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| Important ancient Greek families would claim that an impressive Mycenean tomb was that of their own famous ancestor and would practice sacrifices and other observances to strengthen their claim. This devotion could extend to their followers and eventually whole communities would identify with such local heroes |
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| One of the major innovations of the ancient Greeks was the Polis, or city-state. They were independent social and political structures, organized around an urban center, containing markets, meeting places, and a temple. They controlled a limited amount of the surrounding territory. |
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| Dating to 1400 BCE, the oracle was the most important shrine in ancient Greece. A priestess of Apollo who attended the shrine was believed to be able to predict the future. The shrine ceased to function in the fourth century C.E. |
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| : A Greek foot soldier armed with a spear or short sword and protected by a large round shield (a hopla). In battle, hoplites stood shoulder to shoulder in a close formation called a phalanx. |
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| (c. 650 – c. 550 BCE) One of the most famous Greek lyric poets, she wrote beautiful poetry about romantic longing and sexual lust, sometimes about men, but more often about women. |
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| (d. 559 BCE) Elected archon in 594 BCE, this ancient Greek aristocrat enacted a serious of political and economic reforms that made Athenian democracy possible. |
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| A full citizen of Sparta who was a professional soldier of the hoplite phalanx. |
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| A group of philosophers on the Greek island of Miletus, including Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, who raised questions about the relationship between the natural world, the gods, humans, and formulated rational theories to explain the physical universe they observed. |
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| The fifth-century BCE Athenian leader who served as strategos for thirty years and pushed through reforms to make Athens more democratic by giving every citizen the right to propose and amend legislation and making it easier for citizens to participate in the assembly and the great appeals court of Athens by paying an average day’s wage for attendance. |
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| The ancient Greek war between Sparta and Athens that began in 431 BCE and ended with the destruction of the Athenian fleet in 404 BCE |
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| Ancient Greek professional teachers who taught that sense perception was the source of all knowledge and that only particular truths could be valid for the individual knower. |
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| (469 – 399 BCE) The ancient Greek philosopher who emphasized the reexamination of all inherited assumptions and tried to base his philosophical speculations on sound definitions of words. He also wished to advance to a new system of truth by examining ethics rather than by studying the physical world. |
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