Portal:Ancient Greece

The Ancient Greece Portal

Ancient Greece (Ancient 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 communities. Prior to the Roman period, most of these regions were officially unified only once under the Kingdom of Macedon from 338 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 decline of Mycenaean Greece during the Bronze Age collapse, 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 death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, and which included the Golden Age of Athens and the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta. The unification of Greece by Macedon under Philip II and subsequent conquest of the Achaemenid Empire by Alexander the Great spread Hellenistic civilization across the Middle East. The Hellenistic period is considered to have ended in 30 BC, when the last Hellenistic kingdom, Ptolemaic Egypt, was annexed by the Roman Republic.

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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Republication of Draco's law on homicide (408–409 BC)

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.

Punishments for breaking the laws were severe, often death. The term "draconian", meaning excessively severe, thus derives from Draco's name and his law code. It is often applied to laws or other government measures. (Full article...)

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The Sanctuary of Artemis Orthia, an Archaic site devoted in Classical times to Artemis, was one of the most important religious sites in the Greek city-state of Sparta, and continued to be used into the fourth century CE, when all non-Christian worship was banned during the persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. The sanctuary was destroyed and rebuilt a few times over many centuries and has today produced many artefacts that allow historians to better understand exactly what went on in the sanctuary during that period of time. This sanctuary held many rituals, that included cult-like behaviour by both young boys and girls in varying ways and has also since revealed many artefacts due to multiple excavations that have helped to deliver new information on acts and behaviours that have occurred in at the temple in Orthia. (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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Eighteenth-century line drawing
depicting Epictetus with his crutch

Epictetus (/ˌɛpɪkˈtiːtəs/ EH-pick-TEE-təss; Ancient Greek: Ἐπίκτητος, Epíktētos; c. 50 – c. 135 AD) was a Greek Stoic philosopher. He was born into slavery at Hierapolis, Phrygia (present-day Pamukkale, in western Turkey) and lived in Rome until his banishment, after which he spent the rest of his life in Nicopolis in northwestern Greece.

Epictetus studied Stoic philosophy under Musonius Rufus and after manumission, his formal emancipation from slavery, he began to teach philosophy. When philosophers were banished from Rome by Emperor Domitian toward the end of the first century, Epictetus founded a school of philosophy in Nicopolis. He taught that philosophy is a way of life and not simply a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events are beyond our control; he argues that we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. However, he held that individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline. His teachings were written down and published by his pupil Arrian in his Discourses and Enchiridion. They influenced many later thinkers, including Marcus Aurelius, Pascal, Diderot, Montesquieu, Rabelais, and Samuel Johnson. (Full article...)

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General images -

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

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

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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.