The Cradle of Western Civilization

     About 2,500 years ago, the people of Greece introduced many valuable ideas and developed a civilization that influences the way we live today. The ancient Greeks attempted to explain the world through the laws of nature. They developed democracy, where people govern themselves instead of being ruled by a king. They made important discoveries in science. The Greeks also valued beauty and imagination. They wrote many stories and plays that continue to be performed more than 2,000 years later.

      Greece is a small, rocky peninsula in southeastern Europe. The people of ancient Greece could not farm most of their mountainous land, so they turned to the sea. They became excellent sailors who traveled to distant lands. The learned the alphabet from the Phoenicians, a sea faring people from modern day Syria and Lebanon.

     Today there is a modern nation known as Greece, but ancient Greece was not a nation. It was a group of city-states, or nations the size of cities. A Greek city-state was known as a polis, and a group of city-states were known as poli. The Greek poli developed independently of one another because they were isolated by rugged mountains or were located on small islands. The poli often developed alliances, called leagues, for protection against other city-states and foreign invaders. Two of the most important Greek poli were Athens and Sparta.

Ancient Greece developed an advanced civilization.

• The Greeks were excellent sailors who traveled to distant lands.
• The idea of democracy developed, so more people were involved in making decisions.
• The Greeks peninsula was less likely to be invaded than other places. High mountains in the north and the Mediterranean Sea in all other directions surround Greece.

The Greek poli were separate tiny nations, but they had many things in common.

• The city states all spoke a common language.
• The city-states were small and often had to depend on one another to survive.
• The city-states met every year in a great athletic contest called the Olympics.