What historians typically designate as the ancient Greek period are the years between 1000 B.C. and 323 B.C. when Alexander the Great died or through the 3rd century C.E., when the Christian era began. The legacy of Greek civilization was greatly influential to the succeeding Roman Empire and to subsequent western cultures. 
This period in Greek history was not all calm, however. The many city-states that comprised the Greek culture were allies when having to defend themselves from external forces but could also become enemies of one another in their efforts to attain a dominant role among the Greek league of states. It was during this time that the Greeks fought the Peloponnesian War, wherein Athens and Sparta vied for supremacy in the region. The Spartans prevailed but, weakened by the war and an unhappy population, were soon defeated by another Greek population, the Thebans. The Thebans in turn were overcome by the Macedonian, as was the rest of the Greek league, with the rise of Philip II of Macedon and later his son, Alexander the Great.
Greece is a land of hard limestone mountains and deep valleys cut almost in two by the Corinthian Gulf. To the east the mainland is continued by islands, to the south by the greater island of Crete. Even including the islands, Greece is a small country that has never had more than a few million inhabitants. However, it has always played an important role in the history of Western civilization. Bound by the Ionian and Aegean seas, the Greeks have long been a maritime people, reliant on maritime trade and mobility to prosper. In ancient Greece central control over every district was difficult because areas were separated from one another by mountains or the sea. This largely determined the political make-up of ancient Greece, which was composed of city-states that continually sought to increase their boundaries to accommodate their inhabitants. The isolated nature of the city-states did not stem the flow of ideas, however, particularly aesthetic and philosophical ones, and ancient Greece gave rise to a rich tradition of thought.
During the Classical period of Greece’s history, Athens reached great heights in politics and culture. This was the period during which Pericles developed his democratic ideas, Sophocles, Aeschylus, and Euripedes wrote their great tragedies and Socrates and Plato set up their great philosophy schools.
Through philosophers such as Socrates the Greeks disseminated ideas about man’s existence and search for knowledge. Socrates’ questioning philosophy and his belief in the rational human mind guided other philosophers and established a fundamental base to western philosophical thought.
The Ancient Greek tradition in politics and the growing influence of these ideas throughout Western Civilization would eventually form the foundations of the democratic systems prevalent today. These political ideas, combined with their philosophical explorations of the human experience and the premise that liberty was a fundamental right for the individual - also found its representation in future political ideology. Just as a Greek inhabitant would have detested the thought of being subject to external powers, so his own circle a man claimed for himself the freedom to do all he was capable of in order to realize his full potential within society. Freedom of speech and freedom of movement were fundamental rights, the belief in freedom sustained by a deep respect for personal honor, nurtured by a love for action.
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The Greeks also had at their disposal a wonderfully subtle, expressive and adaptable language, and they made full use of it. Poetry was given a high place in the cultural life of the Greeks, evoking as much respect and admiration as the visual arts. A poet, said the philosopher Socrates, was “a light and winged and holy thing.” If a person had something important to say he often said it in verse - which would have meant that he said it in song, for almost all Greek poetry was originally sung or spoken with music. | |||||||||||
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Artaphernes selected the Plains of Marathon, twenty-two miles to the northeast of Athens, as the place of his final landing. His forces, by the lowest estimate, consisted of one hundred and fifty thousand men, of which ten thousand were cavalry. To these were opposed the army of Athens and its allies, consisting in all of ten thousand men. The battle-ground forms an irregular crescent, six miles long and two broad in its widest part. It is bounded on one side by the sea, and on the other by a rampart of mountains. At the time of the battle the extremities of the plain were flanked by swamps, diminishing the extent of the front, and hampering the operations of the larger army. The command of the Greek army had been intrusted to ten generals, who ruled successively one day each. Themistocles, one of these generals, resigned his day in favor of Miltiades, and all the others followed his example. And so the battle was set, ten thousand
On the morning of the tenth day after leaving Athens, Miltiades drew up his army in order of battle. He was obliged to perilously weaken his center in order to confront the whole of the Persian army, so as to avoid the danger of being outflanked and surrounded. The Greeks began the battle by a furious attack along the whole line, endeavoring to close in a hand-to-hand conflict as soon as possible, so as to avoid the deadly arrows of the Persians, and to take the advantage of their heavier arms. The Persians were greatly astonished when they saw this little band rushing against them with such a headlong dash, and thought that the Greeks must have been seized with madness. The Persian general had concentrated his forces at the center, and at this part of the battle-field the fiery onset of Greeks was checked by mere weight of numbers. But at length the mighty Persian force moved irresistibly forward, forcing the Greeks slowly backward, fighting, dying, but never yielding. Soon the Greek army were cut in two, and the Persians marched proudly onward to assured victory.
But the battle was not yet over. The genius of Miltiades had anticipated this result. The wings of the Greek army, strengthened at the expense of the center, fell upon the weakened wings of the Persians with irresistable onset. The invaders were forced back step by step, the retreat soon changing into a wild and promiscuous rout, and two thirds of the Persian army ceased to exist as a fighting force. The victorious Greeks now turned their attention to the Persian
