Ancient Greece Flashcards
Epic Poem
A long poem that tells the deeds of a great hero.
Arete
The accomplishment of a hero which is achieved through contests or struggles.
Minoan Civilization
A Bronze Age civilization located in Crete that used metals to make weapons.
Mycenae
The first Greek state made up of powerful monarchies that contained Indo European people. They were a warrior people who prided themselves on heroic deeds in battle.
Homer
A famous Mycenaean poet who wrote epic poems. He wrote the Odyssey and the Iliad which were the first great epic poems of early Greece. His poems were inspired and based on heroes and warriors.
Crete
Large island located southeast of Greek mainland. Crete was a major area in Greece and housed the Minoan Civilization.
Ionia
A strip of territory in the Western shores of Asia Minor. During the Dark Ages, many people left Greek mainland and sailed to Ionia.
How did the geography of Greece affect Greek history?
Greece consists of mountainous peninsula and numerous islands. The mountains and sea impacted history because it isolated Greeks from one another, causing different independent Greek communities, leading to individual governments, but also tension between communities.
Polis
A Greek city-state that became the central focus of Greek life.
Acropolis
The fortified area on the top of a hill in the polis used for gathering. The acropolis was used as a place of refuge during an attack and could also be a religious center.
Agora
An open area below the acropolis that served as a place where people could assemble and as a market.
Hoplites
Heavily armed infantry soldiers (foot soldiers) who the military system was based on. Each soldier carried a round shield, a short sword, and a thrusting spear.
Phalanx
A rectangular military formation in which hoplites went into battle as a unit, marching shoulder to shoulder. This close formation created a wall of shields to protect each soldier.
Democracy
Government by the people or rule by the many
Oligarchy
Rule by a few leaders
Helots
Messenian and Laconian people who were captured and became serfs and were made to work for the Spartans.
Ephor
A group of five men who were elected each year and were responsible for the education of children and conduct of all citizens.
Aristotle
A Greek philosopher. Aristotle taught Alexander the Great.
Solon
A reform-minded aristocrat who was given full power over Athens in 594 B.C.
Cleisthenes
A reformer who gained power over Athens with the backing of the Athenian people. He created a council of 500 men that supervised foreign affairs, oversaw the treasury, and proposed laws. His reforms created the foundations of Athenian democracy.
Athens
A large city-state in Greece. Early Athens was ruled by a king, which switched to an oligarchy under the control of the aristocrats. Later, Athens became the foundation of democracy. Athens was centered around intellect and strategy and many philosophers came from it. Athens was a male dominated society.
Byzantium
A city where Greeks settled along the shores of the Black Sea, on the Hellespont and Bosporus bodies of water (it became Constantinople).
Sparta
A major city-state in Greece. sparta was governed by an oligarchy headed by 2 kings. They also had ephors and a council of elders who decided on the issues that would be presented to an assembly of male citizens. Sparta focused a lot on war and heroism. They trained their children to become warriors, and did not focus on education or other arts, only war.
How were Athens and Sparta different?
Athens trained its children in literature and academics, while Sparta trained its children to become military warriors. Athens’ military was based on strategy and intellect, while Sparta’s military was based on physical strength and instilling fear in its opponents.
Tyrant
Wealthy Greek rulers who seized power by force from the aristocrats.
Age of Pericles
A period in Greek history in which Athens saw the height of its power and brilliance. They became very attached to their democratic system. Under Pericles, Athens became the center of Greek culture. Pericles set in motion a massive rebuilding program. Art, architecture, and philosophy flourished.
Direct Democracy
A democracy in which people participate directly in government decision making through ass meetings. This democracy was used in Athens, where male citizens were in the governing assembly and voted on major issues.
Ostracism
A method Athenians devised to protect themselves against harmful politicians. If members of the assembly deemed someone harmful to the city, if there were 6,000 signatures agreeing with this, he was banned from the city for 10 years.
Darius
A Persian ruler who was defeated by the Athenians at Marathon.
Xerxes
The Persian monarch who came to power after Darius. He launched an attack against Greek army and forced them to withdraw. Later, the Greeks compiled a massive army and defeated the Persians and Xerxes.
Pericles
A prominent and influential Greek statesman/orator who led Greece in the Age of Pericles, the greatest time in Athenian history.
Ritual
Ceremonies or rites.
Oracle
A sacred shrine where a god or goddess revealed the future through a priest or priestess. Most famous oracle was the oracle of Apollo at Delphi.
Tragedies
The first Greek dramas that were presented in a trilogy built around a common theme. One of these trilogies still remains today, called the Oresteia, which was composed by Aeschylus.
Philosophy
An organized system of thought.
Sophist
A group of traveling teachers in ancient Greece who declared speculations such as that of Pythagoras as fooolish.
Socratic Method
A method of teaching which uses a question and answer format to lead students to see things for themselves by using their own reason.
Pythagoras
A philosopher who taught that the essence of the universe could be found in music and numbers.
Socrates
A Greek sculptor who loved philosophy. He taught many students for no pay at all. He believed that the goal of education was only to improve the individual. He questioned authority, which led him to trial for corrupting the education of youth for leading them to question. He was sentenced to death by the government.
Plato
A Greek philosopher, who was a student of Socrates. He wrote down many of his thoughts, and was fascinated with the question of reality.
Aristotle
A Greek philosopher, who was a student of Plato. He did not accept Plato’s theory of ideal forms. He favored constitutional government as the best form for most people.
Thucydides
The greatest historian of the ancient world. He was an Athenian general, but was defeated in battle and was sent into exile, giving him a lot of time to write his History of the Peloponnesian War. He was very factual, unlike Herodotus. He believed the study of history is of great value in understanding the present.
Hellenistic Era
An age created by Alexander the Great. This age imitated Greek culture outside of Greece, taking their language and ideas and spreading it to the non-Greek world.
Epicureanism
A philosophy founded by the philosopher Epicurus. Epicurus believed that humans were free to follow self-interest as a basic motivating force.
Stoicism
A school of thought founded by a teacher named Zeno that became the most popular philosophy of the Hellenistic world and later flourished in the Roman Empire too. Many of these teachings contradicted Epicureanism.
Phillip II
A Macedonian leader who built a powerful army and turned Macedonia into the chief power of the Greek world. He admired Greek culture very much, but Greeks feared him and attacked him, but the Macedonians crushed the Greeks, leading Phillip to gain control of all of Greece. He was assassinated, leaving the throne to his son, Alexander.
Alexander the Great
A Macedonian leader who was only 20 when he became king. Alexander led one of the Greatest conquests the world had ever seen, stretching from Macedonia, down to Egypt, and across to the end of Persia. He was an incredible military leader, but when he returned home from his conquest, he died from exhaustion, wounds, fever, and too much alcohol.
Eratosthenes
An astronomer who determined that the Earth was round and calculated Earth’s circumference.
Archimedes
A man who had special work on the geometry of spheres and cylinders, as well as for establishing the value of pi.
Euclid
A mathematician who wrote the Elements, a textbook on plane geometry.
Alexandria
The Greek capital of Egypt, named for Alexander the Great when he conquered the city.
