Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a powerful influence on ancient Rome, which carried a version of it throughout the Mediterranean and much of Europe. For this reason, Classical Greece is generally considered the cradle of Western civilization, the seminal culture from which the modern West derives many of its founding archetypes and ideas in politics, philosophy, science, and art. (Full article...)
Illustration from 1894 by William Strang depicting a battle scene from Book One of Lucian of Samosata's A True Story
A True Story (Ancient Greek: Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα, Alēthē diēgēmata; Latin: Vera Historia or Latin: Verae Historiae), also translated as True History, is a long novella or short novel written in the second century AD by the Syrian author Lucian of Samosata. The novel is a satire of outlandish tales that had been reported in ancient sources, particularly those that presented fantastic or mythical events as if they were true. It is Lucian's best-known work.
It is the earliest known work of fiction to include travel to outer space, alien lifeforms, and interplanetary warfare. It has been described as "the first known text that could be called science fiction". However, the work does not fit into typical literary genres: its multilayered plot and its characters have been interpreted as belonging to science fiction, fantasy, satire or parody, and have been the subjects of scholarly debate. (Full article...)
The Amphiareion of Oropos (Greek: Άμφιάρειο Ωρωπού), situated in the hills 6 km southeast of the fortified port of Oropos, was a sanctuary dedicated in the late 5th century BCE to the hero Amphiaraos, where pilgrims went to seek oracular responses and healing. It became particularly successful during the 4th century BCE, to judge from the intensive building at the site. The hero Amphiaraos was a descendant of the seer Melampos and initially refused to participate in the attack on Thebes (detailed in the Seven Against Thebes of Aeschylus) because he could foresee that it would be a disaster. In some versions of the myth, the earth opens and swallows the chariot of Amphiaraos, transforming him into a chthonic hero. Today the site is found east of the modern town Markopoulo Oropou in the Oropos municipality of Attica, Greece.
The sanctuary is located 37.2 km NNE of Athens at a sacred spring; it contained a temple of Amphiaraos (with an acrolithiccult statue), as well as a theater, stoa, and associated structures. The temenos extended for some 240 metres northeast from the Temple of Amphiaraos (hence Amphiareion) along a streambed. The cult, which was both public and private, dates to the 5th century BCE. There was an upswing in the sanctuary's reputation as a healing site during the plague that hit Athens in the late 5th BCE. Herodotus relates that the oracular response of this shrine was one of only two correct answers to the test put to them all by the Lydian king Croesus. There were many dedications from Greeks, notable Romans, and others, many with inscriptions. On the southeast side of the streambed there are extensive remains of domestic structures as well as an unusually well-preserved clepsydra. (Full article...)
... that the economy of ancient Greece was characterized by the extreme importance of agriculture, all the more so because of the relative poverty of Greece's soil?
Marble portrait herm identified by an inscription as Aspasia, possibly copied from her grave.
Aspasia (/æˈspeɪʒ(i)ə,-ziə,-ʃə/; Greek: ἈσπασίαGreek:[aspasíaː]; c. 470 – after 428 BC) was a metic woman in Classical Athens. Born in Miletus, she moved to Athens and began a relationship with the statesman Pericles, with whom she had a son, Pericles the Younger. According to the traditional historical narrative, she worked as a courtesan and was tried for asebeia (impiety), though modern scholars have questioned the factual basis for either of these claims, which both derive from ancient comedy. Though Aspasia is one of the best-attested women from the Greco-Roman world, and the most important woman in the history of fifth-century Athens, almost nothing is certain about her life.
Aspasia was portrayed in Old Comedy as a prostitute and madam, and in ancient philosophy as a teacher and rhetorician. She has continued to be a subject of both visual and literary artists until the present. From the twentieth century, she has been portrayed as both a sexualised and sexually liberated woman, and as a feminist role model fighting for women's rights in ancient Athens. (Full article...)
Image 10An Ancient Greek pair of terracotta boots. Early geometric period cremation burial of a woman, 900 BC. Ancient Agora Museum in Athens. (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 11Greek hoplite and Persian warrior depicted fighting, on an ancient kylix, 5th century BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 12Geometric-style box in the shape of a barn. On display in the Ancient Agora Museum in Athens, housed in the Stoa of Attalus. From early geometric cremation burial of a wealthy pregnant woman, 850 BC. (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 14Finds from an early geometric Cremation Burial of a pregnant wealthy woman, from the N.W. of the Areopagus, about 850 BC, Ancient Agora Museum (Athens); exhibit 14–16: broad gold finger rings; exhibit 17–19: gold finger rings; 20: pair of gold earrings with trapezoid endings (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 18The gymnasium and palaestra at Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympic games. The archaic period conventionally dates from the first Olympiad. (from Archaic Greece)
Image 20The Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena, located on the Acropolis in Athens, is one of the most representative symbols of the culture and sophistication of the ancient Greeks. (from Ancient Greece)
A caryatid (Greek: Καρυάτις, plural: Καρυάτιδες) is a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting an entablature on her head. The Greek term karyatides literally means "maidens of Karyae", an ancient town of Peloponnese.
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The lawgiver Solon reformed the Athenian constitution, which led to significant developments in Greece at the time (from Archaic Greece)
Alexander Mosaic, National Archaeological Museum, Naples. (from Ancient Greece)
Map showing the major regions of mainland ancient Greece and adjacent "barbarian" lands. (from Ancient Greece)
The Vix Krater, an imported Greek wine-mixing bronze vessel found in the Hallstatt/La Tène grave of the "Lady of Vix", Burgundy, France, c. 500 BC (from Archaic Greece)
Marble bust of Pericles with a Corinthian helmet, Roman copy of a Greek original, Museo Chiaramonti, Vatican Museums; Pericles was a key populist political figure in the development of the radical Athenian democracy. (from Ancient Greece)
Ancient Greek colonies in the archaic period (from Archaic Greece)
The remains of the Temple of Apollo at Corinth, the first Greek temple to be built in stone. (from Archaic Greece)
The ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, 4th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
An Ancient Greek pair of terracotta boots. Early geometric period cremation burial of a woman, 900 BC. Ancient Agora Museum in Athens. (from Greek Dark Ages)
Greek hoplite and Persian warrior depicted fighting, on an ancient kylix, 5th century BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Geometric-style box in the shape of a barn. On display in the Ancient Agora Museum in Athens, housed in the Stoa of Attalus. From early geometric cremation burial of a wealthy pregnant woman, 850 BC. (from Greek Dark Ages)
Ruins of the Temple of Apollo within the polis of Ancient Corinth, built c. 540 BC, with the Acrocorinth (the city's acropolis) seen in the background (from Archaic Greece)
Finds from an early geometric Cremation Burial of a pregnant wealthy woman, from the N.W. of the Areopagus, about 850 BC, Ancient Agora Museum (Athens); exhibit 14–16: broad gold finger rings; exhibit 17–19: gold finger rings; 20: pair of gold earrings with trapezoid endings (from Greek Dark Ages)
The Victorious Youth (c. 310 BC) is a rare, water-preserved bronze sculpture from ancient Greece. (from Ancient Greece)
Delian League ("Athenian Empire"), immediately before the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC. (from Ancient Greece)
The Antikythera mechanism was an analog computer from 150 to 100 BC designed to calculate the positions of astronomical objects. (from Ancient Greece)
The gymnasium and palaestra at Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympic games. The archaic period conventionally dates from the first Olympiad. (from Archaic Greece)
The Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena, located on the Acropolis in Athens, is one of the most representative symbols of the culture and sophistication of the ancient Greeks. (from Ancient Greece)
The carved busts of four ancient Greek philosophers, on display in the British Museum. From left to right: Socrates, Antisthenes, Chrysippus, and Epicurus. (from Ancient Greece)
The Temple of Concordia, Valle dei Templi, Magna Graecia, in present-day Italy (from Ancient Greece)
Homer, author of the earliest surviving Greek literature (from Archaic Greece)
Map showing events of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars. (from Ancient Greece)
Map of the Late Bronze Age collapse (c. 1200 BC) in the Eastern Mediterranean (from Greek Dark Ages)
A scene from the Iliad: Hypnos and Thanatos carrying the body of Sarpedon from the battlefield of Troy; detail from an Attic white-ground lekythos, c. 440 BC (from Ancient Greece)
The major Hellenistic realms included the Diadochi kingdoms:Kingdom of Ptolemy I SoterKingdom of CassanderKingdom of LysimachusKingdom of Seleucus I NicatorAlso shown on the map:Carthage (non-Greek)Rome (non-Greek)
Early Athenian coin, depicting the head of Athena on the obverse and her owl on the reverse – 5th century BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Dipylon Vase of the late Geometric period, or the beginning of the Archaic period, c. 750 BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Inheritance law, part of the Law Code of Gortyn, Crete, fragment of the 11th column. Limestone, 5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Gravestone of a woman with her slave child-attendant, c. 100 BC (from Ancient Greece)
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