Download The Legacy of Ancient Greece

The Legacy of
Ancient Greece
By: Mr. Tsolomitis
Modern Language and
Literature
• “Alphabet” is a combination of the first two letters
of the Greek alphabet.
• Greek roots: “tel” (meaning far off) and phone
(meaning voice)
• Punctuation, grammar, paragraphs.
• Drama (comedy and tragedy)
• History (Herodotus and Thucydides)
Government
• Birthplace of democracy
• Practice of having citizens serve on juries began in
Athens
• Several key differences:
o We elect representatives to speak and make laws, but in Athens everyone
debated and voted on issues.
o Women and immigrants can be citizens today, but in Athens, only nativeborn men could be citizens.
Medicine and the Human Body
• Hippocrates, “the father of
modern medicine”
• Changed belief about illnesses
away from “punishments sent by
the gods” to “natural causes”
• Taught students to be observant
about their patients.
• Hippocratic oath
• Name/describe organs, the heart
pumps blood, and the brain is the
center of the nervous system.
Mathematics
• Pythagoras: numbers
are the key to
understanding
nature
• Geometry: “to
measure land.”
• Euclid really created
the textbook on
geometry.
• Hypatia was the first
famous female
mathematician
Astronomy
• Astro means “star”
• Aristarchus suggested that the Earth moves around the
sun instead of everything moving around the Earth
• Hipparchus is the greatest astronomer of the ancient
world
• Discovered and named
more than 850 stars in the
sky.
• Estimated distances
between the Earth and the
sun and moon, allowing us to
predict eclipses.
Geography
• Geography means “writing about the earth.”
• Ptolemy was greatest geographer of ancient
Greece.
• Wrote a book that listed over 8,000 places and
maps that show how to represent a curved earth
on a flat surface.
• Latitude and longitude to describe locations on the
surface of the Earth
Understanding of Plants
and Animals
• Greeks learned about the human body by studying
those of animals
• Identified many types of plants and their parts
• Used herbs and other natural things to heal people.
• Discovered how plants reproduce.
• Aristotle was a naturalist, studied many types of
plants and animals.
o Classified animals as those having or not having backbones.
Architecture
• Architecture means “master builder”
• Pediments and friezes
• Many public buildings (libraries, schools, churches,
museums, etc.) and/or government structures use
Greek styles.
• Covered porches come from the Greek stoa, a
covered line of columns.
Theater
• Theater means “a
viewing place”
• Invented special
effects (hoists to lift
actors, revolving
scenery, etc.)
• Many Greek dramas
survive and are
performed and
adapted all over the
world.
Sports
• Olympic Games were first held in 776 B.C.E. to honor
Zeus
• Opening ceremony and Olympic flame are
customs from ancient times.
• Pentathlon is Greek for “five contests,” which
included a foot-race, discus throw, long jump,
javelin, and wrestling.
o Meant to be a test of all-around athletic skill
o Still an event in today’s Olympics, but the contests are different.