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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. Most of these regions were officially unified only once, for 13 years, under Alexander the Great's empire from 336 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 Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, 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 5th to 4th centuries BC, and which included the Golden Age of Athens. The conquests of Alexander the Great 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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Koine Greek (UK: /ˈkɔɪni/ KOY-nee; US: /ˈkɔɪneɪ/ KOY-nay, /kɔɪˈneɪ/ koy-NAY; Koine Greek: ἡ κοινὴ διάλεκτος, romanized: hē koinè diálektos, lit. 'the common dialect'), also known as Hellenistic Greek, common Attic, the Alexandrian dialect, Biblical Greek, Septuagint Greek or New Testament Greek, was the common supra-regional form of Greek spoken and written during the Hellenistic period, the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire. It evolved from the spread of Greek following the conquests of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC, and served as the lingua franca of much of the Mediterranean region and the Middle East during the following centuries. It was based mainly on Attic and related Ionic speech forms, with various admixtures brought about through dialect levelling with other varieties.

Koine Greek included styles ranging from conservative literary forms to the spoken vernaculars of the time. As the dominant language of the Byzantine Empire, it developed further into Medieval Greek, which then turned into Modern Greek. (Full article...)

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Thessaly within Greece

Thessaly (/ˈθɛsəli/ THESS-ə-lee; Greek: Θεσσαλία, romanized: Thessalía [θesaˈli.a]; ancient Thessalian: Πετθαλία, Petthalía) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thessaly was known as Aeolia (Ancient Greek: Αἰολία, Aiolía), and appears thus in Homer's Odyssey.

Thessaly became part of the modern Greek state in 1881, after four and a half centuries of Ottoman rule. Since 1987 it has formed one of the country's 13 regions and is further (since the Kallikratis reform of 2011) sub-divided into five regional units and 25 municipalities. The capital of the region is Larissa. Thessaly lies in northern central Greece and borders the regions of Macedonia to the north, Epirus to the west, Central Greece to the south, and the Aegean Sea to the east. The Thessaly region also includes the Sporades islands. (Full article...)

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Did you know...

...that around 600 BC, the wooden columns of the old Temple of Hera at Olympia underwent a material transformation, known as "petrification"?

...that although of Greek origin, the Corinthian order was seldom used in Greek architecture?

...that Greek mythology has changed over time to accommodate the evolution of their own culture?

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Alcibiades Being Taught by Socrates, by François-André Vincent (1776)

Alcibiades (/ˌælsɪˈbaɪ.ədiːz/ AL-sib-EYE-ə-deez; Greek: Ἀλκιβιάδης; c. 450 – 404 BC) was an Athenian statesman and general. The last of the Alcmaeonidae, he played a major role in the second half of the Peloponnesian War as a strategic advisor, military commander, and politician, but subsequently fell from prominence.

During the course of the Peloponnesian War, Alcibiades changed his political allegiance several times. In his native Athens in the early 410s BC, he advocated an aggressive foreign policy and was a prominent proponent of the Sicilian Expedition. After his political enemies brought charges of sacrilege against him, he fled to Sparta, where he served as a strategic adviser, proposing or supervising several major campaigns against Athens. However, Alcibiades made powerful enemies in Sparta too, and defected to Persia. There he served as an adviser to the satrap Tissaphernes until Athenian political allies brought about his recall. He served as an Athenian general (strategos) for several years, but enemies eventually succeeded in exiling him a second time. (Full article...)

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Pericles Archimedes Aspasia Demosthenes Epaminondas 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 lawgiver Solon reformed the Athenian constitution, which led to significant developments in Greece (from Archaic Greece)
Image 2Geometric-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 3The Victorious Youth (c. 310 BC) is a rare, water-preserved bronze sculpture from ancient Greece. (from Ancient Greece)
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 5Map showing the major regions of mainland ancient Greece and adjacent "barbarian" lands. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 6Alexander Mosaic, National Archaeological Museum, Naples. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 7Map of the Late Bronze Age collapse (c. 1200 BC) in the Eastern Mediterranean (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 8The Temple of Concordia, Valle dei Templi, Magna Graecia, in present-day Italy (from Archaic Greece)
Image 9The Temple of Concordia, Valle dei Templi, Magna Graecia, in present-day Italy (from Ancient Greece)
Image 10Map showing events of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 11The 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 12Greek hoplite and Persian warrior depicted fighting, on an ancient kylix, 5th century BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 13An 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 14Finds 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 15The ancient Theatre of Epidaurus, 4th century BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 16The Temple of Hera at Selinunte, Sicily (from Ancient Greece)
Image 17Ancient Greek colonies in the archaic period (from Archaic Greece)
Image 18Homer, author of the earliest surviving Greek literature (from Archaic Greece)
Image 19A 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 20The 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 21Ruins 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 22Mosaic from Pompeii depicting Plato's Academy (from Ancient Greece)
Image 23Early Athenian coin, depicting the head of Athena on the obverse and her owl on the reverse – 5th century BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 24The remains of the Temple of Apollo at Corinth, the first Greek temple to be built in stone. (from Archaic Greece)
Image 25Dipylon Vase of the late Geometric period, or the beginning of the Archaic period, c. 750 BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 26The 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 27The Antikythera mechanism was an analog computer from 150 to 100 BC designed to calculate the positions of astronomical objects. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 28The 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 29Delian League ("Athenian Empire"), immediately before the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 30Mount Olympus, home of the Twelve Olympians (from Ancient Greece)
Image 31Ancient Greek colonies in the archaic period. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 32Gravestone of a woman with her slave child-attendant, c. 100 BC (from Ancient Greece)
Image 33Marble 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 34Inheritance law, part of the Law Code of Gortyn, Crete, fragment of the 11th column. Limestone, 5th century BC (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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