The ancient Greeks excelled in poetry, politics, and philosophy and aspired to gretness in the arts, but they desired to exceed man`s limits and fell into the trap of humanism.
Created by silviakim on Mar 27, 2011
Last updated: 03/27/11 at 02:08 PM
Homer, a single poet has never had such influence on the thinking of a people as homer had upon on the Greeks. Homer created the Iliad and the Odyssey, two epic poems still widely read and admired. The Iliad describes the heroic deeds of the ancient Greeks in their war against Troy, and the Odyssey recounts the adventures of a brave Greek warrior, Odysseus.
As the families branched out, larger groups formed. At first, families came together to from tribes and villages. Gradually, tribes and villages joined to form the Polis, or city. Greek cities also had a Gymnasium, a place of physical training, and also had an Amphitheater, an outdoor theater.
Beginning of the Greek colonization throughout the Mediterranean basin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CTkVUcjPvo
The demand became so urgent that about 620 bc, Draco was directed to prepare a code of law. His laws were so merciless that they were said to have been written in blood. Every offense was punishable by death. Solon was an Athenian statesman, lawmaker, and poet. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to legislate against political, economic and moral decline in archaic Athens. Solon repealed the harsh edicts of Draco, relieved debtors, redeemed many slaves, and forbade parents to sell or pawn their children, ordered every father to teach his sons a trade.
Began in the summer of 490 B.C: , when Darius sent a fleet of 600 ships with 25,000 men to Greece. After a second defeat al Athens, the Persian army, having lost more than 6,000 men, returned to the safety of its empire in the east. The Battle of Marathon proved that the Persian could be defeated, beginning her rise to power among the cities of Greece. The Battle of Thermopylae, ten years after Marathon, Darius determinate to conquer Greece. The Battle of Salamis, Xerxes burned the sacred temples and other public buildings. But the brilliant Athenian Themistocles tricks Xerxes into fighting a naval battle, (the first major naval battle in history), broke Xerxes having lost a third of his fleet, The Persian Emperor retreated with the most of his army, and the other ones remained in Greece until The Battle of Platea in 479 B.C.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWykDQazZvo
Athens in 478-477 B.C. formed the Delian League; the Delian League became an Athenian Empire (so named because it met on the island of Delos).
Pericles, an aristocrat who dominated Athens from 461 to 429 B.C. Under Pericles leadership, Athenians began to pay public officials for their service. For the first time in Greek history, it became financially feasible for common men to seek public office. Periclean Athens had a type of democracy virtually unknown today. Athens was a direct democracy; it lasted only about 50 years. The age of Pericles is often referred to as the “Golden Age of Greece”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbxLgX5MgLc
Greece was split in two. Sparta was the first to declare war, but Athens, under Pericles’s leadership, was eager to fight. Almost all the Greeks and eventually even the Persians became involved in this war, which is known in world history as the “Peloponnesian War”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGuSgrZQzU8
Update Sources