Kalimera, sixth graders! (That's "good morning" in Greek, and yes, it will be on the quiz.)

Welcome to the home page for our ancient Greece unit. My name is Mr. Koroneos and I have been teaching sixth grade social studies for eleven years, and this is, every single year, my favorite month. My grandparents came from a village near Sparta, so I am a little bit biased, but I will do my best to give Athens a fair hearing.

This page has everything you need for the unit: the calendar for October, the study guide, the gods, the alphabet, the city-states, the Olympics, and the menu for Greek Day on Friday, October 29th. Parents, please scroll down to the Greek Day section, because I need your help with the food. If you lose your paper copy of anything, it's here. No more excuses. (I'm kidding. I'm mostly kidding.)

Bring your study guide to class every day. It's below if you lost it.

Ancient Greece was never one country the way the United States is one country. It was a collection of city-states (the Greek word is polis): a city plus the farmland around it, with its own government, its own army and its own way of doing things. They shared a language, a religion and the Olympic Games, and they spent a great deal of time fighting each other. The two most famous are Athens and Sparta, and they could hardly have been more different.

Athens and Sparta fought side by side against the Persians (the Battle of Marathon, 490 BC, was an Athenian victory; the 300 Spartans at the pass of Thermopylae, 480 BC, died holding off the Persian army). Then they fought each other, for 27 years, in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC). Sparta won. Neither city was ever quite as strong again.

The word democracy comes from two Greek words: demos (the people) and kratos (power, rule). Athens is where the idea got started, around 508 BC, under a leader named Cleisthenes. Here's how it worked, and how it was different from ours:

• It was a direct democracy. Athenian citizens didn't elect representatives to vote for them; they went to the Assembly themselves and voted on laws and on whether to go to war. Thousands of men on a hillside, shouting. Our democracy is a representative one; we elect people to go to Washington and vote for us.
• Many officials were chosen by lottery (drawing names) rather than by election, because the Athenians thought any citizen should be able to serve.
• A jury could have hundreds of jurors. Ours has twelve.
• Here is the big catch: "citizen" meant free adult men whose parents were Athenian. Women could not vote. Slaves could not vote. People born somewhere else could not vote, even if they had lived in Athens all their lives. So when we say Athens was a democracy, we have to remember that most of the people living there had no say at all.

The Greeks believed in many gods who lived on top of Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in Greece. The gods acted a lot like people: they fell in love, got jealous, played tricks, and lost their tempers. Here are the twelve you need to know for the test. (Your poster is on one of them, your choice; first come, first served, and no, you may not all pick Zeus.)

Also good to know: Hades, brother of Zeus and Poseidon, ruled the underworld (the land of the dead) and generally stayed down there instead of on Olympus. And Hestia, goddess of the hearth and home, is sometimes counted among the twelve instead of Dionysus. Different Greeks made different lists. That's allowed.

The word "alphabet" comes from the first two Greek letters, alpha and beta. The Greeks borrowed their letters from the Phoenicians, a trading people from what is now Lebanon, and added something the Phoenicians didn't have: vowels. Our own alphabet comes from the Roman one, and the Romans got theirs from the Greeks. There are 24 letters. You need to be able to write your name in Greek letters for the quiz on Friday, October 8th. Uppercase is fine.

Fun fact: you already know some of these. Math class uses pi (π) for circles, and a delta (Δ) is the triangle shape of a river mouth. And when somebody says "from alpha to omega," now you know they mean from A to Z.

The ancient Olympic Games were held at Olympia, in the western Peloponnese, in honor of Zeus, once every four years. The traditional date for the first Games is 776 BC, which is the date the Greeks themselves used for counting years afterward. They went on for over a thousand years. Some things to know:

• A truce was declared throughout Greece so athletes and spectators could travel to Olympia safely, even if their cities were at war. (The wars started right back up afterward.)
• Only free Greek men could compete. Married women were not even allowed to watch.
• Events included foot races (the oldest event was a single-length sprint of the stadium, the stadion), wrestling, boxing, the pentathlon (running, jumping, discus, javelin and wrestling), chariot racing, and the pankration, a very rough combination of boxing and wrestling that I will not be including in our class Olympics.
• Athletes competed without clothes. Yes. Really. Get it out of your system now.
• Winners got a wreath of olive leaves, not a gold medal, and a hero's welcome back home. There were no second or third places.

The modern Olympics started in 1896 in Athens, and the next ones are next year, in Sydney, Australia, in September 2000. Our class Olympics on Friday, October 22nd will feature a foot race, a standing long jump, a (foam) discus throw and a (foam) javelin. Wreaths will be provided. Clothing is required.

The Acropolis is the big flat-topped rock in the middle of Athens. ("Acro" means high; "polis" means city.) On top of it the Athenians built their most important temples, and the greatest of them is the Parthenon, a temple to Athena, the city's protector. It was built between about 447 and 432 BC, during the time we call the Golden Age of Athens, when the leader Pericles was spending the city's money on making Athens beautiful.

It is made of white marble. It had 46 columns around the outside in the plain, sturdy style called Doric. Inside stood a giant statue of Athena covered in gold and ivory, which is long gone. The building is still standing after almost 2,500 years, though it was badly damaged in 1687 when gunpowder being stored inside it exploded during a war. Many of its carved marble sculptures are today in a museum in London, and Greece would very much like them back. We'll talk about that in class, because it's a real argument that's still going on.

Look closely at a picture of the Parthenon: the columns lean slightly inward and bulge slightly in the middle, and the floor curves up a little in the center. The builders did this on purpose, so that from a distance the building would look perfectly straight. The Greeks were very, very good at this sort of thing.

On the last Friday of the unit we turn Room 14 into a Greek agora (marketplace). Students come in costume (a white bedsheet and a rope belt is a perfectly good chiton; please, no safety pins near necks), the posters go up, we hold a short Assembly and vote on something important (last year: whether to have an extra recess; it passed), and then we eat.

Parents, this is where I need you. Please sign up for one item by e-mail or on the sheet outside the classroom. We need enough for 27 students and a few hungry teachers. Everything should be ready to eat, no heating needed, and please label anything with nuts.

Mr. Koroneos's mother's honey cakes (the easy version): Cream 1/2 cup butter with 1/2 cup honey. Beat in 2 eggs and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Stir in 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and a pinch of salt. Drop by spoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes, until the edges are golden. While still warm, brush with a little more honey and sprinkle with chopped walnuts if you like (label them!). Makes about 3 dozen. My mother would add that you should also say a prayer over them, but that part is optional for school.

The unit test is Thursday, October 28th. It will have a map section, matching (gods and symbols), short answers and one paragraph. If you can answer everything below, you are ready. If you can't, come see me at lunch any day that week.

1. Find and label on a blank map: Greece, Athens, Sparta, Olympia, Mount Olympus, the Aegean Sea, the island of Crete, the Peloponnese.
2. What is a city-state (polis)? Why did Greece develop as many small city-states instead of one big country? (Hint: look at the map.)
3. Give three differences between Athens and Sparta.
4. What does "democracy" mean, and where do the two parts of the word come from?
5. How was Athenian democracy different from ours? (Two ways.) Who was NOT allowed to vote in Athens?
6. Match twelve gods to what they were in charge of and one symbol each.
7. When were the first Olympic Games (traditional date), where were they held, and in whose honor? What did a winner receive?
8. What is the Parthenon, where is it, and to whom was it dedicated?
9. Write your first name in Greek letters. Name the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.
10. Who fought in the Persian Wars? Name one battle. Who fought in the Peloponnesian War, and who won?
11. Paragraph: Would you rather have grown up in Athens or Sparta? Give at least three reasons using facts from the unit. (You already wrote this one. Read it over.)

Bonus (worth 2 points): what does "kalimera" mean?