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About Me:I'm a graduate student studying International Criminal Law and first started writing for King's News almost 4 years ago! My hobbies include reading, travelling and charity work. I cover many categories but my favourite articles to write are about mysteries of the ancient world, interesting places to visit, the Italian language and animals!
Did you enjoy learning about Ancient Greece in the last article? If so, here are some more facts about the groovy greeks that will make you admire the Ancient World even more!
Facts About Ancient Greece
- The Greeks lived before the Romans and much of Roman culture, from their dramatic sculptures and belief in gods to their literary works and theatre productions – many of which were modified copies of Ancient Greek plays - was influenced by the Greeks. Still to-date we see grand buildings such as the British Museum in London which was inspired by the Ancient Greeks.
- The Greeks contributed greatly to our alphabet, which is named after the first two letters of the Greek alphabet ‘alpha’ and ‘beta’. Ancient Greek was also the first alphabet to use vowels – and what would we do without them?!
- The Ancient Greeks founded new, grounding ideas for forms of government, science, philosophy, religion and art. Writers and philosophers alike were considered highly and many philosophers, such as Plato, saw it as their utmost duty to provide guidelines on the ideal state.
- It is said that the first form of democracy can be dated back to Ancient Greece, it is not quite like the democracy we have today but it is considered as the first steppingstone in the right direction.
- Ancient Greece was divided into multiple states, known as polis or city-state. Each one of these had its very own law system, form of government and money yet they all had the same language and religion. Athens and Sparta were two of the most important city-states and as such they inevitably fought.
- The first Olympic Games ever were hosted in 776 BC in Olympia, Greece.
- Pheidippides was known as a Greek hero after her ran around 150 miles from Marathon to Sparta to ask for their help against the Persians. Once the Greeks had won the war, he then ran from Marathon to Athens to bring news of the victory. Can you guess where the marathon got its name from?
- When Athens held law trials the jury was composed of 500 citizens, slightly more people than the twelve that are seen at law trials today!
- The largest Ancient Greek warships were known as triremes due to its three banks of oars. Each oar had a man assigned to it for rowing and there were 170 oars on a trireme – a lot of oars and a lot of men!
- The majority of Greek houses were small and were made of sun-dried mud brick. This means that each house would need to be rebuilt every few years so that archaeologists cannot dig up ruins of houses but must rely on the description of houses in writings of the time.
- Many households had slaves and a wealthy household could have up to 50 slaves!
- The Greeks could buy their clothes in the agora but this was very expensive. Many made their slaves create the clothes using long colourful fabric for them instead.
- Due to the hot weather in Greece, men wore light clothes, typically a tunic – known as a chiton – which was held by a pin in the shoulders and by a belt around the waist.
Know any more facts about Ancient Greece? Then what are you waiting for? Comment below!
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