Ancient Greece: Notable Places

Cycladic Islands (All Facts)

• Where Aegean civilization began to develop around 2800 BCE

• Economic center of the eastern Mediterranean between Greece, Anatolia, and Crete

  • Produced an economy in which sea transport was more efficient than land transport

• Cluster of islands that includes Delos, Melos, Paros, Naxos, Seriphos, and Siphnos

  • Their minerals were exported to the surrounding areas

  • Grew in trade with cities across Mesopotamia, the Levant, Egypt, and Anatolia

  • Traded in canoe-like vessels

  • Hopped from island to island

• Cluster of islands that became

  • Very rich

  • Famous for their boat-building

  • A major trading culture

• Cluster of islands whose inhabitants became skillful makers of

  • silver ornaments

  • lead model boats

  • marble figurines

• Cluster of islands whose inhabitants

  • Benefited from trade between Greece, Crete, and Syria

  • Evolved an original style of painted pottery, with lively designs of birds and fish

Dodecanese Islands (All Facts)

Delos (All Facts)

• Cycladic Island of Greece

• All the other islands lie in a circle around it

• Small island home of a religious community, it would be chosen as the administrative headquarters of the Delian League instituted by Aristides the Just of Athens

Melos (All Facts)

• Cycladic Island of Greece

• Rich in volcanic glass

Paros (All Facts)

• Cycladic Island of Greece

• Rich in marble

Naxos (All Facts)

• Cycladic Island of Greece

• Rich in marble

Seriphos (All Facts)

• Cycladic Island of Greece

• Rich in copper, silver, and lead

Siphnos (All Facts)

• Cycladic Island of Greece

• Rich in copper, silver, and lead

Santorini (All Facts)

• Cycladic Island of Greece

• Also known as “Thera”

• People living there had a that way of life was characterized by

  • A diet of vegetables, dried fish, cereals, oil, wine, and olives

• People living there had homes that were characterized by having rooms in which

  • The bottom room served to store their food supplies in earthenware jars

  • The room above the bottom room was where they lived

  • One room in each house served as a shrine

  • The rooms were decorated with frescoes of landscapes showing animals, boats, growing lilies, growing papyrus, crocuses being picked, a small catlike animal stalking fucks and a fisherman with his arms full of fish

• Severely damaged by a volcano now known as the “Minoan Eruption” around 1600 / 1500 BCE which left most of its inhabitants by that time buried under a huge layer of lava and debris with much of the island having disappeared and submerged under the sea

Akrotiri (All Facts)

• City in Santorini

• Where the people fled to when the island was destroyed by the “Minoan Eruption” in 1600 / 1500 BCE

• Its people were effectively entombed after the volcano

Troy (All Facts)

• City in Anatolia whose citadel was famously destroyed around 2300 BCE

• City which had much power and wealth by 2300 BCE due to the gold and silver products it contained

• City in which people had bronze daggers, axes, silver ingots, and drinking vessels beaten out of gold and silver

  • Its craftsmen were skilled in the complex techniques of filigree and granulation and were clearly familiar with contemporary styles of craftsmanship in Mesopotamia

• Enjoyed a period of great prosperity due to dominating over the important trading passage from the Aegean to the Sea of Marmara and the Bosporus Strait

Crete (All Facts)

• Largest island of Greece, fifth largest island in the Mediterranean

• Its most famous cities were Phaistos, Knossos, Malia, and Gournia

• Around 2000 BCE

  • It took over as leader of Aegean trade

  • Palaces were built near the small towns that served as manufacturing centers across the island

  • Craftsmanship reached very high levels in which

    • Tiny seals in semi-precious stones were carved with great accuracy which showed plants, animals, birds, boats, shells, and geometric patterns

    • The walls of its palaces were covered in frescoes

    • It made fine pottery in bright colors on a dark background, echoing the patterns on the walls of its palaces

    • there was manufacture of stone vases and shapes that were first used in metalwork, particularly silver

  • Ships with sails carried these commodities along the coast of Anatolia to Syria where they were exchanged with traders from Egypt

• Experienced a massive earthquake that brought ruin and desolation to the island around 1700 BCE

  • In response, its inhabitants built even more magnificent palaces compared to before including the Second Palace at Knossos

• Had country houses, which were centers of estates that produced olive oil and wine and reared large flocks of sheep whose wool was the basis of its local textile industry

• By 1450 BCE, all of its palatial complexes are destroyed, except for Knossos which was taken over by the Myceneans from the Greek mainland

  • By 1375 BCE, however, the palace at Knossos is destroyed by the Myceneans

Knossos (All Facts)

• City in Crete

• One of the first (and most important) cities of Minoan Civilization

• Had a famous palace, built around 1700 BCE

Phaistos (All Facts)

• City in Crete

• Had a famous palace, built around 1900 BCE

Malia (All Facts)

• City in Crete

• Had a famous palace, built around 1900 BCE, for King Sarpidon

Gournia (All Facts)

• City in Crete

• Had a village of narrow winding streets and rough steps build on a hillside overlooking the sea

• Its houses were furnished with materials brought over the mountains from Knossos, some 30 miles distant across the island

Chania (All Facts)

• City in Crete

• Characterized by its exports of painted inscriptions in the style of Mycenean script made on oil jars around 1450/1400 BCE

Pylos (All Facts)

• City in the Peloponnese

• One of the first (and most important) cities of Mycenean Civilization

• Developed its own culture separate from that of Minoan Crete around 1650 BCE

• Characterized by its craftsmen who made vases with figurative decorations

• Characterized by its construction of tombs that were beehive-modeled called “Tholos”

• Abandoned by 1200 BCE / 1050 BCE

Plain of Argos (All Facts)

• Region in the Peloponnese

• The Myceneans established a strategically-sited citadel there around 1300 BCE

• Its citadel was surrounded by massive walls, which were rebuilt and incorporated some of the most recent novelties during that time of Hittite architecture

Tiryns (All Facts)

• City in the Peloponnese, famous for its port and palace

• Famous for its citadel, constructed around 1600 BCE, which was heavily fortified and built in a style that was influenced by contemporary Hittite architecture

Argolis (All Facts)

• City in the Peloponnese controlled by the Mycenean civilization but whose founding was around 5000 BCE

• City in which, as Mycenean civilization began to collapse, peoples from Mycenae regrouped in the shelter of its citadel

Attica (All Facts)

• City in the Peloponnese founded in Mycenean civilization around 1600 BCE

• City in which, as Mycenean civilization began to collapse, peoples from Mycenae regrouped in the shelter of its citadel

Euboea (All Facts)

• Second largest island of Greece, sixth largest island of the Mediterranean

• Had a grave with a covering on it of a chief and his wife in Lefkandi which had a temple-like structure with a wooden colonnade

Sicily (All Facts)

• Largest island in the Mediterranean

• The “boot” of Italy, was eventually taken by the Greeks by the 700’s BCE but was made up of independent groups before that

  • Its local chiefs traded with Aegean traders and bartered local products for pottery and metalwork by 1500 BCE

Cyprus (All Facts)

• Third-largest island in the Mediterranean

• Had always been a crossroads for people and culture as it is situated between Europe, Africa, and the Levant in the Mediterranean

• Its economic opportunities were opened up and its influence began to appear after the collapse of the Hittite and Mycenean Civilizations as well as the decline and eventual collapse of the Greeks at sea

  • Traded as far away as Egypt and Sardinia by 1075 BCE

• Characterized by art which mixed Mycenean Greek styles with oriental and Egyptian ones

• Characterized by Greek names having been written in its local script

• Characterized by its development and spread of chambered tombs with long entrance passages, likely also influenced by the Greeks

Sardinia (All Facts)

• Second largest island of the Mediterranean

• Built fortresses on hilltops with blocks of roughly hewn stone around 1500 BCE

Corsica (All Facts)

• Fourth largest island of the Mediterranean

• Built fortresses on hilltops with blocks of roughly hewn stone around 1500 BCE

• Characterized by its large number of Menhirs, which were tombs cut to form the shapes of noses, mouths and eyes; giving them a rudimentary human appearance

Gela (All Facts)

• City in Sicily

• Founded by the Dorians

Sparta (All Facts)

• City in the Peloponnese in the far south of Greece

• Established around 900 BCE - 700 BCE

• Made up of the namesake group of people

• Run along austere, disciplinarian lines

  • Commerce is forbidden

  • The possession of gold and silver are forbidden

  • People’s clothes do not vary much

  • Its male citizens are brought up as soldiers from the age of 7, live in dormitories, and eat together in communal mess halls, even when they are married

• Experienced oriental-influenced luxury as well as a puritanic revival, with the ruling class giving itself over entirely to military training

• Practiced infanticide

  • This was done amongst newborn babies who were judged to be too weak to be soldiers and were left to die in the wilderness

• The strictness in their military discipline and conversion of city-states into armed camps likely stemmed from the fear of an uprising by the lower subject class

• After the (Second) Peloponnesian War, it has become the major power in Ancient Greece until the rise of Thebes

Paros (All Facts)

• Cycladic Island of Greece

• Birthplace of Archilochus

Syracuse (All Facts)

• City in Sicily

• Colony of Corinth

Elis (All Facts)

• City in the Peloponnese that contained Olympia

• Its aristocratic inhabitants ran the festival that was the Olympic Games

  • Its aristocracy was responsible for overseeing the Olympics and whom presided over all religious ceremonies at Olympia

  • They were considered the earthly guardians of Olympia

  • They united in the “Olympic Senate” where they elected nine Hellanodikai or judges

• Its gymnasium was where the Olympians gathered for the final month of their ten months of training where they were forbidden any stimulants and were fed a diet of barley bread, wheat porridge, dried figs, nuts, and cheese

• The opening ceremonies of the Olympics began here two days before the start of the games, where the competitors, selected by the Hellanodikai, began a two-day 35-mile long march to Olympia

Olympia (All Facts)

• Sanctuary in Elis where the Olympic Games were held from 776 BCE - 394 BCE

• Located in the Alpheus Valley in the northwest of the Peloponnese

• Is a holy place and shrine dedicated to Zeus

• Attracted thousands of pilgrims each year

Corinth (All Facts)

• City in the Peloponnese located on the namesake isthmus

• Established the colony of Syracuse in Sicily

• Had much contact with the Near East, especially in the development of their commerce and colonial expansion

  • Was one of many places in Greece with well-established connections in the Levant

• Characterized by its art, which was influenced by Eastern styles including its

  • Jewelry & Pottery - Eastern decorative motifs were common including friezes of

    • Animals - lions, tigers, and ibexes

    • Mythical beasts - sphinxes and griffins

  • Floral patterns - seen for the first time since the Mycenean Age in this city, they included

    • Assyrian-style lotuses

    • Palms

    • Buds

    • Pine Cones

• These newer patterns replaced the more geometric patterns of earlier pottery

• Dominated the ceramics market

• Its colonies includes Corcyra and Potidaea

Rhodes (All Facts)

• The largest of the Dodecanese islands

• Had much contact with the Near East, especially in the development of their commerce and colonial expansion

  • Was one of many places in Greece with well-established connections in the Levant

Greek Colonies (All Facts)

• Needed to be established due to the social pressures and quarrels over distribution of land and fear of starvation occurring in mainland Greece around 650 BCE

• Established upon Greek expeditions setting sail to all parts of the known world at the time, with each of the namesake having been founded by a particular city-state

  • Some city-states founded one or more of them

• Were founded in Sicily and southern Italy, North Africa, and on the shores of the Black Sea as well as the Sea of Marmara and Bosporus Strait

• Were settled by young men of fighting age who set out in bands of up to 200 and were led by an individual called an “Oikistes”

  • The settlers who founded them retain close links with their old homes, taking with them their traditional institutions and gods in the form of wooden statuettes when they arrive

• Sometimes, the original inhabitants of the namesake lands welcomed the Greeks, who would give them grants of land

  • Other times, however, the Greeks had to fight their way ashore

    • If successful, they used the conquered natives as slave laborers in the fields

• Once established, they became completely independent of the mother city that founded it

• Were essentially agrarian, the land having been allotted equally among the settlers

• Examples include Naukratis, Syracuse, Byzantium, Sinope, Olbia, and Amisus

Emporia / Emporium (All Facts)

• Commercial and/or agricultural settlements centered on trade established via Greek colonization who owed their existence not to a mother city, but to groups of businessmen who sought an opportunity for profitable trade

Naukratis (All Facts)

• The only Greek colony in Egypt

• Emporium in Egypt established via Greek colonization

• Had a strictly commercial enterprise since the pharaoh there allowed the Greeks to worship their own gods but did not allow mixed marriages and maintained strict control over their activities

Byzantium (All Facts)

• Greek Colony

• City which eventually became Constantinople for the Romans and Istanbul for the Turks

• Founded by the legendary “King Byzas” of Megara

• Founded around 657 BCE

Sinope (All Facts)

• Greek Colony

• Founded by Ionians from the city of Miletus

• Founded 756 BCE - 631 BCE

Olbia (All Facts)

• Greek Colony in Sardinia

• Founded around 325 BCE

Samsun / Amisus (All Facts)

• Greek Colony

• Founded 760 BCE - 750 BCE

Lesbos (All Facts)

• Third largest island of Greece, eighth largest island of the Mediterranean

• Birthplace of Alcaeus

Megara (All Facts)

• City in Greece (on mainland in Attica District)

• Controlled by the Corinthians, then by the Athenians

Athens (All Facts)

• Most famous Greek city (on mainland), along with Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes

• By the 400’s BCE

  • It became the judicial capital of the region and its focal point

  • Its currency was used in all trade throughout the empire

  • It bought wheat for everyone due to its rich silver mines and the business and craft skills of its citizens

• Prior to the Peloponnesian War, it had

  • Consolidated its power after successful battles with the Persian invaders

  • Dominated several city-states in the Aegean in a loosely-structured empire

  • Power based on the biggest navy in the region, which included the 200 triremes built by Themistocles

    • This fleet enabled it to recover from invasion and win great naval battles during the Greco-Persian Wars

  • Benefited greatly from the Delian League, which it had originally created as an alliance of city-states against Persia but which made its own power grow considerably and which eventually allowed it to grow and become the head of an empire

• Power still resided with old families, from which both Pericles and Cimon had come, but relied on their oratorical skills more so than a hereditary right to govern

• After the Peloponnesian War, it had

  • All its fortifications destroyed

  • Its massive navy reduced to 12 ships

  • Its democracy transformed into an oligarchy

  • Its independence routed to be a subject ally to Sparta

  • Never again became a major political power in Ancient Greece

Massalia (All Facts)

• Greek colony on the Mediterranean coast

• Established by the Greeks of Phocaea (in Anatolia)

• Site that sat on a small coastal plain alongside deep water and was protected by rocky hills

• Was within easy reach of the Rhone river, which had opened up Greece to trade with Southern Gaul

• Its founding is shrouded in legend:

  • The daughter of the local king, Princess Gyrtis, fell in love with one of the Phocaean leaders, Protis, and married him

  • The namesake land was her dowry

• It was likely that the marriage was real but was part of an astute deal by the Phocaeans involving negotiations for property and trading rights which got them the namesake land

• Outpost which happened to have lots of enemies, which attacked from the sea and from land

  • The tribes that attacked it from land were led by Grytis’s own brother according to the legend

  • Jealousy of the Phocaeans, who traded from men-of-war rather than merchantmen, increased their success in opening up silver supplies of Tartessos on the Atlantic coast of Iberia

• Despite these problems, this colony thrived

  • The vine and olive took root in its Rhone Valley

Phocaea (All Facts)

• Greek city in Anatolia

• Its inhabitants founded the colony of Massalia (Marseilles in France)

Samos (All Facts)

• Greek island in the Aegean Sea

• Powerful city-state

• Famous for its vineyards and wine production

Miletus (All Facts)

• Greek city on the western coast of Anatolia, near the mouth of the Maeander River in Ionia

• By the 500’s BCE, an intense intellectual life developed in which mathematicians, physicians, and philosophers imposed a new rationality upon matters once conceived in mythical terms

• Birthplace of Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Hecataeus, Hippodamus, and Aristagoras

• City which inflicted heavy damage at the Battle of Lade during the Greco-Persian Wars, in which it was razed to the ground and its population was deported to Mesopotamia by the Persians

Catania (All Facts)

• City in Sicily

Argos (All Facts)

• Powerful Greek city-state in the Peloponnese

• The Peloponnesian League was created to offset its power

Thessaly (All Facts)

• Highest point in Ancient Greece

• Where Mount Olympus was supposedly located

Aegina (All Facts)

• Greek island located in the Saronic Gulf between Attica and the Peloponnese

• There, the Greek goddess Aphaea was worshipped and a Temple was built in her honor

• Britomartis, the Cretan nymph and daughter of Zeus, hid here when fleeing from Minos

• Island which was at war with Athens during the rule of Themistocles

Piraeus (All Facts)

• Historical Port of Athens

• Modernized by Themistocles in his building program of the triremes in order to house them

• Its “Middle Wall,” the third of the long walls which protected its roads, which was built by the Athenians

• The Spartans argued that the old fortification walls should not be rebuilt since they could provide a defense for the Persians if the latter captured the city again

  • Their argument was ignored, however, by Athens, which would eventually be one of many things that would cause the First Peloponnesian War

Thasos (All Facts)

• Greek island in the Aegean off the coast of Thrace

• Wealthy

• Formed an alliance with the “Delian League” of Greek maritime states

• Provided the alliance with a strong contingent of ships

• However, when they laid claim to the mines and markets on the Greek mainland, Athens got angry and so when they decided to leave the Delian League, Athens sent a fleet there and won the naval battle and laid siege to the city

• After the battle, its city walls were demolished and the rebel islanders were forced to accept Athenian terms

• They tried appealing to Sparta, but Sparta was dealing with an earthquake and helot revolts at this time so it could not help; this thus forced them to sue for peace with Athens

Pieria (All Facts)

• Sacred spring on the frontier between Elis and Pisa

• Was where the Olympians washed themselves and sacrificed a pig during their two-day 35-mile long march from Elis to Olympia

Letrini (All Facts)

• Was where the Olympians rested the night before arriving in Olympia during their two-day 35-mile long march from Elis to Olympia

Cerameicus (All Facts)

• Potters' quarter of the city of Athens, from which the English word "ceramic" is derived

• Part of the city of Athens upon which the huge procession of the Panathenaea set off towards the Acropolis

The Acropolis at Athens (All Facts)

• Historical religious, political, and civic center of Athens, dedicated to Athena; it contained Greece’s most well-known architectural structures; most of which were overseen during their construction by Pericles during the Golden Age of Greece

• Was a fortress for many years

• Characterized by its steep cliffs on three sides

• Consisted of a magnificent complex of temples which towered over the city of Athens

• Consisted of three temples - the Erectheum, the Temple of Athena Nike; the Propylaea; and the Parthenon with its huge Doric columns, were constructed and completed in just over 40 years, making this site one of the architectural feats of the age

• The whole structure was a monument to the recovery of Athens from the devastation of the Greco-Persian Wars and Persian invasion of 480 BCE

• In the Bronze Age, it was topped by a Mycenaean palace

Brauron Sanctuary (All Facts)

• Place near Philaidai, on the east coast of Attica, upon which Ancient Greek young girls of marriageable age flocked to in increasing numbers

• Place where the “Arkteia” was performed

Thebes (All Facts)

• City-state located in Boeotia in Central Greece

• Rose to power after Athens and Sparta, around the mid-300’s BCE

  • After Athens was ruined by the (Second) Peloponnesian War and Sparta became decadent, it took these ancient rivals’ place as the dominant power in Greece

Megalopolis (All Facts)

• Comprised of an amalgam of 40 villages in south-west Arcadia on the Greek mainland

Messene (All Facts)

• Capital of the reborn nation of Sparta’s former helot serfs

• Was once Ithome of Bronze Age Greece

• Restored by the Thebans after the Battle of Leuctra

Pella (All Facts)

• Hub of the growing Macedonian-Greek Empire under Philip II of Macedonia and Alexander the Great in Macedonia

• Was developed in the late 400’s BCE by King Archelaus

• Athenian propaganda created by Demosthenes asserted it as nothing more than a “puny little village” but this assertion was contradicted by the testimony of contemporary travelers who visited the area, who stated that it

  • Was approached by a well-engineered road 30 feet wide

  • Was on a vast fertile plain flanked by the sea, with a thriving port

• In this city

  • Were elegant buildings, with 6-foot-thick walls that were decorated with

    • Rare pebble mosaics

    • Ionic and Doric colonnades

    • 3-foot roof tiles stamped with the city’s name on it

  • Palaces contained murals by the great Macedonian artist Zeuxis

  • Standards of public hygiene, water supply, and drainage matched its aesthetic quality

  • Euripides’s plays were performed

  • Aristotle tutored Alexander the Great (as a visiting tutor)

Alexandria (All Facts)

• Named after the ruler who built it, it was founded in 331 BCE

• Was the scientific capital of the Hellenistic world, largely owing to the support and encouragement of Egypt’s Ptolemaic rulers

• Built on the Egyptian coast in the west of the Nile River Delta

  • Was set on the crossroads between the Hellenistic World of Greece and Anatolia, the rich Nile River Valley, and the markets of the east

  • Having inherited the trading links of Phoenician Tyre in Lebanon after the siege by the city’s namesake founder, the city acquired great wealth and fine public buildings

  • Thus, it became a great trading center or entrepot

• Consisted of a great harbor, being created by constructing a mole linking the mainland with the island of Pharos, which was to be used as a naval base for the ruler’s war against the Persian Empire

• Designed by the architect Dinocrates, who marked out the city in a grid pattern of straight streets intersecting each other at right angles

• Demographics

  • A substantial Jewish quarter grew up in the northeastern part of the city

  • Egyptian fishermen had settled in the southwestern parts of the city

  • Greeks had settled in the central sectors around the royal palaces and surrounding gardens of the city

Tarentum (All Facts)

• Leading Greek city in Southern City, it fell to the Romans in 272 BCE

Antioch (All Facts)

• Capital of the Seleucid Empire

• Famous for its park at Daphne

• Was mostly well-managed, with local magistrates

  • responsible for

    • the condition of the streets

    • the water supply

    • public sanitation

  • having the powers to fine people for breaking the laws

• Its population

  • shows a mix of Greek, Macedonian, and oriental influences

  • depends mostly on agriculture

Seleuceia-in-Pieria (All Facts)

• Seleucid city famous for its harbor

• Was mostly well-managed, with local magistrates

  • responsible for

    • the condition of the streets

    • the water supply

    • public sanitation

  • having the powers to fine people for breaking the laws

• Its population

  • shows a mix of Greek, Macedonian, and oriental influences

  • depends mostly on agriculture

Apamea (All Facts)

• Seleucid city that was a big military center on the middle Orontes

• Was where the Seleucids kept their war animals

• Was mostly well-managed, with local magistrates

  • responsible for

    • the condition of the streets

    • the water supply

    • public sanitation

  • having the powers to fine people for breaking the laws

• Its population

  • shows a mix of Greek, Macedonian, and oriental influences

  • depends mostly on agriculture

Museum of Alexandria (All Facts)

• Building in which the Ptolemies made it into the leading Greek university, with schools of medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and geography

University of Alexandria (All Facts)

• Building in which the Ptolemies supported the administration of schools of medicine, mathematics, astronomy, and geography

• Scholars from all over the Greek world were

  • Attracted to it

  • Paid by the Ptolemaic Kings

• Ptolemies encouraged the study of biology in this building by providing it with convicted criminals who were cut open while they were still alive, in which much knowledge about the brain and other organs, including the reproductive system, was acquired

Library of Alexandria (All Facts)

• Part of the Museum of the same name, it was founded by Ptolemy II (or possibly Ptolemy I, his predecessor)

• Was the greatest in the world at the time, an unrivalled intellectual center

• It held around 120,000 individual books

• The staff there worked under a chief of the namesake vocation where they carried out the enormous task of cataloging new acquisitions which arrived continually; each catalogued according to

  • Their origins

  • Former owner

  • Edition

  • Author

  • Subject-matter

• Often works were recopied by hand or deviant editions were corrected