| Parthenon | Temple to
Athena, city god of Athens, on the Acropolis, the highest
hill. |
| Peloponnesian War | War chiefly
between Athens and Sparta, caused by growing distrust and
jealousy between the two large city-states. In the aftermath
of the Persian Wars, Athens reigned supreme with its fleet
and its dominance of the Delian League, made up of colonies
across the Aegean Sea in Asia Minor. The use of Delian
League funds to build temples and other buildings in Athens
created mistrust of Athens within the League and within the
Greek world as a whole. And when Athens interfered in
colonial revolts far to the west, Sparta and its League (the
Spartan League) took action. The Spartan fleet was no match
for the Athenian fleet, but the Spartan army was more than a
match for the Athenian army. A plague in Athens in the
middle of the war didn't help matters, either. Sparta even
captured Athens itself. Sparta, however, had achieved its
aim and left Athens standing. The war lasted from to 431 to
404. By that time, both sides were exhausted. It was clear
that Athens had lost. However, Sparta was by this time so
weak that the true strong city-state after this war was
Thebes, which had been an ally of Sparta. |
| Peloponnesus | Peninsula in
the central Greek world, separated from the mainland by the
Isthmus of Corinth, and containing several large
city-states, including Sparta, Argos, Olympia, and Corinth.
During the Peloponnesian War, Sparta dominated the
Peloponnesus. Many battles were fought there. |
| Pericles | Leader of
Athens during the Peloponnesian War. He was also a very good
speaker, able to hold his audience's attention for long
periods of time. Actually, his desire for an Athenian empire
did much to cause the war. He died of the plague during the
war. |
| Persia | City-state
that saw its share of cultural achievements and wars. It was
situated between Athens and Sparta and so saw the brunt of
action between those two. Corinthian troops fought in both
the Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian Wars. In the latter,
they fought against Athens. Corinth also gave its name to
the third and most ornate style of column, the Corinthian
column. Colonists from Corinth also founded the city-state
of Syracuse, far to the west on the island of Sicily. |
| Persian Wars | Series of
wars fought between Persia and Greece. The conflict began
when Persia occupied some Greek colonies in Asia Minor.
Greece responded by defending the colonies; and Persia,
commanded by Emperor Xerxes himself, responded by attacking
Greece. The battles were fought on land and at sea. The
battles of Marathon and Thermopylae are famous for the
Greeks' heroism against overwhelming odds. The naval battle
of Salamis almost wiped out the Persian fleet. The battle of
Plataea was the final defeat. The Greek victories kept in
check the growing Persian Empire. After the wars, Persia
continued to meddle in Greek affairs. The answer came in the
form of a reverse invasion, planned by Philip of Macedonia
and carried out by his son, Alexander. |
| Phalanx | Battlefield
formation designed by Philip and executed by Alexander to
provide maximum protection for an army while inflicting
maximum damage on an enemy. Soldiers would bunch together,
shields overlapping, while holding their spears or javelins
in between the shields. An enemy trying to get close enough
to cut through the shield would meet the spear point. An
attacking phalanx could also jab its enemy long before its
soldiers were themselves in danger. The phalanx was also a
good defense against aerial attacks (such as thrown spears)
because the shields were man-height and able to repel such
attacks. In short, the phalanx was a revolutionary
development in warfare, one that had remarkable success on
the battlefields of Persia and India. |
| Philip | Macedonian
king who was held hostage in Greece, spent several years
there, then returned to conquer it all. He was making ready
to invade Persia when he was assassinated. His son,
Alexander, finished the job and went a little bit
further. |
| Plataea | Land battle
that ended the Persian invasions of Greece. In this battle,
the Greeks, led jointly by Athens and Sparta, actually had
more men than the Persians, mainly because the Persians had
left many dead on the Greek fields of battle. The Greek
general Pausanias surprised the Persian army and routed it,
sending the Persians back home. |
| Plato | Greek
philosopher whose famous teacher was Socrates. Plato's
Dialogues preserve for us the philosophy of both
Socrates and Plato, as it is sometimes difficult to tell the
two apart. Plato wrote many great works, including the
Republic, a blueprint for the ideal form of
government. He began the famous Academy in Athens, together
with his famous disciple, Aristotle. |
| Poseidon | God of the
sea and earthquakes. His sea kingdom is unlike any other.
Creatures of his own making swim freely all around the
world. |
| Pythagoras | Greek
mathematician who, among other things, came up with the
famous theorem for figuring the angles and sides of a
triangle. He was also a philosopher. Little is known of his
work because he didn't write much down. |
| Salamis | Naval battle
that ended in a decisive defeat for Persia. Greek ships were
outnumbered but still won. The great naval war hero
Alcibiades tricked the Persians into rushing into Salamis
Bay, where their large ships proved no match for the
smaller, more maneuverable Greek ships. While the Persian
emperor Xerxes watched from an overlooking cliff, his fleet
was virtually destroyed. |
| Socrates | Greek
philosopher whose method of asking questions to prove his
points made him famous. This "Socratic Method" also served
to make his opponents understand how little they knew. He
was convicted of corrupting the minds of the youth and
sentenced to die. He drank hemlock, a poison, and died. His
philosophy is preserved for us in the pages of the
Dialogues of Plato, his most faithful student. The
Apology is the story of Socrates's trial. He also
fought in a battle that led to the Peloponnesian War, saving
the life of Alcibiades, a future hero of that war. |
| Socratic Method | Method of
teaching pioneered by Socrates, the great Greek philosopher.
The Method was a series of questions, by which Socrates made
the people who answered the questions understand not only
the point he was trying to make but also that they didn't
know as much as they thought they did. |
| Solon | Famous
law-giver who brought laws, a constitution, and the
beginnings of democracy to Athens. Among the things his laws
did: cancel all debts, allowed poor people to serve on trial
juries, and required every citizen to teach children to read
and write. |
| Sophocles | Second great
Greek playwright. Wrote 120 plays, of which only seven
survive. He introduced the Third Actor. Before, only two
characters had been onstage at the same time. The
introduction of the Third Actor meant that interaction
between more than two characters take place. This might not
seem like much today, but it was a huge development back
then. Among his famous plays are Oedipus Rex and
Antigone. Sophocles won 24 First Prizes at the City
Dionysia, the annual drama Festival in Athens. |
| Sparta | Most
militaristic of all ancient Greek city-states. Focus was
constantly on war as an outgrowth of the city-state. Boys
were expected to be trained as soldiers; girls were expected
to grow up and bear children who grew up to be soldiers. To
make sure that the army got as many Spartan soldiers as it
needed, Sparta depended on slaves and helots (people
from a nearby settlement who were forced to work) to do
manual labor. Of course, helots populated the army as
well. |
| Syracuse | Western Greek
city-state founded by settlers from Corinth on the island of
Sicily, which is southwest of Italy. A revolt in Syracuse
and the Athenians' response to that revolt helped cause the
Peloponnesian War. |
| Thales | Greek thinker
from Miletus who was the first philosopher and who was also
the first to categorize things scientifically. He also
correctly predicted a solar eclipse. |
| Thebes | Ancient Greek
city-state that was once one of the most prominent. A series
of bad choices doomed it, though. During the Persian Wars,
it sided with the Persians; after the Greek victory, Thebes
was punished severely. During the Peloponnesian Wars, Thebes
sided first with the Spartans and then against them. After
the war, Thebes was punished again but gained the upper hand
eventually because of Sparta's weakening. Finally, Thebes
defied Philip of Macedonia; his son, Alexander, later
invaded and destroyed the city. It was later rebuilt but
never the same. |
| Themistocles | Athenian
archon who was leader of the Athenian navy during the
Persian Wars. He persuaded the Athenians to build up their
navy after the victory at Marathon, and the result was the
Greek victory at Salamis. His efforts also coincided with a
prediction by the Oracle of Delphi that Athens would be
saved by "walls of wood." This turned out to be the wooden
ships Themistocles had urged his fellow Athenians to
build. |
| Thermopylae | Land battle
that was a heroic stand by Spartans that fought off an
overwhelming Persian advance, enabling the remaining Greeks
to mobilize their forces and minimize their losses. The
Persians chose to pursue the Greeks through a narrow
mountain pass, where only a handful of Spartans were needed
to defend. The Spartans fought on long after they were
doomed to die, and they all fell in battle, partly because a
traitor showed the Persians a back passage through the
mountains. |
| Thucydides | Historian who
chronicled the Peloponnesian War. A large amount of what he
wrote has come down to us. This is why we know so much about
the Greek civil war. |
| Tragedy | Greek
dramatic form invented by Aeschylus and improved on by such
famous playwrights as Sophocles and Euripides. The theme of
a tragedy was the downfall of an important and heroic
character, either through his own doings or through the
doings of the gods or goddesses. |
| Tyrant | Person who
took over the government. The practice of ostracism
was invented to deal with tyrants. Many Greek city-states,
including Athens, had their share of tyrants. Pesistratus
and Cleisthenes were two Athenian tyrants who used their
powers to further democratic government. |
| Tyre | Island
fortress that Alexander besieged in anger and frustration,
finally storming it after he had built a bridge out to it.
It was originally a Phoenician city, one of the most
important cities of that civilization. |
| Xerxes | Persian
emperor who was a successor to Cyrus the Great and Darius. Consumed
with desire to conquer Greece. Commanded huge army during
the Persian Wars. Even though he outnumbered the Greek heavily,
he still managed to lose several battles, including the
famous naval battle of Salamis, which he witnessed
personally. |
| Zeus | Ruler of
Mount Olympus. King of the gods. God of the weather. Husband
of Hera. Father of Hermes and Athena. The statue of him at
Olympia was one of the Seven Ancient Wonders of the
World. |
