Class Divisons

Greek Citizenship. Here in Illinois if you live here, you're a citizen. In Ancient Greece though, it was different; being a citizen was a privilege. Being a citizen meant you were in charge, each city-state was run by it's citizens. To become a citizen you had to be a free man that owned propery and was native-born. They thought nobody else could be a citizen, as I said before, being a citizen was a privilege. However some woman and children could be called a citizen but they wouldn't recieve any of the rights that come with the title. Now you might be wondering what those rights are. Citizens were able to gather in the agora to make laws and choose officials. They also had the right to vote, be in office, own land, and defend themselves in court. Yes, they had many rights but they had to pay a price. In return they had to serve in government and they had to fight for their polis as citizen soilders. This type of government was unique. It was unlike any other government, most places such as Mesopatamia and Egypt had it where most people were subjects. They had no rights, voting rights, basiclly no say in government whatsoever. They also had to obey their rulers and not rebel. Greeks were the first to think of citizenship.

Art

Art can be many things, poems, drama, fables, architecture. We all know what poems are, a rythmic piece of writing that expresses a deep message in stanza form. Drama in ancient Greece was on or two person prefomances, meant to entertain people. Over time drama grew to big preformances with many people. Fables were short storys, usally made up. They normally had animals as characters, their purpose was to teach a lesson. Good from bad, right from wrong, they taught a number of lessons. Architecture was very important to people in Greece. Architecture is the art of desining and building structures, in Greece the most important pieces of architecture were the temples dedicated to Greek gods and goddesses. Art had a huge impact on Greece. The art of architecture helped Greece grow the most, the more buildings they built teh more space Greece had, and that brought more people in. Architecture helped Greece grow in population and beauty. Architecture had the biggest impact however art in general had a big impact on Greece. It helped entertain people and it helped them to express their feelings.

During the Hellenistic Era Greeks ideas, systems, and art spread to non-greek places. One of these places is the non-greek areas of asia. The question is how do they spread there. Alexander the Great had built an empire that stretched from Greece all the way to India. This changed the world, for Greek ideas and culture spread from the Eastern Mediterranean to Asia.

Organized Government

There were four types of government. Oligarchy, when a place is ruled by a small number of individuals normally 2-5 people. Sparta was an oligarchy. Avantages to having an oligarchy is there are more ideas, and more people to have a say in things. There was also less arguing then there would be in other governments. Although there were some disadvantages, the rulers might not agree with eachother, some people could be unhappy for not having a say in things. Next, a tyranny was when only one person was in power, you were obliged to listen to their every word. What they said was law. An example is when a Pharaoh rules a land he is the one and only person in charge. This is a good system because everybody had to do what the ruler wanted, the people knew they couldn't influence their decision so why bother fighting? It was also very easy to make a decision the Pharoh declared something, it happened. On the other hand there were fewer ideas, and not everyone was involved and able to make decisions for themselves, this type of government was very unfair. There are two different types of democracy, representative and direct. Representative was when one person has power but everyone has a say. This is how the U.S runs, the president is in charge but we still have a say. Direct is when everybody is in charge there isn't one select person. This is how Athens was run. There are many advantages to democracy, everybody has a say, most all ideas are shared and everyone is equal. On the downside, some people could be unhappy, but that would be a very small amount. This is also where the most arguing happens because if someone is unhappy they will think, "I'm unhappy. This is a democracy, people have to listen to my ideas. If I go out there and say what I want to say there is a chance I will get what I want." So they go out there and agrue. It also takes more time to hear everybodys opinions.

Religion

In Ancient Greece they had a very different religion than we have today. They believed in gods and goddesses, they thought that these gods and goddesses could effect their life in a good way or bad. In order for the gods and goddesses to give you what you wanted you had to honor and worship them. So they did just that.

Each god and goddess had power over something, normally nature but it could be love, war stratagy, etc. According to the Greeks some of the god and goddesses that ruled over nature are Zeus, Demeter, and Poseiden. The god Zeus ruled the sky and threw lighting bolts, goddesses made the crops grow, and god Poseiden caused earthquakes. There were 12 god and goddesses that were declared more important than the rest, these select few lived on Mount Olympus, the highest mountian in Greece. Among the 12 were Zeus, the chief god; Athena the goddess of wisdom and crafts; Apollo, the god of sun and poetry; Ares, the god of war; Aphrodite, the goddess of love; and Poseiden god of seas and earthquakes. The Greeks also believed an afterlife, after you died you would go to the underworld ruled by the god Hades. It was not a good place. The Greeks also believed in fate, that you had a set future/path. To know what your path was Greeks visited an oracle. A person who supposedly could predict the future and tell you abouth your future. Although thats not all an oracle could tell you, they also told prophecys. A prophecy was when a god or goddesses sent a sign to forewarn you of something.

As a result of these beliefs Greeks built temples and buildings in honor of the god and goddesses, they wanted to please them. The greeks also went to church often to show their respect for the god and goddesses. The greeks worried about their every move wondering, "Will the god and goddesses like what I just did? Or are they mad?? Oh no, will they punish me? What can I do to make them happier??? Uhhh..."

Writing System

The Greek writing system actully wasn't too different from ours today. We have the same a, b, e, z, k, i, m, n, o, and t as they did back then.

The Greek alphabet was based on the Phoenician alphabet, the Greeks made a few tweaks and called it their own. Then we made a lot of tweaks and called it ours, this alphabet has exsited for a long while. Here is a comparison to a sentence in english to a sentence in the greek alphabet~

Ancient Greece is really fun and interesting to learn about!!

Αρχαία Ελλάδα είναι πραγματικά ενδιαφέρον και διασκεδαστικό να μάθετε για!!

Their words are a lot longer than ours, for in english the phrase 'fun to' is quite short. However using the greek alphabet it is much longer, 'διασκεδαστικό να'. That about sums it up for the Greek alphabet.

Thanks For watching!!!

I hope you learned a lot about Ancient Greece!!