Ancient Greece

Introduction

Socrates

Sophocles

Sappho

It is difficult for the modern mind to understand why Socrates chose death by drinking hemlock instead of exile from Athens, but in his choice lies the essence of Ancient Greece. Individuality meant little to the Greeks, but the state—in the form of the city-state—meant everything. Although there were many Greek city-states, Athens in its golden age was the embodiment of what we refer to as Classical Greece. It was here that the Greeks argued philosophy with Socrates and Plato, wrote and performed the first great comedies and tragedies such as Oedipus Rex, and developed the concepts of democracy and humanism upon which much of modern society is based.

Essential Facts

1. There were over 1,500 Ancient Greek city-states, but only a few had major populations. Athens, the largest, had 200,000 people.
2. Athens is known as the first democratic state, but of its 200,000 residents only 35,000 qualified as citizens who could vote in the democratic process. The rest were slaves, women, children, and foreigners.
3. Greek religion centered on the twelve Olympian gods led by Zeus, as described by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Worship of these gods was entwined in everyday life and was part of a citizen’s civic duty to the state. It was because he encouraged his students to question their beliefs in the gods that Socrates was sentenced to either death or exile by the magistrates of Athens.
4. The modern Olympic marathon comes from the legend of Pheidippides, the messenger who ran 26 miles from the coastal city of Marathon to Athens. He was sent to bring tidings of the Greeks’ surprise victory over the Persians. The story says he ran the distance, gave his message, and immediately collapsed, dead from exhaustion.
5. Although Socrates was sentenced to death by the Athenian government, his ideas were influential in inspiring an emperor. Socrates’ most famous pupil was Plato, whose most famous pupil was Aristotle. Aristotle went on to teach and inspire Alexander of Macedon, who became Alexander the Great and created a Hellenistic empire, spreading Greek culture and thought throughout the known world.