| A | B |
|---|
| Mycenaeans | Indo-European people who settled on Greek mainland and controlled it w/ influential & militaristic rulers |
| Trojan War | a war fought in which the Mycenaeans kings attacked the independent city Troy in Anatolia; Mycenaeans win |
| Dorians | a Greek speaking people who according to tradition moved into the mainland of Greece after the destruction of the Mycenaean civilization; associated w/ a lack of writing & a period of decline in Greece |
| Homer | Greek storyteller who wrote epics about Greek adventure & values |
| Epics | long narrative poems celebrating the deeds of legendary or traditional heroes |
| Myths | traditional stories about gods, ancestors or heroes, especially told to explain the mysteries of natural world or customs and beliefs of a society |
| Balkans | the name of both a peninsula and chain of Mountains, the mountains both protected and isolated Greek city states |
| Polis | a Greek city-state, the fundamental political unit of ancient Greece after 750 BC |
| Acropolis | a fortified hilltop in an ancient Greek city |
| Monarchy | a government in which power is in the hands of a single king or queen |
| Aristocracy | a government in which power is in the hands of a hereditary ruling class or nobility |
| Oligarchy | a government in which power is in the hands of a few people, especially one in which rule is based upon wealth |
| Phalanx | a military formation of foot soldiers armed with spears & shields |
| Tyrant | a single powerful individual (sometimes good, sometimes bad) who gained control of a city-state's government by appealing to the poor for support |
| Helot | a slave bound to the land in ancient Sparta |
| Democracy | Athens; a government controlled directly by its citizens |
| Persian Wars | a series of wars in the 5th century BC in which Greek city-states battled the Persian Empire; Persians defeated and driven out before the golden age began |
| Sparta | a totalitarian state that even owned its male children after age 7 |
| Draco | Tyrant who wrote Athens' first codes of written law; laws fair, but harsh |
| Direct Democracy | a government in which citizens rule directly rather than through representatives |
| Classical Art | the art of ancient Greece in which harmony, order & balance were emphasized |
| Tragedy | a serious form of drama dealing w/ the downfall of a heroic or noble character because of hubris |
| Comedy | a humorous form of drama that often includes slapstick & satire; Aristophanes was a famous comedy writer |
| Peloponnesian War | a war in which Athens and its allies were defeated by Sparta and its allies |
| Philosophers | thinkers who use logic and reason to investigate nature of the universe, human society & morality |
| Socrates | philosopher who asked Greeks to question themselves & their moral character |
| Plato | student of Socrates; wrote The Republic which gave his version of the perfect governed society |
| Aristotle | philosopher who gave us the basis of the scientific method; worked in psychology, physics & biology |
| Philip II | built up Macedonia's power to take over the divided Greek states |
| Macedonia | an ancient kingdom north of Greece, whose ruler Philip II conquered Greece in 338 BC |
| Hero | inventor of automatice doors, odometers, and steam engine |
| Alexander the Great | Philip's 20 yr old son who took control of Macedonia; powerful leader who was welcomed by EGYPTIANS as a liberator; his rule made trade and movement safer across the known world |
| Darius III | Persian king who armed forces to crush Macedonians, but was outnumbered and failed |
| Hellenistic | relating to the blended civilization, language, art, science & literature of the Greek world from Alexander the Great- late second century BC |
| Alexandria | African city, foremost center of commerce & Hellenistic civilization; major advances in astronomy & math |
| Euclid | highly regarded mathematician who opened a school of geometry in Alexandria |
| Archimedes | scientist who calculated the value of pi & explained how levers work |
| Epicurus | Hellenistic philosopher; believed goal of humans was to achieve harmony of body & mind |
| Eratosthenes | Calculated the earth's circunference to within 1% of the actual number |
| Stoics | philopsphers who believed in controlling their emotions and self discipline |
