History Chapter 3 Key Terms

Front 1

Hero Cults

Back 1

Important ancient greek families would claim that an impressive Mycenean tomb was that of their own famous ancestor and would practive sacrifices and other observances to strengthen their claim. This devotion could extend to their followers, and eventually whole communities would identify with such local heroes.

Front 2

Polis

Back 2

One of the major political innovations of the ancient Greeks, was the Polis, or city-state. They were independent social and political structures, organized around an urban center, containing markets, meeting places, and a temple, they controlleda limited amount of the surrounding territory.

Front 3

Oracle at Delphi

Back 3

Dating to 1400 BC, the oracle was the most improtant shrine in ancient Greece. A priestess of Apollo who attended the shrine was believed to be able to predict the future. The shrine ceased to function in the fourth century C.E.

Front 4

Hoplite

Back 4

A Greek foot soldier armed with a spear or short sword and protected by a large round shield (hopla). In battle, hoplites stod shoulder to shoulder in a close formations called a phalanx.

Front 5

Sappho

Back 5

One of the most famous greek lyric poets, she wrote beautiful poetry about romantic longing and sexual lust, sometimes about men, but more often about women. (Lesbos)

Front 6

Solon

Back 6

Elected archon in 594 BCE, this ancient Greek aristocrat enacted a series of political and economic reforms taht made Athenian democracy possible.

Front 7

Spartiate

Back 7

A full citizen of Sparta who was a profiessional soldier of the hoplite phalanx.

Front 8

Pre-Socratics

Back 8

A group of philosophers on the Greek Island of Miletus, including Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, who raised questions about the relationship between the natural world, the gods, and humans, and formulated rational theories to explain the physical universe they observed.

Front 9

Pericles

Back 9

The fifth centruy BCE Athenian leader who served as strategos for thirty years and pushed through reforms to make Athens more democratic by giving every citizen the right to propose and amend democratic by giving every citizen the right to propose and amend legislation and making it easier for citizens to particpate in the assembly and the great appeals court of Athens by paying an everage day's wage for attendance.

Front 10

Peloponnesian War

Back 10

The ancient Greek war between Sparta and Athens that began in 421 BCE and ended with the destruction of the Athenian fleet in 404 BCE.

Front 11

Sophists

Back 11

Ancient Greek professional teachers who taught that sense perception was the source of all knowledge and that only particular truths could be valid for the individual knower.

Front 12

Socrates

Back 12

The ancient Greek philosopher who emphasized the reesamination of all inherited assumptions and tried to base his philosophical speculations on sound definitons of words. He also wished to advance to a new system of truth by examining ethics rather than by studying the physical world.