Ancient greece

Culture and Society

Greece was made up from independent states, called Polis, or city state. The Greek society was mainly broken up between free people and slaves, who were owned by free people. Slaves were used as servants without any legal rights. Sometimes the slaves were prisoners of war or bought from foreign slave traders. Although many slaves lived closely with their owners.
Free menwere divided between Citizens and Metics. A Citizen was born with Athenian parents and was the most powerful group that could take part in the Government of the Polis. A Metic was a foreign birth that had to migrate to Athens or practice a craft. A Metic had to pay taxes and sometimes required to serve in the army.
The social classed applied to men only, as women all took their social and legalstatus from their husband or their male partner.
Men if they were not training in military, or discussing politics went to the Theatre for entertainment. Women were not allowed to watch or perform theatre, although men did play women roles. Women in ancient Greece were closely tied to domestic work, spinning wool and other domestic duties. They were not involved in public life or in politics. Theylive confined to the house.
Children in ancient Greece usually occupied their time playing with toys and games.
Government
In Ancient Greece, there were four forms of government the citizens tried. In order, they are: Monarchy, Oligarchy, Tyranny, and finally, Democracy.
One form of ancient Greece government is monarchy. Monarchs ruled over a certain city-state. They had many servants in theirpalaces. They also assigned officials to help them govern.
Oligarchy is another ancient Greece government. This type of government is ruled by a limited group of people. The theory behind oligarchy is the idea that not all people were equal - some were just more intelligent, capable and of good economic standing. The idea was that the people belonging on the higher classes of society deserve torule. Aristocracy falls under this oligarchy type of government, with aristocrats usually coming from powerful families.
Tyranny was another form of ancient Greece government. Usually these tyrants stayed in power because of the support of the masses. The people were usually promised of benefits in exchange for their support. This type of government usually came about from oligarchies whereinone aristocrat gets the support of the masses for the promises of a better rule - the aristocrat then becomes a tyrant.
Democracy: The name comes from demos-people and kratos-power, so literally power of the people. It was mainly based on the opportunity for all citizens over 20 to take part in governing the country.

One of the main advantages of Athenian democracy was that the archon and hiseight assistants were elected anually.

The biggest advantage of democracy in polis was the general possibility of taking part in public life for all free citizens. Women, children, and slaves were not citizens, and thus could not vote.
Economy
The majority of Ancient Greek people made their living from farming. The Greek landscape and climate was difficult to farm. Grapes were usually pickedaround September and either kept for eating or made into wine. Making wine was done by treading and kept in jars to ferment.
Olives were either picked by hand or knocked out of the tress with wooden sticks. Some were crushed in a press to produce olive oil and some eaten. This was an important product to the Greeks that had many uses including; cooking, lighting, beauty products and forathletic purposes.
Ancient Greeks usually ate bread (barley or wheat) and porridge, accompanied with food such as cheese, vegetables, fish, eggs and fruit. Animal such as deer, hare and boars were hunted only as addition to the food supply. Seasoning usually involved coriander and sesame seeds. Honey was probably the only sweetening that existed at the time.
Greek Language and writing
The ancient...