Portal:Ancient Greece

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The Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena, located on the Acropolis in Athens, Greece

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. AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and other territories—unified only once, for 13 years, under Alexander the Great's empire (336-323 BC). In Western history, the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period.

Roughly 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 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. The conquests of Alexander the Great of Macedon 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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Hellenistic Amphorae, stacked the way they were probably transported in antiquity, display in the Bodrum Museum of Underwater Archaeology.

Ancient Greek pottery, due to its relative durability, comprises a large part of the archaeological record of ancient Greece, and since there is so much of it (over 100,000 painted vases are recorded in the Corpus vasorum antiquorum), it has exerted a disproportionately large influence on our understanding of Greek society. The shards of pots discarded or buried in the 1st millennium BC are still the best guide available to understand the customary life and mind of the ancient Greeks. There were several vessels produced locally for everyday and kitchen use, yet finer pottery from regions such as Attica was imported by other civilizations throughout the Mediterranean, such as the Etruscans in Italy. There were a multitude of specific regional varieties, such as the South Italian ancient Greek pottery.

Throughout these places, various types and shapes of vases were used. Not all were purely utilitarian; large Geometric amphorae were used as grave markers, kraters in Apulia served as tomb offerings and Panathenaic Amphorae seem to have been looked on partly as objets d’art, as were later terracotta figurines. Some were highly decorative and meant for elite consumption and domestic beautification as much as serving a storage or other function, such as the krater with its usual use in diluting wine. (Full article...)

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Sparta (Doric Greek: Σπάρτα, Spártā; Attic Greek: Σπάρτη, Spártē) was a prominent city-state in Laconia, in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (Λακεδαίμων, Lakedaímōn), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement on the banks of the Eurotas River in Laconia, in south-eastern Peloponnese. Around 650 BC, it rose to become the dominant military land-power in ancient Greece.

Given its military pre-eminence, Sparta was recognized as the leading force of the unified Greek military during the Greco-Persian Wars, in rivalry with the rising naval power of Athens. Sparta was the principal enemy of Athens during the Peloponnesian War (between 431 and 404 BC), from which it emerged victorious after the Battle of Aegospotami. The decisive Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC ended the Spartan hegemony, although the city-state maintained its political independence until the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC. After the division of the Roman Empire, Sparta underwent a long period of decline, especially in the Middle Ages, when many of its citizens moved to Mystras. Modern Sparta is the capital of the southern Greek region of Laconia and a center for processing citrus and olives. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

... that the Parthenon replaced an older temple of Athena, called the Pre-Parthenon or Older Parthenon, that was destroyed in the Persian invasion of 480 BC ?

... that the ancient Greeks admired ancient Egyptian medicine ?

... that together with his teacher, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the philosophical foundations of Western culture ?

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Archimedes Thoughtful
by Domenico Fetti (1620)

Archimedes of Syracuse (/ˌɑːrkɪˈmiːdiːz/; Ancient Greek: Ἀρχιμήδης; Doric Greek: [ar.kʰi.mɛː.dɛ̂ːs]; c. 287 – c. 212 BC) was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, astronomer, and inventor. Although few details of his life are known, he is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity. Considered to be the greatest mathematician of ancient history, and one of the greatest of all time, Archimedes anticipated modern calculus and analysis by applying the concept of the infinitely small and the method of exhaustion to derive and rigorously prove a range of geometrical theorems, including: the area of a circle; the surface area and volume of a sphere; area of an ellipse; the area under a parabola; the volume of a segment of a paraboloid of revolution; the volume of a segment of a hyperboloid of revolution; and the area of a spiral.

His other mathematical achievements include deriving an accurate approximation of pi; defining and investigating the spiral that now bears his name; and devising a system using exponentiation for expressing very large numbers. He was also one of the first to apply mathematics to physical phenomena, founding hydrostatics and statics. Archimedes' achievements in this area include a proof of the principle of the lever, the widespread use of the concept of center of gravity, and the enunciation of the law of buoyancy. He is also credited with designing innovative machines, such as his screw pump, compound pulleys, and defensive war machines to protect his native Syracuse from invasion. (Full article...)

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Pericles Alcibiades 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 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 1Mosaic from Pompeii depicting Plato's academy (from Ancient Greece)
Image 2The Kingdom of Macedonia in 336 BC (orange) (from Ancient Greece)
Image 3Map showing the early growth of the Bosporan Kingdom, before its annexation by Mithridates VI of Pontus (from Ancient Greece)
Image 4Marble 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 5A map of the Bronze Age collapse (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 6Ancient 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 7Location of Dayuan (Ta-Yuan) around 130 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 8Achaean League in 150 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 9Ptolemaic Egypt circa 235 BC (the green areas were lost to the Seleucid Empire thirty five years later) (from Ancient Greece)
Image 10Homer, author of the earliest surviving Greek literature (from Archaic Greece)
Image 11The Aegean world in 200 BC; Aetolia is shown in the center (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 pregnant wealthy woman, 850 BC. (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 134th century BC Greek gold and bronze rhyton with head of Dionysus, Tamoikin Art Fund (from Ancient Greece)
Image 14Ruins of the Temple of Heracles, Agrigento, Sicily, built in the late 6th century BC. Sicily was the site of the earliest Greek colonies. (from Archaic Greece)
Image 15A 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 16Map showing events of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 17Gravestone of a woman with her slave child-attendant, c. 100 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 18Early Athenian coin, depicting the head of Athena on the obverse and her owl on the reverse – 5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 19Ruins 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 20Fresco of dancing Peucetian women in the Tomb of the Dancers in Ruvo di Puglia, 4th–5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 21Areas settled by Greeks by the close of the archaic period (from Archaic Greece)
Image 22Delian League ("Athenian Empire"), immediately before the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 23Political geography of ancient Greece in the Archaic and Classical periods (from Ancient Greece)
Image 24Mount Olympus, home of the Twelve Olympians (from Ancient Greece)
Image 25The 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 26Greco-Bactrian Kingdom circa 170 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 27The lawgiver Solon reformed the Athenian constitution at the beginning of the sixth century BC (from Archaic Greece)
Image 28The Temple of Hera at Selinunte, Sicily (from Ancient Greece)
Image 29Map showing the major regions of mainland ancient Greece and adjacent "barbarian" lands. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 30The 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 31The 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 32Pergamon in 188 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 33Indo-Greek Kingdom and events during the reign of Menander I c. 165 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 34Greek hoplite and Persian warrior depicted fighting, on an ancient kylix, 5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 35The 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 36The Victorious Youth (c. 310 BC), is a rare, water-preserved bronze sculpture from ancient Greece. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 37Alexander Mosaic, National Archaeological Museum, Naples. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 38Inheritance law, part of the Law Code of Gortyn, Crete, fragment of the 11th column. Limestone, 5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 39Greek cities & colonies c. 550 BC (in red color) (from Ancient Greece)
Image 40The Antikythera mechanism was an analog computer from 150–100 BC designed to calculate the positions of astronomical objects. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 41Dipylon Vase of the late Geometric period, or the beginning of the Archaic period, c. 750 BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 42Finds form 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 43The ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, 4th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 44Map of Mycenaean Greece 1400-1200 BC: Palaces, main cities and other settlements (from Ancient Greece)
Image 45The 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 46The remains of the Temple of Apollo at Corinth, the first Greek temple to be built in stone. (from Archaic Greece)
Image 47Campaigns of Pyrrhus of Epirus in Italy (from Ancient Greece)
Image 48Kingdom of Pontus before the reign of Mithridates VI (darkest purple), after his conquests (purple), and his conquests in the first Mithridatic wars (pink) (from Ancient Greece)
Image 49The Delian League in 431 BC, just prior to the Peloponnesian War (from Ancient Greece)
Image 50The Seleucid Empire (light blue) in 281 BC on the eve of the murder of Seleucus I Nicator (from Ancient Greece)

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Photo credit: Thermos

The Parthenon (ancient Greek: Παρθενών) is a temple of the Greek goddess Athena built in the 5th century BC on the Acropolis of Athens. It is the most important surviving building of Classical Greece, generally considered to be the culmination of the development of the Doric order. Here the temple is viewed from the south.

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