The Culture of Classical Greece

Vocabulary flashcards covering the religion, art, architecture, drama, and historical writing of Classical Greece.

Ritual

A ceremony or religious rite; in ancient Greece, rituals involved prayers and gifts to the gods based on the principle of giving so that the gods would give in return.

Oracle

A sacred shrine where a god or goddess revealed the future through a priest or priestess.

Olympus

The highest mountain in Greece, considered the dwelling place of the twelve chief gods and goddesses.

Delphi

The location of the most famous oracle of Apollo, situated on the side of Mount Parnassus overlooking the Gulf of Corinth.

Croesus

The wealthy king of Lydia who went to war with the Persians after misinterpreting a Delphic oracle prophecy stating that he would destroy a mighty empire.

Parthenon

A temple built on the Acropolis in Athens between 447 B.C. and 432 B.C., dedicated to the goddess Athena and considered the greatest example of the classical Greek temple.

Athena Parthenos

A 38-foot ($12\text{ m}$) statue of the goddess Athena that was housed inside the Parthenon.

Doric columns

The oldest style of Greek columns, featured in the architecture of the Parthenon.

Polyclitus

A fifth-century B.C. Greek sculptor who created systematic rules for ideal proportions in human sculpture based on mathematical ratios found in nature.

Doryphoros

A sculpted work by Polyclitus that demonstrated his theory of ideal human proportions based on mathematical ratios.

Tragedy

The earliest form of Greek drama, presented in a trilogy built around a common theme and focused on universal issues like good, evil, and individual rights.

Aeschylus

An Athenian playwright who composed the Oresteia, the only complete Greek tragic trilogy that has survived to modern times.

Oresteia

A tragic trilogy by Aeschylus describing the fate of Agamemnon and his family after the Trojan War, demonstrating that reason triumphs over evil.

Sophocles

A prominent Athenian dramatist who wrote famous plays including Oedipus Rex and Antigone.

Oedipus Rex

Sophocles' most famous tragedy, telling the story of a man fated by the oracle of Apollo to kill his father and marry his mother.

Euripides

An Athenian dramatist known for realistic characters, complex plots, questioning traditional values, and depicting the brutality of war.

Greek Comedy

Dramatic works developed after tragedy that used puns and satire to criticize politicians and intellectuals while entertaining the audience.

Herodotus

A Greek historian and storyteller who wrote History of the Persian Wars, considered the first real history in Western civilization.

Thucydides

An Athenian general who wrote the history of the Great Peloponnesian War, noted for viewing events as human actions rather than acts of gods and emphasizing strict accuracy.