Life In Ancient Greece - St Barnabas Primary

1 2004 Keynotes Education Crossgate Cornwall PL15 9 SXThis sheet may be printed from a personal computer and/or photocopied for educational use within the purchasing establishmentLife InAncient 2004 Keynotes Education Crossgate Cornwall PL15 9 SXThis sheet may be printed from a personal computer and/or photocopied for educational use within the purchasing establishmentName: _____Life in Ancient Greece1 Ancient Greece - AN INTRODUCTIONG reece is a country located in southernEurope between Albania and Turkey. Itborders the Aegean Sea, Ionian Sea and theMediterranean Sea. Greece not only has itsmainland but over 2,000 small islandsdotted around its of years ago Ancient Greece wasa great civilisation that existed Before Christ( ). It was much larger than the mainlandand islands of today as it spread west acrosswhat is now Italy and south as far as weather in Ancient Greece was mild,wet winters and hot, dry Greek people all shared the samelanguage and religion but the did not livein a united country like today.

2 Each flatarea was made up of an independentcity-state or polis which had its own lawsand customs. It was the mountains aroundeach city-state that provided a naturalborder and defences against theneighbours! Strong city-states becamemore powerful by conquest rather than bykind agreement and the two most largestcity-states were Athens and Greek towns had high wallssurrounding them with a temple called anacropolis built high up inside the was an open-air theatre called anamphitheatre and an agora in each agora was a large square surroundedby the public buildings, law courts and shopsand was used for markets, business, meetingfriends and having a good gossip!The word Ancient means very old. Somebuildings around you may have been built200 or more years ago, but Ancient Greekbuildings are now over 2,400 years old. Nowonder they are in ruins! The civilisationof Ancient Greece lasted from about 2, to 200 with its most importantperiod being from 500 to 300 Duringthis time they produced many importantideas about art, architecture, medicine,sport, science and travel brochures collected froma local travel agent find pictures thattell us something about the a weather collage for Greeceusing the pictures you find and yourown 2004 Keynotes Education Crossgate Cornwall PL15 9 SXThis sheet may be printed from a personal computer and/or photocopied for educational use within the purchasing establishmentName: _____Life in Ancient Greece2 Ancient Greece - ATHENSA thens was the intellectual city-state ofancient Greece .

3 Education and the artswere very important to the people ofAthens. Excellence was their goal ineverything they did. It is because they triedso hard in everything they did that theyaccomplished so much and proved to be asociety way ahead of their time!The people of Athens believed thatindividuals should be free as long as theyfollowed the law. This allowed them tostudy or develop themselves in any waythat they wished and led to a wealth ofgreat Greek thinkers and up the word philosophy in a dictionaryand write down the meaning write down the meaning of was named after Athena, the Greekgoddess of wisdom. In 508 it became oneof the first societies in Ancient times toestablish democracy. The word democracycame from the Greek words, demos, meaningpeople, and kratein, meaning to up the word democracy in a dictionaryand write down the meaning democratic form of government wascarried out at a meeting place which theGreeks called the Assembly.

4 The people ofAthens met there every month and discussedissues. After these meetings the governmentofficials could make decisions and Acropolis was the religious centre andfortress for the Athenian people. Its wallswere built overlooking the city and insidethe walls the people of Athens built templesand buildings. The Parthenon is the mostfamous building in the Acropolis people of Ancient Athens were masterbuilders, architects and great lovers of talents in the arts can be seen throughmany different items which have survivedfor thousands of years. These include itemssuch as vases, sculptures and men were required to serve twoyears in the military, one in the garrison andone in a border 2004 Keynotes Education Crossgate Cornwall PL15 9 SXThis sheet may be printed from a personal computer and/or photocopied for educational use within the purchasing establishmentName: _____Life in Ancient Greece3 Ancient Greece - SPARTAIt is hard to say anything nice at all aboutthe Spartans!

5 Historians have said thatthey were a brutal lot who were lackingin culture and kindness! All this asideSparta was the greatest military power ofancient Greece with its own laws, moneyand in Sparta was very much harder thanlife in the cultural city-state of people of Sparta were led by its kingand had to follow very strict military-likerules. Athens was the bitter enemy andrival of Sparta and the two statesrepresented opposite concepts of ancientGreek living. Despite their hardships theSpartans believed they lived in the best ofall Greek states and were very proud of of their Greek neighbours agreedwith them; or were they too frightenedto disagree? The rivalry between Spartaand Athens finally led to a disastrous warfor were so devoted to their militarylives they had to rely on a huge populationof agricultural slaves called helots tofarm and provide food for them in thesurrounding farm land.

6 Of course this landwas owned by Spartans and not the slaves!TIMELINEOn the timeline below colour in the period of Ancient BC2000 BC1000 BC1 AD1000 AD2005 ADToday!The life of the helots was a miserable labour was long and hard and theybarely had anything to eat for the uproar if this happened children were born the statedecided if the child was strong enough tobe a future soldier and if they weren tthey were left in the hills to die from the age of seven every boy was sentto military and athletic school. Theseschools taught toughness, discipline andsurvival skills. At twenty, after thirteenyears of training, the boy became a soldierwhere he worked until he died or reachedthe age of did not produce any art or philosophy,or leave us any written work, but its peoplewere admired for being brave and 2004 Keynotes Education Crossgate Cornwall PL15 9 SXThis sheet may be printed from a personal computer and/or photocopied for educational use within the purchasing establishmentName.

7 _____Life in Ancient Greece4 COMPARING ATHENS AND SPARTAIn the table below are statements about life in Ancient yes or no for each statement in relation to Athens and In this city-state the people liked The people here were known as great The people here were great thinkers and These people had slaves called helots to farm for Boys were sent to military school for 13 These men served in the army for many These men served in the army for two Individuals were free to do what they These people lived in a These people had strict rules they had to These people were master builders and These people believed in a good all-round These people had excellence as their This state was named after the Greek goddess of These people were brutal and 2004 Keynotes Education Crossgate Cornwall PL15 9 SXThis sheet may be printed from a personal computer and/or photocopied for educational use within the purchasing establishmentName: _____Life in Ancient Greece5 WARFARE IN Ancient GREECEThe Ancient Greeks had different kinds ofarmies throughout their history and theearly armies were disorganised and badlyplanned.

8 Later, a better kind of armydeveloped where weaponry, tactics andfighting formations were improved. Thesenew armies had javelin throwers, men onhorseback and foot soldiers called of the time the armies were fightingtheir neighbouring city-state sarmy but they did have to fightpeople from other lands were only three times when differentGreek city-states fought as a united armyto defeat a larger power. This happenedduring the Persian Wars of 490 and and again in 331 under the leadershipof Alexander the hoplite was a heavily armed two weapons were a double-bladedsword and an eight foot pike for carried a round shield and wore abreastplate of metal and leather, a helmetand metal shin protectors called men were much faster and strongerthan those before in battle soldiers stood shoulder toshoulder in long lines about eight rows ofmen deep. The men in the front line heldtheir shield strapped to their left arm andtheir sword in their right hand.

9 Thisprotected the man on their left while theythemselves were being protected by theman on their right. Slowly the strongerarmy moved forward together whilefighting and defeating their in the pictureof the hoplites. Whatcolours do you thinktheir weapons, armourand robes wereconsidering what theywere made from?Try to be as realisticas 2004 Keynotes Education Crossgate Cornwall PL15 9 SXThis sheet may be printed from a personal computer and/or photocopied for educational use within the purchasing establishmentName: _____Life in Ancient Greece6 THE HOPLITES - SOLDIERSI magine you were a hoplite in this a short story on your day in in and label the armour andclothes on this picture of a hoplite?Early Ancient Greek soldiers had to provide theirown equipment including their weapons. Thepoorer you were the worse weapons you had whichmeant you were destined to be a foot time went by the lower and middle classesbegan to get richer so soldiers could afford betterarmour and weapons.

10 By 500 the soldiers wereheavily armed and called were no strict uniforms as such but as yearswent by different city-states adopted differentitems which made them identifiable. The Spartanhoplites wore scarlet red and the hoplites fromAthens had a large letter A on their hoplite from Sparta had to serve in the armyuntil he was sixty but in Athens hoplites servedfor only two years. After the two years were up the men were put on a reserve list and only called up if there was a 2004 Keynotes Education Crossgate Cornwall PL15 9 SXThis sheet may be printed from a personal computer and/or photocopied for educational use within the purchasing establishmentName: _____Life in Ancient Greece7 THE Ancient GREEK NAVYThe Ancient Greek navy was one of themost powerful fleets of the time. The navalboats were called triremes and would havebeen no match for today's naval fleetalthough at the time they were the bestthat naval technology had to trireme was built for speed and mobilityand had one or two sails with a carved were 120 feet long and were poweredby 170 rowers arranged in 3 rows.