99 Fun Facts About Ancient Greece

What form of government in ancient Greek city-states was rule by a select, often wealthy, few?

Oligarchy, meaning 'rule by the few,' was a common form of government in ancient Greece where political power was held by a select group of wealthy individuals, often emerging when democracies failed.

Which Olympian god was associated with wine, revelry, and theater?

Dionysus was also called Bacchus by the Greeks, a name the Romans adopted, after the frenzy he was said to induce.

Who is traditionally credited with the Iliad and the Odyssey, the two epic poems at the foundation of ancient Greek literature?

Homer, possibly born around the 8th century BC, gets the credit, though most accounts of his life are legendary.

Which Greek architectural order, the earliest and simplest of the three, has sturdy columns topped by a plain circular capital?

Doric is the oldest of the three classical Greek orders, born in the western Doric region of Greece and recognised by its simple circular capitals.

What three-headed dog guarded the entrance to the Underworld in Greek mythology?

Cerberus, often called the hound of Hades, stood at the Underworld's gates with one job: stopping the dead from leaving.

Which empire's far larger invading force did Athens and Plataea crush in 490 BC?

The victory at Marathon, over a force commanded by Datis and Artaphernes, marked a turning point in the Greco-Persian Wars.

The war of 431–404 BC pitted the Delian League against a league headed by which city-state?

Sparta led the Peloponnesian League against Athens' Delian League; Persian gold funded a Spartan fleet that cut Athens' grain route from the Black Sea, and the city surrendered in 404 BC.

Which Athenian philosopher, convicted of impiety and corrupting the youth in 399 BC, was executed by drinking hemlock?

Socrates was tried and sentenced in a single day in 399 BC; his execution was delayed about a month by the sacred mission to Delos, and he then drank hemlock surrounded by friends, as Plato's Phaedo describes.

The Parthenon, the great marble temple crowning the Acropolis, was dedicated to which deity?

Athena, the city's patron goddess, was honoured by the Parthenon, built between 447 and 432 BC on the site of an older temple burned by the Persians in 480 BC; it later became a Christian church.

The ancient Olympic Games, traditionally dated from 776 BC, were held at the sanctuary of Olympia in honour of which god?

Zeus was the honoree, and the games ran every four years; the four-year Olympiad became a unit of time in Greek chronology.

Which Bronze Age Cretan culture, named after a mythical king, is called Europe's first civilisation?

The Minoans, named after the legendary King Minos, built the palace at Knossos and painted bull-leaping frescoes on Crete; Mycenaean Greeks took over the island after about 1450 BC.

Which volcanic eruption around 1600 BC devastated the Aegean towards the end of the Minoan period?

Thera, the island now called Santorini, erupted around 1600 BC in one of the largest volcanic events in human history, burying the Minoan town of Akrotiri under ash; it has been linked, speculatively, to the Atlantis legend.

Olympia, home of the ancient games, lay in which region of the Peloponnese?

Elis, in the north-western Peloponnese, controlled the sanctuary of Olympia and ran the games; its officials, the Hellanodikai, judged the contests and enforced the rules.

What prize did an ancient Olympic victor receive?

An olive-leaf wreath was all Olympia gave; the real rewards came at home: free meals for life, statues, and sometimes a hole knocked in the city wall to admit the hero.

What Olympic habit did the Greeks feel distinguished them from non-Greeks?

Competing naked was, the Greeks believed, a mark of Greekness: Thucydides notes that Spartans were the first to strip for sport, and 'gymnasium' comes from gymnos, meaning naked.

Which brutal ancient Olympic event mixed boxing and wrestling with almost no rules?

Pankration, meaning 'all power', combined boxing and wrestling; only biting and eye-gouging were banned, and the fighter Arrhichion of Phigalia famously won in 564 BC while dying from a chokehold.

At what age did Spartan boys enter the agoge, the state's military training system?

Seven was the age at which Spartan boys left home for the agoge, living in barracks in age-groups under older youths and enduring deliberate hardship — scant food, a single cloak — until adulthood.

Who were the helots?

Their numbers dwarfed the citizen Spartiates, which is one reason Sparta was so militarised.

How many kings ruled Sparta at any one time?

Two kings, one each from the Agiad and Eurypontid houses and both claiming descent from Heracles, ruled Sparta jointly; the five ephors and the Gerousia kept them in check.

What was the name of the semi-mythical lawgiver credited with Sparta's constitution?

Lycurgus, the semi-legendary lawgiver, was credited with Sparta's constitution, the Great Rhetra, which set up the Gerousia council of elders and the communal messes; Plutarch opened his biography by admitting nothing about him was undisputed.

Which Athenian general led the victory at Marathon in 490 BC?

Miltiades persuaded the other Athenian generals to attack and thinned his centre to strengthen the wings; Herodotus counted 6,400 Persian dead against 192 Athenians, and Darius I's son Xerxes returned ten years later.

Per Herodotus, where was Pheidippides actually sent from Athens before the battle of Marathon?

The famous dash from Marathon to Athens shouting 'nenikekamen' is a later legend; the modern race distance was fixed at 42.195 km only in 1921.

Who betrayed the Greeks at Thermopylae by showing the Persians a mountain path around the pass?

Ephialtes of Trachis led the Persian Immortals along the Anopaea path by night; his name became the modern Greek word for nightmare, and Leonidas's Spartans and their allies were surrounded and killed in 480 BC.

What does 'Thermopylae' mean, describing the pass where Leonidas made his stand?

Hot gates is the literal meaning, from the sulphurous hot springs beside the narrow coastal pass; ordered to hand over his weapons there, Leonidas reputedly replied 'Molon labe' — come and take them.

Which Athenian statesman effectively commanded the Greek fleet at Salamis in 480 BC?

Themistocles sent his slave Sicinnus to tell Xerxes the Greeks were about to flee, luring the Persian fleet into the narrow straits; the king watched the disaster from a throne on Mount Aigaleo.

Which queen fought for Persia at Salamis and escaped an Athenian pursuer by ramming one of her own side?

Artemisia of Halicarnassus, a Carian queen commanding five ships for Xerxes, rammed an allied Calyndian vessel to shake off her pursuer; Herodotus has Xerxes remark that his men had become women and his women men.

How many oars did an Athenian trireme carry?

170 oars — 62 in the top bank, 54 in each of the two lower banks, one man each; a full-size reconstruction launched in 1987 reached 9 knots with volunteer rowers.

Ostracism let Athenians banish a citizen for how long?

Ten years was the term: votes were scratched on pottery sherds — ostraka — with a quorum of 6,000; Themistocles, Aristides and Cimon all suffered it, and the banished man kept his property.

Why, in a famous anecdote, did an illiterate Athenian vote to ostracise the statesman Aristides?

Sick of hearing him called 'the Just' was the reason Plutarch records: not recognising Aristides, the man asked him to scratch the name onto the sherd, and Aristides obliged.

Hoplites fought in which tight, overlapping-shield formation?

The phalanx packed hoplites shoulder to shoulder, each man's great round shield, the aspis, covering his neighbour's right side; they were propertied citizens who bought their own bronze armour and doru spear.

The period from about 461 to 429 BC when one statesman dominated Athens and built the Parthenon is the Age of whom?

Pericles led Athens for some three decades, commissioning the Parthenon and paying citizens for jury service; Thucydides recorded his Funeral Oration for the dead of the Peloponnesian War's first year.

Aspasia, Pericles' partner, came from which Ionian city?

Miletus was Aspasia's home city; as a foreigner she could not be Pericles' lawful wife, comic poets mocked her influence over him, and Plato's Menexenus has Socrates call her his teacher in rhetoric.

The three maxims carved at Delphi included 'Know thyself' and which other famous phrase?

Nothing in excess (meden agan) was carved beside 'Know thyself' in the forecourt of Apollo's temple; the third maxim warned that a pledge brings ruin, and the Pythia prophesied inside from a tripod.

Delphi lies on the slopes of which mountain?

Parnassus, sacred to Apollo and the Muses, rises above Delphi; the Castalian spring on its slopes purified visitors, and the Pythian Games were held at the sanctuary every four years from the early sixth century BC.

Who was the earliest recorded actor in Greek tragedy, performing in the 530s BC?

Thespis of Icaria is credited with stepping out of the chorus to speak as a character, winning the first tragedy contest at the City Dionysia in the 530s BC; the word 'thespian' preserves his name.

In an ancient Greek theatre, what was the orchestra?

The chorus's dancing place — orchestra comes from orcheisthai, 'to dance' — was the circular floor at the foot of the seating; at Epidaurus it is about 20 metres across.

The Antikythera mechanism, recovered from a shipwreck in 1901, is the oldest known what?

An analogue computer: its 30-plus bronze gears modelled the Moon's phases and predicted eclipses decades ahead, and the device dates from about 150–100 BC, from a wreck found off the island of Antikythera.

What was Archimedes doing, by legend, when he shouted 'Eureka'?

Stepping into a bath, Archimedes saw the water rise and realised displacement could measure the volume of King Hiero's crown, and ran home naked; a Roman soldier killed him at Syracuse in 212 BC despite orders to spare him.

What did Archimedes boast he could do with a lever and a place to stand?

'Move the Earth' completes the boast, recorded by Pappus of Alexandria, which sums up the lever's power; Archimedes also bracketed pi between 3 10/71 and 3 1/7 and built an iron claw to wreck Roman ships.

Diogenes the Cynic famously lived in Athens in what?

A large ceramic jar, a pithos beside the Metroon in the agora, was his home; he carried a lit lamp by day 'looking for a man' and told Alexander to step out of his sunlight.

What did Diogenes bring to Plato's school to mock his definition of man?

A plucked chicken: Plato had defined man as a featherless biped, so Diogenes threw the bird into the Academy crying 'Here is Plato's man', after which 'with broad flat nails' was added.

Which philosopher did Philip II hire to tutor the young Alexander the Great at the Temple of the Nymphs at Mieza?

Aristotle got the job and the Temple of the Nymphs at Mieza as a classroom; his pupil was king at 20, undefeated in battle, and dead in Babylon at 32.

Who was Alexander the Great's mother, a princess of Epirus?

Olympias, daughter of King Neoptolemus I of Epirus, married Philip II in 357 BC and bore Alexander the next year; after his death she fought for her grandson's succession and was executed by Cassander in 316 BC.

Alexander broke Persian power at Issus and at which decisive 331 BC battle?

Gaugamela, fought near Arbela in northern Mesopotamia in October 331 BC, saw Darius III flee the field again; Issus in 333 BC had already cost him his family, captured in the Persian camp.

Philip II of Macedon was assassinated in 336 BC in which city?

Aegae, the old Macedonian capital, was where Philip was stabbed by his bodyguard Pausanias at his daughter Cleopatra's wedding in 336 BC; the royal tombs at modern Vergina include one widely identified as his.

Xerxes bridged which strait with boats to invade Greece in 480 BC?

The Hellespont (Dardanelles) was bridged twice with boats; when a storm wrecked the first bridges Herodotus says Xerxes had the water whipped 300 times and branded, then crossed his army over seven days.

Which epitaph by Simonides marked the Spartan dead at Thermopylae?

'Go tell the Spartans we lie here' — in full, 'Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here, obedient to their laws, we lie' — was the couplet traditionally attributed to Simonides; Herodotus records the inscription.

What was fitted to the prow of a Greek warship to hole enemies?

A bronze beak, the embolos, sheathed the prow at the waterline; ramming was the main tactic at Salamis, where the crowded Persian fleet could not manoeuvre in the narrow straits.

Pericles' citizenship law of 451 BC limited Athenian citizenship to men with what?

Two Athenian parents were required by Pericles' law of 451 BC, which later barred his own son by the foreign-born Aspasia until the Assembly granted an exception.

Which rocky hill west of the Acropolis gave its name to Athens' ancient homicide court?

The Areopagus, the 'Hill of Ares', gave its name to the council of ex-archons that tried deliberate homicide; Ephialtes stripped it of most other powers in 462 BC.

What did Athenians call Solon's debt cancellation, the 'shaking off of burdens'?

Seisachtheia, the 'shaking off of burdens', cancelled debts and freed Athenians enslaved for debt in the 590s BC; Plutarch says Solon's friends borrowed heavily beforehand and bought land, while Solon waived the five talents owed to him.

Who reorganised Athenians into ten tribes in 508 BC and is called the father of Athenian democracy?

Cleisthenes, in 508/507 BC, replaced the four old clan-based tribes with ten tribes based on where people lived, breaking the power networks that had enabled tyranny and giving each tribe fifty seats on the new Council of 500.

Which Roman orator gave Herodotus the title 'The Father of History'?

Cicero called Herodotus 'the father of history' in his De Legibus; Herodotus was born in Halicarnassus, then inside the Persian Empire, making the chronicler of the Persian Wars technically a Persian subject.

Why did critics of the polymath Eratosthenes mockingly nickname him 'Beta'?

He came second in every field, the joke went — hence 'Beta', the second letter; yet the Alexandrian librarian came close to the true circumference of the Earth using the Sun's shadows at Syene and Alexandria.

By one Roman account, what killed the tragedian Aeschylus?

A tortoise dropped by an eagle killed him, in the tale told by Valerius Maximus: the bird mistook his bald head for a rock on which to crack the shell; he died at Gela in Sicily in 456 BC.

The lyric poet Sappho, called the 'Tenth Muse', came from which Aegean island?

Lesbos, where she lived at Eresos or Mytilene around 600 BC, was her home; only fragments of her nine books survive, and the words 'lesbian' and 'sapphic' derive from her island and name.

The Colossus of Rhodes, a statue of the sun god Helios, was brought down by what in 226 BC?

An earthquake toppled the Colossus, which had stood only 54 years after its completion in 280 BC; an oracle warned the Rhodians they had offended Helios, so they declined Egypt's offer to pay for rebuilding it.

Who burned down the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus in 356 BC, reputedly seeking fame?

Herostratus was executed and the Ephesians banned mention of his name, which survived anyway; tradition says the fire fell on the night Alexander the Great was born in 356 BC, and 'herostratic fame' means notoriety sought at any cost.

Which Theban commander led the army that broke Spartan power at Leuctra in 371 BC?

Epaminondas massed his left wing fifty shields deep against the Spartan right and killed King Cleombrotus; about 7,000 Boeotians beat a larger Spartan-led force, shattering the myth of Spartan invincibility in an afternoon.

Philip II of Macedon crushed an Athenian-Theban alliance in 338 BC at which battle?

Chaeronea, in Boeotia, capped Philip's final campaigns and left him de facto leader of Greece; his 18-year-old son Alexander led the cavalry charge that destroyed the Theban Sacred Band.

Which Spartan general's arrival in Sicily doomed Athens' expedition of 415–413 BC?

Gylippus slipped into Syracuse in 414 BC as the Athenian siege wall was nearly complete, rallied the defenders and trapped the invaders; the defeat that followed in 413 BC cost Athens most of its fleet and army.

What did Xenophon's Ten Thousand famously shout when they finally sighted the Black Sea?

'Thalatta! Thalatta!' — 'The sea! The sea!' — went up from the stranded mercenaries on Mount Theches, after a march through deserts and snowbound mountains since their paymaster Cyrus the Younger died at Cunaxa in 401 BC.

Which Spartan admiral wiped out the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami in 405 BC?

Lysander, backed by Persian money from Cyrus the Younger, caught the Athenian crews ashore at Aegospotami on the Hellespont and took about 170 ships; starved of Black Sea grain, Athens surrendered the following year.

Whoever undid the Gordian Knot was prophesied to rule what?

All of Asia was the prize Arrian and Curtius say the oracle promised: the knot of cornel bark tied an ox-cart in Gordium, and Alexander, in the best-known version, simply cut it with his sword in 333 BC.

Why, in Plutarch's tale, could no one but young Alexander calm the horse Bucephalus?

It feared its own shadow: Alexander turned its head toward the sun so it could not see the shadow, and later named Bucephala in India after the horse when it died in 326 BC.

Which Indian king did Alexander defeat at the Hydaspes in 326 BC, then reinstate as satrap?

Porus, whose war elephants anchored his line, was beaten after Alexander crossed the monsoon-swollen Hydaspes upstream by night; asked how he wished to be treated, Porus answered 'like a king', and kept his realm as satrap.

Which archaeologist dug the famous shaft graves at Mycenae in 1876?

Heinrich Schliemann, fresh from Troy, opened the shaft graves of Grave Circle A in 1876 and telegraphed the king of Greece; the gold 'Mask of Agamemnon' came from that dig, though the graves predate any Trojan War by centuries.

Who deciphered Linear B, the script of Mycenaean Greek, in 1952?

Michael Ventris, an architect and self-taught linguist, announced on BBC radio in 1952 that Linear B recorded an early form of Greek, building on Alice Kober's grids; John Chadwick then helped him publish the decipherment.

In later Greek tradition, the sprawling palace at Knossos was remembered as what?

The Labyrinth of the Minotaur myth was located at Knossos, Minos' seat; the first palace went up around 1900 BC, and its maze-like sprawl of over a thousand rooms is thought to have fed the legend.

A silver find at which Attic mines around 483 BC paid for Athens' 200-trireme fleet?

The silver was mostly minted into coins, and the fleet it bought won the war at sea three years later.

What was a kleroterion used for in democratic Athens?

Picking jurors by lot: the stone slab held citizens' bronze tokens (pinakia) in columns, and black or white balls dropped down a tube decided which rows served in court that day.

Which island's revolt in 440 BC did Pericles crush after a nine-month siege?

Samos, one of the league's last ship-contributing allies, rebelled in 440 BC; Pericles led the nine-month siege, after which Samos lost its fleet and walls and paid an indemnity.

Athens' Long Walls formed a protected corridor from the city to which harbour?

Piraeus, Athens' port about 6 km away, was linked to the city by the Long Walls, letting Athens act like an island fed by sea; after the surrender of 404 BC they were pulled down to flute music.

By tradition, the Pythia chewed which plant's leaves before prophesying?

Laurel, Apollo's sacred plant, was chewed by the Pythia and burned in the sanctuary before she spoke; geologists have also found faults beneath the temple that could have released intoxicating gases.

Which king was told he'd 'destroy a great empire' by attacking Cyrus, then lost his own?

Croesus of Lydia crossed the Halys to attack Cyrus the Great around 547 BC and the empire he destroyed was his own; Herodotus tells the tale, and 'rich as Croesus' preserves his reputation for fabulous wealth.

Cynisca, a Spartan princess and the first woman to win at the Olympics, won in what?

Chariot racing: owners, not drivers, took the prize, so Cynisca's four-horse team won for her in 396 and 392 BC without her entering the stadium; her brother Agesilaus reportedly called it a victory of wealth, not merit.

Winners at the Nemean Games were crowned with a wreath of what?

Wild celery crowned Nemean victors, a plant linked to mourning for the infant Opheltes in whose memory the games were founded; the modern revival at Nemea, begun in 1996, awards the same wild-celery crowns.

What filled the painted amphorae handed to winners at Athens' Panathenaic Games?

Olive oil from the city's sacred trees filled the jars, a small fortune for the chariot champion who went home with 140 of them.

Adapted from Phoenician, the Greek alphabet was the first to systematically write what?

Vowels: Phoenician letters covered consonants only, so the Greeks repurposed spare signs — the glottal aleph became alpha, he became epsilon, ayin became omicron — making the first fully alphabetic script, around the 8th century BC.

Who founded Stoicism in the Athenian agora around 300 BC?

Zeno of Citium, a Cypriot merchant shipwrecked at Athens, began teaching around 300 BC in the Stoa Poikile, the 'painted porch' colonnade, which gave the school its name; Chrysippus later systematised his ideas.

Epicurus taught his followers in Athens at a school known as what?

The Garden (Kepos), bought by Epicurus around 306 BC, stood just outside Athens' walls on the road to the Academy; it admitted women and slaves, and its members were known for simple meals of bread and water.

Thales of Miletus is said to have predicted a solar eclipse that fell in which year?

585 BC — 28 May by modern calculation — saw the eclipse Herodotus says halted a battle between the Lydians and Medes at the Halys; how Thales could have foreseen it is unknown.

Which astronomer from Samos proposed the first known Sun-centred model of the universe?

Aristarchus of Samos, around 270 BC, put the Sun at the centre with the Earth circling it; his own text is lost and the idea survives through Archimedes' Sand Reckoner, and Copernicus cited him in a draft of De Revolutionibus.

What was the Archimedes' screw designed to do?

Raise water: turned by hand or treadmill, the helix inside a cylinder lifted water for irrigation and for bailing ships; Diodorus says Archimedes devised it in Egypt, and screw pumps of the same design have since drained Dutch polders.

Which Roman general sacked Corinth in 146 BC, bringing Greece under Roman rule?

On his orders the city was burned, the men killed and the women and children enslaved; the rest of Greece submitted soon after.

Which ancient Olympic event included the discus throw and the long jump?

The pentathlon was the only Olympic event to include the discus and the long jump, alongside the javelin, the stadion sprint and wrestling; jumpers swung stone or lead weights called halteres for extra distance.

Aesop, the fabulist, is traditionally described as having been what?

A slave, by tradition, in the 6th century BC; the Aesop Romance paints him as strikingly ugly but so clever that he talked his way to freedom and became an adviser to kings.

Phidias' colossal statue inside the Parthenon was panelled in which two materials?

The plates were fixed over a core of cypress wood; the gold was removable, which later let Phidias prove he had not stolen any.

Agents of which British earl removed about half the Parthenon sculptures in 1801–1812?

Lord Elgin, British ambassador to the Ottoman court, had the marbles shipped to Britain, originally to decorate his Scottish house; Parliament bought them for the British Museum in 1816 for £35,000.

Which Athenian general fled sacrilege charges in 415 BC and went to advise the Spartans?

Alcibiades, recalled to face charges over the mutilation of the Herms and profaning the Mysteries, jumped ship to Sparta, later switched to the Persians, and was assassinated in Phrygia in 404 BC, reportedly at Spartan instigation.

Thucydides was exiled after failing to save which city from the Spartan Brasidas in 424 BC?

Amphipolis, Athens' key colony on the Strymon, surrendered to Brasidas before Thucydides could arrive from Thasos, half a day's sail away; he saved only the port of Eion, and his twenty-year exile gave him time to write.

In Aristophanes' comedy 'Lysistrata', how do the women of Greece try to end the war?

A sex strike, led by Lysistrata, who also has the older women seize the Acropolis and the war treasury; the comedy was first staged in 411 BC, two years after the Sicilian disaster.

In Euripides' tragedy, whom does Medea kill to punish Jason for abandoning her?

Her own children — two sons — die by her hand after she has poisoned Jason's new bride Glauce and King Creon; the play earned Euripides only third prize at the City Dionysia of 431 BC.

Euclid, the 'father of geometry', wrote which foundational treatise around 300 BC?

The Elements gathered Greek geometry into thirteen books of definitions, postulates and proofs, from Pythagoras' theorem to the five regular solids; it served as the standard textbook for more than two thousand years.

Phidias' seated statue at Olympia, one of the Seven Wonders, stood roughly how tall?

Ivory and gold on a wooden frame, it sat on a cedarwood throne; the Eleans commissioned it partly to outdo their Athenian rivals.

Which Persian commander was killed at Plataea in 479 BC, ending the invasion of Greece?

Mardonius, Xerxes' brother-in-law, was left with the army when the king went home after Salamis; he died at Plataea under Pausanias' Spartans, and the Persian survivors withdrew from Greece for good.

In which city did Alexander's closest friend Hephaestion die suddenly in 324 BC?

Ecbatana, the old Median capital in the Zagros, was where Hephaestion fell ill and died during games and drinking; Alexander reportedly crucified the doctor Glaucias and staged a vast funeral in Babylon.

Which bird appeared on the reverse of Athens' famous silver tetradrachm?

The coin was known across the ancient world simply as a glaux, 'little owl', and carried an olive sprig and crescent moon beside the bird.

Which of Alexander's generals founded the dynasty that ruled Egypt until 30 BC?

Ptolemy, son of Lagus, hijacked Alexander's funeral cortege to Egypt and took the royal title in 305 BC; his line ended with Cleopatra VII's death in 30 BC, when Egypt became a Roman province.