2.3 Greek Culture

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AGE 2. The Time of Greeks and Romans

2.3 Greek Culture

What is this lesson about?

The Ancient Greeks had a rich culture. They lived with the gods as they did with other people. The presence of the gods is seen in sports (Olympic Games), the theatre (Greek tragedies) and in the arts (mythology, etc.).

Word Duty

columns / pillars: round straight stone constructions that can carry the roof of a temple or similar building

Olympic Games: games that were held every four years at Olympia, to honour Zeus

 Pan-Hellenic: games that were held for all the Greeks. (pan = all, every, whole, all-inclusive, Hellas = Greece)

mythology: stories of the gods and demi-gods

philosophers: people who make a living just by thinking and talking about all sorts of things

comedies: Greek theatre plays that ridicule politics or philosophy

tragedies: Greek theatre plays that are about people and the gods. Normally they do not end well

KEY WORDS

Important dates in this lesson:

776 BC: first Olympic Games held at Olympia

What you can explain /  do after this lesson

• that the Greeks created literature, that is still read today
• that the Greeks developed scientific and architectural ideas that are still used today
• how Greek culture spread beyond Greece in the time of Hellenism
• where the Olympic Games come from

Introduction

There are still many things in our everyday lives that come from the Ancient Greeks. Maybe you have heard of Pythagoras in your maths class, or been to a play written by an Ancient Greek. Or maybe you noticed a fancy building with columns or just watched the Olympic Games on TV. All these things come from the Ancient Greeks.

source 2.3.1

Only Greek men competed in the ancient Olympic games whereas the modern games include women athletes and athletes from many countries. (Composite: Dennis Lan. Image Sources: iStock; Wikimedia Commons/tompagenet.)

Greek games

• The Olympic Games > in honour of Zeus
• Big sporting event > only men in the nude
• In some poleis only men were allowed to watch
• Started in 776 BC, once every four years
• Three other Pan-Hellenic games > big occasions for all of Greek
• All of them in honour of the gods
• Truce

 

source 2.3.3

The Olympic flame lighting ceremony at Olympia, Greece, 2003

source 2.3.2

A sporting event on a Greek vase.

Greek architecture

• To honour the gods, the Greeks constructed temples > decorated with stories from victories or mythology. decorating them with stories from mythology for example. 
• Columns (pillars) are made in proportion > to make sure that the pillar looks the same
•  Also constructed theatres: semicircles around a stage.
• Needed great acoustics
• Making it easier > building a theatre in a natural place

source 2.3.9

Greek theatre in Pargamon. The  rulers of Pergamon wanted to show they were very cultured (3rd century BC).

source 2.3.8

The Parthenon, a temple on the Athenian Acropolis. Its construction began in 477 BC.

A. __________kept the temple upright.

B. __________, band of sculpture along the temple. Used to show stories and  honour the gods.

C. ___________, the triangular at the  

top of the temple.

D. ___________ with  steps so that people could get up on the plateau.

5. Read "Greek architecture". You must also use internet to find information to do this task.

 First: drag the four words (left) to their correct place in the text (right). The green boxes with letters A, B, C, D represent the text lines A, B, C, D in the yellow box.  Second: drag the green boxes to the correct Roman numerals I, II, III, IV. 

A

B

C

D

Frieze

Pillars

Plateau

Tympanum

Greek theatricals

• Speech with a little flair > SUPER IMPORTANT!
• Lots of debates in politics > professional speakers
• Philosophers made a living with thinking an talking: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle
• Even have researchers! Like Eratosthenes who calculated the circumference of the Earth.
• Not everyone agrees with philosophers > debating or writing plays
• Euripides > plays that ridicule politics or philosophy: comedies.
• Tragedies > doesn't end well for humans

source 2.3.11

A play is being performed in a Greek theater. 19th century illustration

source 2.3.10

The Death of Socrates, by Jacques-Louis David (1787). Socrates was visited by friends in his last night at prison. His discussion with them gave rise to Plato's Crito and Phaedo.

Scholars and scientists

• Some things happen because of the gods: people getting sick
• Hippocrates > it's possible to find the 'bad liquids'. Every doctor swears the oath of Hippocrates
• Others looked for general truths, in maths for example
• Pythagoras discovered the relation between the sides and lenght of a triangle
• Archimedes discovered buoyancy, and upward force in a fluid
• Aristotle > father of Western logic, had his own school
• They got museums and libraries
• The foundation of Western science > the process of looking for general truth: Truths that also worked if you did not believe in the old gods at all.

source 2.3.13

the Pythagoras' theorem, a formula to calculate the diagonal side of a right-angled triangle.

source 2.3.12

The exclamation "Eureka!" (meaning "I have found it") is attributed to the ancient Greek scholar Archimedes. He reportedly proclaimed "Eureka! Eureka!" after he had stepped into a bath and noticed that the water level rose, whereupon he suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged.  He is said to have been so eager to share his discovery that he leapt out of his bathtub and ran naked through the streets of Syracuse.

16th century drawing.

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Films about Greek mythology

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