- Zesus - King of Gods
- Posideon - God of seas
- Hades - God of underworld
- Hera - Queen of Gods
- Persephone - Queen of underworld
- Ares - God of war
- Hermes - Messenger to the gods
- Apollo - God of the light and sun
- Artemis - Goddess of hunting and the moon
- Athena - Goddess of wisdom
- Hestia - Goddess of health and home
- Demeter - Goddess of the harvest
- Aphrodite - Goddess of love and beauty
- Hephaestus - God of fire and forge
- Eros - God of love
- Kerberos - Guard of the underworld
- Pegasus - the flying horse
- Hercules - Performing impossible tasks
- Odysseus - Thought of the Trojan Horse and journey to underworld (Odyssey)
- Jason - Collecting the golden fleece
- Theseus - Killed the minotaur
- Achilles - The almost invulnerable warrior
All these legends are remembered and are continued to be taught in the modern world, about 2500 years after it happened! The Greeks also were a great time for inventions, the Greeks brought such as the Olympics, theater, architecture and the roots of democracy. The architecture from the Greeks has lasted as long as the legends, the buildings are now Greece's heritage and a huge tourist attraction. The Olympics have also lasted the test of time, however have been modified as women and other countries now compete in the many sports that are held. Also the different countries can host the Olympics, such as the United Kingdom in 2012. Athens had the first democracy in history, in that the Athenians all had votes to pass laws, however,women, slaves, the poor and anyone under the age of 30 couldn't vote. Clearly it has been improved in the 2500 years of democracies being used. The Greek theater is another part in history that is very important to my specialist subject, photography, as it was the first way a audience could view a story. The Greek theater was very simple, performing only comedy and tragedies and were performed in a amphitheater, however, there was no scenery, no actresses, no action (it was all spoken) and the actors wore masks and high platform-like shoes so they could be seen. The Greek plays were invented by a poet called Aeschylus and a famous Greek playwright was Euripides
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| Parthenon, temple built for Athena in the Acropolis |
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| Statue of Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty |
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| Amphitheater in Epidaurus, |
Ancient Greek Photography
The history of photography doesn't start during the Victorian era as many would assume it did, it was actually invented in by the ancient Greeks! It was a camera obscura, a kind of pinhole camera. It was Aristotle that understood the principle of the camera obscura in 350 BC. He noted the way light traveled through things such as leaves, the holes in sieves showed a reverse of items. The camera obscura was normally a box or large room that had a small hole on one side. A bright scene would be 'projected' through the hole and shown in reverse against a wall/blank side. After this was normally traced by the 'photographer'. This would be the initial principles of the modern day camera, however pinhole is still used today, but with light sensitive paper instead of tracing the image.
Below is a video extract from the BBC television series Horrible Histories, it is a song about some of the inventions that the Greeks created. It is called "I'm a Greek".
Sources:
- http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/gods/explore/exp_set.htl
- http://www.ancientgreece.co.uk/acropolis/explore/exp_set.html
- http://greece.mrdonn.org/achievements.html
- http://greece.mrdonn.org/greekgods/index.html
- http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/heroes/tp/TopHeroes.htm
- http://www.ancientgreece.com/s/Theatre/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_obscura
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxOANJ-sSu0&feature=related
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