Parthenon, Athens The Athenian historian Thucydides, who lived through the Peloponnesian War and wrote the history of it, began by asking, why did the war start? He answered that basically [...]
Classical Greece: the Pnyx, where the Athenian Assembly met Democracy in Athens In 510 BC a man named Cleisthenes (KLICE-then-eez), who was an aristocrat (a rich, powerful man) in Athens, [...]
Thebes bell in the shape of a person, 700 BC (Louvre Museum, Paris) In Greek mythology, Thebes was where Oedipus lived with his mother-wife Jocasta. It was where Oedipus' daughter [...]
The ruins of Sparta and the valley around it Sparta in the Bronze Age Sparta was a town in southern Greece. It was already a town in the Late Bronze [...]
The Temple of Octavia in Corinth, dedicated to the sister of the emperor Augustus Hellenistic Corinth After the Macedonians conquered Corinth in 338 BC, Corinth was not as powerful as [...]
Greek wine drinkers playing the kottabos game (Tomb of the Diver, Paestum, ca. 470 BC) Wine as food and medicine Greek people grew wine both to drink themselves and to [...]
The economy of ancient Greece: A Greek man doing carpentry (Athens, 400s BC) The Greek word "economy" The Greeks did not have the same idea of an economy that we [...]
Archaic Greek economy: A black-figure vase showing a blacksmith at work (Athens, about 550 BC) Not much trade in the Dark Ages During the political collapse of the Greek Dark [...]
Hasdrubal, a Carthaginian general Definition of a republic In a republic, instead of voting directly about what they want to do, as in a democracy, people instead vote for people [...]
Why people fall into debt: Sumerian man plowing on a cylinder seal Cancellation of debts The three demands that poor people made whenever they were able to make demands were [...]
