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Who were the Hellenes?
GREECE is a country that people go to on cruises in spring, summer and autumn. Like other people who go
Theseus and the Minotaur
The Greeks, then, had their story of the creation of the world, of a great flood and a heroic ancestor;
The Palace of Minos
So much for the legend. What of the facts? At Cnossos, near Herakleion, in Crete are the ruins of an
Helen of Troy
Helen “of Troy“ was in fact Helen of Sparta where she was the wife of King Menelaus. She only spent
The Wooden Horse
In the tenth year of the war the Greek hero Achilles slew Hector, the Trojan, in single combat. (Paris, the
Was there a Trojan War?
Parts of the story of the Trojan War are told in two poems the Iliad (Ilium = Troy) and the
The Migration
The “Dark Age” of Greece (c. 1100 – 800) was a time of migration and settlement. Whole peoples were in
City-States and Colonies
The two hundred years after 800 B.C. saw a great expansion of the Greeks by colonisation. Colonisation is a more
The Delphic Oracle
The Delphic oracle, the priestess of Apollo, was supposed to have the gift of prophecy. The Delphic Oracle was consulted
The Olympic Games
At Olympia every four years Olympic games were held in which any Greek was entitled to take part. It is
A Spartan grows Up
A Spartan child was examined at birth. A healthy infant was allowed to live. Weaklings were not wanted. They were
A Tyrant Who Was Not Tyrannical
A tyrant’s first problem was to seize power. Peisistratus had to solve this problem three times. In 560 he came
Athenian Democracy
The heroism of Harmodius and Aristogeiton was a myth, but Athenian democracy was not. In the two great wars of
The Ionian Greeks
The Ionian Greeks, who lived on the coast of Asia Minor and the adjoining islands, had produced some of the
The Rivals
After a battle there is a great deal of clearing up to be done. A small part of the Athenian
The Second Persian Invasion
Darius I died in 486. In the last years of his life he had no need of the slave who
Thermopylae
The first narrow place where the Persians might have been held was the pass of Tempe in the north of
“Wooden Walls” and Salamis
After Thermopylae the Spartans were only interested in defending the Peloponnese. Their next line of defence was across the Isthmus
Theseus Comes Home
The annual festival of the Great Dionysia, in March of the year 468, was not only remarkable for the victory
The Confederacy of Delos
Delos a Greek island in the Cyclades archipelago was an important religious centre in the Archaic and Classical periods. The island was also