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Ancient Greece

When we think of Ancient Greece, what we usually have in mind are the Classical or Hellenistic eras—the Archaic Period is murky and uncertain, the lines between myth and reality unhelpfully blurred. Classical Greece (and the more universal Hellenistic Period that followed) are fortunately well-documented, and for those who've studied Western history, by now quite familiar.

The entity we call Western Civilization began, by most accounts, in Greece. Dates are fluid, but we do know a few: the Persian Wars began in 490 BC and lasted till 449; the Peloponnesian Wars dragged from 431-404 BC; the philosopher Plato was born around 428 BC and lived about 80 years; his brightest pupil, Aristotle, was born in 384 BC, living to approximately 61 years.

And, of course, in 336 BC Alexander the Great became king of Macedon and invaded Asia Minor two years later. This initiated the Hellenistic Age in which Greek thought, culture, language, and warfare was distributed throughout the known world at an extremely rapid pace and with almost evangelistic fervor. The era isn't greatly distinguishable from the Classical Period that preceded it, except that the Classical ideals were more aggressively distributed throughout the rest of Europe and Western Asia.

So what were these ideals? and how were they responsible for shaping the Western world? In many ways we could boil it down to a single word: philosophy (though not in the restrictive sense we tend to use that word nowadays). The ancient Eastern and Near Eastern cultures involved a spiritual element oddly lacking in the salient elements of Greek culture, a religiosity foreign to the temporally-minded Balkans.

During the Archaic Period (roughly 800-400 BC), Greek culture began to develop in earnest after a protracted Dark Ages from which not much emerged but extensive warfare and the early stages of the city-state polis. In the four hundred years prior to the Classical Era, the city-state evolved into the dominant governmental form (largely due to geographical concerns), tragic theater formed, and the first philosophers began contemplating the world.

Philosophy to those of us in the post-Enlightenment refers to a highly academic pursuit involving truth-constructions, advanced logic, and the perception and analysis of facts to create interpretations of reality. It's all very abstruse, and for most 20th and 21st century philosophers (by their own admission) no more than an intellectual game.

In ancient Greece, philosophy was a search for Truth. It encompassed science, mathematics, music and art, literature, and the activity Aristotle believed was man's highest end: contemplation. The word comes from two Greek words—philos meaning love, and sophia meaning wisdom; thus, love of wisdom—and is the summation of the Greek cultural project.

What set the Greeks apart from their Eastern neighbors was their starting point. The Jews had philosophy of a sort (expressed best in the books of Job and Ecclesiastes), the races Alexander conquered in India had philosophy, the Egyptians to the south certainly had religiously-informed philosophy. But they all began with some kind of religious contruct and authority system; the Greeks began with man's ability to reason.

It wasn't that they didn't have religion or gods, either. But their gods were strangely human, even by ancient polytheistic standards, and served rather to celebrate man's mannishness (to borrow a phrase from Schaeffer) than any distinctly divine attributes. Man was the measure of all things for the Greeks, and they set out trying to understand everything from his perspective.

Some of the greatest accomplishments in the arts and thought were the result. Socrates was the father of philosophy; his acolyte, Plato, one of its greatest champions; and his successor, Aristotle, arguably the greatest philosopher who ever lived. The architecture and statuary of the period, the scientific advances, the literature (The Iliad and The Odyssey, the works of Aristophanes, Euripides, and Herodotus), the political science, all laid the foundation for what would come later in the West.

Without a relatively comprehensive understanding of ancient Greece and its culture, we have no real basis for understanding the subsequent 3000 years of Western history, or even our own time. The ideas of Medieval Scholasticism, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, modernism, and postmodernism are all based in ideas developed in the Classical period in a relatively out-of-the-way region of the second smallest continent. Because it's such an important era, we offer a wide range of materials for every age and reading level.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.
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113 Items found Print
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Active Filters: 12th grade (Ages 17-18)
Aeschylus I: The Oresteia (old)
The Complete Greek Tragedies
by Aeschylus (translation by Richmond Lattimore)
from University of Chicago
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
in Clearance: Literature (Location: ZCLE-LIT)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Aeschylus II: The Oresteia
The Complete Greek Tragedies
by Aeschylus (translation by Richmond Lattimore)
3rd edition from University of Chicago
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$14.00
Aeschylus' Oresteia
Penguin Classics
by Aeschylus (translation by Robert Fagles)
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$16.00
Aeschylus' Oresteia
by Aeschylus, translated by Peter Meineck
from Hackett Publishing Company
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$13.50
Aeschylus' Oresteian Trilogy
Penguin Classics
by Aeschylus, translated by Phillip Vellacott
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$13.00 $7.00 (1 in stock)
Aesop's Fables
by Aesop
from Signet Classics
Fairy Tales & Fables for 10th grade-adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$5.95
Ancient City
by Hazel Dodge, Peter Connolly
First Thus from Oxford University
for 8th-Adult
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$14.00 (2 in stock)
Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece
by Michelle Miller
from TruthQuest History
History Curriculum for 5th-12th grade
Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks
in Old Edition History & Geography (Location: OHIS)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient Greece
by Michelle Miller
from TruthQuest History
for 5th-12th grade
in TruthQuest History (Location: HISCUR-TQ)
$24.95 $17.50 (1 in stock)
Antigone
Dover Thrift Editions
by Sophocles, translated by Sir George Young
from Dover Publications
Ancient Tragedy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$3.00 $2.00 (2 in stock)
Antigone
by Sophocles
from Hackett Publishing Company
Ancient Tragedy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$10.50
Bacchae and Other Plays
Penguin Classics
by Euripides (translation by John Davies)
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Tragedy for 11th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$12.00
Bacchae and Other Plays
Penguin Classics
by Euripides (translation by Phillip Vellacott)
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Tragedy for 11th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$13.00
Basic Works of Aristotle
by Aristotle
from Modern Library
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$24.00
Biblical Antiquity: Old & New Testament in One Volume
by Evan B. Wilson
from Big Haus Society
Biblical Reference for 9th-12th grade
in Ancient History (Location: HISW-ANC)
Bulfinch's Greek and Roman Mythology
by Thomas Bulfinch
from Dover Publications
for 8th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$6.00
Burial at Thebes
by Sophocles, translated by Seamus Heaney
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Chronological and Background Charts of the New Testament
by H. Wayne House
from Zondervan
Biblical Reference for 9th-Adult
in Bible Geography and Surveys (Location: XBI-GEO)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Dear and Glorious Pysician
by Taylor Caldwell
from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Dialogues on Love and Friendship
by Plato
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Discourses of Epictetus
by Epictetus
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Discourses of Epictetus
Walter J. Black Classics Club
by Epictetus
from Walter J. Black, Inc.
for 10th-Adult
in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Echo of Greece
by Edith Hamilton
for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
Euclid's Elements
by Euclid & Sir Thomas Heath (translator)
2nd edition from Green Lion Press
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$29.95
Euripides I
by Euripides
from University of Chicago
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$12.00
Euripides III
by Euripides
2nd edition from University of Chicago
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Euripides: The Trojan Women and Hippolytus
by Euripides
from Dover Publications
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$2.50
Five Dialogues of Plato
by Plato, translated by G.M.A. Grube, revised by John M. Cooper
2nd edition from Hackett Publishing Company
Ancient Philosophy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$4.00 (2 in stock)
Five Great Dialogues of Plato
by Plato
2nd edition from Walter J. Black, Inc.
Ancient Philosophy for 9th-Adult
in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Flowers of Adonis
by Rosemary Sutcliff
for 11th-Adult
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Gorgias
Penguin Classics
by Plato
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Philosophy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$10.00
Gorgias
Oxford World's Classics
by Plato
from Oxford University
Ancient Philosophy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$8.95 $6.00 (2 in stock)
Great Dialogues of Plato
Signet Classics
by Plato
from Signet Classics
Ancient Philosophy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$6.95
Greek Lives
by Plutarch, translated by Robin Waterfield
1st Reissue from Oxford University
Biography for 11th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$13.95
Greek Tragedies I
by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore
from University of Chicago
for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Greek Treasure
by Irving Stone
Book Club from Doubleday & Company
for 9th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Greek World
by Peter Levi
1st edition from Dutton Adult
for 8th-12th grade
in Clearance: History & Geography (Location: ZCLE-HIS)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Heroes of the City of Man
by Peter Leithart
from Canon Press
for 9th-Adult
in Classical Literature Guides (Location: LIR-CLA)
$25.00
Histories
Penguin Classics
by Herodotus (translation by Aubrey De Sélincourt)
from Penguin Classics
Historical Non-Fiction for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$13.00
Histories
Everyman's Library
by Herodotus (translation by George Rawlinson)
from Everyman's Library
Historical Non-Fiction for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
Histories
Penguin Classics
by Herodotus (translation by Robin Waterfield)
from Oxford University
Historical Non-Fiction for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$10.95 $6.00 (1 in stock)
Histories
Penguin Classics
by Herodotus (translation by David Grene)
from University of Chicago
Historical Non-Fiction for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$16.00
How the West Won
by Rodney Stark
from Intercollegiate Studies Institute
for 12th-Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$18.00
Iliad
Everyman's Library
by Homer (translation by Robert Fitzgerald)
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Ancient Literature/Epic Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$23.00
Iliad
by Homer (translation by Robert Fagles)
from Penguin Putnam
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$20.00
Iliad
by Homer (translation by Robert Fitzgerald)
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Ancient Literature for 11th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$17.00
Iliad
by Homer (translation by Robert Fagles)
from Penguin Putnam
for 11th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$18.00
Iliad
by Homer (translation by Stanley F. Lombardo)
from Hackett Publishing Company
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
Iliad
by Homer (translation by Robert Fitzgerald)
from Franklin Library
Ancient Literature/Epic Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
Iliad
by Homer (translation by Caroline Alexander)
from Ecco Press
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$19.99
Iliad
Signet Classics
by Homer (translation by W.H.D. Rouse), Afterword by Adam Nicolson
from Signet Classics
Ancient Literature for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$6.95
Iliad of Homer
by Homer (translation by Richmond Lattimore)
from University of Chicago
Ancient Literature/Epic Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$15.00
Iliad: A Prose Rendering
by Homer, translated by Wes Callihan
from Roman Roads Media
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
Illustrated Bulfinch's Mythology: Age of Fable
by Thomas Bulfinch
from Macmillan
for 6th-Adult
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
In Search of the Trojan War
by Michael Wood
from Facts On File
for 10th-Adult
in Archaeology (Location: HISRF-ARCH)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great
by Michael Wood
First Printing from University of California Press
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Inspirational Women
for 8th-12th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Jason Voyage
by Tim Severin
for 8th-Adult
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
Joshua through Malachi & Ancient Greece
by Sonya Shafer
2nd edition from Simply Charlotte Mason
for 1st-12th grade
in Charlotte Mason Education (Location: HSR-METCM)
Landmark Herodotus
by Herodotus (translated by Andrea Purvis & edited by Robert Strassler)
from Random House
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$30.00
Landmark Thucydides
by Thucydides
from Simon and Schuster
Historical Non-Fiction for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$32.00
Last Days of Socrates
Penguin Classics
by Plato
from Penguin Classics
Ancient Philosophy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$14.00
Last Days of Socrates
by Plato
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in Clearance: Literature (Location: ZCLE-LIT)
$3.00 (2 in stock)
Lysistrata and Other Plays
by Aristophanes
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$12.00
Medea and Other Plays
by Euripides
from Penguin Putnam
Drama for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$11.00
Mythology
by Edith Hamilton
from Little, Brown & Company
Mythology for 7th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$17.99
Mythology
by Edith Hamilton
from Black Dog & Leventhal
Mythology for 7th-Adult
in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20)
$29.99
Odyssey
by Homer (translation by Robert Fitzgerald)
from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Ancient Literature/Epic Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$16.00
Odyssey
Everyman's Library
by Homer (translation by Robert Fitzgerald)
from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Ancient Literature/Epic Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
Odyssey
by Homer (translation by Robert Fagles)
from Penguin Putnam
for 11th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$19.00
Odyssey
Signet Classics
by Homer, prose translation by W.H.D. Rouse
from Signet Classics
Ancient Literature for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$5.95
Odyssey
by Homer (translation by Robert Fagles)
from Penguin Putnam
for 11th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$17.00
Odyssey
by Homer
2nd edition from Wordsworth Classics
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
Odyssey
Everyman's Library
by Homer (translation by Robert Fitzgerald)
from Franklin Library
Ancient Literature/Epic Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
Odyssey & Guide - 2 book set
by Homer
from Vintage Classics
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Odyssey of Homer
by Homer (translation by Richmond Lattimore)
from HarperCollins
Ancient Literature/Epic Poetry for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$18.99
Oedipus at Colonus
Dover Thrift Editions
by Sophocles, translated by Sir George Young
from Dover Publications
Ancient Tragedy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$3.00 $2.00 (3 in stock)
Oedipus Cycle
by Sophocles (translation by Dudley Fitts & Robert Fitzgerald)
from Harcourt
Ancient Tragedy for 9th-12th grade
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$15.99 $9.50 (1 in stock)
Oedipus Rex
Dover Thrift Editions
by Sophocles, translated by Sir George Young
from Dover Publications
Ancient Tragedy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$4.00
Old Western Culture Year 1 DVD Set
by Wesley Callihan
from Roman Roads Media
for 9th-Adult
in Old Western Culture (Location: LITCUR-OWC)
Oresteia Trilogy
Dover Thrift Editions
by Aeschylus
from Dover Publications
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$5.00
Oxford Concise Companion to Classical Literature
by M. C. Howatson & Ian Chilvers
from Oxford University
for 9th-Adult
in Classical Literature Guides (Location: LIR-CLA)
Peloponnesian War
by Thucydides
from University of Chicago
Historical Non-Fiction for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
Peloponnesian War
by Rex Warner (translator)
from Penguin Putnam
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
Peloponnesian War
by Thucydides, translated by Martin Hammond
from Oxford University
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Penguin Historical Atlas of Ancient Greece
by Robert Morkot
from Penguin Putnam
Atlas/Greek History Reference for 9th-12th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$18.00 $11.00 (2 in stock)
Plutarch's Lives Volume I
by Plutarch, translated by John Dryden
from Modern Library
Biography for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$19.00
Plutarch's Lives Volume I
by Plutarch, translated by John Dryden
from Modern Library
Biography for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$20.00 $15.00 (1 in stock)
Plutarch's Lives Volume II
by Plutarch, translated by John Dryden
from Modern Library
Biography for 11th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$20.00
Politics & Poetics
by Aristotle
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
Prometheus Bound
Dover Thrift Editions
by Aeschylus
from Dover Publications
Ancient Greek Tragedy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$2.50
Prometheus Bound & Prometheus Unbound
by Aeschylus & Mary Shelley
from Heritage Press
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
Republic
Dover Thrift Editions
by Plato
from Dover Publications
Ancient Philosophy/Utopian Literature for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$5.00
Republic
by Plato
from Oxford University
Classic Literature for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$9.95
Republic
by Plato (translation by Desmond Lee)
from Penguin Classics
Classic Literature for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$13.00
Republic
by Plato, translated by Benjamin Jowett and illustrated by Fritz Kredel
from Easton Press
Classic Literature for 9th-Adult
in Leather Bound Collectible Books (Location: VIN-LEA)
$30.00 (1 in stock)
Rhetoric and the Poetics of Aristotle
by Aristotle
from McGraw-Hill
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$14.00 $9.00 (1 in stock)
Sophocles I
The Complete Greek Tragedies
by Sophocles (translation/editing by David Grene & Richmond Lattimore)
3rd edition from University of Chicago
Ancient Tragedy for 9th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$14.00 $8.00 (1 in stock)
Sophocles I (old)
The Complete Greek Tragedies
by Sophocles (translation/editing by David Grene & Richmond Lattimore)
2nd edition from University of Chicago
Ancient Tragedy for 9th-Adult
in Clearance: Literature (Location: ZCLE-LIT)
$9.00 $4.00 (1 in stock)
Symposium and Phaedrus
by Plato
First Edition from Everyman's Library
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
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