Black-figure amphora by Exekias showing Achilles and Ajax playing checkers
To review and make sure you know the basics of Greek history, try playing this Greek History Bingo game. Copy the words in capital letters onto a piece of notebook paper, making three rows, and let someone else call out the things that happened. Try to place each thing that happened in the right Greek time period (hint: it will help a lot if you know the dates of each time period!).
MINOAN
STONE AGE
DARK AGE
OTTOMAN
EARLY BRONZE
ROMAN
CLASSICAL
MYCENAEAN
ARCHAIC
HELLENISTIC
MIDDLE BRONZE
BYZANTINE
Events to read out (not in order!):
People begin farming wheat (about 6000 BC) – STONE AGE
People begin keeping chickens (about 600 BC) – ARCHAIC
People begin to make pottery (about 6000 BC) – STONE AGE
People begin to make bronze (about 2000 BC) – EARLY BRONZE
People begin to use Linear B writing (about 1500 BC) – MYCENAEAN
Philip of Macedon conquers Greece (338 BC) – HELLENISTIC
First Persian War (Battle of Marathon) (490 BC) – CLASSICAL
People begin to use iron (about 1000 BC) – DARK AGE
Plato and Aristotle (about 425-330 BC) – HELLENISTIC
Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta (ends 404 BC) – CLASSICAL
Spartans enslave the Messenians as helots (600s BC) – ARCHAIC
Solon makes new, fairer laws for the Athenians (600s BC) – ARCHAIC
Greeks begin to use the alphabet (ca. 750 BC) – ARCHAIC
Socrates, the Greek philosopher (ca. 400 BC) – CLASSICAL
Sack of Corinth by the Romans (146 BC) – ROMAN
Normans build castles in Greece (about 400 AD) – BYZANTINE
Christianity comes to Corinth with St. Paul (ca. 50 AD) – ROMAN
Corinth makes fancy perfume bottles to sell (ca. 600s BC) – ARCHAIC
Alexander the Great defeats the Persian Empire (323 BC) – HELLENISTIC
Sophocles writes his play Oedipus Rex (400s BC) – CLASSICAL
Parthenon gets blown up (1600s AD) – OTTOMAN
First Olympic Games (776 BC) – ARCHAIC
Gold mask of Agamemnon at Mycenae (ca. 1500 BC) – MYCENAEAN
Bull-dancing in the palace at Knossos (ca. 1500 BC) – MINOAN
Mycenaeans destroy palace at Knossos (ca. 1400 BC) – MINOAN
Democracy established in Athens (510 BC) – CLASSICAL
Potters make red and white Sesklo war pottery (5000 BC) – STONE AGE
House of the Tiles at Lerna (ca. 2100 BC) – EARLY BRONZE
Jews flee Spain and settle in Thessaloniki (1450 AD) – OTTOMAN
Second Persian War (Thermopylae) (480 BC) – CLASSICAL
Greek sculptors show emotion and movement (200s BC) – HELLENISTIC
Greek potters make red figure pottery (400s BC) – CLASSICAL
More about Greek History
Bibliography and further reading about Greek history:
Oxford First Ancient History, by Roy Burrell and Peter Connolly (1997). Lively interviews and pictures make the ancient Mediterranean come to life. For teens.
Cleisthenes: Founder of Athenian Democracy, by Sarah Parton (2002). A biography of the founder of Athenian democracy.
The Oxford Illustrated History of Greece and the Hellenistic World, by John Boardman, Jasper Griffin, and Oswyn Murray (2001). For college students.
A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society, and Culture, by Sarah Pomeroy and others (2004). This one might be a little more politically progressive than the Oxford history.
Athenian Democracy, by A.H.M. Jones (reprinted 1986). One of the great social historians of the 20th century, though this isn’t easy reading.
