Ancient Greek Civilisation Essay, Research Paper

The earliest Greek civilization thrived around 4,000 years ago. Some of the things that

they had that we still use today are the arts, science, math, literature, and politics. The

Greeks were known for their great intelligence, military strategies, and their buildings.

All Greek’s spoke the same language. This made it easier to trade and to

communicate between different parts of the country. All Greeks believed in the same gods

and also shared some common heritage. The Greeks believed that there was a god for

everything on earth. A few examples of these gods are Zeus, ruler of the gods. Posidon

was the god of the ocean and Hades, god of the under world.

The Greek government was not a monarchy with a king and queen. Instead the

Greek government was a city-state. A city-state is when each city has its own separate

political unit.

The men were a very important part of the Greek civilization because they were

the ones that ran the government. The men were also the ones who would plant and work

the fields or would oversee them. They would also spend time sailing, hunting, or

manufacturing things for trade. For fun, the men would attend drinking parties, would

wrestle, and enjoyed horse back riding. When the men held drinking parties for his friends

the wives and daughters were not aloud to attend.

The women in the Greek civilization were very limited to what they were allowed

to do. They were permitted to attend weddings, funerals, and visit female neighbors for

brief periods. The main responsibility for the women were to bear children and to watch

over the house and make sure it was cleaned by one of the slaves because women were

rarely ever responsible for cleaning the house. Women slaves were the cooks, cleaners,

and sometimes even worked in the fields. The male slaves would act as a guard and

would stand at the door and protect the women when the man was away. Only other

women were allowed to enter when the man was away. Women were not allowed to

participate in the Olympic games except for the chariot racing, which they were only

allowed to participate in if they owned a horse.

There were several different ways in which a person could be made a slave. If you

were captured in battle then you could be sold as a slave. If a child was abandoned and

then was found he could be kept by the person as his slave or could be sold. Sometimes a

poor family might sell their baby as a slave to earn some money and in hopes that the baby

might have a better life as a slave than with them. The worse thing that could happen to

someone that was then put into slavery was when the baby or child was kidnapped and

sold for money.

Many houses in Greece in the 5th and 6th century were made up of clay, stone,

and wood. They usually had two to three rooms and were built around an open air

courtyard. If you were richer you might have had a kitchen, men’s drinking area, and

maybe even a room for bathing.

The Greek’s used an irrigation system to get water to their crops which consisted

of olives, grapes, and figs. They would also keep goat to get milk and cheese. Many

Greek’s made their own wine which was a very popular thing in Greece. Meat was very

expensive and was rarely eaten but was often used for religious sacrifices.

The types of clothing that the Greek’s wore were wool in he winter and linen in the

summer. Since Clothing was very expensive to buy most families made their own clothes

and just bleached them white or a bright color. All cloths if made at home were made by

the mother, daughter, or female slave.

We use many of the things that the Greek’s have discovered today in our modern

society. We should be thankful that we have used merchant’s to create cultural diffusion.

If we hadn’t done this than we wouldn’t have many of the things that we considered

important or even vital to our society.