilizations and the readopting of writing in the eighth or seventh century BC. After the Trojan Wars the Mycenaeans went through a period of civil war, the country was weak and a tribe called the Dorians took over. Some speculate that Dorian invaders from the north with iron weapons laid waste the Mycenaean culture. Others look to internal dissent, uprising and rebellion, or perhaps some combination.

„h The Greek Dark Ages A chapter on the history and culture of the Greek Dark Ages.

„h The Dorians one of the three main groups of people of ancient Greece, the others being the Aeolians and the Ionians, who invaded from the north in the 1th and 11th centuries BC.

„h Dark Age Greece

„h The Dorian invasion

„h Iron into general use for weapons and tools

„h Greeks begin colonization on Ionian coast Archaic Period (750 - 500 BC) -The period in which the beginnings of Greek monumental stone sculpture and other developments in the naturalistic representation of the human figure are found. During the Archaic Age the Greeks developed the most widespread and influential of their new political forms, the city-state, or polis . Rise of the aristocracies. Greek colonization of Southern Italy and Sicily begins.

„h Archaic Period

„h Early Archaic Period

„h The Archaic colonization

„h The emergence of the Polis Classical Period (500-6 BC) - Classical period of ancient Greek history, is fixed between about 500 B. C., when the Greeks began to come into conflict with the kingdom of Persia to the east, and the death of the Macedonian king and conqueror Alexander the Great in B.C. In this period Athens reached its greatest political and cultural heights the full development of the democratic system of government under the Athenian statesman Pericles; the building of the Parthenon on the Acropolis; the creation of the tragedies of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides; and the founding of the philosophical schools of Socrates and Plato.

„h Archaic and Classical Greek History

„h Classical Greece

„h The History of Hellas

„h 41-404 Peloponnesian War Hellenistic Period (6-146 BC) - Period between the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great and the establishment of Roman supremacy, in which Greek culture and learning were pre-eminent in the Mediterranean and Asia Minor. It is called Hellenistic (Greek, Hellas, Greece) to distinguish it from the Hellenic culture of classical Greece.

„h Hellenistic Period

„h Hellenistic Greece

„h Hellenic and Hellenistic Societies

„h 5- Rise of Macedonian Empire -

5 - Philip II - Macedonian throne 4 - Aristotle tutor to Alexander

8 - Philip defeats Athens - supreme power in Greece

6 - Philip assassinated/Alexander succeeds

5 - Alexander razes Thebes - extends rule Aristotle founds school in Athens 1 - Alexander smashes Persia

0 - Alexander moves further into Asia Statues of Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles erected in Theatre of Dionysus in Athens

- Alexander dies in Babylon; successors begin to carve up his empire.The Greek City-States and Their Colonies

The `Iliad tells how Greeks from many city-states-- among them, Sparta, Athens, Thebes, and Argos-- joined forces to fight their common foe Troy in Asia Minor. In historical times the Greek city-states were again able to combine when the power of Persia threatened them.

However, ancient Greece never became a nation. The only patriotism the ancient Greek knew was loyalty to his city. This seems particularly strange today, as the cities were very small. Athens was probably the only Greek city-state with more than 0,000 citizens.

Just as Europe, unlike North America, is divided into many small nations rather than a few large political units, so ancient Greece was divided into many small city-states. Sometimes the Greek city-states were separated by mountain ranges. Often, however, a single plain contained several city-states, each surrounding its acropolis, or citadel.

These flat-topped, inaccessible rocks or mounds are characteristic of Greece and were first used as places of refuge. From the Corinthian isthmus rose the lofty acrocorinthus, from Attica the Acropolis of Athens, from the plain of Argolis the mound of Tiryns, and, loftier still, the Larissa of Argos.

On these rocks the Greek cities built their temples and their kings palace, and their houses clustered about the base.

Only in a few cases did a city-state push its holdings beyond very narrow limits. Athens held the whole plain of Attica, and most of the Attic villagers were Athenian citizens. Argos conquered the plain of Argolis. Sparta made a conquest of Laconia and part of the fertile plain of Messenia. The conquered people were subjects, not citizens. Thebes attempted to be the ruling city of Boeotia but never quite succeeded.

Similar city-states were found all over the Greek world, which had early flung its outposts throughout the Aegean Basin and even beyond. There were Greeks in all the islands of the Aegean. Among these islands was Thasos, famous for its gold mines. Samothrace, Imbros, and Lemnos were long occupied by Athenian colonists. Other Aegean islands colonized by Greeks included Lesbos, the home of the poet Sappho; Scyros, the island of Achilles; and Chios, Samos, and Rhodes. Also settled by Greeks were the nearer-lying Cyclades--so called (from the Greek word for circle) because they encircled the sacred island of Delos--and the southern island of Crete.

The western shores of Asia Minor were fringed with Greek colonies, reaching out past the Propontis (Sea of Marmara) and the Bosporus to the northern and southern shores of the Euxine, or Black, Sea. In Africa there were, among others, the colony of Cyrene, now the site of a town in Libya, and the trading post of Naucratis in Egypt. Sicily was too colonized by the Greeks, and there and in southern Italy so many colonies were planted that this region came to be known as Magna Graecia (Great Greece). Pressing farther still, the Greeks founded the city of Massilia, now Marseilles, France.

Separated by barriers of sea and mountain, by local pride and jealousy, the various independent city-states never conceived the idea of uniting the Greekspeaking world into a single political unit. They formed alliances only when some powerful city-state embarked on a career of conquest and attempted to make itself mistress of the rest. Many influences made for unity--a common language, a common religion, a common literature, similar customs, the religious leagues and festivals, the Olympic Games--but even in time of foreign invasion it was difficult to induce the cities to act together. Various Types of Government

The government of many city-states, notably Athens, passed through four stages from the time of Homer to historical times. During the 8th and 7th centuries BC the kings disappeared. Monarchy gave way to oligarchy--that is, rule by a few. The oligarchic successors of the kings were the wealthy landowning nobles, the eupatridae, or wellborn. However, the rivalry among these nobles and the discontent of the oppressed masses was so great that soon a third stage appeared.

The third type of government was known as tyranny. Some eupatrid would seize absolute power, usually by promising the people to right the wrongs inflicted upon them by the other landholding eupatridae. He was known as a tyrant.

Among the Greeks this was not a term of reproach but merely meant one who had seized kingly power without the qualification of royal descent.

The tyrants of the 7th century were a stepping-stone to democracy, or the rule of the people, which was established nearly everywhere in the 6th and 5th centuries. It was the tyrants who taught the people their rights and power.

By the beginning of the 5th century BC, Athens had gone through these stages and emerged as the first democracy in the history of the world.

Between two and three centuries before this, the Athenian kings had made way for officials called archons, elected by the nobles. Thus an aristocratic form of government was established.

About 61 BC an important step in the direction of democracy was taken, when the first written laws in Greece were compiled from the existing traditional laws.

This reform was forced by the peasants to relieve them from the oppression of the nobles. The new code was so severe that the adjective draconic, derived from the name of its compiler, Draco, is still a synonym for harsh.

Unfortunately, Draco s code did not give the peasants sufficient relief. A revolution was averted only by the wise reforms of Solon, about a generation later.

Solons reforms only delayed the overthrow of the aristocracy, and about 561 BC Pisistratus, supported by the discontented populace, made himself tyrant.

With two interruptions, Pisistratus ruled for more than 0 years, fostering commerce, agriculture, and the arts and laying the foundation for much of Athens future greatness. His sons Hippias and Hipparchus attempted to continue their fathers power.

One of them was slain by two youths, Harmodius and Aristogiton, who lived on in Greek tradition as themes for sculptors and poets. By the reforms of Clisthenes, about 50 BC, the rule of the people was firmly established.

Very different was the course of events in Sparta, which by this time had established itself as the most powerful military state in Greece.

Under the strict laws of Lycurgus it had maintained its primitive monarchical form of government with little change. Nearly the whole of the Peloponnesus had been brought under its iron heel, and it was now jealously eyeing the rising power of its democratic rival in central Greece.

During this period the intellectual and artistic culture of the Greeks centered among the Ionions of Asia Minor. Thales, called the first Greek philosopher, was a citizen of Miletus. He became famous for predicting an eclipse of the sun in 585 BC.

Suddenly there loomed in the east a power that threatened to sweep away the whole promising structure of the new European civilization.

Persia, the great Asian empire of the day, had been awakened to the existence of the free peoples of Greece by the aid, which the Athenians had sent to their oppressed kinsmen in Asia Minor.

The Persian Empire mobilized its gigantic resources in an effort to conquer the Greek city-states. The scanty forces of the Greeks succeeded in driving out the invaders. Athens Rise to Power

From this momentous conflict Athens emerged a blackened ruin yet the richest and most powerful state in Greece. It owed this position chiefly to the shrewd policies of the statesman Themistocles, who had seen that naval strength, not land strength, would in the future be the key to power. Whoso can hold the sea has command of the situation, he said. He persuaded his fellow Athenians to build a strong fleet--larger than the combined fleets of all the rest of Greece--and to fortify the harbor at Piraeus.

The Athenian fleet became the instrument by which the Persians were finally defeated, at the battle of Salamis in 480 BC. The fleet also enabled Athens to dominate the Aegean area.

Within three years after Salamis, Athens had united the Greek cities of the Asian coast and of the Aegean islands into a confederacy (called the Delian League because the treasury was at first on the island of Delos) for defense against Persia.

In another generation this confederacy became an Athenian empire.

Almost at a stride Athens was transformed from a provincial city into an imperial capital. Wealth beyond the dreams of any other Greek state flowed into its coffers--tribute from subject and allied states, customs duties on the flood of commerce that poured through Piraeus, and revenues from the Attic silver mines.

The population increased fourfold or more, as foreigners streamed in to share in the prosperity. The learning that had been the creation of a few wise men throughout the Greek world now became fashionable. Painters and sculptors vied in beautifying Athens with the works of their genius.

Even today, battered and defaced by time and man, these art treasures remain among the greatest surviving achievements of human skill. The period in which Athens flourished, one of the most remarkable and brilliant in the worlds history, reached its culmination in the age of Pericles, 460-40 BC.

Under the stimulus of wealth and power, with abundant leisure and free institutions, the citizen body of Athens attained a higher average of intellectual interests than any other society before or since. The Peloponnesian War

The growth of Athenian power aroused the jealousy of Sparta and other independent Greek states and the discontent of Athens subject states.

The result was a war that put an end to the power of Athens. The long struggle, called the Peloponnesian War, began in 41 BC.

It was a contest between a great sea power, Athens and its empire, and a great land power, Sparta and the Peloponnesian League.

The plan of Pericles in the beginning was not to fight at all, but to let Corinth and Sparta spend their money and energies while Athens conserved both. He had all the inhabitants of Attica come inside the walls of Athens and let their enemies ravage the plain year after year, while Athens, without losses, harried their lands by sea.

However, the bubonic plague broke out in besieged and overcrowded Athens.

It killed one fourth of the population, including Pericles, and left the rest without spirit and without a leader. The first phase of the Peloponnesian War ended with the outcome undecided.

Almost before they knew it, the Athenians were whirled by the unscrupulous demagogue Alcibiades, a nephew of Pericles, into the second phase of the war (414-404 BC).

Wishing for a brilliant military career, Alcibiades persuaded Athens to undertake a large-scale expedition against Syracuse, a Corinthian colony in Sicily.

The Athenian armada was destroyed in 41 BC, and the captives were sold into slavery.

This disaster sealed the fate of Athens. The allied Aegean cities that had remained faithful now deserted to Sparta, and the Spartan armies laid Athens under siege.

In 405 BC the whole remaining Athenian fleet of 180 triremes was captured in the Hellespont at the battle of Aegospotami. Besieged by land and powerless by sea, Athens could neither raise grain nor import it, and in 404 BC its empire came to an end. The fortifications and long walls connecting Athens with Piraeus were destroyed, and Athens became a vassal of triumphant Sparta. The End of the Greek City States

Sparta tried to maintain its supremacy by keeping garrisons in many of the Greek cities. This custom, together with Sparta s hatred of democracy, made its domination unpopular.

At the battle of Leuctra, in 71 BC, the Thebans under their gifted commander Epaminondas put an end to the power of Sparta. Theban leadership was short-lived, however, for it depended on the skill of Epaminondas. When he was killed in the battle of Mantinea, in 6 BC, Thebes had really suffered a defeat in spite of its apparent victory.

The age of the powerful city-states was at an end, and a prostrated Greece had become easy prey for a would-be conqueror.

Such a conqueror was found in the young and strong country of Macedon, which lay just to the north of classical Greece. Its King Philip, who came into power in 60 BC, had had a Greek education.

Seeing the weakness of the disunited cities, he made up his mind to take possession of the Greek world. Demosthenes saw the danger that threatened and by a series of fiery speeches against Philip sought to unite the Greeks as they had once been united against Persia.

The military might of Philip proved too strong for the disunited city-states, and at the battle of Chaeronea (8 BC) he established his leadership over Greece. Before he could carry his conquests to Asia Minor, however, he was killed and his power fell to his son Alexander, then not quite 0 years old.

Alexander firmly entrenched his rule throughout Greece and then overthrew the vast power of Persia, building up an empire that embraced nearly the entire known world.

Greek Culture ~ Food

The Greek culture began before the Roman. The Iliad, one of the earliest of the great written Greek works, appeared roughly 700 years before the Aeneid, an early Roman work. The Iliad in turn was based on a good 00 years of verbal story telling.

Greek civilization was mostly conducted from small city-states. The Greeks loved life and lived it with zest. They had little interest in the afterlife, which even for the greatest of men, was believed to be an eternal unpleasantness.

In the Odyssey, the dead Achilles says that he would rather be a slave in life than king of the dead. The best that a man could hope to do would be to perform great deeds that would be remembered after his death. Because they highly regarded intellectuals (poets, philosophers and others) in addition to their great warriors, great deeds could be accomplished by all.

The Greeks believed in individualism and prized differences in personality and character. They were fascinated by the contradiction that it is those very virtues that made a man great, which can lead to his undoing. This is very subtle thinking.

Their myths and religion reflect these traits. Their gods were personalized with individual strengths and flaws; gods made mistakes, got embarrassed and were caught cheating on their spouses. But, also there were gods who were heroic, wise, loving, and developed essential crafts like weaving.

Mortal heroes also played an important role in the myths. There were times when the gods needed a mortal hero to win battles for them. But very rarely did a hero become a god. Many of the most heroic tales involve snatching someone back from the underworld. This is in stark contrast to those religions in which getting to the next world the right way is the main goal.

Men ran the government, and spent a great deal of their time away from home. When not involved in politics, the men spent time in the fields, overseeing or working the crops, sailing, hunting, in manufacturing or in trade.

For fun, in addition to drinking parties, the men enjoyed wrestling, horseback riding, and the famous Olympic Games. When the men entertained their male friends, at the popular drinking parties, their wives and daughters were not allowed to attend.

With the exception of ancient Sparta, Greek women had very limited freedom outside the home. They could attend weddings, funerals, some religious festivals, and could visit female neighbors for brief periods of time. In their home, Greek women were in charge! Their job was to run the house and to bear children.

Most Greek women did not do housework themselves. Most Greek households had slaves. Female slaves cooked, cleaned, and worked in the fields. Male slaves watched the door, to make sure no one came in when the man of the house was away, except for female neighbors, and acted as tutors to the young male children. Wives and daughters were not allowed to watch the Olympic Games as the participants in the games did not wear clothes. Chariot racing was the only game women could win, and only then if they owned the horse. If that horse won, they received the prize.

The ancient Greeks considered their children to be youths until they reached the age of 0! When a child was born to ancient Greek family, a naked father carried his child, in a ritual dance, around the household. Friends and relatives sent gifts. The family decorated the doorway of their home with a wreath of olives (for a boy) or a wreath of wool (for a girl).

In Athens, as in most Greek city-states, with the exception of Sparta, girls stayed at home until they were married. Like their mother, they could attend certain festivals, funerals, and visit neighbors for brief periods of time. Their job was to help their mother, and to help in the fields, if necessary.

In most Greek city-states, when young, the boys stayed at home, helping in the fields, sailing, and fishing. At age 6 or 7, they went to school.

Ancient Greek children played with many toys, including rattles, little clay animals, and horses on 4 wheels that could be pulled on a string, yo-yos, and terra-cotta dolls.

Birds, dogs, goats, tortoises, and mice were all popular pets! Cats, however, were not!

Greek houses, in the 6th and 5th century B.C., were made up of two or three rooms, built around an open air courtyard, built of stone, wood, or clay bricks. Larger homes might also have a kitchen, a room for bathing, a mens dining room, and perhaps a womans sitting area.

Although the Greek women were allowed to leave their homes for only short periods of time, they could enjoy the open air, in the privacy of their courtyard. Much of ancient Greek family life centered around the courtyard.

The ancient Greeks loved stories and fables. One favorite family activity was to gather in the courtyard to hear these stories, told by the mother or father. In their courtyard, Greek women might relax, chat, and sew.

Most meals were enjoyed in the courtyard. Greek cooking equipment was small and light and could easily be set up there. On bright, sunny days, the women probably sheltered under a covered area of their courtyard, as the ancient Greeks believed a pale complexion was a sign of beau

Food in Ancient Greece consisted of grains, wheat, barley, fruit, vegetables, breads, and cake. People in Ancient Greece also ate grapes, seafood of all kinds, and drank wine. The people in Greece ate the same food as the Asian people. For example, the Ancient Greeks would eat domesticated animals.

Warlike or Peaceful Greek city-states varied in differences. Some, like Sparta, were very warlike and frequently went to war. Culture like theirs almost never expanded to new ideas. On the other hand places like Athens were beautiful, peaceful, and had a high regard for education. Athens was a place where ideas were welcome and appreciated.

Along the coastline, the soil was not very fertile, but the ancient Greeks used systems of irrigation and crop rotation to help solve that problem.

They grew olives, grapes, and figs. They kept goats, for milk and cheese. In the plains, where the soil was richer, they also grew wheat to make bread.

Fish, seafood, and homemade wine were very popular food items. In some of the larger Greek city-states, meat could be purchased in cook shops.

Meat was rarely eaten, and was used mostly for religious sacrifices.

Greek clothing was very simple. Men and women wore linen in the summer and wool in the winter.

The ancient Greeks could buy cloth and clothes in the agora, the marketplace, but that was expensive.

Most families made their own clothes, which were simple tunics and warm cloaks, made of linen or wool, dyed a bright color, or bleached white.

Clothes were made by the mother, her daughters, and female slaves.

They were often decorated to represent the city-state in which they lived. The ancient Greeks were very proud of their home city-state.

Now and then, they might buy jewelry from a traveling peddler, hairpins, rings, and earrings, but only the rich could afford much jewelry. Both men and women in ancient Athens, and in most of the other city-states, used perfume, made by boiling flowers and herbs.

The first real hat, the broad-brimmed petasos, was invented by the ancient Greeks! It was worn only for traveling. A chinstrap held it on, so when it was not needed, as protection from the weather, it could hang down ones back.

Both men and women enjoyed using mirrors and hairbrushes. Hair was curled, arranged in interesting and carefully designed styles, and held in place with scented waxes and lotions.

Women kept their hair long, in braids, arranged on top of their head, or wore their hair in ponytails. Headbands, made of ribbon or metal, were very popular.

Blond hair was rare. Greek admired the blonde look and many tried bleaching their hair. Men cut their hair short and, unless they were soldiers, wore beards.

Barbershops first became popular in ancient Greece, and were an important part of the social life of many ancient Greek males. In the barbershop, the men exchanged political and sports news, philosophy, and gossip!

Dance was very important to the ancient Greeks. They believed that dance improved both physical and emotional health. Rarely did men and women dance together. Some dances were danced by men and others by women.

There were more than 00 ancient Greek dances; comic dances, warlike dances, dances for athletes and for religious worship, plus dances for weddings, funerals, and celebrations.

Dance was accompanied by music played on lyres, flutes, and a wide variety of percussion instruments such as tambourines, cymbals and castanets.

The ancient Greeks loved stories. They created many marvelous stories, myths, and fables that we enjoy today, like Odysseus and the Terrible Sea and Circe, a beautiful but evil enchantress. Aesops Fables, written by Aesop, an ancient Greek, are still read and enjoyed all over the world!

In ancient Athens, wedding ceremonies started after dark. The veiled bride traveled from her home to the home of the groom while standing in a chariot. Her family followed the chariot on foot, carrying the gifts.

Friends of the bride and groom lit the way, carrying torches and playing music to scare away evil spirits. During the wedding ceremony, the bride would eat an apple, or another piece of fruit, to show that food and other basic needs would now come from her husband.

Gifts to the new couple might include baskets, furniture, jewelry, mirrors, perfume and vases filled with greenery.

In ancient Sparta, the ceremony was very simple. After a tussle, to prove his superior strength, the groom would toss his bride over his shoulder and carried her off.

Ancient Greek Education

The Greek gods were much more down-to-earth and much less awesome than the remote gods of the East. Because they were endowed with human qualities and often represented aspects of the physical world--such as the sun, the moon, and the sea--they were closer to man and to the world he lived in.

The Greeks, therefore, could find spiritual satisfaction in the ordinary, everyday world. They could develop a secular life free from the domination of a priesthood that exacted homage to gods remote from everyday life. The goal of education in the Greek city-states was to prepare the child for adult activities as a citizen.

The nature of the city-states varied greatly, and this was also true of the education they considered appropriate.

Both daily life and education were very different in Sparta, than in Athens or in the other ancient Greek city-states. With the exception of the Athenians (who thought Athens was the best!), Greeks from other city-states had a grudging admiration for the Spartans.

They wouldnt want to be Spartans, but in times of war, they most certainly wanted Sparta to be on their side. The Spartans were tough, and the ancient Greeks admired strength.

WAY OF EDUCATION IN SPARTA

The goal of education in Sparta, an authoritarian, military city-state, was to produce soldier-citizens.

In ancient Sparta, the purpose of education was to produce a well-drilled, well-disciplined marching army. Spartans believed in a life of discipline, self-denial, and simplicity. They were very loyal to the state of Sparta.

Every Spartan, male or female, was required to have a perfect body.

On the other hand, the goal of education in Athens, a democratic city-state, was to produce citizens trained in the arts of both peace and war.

When babies were born in ancient Sparta, Spartan soldiers would come by the house and check the baby. If the baby did not appear healthy and strong, the infant was taken away, and left to die on a hillside, or taken away to be trained as a slave (a helot). Babies who passed this examination were assigned membership in a brotherhood or sisterhood, usually the same one to which their father or mother belonged.

BOYS

The boys of Sparta were obliged to leave home at the age of 7 to join sternly disciplined groups under the supervision of a hierarchy of officers. From age 7 to 18, they underwent an increasingly severe course of training.

Spartan boys were sent to military school at age 6 or 7. They lived, trained and slept in there the barracks of their brotherhood. At school, they were taught survival skills and other skills necessary to be a great soldier. School courses were very hard and often painful. Although students were taught to read and write, those skills were not very important to the ancient Spartans.

Only warfare mattered. The boys were not fed well, and were told that it was fine to steal food as long as they did not get caught stealing. If they were caught, they were beaten.

They boys marched without shoes to make them strong. It was a brutal training period.

Legend has it that a young Sparta boy once stole a live fox, planning to kill it and eat it. He noticed some Spartan soldiers approaching, and hid the fox beneath his shirt. When confronted, to avoid the punishment he would receive if caught stealing, he allowed the fox to chew into his stomach rather than confess he had stolen a fox, and did not allow his face or body to express his pain.

They walked barefoot, slept on hard beds, and worked at gymnastics and other physical activities such as running, jumping, javelin and discus throwing, swimming, and hunting.

They were subjected to strict discipline and harsh physical punishment; indeed, they were taught to take pride in the amount of pain they could endure.

At 18, Spartan boys became military cadets and learned the arts of war. At 0, they joined the state militia--a standing reserve force available for duty in time of emergency--in which they served until they were 60 years old.

The typical Spartan may or may not have been able to read. But reading, writing, literature, and the arts were considered unsuitable for the soldier-citizen and were therefore not part of his education. Music and dancing were a part of that education, but only because they served military ends.

Unlike the other Greek city-states, Sparta provided training for girls that went beyond the domestic arts. The girls were not forced to leave home, but otherwise their training was similar to that of the boys. They too learned to run, jump, throw the javelin and discus, and wrestle mightiest strangle a bull.

Somewhere between the ages of 18-0, Spartan males had to pass a difficult test of fitness, military ability, and leadership skills.

Any Spartan male who did not pass these examinations became a perioikos. (The perioikos, or the middle class, were allowed to own property, have business dealings, but had no political rights and were not citizens.)

If they passed, they became a full citizen and a Spartan soldier. Spartan citizens were not allowed to touch money. That was the job of the middle class. Spartan soldiers spent most of their lives with their fellow soldiers.

They ate, slept, and continued to train in their brotherhood barracks. Even if they were married, they did not live with their wives and families. They lived in the barracks. Military service did not end until a Spartan male reached the age of 60. At age 60, a Spartan soldier could retire and live in their home with their family.

GIRLS

In Sparta, girls also went to school at age 6 or 7. They lived, slept and trained in their sisterhoods barracks. No one knows if their school was as cruel or as rugged as the boy¡¦s school, but the girls were taught wrestling, gymnastics and combat skills.

Some historians believe the two schools were very similar, and that an attempt was made to train the girls as thoroughly as they trained the boys. In any case, the Spartans believed that strong young women would produce strong babies.

At age 18, if a Sparta girl passed her skills and fitness test, she would be assigned a husband and allowed to return home. If she failed, she would lose her rights as a citizen, and became a perioikos, a member of the middle class.

In most of the other Greek city-states, women were required to stay inside their homes most of their lives. In Sparta, citizen women were free to move around, and enjoyed a great deal of freedom, as their husbands did not live at home.

No marvelous works of art or architecture came out of Sparta, but Spartan military force was regarded as terrifying. Thus, the Spartans achieved their goal.

WAY OF EDUCATION IN ATHENS

BOYS

In ancient Athens, the purpose of education was to produce citizens trained in the arts, to prepare citizens for both peace and war.

Other than requiring two years of military training that began at age 18, the state left parents to educate their sons as they saw fit.

The schools were private, but the tuition was low enough so that even the poorest citizens could afford to send their children for at least a few years.

Until age 6 or 7, boys were taught at home by their mother or by a male slave.

Boys attended elementary school from the time they were about age 6 or 7 until they were 1 or 14. Part of their training was gymnastics.

The younger boys learned to move gracefully, do calisthenics, and play ball and other games. The older boys learned running, jumping, boxing, wrestling, and discus and javelin throwing. The boys also learned to play the lyre and sing, to count, and to read and write. But it was literature that was at the heart of their schooling.

The national epic poems of the Greeks - Homers Odyssey and Iliad - were a vital part of the life of the Athenian people. As soon as their pupils could write, the teachers dictated passages from Homer for them to take down, memorize, and later act out. Teachers and pupils also discussed the feats of the Greek heroes described by Homer.

The education of mind, body, and aesthetic sense was, according to Plato, so that the boys may learn to be more gentle, and harmonious, and rhythmical, and so more fitted for speech and action; for the life of man in every part has need of harmony and rhythm.

From age 6 to 14, they went to a neighborhood primary school or to a private school. Books were very expensive and rare, so subjects were read out-loud, and the boys had to memorize everything. To help them learn, they used writing tablets and rulers.

At 1 or 14, the formal education of the poorer boys probably ended and was followed by apprenticeship at a trade. The wealthier boys continued their education under the tutelage of philosopher-teachers.

Until about 0 BC there were no permanent schools and no formal courses for such higher education. Socrates, for example, wandered around Athens, stopping here or there to hold discussions with the people about all sorts of things pertaining to the conduct of mans life.

But gradually, as groups of students attached themselves to one teacher or another, permanent schools were established. It was in such schools that Plato, Isocrates, and Aristotle taught.

The boys who attended these schools fell into more or less two groups.

Those who wanted learning for its own sake studied with philosophers like Plato who taught such subjects as geometry, astronomy, harmonics (the mathematical theory of music), and arithmetic.

Those who wanted training for public life studied with philosophers like Isocrates who taught primarily oratory and rhetoric. In democratic Athens such training was appropriate and necessary because power rested with the men who had the ability to persuade their fellow senators to act.

GIRLS

Girls were not educated at school, but many learned to read and write at home, in the comfort of their courtyard.

Most Athenian girls had a primarily domestic education.

The most highly educated women were the hetaerae, or courtesans, who attended special schools where they learned to be interesting companions for the men who could afford to maintain them.

Greek Religion

The ancient Greeks were a deeply religious people. They worshipped many gods whom they believed appeared in human form and yet were endowed with superhuman strength and ageless beauty.

The Iliad and the Odyssey, our earliest surviving examples of Greek literature, record mens interactions with various gods and goddesses whose characters and appearances underwent little change in the centuries that followed.

The Greeks attributed these epic narratives to Homer, a poet living at the end of the 8th century BC Each Greek city was normally under the protection of one or more individual deities who were worshipped with special emphasis, as, for example, Athens and the goddess Athena.

While many sanctuaries honored more than a single god, usually one deity such as Zeus at Olympia or a closely linked pair of deities like Demeter and her daughter Persephone at Eleusis dominated the cult place.

Elsewhere in the arts, various painted scenes on vases, and stone, terracotta and bronze sculptures portray the major gods and goddesses.

The deities are depicted either by themselves or in traditional mythological situations in which they interact with humans and a broad range of minor deities, demi-gods and legendary characters.

Ancient Greek Legal System

Legal System Development

In general, there are three stages that most legal systems progress through

A Pre Legal Society

The only recognizable characteristic of a pre-legal society is that it has no established ways of dealing with disputes that arise in a society. A small society may remain in this stage for an extended period of time, but when the population density reaches a certain point there are too many people who dont know each other and a more formal system is needed.

A Proto Legal Society

A proto-legal society has rules as well as procedures for handling disputes. At this stage there is no distinction between rules (social standards, such as its not nice to point), and laws (linking specific acts to specific consequences). This is a linking stage between the anarchistic pre-legal stage, and the more rigid legal stage.

A Legal Society

A legal society is one such as ours, which society has deemed certain acts so undesirable as to warrant a punishment. These societies have not given up their rules, but the rules do not necessarily result in punishment. Because the laws of a society link acts with punishment, normally a society must have developed a form of writing in order to enter this stage.

CONTRIBUTIONS THEY GAVE US

Science in Ancient Greece

Science in Ancient Greece was based on logical thinking and mathematics. It was also based on technology and everyday life.

The arts in Ancient Greece were sculptors and painters.

The Greeks wanted to know more about the world, the heavens and themselves.

People studied about the sky, sun, moon, and the planets.

The Greeks found that the earth was round.

Eratosthenes of Alexandria, who died about 14 BC, wrote on astronomy and geography, but his work is known mainly from later summaries.

He is credited with being the first person to measure the Earths circumference.

BOTANY

Greek influence on agriculture was the establishment of the science of botany. Botany is the study of all aspects of plant life, including where plants live and how they grow. The Greek philosopher Aristotle, who lived during the 00s BC, collected information about most of the plants known at that time in the world. He also studied other sciences and math.

His student Theophrastus classified and named these plants. Theophrastus often called the father of botany. Aristotle and Theophrastus developed an extremely important type of science that is studied all over the world. Botany is so important because all the food that animals and people eat comes from plants, whether it be directly or indirectly.

Botany also increases understanding of all forms of life. Research by botanists benefits people in many ways. Plant genetics are studied to develop disease and pest resistant crops. Botany is also used to help geologists search for oil. This is one of the biggest influences of ancient Greek science in the Western world, as well as the whole world.

Earth Science - the study of Planet earth

Earth science is the study of the earth and its origin and development. It deals with the physical makeup and structure of the Earth. The most extensive fields of Earth science, geology, has an ancient history.

Ancient Greek philosophers proposed many theories to account for from the origin of the Earth.

Eratosthenes, a scientist of ancient Greece, made the first accurate measurement of the Earths diameter. The ancient Greek philosophers were amazed by volcanoes and earthquakes. They made many attempts to explain them, but most of these attempts to explain these phenomena sound very strange to most people today. For example, Aristotle, speculated that earthquakes resulted from winds within the Earth caused by the Earths own heat and heat from the sun. Volcanoes, he thought, marked the points at which these winds finally escaped from inside the Earth into the atmosphere.

Earth science allows us to locate metal and mineral deposits. Earth scientists study fossils. This helps provide information about evolution and the development of the earth. Earth science helps in locating fossil fuels, such as oil. These fuels compose a major part of the world economy. The Greeks came up with the idea of earth science, and most importantly laid the foundation for the scientists who lived hundreds of years after their time.

Public Water Works

Public works were one of the greatest influences in Ancient Greece. They helped boost the economy, and acted as an art form, and they also led to a more sanitary life style.

The system of planning the public works was invented by Hippodamus of Miletus, and was admired throughout the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Cities were built according to this scheme and old towns were reconstructed to fit this system. The Greeks were proud of the establishment of the public works and spent a lot of money on it.

There were many ways to bring water into the city for people to use. Many great thinkers such as Archimedes, Hero, and Eupalinus discovered extraordinary ways to draw water more economically to the cities of Greece. Of all the many different inventions, there were three major inventions that made important contributions to the water supply of Greece. The three inventions are

Archimedes Screw - Archimedes, one of the greatest thinkers of ancient Greece, developed this invention. It was used to lift water from a lower elevation to a higher elevation by means of a tube that is internally threaded. The threads on the inside collect water and as the tube rotates, the water is brought up and put into a storage tank. This massive device was run by human power. The person running the screw, usually a slave, held onto a rail at the top and used his own muscle power to propel the water upward.

Aqueducts and Bridging - The Greeks also used techniques such as aqueducts and bridging valleys. They used these devices because the Greeks thought that the water could only be moved if it was moving downward or on a straight path. So in order to keep the water flowing they built aqueducts through mountains and built bridges over valleys. In the sixth century a Greek engineer by the name of Eupalinus of Megara built the aqueduct of Samos. This tunnel measured more than 000 ft. long and it was started on opposite ends hoping to meet in the middle. When the two met, the tunnels were only fifteen ft. off from each other. On the average, aqueducts were about fourteen feet deep and they were completely lined with stone. The aqueducts were either single route or they branched off into many branches that supplied different areas with water. There was also a form of manhole covers that allowed the workers to access the aqueduct more easily if work needed to be done.

Siphon Principle - Hero, a Greek who lived after 150 B.C. was the first hydraulic engineer. He modernized the obtaining of water through a method known as the siphon principle. The siphon principle allows the pipes that carry the water to follow the terrain of the land and the aqueduct and bridging techniques were no longer used as often. For example, such a device was used for the citadel at Pergamon. The pipes that connected to the citadel had approximately 00 pounds of pressure per square inch and the pipes were most likely made of metal in order to withstand the pressure.

Priests chosen to pray to Apollo had to drink from a secret spring at Colophon before praying. This water was thought to shorten the lives of the priests. The spring has very deep meaning because it was supposed to have formed from the tears of a prophetess. She had wept over the destruction of Thebes, her native city. There is also a punishment in Hell that uses water. People that were unmarried or uninitiated during their lives had the same punishment. The task was to fetch water from either a well or a stream and fill a broken, leaky wine vase for eternity.

The slaves had the responsibility of cleaning and repairing all of the public utilities. The more progressive cities had drains under the street that carried both fresh water and sewage. At times these slaves were used to watch over the fountains so that no one did their laundry or bathed in it. They also had to make sure that money thrown into the fountain for luck was not stolen by anyone.

Most of the public water supply was used for public buildings, such as baths and street fountains. For example, in Alexandria, in Egypt, each house had a personal cistern for their own water for their own use. The slaves also had to clean these cisterns. These private owners of cisterns and users of water had to pay a water rate to the city. It is sort of like the first public utilities company.

BIOLOGY

Many important people contributed to Greek scientific thought and discoveries. Biology, a very vast and interesting topic, was studied by Hippocrates, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, and Galen. These men were among the main researchers of Greek biology who contributed many ideas, theories, and discoveries to science. Some of their discoveries were observations, descriptions, and classifications of the various forms of plants and animal life. Other discussions in biology were natural selection and zoology.

All living things were the basic concern of biology. Greek biologists were interested in how living things began, how they developed, how they functioned, and where they were found. These sorts of questions that ran through the biologists minds are exactly how they began to discover the basics of life. At such an early time, about 00 B.C., science was just beginning to enter the minds of the Greeks. Aristotle, a Greek biologist, made contributions of his own to science. However, around 00 B.C. there was much more to be discovered, which enabled other scientists to add knowledge to the discoveries of Aristotle, during and after his time.

Natural Selection is the manner in which species evolve to fit their environment - survival of the fittest. Those individuals best suited to the local environment leave the most offspring, transmitting their genes in the process. This natural selection results in adaptation, the accumulation of the genetic variations that are favored by the environment.

Many Greek scientists thought about natural selection and the origin of life. Anaximander believed that marine life was the first life on Earth and that changes happened to animals when they moved to dry land. Empedocles had the idea of chance combinations of organs arising and dying out because of their lack of adaptation. Aristotle, a Greek philosopher who contributed many works in the sciences, believed that there is purpose in the workings of nature, and mistakes are also made. He thought that nature working so perfectly is a necessity.

Aristotle believed that nature is everything in the environment, like the sky rains, and the plants grow from the sun. Aristotles theory fits very well with natural selection.

Natural selection makes it necessary that animals and nature fit perfectly. If they didnt, then that specific organism would die out, weeding out the characteristics that were unfit for that environment.

That same organisms species might evolve over time and acquire adaptations suitable for the environment, so that newly evolved species can survive and flourish with offspring.

Another scientist, Lucretius, who lived about 50 AD in Rome, believed that evolution was based on chance combinations; heredity and sexual reproduction entered only after earth itself had developed.

Then with the organism developing characteristics that might make for survival in the environment, the organisms that dont have favorable characteristics are incapable of survival and disappear.

These ideas from Greek scientists are all theories, of course, but the fossil evidence suggests that species evolved over time.

ZOOLOGY

Zoology, the study of animals, involves studying the different species of animals, the environment in which they live, and their organs. Aristotle was very persistent with his studies of the zoological sciences and made many contributions to how we study zoology today. He made observations on the anatomy of octopi, cuttlefish, crustaceans, and many other marine invertebrates that were remarkably accurate. These discoveries on the anatomy could have only been made by dissecting the animals. Through dissection, Greek zoologists studied the structures and functions of anatomies of various animals. Some structures that were studied were bones and membranes. However, to discover and learn about the diversity of animals, Greek zoologists had to narrow their areas of study by attempting to classify the organisms.Please note that this sample paper on a look at ancient greece is for your review only. In order to eliminate any of the plagiarism issues, it is highly recommended that you do not use it for you own writing purposes. In case you experience difficulties with writing a well structured and accurately composed paper on a look at ancient greece, we are here to assist you. Your cheap research papers on a look at ancient greece will be written from scratch, so you do not have to worry about its originality.

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