Ancient Greece

Tyrants usually preceded democracy. They were appointed in various cities by popular will to get rid of the aristocratic cliques and run a city-state to the general benefit of the people rather than the vested interested of a few. A tyrant had to maintain a bodyguard to protect himself from the aristocrats, and to hire them had to impose a tax on the people, which eventually made the tyrant as unpopular as the aristocrats had been. So the cities progressively expelled the tyrants and some tried the experiment with democracy - with mixed success.

Failures with democracy resulted in some cases in a return to aristocrats, monarchs or tyrants to sort out the mess. Most cities then turned to a compromise of a form of limited democracy where the magistrates allowed the people to vote yes or no on issues they put before them.

Greece was comprised of a couple of thousand independent city-states spread around the Mediterranean and Black Seas. They were based on subsistence agriculture and fishing, and most cities remained poor and marginal at subsistence level.

However a few dozen developed trading fleets, mines and manufactured and artistic goods, which spread their trade along with the cities they colonised.

When he was sentenced to death by a court for impiety, he was given the choice of suicide or the normal one of having his throat cut and being thrown into a garbage pit. He chose to drink hemlock.

Geographically Athens and Sparta are very close but have different values, lifestyles, and cultures. Athens has a population of 140,000 while Sparta has 100,000 inhabitants

We, as an audience, find out different aspects of each of these character's personalities in Book 1.

During the assembly that Achilles calls, he calls for a seer to be summoned to see why Apollo is angry and has sent them the plague, illustrating his desire for things to be put right. Agamemnon is resentful at being told what to do, showing his need to remain in control.

Achilles speaks directly to Agamemnon calling him greedy, showing that he has no respect for the King after dishonouring him (Agamemnon has distributed the prizes, that the army has won, unequally, according to Achilles. He is their best fighter and thus demands more rewards than the other fighters, but Agamemnon refuses). Achilles then tells his leader that it would be in their best interests to give back the girl, Chryseis to her father and accept the ransom offered by him. He promises that he and his men will over-reward Agamemnon for this deed, if he would just see it through. Achilles speaks of Gods while referring to this, emphasising the importance of the situation and his deeper respect for them than Agamemnon.

Agamemnon refuses to go back on what he has already decided, regarding Chryseis, in fear that it will make him look like a weak leader, but in fact, it would be quite the opposite. Agamemnon gives an insecure speech, but tries too hard maintain his status. He jumps to conclusions, accusing Achilles of tricking him into giving the girl back, so he can keep his own, Briseis, safe. However, this is not strictly true.

Achilles proceeds to insult his leader more, calling him self centred and a swine. He tells him that he didn't even want to come to fight as he had no grudge against the Trojans, but only came to gain glory for Agamemnon, as did the rest of their army. He tells him that he has been cheated out of his booty as he does all the fighting and doesn't get any larger reward than the others for his bravery and also Agamemnon takes the most of it for himself.

Achilles becomes a little melodramatic and declares that he will return home, leaving the army without his help. Agamemnon replies patronisingly that he should leave, then and can do without him (which he obviously can't). He suddenly leaps to his last resort of trying to maintain a higher status than Achilles, attempting to reprimand him in front of the whole army, declaring that he will take away his prize. But this is showing his desperation as he is not quite in control.

Athena intervenes, just when Achilles is about to kill Agamemnon, and instead of killing the King, Achilles proceeds to insult him, emphasising his respect for the Gods. But he pushes his luck with Agamemnon, and tells him that he will regret having hurt his pride and wishes the Greek army to fall by Hector's hand. We learn that Achilles is not afraid to escalate the situation in defending his honour.

The males who worked farms, fished, did trades, ran businesses and defended the city-state.

The females who ran the households and produced and raised large families.

The slaves who multiplied the capacity of both of the above.

The Greek world was comprised of a couple of thousand independent city-states. These cities were prone to warfare between each other, and at any time it was normal sor some to be fighting each other. This was magnified by their forming leagues of several cities, so the conflicts spread. The cities were also spread around the Mediterranean and Black Seas which brought them into regular conflict with the other peoples the cities were located amongst. This incessant warfare weakened them and made them vulnerable to progressive takeover by Macedonia, and then Rome.

Yes, the Italian city states did make use of the seminaries to make deals with each other.

Polytheism.

A xiphos is a double-edged single-handed sword, used by the Ancient Greeks as an alternative weapon to the spear or javelin.

There is about 16,000 people that live in Ancient Greece. Greece has a little population.

The ancient Greek writer Callimachus expressed the opinion that Big Book equals Big Bore. Yes, excellent answer.

True

The parts, whether male or female, were performed by males. It started at 50, dropped to as low as 12, and rose back to such levels as 24 at different times and types of performance - dramatic, satyr and comedy plays.

According to the Greek creation myth, the first thing that came into being was Chaos,a dark intangible element, a kind of primeval void. This was followed by the birth of Gaia, the primordial goddess of the earth. She was followed by Tartarus, with hiss dim realms far below the earth, and by Eros, the god of sexual love. Without a mate Gaia bore Uranus (sky) , the mountains and Pontus (sea) then Uranus mated with his mother and she bore the Titans, Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Patues, Theam, Rheo, Themis, Mneomsyne, Phoebe, Tethys, and last of all Cronus.

Hellenistic was a period of time relating to ancient Greece after the death of Alexander the Great until 323 BC. The best way to get rid of Hellenistic notions would probably be to read about later periods of time.

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Well obviously, The Greeks live in Greece while the Egyptians live in Egypt. They have different Gods also.

Greece was a democracy, where all the people decided, while Egypt was a monarchy, with one ruler, or Pharoah.

The Greeks wore white robes, and if noble, colored robes. The Egyptians wore colored robes with patterns and bangles.

That's all I can think of.

Someone who writes successful history, that is a coherent account of human events for a given period of time.

The word History comes from the Greek word for Researches, which is the name given to his book by our first coherent historian who opened his book with the words:

'Herodotus of Halicarnassus his researches are here set down so that the great deeds of men may not be forgotten.'

People have taken it on from there, some successfully, some not so successfully, and some pervert it to propaganda for their views.

The tragedies give differing versions of the legendary past of Greece with a moral angle. The satyr plays were filthy performances after the trio of tragedies, designed to clear the audience's minds of the tragedies, and the comedies were funny and libellous farces designed to send the audience home happy after a hard day at the theatre.

Myron of Eleuthrae was a sculptor in bronze in the first half of the 5th Century BCE, producing representations of athletes which brought a new boldness of pose and sense of rhythm.

Yes , the Greek Goddess Athena was the goddess of war as well as the goddess of wisdom , courage , inspiration , civilization , law , justice , mathematics , strength , strategy , the arts , crafts and skill .

All Greek cities depended heavily on slave labour. Probably a third of the population of Athens were slaves. Their force of archers were Scythian slaves, whom they used as a police force as well.

Sparta is often mistakenly stated to have used large numbers of slaves. These were in fact serfs - men who were free but bound to the land and paying part of their produce to the landowners. These serfs were also used as light infantry to support the Spartan armoured warriors as archers and light infantry. As Sparta's warrior population dwindled, these serfs were given freedom for successful army service when recruited as heavy infantry.

Greek wine varied from dark, inky black to tawny to nearly clear.

The colour of wine is determined by the skins - leave the skins in and you get red, leave them out and you get white. The colour of the grape doesn't matter - what you do with the skins does.

The city-states evolved from 8th Century BCE farming communities which established refuge-fortresses in their agricultural land. The hill forts developed into walled cities which governed themselves and so the city-states came into being. They had to defend themselves against the predations of nomads and other cities to remain independent, which fostered the separateness.