Archaic and Classical Greece: Key Terms, Concepts, and Figures

Vocabulary flashcards covering key political, historical, social, and literary terminology of ancient Greece from the lecture notes.

Astu

The urban center or town of a Greek polis.

Chōra

The surrounding territory or countryside belonging to a polis.

Dēmos

The people or citizen body of a community.

Deme

A local political and civic subdivision of Attica.

Aristocracy

Government controlled by a small group of elite or privileged families.

Oligarchy

Government ruled by a small group of people.

Tyranny

Government in which one individual holds power outside the established constitutional system.

Apoikia

A Greek colony established abroad, generally with its own civic identity.

Emporion

A trading post or commercial settlement.

Oikistēs

The founder or leader responsible for establishing a Greek colony.

Seisachtheia

Solon's debt-relief reforms that canceled debts and ended debt slavery, literally meaning "shaking off of burdens."

Thētes

The lowest property class in Solon's classification of Athenian citizens.

Anarchia

Lawlessness or the absence of proper government and order.

Nestor’s Cup

An ancient Greek drinking cup found at Pithekoussai that contains one of the earliest known Greek alphabetic inscriptions written in a playful, poetic style.

Phrygians

An ancient people living in Anatolia whose writing system was closely related to the Greek alphabet.

Polis

An ancient Greek city-state that included an urban center and surrounding countryside, governing itself through its own laws, government, and customs.

Ethnos

A Greek community organized around a shared identity, traditions, and ancestry across multiple settlements without necessarily having one central city.

Works and Days

A poem by Hesiod discussing farming, hard work, justice, human behavior, and the Myth of the Ages.

Lyric Poetry

Poetry performed with music that focused on personal feelings, experiences, and emotions rather than epic heroic deeds.

Epinician Poetry

Poetry composed to celebrate athletic victories, praising the athletes, their families, and their cities while linking success to divine favor.

Pindar

A famous Greek lyric poet known for writing epinician victory odes, such as Olympian 1 and Pythian 1 celebrating Hieron of Syracuse.

Hesiod’s Myth of the Ages

A scheme describing five successive ages of humanity—Golden, Silver, Bronze, Heroic, and Iron—generally portraying a progressive decline in human existence.

Hoplites

Heavily armed Greek infantry soldiers who fought together in close cooperation within a phalanx.

Phalanx

A tactical military formation of hoplite soldiers who cooperated closely to protect one another in battle.

Cleisthenes of Sicyon

A tyrant of Sicyon who weakened aristocratic power by reorganizing traditional tribes and assigning them insulting animal names.

Solon

An Athenian lawmaker who reduced social conflict by implementing the seisachtheia and dividing citizens into four property classes.

Pisistratus

An Athenian leader who seized power as tyrant on his third attempt, initially having used a staged injury to secure a personal bodyguard.

Pisistratids

The sons of Pisistratus, principally Hippias and Hipparchus, who continued their father's tyrannical regime in Athens.

Harmodius and Aristogeiton

Known as the tyrannicides, these Athenians assassinated Hipparchus and were later celebrated as heroic symbols of freedom against tyranny.

Cleisthenes of Athens

An Athenian reformer who laid the foundations of democracy around 508/507 BCE by reorganizing citizens into ten new tribes to weaken aristocratic factions.