World History: 6. Ancient Greece, Lessons 1–3

The Iliad tells of events during the war, but stops before the Greeks' eventual victory.

Here members of the city-state who had legal rights—the citizens—would meet to make laws and discuss issues affecting the entire community.

On a high hill stood the acropolis, a word meaning "high city."

The word polis gave rise to the term politics, the art and practice of government.

In early times the polis was governed by an aristocracy, a hereditary class of rulers.

Even though self-government was a feature of most city-states, not everyone was allowed to participate in making decisions. Women, slaves, and foreigners were excluded from the process.

In an oligarchy, political power is held by a small group of people.

The phalanx was a formation of heavily armed foot soldiers who moved together as a unit.

As foot soldiers, fighters in a phalanx did not need to be rich enough to buy and maintain a horse.

Then they were able to set up a tyranny, or government run by a strong ruler.

The Greeks called this form of government democracy, which means "rule by the people."

One factor that encouraged democracy in Athens was the idea of citizenship. Citizenship is membership in a community.

Commonly, a lecturer taught students subjects such as mathematics and public speaking.

A political system in which citizens participate directly in decision making is called a direct democracy.

In a representative government, citizens elect others to represent them in the government.

Some conquered Messenians became a kind of slave called a helot. The helots belonged not to individual Spartans but to the polis as a whole.

At seven, they were taken away from their homes to live together in barracks, or military housing.

All their education was directed toward prompt obedience to authority, stout endurance of hardship, and victory or death in battle.

These differences led the Greek historian Thucydides to describe the Athenians as "addicted to innovation."