Democracy

Athenian democracy

In the 4th and 5th century, the Athenians developed one of the world's earliest democratic system. It consisted of a direct democracy system. Direct democracy basically means that you are directly voting for your decisions. Whereas in an indirect democracy, you choose someone that has similar ideas to yours. Although he cannot guarantee that he will follow them step by step.

The Athenian democracy was made up of the whole male community. But it was not that simple, in order to take part, you had to be older than 20, you had to be a free born man: meaning that in theory, no slaves could participate. Every citizen meeting those aspects could participate and only those were considered citizens. There were not many people who were considered citizens, in fact, they were only 40,000 people which meant something around 10-20% of the total population.

Those 40,000 people were members of two groups: They were members of the assembly and they were obliged to attend to the meetings. Members of the assembly would raise their hand up to agree to a decision. The assembly made up the legislative part.

Members of the assembly were also members of the "people´s court" or "boulé". It was there were they could make their complains against any decisions which they might consider wrong, they could also complain against officials, who were not acting properly in their eyes. To control that, a judge was drawn from lot. This made up the judiciary branch.

People were also capable of ostracising any political member who in their opinion had gained too much power and could put democracy in danger. These peoples names were written in broken pieces of pottery and were placed in a big wall with wholes. If a person received over 6,000 votes, they would be exiled from Athens and they had to remain outside the city for a decade. If they returned earlier they could be killed.

After that strategoi was created. This consisted of 10 people who ensured the people's security. They formed the executive part.

Apart from that, 9 archons were first elected and later on drawn by lot. These archons were the most important officials of Athens. Another group was created from the retired Archons, it was called the aeropagus and they made up the higher court.

Finally, every year 500 people would be randomly chosen to make up the "council of 500".  They could only be part of it for 2 consecutive years. The people were chosen from three different regions and therefore, they were split up into groups of 50. 3 groups of 50 were chosen from those who live near the coast. 3 other groups were chosen from those living inland. The last 4 groups of 50 came from the cities. Members of the council coordinated the decisions. Each month, one of the 10 groups would make up the government. Out of the 50 members of each group, one of them would be randomly chosen everyday to become president. In this way, everyone would have the chance to be president at least once in their life.

Alexander the Great

Alexander III of Macedonia

Alexander was the son of King Philip of Macedonia. Macedonia is a rocky mountainous land located to the north of Greece. Alexander was only 13 when Aristotle became his tutor. Aristotle is the founder of modern science. During the Peloponnesian war, Macedonia gained power. King Philip conquered some of the Greek peninsula. 

Alexander became the king of the kingdom of Macedonia in 336BC, right after his father died. His reign was short because he died at the age of 32 due to an illness. Although his reign was short, it was extremely effective, he controlled most of the eastern World: he conquered Asia minor, Egypt and Greece. His principles are still used today.

End of the Greek civilization

End of the Greek civilization

The main reason for the Greek civilization to end was war. Greece entered a 27 years-long war against Sparta called the Peloponnesian war. In order to protect themselves the Athenians built a 4 miles long wall around the city borders. But disease spread rapidly around the overpopulated Athens.

Athenian allies send supplies, but Spartans stopped them and after a year of blockage Spartan soldiers left Athens fearing getting the plague. Persia joined Sparta and after the plague killed 2/3 of the Athenian population, Athens had been strongly weakened, so they could not fight back.
Those years of war and fighting had brought both Polis back in time and the Macedonians, living to the north of the Greek peninsula developed strength. King Philip conquered some of the Greek peninsula and finally his son Alexander conquered the rest of it around 3rd century BC. 

Philosophers

Philosophy

Philosophy basically is using reason and a step-by-step logic to figure out problems. One of the most influential philosophers was Socrates, teacher of Plato. He used rhetoric speeches to threaten the leaders of Athens. He was told to honor the Gods by the leaders but he disobeyed and was killed due to his guiltiness. But through his student, Plato, we have got to know what he said. Plato described him as "the best of all men I have ever known."

Plato came from a wealthy family and he was very young when he started to study with Socrates. When Socrates was killed, Plato left Athens for ten years. When he returned he opened the Academy, where he became a teacher.

He taught Aristotle, the founder of modern science. he wrote 170 books, only 47 of them still remain today. Despite the fact that he was one of the most important scientists of the time, his theories were proved wrong by later iv=inventions like the telescope and the microscope.

Aristotle stayed at Plato's Academy for 20 years and he left shortly before Plato died. He was hired by the king of Macedonia to train his thirteen year old son

Homer

Homer

Homer is most known by his poems. People suggest that he came from what we nowadays know as modern Turkey, because of the language in which his poems were written. He played one of the most important roles in ancient Greece because through his poems we can create a concept of what Greece was like 3,000 years ago.

His two most famous poems are the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Greek mythology

Greek mythology

As you might already know, monotheism is the belief of there being only on God. Therefore, polytheism is the belief of there being more than one God.

Greeks were polytheistic, but unlike other cultures their Gods looked like humans and acted like them.

There were three Gods living in the Olympus, Zeus, Hades and Poseidon. Zeus was the main God, most temples have been built to worship him; he was the God of the skies, lightning and the universe itself. Hades was the God of the underworld and the dead; few temples have been built after him. The last brother is Poseidon, God of marine life and earthquakes, many important leaders would pray to him, an example is king Minos.

In ancient Greece, there were also people who were said to be oracles. Oracles were wise people who could provide wise predictions of the future.

Greek civilization

Greek civilization

The Greek civilization was one of the greatest of all time.  Ancient Greece was not a united nation, but a collection of cities known as Poli. Polis is city in Greek and poli is its plural.

 It started to flourish around 2,500 years ago. It was located in Greece and had it's capital in Athens, named after the Greek Goddess of wisdom Athena. The Greeks were the first ones to stablish rules and democracy.

Democracy consists of people choosing who they want to govern the country. Citizens are also able to say if they agree or not to certain rules stablished by the leaders.

The Greeks were the first ones to try to explain things, which they did not understand by using science.