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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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Adventures in Ancient Greece
by Linda Bailey
from Kids Can Press
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$1.50 (1 in stock)
Adventures of Ulysses
by Bernard Evslin
from Scholastic Inc.
Greek Mythology for 4th-6th grade
$3.00 (1 in stock)
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' 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)
Alexander the Great
by Robert Green
from Grolier Publishing
Biography for 4th-6th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$4.50 (3 in stock)
Alexander the Great
by Robert Green
from Grolier Publishing
Biography for 4th-6th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Alexander the Great, Killer of Men
by David J. Lonsdale
from Carroll & Graf Publishers
for Adult
in History for Adults (Location: ADU-HIS)
$5.00 (2 in stock)
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
for 2nd-4th grade
in Oversized History Books (Location: HISW-OVER)
$4.50 (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)
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 Greece Activity File
by DK Publishing
Book and Access from DK Publishing
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient Greece of Odysseus
by Peter Connolly
from Oxford University
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient Greece!
by Avery Hart & Paul Mantell
from Williamson Publishing Company
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$8.00 (2 in stock)
Ancient Greek Art
Art in History
by Susie Hodge
from Heinemann Educational Books
for 4th-6th grade
in Art History & Appreciation (Location: ELE-ARTHIS)
$7.99 $4.50 (1 in stock)
Ancient Greek Art
from Heinemann-Raintree
for 4th-8th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$4.50 (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 Greek War and Weapons
by Haydn Middleton
from Heinemann Educational Books
for 4th-8th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
Ancient Greeks
by Sophie Descamps-Lequime & Denise Vernerey
from Millbrook Press
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$4.00 (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)
Archimedes and the Door of Science
by Jeanne Bendick
from Bethlehem Books
Biography for 5th-8th grade
in Biographies (Location: BIO)
$14.95 $9.50 (1 in stock)
Art and Civilization: Ancient Greece
Art and Civilization
by Matilde Bardi
from Peter Bedrick Books
Ancient Greek History Reference for 4th-6th grade
in Oversized History Books (Location: HISW-OVER)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
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)
Authoress of the Odyssey
by Samuel Butler, introduction by David Grene
from University of Chicago
for 8th-10th grade
in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Battles of the Ancient World: 1285 BC ~ AD 451
by Kelly Devries, et. al
from Metro Books
for 6th-8th grade
in Military & Weapon History (Location: HISV-MILIT)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Black Ships Before Troy
by Rosemary Sutcliff
from Laurel-Leaf Books
Greek Mythology for 4th-8th grade
$8.99 $5.00 (1 in stock)
Book of the Ancient Greeks - Student Guide
by Matthew Anderson
from Memoria Press
for 5th-8th grade
in Memoria Press Classical Studies (Location: HISCUR-MP)
$19.90 $12.00 (1 in stock)
Book of the Ancient Greeks - Teacher Guide
by Matthew Anderson
from Memoria Press
for 5th-8th grade
in Memoria Press Classical Studies (Location: HISCUR-MP)
$19.90 $12.00 (1 in stock)
Boys' and Girls' Herodotus
by John S. White
Facsimile Edition from Kessinger Publishing
Ancient History Reference for 4th-8th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Brave Cloelia
by Jane Curry
1st edition from J. Paul Getty Museum
for 4th-6th grade
in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE)
$17.95 $12.00 (1 in stock)
Buildings of Ancient Greece
by Helen & Richard Leacroft
from William R. Scott Inc.
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
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)
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)
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)
Classic Myths to Read Aloud
by William F. Russell
from Three Rivers Press
in Reading Aloud & Story-telling (Location: LIR-RAST)
$16.00 $9.50 (1 in stock)
Classical Companion
by Charles F. Baker III and Rosalie F. Baker
2nd edition from Cobblestone Publishing
for 5th-8th grade
in Ancient History (Location: HISW-ANC)
$12.00 (1 in stock)
Classical Kids
by Laurie Carlson
from Chicago Review Press
for 5th-8th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$10.00 (1 in stock)
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)
Cultural Atlas of Ancient Greece
by Anton Powell
Revised Edition from Facts On File
Atlas/Greek History Reference for 4th-8th grade
in Oversized History Books (Location: HISW-OVER)
$15.00 (1 in stock)
D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths - Audio CD
by Edgar & Ingri D'Aulaire
from Yearling
Greek Mythology for 4th-8th grade
in Audio Books & Dramas (Location: CD-AUDIO)
$25.00 $14.00 (1 in stock)
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)
Dateline: Troy
by Paul Fleischman
from Candlewick Press
for 6th-9th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$7.50 (1 in stock)
Dateline: Troy
by Paul Fleischman
New Updated Edition from Candlewick Press
for 6th-9th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
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)
Euripides III
by Euripides
2nd edition from University of Chicago
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$5.00 (1 in stock)
Everyday Life in Ancient Greece
by Cath Senker
from McRae Books
for 4th-7th grade
in Oversized History Books (Location: HISW-OVER)
$8.00 (1 in stock)
Excavating the Past: Ancient Greece
by Christine Hatt
from Heinemann Educational Books
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$8.99 $6.00 (1 in stock)
Famous Men of Greece
by John Haaren & A. B. Poland
1998 printing from Greenleaf Press
Greek History for 4th-9th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$7.50 (4 in stock)
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, illustrated by Troy Howell
from Scholastic Inc.
for 4th-6th grade
$10.00 (1 in stock)
Favorite Greek Myths
by Bob Blaisdell
from Dover Publications
for 4th-6th grade
$2.50 (2 in stock)
First Civilizations
History of Everyday Things
by Giovanni Caselli
from Peter Bedrick Books
for 4th-7th grade
in Ancient History (Location: HISW-ANC)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
First Olympic Games
from Silver Burdett Press
for 3rd-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
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)
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)
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)
Greece
by Jane Pofahl
from Instructional Fair
for 3rd-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
Greek Gods
by Bernard & Dorothy Evslin, Ned Hoopes, illustrated by William Hunter
from Scholastic Inc.
for 4th-6th grade
$2.00 (20 in stock)
Greek Life
by John Guy
from Scholastic Inc.
for 3rd-7th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$2.00 (1 in stock)
Greek News
The History News
by Anton Powell & Philip Steele
from Candlewick Press
for 5th-8th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$4.50 (3 in stock)
Greek News
The History News
by Anton Powell, Philip Steele
from Candlewick Press
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$7.99 $5.50 (2 in stock)
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 Way
by Edith Hamilton
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Greek History for 7th-10th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$13.95 $9.00 (2 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)
Greeks
by Pamela Odijk
from Silver Burdett Press
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Greeks
by Roy Burrell
from Oxford University
for 4th-6th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$6.00 (1 in stock)
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)
Hands-On Culture of Ancient Greece and Rome
by Kate OHalloran
for 4th-7th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$4.00 (1 in stock)
Heroes
by Charles Kingsley
from Yesterday's Classics
for 4th-7th grade
$12.95 $7.50 (1 in stock)
Heroes & Monsters Of Greek Myth
by Bernard Evslin, Dorthy Evslin, ned Hoopes
from Scholastic Inc.
for 5th-7th grade
$2.50 (1 in stock)
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)
History of the Ancient World
by Susan Wise Bauer
from W. W. Norton and Co.
Ancient History Reference for Adult
in Story of the World (Location: HISCUR-SoW)
$35.00 $18.00 (1 in stock)
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 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)
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)
Intellectual Experiments of the Greek Enlightenment
by Friedrich Solmsen
from Princeton University Press
for Adult
in History of Philosophy (Location: XWV-PHI)
$9.00 (1 in stock)
Kingfisher Atlas of the Ancient World
from Kingfisher
for 2nd-6th grade
in Historical & Cultural Atlases (Location: HISRF-ATLAS)
$11.00 (1 in stock)
Last Days of Socrates
by Plato
from Penguin Classics
for 10th-Adult
in Clearance: Literature (Location: ZCLE-LIT)
$3.00 (2 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 the Time of Pericles and the Ancient Greeks
by Michael Poulton
from Raintree
for 6th-8th grade
in Ancient Greece (Location: HISW-ANGR)
$14.00 (1 in stock)
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)
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)
Odyssey
by Homer
2nd edition from Wordsworth Classics
for 10th-Adult
in Ancient Literature (Location: LIT1-ANC)
$3.50 (1 in stock)
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 (retold)
Puffin Classics
by Geraldine McCaughrean retells Homer
Puffin Classics from Puffin Books
for 4th-6th grade
in Puffin Classics (Location: FIC-PUF)
$6.99 $4.00 (2 in stock)
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)
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