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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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15th-century manuscript of Book I written by scribe John Rhosos (British Museum)

The Odyssey (/ˈɒdəsi/; Ancient Greek: Ὀδύσσεια, romanized: Odýsseia, Attic Greek: [o.dýs.seː.a]) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still read by contemporary audiences. As with the Iliad, the poem is divided into 24 books. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after the Trojan War. After the war itself, which lasted ten years, his journey lasted for ten additional years, during which time he encountered many perils and all his crew mates were killed. In his absence, Odysseus was assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus had to contend with a group of unruly suitors who were competing for Penelope's hand in marriage.

The Odyssey was originally composed in Homeric Greek in around the 8th or 7th century BCE and, by the mid-6th century BCE, had become part of the Greek literary canon. In antiquity, Homer's authorship of the poem was not questioned, but contemporary scholarship predominantly assumes that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed independently, and the stories themselves formed as part of a long oral tradition. Given widespread illiteracy, the poem was performed by an aoidos or rhapsode, and more likely to be heard than read. (Full article...)

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Marseille (/mɑːrˈseɪ/ mar-SAY, French: [maʁsɛj] (listen), locally [maχˈsɛjə] (listen); also spelled in English as Marseilles; Occitan: Marselha [maʀˈsejɔ, -ˈsijɔ]) is the prefecture of the Bouches-du-Rhône department and Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in France. Situated in the Provence historical province, it is located on the coast of the Gulf of Lion, part of the Mediterranean Sea, near the mouth of the Rhône. Marseille is the second-largest city in France, covering an area of 241 km² (93 sq mi); it had a population of 870,018 in 2016. Its metropolitan area, which extends over 3,174 km² (1,225 sq mi), is the third-largest in France after those of Paris and Lyon, with a population of 1,760,653 as of 2017, or 3,100,329 (2019) by the broader Eurostat definition of metropolitan region. Its inhabitants are called Marseillais.

Founded around 600 BC by Greek settlers from Phocaea, Marseille is the oldest city of France, as well as one of Europe's oldest continuously inhabited settlements. It was known to the ancient Greeks as Massalia (Greek: Μασσαλία, romanized: Massalía) and to Romans as Massilia. Marseille has been a trading port since ancient times. In particular, it experienced a considerable commercial boom during the colonial period and especially during the 19th century, becoming a prosperous industrial and trading city. Nowadays the Old Port still lies at the heart of the city where the manufacturing of soap, its famous savon de Marseille, began some 6 centuries ago. Overlooking the port is the Basilica of Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde or "Bonne-mère" for the people of Marseille, a Romano-Byzantine church and the symbol of the city. Inherited from this past, the Grand Port Maritime de Marseille (GPMM) and the maritime economy are major poles of regional and national activity and Marseille remains the first French port, the second Mediterranean port and the fifth European port. Since its origins, Marseille's openness to the Mediterranean Sea has made it a cosmopolitan city marked by cultural and economic exchanges with Southern Europe, the Middle East, North Africa and Asia. In Europe, the city has the third largest Jewish community after London and Paris. (Full article...)

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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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A marble head of Socrates in the Louvre (copy of bronze head by Lysippus)

Socrates (/ˈsɒkrətiːz/; Ancient Greek: Σωκράτης Sōkrátēs [sɔːkrátɛːs]; c. 470–399 BC) was a Greek philosopher from Athens who is credited as a founder of Western philosophy and the first moral philosopher of the ethical tradition of thought. An enigmatic figure, Socrates authored no texts and is known mainly through the posthumous accounts of classical writers, particularly his students Plato and Xenophon. These accounts are written as dialogues, in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine a subject in the style of question and answer; they gave rise to the Socratic dialogue literary genre. Contradictory accounts of Socrates make a reconstruction of the history of his life nearly impossible, a situation known as the Socratic problem. Socrates was a polarizing figure in Athenian society. In 399 BC, he was accused of corrupting the youth and failing to acknowledge the city's official gods. After a trial that lasted a day, he was sentenced to death. He spent his last day in prison, refusing to escape.

Plato's dialogues are among the most comprehensive accounts of Socrates to survive from antiquity, from which Socrates has become renowned for his contributions to the fields of rationalism and ethics. This Platonic Socrates lends his name to the concept of the Socratic method, and also to Socratic irony. The Socratic method of questioning, or elenchus, takes shape in dialogue using short questions and answers, epitomized by those Platonic texts in which Socrates and his interlocutors examine various aspects of an issue or an abstract meaning, usually relating to one of the virtues, and find themselves completely unable to define what they thought they understood. Socrates is known for proclaiming his total ignorance; he used to say that the only thing he was aware of was his ignorance, seeking to imply that the realization of our ignorance is the first step in philosophizing. (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 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 1The Seleucid Empire (light blue) in 281 BC on the eve of the murder of Seleucus I Nicator (from Ancient Greece)
Image 2The 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 3Ruins of the Temple of Heracles, Agrigento, Sicily, within the Valle dei Templi, built in the late 6th century BC during the late archaic period (from Archaic Greece)
Image 4Greek cities & colonies c. 550 BC (in red color) (from Ancient Greece)
Image 5The Kingdom of Macedonia in 336 BC (orange) (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 7Marble 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 8The 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 9Mount Olympus, home of the Twelve Olympians (from Ancient Greece)
Image 10Delian League ("Athenian Empire"), immediately before the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 11Finds 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 12Ptolemaic Egypt circa 235 BC (the green areas were lost to the Seleucid Empire thirty five years later) (from Ancient Greece)
Image 13The 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 14Map showing the early growth of the Bosporan Kingdom, before its annexation by Mithridates VI of Pontus (from Ancient Greece)
Image 15Pergamon in 188 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 16The Aegean world in 200 BC; Aetolia is shown in the center (from Ancient Greece)
Image 17Political geography of ancient Greece in the Archaic and Classical periods (from Ancient Greece)
Image 18Gravestone of a woman with her slave child-attendant, c. 100 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 19Fresco of dancing Peucetian women in the Tomb of the Dancers in Ruvo di Puglia, 4th–5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 20Indo-Greek Kingdom and events during the reign of Menander I c. 165 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 21The 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 22Areas settled by Greeks by the close of the archaic period (from Archaic Greece)
Image 23Mosaic from Pompeii depicting Plato's academy (from Ancient Greece)
Image 24A map of the Bronze Age collapse (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 25Ancient 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 26The lawgiver Solon reformed the Athenian constitution at the beginning of the sixth century BC (from Archaic Greece)
Image 27The Temple of Hera at Selinunte, Sicily (from Ancient Greece)
Image 28The Temple of Hera at Olympia was built in the Archaic period, circa 590 BC (from Archaic Greece)
Image 29The 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 30Map showing the major regions of mainland ancient Greece and adjacent "barbarian" lands. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 314th century BC Greek gold and bronze rhyton with head of Dionysus, Tamoikin Art Fund (from Ancient Greece)
Image 32Geometric-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 33Greece in the Archaic Age. Political structure in 750–490 BCE (from Archaic Greece)
Image 34The Delian League in 431 BC, just prior to the Peloponnesian War (from Ancient Greece)
Image 35Greek hoplite and Persian warrior depicted fighting, on an ancient kylix, 5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 36Temples were an innovation in the archaic period. These columns are the remains of the Temple of Apollo at Corinth, the first Greek temple to be built in stone. (from Archaic Greece)
Image 37Dipylon Vase of the late Geometric period, or the beginning of the Archaic period, c. 750 BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 38The Antikythera mechanism was an analog computer from 150–100 BC designed to calculate the positions of astronomical objects. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 39Campaigns of Pyrrhus of Epirus in Italy (from Ancient Greece)
Image 40Ruins 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 41Location of Dayuan (Ta-Yuan) around 130 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 42The Victorious Youth (c. 310 BC), is a rare, water-preserved bronze sculpture from ancient Greece. (from Ancient Greece)
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 45Early Athenian coin, depicting the head of Athena on the obverse and her owl on the reverse – 5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 46Inheritance law, part of the Law Code of Gortyn, Crete, fragment of the 11th column. Limestone, 5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 47Kingdom 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 48Achaean League in 150 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 49Greco-Bactrian Kingdom circa 170 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 50Alexander Mosaic, National Archaeological Museum, Naples. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 51Map showing events of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars. (from Ancient Greece)

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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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