**Chronology:**
– Classical antiquity in the Mediterranean region began in the 8th century BC.
– The Greek Dark Ages spanned from c.1200 – c.800 BC.
– The Archaic Period started around the 8th century BC.
– The Classical Period lasted from the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC until Alexander the Great’s death in 323 BC.
– The Hellenistic period extended from 323–146 BC.
**Historiography:**
– Ancient Greece is the first period attested directly in comprehensive historiography.
– Herodotus is known as the father of history.
– Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, and Aristotle succeeded Herodotus.
– Athenian or pro-Athenian authors dominate ancient Greek historical writings.
– The focus of ancient Greek historiography is primarily on political, military, and diplomatic history.
**History:**
– The archaic period lasted from approximately 800 to 500 BC.
– The city-state became the primary unit of political organization in Greece during the archaic period.
– The absence of powerful states in Greece after the collapse of Mycenaean power led to the rise of small independent city-states.
– Greek colonies were founded around the Mediterranean in the archaic period.
– Athens developed its democratic system during the archaic period.
**Classical Greece:**
– Ionian city states rebelled against Persian rule in 499 BC.
– Athenians and Eretrians supported the Ionian revolt.
– Athenians defeated the Persians at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC.
– Second invasion by Xerxes in 480 BC.
– Persians were defeated at the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC.
**Legacy of Ancient Greece:**
– Greek culture influenced Western civilization.
– Contributions in philosophy, mathematics, and arts.
– Democratic principles originated in Athens.
– Olympic Games originated in ancient Greece.
– Greek mythology continues to inspire literature and arts.
Ancient Greece (Greek: Ἑλλάς, romanized: Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity (c. 600 AD), that comprised a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and other territories. Most of these regions were officially unified only once, for 13 years, under Alexander the Great's empire from 336 to 323 BC. In Western history, the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period.
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Three centuries after the Late Bronze Age collapse of Mycenaean Greece, Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and the colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the age of Classical Greece, from the Greco-Persian Wars to the 5th to 4th centuries BC, and which included the Golden Age of Athens. The conquests of Alexander the Great spread Hellenistic civilization from the western Mediterranean to Central Asia. The Hellenistic period ended with the conquest of the eastern Mediterranean world by the Roman Republic, and the annexation of the Roman province of Macedonia in Roman Greece, and later the province of Achaea during the Roman Empire.
Classical Greek culture, especially philosophy, had a powerful influence on ancient Rome, which carried a version of it throughout the Mediterranean and much of Europe. For this reason, Classical Greece is generally considered the cradle of Western civilization, the seminal culture from which the modern West derives many of its founding archetypes and ideas in politics, philosophy, science, and art.