Classical antiquity (also the classical era or classical period) is a broad term for a long period of cultural history History is the study of the human past. Scholars who write about history are called historians. It is a field of research which uses a narrative to examine and analyse the sequence of events, and it sometimes attempts to investigate objectively the patterns of cause and effect that determine events. Historians debate the nature of history and its centered on the Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by the Levant. The sea is technically a part of the Atlantic Ocean, although it is usually identified as a completely separate, comprising the interlocking civilizations of Ancient Greece Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian and Ancient Rome Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world The Greco-Roman world, Greco-Roman culture, or the term Greco-Roman , when used as an adjective, as understood by modern scholars and writers, refers to those geographical regions and countries who culturally (and so historically) were directly, protractedly and intimately influenced by the language, culture, government and religion of the ancient. It is the period in which Greek Greek , an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, is the language of the Greeks. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. In its ancient form, it is the language of classical ancient Greek literature and the New Testament of and Roman Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world literature (such as Aeschylus Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often recognized as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word αισχος (aischos), meaning "shame". According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in plays to allow for, Ovid Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria. He is also well known for the Metamorphoses, a mythological hexameter poem, the Fasti, about the Roman calendar, and the Tristia and Epistulae ex, Homer Homer is a legendary ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. The ancient Greeks generally believed that Homer was an historical individual, but most scholars are skeptical: no reliable biographical information has been handed down from classical antiquity, and the poems themselves and others) flourished.^[1]

It is conventionally taken to begin with the earliest-recorded Greek Homeric Greek is the form of Ancient Greek that was used by Homer in the Iliad and Odyssey. It is an archaic version of Ionic Greek, with admixtures from certain other dialects, such as Aeolic Greek. It later served as the basis of Epic Greek, the language of epic poetry, typically in dactylic hexameter, of poets such as Hesiod. Unlike later forms poetry of Homer Homer is a legendary ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. The ancient Greeks generally believed that Homer was an historical individual, but most scholars are skeptical: no reliable biographical information has been handed down from classical antiquity, and the poems themselves (8th The 8th century BC was a period of great changes in civilizations. In Egypt, the 23rd and 24th dynasties led to rule from Nubia in the 25 Dynasty. The Neo-Assyrian Empire reaches the peak of its power, conquering the Kingdom of Israel as well as nearby countries–7th century The Assyrian Empire continued to dominate the near east during this century, exercising formidable power over neighbors like Babylon and Egypt. In the last two decades of the century, however, the empire began to unravel as numerous enemies made alliances and waged war from all sides. The Assyrians finally left the world stage permanently when BC), and continues through the rise of Christianity Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament. Christianity comprises three major branches: Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy (the two split from one another in 1054 A.D.), and Protestantism (which came into existence during the Protestant Reformation of the 16 and the decline of the Roman Empire The decline of the Roman Empire refers to both the gradual disintegration of the economy of Rome and the barbarian invasions that were its final doom. The English historian Edward Gibbon, author of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire made this concept part of the framework of the English language, but he was not the first to speculate on why (5th century AD). It ends with the dissolution of classical culture at the close of Late Antiquity Late Antiquity is a periodization used by historians to describe the time of transition from Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, in both mainland Europe and the Mediterranean world. Precise boundaries for the period are a matter of debate, but noted historian of the period Peter Brown proposed a period between the second and eighth centuries (AD 300-600), blending into the Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the collapse of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages . The period saw a continuation of trends begun during the decline of the Roman Empire, including population decline, especially in (AD 600-1000). Such a wide sampling of history and territory covers many disparate cultures and periods. "Classical antiquity" may refer also to an idealized vision among later people of what was, in Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe was an American writer, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective-fiction genre. He is further credited with's words, "the glory that was Greece Ancient Greece is the civilization belonging to the period of Greek history lasting from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to 146 BC and the Roman conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. At the center of this time period is Classical Greece, which flourished during the 5th to 4th centuries BC, at first under Athenian, the grandeur that was Rome Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea, it became one of the largest empires in the ancient world!"^[2]

The civilization of the ancient Greeks has been immensely influential on the language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, science, art and architecture of the modern world, fueling the Renaissance The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Florence in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historic era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not uniform across Europe, this is a general use of the in Western Europe and again resurgent during various neo-classical Neoclassicism is the name given to quite distinct movements in the decorative and visual arts, literature, theatre, music, and architecture that draw upon Western classical art and culture . These movements were dominant during the mid 18th to the end of the 19th century[citation needed] revivals in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Archaic period (8th to 6th centuries BC)

The earliest period of classical antiquity takes place before the background of gradual re-appearance of historical sources following the Bronze Age collapse The Bronze Age collapse is the name given by those historians who see the transition in the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean from the Late Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age, as violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The palace economies of the Aegean and Anatolia which characterised the Late Bronze Age were replaced, after a hiatus, by the. The 8th and 7th centuries BC are still largely proto-historical Protohistory refers to a period between prehistory and history, during which a culture or civilization has not yet developed writing, but other cultures have already noted its existence in their own writings. For example, in Europe, the Celts and the Germanic tribes may be considered to have been protohistoric when they began appearing in Greek, with the earliest Greek alphabetic The History of the Greek alphabet starts with the adoption of Phoenician letter forms and continues to the present day. This article concentrates on the early period, before the codification of the now-standard Greek alphabet inscriptions appearing in the first half of the 8th century. Homer Homer is a legendary ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey. The ancient Greeks generally believed that Homer was an historical individual, but most scholars are skeptical: no reliable biographical information has been handed down from classical antiquity, and the poems themselves is usually assumed to have lived in the 8th or 7th century, and his lifetime is often taken as marking the beginning of classical antiquity. In the same period falls the traditional date for the establishment of the Ancient Olympic Games The Olympic Games (Ancient Greek: τὰ Ὀλύμπια - ta Olympia; Modern Greek: Ὀλυμπιακοὶ Ἀγῶνες , Ολυμπιακοί Αγώνες (Dimotiki) - Olympiakoi Agones) were a series of athletic competitions held for representatives of various city-states of Ancient Greece held in honor of Zeus. The exact origins of the Games, in 776 BC.

Phoenicians

The Phoenicians originally expanded from Levantine The Levant (Arabic: بلاد الشام‎ Bilād aš-Šām, also known as Arabic: المشرق‎ al-Māšriq, am-Māšriq) describes, traditionally, the Eastern Mediterranean at large, but can be used as a geographical term that denotes a large area in Western Asia formed by the lands bordering the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, roughly ports, by the 8th century dominating trade in the Mediterranean. Carthage Carthage refers to a series of cities on the Gulf of Tunis, from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BCE to the current suburb outside Tunis, Tunisia was founded in 814 BC, and the Carthaginians by 700 BC had firmly established strongholds in Sicily, Italy and Sardinia, which brought about conflicts of interest with Etruria Etruria — usually referred to in Greek and Latin source texts as Tyrrhenia — was a region of Central Italy, located in an area that covered part of what now are Tuscany, Latium, Emilia-Romagna and Umbria. A particularly noteworthy work dealing with Etruscan locations is D. H. Lawrence's Sketches of Etruscan Places and other Italian essays.

Greece

The Archaic period followed the Greek Dark Ages The Greek Dark Age or Ages are terms which have regularly been used to refer to the period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean Palatial civilization around 1200 BC, to the first signs of the Greek city-states in the 9th century BC. These terms are gradually going out of use, since the former lack of, and saw significant advancements in political theory Political philosophy is the study of such as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take and why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a, and the rise of democracy Democracy is a political form of government where governing power is derived from the people, either by direct referendum or by means of elected representatives of the people (representative democracy). The term comes from the Greek: δημοκρατία – (dēmokratía) "rule of the people", which was coined from δῆμος (dêmos) &, philosophy Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. It is distinguished from other ways of addressing fundamental questions by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument. The word "philosophy" comes from the, theatre Theatre is a branch of the performing arts. While any performance may be considered theatre, as a performing art, it focuses almost exclusively on live performers creating a self contained drama. A performance qualifies as dramatic by creating a representational illusion. By this broad definition, theatre had existed since the dawn of man, as a, poetry Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning. Poetry may be written independently, as discrete poems, or may occur in conjunction with other arts, as in poetic drama, hymns, lyrics, or prose poetry. It is published in dedicated magazines (, as well as the revitalisation of the written language (which had been lost during the Dark Ages). In pottery, the Archaic period sees the development of the Orientalizing style In the history of Ancient Greece the Orientalizing Period is the cultural and art historical period informed by the art of Syria, Assyria, Phoenicia and Egypt, which started during the later part of the 8th century BCE.[dubious – discuss] It encompasses a new, Orientalizing style, spurred by a period of increased cultural interchange in the, which signals a shift from the Geometric Style Geometric Art is a phase of Greek art, characterised largely by geometric motifs in Plekhov-bone-vase painting, that flourished towards the end of the Greek Dark Ages, circa 900 BCE to 700 BCE. Its centre was in Athens, and it was diffused amongst the trading cities of the Aegean of the later Dark Ages and the accumulation of influences derived from Phoenicia Phoenicia was an ancient civilization centered in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal regions of modern day Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Israel. Phoenician civilization was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean during the period 1550 BC to 300 BC. Though ancient boundaries of and Syria Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic (Arabic: الجمهورية العربية السورية‎), is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest.

Pottery styles associated with the later part of the Archaic age are the black-figure pottery Black-figure pottery painting, also known as the black-figure style or black-figure ceramic is one of the foremost techniques and styles for adorning antique Greek vases. It was especially common between the 7th and 5th centuries BC, although there are specimens dating as late as the 2nd century BC. Stylistically it can be distinguished from the, which originated in Corinth Corinth, or Korinth (Greek Κόρινθος, Kórinthos ( [ˈkorinθos] ) is a city in Greece. In antiquity it was a city-state, on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece. To the west of the isthmus lies the Gulf of Corinth, to the east lies the Saronic Gulf. Corinth is about 78 during the 7th century BC and its successor, the red-figure style Red-figure vase painting is one of the most important styles of figural Greek vase painting. It developed in Athens around 530 BC and remained in use until the late 3rd century BC. It replaced the previously dominant style of Black-figure vase painting within a few decades. Its modern name is based on the figural depictions in red colour on a, developed by the Andokides Painter Andokides was a famous potter of Ancient Greece. The painter of his pots was an anonymous artist, the Andokides Painter, who is recognized as the creater of the red-figure style, beginning around 530 BC. His work is compared with Exekias, who was said to have created the most detailed and best examples of black-figure pottery. Exekias is said to in about 530 BCE.

Greek colonies

Iron Age Italy

The Etruscans had established political control in the region by the late 7th century BC, forming the aristocratic and monarchial elite. The Etruscans apparently lost power in the area by the late 6th century BC, and at this point, the Italic tribes reinvented their government by creating a republic, with much greater restraints on the ability of rulers to exercise power.^[3]

Roman Kingdom

According to legend, Rome was founded on April 21, 753 BC by twin descendants of the Trojan prince Aeneas, Romulus and Remus.^[4] As the city was bereft of women, legend says that the Latins invited the Sabines to a festival and stole their unmarried maidens, leading to the integration of the Latins and the Sabines.^[5]

Archaeological evidence indeed shows first traces of settlement at the Roman Forum in the mid 8th century BC, though settlements on the Palatine Hill may date back to the 10th century BC.^[6][7]

The seventh and final king of Rome was Tarquinius Superbus. As the son of Tarquinius Priscus and the son-in-law of Servius Tullius, Tarquinius was of Etruscan birth. It was during his reign that the Etruscans reached their apex of power. Tarquinius removed and destroyed all the Sabine shrines and altars from the Tarpeian Rock, enraging the people of Rome. The people came to object to his rule when he allowed the rape of Lucretia, a patrician Roman, at the hands of his own son. Lucretia's kinsman, Lucius Junius Brutus (ancestor to Marcus Brutus), summoned the Senate and had Tarquinius and the monarchy expelled from Rome in 510 BC. After Tarquinius' expulsion, the Senate voted to never again allow the rule of a king and reformed Rome into a republican government in 509 BC. In fact the Latin word "Rex" meaning King became a dirty and hated word throughout the Republic and later on the Empire.

Classical Greece (5th to 4th centuries BC)

The classical period of Ancient Greece, corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries B.C. (i.e. from the fall of the Athenian tyranny in 510 BC to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC).

In 510, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow their king, the tyrant Hippias, son of Peisistratos. Cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartan oligarchy conducted by Isagoras.

The Greco-Persian Wars (499-449 BC), concluded by the Peace of Callias resulted in the dominant position of Athens in the Delian League, which led to conflict with Sparta and the Peloponnesian League, resulting in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), ending in a Spartan victory.

Greece entered the 4th century under Spartan hegemony. But by 395 BC the Spartan rulers removed Lysander from office, and Sparta lost her naval supremacy. Athens, Argos, Thebes, and Corinth, the latter two formerly Spartan allies, challenged Spartan dominance in the Corinthian War, which ended inconclusively in 387 BC. Then the Theban generals Epaminondas and Pelopidas won a decisive victory at Leuctra (371 BC). The result of this battle was the end of Spartan supremacy and the establishment of Theban hegemony. Thebes sought to maintain its position until finally eclipsed by the rising power of Macedon in 346 BC.

Under Philip II, (359–336 BC), Macedon expanded into the territory of the Paeonians, Thracians, and Illyrians. Philip's son Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) managed to briefly extend Macedonian power not only over the central Greek city-states, but also to the Persian Empire, including Egypt and lands as far east as the fringes of India. The classical period conventionally ends at the death of Alexander in 323 BC and the fragmentation of his empire, divided among the Diadochi.

Hellenistic period (330 to 146 BC)

Classical Greece entered the Hellenistic period with the rise of Macedon and the conquests of Alexander the Great. Greek becomes the lingua franca far beyond Greece itself, and Hellenistic culture interacts with the cultures of Persia, Central Asia, India and Egypt. Significant advances are made in the sciences (geography, astronomy, mathematics etc.), notably with the followers of Aristotle (Aristotelianism).

The Hellenistic period ended with the rise of the Roman Republic to a super-regional power in the 2nd century BC and the Roman conquest of Greece in 146 BC.

Show All>>

What Links Here:

Recently Viewed Pages:

• Recreation: Living History: By Topic: Costumes: Period: Medieval and Renaissance: Medieval: Directory
• Recreation: Living History: By Historical Region: Europe: Medieval: Directory
• Home
• 12th Century: Answers
• Recreation: Living History: By Historical Region: Europe: Medieval: Legends and Traditions: Directory
• Society: History: By Time Period: Middle Ages: Directory
• Recreation: Living History: Society for Creative Anachronism: Directory
• 12th Century: Blogs
• 12th Century: Encyclopedia
• Referrers

Most Popular Pages:

• Irony: Encyclopedia
• Recreation: Living History: By Topic: Costumes: Period: Medieval and Renaissance: Medieval: Directory
• Hokkien Translation: Answers
• High Middle Ages: Encyclopedia
• Search Terms
• Synecdoche: Encyclopedia
• Hokkien: Answers
• Song Dynasty: Encyclopedia
• 12th Century: Answers
• Hundred Years War

Related 'Classical Era' Searches: