| A | B |
|---|
| Myths | traditional stories (verbal) about gods and heroes |
| Mount Olympus | the highest mountain in Greece; where the gods and goddesses live |
| Oracle | a sacred shrine where a priest or priestess spoke for a god or goddess |
| Delphi | the most famous oracle at the temple of Apollo |
| Epics | long poems that told of heroic deeds; the first and most famous were Iliad and Odyssey |
| Homer | The legendary author of the Iliad and Odyssey; these epics were based on the war between Greece and the city of Troy |
| Aesop | the author of famous fables where the animals talk and act like people |
| Fable | short tales that are often funny and point out human flaws and have a moral from which people should learn lessons; the most famous of the fables is the fable “The Tortoise and the Hare” |
| Drama | a story told through actors who pretend to be characters in the story |
| Tragedy | a story where a person struggles to overcome difficulties but fails; as a result the story has an unhappy ending |
| Comedy | a story that has a happy ending |
| Sophocles | a general and famous Greek writer of tragedies who placed painted scenery as a backdrop to the action and dialogue; his most famous plays are Oedipus Rex and Antigone (“Is it better to follow orders or to do what is right?”) |
| Euripides | playwright, focused on real-life situations (“War is cruel.”) |
| Philosophy | “Love of wisdom” |
| Philosophers | people who believed that that the human mind could understand everything ; often were teachers. |
| Pythagoras | a philosopher and mathematician, taught his students that the universe followed the same laws that governed numbers and music. He believed that all relationship could be expressed in numbers |
| Sophists | professional traveling teachers, taught that each student should work to improve themselves; rejected the idea that the gods influenced people; rejected absolute right and wrong |
| Socrates | often criticized the Sophists; a philosopher; believed in absolute truth and real knowledge was within each person |
| Socratic Method | the use of questions to get his students to use their reason to learn and see things for themselves; the Socratic Method does not give answers but, instead, forces the student to figure things out for themselves. |
| Plato | Socrates’ most famous student, a philosopher and teacher who wrote such works as The Republic which outlined ideas about government and class division; believed in equality between men and women; ran a school called the Academy |
| Aristotle | Plato’s most famous student; ran a school called the Lyceum; promoted the idea that no one should do anything to excess; did much to advance science and scientific methodology |
| Herodotus | wrote the history of the Persian Wars; often referred to as “The Father of History”; he tried to promote the idea of separating fact from fiction in storytelling and emphasize truthfulness |
| Thucydides | Often considered the greatest historian if the Ancient world; recorded the Peloponnesian Wars; he, too, emphasized accurate facts in recounting events |
| Macedonia | the area to the north of Greece |
| Battle of Chaeronea | in 338 B.C.E. battle that put most of Greece in the hands of Philip of Macedonia |
| Syria | country/kingdom located on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea; captured by Alexander in 332 B.C.E |
| Alexandria | a center for business and trade located in the delta of the Nile River of Egypt; became one of the most important in the ancient world and continues to be a very important city today |
| Alexander the Great | the son of Philip of Macedonia, conqueror of parts of three continents, spread Greek culture throughout the region he conquered |
| Legacy | what a person leave behind for those to remember after death |
| Hellenistic Era | marked by Alexander’s conquests, “like the Greeks”, an era when the ancient world emulated the culture of the Greeks |
| Rhodes | an island in the Mediterranean Sea, became one of the leading centers of Hellenistic theater; home of Appolonius |
| Theocritus | a Hellenistic poet who wrote short poems about beauty the nature |
| Epicureanism | a philosophy that taught happiness is the goal if life, “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we shall die.” |
| Stoicism | a philosophy developed by Zeno that taught happiness came from reason and not emotions, believed that all people had a duty to serve their city |
| Astronomers | people who study the planets and stars |
| Aristarchus | an astronomer who taught that the sun was the center of the universe and the Earth circled the sun (Heliocentric theory). This was contrary to the thinking of the day which was that, instead, the sun circled the Earth (Geocentric theory) |
| Eratosthenes | in charge of the library at Alexandria, measured the circumference of the Earth within 1% accuracy |
| Euclid | the most famous Greek mathematician who described plane geometry |
| Plane geometry | the branch of mathematics that shows how points, lines angles, and surfaces relate to one another |
| Archimedes | worked on elements of solid geometry and calculated the mathematical value of pi |
| Syracuse | location of Archimedes’ home |
| Solid geometry | the study of ball-like shapes called spheres and cylinders |
