Ancient Greece

Marriage (Gamos) in Ancient Greece

How Athenian Marriages are Arranged.--Over this typical Athenian home reigns the wife of the master. Public opinion frowns upon celibacy, and there are relatively few unmarried men in Athens. An Athenian girl is brought up with the distinct expectation of matrimony.[*] Opportunities for a romance almost never will come her way; but it is the busine...

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Ancient Greek Education

The Greek Gods were much more down-to-earth and much less awesome than the remote gods of the East. Because they were endowed with human qualities and often represented aspects of the physical world--such as the sun, the moon, and the sea--they were closer to man and to the world he lived in. The Greeks, therefore, could find spiritual satisfaction...

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Culture of Athens

The class system in Athens was made up of two distinct classes- slaves and citizens. These classes were rarely open to any of the other classes; citizenship alone was given only to male Athenians. The same hierarchy of classes existed within other Greek city states as well (an even finer division can be drawn when looking at the social structure of...

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Ancient Greece for Kids - Education

Both daily life and education were very different in Sparta, than in Athens or in the other ancient Greek city-states. ATHENS: In ancient Athens, the purpose of education was to produce citizens trained in the arts, to prepare citizens for both peace and war. Girls were not educated at school, but many learned to read and write at home, in the comf...

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Oddysey Online: Greece

Michael C. Carlos Museum presents Odyssey Online's Greece...

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Education in Ancient Greece

Both education and daily life were very different in Sparta, than in Athens or in the other ancient Greek city-states. With the exception of the Athenians (who thought Athens was the best!), Greeks from other city-states had a grudging admiration for the Spartans. They wouldn't want to be Spartans, but in times of war, they most certainly wanted Sp...

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Ancient Greek Family

Most Greeks, like most other people throughout history, lived in families with a mother and a father and their children. Usually men got married when they were about twenty-five or thirty years old (as they do today), but women got married much younger, between twelve and sixteen years old....

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Education of Women in Ancient Greece

Women were educated at home except for music and dance lessons. Often they were educated by their husbands, brothers, or fathers and some greek women were very well educated. Hetaera had special schools where they learned entertaining, conversation, and rhetoric. Slaves were not educated. If they were educated before they became slaves, they could ...

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Marriages in Ancient Greece

Marriages in ancient Greece were arranged by the parents of the intended bride and groom. A financial arrangement was made between the families in the form of a dowry. Girls married between the ages of fourteen to eighteen, while typically men married in their twenties or even thirties. Spartan men continued to live in the barracks, even after the ...

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Marriage and Funeral Rites in Classical Athens

In the ancient Mediterranean world there was hardly room for choice: not only was marriage destiny, but so was death. The identity of the Classical Greek world is established through the traditional sacrifices and rituals that were practiced in these times of bliss and mourning. The sacred wedding and the dramatic funeral compliment each other in c...

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