For a bird’s-eye-view of Ancient Greece, start with the General Ancient Greek history section. Learn the basic facts and ideas that made Ancient Greece such a fascinating time and place.
Though the ancient Greeks get a lot of credit for building the foundation of today's civilization, many of their ideas came from the Kemites. Who were they, and what did they teach the Greeks? See more »
Hellenistic Era, the period from the conquests of Alexander the Great (died 323 B.C.) to Roman subjugation of the Mediterranean world (Egypt, the last to be taken, annexed 30 B.C.).
See more »Helots, the peasant slaves of ancient Sparta. They probably were descendants of the original population who were conquered by the Spartans.
See more »Ionians a branch of the ancient Greeks. The Ionians were originally from eastern Greece.
See more »Isthmian Games one of the four great festivals of ancient Greece, the others being the Olympian, Pythian, and Nemean Games.
See more »Lyceum, a tract of ground outside ancient Athens. It was the site of a gymnasium (exercise ground) and had many paths and covered passages.
See more »Minoan Civilization The Minoan civilization developed on the islands of Crete and Thera, in the Mediterranean Sea.
See more »Mycenaean (or Achaean) Civilization a Bronze Age culture of Greece and the Aegean region.
See more »Nemean Games one of the four pan-Hellenic festivals of ancient Greece. It was held in the valley of Nemea, near the Argive town of Cleonae, at the end of every first and third Olympic year.
See more »Ostracism, in ancient Greece, the method by which persons whose power and influence seemed to be dangerous to the democratic state could be temporarily banished from the community by popular vote.
See more »Peloponnesian War, 431–404 B.C., a struggle between Athens and Sparta, and their respective allies.
See more »Peloponnesus, the main peninsula of southern Greece. It is linked to central Greece by the Isthmus of Corinth.
See more »Phalanx, in ancient warfare, a close, deep formation of heavily armed infantry. It was the basic unit of ancient Greek armies.
See more »Philadelphia, the name of two ancient cities. The word comes from the Greek for “brotherly love.”
See more »Philip (II) of Macedon (382–336 B.C.), king of Macedonia, 359–336 B.C. He was the father of Alexander the Great.
See more »Hercules, Pillars of, a name given by the ancient Greeks to a pair of rocks at the Strait of Gibraltar, the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea.
See more »Ptolemies, the name of a line of Greek rulers of Egypt, 323 B.C-30 B.C. The dynasty was founded by Ptolemy I Soter (367?–283), a Macedonian general, soon after the death of Alexander the Great.
See more »Pythian Games, a national festival held every four years at Delphi in ancient Greece.
See more »Seleucid Kingdom, an ancient realm that centered mainly in Syria. It was founded by Seleucus, one of the Diadochi (Successors), the group of generals in the army of Alexander the Great to whom control of Alexander's empire fell after his death in 323 B.C .
See more »Sybarites, inhabitants of the ancient Greek city-state of Sybaris, on the southern coast of Italy.
See more »Thermopylae, an ancient pass on the east coast of Greece, famous for the battle that took place there in 480 B.C., during the Persian Wars.
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