Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great. Great. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary the word great means: Remarkable or outstanding in magnitude, degree, or extent. Was Alexander III of Macedon remarkable in degree or extent? In my opinion he was. Alexander is known as Alexander the Great, Alexander III of Macedon, and the leader who conquered Europe and half of Asia, he is known as a ruler who wasn't ruthless and included Greek culture in his rule, and he tried to tie the Greek culture and the culture's of the cities he conquered together. Alexander is believed not to have lost a single battle he fought, and that just proves the man's superiority physically and mentally. 


Historians say "Alexander was very intelligent, he was even tutored by the great philosopher Aristotle. While conquering the world, Alexander came across the great Gordian knot, which was untied for centuries, he just cut it." This quote will show a person Alexander's mental preparation and readiness for it all, and how his intelligence was the key to success on the battlefield.


After all this, I would like to conclude that Alexander the Great, was in fact great. He was truly unbeaten in battle, but he also helped the cultures and people he conquered. Instead of killing the opposing soldiers and devouring their food and wrecking the city down, he hired the soldiers for his own army, he also invested in cities he took over and advanced and improved their living standards. After all this being done, Alexander will keep his title as the Great, and forever it will last with him.

Article Summary - The Spartan Way

Roy Elal

Due: October 11, 2011

Ms. Moore

Humanities 8B

Article Summary #2

For over 200 years, Sparta was considered as the most powerful city-state in Ancient Greece, along with Athens. Its power came from the strong, tough, and professional army. Brutal training that the kids faced from the age of 7 made every man a warrior and the army one of the most-feared fighting forces ever.

 Athens was the birthplace of democracy and freedom. Great artists and thinkers built the foundations of Western culture. Sparta, on the other hand, was a secretive place run by an oligarchy (an oligarchy was a type of government in which the ruling power is in the hands of a couple of people). This city-state has been admired over the centuries for how they valued great discipline over everything else. Sparta also ruled ancient Greece between approximately 600 B.C. and 371 B.C. leaving an immense amount of history behind themselves.

The army consisted of all men above the age of 30, which is also the age when they become full Spartan citizens and are gifted the ability to vote. Sean Price claims, "About 10 percent of Spartan men were full citizens known as equals. Their job was to serve as soldiers in Sparta's army." (Price, 176) This is a very substantial fact, because it tell us that 90 percent of the population was not above the age of 30, that Spartan males die at a young age, and that most males are still in training as boys and young men. Also the women, they were not considered official citizens of Sparta. Boys that are above the age of 7 are forced to join the forces for training, so that when they grow up, they will also be a part of the sturdy Spartan army. When they are born, city elders come over for examination. If the baby was not healthy looking, or did not have a strong organism, they left it on a mountainside to die.

        Women in Sparta had much more freedom versus any other city-state in the whole entire Ancient Greece. They were allowed to move around, and didn't have to stay home all the time. They could own land, which was unacceptable in Athens. They could also do business. Such power was shocking to men from other city-states.

        When Sparta started to fall apart, and getting conquered by the Dorians, all the rituals also became forgotten, but they left a long history behind them, the history of the extroardinary Ancient Greece.

Price, Sean. "The Ancient Olympics." The Ancient World. 2010. Print.

Article Summary *MLA Format*

Roy Elal

Due: October 9th, 2011

Humanities 8

Ms. Moore

Article Summary 

           The number of legends describing the beginning of the first Olympic competition is unknown. According to the legend, the king Enamaus, had a beautiful daughter who's name was Hippodamia. He promised her in marriage, If she would go hiding and the first person to find her and escape in a chariot with her father chasing them would be her lawful husband. Thirteen men have tried and they all failed, and murdered by the king. Then Pelops, the fourteenth came along and survived, so he was the one who married the beautiful Hippodamia. Then he declared himself king, threw a party to celebrate his victory and to give thanks to the god of the gods... Zeus, thus introducing the first Olympic festival.

           The reward given to the winner of the Olympic competition was a wreath of olive branches and the blessing of a god. The competition was a 180 meter long run. The first one to be held was at 776 B.C.E. and eventually ended in 393 A.D., when the Greek empire collapsed. During that time period, 293 Olympic events were held.

Athletic Competitions at the Olympic festivals were limited to male Greek citizens, as viewers and participants. Foreigners, slaves, and women were banned from competition. Each participant had to sign the Olympic 'agreement', swearing he has trained for 10 months and hadn't done anything to offend he gods.

           Records show that boxing, wrestling, and pancratium competitions drew enormous crowds. It probably came from the strong hostilities between cities and tribes. Chariot races also were events that would thrill Olympic spectators. Theodore Knight, historian, claimed, "...the quadrigae - a race for light, two-wheeled chariots pulled by four horses. The distance of the race course was twelve laps around two columns at opposite ends of the hippodrome - about 10,000 meters, or six miles." (Knight, 170.) This is relevant because those Chariot races have been extremely important and sports that would hype up Ancient Greece, and they are basically the reason for the huge crowds at the Games. 

          Once the Ancient Greeks abnegated, that affected the Olympics, that was once the Roman Empire defeated Ancient Greece at around 100 B.C., and the Roman culture and beliefs replaced the Greek ways, and the Olympics went into a decline that lasted for several centuries. For the Romans, war and trade were more important than philosophy religion, or athletics then.

Frenchman Baron Pierre de Coubertin (1863 - 1937) was the man who revived the Olympic Games. Because of his enthusiastic efforts, the first modern Games were finally held in Athens, Greece in 1896.

Bibliography:

Knight, Theodore. "The Ancient Olympics." The Ancient World. 2010. Print.

Ancient Greek Values

Some of the most important values in the Ancient Greek civilizations were ingenuity, hospitality, loyalty, and respect. I believe they're also considered important in our time, because we meet them in our daily life basis (I hope.) Most people would say; "WOW! It's amazing how from around 3000 B.C.E., such qualities evolved among us and still exist today!" Well it's not. These are important values so of course we have them at our time. What is amazing is how they had it in their time, not how it lasted.
Ingenuity means skill or cleverness in devising or combining; Inventiveness, this is important because it helps us think of new ideas and make us "genius". In the story of Odysseus, ingenuity is the most common quality found along his journey, and his many adventures. He thinks of all these how to keep himself away from death, and how to help his sailors and crew get home safely. For example, when he met the Cyclops, he called himself 'Nobody' and when the Cyclops screamed "Nobody's escaping!" to his guards after he got stabbed in his eye, the guards didn't know he actually meant someone is escaping. So that part was filled with many exciting and creative ideas and secret plans of escaping, which represent ingenuity.
Another very critical Ancient Greek value shown in the excerpts is hospitality. Hospitality means kindness in welcoming strangers or guests (My definition of the word.) Circe greets them with a very nice manner, but then she changes them into pigs, and erases their memory from home, so that they don't know where their desire is to go, and where exactly their home is (in general, the spell made them forget about everything they were attempting to accomplish.) Although, it is very common in the Ancient Greek times to be very kind/neighborly, even if the people are your enemies, you still had to greet them nicely. All of this represents hospitality.
Loyalty and respect were also extremely important in those times, and the Greeks would always value their family and friends. 

In modern society, one can find ancient Greek values in many places in the world. The positive side of peoples always present the values.  Besides athleticism of course, not everyone is athletic, but the rest all people have. For example, hospitality, it relates much to being caring and friendly these days. You don't have to help every single homeless or poor person that walks by, because back then, there weren't really that many people that actually needed help.
Another Greek value that is very common today, is ingenuity. Many people think of ways to avoid a problem or to solve it, by being 'genius'... basically lies or just helping.

Minoans Vs. Mycanaeans

The Minoan civilization and Mycenaean civilization had many things that were alike. Mycenae was founded 300 years after the Minoan civilization was, and because of the fact 300 years is not a lot, they had many similarities, although the Mycenae was more advanced. For example, the water management. Both civilizations had drain pipes, and bathrooms, with bath tubs and flush able toilets! Although there were differences, the Minoans did not have any house security; door locks or bolts, since there were no theives or  wars. That means that Crete (home of the Minoans) was a very peaceful and calm place. Meanwhile, the Mycenaenas had big fortresses, bridges and walls, to protect themselves from war. 

In my opinion in even later Ancient Greece (Ancient Greece was there for VERY long,) the aspects that would have survived the break-through, would definitely be the cultural practices and the religious ways, since it was of course the people that practiced and owned it, and not that they were forced to or something, like in other cultures/religions. And the cultural styles would have also survived, because they were passed on by oral presentations.