--- title: Ancient Greece: democracy, the Olympics, myths and thinkers — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Ancient Greece: democracy, the Olympics, myths and thinkers», a lesson of the history course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: About 2,500 years ago the citizens of Athens met on a hill and voted on laws, war and peace themselves. --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/) / Ancient Greece: democracy, the Olympic… # Ancient Greece: democracy, the Olympics, myths and thinkers Lesson 12 of the history course of Mova's primary school: 20 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/0/) — About 2,500 years ago the citizens of Athens met on a hill and voted on laws, war and peace themselves. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/1/) — They called it democracy, rule by the people, though women, slaves and foreigners could not vote. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/2/) — Think of a class vote on where to go for the school trip: everyone with a vote has a say, and the side with more hands wins. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/3/) — Athens did that for a whole city, and could even vote to send a too-powerful politician away for ten years. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/4/) — The Greeks also gave us the Olympic Games, the theatre, and a world of myths about Zeus, Athena and heroes like Heracles, which were real religion to them, not just stories like Percy Jackson. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/5/) — Their thinkers asked big questions: Socrates by asking question after question, Aristotle by studying everything, Archimedes in his bath, and Hippocrates by teaching that illness has natural causes. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/6/) — Then Alexander the Great carried Greek ideas from Egypt to India. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/7/) — Democracy means rule by the people; in Athens, about 2,500 years ago, citizens met on a hill to vote on laws and on war and peace. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/8/) — In Athens women, slaves and foreigners could not vote. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/9/) — Once a year Athenians could vote to send a too-powerful politician away for ten years by scratching his name on a bit of broken pottery called an ostrakon; this is called ostracism. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/10/) — The Olympic Games began in 776 BC at Olympia in honour of Zeus, with running, wrestling, the discus and chariot races, and wars paused so people could travel safely. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/11/) — Ancient Olympic winners got a crown of olive leaves, not gold medals, and only men could compete; the modern Olympics began in 1896. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/12/) — The Greeks believed in many gods living on Mount Olympus, such as Zeus the king, Hera, Poseidon of the sea and Athena of wisdom, who behaved a lot like quarrelsome humans; the wild god Pan was said to fill people with sudden fear, which gave us the word panic. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/13/) — Greek myths tell of heroes like Heracles with his twelve labours, Perseus and Medusa, and Theseus and the Minotaur; modern films and books, like Disney's Hercules or Percy Jackson, change these old myths a lot to make new stories. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/14/) — The Greeks invented theatre, with comedies and tragedies performed in great open-air theatres by actors wearing masks. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/15/) — Socrates taught by asking questions about what is good, fair and true, which often showed that important people knew less than they thought, and he was put on trial and sentenced to death for upsetting powerful people. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/16/) — Plato, Socrates' pupil, wrote about the ideal city; Aristotle, Plato's pupil, studied everything from animals to poetry and logic. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/17/) — Pythagoras studied triangles, Archimedes discovered how things float and shouted Eureka, and Eratosthenes measured the size of the Earth with shadows. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/18/) — Hippocrates, called the father of medicine, taught that illness has natural causes, not punishments from the gods. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/12-ancient-greece-democracy-olympics-myths-and-thinkers/19/) — Alexander of Macedon, taught by Aristotle, conquered a huge empire from Greece to Egypt and India before he died at 32, and founded Alexandria in Egypt. - ← previous: [Ancient Greece: city-states, Athens and Sparta](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/11-ancient-greece-city-states-athens-and-sparta/) - next →: [Rome: from a town on seven hills to a republic](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/13-rome-from-seven-hills-to-a-republic/) - ↑ back to [History](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/history/)