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 other territories. Prior to the Roman period, most of these regions were officially unified 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. 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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The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) designates World Heritage Sites of outstanding universal value to cultural or natural heritage which have been nominated by countries which are signatories to the UNESCO World Heritage Convention, established in 1972. Cultural heritage consists of monuments (such as architectural works, monumental sculptures, or inscriptions), groups of buildings, and sites (including archaeological sites). Natural features (consisting of physical and biological formations), geological and physiographical formations (including habitats of threatened species of animals and plants), and natural sites which are important from the point of view of science, conservation or natural beauty, are defined as natural heritage. Greece ratified the convention on 17 July 1981, making its natural and cultural sites eligible for inclusion on the list.
Greece has 19 properties in Greece inscribed on the World Heritage List, 17 of which are cultural sites and two (Meteora and Mount Athos) are mixed, listed for both their natural and cultural significance. The first site added to the list was the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae, in 1986. The next two sites listed were the Archeological site of Delphi and the Acropolis of Athens, in the following year. Five sites were added in 1988, two in 1989 and 1990 each, one in 1992, one in 1996, two in 1999, and one in 2007. The most recent site added was the Zagori Cultural Landscape, in 2023. There are no transnational sites in Greece. In addition, there are 13 sites on the tentative list, all of which were nominated in 2014.
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Pergamon or Pergamum (/ˈpɜːrɡəmən/ or /ˈpɜːrɡəmɒn/; Greek: Πέργαμον), also referred to by its modern Greek form Pergamos (Πέργαμος), was a rich and powerful ancient Greek city in Aeolis. It is located 26 kilometres (16 mi) from the modern coastline of the Aegean Sea on a promontory on the north side of the river Caicus (modern-day Bakırçay) and northwest of the modern city of Bergama, Turkey.
During the Hellenistic period, it became the capital of the Kingdom of Pergamon in 281–133 BC under the Attalid dynasty, who transformed it into one of the major cultural centres of the Greek world. Many remains of its monuments can still be seen and especially the masterpiece of the Pergamon Altar. Pergamon was the northernmost of the seven churches of Asia cited in the New Testament Book of Revelation. (Full article...)
Did you know...
- ... that the place of Aesop's birth was and still is disputed?
- ... that the first known Greek medical school opened in Cnidus in 700 BC?
- ... that Spartan women enjoyed a status, power and respect that was unknown in the rest of the classical world?
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Thrasybulus (/ˌθræsɪˈbjuːləs/; Greek: Θρασύβουλος Thrasyboulos; c. 440 – 388 BC) was an Athenian general and democratic leader. In 411 BC, in the wake of an oligarchic coup at Athens, the pro-democracy sailors at Samos elected him as a general, making him a primary leader of the ultimately successful democratic resistance to the coup. As general, he was responsible for recalling the controversial nobleman Alcibiades from exile, and the two worked together extensively over the next several years. In 411 and 410, Thrasybulus was in command along with Alcibiades and others at several critical Athenian naval victories.
After Athens' defeat in the Peloponnesian War, Thrasybulus led the democratic resistance to the new oligarchic government, known as the Thirty Tyrants, imposed by the victorious Spartans upon Athens. In 404 BC, he commanded a small force of exiles that invaded the Spartan-ruled Attica and, in successive battles, first defeated a Spartan garrison and then the forces of the oligarchy. In the wake of these victories, democracy was re-established at Athens. As a leader of this revived democracy in the 4th century BC, Thrasybulus advocated a policy of resistance to Sparta and sought to restore Athens' imperial power. He was killed in 388 BC while leading an Athenian naval force during the Corinthian War. (Full article...)
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Photo credit: Morn
The theater at Epidaurus.The prosperity brought by the Asklepieion enabled Epidauros to construct civic monuments too: the huge theater that delighted Pausanias for its symmetry and beauty, which is used once again for dramatic performances, the ceremonial Hestiatoreion (banqueting hall), baths and a palaestra.
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Life: Agriculture · Art · Cuisine · Democracy · Economy · Language · Law · Medicine · Paideia · Pederasty · Pottery · Prostitution · Slavery · Technology · Olympic Games
Philosophers: Pythagoras · Heraclitus · Parmenides · Protagoras · Empedocles · Democritus · Socrates · Plato · Aristotle · Zeno · Epicurus
Authors: Homer · Hesiod · Pindar · Sappho · Aeschylus · Sophocles · Euripides · Aristophanes · Menander · Herodotus · Thucydides · Xenophon · Plutarch · Lucian · Polybius · Aesop
Buildings: Parthenon · Temple of Artemis · Acropolis · Ancient Agora · Arch of Hadrian · Temple of Zeus at Olympia · Colossus of Rhodes · Temple of Hephaestus · Samothrace temple complex
Chronology: Aegean civilization · Minoan Civilization · Mycenaean civilization · Greek dark ages · Classical Greece · Hellenistic Greece · Roman Greece
People of Note: Alexander The Great · Lycurgus · Pericles · Alcibiades · Demosthenes · Themistocles · Archimedes · Hippocrates
Art and Sculpture: Kouroi · Korai · Kritios Boy · Doryphoros · Statue of Zeus · Discobolos · Aphrodite of Knidos · Laocoön · Phidias · Euphronios · Polykleitos · Myron · Parthenon Frieze · Praxiteles
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