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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Hermes Ingenui (Vatican Museums), Roman copy of the second century BC after a Greek original of the 5th century BC. Hermes has a kerykeion (caduceus), kithara, petasos (round hat) and a traveler's cloak.

Hermes (/ˈhɜːrmiːz/; Greek: Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quickly and freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine, aided by his winged sandals. Hermes plays the role of the psychopomp or "soul guide"—a conductor of souls into the afterlife.

In myth, Hermes functions as the emissary and messenger of the gods, and is often presented as the son of Zeus and Maia, the Pleiad. Hermes is regarded as "the divine trickster," about which the Homeric Hymn to Hermes offers the most well-known account. (Full article...)

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View of the bouleuterion in Dodona

Dodona (/doʊˈdoʊnə/; Doric Greek: Δωδώνα, Dōdṓnā, Ionic and Attic Greek: Δωδώνη, Dōdṓnē) in Epirus in northwestern Greece was the oldest Hellenic oracle, possibly dating to the second millennium BCE according to Herodotus. The earliest accounts in Homer describe Dodona as an oracle of Zeus. Situated in a remote region away from the main Greek poleis, it was considered second only to the Oracle of Delphi in prestige.

Aristotle considered the region around Dodona to have been part of Hellas and the region where the Hellenes originated. The oracle was first under the control of the Thesprotians before it passed into the hands of the Molossians. It remained an important religious sanctuary until the rise of Christianity during the Late Roman era. (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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Stater of the Boeotian League minted c. 364 - 362 BC by Epaminondas, whose name EΠ-AMI is inscribed on the reverse

Epaminondas (/ɪˌpæmɪˈnɒndəs/; Greek: Ἐπαμεινώνδας; 419/411–362 BC) was a Greek general of Thebes and statesman of the 4th century BC who transformed the Ancient Greek city-state, leading it out of Spartan subjugation into a pre-eminent position in Greek politics called the Theban Hegemony. In the process, he broke Spartan military power with his victory at Leuctra and liberated the Messenian helots, a group of Peloponnesian Greeks who had been enslaved under Spartan rule for some 230 years after being defeated in the Messenian War ending in 600 BC. Epaminondas reshaped the political map of Greece, fragmented old alliances, created new ones, and supervised the construction of entire cities. He was also militarily influential and invented and implemented several major battlefield tactics.

Xenophon, the historian and contemporary, is the main source for Epaminondas' military prowess, and Xenophon describes his admiration for him in his major work Hellenica (book VII, chap. 5, 19).

Accordingly, in later centuries the Roman orator, Cicero called him "the first man of Greece", and even in modern times Montaigne judged him one of the three "worthiest and most excellent men" that had ever lived. The changes Epaminondas wrought on the Greek political order did not long outlive him, as the cycle of shifting hegemonies and alliances continued unabated. A mere twenty-seven years after his death, a recalcitrant Thebes was obliterated by Alexander the Great. Thus Epaminondas—who had been praised in his time as an idealist and liberator—is today largely remembered for a decade (371 BC to 362 BC) of campaigning that sapped the strength of the great city-states and paved the way for the Macedonian conquest. (Full article...)

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Pericles Alcibiades Archimedes Aspasia Demosthenes 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 1The 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 2A map of the Bronze Age collapse (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 3Dipylon Vase of the late Geometric period, or the beginning of the Archaic period, c. 750 BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 4The Temple of Hera at Selinunte, Sicily (from Ancient Greece)
Image 5Inheritance law, part of the Law Code of Gortyn, Crete, fragment of the 11th column. Limestone, 5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 6Mosaic from Pompeii depicting Plato's academy (from Ancient Greece)
Image 7The Victorious Youth (c. 310 BC), is a rare, water-preserved bronze sculpture from ancient Greece. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 8Finds 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 9Delian League ("Athenian Empire"), immediately before the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 10The ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, 4th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 11Ancient 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 12The 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 13Greek cities & colonies c. 550 BC (in red color) (from Ancient Greece)
Image 14The Antikythera mechanism was an analog computer from 150 to 100 BC designed to calculate the positions of astronomical objects. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 15The 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 16Early Athenian coin, depicting the head of Athena on the obverse and her owl on the reverse – 5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 17A 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 18Mount Olympus, home of the Twelve Olympians (from Ancient Greece)
Image 19The lawgiver Solon reformed the Athenian constitution at the beginning of the sixth century BC (from Archaic Greece)
Image 20Map showing events of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 21Fresco of dancing Peucetian women in the Tomb of the Dancers in Ruvo di Puglia, 4th–5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 22Geometric-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 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 24Ruins 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 25Gravestone of a woman with her slave child-attendant, c. 100 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 26Greek hoplite and Persian warrior depicted fighting, on an ancient kylix, 5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 27The remains of the Temple of Apollo at Corinth, the first Greek temple to be built in stone. (from Archaic Greece)
Image 28Marble 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 29Areas settled by Greeks by the close of the archaic period (from Archaic Greece)
Image 30Homer, author of the earliest surviving Greek literature (from Archaic Greece)
Image 31The 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 32The 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 33Map showing the major regions of mainland ancient Greece and adjacent "barbarian" lands. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 34Alexander Mosaic, National Archaeological Museum, Naples. (from Ancient Greece)

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The Panathinaiko or Panathenaic Stadium , also known as the Kallimarmaro (Καλλιμάρμαρο, i.e. the "beautifully marbled") in Athens is the only major stadium in the world built entirely of white marble (from Mount Penteli).

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