An Overview of the Greek and Roman Empire Essay

Submitted By vickyydoll
Words: 1676
Pages: 7

Victoria Sogbesan
Ms.Skinner
World History
20 April 2015

Greek: Geography played an important role in the development of Gee civilization. The mountains and the sea played especially significant roles in the development of Greek history. Much of Greece consists of small plains river valleys surrounded by high mountain ranges. The mountain isolated Greeks from one another, causing different Greek communities to develop their own ways of life. The sea also influenced the evolution of Greek society. The Greeks lived on a number of islands to the west, south, and east of the Greek mainland. By 2800 B.C, a Bronze Age civilization that used metals, especially bronze, in making weapons had been established on the large island of Crete, southeast of Greek mainland.
The First Greek State was the Mycenae. Mycenaean comes from Mycenae a fortified site in Greece that was first discovered by German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann. After the collapse of Mycenaean civilization Greece entered a difficult period in which the population declined and food production dropped.
Homer used stories of the Trojan War to compose the Iliad and the Odyssey which was the first great epic poems in early Greece and he was thought to have created, rather than have recorded the Greek history.
Between 750 and 550 B.C, large numbers of Greeks left their homeland to settle in distant lands. The creation of a new group of rich men fostered the rise of tyrants in the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.
In Sparta, boys were trained to be soldiers. At birth, each child was examined y state officials, who decide whether the child was fit to live. Those who were judged unit were left on a mountainside to die. Boys judged fit were taken from their mothers at the age of seven and put under control of the state. The Spartan government was an oligarchy headed by two kings, whole the Spartan army on its campaigns.
Athens had become a unified polis on the peninsula of Attica. Early Athens was ruled by a king. Athenians rebelled against Pisistratus’s son, who had succeeded him, and ended the tyranny in 510 B.C. Two years later, with the backing of the Athenian people, Cleisthenes, another reformer, gained the upper hand.
After the defeat of the Persians, Athens took over the leadership of the Greek world.
Religion affected every aspect of Greek life. Greeks considered religion necessary to the well-being of the state. Temples dedicated to gods and goddesses were the major buildings in Greek cities. Homer described the gods worshiped in the Greek religion. Twelve chief gods and goddesses were thought to live on Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece.
Drama was created by the Greeks. Plays were presented in outdoor theaters as part of religious festivals. The first Greek dramas were tragedies, which were presented in a trilogy built around a common theme.
Philosophy refers to an organized system of thought. The term comes from a Greek word that means “love of wisdom.” The sophistswere a group of traveling teachers in accident Greece who rejected speculation such as that of Pythagoras as foolish. One of the critics of the sophists was Socrates, a sculptor whose true love was philosophy. One of Socrates’ students was Plato, considered by many the greatest philosopher of Western civilization.
Word-
Epic-a long poem, typically one derived from ancient oral tradition, narrating the deeds and adventures of heroic or legendary figures or the history of a nation.
Poem-a piece of writing that partakes of the nature of both speech and song that is nearly always rhythmical, usually metaphorical, and often exhibits such formal elements as meter, rhyme, and stanza structure
Arêtes- a sharp mountain ridge.

Polis- a city state in ancient Greece, especially as considered in its ideal form for philosophical purposes.

Acropolis- the ancient citadel at Athens, containing the Parthenon and other notable buildings, mostly dating from the 5th century BC
Agora- (in ancient Greece) a