Greek Webquest

To complete your quest for knowledge of Ancient Greece, use the information found on the following website: http://www.mythologyteacher.com/GreekIntro.html

Greek Intro

1. At roughly what time period was the Golden Age of ancient Greece?
   500 BCE
2. Who was an ancient Greek writer of fables?
   Aesop
3. Who was a Greek mathematician?
   Pythagoras
4. Why should Americans study ancient Greece?
   democracy derived from ancient Greece

Greek City-States

1. How is a city-state more than just a city?
   the law and protection of the surrounding plains
2. What term was not in use during the Golden Age of Greece?  Why?
   Greece because its city-states had no desire to be united into a larger country
3. What is an agora?
   the heart of Greek city

Death & Burial

1. Greeks believed your spirit would never be at rest if:
   the body went unburied
2. What is a dirge?
   mourning song performed at a funeral
3. Why was a coin placed in the mouth of the dead?
   coin that all souls must pay the boatman Charon in the Underworld, so that he will ferry them across the River Styx
4. What is a libation?
   a drink poured out as an offering to a deity.

Greek Democracy

1. In Greek, demos means what?
   the people
2. What type of democracy did Athens have?
   direct democracy
3. What groups were excluded from Athenian citizenship?
   women, slaves, and free foreigners
4. How did citizens sometimes vote in Athens?
   placing a certain color of rock into a pot to vote "yes" and another color to vote "no."

Greek Boy’s Life:  Greek Boys and Adolescents

1. What is a Greek adage (saying) about their newborn children?
   “If you have a boy, keep it.  If you have a girl, expose it."
2. What ceremony did boys go through before becoming men?
   a boy’s hair was ceremoniously cut and dedicated to one of the gods
3. Boys were sent to do what at the age of eighteen?
   2 yrs military duty
4. How long were men subject to the military draft?
   until age of 60
5. What is a lyre?
   6 string harp
6. What is rhetoric?
   argue any point, whether or not they truly believed in it
7. What is a sophist?
   a lover of wisdom
8. What was the “bible of the Greeks”?
   the Iliad
9. What were the two tools teachers used to teach reading and writing?
   the Iliad and letters
10. When did education end for most boys?
    mid teens
11. Why were Greek men expected to keep their bodies in shape?
    in case he was called up to the military

Gymnasium

1. What does the word gymnos mean?
   unclothed
2. What was the Greek word for one who participates in sport contests?
   athlete
3. What was the most dangerous Greek sport?
   boxing

Olympics

1. When did the first Olympics occur?
   776 BCE
2. What Olympic contest was held at the Olympic hippodrome?
   chariot-racing
3. What was the Heraia?
   women footraces
4. What are the five sports in the pentathlon?
   running, leaping, wrestling, discus, javelin

Greek Girl’s Life: Girlhood and Marriage in Athens

1. How were women oppressed in Ancient Greece (Athens)?
   separating women and male; limited to domestic training; could only leave to attend religious festivals
2. At what age did girls get married?
   14
3. What was the goal of every Greek wife?
   produce a male heir
4. When was murder completely legal in ancient Greece?
   adultery

Greek Religion & the Oracle at Delphi

1. According to the Greek moral code, what two crimes were capital offenses?
   Anyone who murdered or dishonored a guest in Greece and anyone who failed to properly bury a dead body
2. Explain how Greece did not have a strict religious code.
   as long as Greek recognized some higher power
3. What could priests tell from an animal’s organs?
   determining the future
4. What is a pantheon?
   temple built to honor all the gods
5. What usually occurred after a Greek sacrifice?
6. Which god or goddess was most honored in Athens?
   athena
7. Where did the Oracle of Delphi sit?  Why?
   3 legged stool to breathe in fumes
8. Whom did kings consult to learn their future?
   Delphic Oracle

Greek Warfare

1. How did one warship defeat another?
   ramming enemy ships & punching a hole in their sides, driving them onto rock, or disabling their rowers/oars
2. What is a phalanx?
   military formation
3. Sparta was known for its infantry; Athens was known for its
   navy.
4. What is a hoplite?
   average Greek soldier
5. Where did Sparta and Athens stop King Xerxes’ march into Greece?
   Thermopylae

Greek Slavery

1. What were lawyers allowed to do to slaves in order to get information?
   tortured
2. Besides domestic work within the home, what were three jobs a slave might receive?
   worked on countryside farms, mines, pottery, armor, factories, row on warships
3. Where did the Greeks obtain their slaves?
   “barbarian” nations

Greek Theater

1. How many spectators could be seated in the theatron?
   14,000
2. Why are modern actors called thespians?
   actor who wasn’t part of the chorus
3. What amplified the voices of Greek actors?
   megaphone
4. What does obscene mean in Greek?
   acts not shown on stage
5. What innovation did Sophocles create?
   3 character; drama
6. What is a chorus?
   12-15 men who sang/danced in response to the actor’s words/actions
7. Whose opinion did the chorus represent in Greek plays?
   people and public
8. What theatrical innovation did the playwright Aeschylus come up with?
   adding a secondary character

Tragedy, Comedy, & Parody

1. What are satyrs?
   parody of famous myth
2. What is a catharsis?
   emotional cleansing
3. What type of play is a crude parody?
   satyr
4. What type of play tells the downfall of a noble character?
   tragedy
5. Who was the patron god of the theater?
   Dionysus
6. Which type of play made fun of daily life in Athens?
   comedies

Famous Greeks:  Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.)

1. How old was Alexander the Great when he became the King of Macedonia?
   20 years old
2. What did Alexander spread around the world?
   Greek culture
3. What empire did Alexander conquer?
   persian
4. Why was Alexander a successful conqueror?
   colonization, spread Greek culture, technological advances

Famous Greeks:  Herodotus (484-425 B.C.)

1. Herodotus is often called:  
   father of history.
2. What wars did Herodotus write about?
   persian wars
3. What else did Herodotus write about?
   exotic places and their culture (Egypt, Africa, India)

Famous Greeks:  Hippocrates (460-370 B.C.)

1. Hippocrates is often called:  
   father of medicine.
2. How many children died in ancient Greece before the age of ten?
   ½ of all children
3. Write one line from the Hippocratic Oath:
   I will not use the knife, not even on sufferers from stone, but will withdraw in favor of such men as are engaged in this work.
   

Famous Greeks:  Homer (lived around 750 B.C.), the Iliad & the Odyssey

1. How was the dark age of Greece different from the golden age of Greece?
   w/o written history
2. What are three rumors concerning Homer the poet?
   he was blind poet, homer = work of group of writers, he was a woman
3. What is an “epic poem”?
   lengthy narrative poem,
4. What is the plot of the Odyssey?
   tale of Odysseus' ten year voyage home to Greece
5. What started the Trojan War?
   paris kidnaps helen
6. When did the “real” Trojan War probably occur?
   1,250 BCE
7. Which did the Greeks like better—the Iliad or the Odyssey?  Why?
   Iliad because it glorified Greece

Famous Greeks:  Socrates (469-399 B.C.) & Plato (428-348 B.C.)

1. How was Socrates different from the sophists?
   did not accept money for his services
2. Who were the “scientists” of ancient Greece?
   philosophers
3. What does philosophy mean in Greek?
   the love of wisdom
4. What is the “Socratic Method”?
   mentor asked questions after questions after questions where students were forced to examine their own ideas and form new ones based on their own understanding
5. What was the charge brought against Socrates?
   corrupting the youth of Athens

Sparta

1. What did the Spartans do with their unwanted children?
   tossed into chasm
2. Because Sparta was completely dedicated to the art of _________________________, it was one of the few societies to have produced no art.
3. Spartan boys started their training at what age?
   6
4. Spartan boys were yearly flogged for what reason?
   test their ability endure bodily pain
5. What did an apprenticeship of a young boy to an older boy accomplish?
   form an intense bond
6. How was stealth taught to Spartan boys?
   food supply limited → stole from agora
7. What story demonstrated the Spartan discipline expected of the boys?
   a boy who found a fox club

Spartan Women     

1. How were the lives of Spartan women different from the lives of Athenian women?
   enjoyed enormous freedom
2. What was a Spartan wedding night ritual?
   servants would shave the bride's head and dress her in men's clothing