Ancient Greece had over a thousand city-states. The city-state of Athens was one of the most powerful.
Around 500 BCE, Athens created the first democracy. In a democracy, people can vote. The United States borrowed some ideas for its democracy from Greece.
The Greeks held the first Olympic games almost 3,000 years ago.
Athenians produced wonderful art, buildings, poetry, plays, and stories. Famous philosophers, including Socrates and Plato, taught in the markets and schools. Athens was also home to great scientists, doctors, and mathematicians.
The Parthenon was a temple to the goddess Athena and sits high on a hill overlooking Athens.
City-States at War
Greek city-states often fought one another for land and power. Athens waged a long war with the city-state of Sparta that lasted more than twenty-five years!
Sparta won the war and became more powerful than Athens.
Sometimes city-states united to fight off invasions from other countries. This happened when Persia invaded Greece.
Athenian Soldiers
All men in Athens had to serve in the army. Foot soldiers, called hoplites, fought with long spears and short swords. They also carried large wooden shields called hoplons. (Can you guess where hoplites got their name?)
Like the Sumerians, Greeks fought in a phalanx. Before they went into battle, they sang songs to their gods for help. Then the phalanxes moved toward their enemies like giant crushing machines.
Athenian Navy
Because Athens is close to the Aegean Sea, the Athenians built a powerful navy. It had over 80,000 sailors and 400 ships!
Long, narrow, fast warships called triremes gave the navy its strength.
Ancient Greeks called them “three rowers.”
Triremes had two large steering paddles in the back. But what really gave the trireme its power was a heavy bronze battering ram on the front. It was able to punch holes in enemy ships or snap off their oars.
Triremes could cover as many as sixty miles a day.
One hundred and seventy sailors sat on three different levels inside the ships. Each rowed with one oar. Most of the sailors couldn’t see the water! There were also sailors on deck taking care of the sails, and hoplites ready to fight any enemies who boarded the ship.
The Battle of Salamis
The Persians began an invasion of Greece. The Greek city-states joined forces to defeat them.
In 480 BCE, a great naval battle took place in a narrow passage that separates the island of Salamis from the coast of Greece. The Persian fleet sailed toward Greece with about 800 ships. The Greeks were to stop them with only 370 triremes!
The night before the battle, the commander of the Greek fleet, Themistocles (thuh-MIS-tuh-kleez), sent his trusted slave to the Persians. The slave lied to them and said that the Greeks planned to retreat the next day.
Under cover of darkness, Themistocles ordered his triremes to form lines and block the stretch of water between Salamis and the Greek shore.
The Greeks sang victory songs as they waited for the Persian ships to appear. Then the Persians arrived with too many ships! They were too large to move quickly or to turn around in the narrow passage. There was no way for them to avoid being attacked by the Greeks.
The Persians lost a third of their fleet. The victory at Salamis stopped the Persian navy from bringing supplies to the invading Persian army. The Battle of Salamis proved that the Greek navy was the strongest in the world.
Sparta
By the fifth century BCE, Athens and Sparta were the most powerful city-states in Greece. Spartans didn’t have the love of beautiful buildings and art that the Athenians had. They lived simply, and they lived for war. All Spartan men were soldiers until they were too old to fight.
Today the word spartan usually means living with only the basics.
Spartan Boys
When Spartan boys were seven, they left home for life in army barracks. This was the beginning of their agoge (uh-GOH-jee), or years of military training.
The boys learned to read and write. They even learned dancing so they could move easily, and singing to build team spirit. But most of all, the agoge molded them into skillful, brave, ruthless warriors. Their teachers urged them to box, wrestle, and fight. They also practiced with weapons like javelins and doru spears up to nine feet long!
Spartans thought fighting with the help of bows and arrows showed weakness!
Trainers beat the boys to teach them how to withstand pain. When a boy turned twelve, he was allowed only a thin tunic and no shoes, no matter what the weather.
The boys didn’t get much food. They had to steal it if they wanted to eat. If they got caught, they got punished…not because they stole, but because they got caught! Spartan soldiers needed to be sneaky and to move carefully.
Trainers sometimes forced the hungry boys to fight over a piece of cheese!
Spartan Women
Women in Athens rarely left home and didn’t go to school. Spartan women spent a lot of time outside their homes. Some learned to read and write. They studied poetry, dancing, and music. Girls exercised with the boys by wrestling, running, and throwing javelins.
This bronze statue of a Spartan woman athlete dates from 530 BCE.
The Spartans wanted strong, healthy women who could have strong, healthy babies, who would become great Spartan warriors.
The Battle of Thermopylae
The Battle of Salamis took place a few months after the Persian army invaded Greece.
Persia is now Iran.
In 480 BCE, Xerxes (ZURK-seez), King of Persia, led an army of about 200,000 men into Greece. Sparta and the other city-states worked together to defeat them.
The Persians had to go over a narrow mountain pass called Thermopylae (thur-MAH-puh-lee). Soldiers under the command of King Leonidas (lee-ON-ih-duss) of Sparta waited at the pass for them.
Thermopylae was between the mountains northwest of Athens and the sea.
The pass was so narrow that not many Persians could go through it at the same time. For two days, the Spartans managed to fight off the mighty Persian army.
But a traitor told the Persians about another way through the mountains. The Persians were able to attack the Spartans from behind. Persian archers fired off so many arrows that the sky turned dark with them.
When one of Leonidas’s soldiers came to him and said that the sun had been blocked out, Leonidas calmly told him that they must fight in the shade.
There were too many Persian soldiers. Leonidas and his men knew that all was lost. Still, they didn’t stop fighting.
Even though the Spartans showed great courage, Leonidas and all but two of his men died. Because he was so brave and calm in the face of death, Leonidas is still thought of as a perfect warrior.
Alexander, the son of King Philip of Macedonia, was one of the greatest warriors ever. He lived over 2,000 years ago. Philip ruled all of Greece. The famous Greek philosopher Aristotle was one of Alexander’s teachers.
Alexander was twenty when he became king in 336 BCE. He set out to conquer more land. For thirteen years, he and his army of about 50,000 soldiers took over lands that stretched from Greece to India. Alexander brought Greek ideas, arts, and customs to all the lands he conquered.
Alexander never lost a single battle, and he became known as Alexander the Great. He named seventy cities after himself and one after his horse Bucephalus (byoo-SEFF-uh-liss)! Alexander died of a fever when he was only thirty-three.
