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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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108 Items found Print
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Active Filters: 3rd grade (Ages 8-9)
Adventures of Hercules - Coloring Book
Dover Coloring Books
by Bob Blaisdell & John Green
from Dover Publications
for 2nd-6th grade
in Literary & Fantasy Coloring Books (Location: COL-LIT)
$3.99
Adventures of Ulysses - Coloring Book
Dover Coloring Books
by Bruce LaFontaine
from Dover Publications
for 2nd-6th grade
in Literary & Fantasy Coloring Books (Location: COL-LIT)
$3.99
Aesop's Fables
Puffin Classics
by Aesop
Reprint from Puffin Books
Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Kindergarten-4th grade
in Puffin Classics (Location: FIC-PUF)
$7.99
Alexander the Great
by Andrew Langley
Reissue from Oxford University
for Preschool-3rd grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$6.99
Alexander the Great
by Demi
from Marshall Cavendish Education
for 1st-3rd grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$19.99
Alexander the Great Coloring Book
by John K. Anderson
from Bellerophon Books
for 1st-4th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
Ancient Greece
for 2nd-4th grade
in Oversized History Books (Location: HISW-OVER)
$4.50 (1 in stock)
Ancient Greece
by Robert Nicholson
from Scholastic Inc.
for 3rd-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
Ancient Greece
by Peter Connolly, text by Andrew Solway
from Oxford University
for 2nd-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient Greek Temple
by John Malam, Mark Bergin
for 3rd-7th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient History-Based Writing Lessons - Set
by Lori Verstegen
6th edition from Institute for Excellence in Writing
for 3rd-6th grade
in IEW Theme-Based Writing Lessons (Location: WRI-IEWTBW)
$55.00
Athenians In the Classical Period
Life Long Ago
by Leonard Weisgard (pictures and text)
from Coward McCann
for 2nd-5th grade
in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS)
$48.00 (1 in stock)
Black Ships Before Troy
by Rosemary Sutcliff & Alan Lee
from Frances Lincoln
Greek Mythology for 3rd-8th grade
$22.99
Black Ships Before Troy - Comprehension Guide
by Adam Kuliszewski
from Veritas Press
for 3rd-6th grade
in Veritas Press Literature Guides (Location: LITSG-VP)
$19.00
Children of the Fox
by Jill Paton Walsh, illustrated by Robin Eaton
First American Edition from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
for 3rd-6th grade
in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Children's Homer
by Padraic Colum & Willy Pogany
from Aladdin Paperbacks
Greek Mythology for 3rd-8th grade
$10.99 $6.00 (1 in stock)
Children's Homer
by Padraic Colum
from Simon and Schuster
Greek Mythology for 3rd-8th grade
$4.50 (2 in stock)
Children's Homer
by Padraic Colum
from Simon and Brown
Greek Mythology for 3rd-8th grade
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Coloring Book of Ancient Greece
from Bellerophon Books
for 1st-3rd grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
Coloring Book of the Odyssey
from Bellerophon Books
for 1st-3rd grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
Coloring Book of the Olympics
by E. Knill
Csm from Bellerophon Books
for 3rd-8th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$2.00 (2 in stock)
Coloring Book of the Trojan War: The Iliad Vol. 1
by John K. Anderson
from Bellerophon Books
for 1st-3rd grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
D'aulaire's Book of Greek Myths - Memoria Press Package
from Memoria Press
for 3rd-6th grade
in Memoria Press Classical Studies (Location: HISCUR-MP)
$62.90
D'Aulaires' Greek Myths - Student Guide
by Leigh & Cheryl Lowe
2nd edition from Memoria Press
for 3rd-6th grade
in Memoria Press Classical Studies (Location: HISCUR-MP)
$19.90 $13.00 (2 in stock)
D'Aulaires' Greek Myths - Teacher Guide
by Leigh & Cheryl Lowe
2nd edition from Memoria Press
Teacher's Guide for 3rd-6th grade
in Memoria Press Classical Studies (Location: HISCUR-MP)
$19.90 $12.00 (1 in stock)
Famous Men of Greece - Student Guide
by Leigh Lowe & Tanya Charlton
2nd edition from Memoria Press
for 3rd-8th grade
in Memoria Press Classical Studies (Location: HISCUR-MP)
$19.90
Famous Men of Greece - Teacher Guide
by Leigh Lowe & Tanya Charlton
2nd edition from Memoria Press
for 3rd-8th grade
in Memoria Press Classical Studies (Location: HISCUR-MP)
$19.90
Famous Men of Greece Timeline
by Robert Shearer & Trina Dofflemeyer
from Greenleaf Press
for 3rd-8th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Favorite Greek Myths
by Mary Pope Osborne
from Scholastic Inc.
for Kindergarten-3rd grade
First Olympic Games
from Silver Burdett Press
for 3rd-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
Game On in Ancient Greece
Time Travel Guides
by Linda Bailey
from Kids Can Press
for 1st-4th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
Gods and Goddesses of Olympus
by Aliki
from HarperCollins
for 1st-3rd grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$7.99
Golden Fleece
by Padraic Colum & Willy Pogany
from Aladdin Paperbacks
Greek Mythology for 3rd-8th grade
1922 Newbery Honor Book
$10.99 $6.00 (2 in stock)
Great Empires - CD-ROM
from Home School in the Woods
for 3rd-8th grade
in Hands-On History Activity-Paks (Location: HISRF-HOH)
$12.00
Greece
by Jane Pofahl
from Instructional Fair
for 3rd-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
Greek and Roman Fashions - Coloring Book
Dover Coloring Books
by Tom Tierney
from Dover Publications
for 2nd-6th grade
in Costume & Fashion Coloring Books (Location: COL-FAS)
$4.99
Greek Gods and Goddesses - Coloring Book
by John Green
from Dover Publications
for 2nd-4th grade
in Literary & Fantasy Coloring Books (Location: COL-LIT)
$5.99
Greek Life
by John Guy
from Scholastic Inc.
for 3rd-7th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$2.00 (1 in stock)
Greek Myths
by Geraldine McCaughrean, illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark
from Margaret K. McElderry Books
for 3rd-6th grade
Greek Myths
by Marcia Williams
from Walker Books
for 1st-3rd grade
in Oversized History Books (Location: HISW-OVER)
$8.99
Greenleaf Guide to Famous Men of Greece
by Cynthia Shearer
from Greenleaf Press
for 3rd-8th grade
Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
Greenleaf Guide to Famous Men of Greece (old)
by Cynthia Shearer
from Greenleaf Press
for 3rd-8th grade
Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$9.95 $5.00 (3 in stock)
Hercules
Heroes Series #4
by Geraldine McCaughrean
from Cricket Books
for 3rd-6th grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
Hercules and Other Tales from Greek Myths
by Olivia Coolidge, illustrated by David Lockhart
from Scholastic Inc.
Greek Mythology for 2nd-5th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
If You Were Me and Lived in... Greece
by Carole P. Roman
from CreateSpace
for 1st-3rd grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
If You Were Me and Lived in...Ancient Greece
An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time Volume 1
by Carole P. Roman
from CreateSpace
for 1st-3rd grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
Iliad (retold)
by Rosemary Sutcliff & Alan Lee
from Frances Lincoln
Greek Mythology for 3rd-8th grade
In Search of Troy
by Giovanni Caselli
from Peter Bedrick Books
for 3rd-5th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
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)
Kingfisher Atlas of the Ancient World
from Kingfisher
for 2nd-6th grade
in Historical & Cultural Atlases (Location: HISRF-ATLAS)
$11.00 (1 in stock)
Librarian Who Measured the Earth
by Kathryn Lasky
from Little, Brown & Company
Biography for 2nd-5th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$18.99 $12.00 (2 in stock)
Life in a Greek Trading Port
Picture the Past
by Jane Shuter
from Heinemann Educational Books
for 2nd-5th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$7.99 $5.00 (2 in stock)
Life in Ancient Greece - Coloring Book
Dover Coloring Books
by John Green
from Dover Publications
for 2nd-6th grade
in History of the World Coloring Books (Location: COL-HISW)
$4.99
Magic Tree House #16 - Research Guide / Fact Tracker
by Mary Pope Osborne
from Random House
for 2nd-5th grade
in Magic Tree House (Location: SER-MTH)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Magic Tree House #44 (Merlin Mission #16) - Fact Tracker
Magic Tree House
by Mary Pope Osborne & Natalie Pope Boyce
from Scholastic Inc.
for 2nd-5th grade
in Magic Tree House (Location: SER-MTH)
$3.00 (1 in stock)
Maid of Artemis
by Olivia Coolidge, illustrated by Bea Holmes
from Houghton Mifflin
Historical Fiction for 3rd-6th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
Make This Model Greek Temple
by Iain Ashman
for 3rd-6th grade
in Oversized History Books (Location: HISW-OVER)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Modern Rhymes: Ancient Greece
by Susan Altman & Susan Lechner
from Scholastic Inc.
for 3rd-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$5.00 (2 in stock)
Modern Rhymes: Ancient Greece
Modern Rhymes About Ancient Times
by Susan Altman, Susan Lechner
from Children's Press
for 3rd-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$7.00 (1 in stock)
New Testament, Greece and Rome - Home Teacher Manual
2nd edition from Veritas Press
New Testament History Curriculum for 3rd-5th grade
in Veritas Press History (Location: HISCUR-VP)
$39.00
Odysseus
Heroes Series #1
by Geraldine McCaughrean
from Cricket Books
for 3rd-6th grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
Our Little Athenian Cousin of Long Ago
Our Little Cousins of Long Ago
by Julia Cowles
from Yesterday's Classics
for 2nd-5th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$10.95
Parthenon
by Lynn Curlee
from Atheneum
for 2nd-6th grade
in Architecture and Sculpture (Location: ELE-ARC)
Pegasus
by Marianna Mayer & K. Y. Craft
1st ed from HarperCollins
for Preschool- 3rd Grade
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$17.99
Pegasus
by Marianna Mayer & K. Y. Craft
1st ed from Morrow Eagle
for Preschool- 3rd Grade
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Persephone
by Sally Clayton, Illustrated by Virginia Lee
from Eerdmans
for 1st-5th grade
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$20.00
Perseus
Heroes Series #2
by Geraldine McCaughrean
from Cricket Books
for 3rd-6th grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
Picturesque Tale of Progress Volume 3
by Olive Beaupre Miller
1949 Edition from Book House for Children
for 3rd-6th grade
in Vintage Anthology Collections (Location: VIN-ANTH)
Picturesque Tale of Progress Volume 4
A Picturesque Tale of Progress
by Olive Beaupre Miller, Assisted by Harry Neal Baum
1948 Edition from Book House for Children
for 3rd-6th grade
in Vintage Anthology Collections (Location: VIN-ANTH)
Picturesque Tale of Progress: Conquests
by Olive Beaupre Miller
1935 Edition from Book House for Children
for 3rd-6th grade
in Vintage Anthology Collections (Location: VIN-ANTH)
Plutarch's Lives for Boys and Girls
by W.H. Weston (reteller), Plutarch
from Yesterday's Classics
for 3rd-6th grade
in Classics Retold (Location: FIC-RET)
Run with Me, Nike!
by Cassandra Case
from Soundprints
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
Song to Demeter
by Cynthia & William Birrer
from Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books
for Kindergarten-3rd grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Sparta! Warriors of the Ancient World - Coloring Book
by John Green
from Dover Publications
for 2nd-6th grade
in History of the World Coloring Books (Location: COL-HISW)
$3.99
Spartan Twins
by Lucy Fitch Perkins
from Okitoks Press
for 2nd-4th grade
in Clearance: Fiction (Location: ZCLE-FIC)
$5.50
Spend the Day in Ancient Greece
by Linda Honan
from John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
for 3rd-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Story of Ancient Athens
for 2nd-5th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Story of the Golden Age of Greek Heroes
by James Baldwin
from Yesterday's Classics
for 3rd-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$11.95
Story of the Greeks
by Helene Guerber
4th edition from Nothing New Press
Ancient Greece Reference for 3rd-8th grade
Cathy Duffy's 100 Top Picks
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
Tales of Troy and Greece
by Andrew Lang
from Faber & Faber
for 3rd-6th grade
Tales of Troy and Greece
by Andrew Lang
from Yesterday's Classics
for 3rd-6th grade
Tanglewood Tales
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Ill from Yesterday's Classics
for 3rd-6th grade
$13.95 $8.00 (1 in stock)
Tanglewood Tales
Calla Editions
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
from Dover Publications
for 3rd-7th grade
Tanglewood Tales
Copper Lodge Library
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
from Classical Conversations
for 3rd-6th grade
in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
$11.99
Tanglewood Tales
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Ill from Living Book Press
for 3rd-6th grade
$16.99
Theseus
Heroes Series #3
by Geraldine McCaughrean
from Cricket Books
for 3rd-6th grade
in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
Theseus and the Minotaur
by Leonard Everett Fisher
from Holiday House
for 3rd-5th grade
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
Theseus and the Minotaur
by Leonard Everett Fisher
from Holiday House
for 3rd-5th grade
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Triumph for Flavius
by Caroline Dale Snedeker
from American Home-School Publishing
for 3rd-6th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
Triumph for Flavius
by Caroline Dale Snedeker
from Hillside Education
for 3rd-6th grade
in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF)
Trojan Horse
Step Into Reading Level 5
by Emily Little
from Random House
Greek Mythology for 2nd-4th grade
in Step into Reading (Location: EAR-STEP)
$4.99 $2.50 (1 in stock)
True Book: Ancient Greece
by Sandra Newman
from Scholastic Press
for 3rd-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$4.50 (2 in stock)
Usborne Greek Myths
by Heather Amery
from Usborne
for 2nd-3rd grade
$4.05 (1 in stock)
Veritas Press New Testament, Greece and Rome - Set
from Veritas Press
for 3rd-5th grade
in Veritas Press History (Location: HISCUR-VP)
$67.50
Wanderings of Odysseus
by Rosemary Sutcliff & Alan Lee
from Frances Lincoln
Greek Mythology for 3rd-8th grade
Warriors Through the Ages - Coloring Book
Dover Coloring Books
by Bruce LaFontaine
from Dover Publications
for 2nd-6th grade
in History of the World Coloring Books (Location: COL-HISW)
$4.99
What Do We Know About the Greeks?
by Anne Pearson
1st American ed from Peter Bedrick Books
for 1st-5th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$6.00 (2 in stock)
Where is the Parthenon?
by Roberta Edwards, illustrated by John Hinderliter
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 3rd-6th grade
in International Landmarks & Symbols (Location: HISV-LANINT)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
Who Was Alexander the Great?
by Kathryn Waterfield and Robin Waterfield
from Penguin Random House
for 3rd-6th grade
in Who Was? biographies (Location: BIO-WHO)
$5.99
Wonder Book
by Nathaniel Hawthorne, illustrated by Dick Cuffari
from Grosset & Dunlap
for 3rd-5th grade
12
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