Portal:Ancient Greece

The Ancient Greece Portal

Ancient Greece (Ancient Greek: Ἑλλάς, romanized: Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilisation, 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 communities. Prior to the Roman period, most of these regions were officially unified only 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 colonisation 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 civilisation 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 civilisation, 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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This list of ancient Greek temples covers temples built by the Hellenic people from the 6th century BC until the 2nd century AD on mainland Greece and in Hellenic towns in the Aegean Islands, Asia Minor, Sicily and Italy ("Magna Graecia"), wherever there were Greek colonies, and the establishment of Greek culture. Ancient Greek architecture was of very regular form, the construction being post and lintel.

There are three clearly defined styles: the Doric order, found throughout Greece, Sicily and Italy; the Ionic order, from Asia Minor, with examples in Greece; and the more ornate Corinthian order, used initially only for interiors, becoming more widely used during the Hellenistic period from the 1st century BC onwards and used extensively by Roman architects. (Full article...)

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Temple of Concordia

The Valle dei Templi (Italian: [ˈvalle dei ˈtɛmpli]; Sicilian: Vaddi di li Tempri), or Valley of the Temples, is an archaeological site in Agrigento (ancient Greek: Ακραγας, Akragas), Sicily. It is one of the most outstanding examples of ancient Greek art and architecture of Magna Graecia, and is one of the main attractions of Sicily. The term "valley" is a misnomer, the site being located on a ridge outside the town of Agrigento.

Since 1997, the entire area has been included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. The archaeological and landscape park of the Valle dei Templi, with its 1300 hectares, is the largest archaeological park in Europe and the Mediterranean basin. (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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Alexander in the Alexander Mosaic

Alexander III of Macedon (Ancient Greek: Ἀλέξανδρος, romanized: Aléxandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to the throne in 336 BC at the age of 20 and spent most of his ruling years conducting a lengthy military campaign throughout Western Asia, Central Asia, parts of South Asia, and Egypt. By the age of 30, he had created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history's greatest and most successful military commanders.

Until the age of 16, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle. In 335 BC, shortly after his assumption of kingship over Macedon, he campaigned in the Balkans and reasserted control over Thrace and parts of Illyria before marching on the city of Thebes, which was subsequently destroyed in battle. Alexander then led the League of Corinth, and used his authority to launch the pan-Hellenic project envisaged by his father, assuming leadership over all Greeks in their conquest of Persia. (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 Socrates 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 1Marble 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 2Map of the Late Bronze Age collapse (c. 1200 BC) in the Eastern Mediterranean (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 3An Ancient 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 4The 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 5Inheritance law, part of the Law Code of Gortyn, Crete, fragment of the 11th column. Limestone, 5th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 6Ancient Greek colonies in the archaic period. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 7The Victorious Youth (c. 310 BC) is a rare, water-preserved bronze sculpture from ancient Greece. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 8A 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 9The 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 10Mosaic from Pompeii depicting Plato's Academy (from Ancient Greece)
Image 11Map showing events of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 12The remains of the Temple of Apollo at Corinth, the first Greek temple to be built in stone. (from Archaic Greece)
Image 13Alexander Mosaic, National Archaeological Museum, Naples. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 14The 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 15Finds 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 16Map showing the major regions of mainland ancient Greece and adjacent "barbarian" lands. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 17Homer, author of the earliest surviving Greek literature (from Archaic Greece)
Image 18Dipylon Vase of the late Geometric period, or the beginning of the Archaic period, c. 750 BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 19The 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 20Early Athenian coin, depicting the head of Athena on the obverse and her owl on the reverse – 5th century BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 21The lawgiver Solon reformed the Athenian constitution, which led to significant developments in Greece (from Archaic 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 wealthy pregnant woman, 850 BC. (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 23The 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 24Ruins 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 25The Temple of Concordia, Valle dei Templi, Magna Graecia, in present-day Italy (from Archaic Greece)
Image 26Delian League ("Athenian Empire"), immediately before the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 27Mount Olympus, home of the Twelve Olympians (from Ancient Greece)
Image 28The Temple of Concordia, Valle dei Templi, Magna Graecia, in present-day Italy (from Ancient Greece)
Image 29Gravestone of a woman with her slave child-attendant, c. 100 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 30Greek hoplite and Persian warrior depicted fighting, on an ancient kylix, 5th century BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 31The Antikythera mechanism was an analog computer from 150 to 100 BC designed to calculate the positions of astronomical objects. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 32The Temple of Hera at Selinunte, Sicily (from Ancient Greece)
Image 33The ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, 4th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 34Ancient Greek colonies in the archaic period (from Archaic 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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