Ancient Greece

Geography• Greece is a peninsula in the Mediterranean Sea.

• Greece is a very mountainous country.

• Because of the mountains, Greek communities developed independently, and created different city-states.

Greek expansion• Between the 8th and the 6th centuries BC, Greece went through a period of crisis.

• The population increased and there were many poor, hungry people.

• Many Greeks migrated and founded colonies around the Mediterranean Sea.

Greek expansion• Many towns in Spain such as Denia, Alicante, Ampurias and Rosas were founded by Greeks.

• Rich merchants had ships and sailed across the Mediterranean Sea. They sold wine or olive oil, and bought wood or copper.

• They used silver coins called drachmas.

• Greece was divided into city-states, each known as a polis.

• Polis were cities surrounding a fort and the territory around them.

• They wree absolutely independent and self-sufficient

• Each polis was built around an acropolis, a fortified hill with the temple of the local god at the top.

• At the foot of the acropolis was the agora, an open area used as a marketplace.

Polis

Athens: the first democracy.• The two main city-states

were Sparta and Athens.

• Athens, the richest and most influential polis, was a centre of intellectual and cultural development.

• Athenian democracy was for free, male Athenians only.

“Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people.

We alone regard a man who takes no interest in public affairs not as harmless, but as a useless character.”

Pericles

Athens: the first democracy.

• Sparta was an isolated city-state that was culturally and politically different from Athens.

• Sparta was a government ruled by a few. They had 2 kings.

• During the Peloponnesian War Sparta sacked Athens.

Sparta

• Alexander was king of Macedonia.

• Alexander was a brilliant military strategist.

• His favorite book was Homer’s Iliad

Alexander the Great

Alexander conquered the Persian empire and controlled the largest empire the world has ever

seen.