Portal:Ancient Greece

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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 Greek Dark Ages (c. 1200-800 BC), were earlier regarded as two continuous periods of Greek history: The first the Postpalatial Bronze Age (c. 1200-1050 BC), the second currently known as Prehistoric Iron Age or Early Iron Age (c. 1050-800 BC), which included all the ceramic phases from the Protogeometric to the Middle Geometric I, lasting until the beginning of the Protohistoric Iron Age around 800 BC. Currently, the term Greek Dark Ages is being abandoned, and both periods are not considered "obscure."

At the beginning of the Postpalatial Bronze Age, the so-called Late Bronze Age collapse of civilisation in the Eastern Mediterranean world in c. 1200-1150 took place, as the great palaces and cities of the Mycenaeans were destroyed or abandoned. At around the same time, the Hittite civilization also suffered serious disruption, with cities from Troy to Gaza being destroyed. In Egypt, the New Kingdom fell into disarray, leading to the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt. Following the collapse, there were fewer, smaller settlements, suggesting widespread famine and depopulation. In Greece, the Linear B script used by Mycenaean bureaucrats to write the Greek language ceased to be used, and the Greek alphabet did not develop until the beginning of the Protohistoric Iron Age, c. 800 BC. (Full article...)

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Bouleuterion of ancient Olynthus

Olynthus (Ancient Greek: Ὄλυνθος Olynthos, named for the ὄλυνθος olunthos, "the fruit of the wild fig tree") is an ancient city in present-day Chalcidice, Greece. It was built mostly on two flat-topped hills 30–40m in height, in a fertile plain at the head of the Gulf of Torone, near the neck of the peninsula of Pallene, about 2.5 kilometers from the sea, and about 60 stadia (c. 9–10 kilometers) from Poteidaea.

The city flourished between 432 BC and its destruction by Phillip II of Macedon in 348 BCE. It was finally abandoned in 316 BCE. Excavations were conducted across four seasons, spanning from 1928 to 1938. Artefacts found during the excavations of the site are exhibited in the Archaeological Museum of Olynthos. (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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Statue of Aristarchus of Samos at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki

Aristarchus of Samos (/ˌærəˈstɑːrkəs/; Greek: Ἀρίσταρχος ὁ Σάμιος, Aristarkhos ho Samios; c. 310 – c. 230 BC) was an ancient Greek astronomer and mathematician who presented the first known heliocentric model that placed the Sun at the center of the universe, with the Earth revolving around the Sun once a year and rotating about its axis once a day.

He likely moved to Alexandria, and he was a student of Strato of Lampsacus, who later became the third head of the Peripatetic School in Greece. Strato didn't think he was correct, even shown all of the evidence. According to Ptolemy, he observed the summer solstice of 280 BC. Along with his contributions to the heliocentric model, as reported by Vitruvius, he created two separate sundials: one that is a flat disc; and one hemispherical. (Full article...)

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

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

Image 1Inheritance law, part of the Law Code of Gortyn, Crete, fragment of the 11th column. Limestone, 5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 2An 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 3Gravestone of a woman with her slave child-attendant, c. 100 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 4Map showing events of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 5The 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 6A 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 7The Victorious Youth (c. 310 BC) is a rare, water-preserved bronze sculpture from ancient Greece. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 8The 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 9Mount Olympus, home of the Twelve Olympians (from Ancient Greece)
Image 10Map of the Late Bronze Age collapse (c. 1200 BC) in the Eastern Mediterranean (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 11Delian League ("Athenian Empire"), immediately before the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 12Finds 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 13Early Athenian coin, depicting the head of Athena on the obverse and her owl on the reverse – 5th century BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 14The lawgiver Solon reformed the Athenian constitution, which led to significant developments in Greece at the time (from Archaic Greece)
Image 15The Temple of Hera at Selinunte, Sicily (from Ancient Greece)
Image 16The Temple of Concordia, Valle dei Templi, Magna Graecia, in present-day Italy (from Ancient Greece)
Image 17Ancient Greek colonies in the archaic period. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 18Dipylon Vase of the late Geometric period, or the beginning of the Archaic period, c. 750 BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 19The Temple of Concordia, Valle dei Templi, Magna Graecia, in present-day Italy (from Archaic Greece)
Image 20Geometric-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 21The ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, 4th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 22The 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 23Ancient Greek colonies in the archaic period (from Archaic Greece)
Image 24Mosaic from Pompeii depicting Plato's Academy (from Ancient Greece)
Image 25Greek hoplite and Persian warrior depicted fighting, on an ancient kylix, 5th century BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 26The 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 27The remains of the Temple of Apollo at Corinth, the first Greek temple to be built in stone. (from Archaic Greece)
Image 28Ruins 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 29Marble 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 30Map showing the major regions of mainland ancient Greece and adjacent "barbarian" lands. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 31The Antikythera mechanism was an analog computer from 150 to 100 BC designed to calculate the positions of astronomical objects. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 32The 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 33Homer, author of the earliest surviving Greek literature (from Archaic Greece)
Image 34Alexander Mosaic, National Archaeological Museum, Naples. (from Ancient Greece)

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Photo credit: Jastrow

A krater (from the Greek verb κεράννυμι, meaning "I mix") was a vase used to mix wine and water. At a Greek symposium, kraters were placed in the center of the room. They were quite large, so they were not easily portable when filled.

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