Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a powerful influence on ancient Rome, which carried a version of it throughout the Mediterranean and much of Europe. For this reason, Classical Greece is generally considered the cradle of Western civilization, the seminal culture from which the modern West derives many of its founding archetypes and ideas in politics, philosophy, science, and art. (Full article...)
Inscription of lines 468–473, Book I. 400–500 AD, from Egypt. On display at the British Museum
The Iliad (/ˈɪliəd/; Ancient Greek: Ἰλιάς, romanized: Iliás, Attic Greek:[iː.li.ás]; "[a poem] about Ilion (Troy)") is one of two major ancient Greekepic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the Odyssey, the poem is divided into 24 books and was written in dactylic hexameter. It contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the siege's final weeks. In particular, it depicts a fierce quarrel between King Agamemnon and a celebrated warrior, Achilles. It is a central part of the Epic Cycle. The Iliad is often regarded as the first substantial piece of European literature.
The Iliad and the Odyssey were likely written down in Homeric Greek, a literary mixture of Ionic Greek and other dialects, probably around the late 8th or early 7th century BC. Homer's authorship was infrequently questioned in antiquity, but contemporary scholarship predominantly assumes that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed independently and that the stories formed as part of a long oral tradition. The poem was performed by professional reciters of Homer known as rhapsodes. (Full article...)
...that in ancient Athens, only men had the right to vote or be elected to the government. Women were not sent to school. They were trained in housework and married by the time they were 13?
Little is known about Aristotle's life. He was born in the city of Stagira in northern Greece during the Classical period. His father, Nicomachus, died when Aristotle was a child, and he was brought up by a guardian. At 17 or 18, he joined Plato's Academy in Athens and remained there until the age of 37 (c. 347 BC). Shortly after Plato died, Aristotle left Athens and, at the request of Philip II of Macedon, tutored his son Alexander the Great beginning in 343 BC. He established a library in the Lyceum, which helped him to produce many of his hundreds of books on papyrusscrolls. (Full article...)
The following are images from various Ancient Greece-related articles on Wikipedia.
Image 1Geometric-style box in the shape of a barn. On display in the Ancient Agora Museum in Athens, housed in the Stoa of Attalus. From early geometric cremation burial of a wealthy pregnant woman, 850 BC. (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 4The Parthenon, a temple dedicated to Athena, located on the Acropolis in Athens, is one of the most representative symbols of the culture and sophistication of the ancient Greeks. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 17Early Athenian coin, depicting the head of Athena on the obverse and her owl on the reverse – 5th century BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 18The remains of the Temple of Apollo at Corinth, the first Greek temple to be built in stone. (from Archaic Greece)
Image 19The gymnasium and palaestra at Olympia, the site of the ancient Olympic games. The archaic period conventionally dates from the first Olympiad. (from Archaic Greece)
Image 20An Ancient Greek pair of terracotta boots. Early geometric period cremation burial of a woman, 900 BC. Ancient Agora Museum in Athens. (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 21Dipylon Vase of the late Geometric period, or the beginning of the Archaic period, c. 750 BC. (from Ancient Greece)
Image 27Finds from an early geometric Cremation Burial of a pregnant wealthy woman, from the N.W. of the Areopagus, about 850 BC, Ancient Agora Museum (Athens); exhibit 14–16: broad gold finger rings; exhibit 17–19: gold finger rings; 20: pair of gold earrings with trapezoid endings (from Greek Dark Ages)
Image 28Gravestone of a woman with her slave child-attendant, c. 100 BC (from Ancient Greece)
The Panathinaiko or Panathenaic Stadium , also known as the Kallimarmaro (Καλλιμάρμαρο, i.e. the "beautifully marbled") in Athens is the only major stadium in the world built entirely of white marble (from Mount Penteli).