In Greece, especially in villages, bread is considered a gift of God. Because of that women bless the bread and make the sign of the cross with a knife before slicing it.

2. Evil Eye

Some Greeks believe that someone can catch the evil eye, or “matiasma”, from jealous or envious people. Those, who have caught the evil eye, usually feel bad physically and mentally. To avoid the matiasma one must wear a charm: a little blue marble glass with an eye painted on it or a blue bracelet. Blue is believed to be the color that protects against the evil eye but it is also believed that people with blue eyes can give matiasma. Garlic is another way to guard against the evil eye, and people often hang it in their houses.

3. Knives

Greeks never hand a knife to someone because they believe it will bring a fight with the person. Therefore they set it down on the table and let the other person take it.

How to make : http://www.dl.ket.org/latin1/things/romanlife/greekdress.htm 

- comes in long / short

1. Spartans / Spartiates - full citizens

2. Helots - slaves

3. Perioeci - dwellers-around (craftsmen and traders)

All healthy male Spartan citizens participated in the compulsory state-sponsored education system, the Agoge, which emphasized obedience, endurance, courage and self-control. Spartan men devoted their lives to military service, and lived communally well into adulthood. A Spartan was taught that loyalty to the state came before everything else, including one’s family.

Additionally, the child was coached on reading and writing, and had to learn most of the battle songs that were sang on Spartan military campaigns. He was also encouraged to join groups, who then widely competed against each other in various sports (much like in Hogwarts). Finally, on his tenth year, he was required to give his competitive demonstration in the fields of athletics, dancing and music.

Unlike such Greek city-states as Athens, a center for the arts, learning and philosophy, Sparta was centered on a warrior culture. Male Spartan citizens were allowed only one occupation: solider. Indoctrination into this lifestyle began early. Spartan boys started their military training at age 7, when they left home and entered the Agoge. The boys lived communally under austere conditions. They were subjected to continual physical, competitions (which could involve violence), given meager rations and expected to become skilled at stealing food, among other survival skills.

The teenage boys who demonstrated the most leadership potential were selected for participation in the Crypteia, which acted as a secret police force whose primary goal was to terrorize the general Helot population and murder those who were troublemakers. At age 20, Spartan males became full-time soldiers, and remained on active duty until age 60.

Marriage was important to Spartans, as the state put pressure on people to have male children who would grow up to become citizen-warriors, and replace those who died in battle. Men who delayed marriage were publically shamed, while those who fathered multiple sons could be rewarded.

In preparation for marriage, Spartan women had their heads shaved; they kept their hair short after they wed. Married couples typically lived apart, as men under 30 were required to continue residing in communal barracks. In order to see their wives during this time, husbands had to sneak away at night.

Beyond the body, another significant part of the Spartan armor was the shield. In fact, the shield was given far more value than any type of armor or weaponry – and Spartan warriors who threw away their shields were rigorously punished. When asked why, the Spartan king Demaratos made a succinct reply – “because the latter [other armors] they put on for their own protection, but the shield for the common good of the whole line.”

2. Barbara Chang Huey Yi

3. Tan Min Chuen

4. Ng Kwang Zhou

5. Amelisa Heng Sy Hua

6. Madeline Liew Zhi Qi

7. Tam Zhao Wei

- Timeline Research - Barbara & Zhao Wei

- Tradition - Madeline

- Culture of Athens - Kwang Zhou

- Culture of Sparta - Min C

- Administration - Zhao Wei

- Social Strata - Amelisa

Athenian life was creative. As an Athenian, you could get a good education and could pursue any of several kinds of arts or sciences. You could serve in the army or navy, but you didn't have to. (This applied only to boys, however: Girls were restricted to other pursuits, not war or business or education.)

Spartan life was simple. The focus was on obedience and war. Slavery made this possible by freeing the young men from household and industrial duties and allowing them to focus on their military duties. Young boys were trained to be warriors; young girls were trained to be mothers of warriors.

For many years, Spartan armies provided much of the defense of the Greek lands. The Spartan heroism at the Battle of Thermopylae, during the Persian Wars, inspired all of Greece to fight back with all their might against the invading Persians. Athenian and Spartan fought side by side in the Battle of Plataea, which ended Persian invasions of Greece.

Homer featured people trying to live up to standards of courage and honor. Pindar wrote poems that honored sports heroes. Sappho wrote of friendship and love.

Drama Poems evolved to songs and finally to drama when Thespis broke away and spoke lines on his own. Plays were a big deal to the Athenians. On opening day even prisoners were let out to attend.

Tragedies The Greek tragedies were plays that showed dignity in the face of trouble. They showed how noble people could be. The Universe was governed by fate or destiny in these plays. People who were too stubborn or proud would be punished by destiny. Aeshylus, Sophocles, and Euriopides wrote some of the great tragedies.

Comedies The comedies of Aristophanes and others were satires of politics and current events. History The Athenians were the first to examine history with a critical eye. Herodutus and Thucydides were some of the historians of the day. Artists and Architects Paintings and sculptures showed the ideal person. The Athenians tried to make structures fit with natural surroundings. Notice how the Parthenon seems to grow up out of the rocks.

Philosophy is the love of wisdom. The Greek philosophers started with deep-seeded questions such as: "Why are humans here?" and "How far is the universe?" Greeks looked for rational ways to explain the natural world. They believed in natural laws, many of which were wrong.

Pythagorus Pythagorus believed the universe was arranged according to natural laws. He discovered the Pythagorean Theorem, the relationship between the sides of a right triangle.

Hypocrites
Hypocrites started a medical school and taught people to find the reason for illnesses. He separated medicine from magic.

Socrates469-399 BC
Socrates never wrote anything down. He believed that it was more important to gain knowledge of human beings than to investigate nature. He thought that one should get knowledge from reason, not emotions. "The unexamined life is not worth living." He taught by having discussions in which the truth of every statement was questioned. Socrates was killed for his ideas.

Plato427 - 347 BC
Plato was a student of Socrates. He believed that laws must serve the best interests of everyone. He blamed democracy for the troubles in Greece because too few had the brains to govern wisely. Plato wanted philosopher kings.

Thermopylae "These men have come to fight us for the possession of the pass, and for that struggle they are preparing. It is the common practice of the Spartans to pay careful attention to their hair when they are about to risk their lives. But I assure you that if you can defeat these men and the rest of the Spartans, there is no other people in the world who will dare to stand firm or lift a hand against you. You have now to deal with the finest kingdom in Greece, and with the bravest men."

"The Persians had in their army many men, but few soldiers."

-has the right to vote

-hold public office

-own property

-dominated Greek Society

-divided into several classes

First class:Aristoi

-They control the political situation and is the owner for the most fertile lands

Second class:Periokoi

-Poorer, owner for the less fertile land or land that is further from the city

Third class:Nouveau riche

-Involve in the trading activities and business

WOMEN(citizens)

- Unable to vote, own land, or inherit.

-a woman’s purpose in life was the rearing of children.

-contact with non-family males was discouraged

- occupied their time with indoor activities such as wool-work and weaving.

-Spartan women were treated somewhat differently than in other states, for example, they had to do physical training (nude) like men, were permitted to own land, and could drink wine.

Marriage:

- had to marry as a virgin and marriage was usually organised by the father

-married at the typical age of thirteen or fourteen

- If a woman was left a widow, she was required to marry a close

male relative in order to ensure property stayed within the family.

Sex-workers(non-citizens):

- brothel prostitute (pornē).

. Serve common man

- higher-class prostitute (hetaira)

. Educated in music and culture and often formed lasting relationships with married men

CHILDREN & ADOLESCENTS(citizens)

-attended schools where the curriculum covered reading, writing, and mathematics. After these

basics were mastered, studies turned to literature(for example, homer),poetry, and music

-athletics was also an essential element in a young person’s education.

-at Sparta , boys as young as seven were grouped together under the stewardship of an older youth to be toughened up with hard physical training.

-in Athens, young adult citizens (aged18-20) had to perform civil and military service and their education continued with lessons in politics, rhetoric, and culture.

-Girls too were educated in a similar manner to boys but with a greater emphasis on dancing, gymnastics, and musical accomplishment which could be shown off in musical competitions and at religious festivals and ceremonies. The ultimate goal of a girl’s education was to prepare her for her role in rearing a family.

LABOURERS

-semi-free workers, wholly dependent on their employer.

-they could not be sold as a slave could

-also called serf-class or helots 

-they were given little or no legal status and harshly treated

SLAVES(douloi)

-acquired through war and conquest , kidnap and purchase

-slave population in the Greek world range from between 15 and 40% of the total population

-slaves worked in all spheres and over 200 hundred occupations have been identified.

FOREIGNERS

-aside from slaves, most Greek poleis would have had a number of free foreigners (xenoi) who had chosen to re-locate from other areas of Greece

-these foreigners usually had to register their residence and so became a recognised class (lower in status than the full-citizens) called the metics (metoikoi)

-organized troops of soldiers

-democracy

-history

-logical proofs

55,000 BC (57,000 years ago)

People first began to move to Greece .

6000 BC 

People in Greece began to farm their food and settle down in villages.  

Then there began to be more and more people living in Greece. 

Around 2000 BC

Indo-European invaders came to Greece from Central Asia, bringing with them the use of: 

-bronze

These invaders married the local people. They sailed around and picked up ideas from West Asia and Crete

1400 BC 

They were building palaces and big tombs for their leaders. 

This is the time of the Trojan War.

1. West Asia and Egypt fell into an economic depression, and the Greeks fell with them. Many Greeks left Greece and sailed to new homes in Israel (where they are the Philistines) or other places in West Asia.
   

About 900 BC 

The Dark Ages were ending, and the Greeks began trading with West Asia and Egypt again. 

From the Phoenicians, the Greeks learned the alphabet: 

This is the time of Homer. There were more and more people in Greece. People began to form city-states and experiment with different kinds of governments for them: oligarchies and tyrannies. 

This is the Archaic period; it ends about 500 BC when the Athenians try a new experiment in government: the world's first DEMOCRACY.

Classical period

People around the Mediterranean noticed that the Persians had formed the  world's first big empire (and used it to attack the Greeks in the Persian Wars).

Everybody wanted to form an empire too - the Romans, the Carthaginians, and the Greeks.  

The Athenians built an empire, but the Spartans destroyed it in the Peloponnesian War. 

Hellenistic period

Greece was much weaker

336 BC 

Greece became part of Philip of Macedon's empire. 

Philip's son Alexander The Great kept Greece and then conquered the Persian Empire before dying in 323 BC.

After Alexander's death, Greece was never strong enough to form her own  empire again.

146 BC 

They became part of the Roman Empire. When the Roman Empire fell in 476 AD, Greece continued to be part of the Byzantine Empire, and then transitioned in 1453 AD into the Ottoman Empire.

She invented the chariot, the bridle and built the first ship. The olive tree is sacred to her.

- Aegis-a goat skin cloak fringed with snakes.

- Associated with the owl.

Some time later Zeus began to have terrible headaches. The pain grew so unbearable that Zeus asked Hephaistos to cut his head open to see what was wrong.

When Hephaistos opened his head, Athena emerged from Zeus' skull, fully grown and dressed for battle.

She is particularly associated with the city of Athens. There is a myth that Athena's gift to the city was the olive tree. It grew on the Acropolis. Other sacred olive trees grew near Plato's Academy - they provided the oil for the prizes at the Panathenaic Games.

In the 5th century BC a great temple to Athena was built on the Athenian Acropolis. The temple was called the Parthenon.

"I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing"

-Socrates

Socrates often brought people to the realization that they were not the best they could be, and perhaps they did not know what they thought they did. In the Symposium, Socrates says:

[Man] is always becoming a new being and undergoing a process of loss and reparation, which affects ... his soul as well. No man's character, habits, opinions, desires, pleasures, pains, and fears remain always the same; new ones come into existence and old ones disappear.

4. Spitting

Some Greeks believe that spitting chases the devil away. That is why when someone talks about bad news (deaths, accidents, etc…) or compliments babies, children and even adults, the others slightly spit three times saying “ftou, ftou, ftou”.

5. Tuesday the 13th

Unlike the Western belief, in Greece the unlucky day is Tuesday the 13th and not Friday the 13th. Tuesday is considered to be the unluckiest day of the week because on Tuesday, May 29th, 1453 the city of Constantinople was besieged and taken by the Ottoman Turks. Greeks also consider the number 13 to be good luck and the main theory is the belief that having 12 apostles of Christ made Christ the 13th of the group. However, the combination of Tuesday and 13 as Tuesday the 13th of the month is considered a very unlucky day in Greek culture.

6. "Piase kokkino" (Touch Red)

Greeks believe that saying the same thing at the same time is an omen and the two people will get into a fight or an argument. Because of this, when people say the same thing together they must immediately follow by telling one another "piase kokkino" and both have to touch any red item they can find around them.

Carnival In Greece - The Carnival is called "Apokries". The festival consists of two weeks of feast, beginning from the Sunday of Meat Fare and ends with the first day of the Lent, called Clean Monday (Kathari Deutera). Everyone is costumed and parties take place in the streets and bars, throwing coloured confetti to each other. The most famous Carnival Parade takes place in the city of Patra. In many towns around Greece and in the islands, local customs revive. The Carnival is believed to come from paganism, and more precisely from the old festivities worshiping Dionysus, the god of wine and feast.

Easter - Easter is the most important celebration for the Greeks, even more than Christmas. On Good Thursday or Good Saturday, women dye eggs in red and bake buns. On Good Friday, the day of mourning, the Epitaphios, the tomb of Christ with its icon, decorated with flowers, is taken out of the church and carried around the village followed by a slow procession. After the procession returns to the church where the believers kiss the image of the Christ.

Greek Independence Day - The Greek Independence Day is celebrating the declaration of the Independence War against the Ottomans on March 25th, 1821. Apart from a national celebration, this day is also a religious celebration dedicated to the Annunciation of Virgin Mary. 

The Classical Period divided into 3 stages

-Severe style (490-450BC)

-High Classical period (450-400BC)

-Late Classical period (400-323 BC)

Types of arts :

-sculptors

-vase painting

-painting

The famous artist in the period:

-Phidias

-Polyclitus

-His early youth was nourished by the inspiring influences that come from the victorious struggle of a people to maintain their national life during the wars

- studied his art first at Athens, with a native sculptor, Hegias 

-The downfall of Pericles, due to the jealousies of his rivals, carried with it the ruin of Phidias, by charging him with appropriating to himself a portion of the gold which is used to built the sculpture of Athena

Height : 3M

Material used : ivory plates and gold panels over a wooden framework

Details :The statue was crowned with a sculpted wreath of olive sprays. It had gold sandals, and a golden robe carved with animals and lilies. In its right hand was a small chryselephantine statue of crowned Nike , goddess of victory. Its left hand held a sceptre inlaid with many metals, supporting an angle . The throne was decorated in gold, precious stones, ebony, and ivory

He is from a powerful and political family.

He is a brilliant general, orator, patron of the arts and politician—”the first citizen” of democratic Athens, according to the historian Thucydides.  He then become a great leader of Athens.

He transformed his city’s alliances into an empire and graced its Acropolis with the famous Parthenon.

- his beard

Only citizens could participate in government, and citizenship was restricted to landowning men. Women were excluded along with merchants and foreigners. So were the tens of thousands of Athenian slaves who lacked political rights as well as personal freedom, although it was their labor that gave citizens the time to participate in government. 

The procedure of ostracism was simple. 

1. Once a year the people would meet in the Agora and take a vote to determine if anyone was becoming too powerful and was in a position to establish a tyranny.

2. If a simple majority voted yes, they met again in the Agora two months later. At this second meeting each citizen carried with him an ostrakon (potsherd) on which he had scratched the name of the person he wished ostracized. 

3. If at least 6,000 votes were cast, the man with the most votes lost and was exiled for ten years.

Details: Athena's head is inclined slightly forward. She stands with her left hand resting on an upright shield. Her left knee is slightly bent, her weight slightly shifted to her right leg. The Nike on her outstretched right hand is winged. The exact position of a spear, often omitted, is also not fully determined, whether held in the crook of Athena's right arm or supported by one of the snakes in the aegis.

Material used : wooden core, covered with shaped bronze plates covered in turn with removable gold plates

While best known in the contemporary philosophical world as the author of a series of sketches of Socrates in conversation, known by their Latin title Memorabilia, Xenophon also wrote aSymposium and an Apology.

Xenophon’s influence in Antiquity, the Middle Ages, he was a pioneer in several literary genres including the first-person military memoir (Anabasis) , the biographical novel (Education of Cyrus), and the continued history (Hellenica).  

THE FATHER OF HISTORY

Herodotus was born in about 485 B.C. in the Greek city of Halicarnassus.

He came from a wealthy and cosmopolitan Greek-Carian merchant family. In the middle of the 6th century B.C., Halicarnassus became a satrapy, or province, of the Persian Empire and was ruled by the tyrant Lygdamis. Herodotus’ family opposed Lygdamis’ rule and was sent into exile on the island of Samos. When he was a young man, Herodotus returned briefly to Halicarnassus to take part in an abortive anti-Persian rebellion. After that, however, the writer never returned to his home city again.

Herodotus set out to document the causes of wars fought by the Greeks and particularly the causes of the Persian invasions of 490 and 480 B.C.E., the latter occurring while Herodotus was still a boy. To that basic theme, he added extensive digressions, recording all that he could find out about each nation touched by the Persian advance.

-Palestine to Syria 

-Babylon. 

-Macedonia 

-islands of the Greek Archipelago: 

Rhodes, Cyprus, Delos, Paros, Thasos, Samothrace, Crete, Samos, Cythera and Aegina. 

He sailed through the Hellespont to the Black Sea and kept going until he hit the Danube River. While he traveled, Herodotus collected what he called “autopsies,” or “personal inquiries”: He listened to myths and legends, recorded oral histories and made notes of the places and things that he saw.

When Herodotus was not traveling, he returned to Athens; there, he became something of a celebrity. He gave readings in public places and collected fees from officials for his appearances. In 445 B.C., the people of Athens voted to give him a prize of 10 talents–almost $200,000 in today’s money–to honor him for his contributions to the city’s intellectual life.

The most common piece of clothing worn by men and women was like a loose-fitting tunic, It had various names, but the most usual are Peplos and Chitons. Over this a heavier tunic or cloak could also be worn; the cloak was called a himation.

The peplos was long and was worn only by women. To make your own peplos:

1. Take a large piece of material (like an old sheet). Its length has to be your height plus at least 18", and when you fold it in half it should reach from elbow to elbow. Fold over the top 18 " or so.
2. Wrap it round you, with one side open. Fasten it at the shoulders with safety-pins or brooches.
3. Tie a belt round your waist. Pull the extra material up so that it hangs over the belt and so that you don't trip up!

The chiton was worn by men and women and could be long or short. To make a chiton:

1. For a long chiton, the length of the material has to be the same as your height. When you fold it in half it should reach from finger-tip to finger-tip.
2. Sew along the side seam. Join the top edge at intervals with safety-pins or brooches, or by sewing. Don't forget to leave holes for your head and arms to go through. Slip it on over your head.
3. Tie a belt round your waist and pull up the extra material so that it hangs over the belt.

His final years at the Academy may be the years when he wrote the "Later" dialogues, including the Parmenides, Theatetus, Sophist,Statesmas,Timaeus,Critias,Philebus, and Laws. Socrates has been delegated a minor role in these texts. Plato uses these dialogues to take a closer look at his earlier metaphysical speculations. He discusses art, including dance, music, poetry, architecture and drama, and ethics in regards to immortality, the mind, and Realism. He also works with the philosophy of mathematics, politics and religion, covering such specifics as censorship, atheism, and pantheism. In the area of epistemology he discusses a priori knowledge and Rationalism. In his theory of Forms, Plato suggests that the world of ideas is constant and true, opposing it to the world we perceive through our senses, which is deceptive and changeable.

In 347 Plato died, leaving the Academy to his sister's son Speusippus. The Academy remained a model for institutions of higher learning until it was closed, in 529 CE, by the Emperor Justinian.