Portal:Ancient Greece

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The Ancient Greece Portal

Ancient Greece (Greek: Ἑλλάς, romanized: Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (c. 600 AD), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and other territories. Most of these regions were officially unified only once, for 13 years, under Alexander the Great's empire from 336 to 323 BC. In Western history, the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period.

Three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and the colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the age of Classical Greece, from the Greco-Persian Wars to the 5th to 4th centuries BC, and which included the Golden Age of Athens. The conquests of Alexander the Great spread Hellenistic civilization from the western Mediterranean to Central Asia. The Hellenistic period ended with the conquest of the eastern Mediterranean world by the Roman Republic, and the annexation of the Roman province of Macedonia in Roman Greece, and later the province of Achaea during the Roman Empire.

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...)

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The Draconian constitution, or Draco's code, was a written law code enforced by Draco in Athens near the end of the 7th century BC; its composition started around 621 BC. It was written in response to the unjust interpretation and modification of oral law by Athenian aristocrats. As most societies in Ancient Greece codified basic law during the mid-seventh century BC, Athenian oral law was manipulated by the aristocracy until the emergence of Draco's code. Around 621 BC the people of Athens commissioned Draco to devise a written law code and constitution, giving him the title of the first legislator of Athens. The literate could read the code at a central location accessible to anyone. This enactment of a rule of law was an early manifestation of Athenian democracy. (Full article...)

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View from Kaisariani Hill looking towards Athens agglomeration, with Salamis visible in the background

Attica (Greek: Αττική, Ancient Greek Attikḗ or Attikī́, Ancient Greek: [atːikɛ̌ː] or Modern: [atiˈci]), or the Attic Peninsula, is a historical region that encompasses the entire Athens metropolitan area, which consists of the city of Athens, the capital of Greece and the core city of the metropolitan area, as well as its surrounding suburban cities and towns. It is a peninsula projecting into the Aegean Sea, bordering on Boeotia to the north and Megaris to the west. The southern tip of the peninsula, known as Laurion, was an important mining region.

The history of Attica is tightly linked with that of Athens. In ancient times, Attica corresponded with the Athens city-state. It was the most prominent region in Ancient Greece, specifically during the Golden Age of Athens in the classical period. Ancient Attica (the classical Athens city-state) was divided into demoi, or municipalities, from the reform of Cleisthenes in 508/7 BC, grouped into three zones: urban (astu) in the region of Athens main town, and Piraeus (the port), coastal (paralia) along the coastline, and inland (mesogeia) in the interior. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

... that the Greeks did not have a term for "religion" ?

... that Ancient Greek cuisine was characterized by its frugality, reflecting agricultural hardship?

... 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?

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Hesiod (/ˈhiːsiəd/ HEE-see-əd or /ˈhɛsiəd/ HEH-see-əd; Greek: Ἡσίοδος Hēsíodos) was an ancient Greek poet generally thought to have been active between 750 and 650 BC, around the same time as Homer.

Several of Hesiod's works have survived in their entirety. Among these are Theogony, which tells the origins of the gods, their lineages, and the events that led to Zeus's rise to power, and Works and Days, a poem that describes the five Ages of Man, offers advice and wisdom, and includes myths such as Pandora's box. (Full article...)

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Pericles Alcibiades Archimedes Aspasia Demosthenes Epaminondas Hippocrates Theramenes Thrasybulus Homer Cleisthenes Menander Eratosthenes Epictetus Zeno of Citium Lucian Euclid Plato Pythagoras Aristotle Socrates Alexander the Great Aesop Solon Aristarchus of Samos Sophocles Pindar Thales of Miletus

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The following are images from various Ancient Greece-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1The lawgiver Solon reformed the Athenian constitution, which led to significant developments in Greece (from Archaic Greece)
Image 2Gravestone of a woman with her slave child-attendant, c. 100 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 3Geometric-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 4The ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, 4th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 5The Temple of Concordia, Valle dei Templi, Magna Graecia, in present-day Italy (from Ancient Greece)
Image 6The 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)
Image 7Marble 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)
Image 8Homer, author of the earliest surviving Greek literature (from Archaic Greece)
Image 9Early Athenian coin, depicting the head of Athena on the obverse and her owl on the reverse – 5th century BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 10Map showing the major regions of mainland ancient Greece and adjacent "barbarian" lands. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 11Finds 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 12The remains of the Temple of Apollo at Corinth, the first Greek temple to be built in stone. (from Archaic Greece)
Image 13Ancient Greek colonies in the archaic period. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 14The Temple of Concordia, Valle dei Templi, Magna Graecia, in present-day Italy (from Archaic Greece)
Image 15An 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 16Dipylon Vase of the late Geometric period, or the beginning of the Archaic period, c. 750 BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 17Ruins 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)
Image 18Map of the Late Bronze Age collapse (c. 1200 BC) in the Eastern Mediterranean (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 19Map showing events of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 20The major Hellenistic realms included the Diadochi kingdoms:
  Kingdom of Ptolemy I Soter
  Kingdom of Cassander
  Kingdom of Lysimachus
  Kingdom of Seleucus I Nicator
  Epirus
Also shown on the map:
  Greek colonies
  Carthage (non-Greek)
  Rome (non-Greek)

The orange areas were often in dispute after 281 BC. The Attalid dynasty occupied some of this area. Not shown: Indo-Greek Kingdom. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 21The Temple of Hera at Selinunte, Sicily (from Ancient Greece)
Image 22The Antikythera mechanism was an analog computer from 150 to 100 BC designed to calculate the positions of astronomical objects. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 23Inheritance law, part of the Law Code of Gortyn, Crete, fragment of the 11th column. Limestone, 5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 24Alexander Mosaic, National Archaeological Museum, Naples. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 25The 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)
Image 26Mosaic from Pompeii depicting Plato's Academy (from Ancient Greece)
Image 27The 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 28Ancient Greek colonies in the archaic period (from Archaic Greece)
Image 29Mount Olympus, home of the Twelve Olympians (from Ancient Greece)
Image 30Greek hoplite and Persian warrior depicted fighting, on an ancient kylix, 5th century BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 31The 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)
Image 32A 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)
Image 33The Victorious Youth (c. 310 BC) is a rare, water-preserved bronze sculpture from ancient Greece. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 34Delian League ("Athenian Empire"), immediately before the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC. (from Ancient Greece)

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Photo credit: Thermos

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.