Ancient Greece History

Let’s take a break from facts and enjoy a leisurely stroll in myths and fiction. The Iliad is Homer’s masterpiece. It is a story of love, adventure, and a little bit of magic by gods and goddesses. You can pretty much say that it’s a reflection of the Greek culture made immemorial by magnificent writing.

Attempting to cover all the forms the "Goddess of Love" encapsulates is no small affair. The roles she played in romance, marriage, procreation, and all of the other desires of humanity were myriad, but the aim of this book is to paint a slightly different, perhaps more esoteric version of Aphrodite from the usual image of her in mythology books.

Ares, the god of war and personification of all that is reactionary and violent, is remembered today as the hated, unshakeable, and infallible embodiment of the violence prevalent in war and society at large, but surviving evidence suggests that this may not have always been the case. To understand that, it's necessary to remember that Greek mythology has been filtered and tempered by centuries of editors and zealots and fickle word of mouth.

Epic poetry and tragic drama provide us with some of the richest ancient Greek depictions of women who are married to soldiers. In tales of the Trojan War, as told by Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, we encounter these mythical warriors' wives: Penelope, isolated but resourceful as she awaits the return of Odysseus after his lengthy absence; the war widow Andromache, enslaved and displaced from her homeland after the fall of Troy; the unfaithful and murderous Clytemnestra; and Tecmessa, a war captive who witnesses her partner's breakdown and suicide in the aftermath of battle.

The Greeks sure had many gods and heroes, too! They like to look up to powerful figures and thank them for specific aspects of their lives. This devotion has created a strong culture with belief systems. The Greeks dared to imagine, and they became famous for being a great civilization. Learn about some of the gods and heroes the Greeks believed in. Buy this book today!

Unlike other ancient societies, the Greeks recognized the importance of women. It’s not uncommon to hear about female goddesses with equally important roles as men. You are going to meet some of the Female Goddesses of the Olympian in this mythology audiobook for kids.

When people think of ancient Greece, images of philosophers such as Plato or Socrates often come to mind, as do great warriors like Pericles and Alexander the Great, but hundreds of years before Athens became a city, a Greek culture flourished and spread its tentacles throughout the western Mediterranean region via trade and warfare. Scholars have termed this pre-Classical Greek culture the Mycenaean culture, which existed from about 2000-1200 BCE, when Greece, along with much of the eastern Mediterranean, was thrust into a centuries long Dark Ages.

Nearly 2,000 years before Homer wrote his epic poems, the Minoan civilization was centered on the island of Crete, a location that required the Minoans to be a regional sea power. And indeed they were, stretching across the Aegean Sea from about 2700-1500 BCE, with trade routes extending all the way to Egypt.

The social importance placed on food and wine in the Greek world was even more pronounced, with profound consequences for the rest of the world.

Stephen Fry angol író, színész, rendező és humorista, Britannia "nemzeti kincse", ahogy egyszer Károly, walesi herceg nevezte. Ezúttal sem fukarkodik a humorral, ebben a hangoskönyvben, az olümposzi rend létrejöttén, az emberi teremtésen keresztül Ámor és Pszükhé történetéig meséli újra a görög mitológiát.

Among all the early Iron Age people from the Near East who inherited the geopolitical vacuum of power left by the Sea Peoples invasions, the Phrygians are perhaps one of the most misunderstood. They built a powerful and wealthy kingdom, but were overshadowed by their more powerful and wealthier neighbors, the Lydians.

The Greco-Persian Wars are often portrayed as a battle between good and evil. This is simultaneously an exaggeration and an oversimplification, but there is no doubt that this war, or series of wars, fought between some of the most powerful civilizations of the ancient era helped to plot the course of human history that we have been following up until this very day.

Emilie Kip Baker was a woman ahead of her time. Born in San Francisco in 1857, she grew up in a wealthy family and received a private education, which was uncommon for women then. Baker was a natural adventurer and a writer from a young age. She embarked on her first solo trip at the age of 20, traveling across the United States by train and writing about her experiences for various publications.

La Grecia che abbiamo imparato a conoscere e ad amare dall’epica, dalla tragedia, dalla storia è ricchissima di straordinarie figure di giovani uomini e giovani donne. Achille è l’eroe che a una vita lunga e incolore preferì la brevità di un’esistenza spezzata ma piena di gloria. Gli fa da contraltare il mite Telemaco: il figlio obbediente che vive nell’ombra di un padre mai conosciuto. E c’è Antigone, la vergine che, in un fragoroso assolo, osa levare la sua voce di dissenso. E Oreste, il figlio che uccide la madre per dare giustizia al padre. Fin qui il mito.

Henry Mulford Tichenor (1858 - 1922) was a writer and journalist, who was a very active free thinker in the early Twentieth Century. A special target of Tichenor was organized religion, which he viewed as an absurdly contrived cultural artefact. In The Olympian Gods he applies a critical scalpel to the religion of the ancient Greeks, which he regarded as an obvious precursor to Christianity.

The story of Jason and his crew of Argonauts is one of the best-known and most beloved myths of all time. Blockbuster movies have been made about it, and legendary explorer and historian Tim Severin even constructed a replica of the Argo in 1984 and succeeded in sailing it to Colchis (modern-day Georgia). In the ancient world too, this myth was told and retold time and again.

Современная Древняя Греция – книга, которая окажется не только ценным пособием для студентов-историков, но также станет надежным проводником в мир легендарных событий прошлого, отголоски которого оставили глубокий след в мире современном. Ведь именно история является ключом к пониманию того настоящего, в котором мы живем.

Cuando sale humo oscuro de los templos de piedra, los seguidores del culto a Dioniso se sirven vino tinto intenso, los antiguos filósofos discuten apasionadamente en el ágora ateniense y los gritos de victoria resuenan en Olimpia a lo lejos, entonces tú, querido lector, no te encuentras en ningún otro lugar que en el polifacético mundo de la antigüedad griega. Oímos hablar mucho de la antigua Grecia; ya sea del enorme mundo de dioses que gobierna la esfera celeste, de extraños mitos que aún hoy leemos y amamos, o incluso de personalidades como la de Alejandro Magno que desencadenan en nosotros fascinación y curiosidad.

¿Sabía usted que Alejandro Magno introdujo una vez la proskynesis en la corte macedonia? La proskynesis, el acto de besar el suelo o los pies de alguien de rango superior, era una costumbre habitual de los persas. En la corte del Imperio aqueménida, este acto se realizaba normalmente ante el rey. Tanto si eran nativos del país como si no, los súbditos tenían que postrarse ante el rey antes de poder pronunciar una palabra. A diferencia de los griegos y los macedonios, los persas solo practicaban la proskynesis cuando se comunicaban con sus antiguos dioses.

Why do we run? To what end, all the effort and pain? Wherefore this love of muscle, speed, and sweat? The Greeks were the first to ask these questions, the first to suspend war, work, politics, to enjoy public celebrations of athletic prowess. They invented sport and they were also the first to understand how physical activity connected to our mental well-being.