culture
This blind poet is traditionally considered to have written The Iliad and The Odyssey.
Who is Homer?
This Greek term means "city-state" and is the root of much of our vocabulary for talking about government.
What is polis?
Greek infantry fought most of their land battles in this simple rectangular formation, which emphasized group cohesion.
What is the phalanx?
This lawgiver is thought to have designed the Spartan political system and to have originated the city's agoge system of harsh, full-time military training for male citizens.
Who is Lycurgus?
This name was given to the enslaved people dominated by Sparta and used for agricultural labor.
Who are the helots?
The first celebration of these athletic contests, held in 776 BCE, is conventionally regarded as the beginning of recorded Greek history
What are the Olympic Games?
During the Archaic period and much of the Classical period, most Greek city-states ruled themselves with this form of government.
What is oligarchy?
During the First Persian War, Athens, with some help from its neighbors, saved itself by winning this land battle against a much larger invasion force.
What is the battle of Marathon?
This Greek author, fond of a good story, wrote an account of the Persian wars and is considered to be the Western world's first historian.
Who is Herodotus?
Who is the hoplite?
This goddess of wisdom was also the patron deity of Athens.
Who is Athena?
In 508 BCE, this lawgiver's constitution established democracy in Athens.
Who is Cleisthenes?
During this battle, a Spartan-led army bravely used a chokepoint between the mountains and the shoreline to hold off a vastly bigger Persian force for several days, but eventually lost after being surrounded.
What is Thermopylae?
This cantankerous but clever Athenian strategist persuaded his people to abandon their city during the Second Persian War and trust to their navy to win the way for them.
Who is Themistocles?
This was the most important piece of equipment for a Greek hoplite, in terms of maintaining his unit's safety and cohesion.
What is the shield? (Or: What is the hoplon?)
This deity was the Greek god of the sea. (Roman version of name not accepted.)
Who is Poseidon?
This Athenian politician expanded democratic rights to include free citizens who did not own property.
Who is Pericles?
This city-state, which quarreled with Corinth over the city-state of Epidamnus, drew Athens into this struggle as it ally at the battle of Sybota ca. 433 BCE -- an important step toward the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War.
What is Corcyra?
This brash, wealthy politician from Athens opposed Pericles's naval strategy during the first years of the Peloponnesian War and (unwisely, in the opinion of many historians) adopted a policy of aggressively expanding his city's ground war.
Who is Cleon?
These fortifications were built by Athens in the 460s and 450s BCE to protect the city and its port of Piraeus.
What are the Long Walls?
Greek dramas were typically performed in this arena-style structure? (Full name required.)
What is an amphitheater?
This term is often used to describe a politician who exploits a democratic system by whipping up anger, hatred, and grievances to gain popularity.
What is a demagogue?
This naval battle, in which a nimble and highly-skilled Athenian fleet outmaneuvered a larger Persian fleet in narrowly-confined waters, ended any chance of victory for Persia in the Second Persian War.
What is Salamis?
This aristocratic politician from Athens, who favored limiting the extent of democracy and maintaining friendly ties with Sparta, became a rival to Pericles, who eventually arranged his exile from the city.
Who is Cimon?
This term, referring to the three banks of oars that propelled it, was used to describe the naval galleys found in most Greek fleets.
What is the trireme?