Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

Greek Components

Government

Religion

Art Cities

Trade &Transport-ation

Writing Daily Life

Technology

The Greek World

• Creative people• Time thinking about purpose of life

• Organizing and doing

• Democracy• History, astronomy, mathematics, politics, philosophy, music, drama and theater

• First Olympics.

Greek Timeline

• B.C. and A.D.– 1500 years ago, a monk worked out a Christian system for dating events, starting with the year he believed Christ was born. He called the years after this event Anno Domini (in the year of the Lord) and the years before Christ’s birth are before Christ.

– To date an event before Christ we count backwards from 1.

Great Greeks!Math & Science

Literature Government & Philosopy

Aristarchus Homer Alexander the Great

Euclid Hesiod Socrates

Archimedes Sappho Phillip II

Eratosthenes Aescchylus Plato

Hipparchus Sophocles Zeno

Pythagoras Euripides Epicurus

Galen Menander Pyrrho of Elis

Democritus Aristotle Diogenes

Thales Pindar Solon

Revolutionary Ideas

• Freedom (every district separated by mountains or the sea = distinct groups)

• No one leader, believe in worth of the individual

• Each person do their very best (excellence) at any task he/she undertook

• Balance Mind and Body• “Nothing in excess” and “Know thyself”

Greek Pottery

• Large deposits of clays available• Red-figured (background painted black and figures

left in natural red of clay) • Black-figured (painted in black over red clay)art• Functional and beautiful• The Greek word for ceramics comes from keramos. This

name came from Keramikos, a part of Athens near or around the Dipylon Gate. Potters lived and produced their wares in this area.

Greek Architecture

• Columns– Doric– Ionic– Corinthian

• Seen in several of the buildings– Parthenon– Temples– Theaters

The Acropolis

• City of Athens built around a flat-topped limestone rock call the Acropolis=“high city”

• Built a wall around it, dedicated it to Athena (Battle Goddess and later Goddess of reason, wisdom and purity)

• Religious shrine and fortress, lots of temples to honor their gods & goddesses

City-States

• City-States (polis=political organization) meaning the city, land around it and all the population.

• Symbolized home, nation, country and religion• Every citizen participated in the life and government of the polis

• Small enough for every citizen (only males who could vote counted), around 5,040 citizens totaling around 50,000 including women & children

• All came together as a unit when threatened by foreign power

• Four city-states: Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes

Athens• First democracy• Golden Age during Pericles

(grew, five miles from the sea)

• Governed by a king that later became a member of the Areopagus, a council of statesmen. Statesmen prepared political matters for the general assembly to vote on and also judged murder trials.

• City grew, problems between the farmers and aristocrats, so economic and social reforms to make Athens first democracy in 594 B.C.

• Survived two Persian Wars, surrendered to Sparta during Peloponnesian War in 404B.C.

Sparta• Second best known city-state

• Military state, closed society

• Valleys of Peloponnesus, fertile & well-watered, three sides surrounded by mountains (great defense)

•Three classes of people:

–Spartans, descendents of Dorians, rulers (best soldiers in the world) –Helots, slaves of the state (not able to vote)–Free farmers and craftsmen (not able to vote)

Spartans:Male/female rigorouslytrained from birth, physically

Boys taken from families at age 7 to live in barracks, began their only career, a soldier

Learned total obedience, superhuman endurance, and skills of a soldier.

Close-shaved heads, marched barefoot.

Life as a Spartan boy…

• Male/female rigorously trained from birth, physically and emotionally.

• Boys taken from families at age 7 to live in barracks, began their only career, a soldier.

• Learned total obedience, superhuman endurance, and skills of a soldier.

• Close-shaved heads, marched barefoot.

• Story of a Spartan boy who stole a fox, hid it under his garment and it ate a hole in his stomach, but would never show pain or admit theft.

• Age 20 - 30 cadet, guarding the borders, policed the country and controlled the slaves. Kill anyone who was rebellious or showed potential leadership (Crispin)

• Age 30, married, mature enjoyed rights and duties of a citizen until 60, military duty over then train youth or public service.

• Lost only two battles in 500 years, terrifying in combat, wearing garlands on their heads and marching to a piper’s religious hymn, total order, no fear or hesitation.

Marathon• Bay of Marathon: 20, 000 Medes and

Persians landed.• Greeks meet them with 10,000

Athenians and 1,000 Plateans.• Before the battle, Athenians, sent

the fastest runner in Greece to bring help from Sparta (150 miles away).

• Spartans wouldn’t come, religious festival (took only two days of running.)

• Greeks watching Persians from the hills around Marathon, outnumbered, but decided to take them by surprise.

• Persians thought Greeks crazy and retreated to ships and destroyed 7 of their ships, they retreated.

• Sent Pheidippides (already exhausted) to race the 25 miles back to Athens to tell of their victory

• Uttered “Rejoice, we conquer” and died.

• April 10, 1896 twenty-five young men started running toward Athens from Marathon to recreate that 25 mile run.

• 1908 changed from 25 miles to 26 miles, later Boston Marathon changed to 26.2 distance from it’s starting to ending points.

Life as a Spartan Girl…

• Freest in Greece.• Participated in many sports in public.

• Throw the discus, wrestled, learned to use javelin (instrument of war).

• Healthy mothers = healthy children for their state.

First OlympicsMotto: “Citius, Altius, Fortius” (Latin:

“Faster, Higher, Braver”) in 1895 by Father Didon, a French Educator

• Goal: to contribute to a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport, which is practiced without discrimination of any kind and in the olympic spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.

• Creed: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered, but to have fought well.

Olympic Rings Symbol

• Five rings symbolize the five continents represented in the games (Europe, Asia, Oceania and the Americas)

• Colors of the rings: Blue, Yellow, Black, Green and Red (every country’s flag in these continents has at least one of these colors in it)

Greek Mythology• Myths are symbolic stories

created by the ancient peoples to explain their world. When the ancient Greeks were frightened and did not understand what was going on, they created a story to explain it– example: did not understand thunder,

so created a story about a god that was angry and shook the heavens= ZEUS

• Gods and Goddesses• Exciting stories, well-

defined characters, heroic action, challenging situations and deep emotions (magic, beauty, strong visual images)

Aesop’s Fables• Aesop was a Greek slave who wrote fables

• Fables are short stories that teach a moral truth.

• Simple plots, animal characters symbolizing human traits and explicitly stated morals

Ancient Instruments

• Greek lyre• Made from large tortoise shell

• Similar to Harp of today

• Apollo, the God of Music, played for other Gods on Mount Olympus

MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS IN ANCIENT GREECE

LYRE

AULOS

KITHARA

PANPIPES

Greek Roots

• Many of our words today are borrowed from the Ancient Greeks

• The root of many words like telescope (tele=far off) or thermometer (thermo=heat)

Greek Alphabet

• The word alphabet comes from alpha and beta, the first two characters in the Greek alphabet.

Ancient Greek Literature

• Iliad and the Odyssey, by blind poet Homer

• Written and recited as songs.• Iliad means “poem about Troy”, tells a tale of a great hero or many great heroes.

• Odyssey, similar to Iliad.