A History of the World: Chapter 8: Greek Civilization

The Greek people also believed many of the same myths, or traditional stories about gods and heroes. Greek myths expressed the religious beliefs of the ancient Greeks.

A ritual is an action that is part of a religious ceremony.

To find out about the future, many Greeks visited an oracle. This was a sacred shrine where a priest or priestess spoke for a god.

In order to get into the city, the Greeks trick the Trojans and construct a huge, hollow wooden horse.

A fable is a short tale that teaches a lesson. In most of Aesop's fables, animals speak and act like people. These stories are often funny and show human weaknesses and strengths. Each fable ends with a moral, or useful truth.

For 200 years, Aesop's fables were a part of Greek oral tradition. This means that the stories were passed from generation to generation by word of mouth.

A drama is a story told mainly through the words and actions of a cast of characters.

Greek drama can be divided into two categories: tragedy and comedy. In a tragedy, the main character struggles to overcome hardships but does not succeed.

In a comedy, the story ends happily. Today, the word comedy means a story filled with humor.

Then, stories were created using action and conflicts among the characters.

The characteristics of Greek art became the artistic style that we now call classical.

A group of philosophers known as the Sophists traveled from polis to polis. They made a living by teaching. The Sophists taught many subjects, including mathematics, science, and history.

However, they were best known for teaching rhetoric, or the art of public speaking and debate.

Sophists did not believe that the gods influenced human actions. They also rejected the idea of absolute right or wrong. For the Sophists, a way of life that was right for one person might be wrong for another.

These writings reveal that Socrates was a harsh critic of the Sophists.

In his search for truth, Socrates created a new way of questioning called the Socratic method. Today, many university professors use the Socratic Method when they teach. Socrates did not lecture. Instead, he asked pointed questions and waited for his students to respond.

The idea of the golden mean is that people should live moderately. For example, individuals should not eat too little or too much. Instead, they should eat just enough to stay well.

They also investigated the natural world. They developed new ways of studying science and history.

His rules are listed in the Hippocratic Oath. The oath says that doctors should do their best to help the patient. It also says that they should protect the patient's privacy.

He created a strong army.

He defeated some city-states in battle, and he bribed the leaders of others to surrender. A few city-states voluntarily agreed to join with Macedonia.

Alexander's cavalry, or soldiers on horseback, proved to be a stronger force.

Alexander and his troops did not pursue Darius, though.

Jason and his band sail the seas seeking a ram with a golden fleece.

Epicurus founded a philosophy known as Epicureanism. He taught his students that finding happiness was the goal of life. He believed that the way to be happy was to avoid pain.

Instead, he taught at a building called the "painted porch". The Greek word for porch was stoa. The term "Stoicism" thus comes from the Greek word stoa.
The Stoics claimed that people who were guided by their emotions lived unhappy lives. They believed that happiness resulted from using reason.

Unlike Epicureans, Stoics thought people had a duty to serve their community.

He then used his knowledge to measure Earth's circumference—the distance around Earth.

Using similar methods, he tried to determine how far it was to the sun and to the moon.

Although his measurements were not accurate, he concluded that the sun was much larger than Earth and the moon.

Plane geometry is one branch of mathematics. It shows how points, lines, angles, and surfaces relate to one another.

Archimedes worked on solid geometry. He studied ball-like shapes, called spheres, and tubelike shapes, called cylinders.