The Persians came from the Central Asian steppe The Persians and the Medes Around 1200 BC, some Indo-European people from Central Asia moved south into West Asia. These people were [...]
Oedipus Rex: The shepherd tells his story to Oedipus, while Jocasta listens in horror (now in the Getty Museum) Sophocles wrote this very famous play in the 400s BC. It [...]
Creusa gets her new magic dress from a slave Who wrote the Greek play Medea? The Greek playwright Euripides wrote it in Athens, in the late 400s BC. It's about the [...]
Antigone at her brother's grave, from the Louvre (Paris) Sophocles' Antigone Antigone is a play that Sophocles wrote. He was an Athenian, who lived in the 400s BC. The play tells the [...]
Thermopylae The Spartans fought the Persians at the mountain pass of Thermopylae for three days, while the other Greek soldiers got safely away to the south. At the end of three [...]
Map of Greece showing where Thermopylae is The Persians are coming! The Greeks heard that Xerxes and the Persians were coming. They disagreed about what to do. The Spartans and Corinthians [...]
Battle of Plataea: Iranian archers from the Persian Empire Battle of Plataea Now that the Greeks had won a major naval victory over the Persians at Salamis, they were braver. [...]
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 end of Sparta: a Spartan hoplite soldier Peloponnesian War In 441 BC, the Spartans decided that the Athenians were pushing everybody around too much, and they got an alliance [...]
Silver coins from ancient Thebes Why are Thebes's coins different? Each Greek city-state minted their own kind of coin, just like countries mint their own coins today. Coins help to [...]
