Hellenotamiae: finance officers at the Delian League.
helot: a serf from Laconia and Messenia, subjugated by Sparta.
Herm: bust of Hermes on a stone column with genitalia.
hetaira: a high-class prostitute (literally, a companion).
hippeis: cavalry.
hoplite: heavy-armed infantry soldier.
Lacedaemon: Sparta, the capital city.
Laconia: the territory of Sparta.
liturgy: subsidy by wealthy citizens of public activity, including arts events or the cost of warships.
medize: to collaborate with the Persians.
metic: a resident alien at Athens, without civic rights. Usually a manufacturer or merchant.
metropolis: mother city of a colony.
mothax: son of a Spartiate and a helot woman, or a Spartiate who could not afford the syssitia fee.
oba (plural obai): a Spartan village or small settlement.
oboclass="underline" coin worth one sixth of a drachma.
oligarchy: rule of the few in a polis.
ostracism: a referendum on exiling a leading Athenian for ten years.
ostracon: broken piece of pottery.
paedogogus: a slave responsible for a child’s upbringing and for taking him to school.
palaestra: a wrestling ground and school.
Panathenaea: major Athenian festival in honor of Athena.
pankration: all-out sport combining boxing and wrestling.
parthenos: a virgin, umarried girl, and young woman.
peltast: lightly armed soldier.
pentacosiomedimni: wealthiest class of Athenian citizen.
peplos: ankle-length woolen robe or shawl worn by women.
perioeci: free residents of Laconia without voting rights.
phalanx: a formation of hoplites, many ranks deep.
phratry: club of Athenian citizens with religious/state functions—e.g., naming and registering a newborn boy (literally brotherhood).
Pnyx: meeting place of the Athenian ecclesia.
polemarch: a war leader, one of the Athenian Archons.
polis (plural poleis): Greek city-state.
polites: citizen of a polis.
Prytaneum: the state headquarters, with a community hearth and an eternal flame. Office of the senior members of the boulē of Athens.
Pythia: the priestess at Delphi.
satrap: provincial governor in the Persian Empire.
seisachtheia: a shaking off of burdens (Solon’s reforms).
sophist: an intellectual and teacher of young men in rhetoric.
Spartiate: the name for an adult Spartan citizen. Also an Equal.
stele: inscribed stone slab, often a gravestone or decree.
stoa: a covered colonnade.
strategos: a general (one of ten elected annually by the ecclesia in Athens).
symposium: a drinking party, usually in aristocratic circles.
synoecism: the union of several towns as a unitary state.
syssitia: a Spartiate’s military mess.
thetes: members of the lowest economic class in Athens.
The Thirty: oligarchs who governed Athens from 404 to 403.
Tholos: the headquarters of the Prytaneum in the agora.
timē: honor, personal status.
trireme: warship with three banks of oars on either side.
trittys: a regional division of Attica.
tyrant: sole ruler who took power unconstitutionally, turannos.
zeugitai: third tier of Solon’s social classes, rich enough to own a hoplite’s armor and weapons.
TIME LINE
B.C.
c.3000 Minoan civilization in Crete begins.
c.2000–1300 Hittites flourish in Asia Minor.
c.1400 Palaces at Cnossos and Phaestus destroyed. Decline of Cretan power.
c.1600–1200 Mycenae flourishes.
1287 Battle of Kadesh. Decline of Egyptian and Hittite power.
1230–1150 Breakdown of settled conditions.
c.1200 Overthrow of Hittite Empire.
c.1180 Myceneans sack Troy, according to tradition.
c.1150 Mycenaean settlements destroyed.
c.1100 “Dorians” settle in the Peloponnese.
c.1050–950 “Ionians” and others colonize Asia Minor. Athens plays leading role. Beginning of Iron Age in Greece.
c.850–730 Athens becomes a leading cultural center in Greece.
776 First Olympiad.
c.750–700 Invention of Greek alphabet. Homer composes the Iliad and Odyssey.
c.735–650 Foundation of Greek colonies across the Mediterranean.
730–10 Sparta conquers Messenia.
c.700 Hesiod flourishes. Midas king of Phrygia.
c.700–650 Invention of hoplite warfare.
683/2 First annual Archon at Athens reported.
650–600 Age of lawgivers in Greece. Rise of tyrannies in Corinth, Megara, and Sicyon; and in Ionia.
c.632 Cylon attempts tyranny at Athens. Alcmaeonids exiled from Athens.
c.620/1 Dracon legislates at Athens.
c.624–546 Thales flourishes.
c.620 Sparta suppresses Messenian revolt.
c.600 Sappho and Alcaeus flourish on Lesbos. Periander tyrant of Corinth.
595 Earliest Greek coins minted at Aegina.
595–86 First Sacred War for control of Delphi.
594/93 Solon Archon. Seisachtheia.
566 Inauguration of the Great Panathenaea.
561/60 Pisistratus, tyrant of Athens, first time.
560–50 War of Sparta with Tegea.
560–46 Croesus king of Lydia.
559 Cyrus king of Persia.
c.559–56 Miltiades senior, tyrant in Thracian Chersonese.
557/6 or 556/5 Pisistratus expelled.
550 Cyrus conquers Media.
550/49 Second tyranny of Pisistratus. Expelled again.
548 Temple of Apollo in Delphi burns down. The Alcmaeonids partly fund its rebuilding.
547 (?) Cyrus conquers Lydia. Fall of Croesus.
546/5 Persia conquers the Greeks of Asia Minor.
545–40 Cyrus pushes into Central Asia.
540/39 Third tyranny of Pisistratus.
538 Cyrus captures Babylon.
530 Cyrus dies.
528/7 Pisistratus dies, succeeded by sons Hippias and Hipparchus.
525 Cambyses, Cyrus’s successor, invades Egypt.
522 Fall of Polycrates, tyrant of Samos. Cambyses dies. Darius assassinates his successor and becomes king of Persia.
521 Darius seizes power in Persia.
520 Cleomenes king of Sparta.
519 Athens at war with Thebes over Plataea.
514 Harmodius and Aristogeiton assassinate Hipparchus.
c.512 Darius conquers Thrace.
510 Expulsion of Hipparchus from Athens.
508/7 Cleomenes of Sparta invades Attica, besieged in Acropolis.
506 Peloponnesian army invades Attica. Athenians defeat Boeotians, Chalcidians, and acquire the Chalcidian plain. They also acquire Oropus.
503/2 Reforms of Cleisthenes begin at Athens.
501 System of ten strategoi established.
499–93 Ionian cities revolt from Persia.
493 Themistocles Archon.
c.492 Persia subdues Thrace and Macedonia. Trial of Miltiades.
491 Envoys of Darius tour Greek states demanding fire and water; those who visit Athens are executed.
490 Persia launches a punitive expedition against Greece. Battle of Marathon.
487 First known ostracism. War of Athens against Aegina.
487/6 Archons appointed by lot. Strategoi supersede the polemarch.