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ANCIENT
GREECE
Prepared by Anita Billeter
Palmdale School District
with funding from
Jordan Fundamentals Grant
Keeping History Alive Grant
THE EARLY
GREEKS
GEOGRAPHY
THE LAND AROUND THE SEA
 The area in which the
ancient Greeks lived
centered on the Aegean
Sea.
 Greece was ideally located
for sea trade, and the sea
became the Greeks’ link to
other peoples, products, and
ideas.
 Most people in ancient
Greece were farmers,
growing grapes, olives,
wheat and barley.
EARLY CIVILIZATIONS
 The Minoans developed a
system of writing, carried on
rich trade, and were master
builders.
 The Mycenaeans learned
from the Minoans and
became the dominant
civilization in the Aegean
region.
 From about 1100 B.C. to 800
B.C. Greece was in a decline
called the Dark Age, when
trade stopped and written
language disappeared.
THE RISE OF THE CITY STATES
 During the Dark Age,
Greece’s population
increased and isolated
villages grew into cities.
 City-states were
independent, self-governing
units that included the
territory around the city.
 As the city-states grew, they
began to fight over
boundaries and other things,
and some Greeks left to
found new city-states.
ATHENS:
A CITY-STATE
THE EVOLUTION OF
DEMOCRACY
 The Athenians developed a
form of government that
enabled citizens to make
decisions, called a
democracy.
 Tyrants taught citizens that
by uniting behind a leader,
they could gain the power to
make changes.
 Citizens in Athens proposed
new laws, voted on laws,
and served on juries.
 Several other city-states in
Greece also developed
democracies, but Athens’
version was the most
successful.
CITIZENSHIP IN ATHENS
 Citizenship was limited
to men over the age of
18, and usually to those
men whose fathers had
been citizens.
 Wives, children,
unmarried women,
foreigners, and slaves
were not citizens,
though they were
protected by Athenian
law.
THE ECONOMY OF ATHENS
 Most Athenians were
farmers, with just enough
land to support their families.
 As Athens became an
international trading center,
the barter system changed to
the use of coins.
 Wealthy Athenians were
expected to contribute large
amounts of money to
government projects, and
this kept money flowing
throughout the city-state.
ANCIENT GREEK
CULTURE
THE FAMILY OF GREEK GODS
 The Greeks believed their
gods controlled both the
natural and human world.
 All Greeks worshipped Zeus
and his family of gods, each
of whom had a specific role
with particular duties and
powers.
 The Greeks built sacred
places called sanctuaries to
honor their gods.
SANCTUARIES TO THE GODS
 The Greeks used
sanctuaries to make
sacrifices to specific
gods.
 Some sanctuaries were
also places where
oracles, or predictions
of the future, were told.
 The Greeks also
honored their gods and
goddesses by holding
religious festivals.
GREEK DRAMA
 Greek Plays were written
and performed twice a year
at festivals in Athens
honoring Dionysus.
 Most of the plays were about
Greek gods or heroes,
combining religion and
history with entertainment.
 Plays were either tragedies,
in which the hero was ruined
by a character flaw, or
comedies, which made fun
of a variety of topics.
A TALE OF TWO
CITY-STATES
SPARTA AND ATHENS
 The Spartans built a strong
army because they feared
slave uprisings from the
many slaves they owned.
 Unlike Athens, Sparta’s
government was an
oligarchy, with power
remaining in the hands of a
few families.
 Sparta’s emphasis on
maintaining a strong army
shaped its economy.
EDUCATION IN SPARTA AND
ATHENS
 Spartan education focuses
on physical skills and military
training and began at an
early age.
 Wealthy Athenian education
included reading, writing,
arithmetic, poetry, music,
and dance, as well as
athletics.
 In both city-states, formal
education was reserved for
boys.
ALLIES AGAINST PERSIA
 Although quite different,
Athens and Sparta
joined to fight against
Persia.
 After several losses, the
Greeks finally defeated
the Persians at sea,
and a year later, on
land.
THE GOLDEN
AGE OF ATHENS
THE AGE OF PERICLES
 Pericles was Athens’
most outstanding leader
during its Golden Age.
 Pericles worked to
protect Athens, to make
it beautiful, and to
strengthen democracy.
 During the Golden Age,
Athens was a center for
art, literature, and
ideas.
LIFE IN A CITIZEN FAMILY
 Men spent time debating
issues, selling wares,
serving as jurors in the
Assembly, and exercising in
outdoor gymnasiums.
 Women spent time weaving
clothes, preparing food, and
caring for children.
 In the evenings, men either
socialized with each other, or
attended plays or religious
festivals with their wives.
LIFE FOR NONCITIZENS
 Metics were foreigners who
were allowed to attend
theater and religious
festivals, and use the law
courts.
 Slaves had no legal rights in
Athens, but some were paid
for their work and a few
bought their freedom.
 In contrast to other slaves in
Athens, those who worked in
the silver mines labored
under terrible conditions.
THE PELOPONNESIAN
WAR
ATHENS AND SPARTA
 Concerned about an
increasingly powerful
Athens, Sparta declared war
in 431B.C.
 A plague which killed many
in Athens, including Pericles,
and Sparta’s yearly
destruction of food supplies,
greatly weakened Athens.
 Still, it took 27 years of
yearly battles, before Athens
surrendered to Sparta in
404B.C.
END OF THE GOLDEN AGE
 After their defeat by Sparta,
Athenian democracy was
weakened.
 Socrates was an important
teacher and philosopher
challenged his students to
examine their own beliefs by
asking questions.
 Athenian leaders believed
Socrates was encouraging
students to challenge
government authority, so
they tried him and sentenced
him to die.
ALEXANDER THE
GREAT AND HIS
INFLUENCE
THE RISE OF MACEDONIA
 King Philip turned
Macedonia into a military
power by creating a full-time
professional army and
developing new weapons
and battle plans.
 Philip defeated the Greek
armies and became ruler of
Greece in 338B.C.
 Philip reorganized the Greek
army, combined it with his
Macedonian troops, and set
out to conquer Persia.
ALEXANDER’S CONQUESTS
 Though only 20,
Alexander took firm
control of his fathers
kingdom.
 With his troops,
Alexander began a
20,000-mile journey of
conquest.
THE SPREAD OF GREEK
CULTURE
 As Alexander conquered
lands, he established
colonies and cities modeled
after Greek cities, and left
Greeks to rule the
conquered lands.
 During the Hellenistic Age,
the center of Greek culture
shifted from Athens to
Alexandria.
 Alexandria’s library became
the largest in the western
world, lasting seven
centuries.
AFTER ALEXANDER
 After Alexander’s death
in 323B.C., Greek
culture still united the
empire, but politically it
broke apart.
 Alexander’s generals
divided the empire and
fought each other for
control.
 Eventually three
generals and regions
emerged as the
strongest.
CONTRIBUTIONS
OF THE GREEKS
GREEK ARTS
 The Greeks are known for
their lyric poetry, epic poetry,
and plays– both tragedies
and comedies.
 Painters and sculptors
throughout history have
learned from Greek art and
sculpture.
 The Greeks examined and
wrote about the past critically
and our word “history”
comes from a Greek word.
GREEK IDEAS
 Greek philosophers
developed ways of seeking
knowledge and asking
questions that are still used
today.
 Greek scientists believed
they could understand the
workings of the world, and
made important discoveries
in astronomy, medicine, and
mathematics.
 In addition to achievements
in the arts and sciences, the
Greeks’ ideas about
democracy and government
have also influenced
Western civilization.