... , it was well known, were violent beings and since they lived and died by the simple code "help your friends and hurt your enemies- it was only to be expected that their revenges, when they felt themselves unjustly treated, would be huge and deadly. The epic poems [i.e., Homer's Iliad and Odyssey] do not really question Achilles' right to bring destruction on the Greek army to avenge Agamemnon's insults, nor Odysseus ... ' slaughter of the entire younger generation of the Ithacan aristocracy. Sophocles' Ajax sees nothing wrong in his attempt to kill the commanders of the army for denying ...

• Word Count: 1681
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

... is a lot like our democracy today, which is a representative democracy. The Athenians had a direct democracy, where the people had even more power than us in America. Education/Military Service Education was highly valued in Athens. The schools taught reading, writing, grammar, poetry, music, and gymnastics. Poetry, like Homer's famous Iliad and Odyssey, was learned by heart. And this was only in elementary! Men called Sophists (which means wise ... ), opened schools for older boys. Here the students learned, poetry, government, ethics, math, rhetoric and other things. Rhetoric was the s...

• Word Count: 1371
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... tree that Zeus gave the city to Athena, and named it after her. The Greeks also built the Acropolis, with its centerpiece consisting of the Parthenon, a temple made to honor Athena. Athena character is represented differently in the Iliad and the Odyssey. In the Iliad, written by the poet Homer, Athena is portrayed as a fierce and ruthless warrior goddess, who takes pleasure in war and fighting. In the Odyssey, also written by Homer, Athena is still very ... powerful, but only fights to defend the State. She showed wisdom, purity, and reason, as well as the the patron of the handicrafts...

• Word Count: 1509
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School