Greece is a country in southeastern Europe, known in Greek as

Hellas or Ellada, and consisting of a mainland and an archipelago of

islands. Ancient Greece is the birthplace of Western philosophy
(Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle), literature (Homer and Hesiod),
mathematics (Pythagoras and Euclid), history (Herodotus),
drama (Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes), the Olympic
Games, and democracy.

The concept of an atomic universe was first posited in Greece

through the work of Democritus and Leucippus. The process of
today's scientific method was first introduced through the work of
Thales of Miletus and those who followed him. The Latin alphabet
also comes from ancient Greece, having been introduced to the
region during the Phoenician colonization in the 8th century BCE,
and early work in physics and engineering was pioneered by
Archimedes, of the Greek colony of Syracuse, among others.

Mainland Greece is a large peninsula surrounded on three sides by

the Mediterranean Sea (branching into the Ionian Sea in the west
and the Aegean Sea in the east) which also comprises the islands
known as the Cyclades and the Dodecanese (including Rhodes),
the Ionian islands (including Corcyra), the isle of Crete, and the
southern peninsula known as the Peloponnese.

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THE GREEKS BECAME SKILLED

SEAFARING PEOPLE & TRADERS WHO
BUILT SOME OF THE MOST IMPRESSIVE
STRUCTURES IN ANTIQUITY.
The geography of Greece greatly influenced the culture in that,
with few natural resources and surrounded by water, the people
eventually took to the sea for their livelihood. Mountains cover 80
percent of Greece and only small rivers run through a rocky
landscape which, for the most part, provides little encouragement
for agriculture. Consequently, the early ancient Greeks colonized
neighboring islands and founded settlements along the coast of
Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor, modern-day Turkey). The
Greeks became skilled seafaring people and traders who, possessing
an abundance of raw materials for construction in stone, and great
skill, built some of the most impressive structures in antiquity.

Etymology of Hellas

The designation Hellas derives from Hellen, the son of Deucalion

and Pyrrha who feature prominently in Ovid's tale of the Great
Flood in his Metamorphoses. The mythical Deucalion (son of the fire-
bringing titan Prometheus) was the savior of the human race from
the Great Flood, in the same way Noah is presented in the biblical
version or Utnapishtim in the Mesopotamian one. Deucalion and
Pyrrha repopulate the land once the floodwaters have receded by
casting stones which become people, the first being Hellen. Contrary
to popular opinion, Hellas and Ellada have nothing to do with Helen
of Troy from Homer's Iliad. Ovid, however, did not coin the
designation. Thucydides writes, in Book I of his Histories.

Early History of Ancient Greece

Ancient Greek history is most easily understood by dividing it into

time periods. The region was already settled, and agriculture
initiated, during the Paleolithic era as evidenced by finds at
Petralona and Franchthi caves (two of the oldest human habitations
in the world). The Neolithic Age (c. 6000 - c. 2900 BCE) is
characterized by permanent settlements (primarily in northern
Greece), domestication of animals, and the further development of
agriculture. Archaeological finds in northern Greece (Thessaly,
Macedonia, and Sesklo, among others) suggest a migration from
Anatolia al in that the ceramic cups and bowls and figures found
there share quities distinctive to Neolithic finds in Anatolia. These
inland settlers were primarily farmers, as northern Greece was more
conducive to agriculture than elsewhere in the region, and lived in
one-room stone houses with a roof of timber and clay daubing.

The Cycladic Civilization (c. 3200-1100 BCE) flourished in the

islands of the Aegean Sea (including Delos, Naxos, and Paros) and
provides the earliest evidence of continual human habitation in that
region. During the Cycladic Period, houses and temples were built of
finished stone and the people made their living through fishing and
trade. This period is usually divided into three phases: Early
Cycladic, Middle Cycladic, and Late Cycladic with a steady
development in art and architecture. The latter two phases overlap
and finally merge with the Minoan Civilization, and differences
between the periods become indistinguishable.

The Minoan Civilization (2700-1500 BCE) developed on the island of

Crete, and rapidly became the dominant sea power in the region.
The term 'Minoan' was coined by the archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans,
who uncovered the Minoan palace of Knossos in 1900 CE and
named the culture for the ancient Cretan king Minos. The name by
which the people knew themselves is not known. The Minoan
Civilization was thriving, as the Cycladic Civilization seems to have
been, long before the accepted modern dates which mark its
existence and probably earlier than 6000 BCE.
The Minoans developed a writing system known as Linear A
(which has not yet been deciphered) and made advances in
shipbuilding, construction, ceramics, the arts and sciences, and
warfare. King Minos was credited by ancient historians (Thucydides
among them) as being the first person to establish a navy with
which he colonized, or conquered, the Cyclades. Archaeological and
geological evidence on Crete suggests this civilization fell due to an
overuse of the land causing deforestation though, traditionally, it is
accepted that they were conquered by the Mycenaeans. The
eruption of the volcano on the nearby island of Thera (modern-day
Santorini) between 1650 and 1550 BCE and the resulting tsunami is
acknowledged as the final cause for the fall of the Minoans. The isle
of Crete was deluged and the cities and villages destroyed. This
event has been frequently cited as Plato's inspiration in creating his
myth of Atlantis in his dialogues of the Critias and Timaeus.

The Mycenaeans & Their Gods

The Mycenaean Civilization (approximately 1900-1100 BCE) is

commonly acknowledged as the beginning of Greek culture, even
though we know almost nothing about the Mycenaeans save what
can be determined through archaeological finds and through
Homer's account of their war with Troy as recorded in the Iliad.
They are credited with establishing the culture owing primarily to
their architectural advances, their development of a writing system
(known as Linear B, an early form of Greek descended from the
Minoan Linear A), and the establishment, or enhancement of,
religious rites. The Mycenaeans appear to have been greatly
influenced by the Minoans of Crete in their worship of earth
goddesses and sky gods, which, in time, become the classical Greek
.

Greek mythology provided a solid paradigm of the creation of the

universe, the world, and human beings. An early myth relates how,
in the beginning, there was nothing but chaos in the form of
unending waters. From this chaos came the goddess Eurynome who
separated the water from the air and began her dance of creation
with the serpent Ophion. From their dance, all of creation sprang
and Eurynome was, originally, the Great Mother Goddess and
Creator of All Things.

By the time Hesiod and Homer were writing (8th century BCE), this
story had changed into the more familiar myth concerning the
titans, Zeus' war against them, and the birth of the Olympian Gods
with Zeus as their chief. This shift indicates a movement from a
matriarchal religion to a patriarchal paradigm. Whichever model
was followed, however, the gods clearly interacted regularly with
the humans who worshipped them and were a large part of daily
life in ancient Greece. Prior to the coming of the Romans, the only
road in mainland Greece that was not a cow path was the Sacred
Way which ran between the city of Athens and the holy city of
Eleusis, the birthplace of the Eleusinian Mysteries celebrating the
goddess Demeter and her daughter Persephone.

By 1100 BCE, around the time of the Bronze Age Collapse, the
great Mycenaean cities of southwest Greece were abandoned and,
some claim, their civilization destroyed by an invasion of Doric
Greeks. Archaeological evidence is inconclusive as to what led to the
fall of the Mycenaeans. As no written records of this period survive
(or have yet to be unearthed) one may only speculate on causes.
The tablets of Linear B script found thus far contain only lists of
goods bartered in trade or kept in stock. It seems clear, however,
that after what is known as the Greek Dark Ages (approximately
1100-800 BCE, so named because of the absence of written
documentation) Greek colonization was ongoing in much of Asia
Minor, and the islands surrounding mainland Greece and began to
make significant cultural advances. Beginning in c. 585 BCE the first
Greek philosopher, Thales of Miletus, was engaged in what, today,
would be recognized as scientific inquiry on the Asia Minor coast,
and this region of Ionian colonies would make significant
breakthroughs in Greek philosophy and mathematics.

From the Archaic to the Classical

Periods

GREECE REACHED THE HEIGHTS IN

ALMOST EVERY AREA OF HUMAN
LEARNING DURING THE CLASSICAL
PERIOD.
The Archaic Period (800-500 BCE) is characterized by the
introduction of republics instead of monarchies (which, in Athens,
moved toward democratic rule) organized as a single city-state or
polis, the institution of laws (Draco's reforms in Athens), the great
Panathenaic Festival was established, distinctive Greek pottery
and Greek sculpture were born, and the first coins minted on the
island kingdom of Aegina. This, then, set the stage for the
flourishing of the Classical Period of ancient Greece given as 500-
400 BCE or, more precisely, as 480-323 BCE, from the Greek victory
at the Battle of Salamis to the death of Alexander the Great.
This was the Golden Age of Athens, when Pericles initiated the
building of the Acropolis and spoke his famous eulogy for the men
who died defending Greece at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE.
Greece reached the heights in almost every area of human learning
during this time and the great thinkers and artists of antiquity
(Phidias, Plato, Aristophanes, to mention only three) flourished.
Leonidas and his 300 Spartans fell at Thermopylae and, the same
year (480 BCE), Themistocles won victory over the superior
Persian naval fleet at Salamis leading to the final defeat of the
Persians at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BCE.

Democracy (literally Demos = people and Kratos = power, so power

of the people) was established in Athens allowing all male citizens
over the age of twenty a voice in the Greek government. The Pre-
Socratic philosophers, following Thales' lead, initiated what would
become the scientific method in exploring natural phenomena. Men
like Anaximander, Anaximenes, Pythagoras, Democritus,
Xenophanes, and Heraclitus abandoned the theistic model of the
universe and strove to uncover the underlying, first cause of life and
the universe.

The Story of Civilization Part III, Caesar and

Christ

Their successors, among whom were Euclid and Archimedes,

continued to advance Greek science and philosophical inquiry and
further established mathematics as a serious discipline. The
example of Socrates and the writings of Plato and Aristotle after him
have influenced western culture and society for over two thousand
years. This period also saw advances in architecture and art with a
movement away from the ideal to the realistic. Famous works of
Greek sculpture such as the Parthenon Marbles and Discobolos
(the discus thrower) date from this time and epitomize the artist's
interest in depicting human emotion, beauty, and accomplishment
realistically, even if those qualities are presented in works featuring
immortals.

All of these developments in culture were made possible by the

ascent of Athens following the victory over the Persians in 480 BCE.
The peace and prosperity which followed the Persian defeat
provided the finances and stability for culture to flourish. Athens
became the superpower of the day and, with the most powerful
navy, was able to demand tribute from other city-states and enforce
its wishes. Athens formed the Delian League, a defensive alliance
whose stated purpose was to deter the Persians from further
hostilities.

The city-state of Sparta, however, doubted Athenian sincerity and

formed their own association for protection against their enemies,
the Peloponnesian League (so named for the Peloponnese region
where Sparta and the others were located). The city-states which
sided with Sparta increasingly perceived Athens as a bully and a
tyrant, while those cities which sided with Athens viewed Sparta and
its allies with growing distrust. The tension between these two
parties eventually erupted in what has become known as the
Peloponnesian Wars. The first conflict (c. 460-445 BCE) ended in a
truce and continued prosperity for both parties while the second
(431-404 BCE) left Athens in ruins and Sparta, the victor, bankrupt
after her protracted war with Thebes.

This time is generally referred to as the Late Classical Period (c. 400-
330 BCE). The power vacuum left by the fall of these two cities was
filled by Philip II of Macedon (382-336 BCE) after his victory over
the Athenian forces and their allies at the Battle of Chaeronea in
338 BCE. Philip united the Greek city-states under Macedonian rule
and, upon his assassination in 336 BCE, his son Alexander assumed
the throne.