Ancient Greece was not one country. The Greeks lived in city-states. They called a city-state a polis. Many poleis stood in Greece. Mountains cover 80 percent of Greece. Only small rivers run through its rocky land. That makes farming hard. The mainland is a peninsula. The Mediterranean Sea is on three sides of it. Many islands, including Crete, belong to Greece.

Around 507 BCE, an Athenian leader named Cleisthenes brought in a new form of government. Today it is recognized as democracy. Athens had the first known democracy in the world. Citizens voted on laws themselves. They met in a meeting called the Assembly. Only men who were citizens, aged 18 or over, could vote. Women, foreigners and enslaved people could not. Enslaved people made up a large part of the people of Athens.

The Assembly was not the only part of the government. A council of 500 citizens prepared the business for the Assembly. They were chosen by lot, which means by chance. They were not chosen by election. They served for one year. Athenians also had a way to send a citizen away. This was called ostracism. They could vote to send a citizen out of Athens for 10 years. Voters scratched a name on a piece of broken pottery called an ostrakon.

Above the city rose a hill called the Acropolis. In 447 BCE, the Athenians began a big building project. It was led by Pericles. Over the next forty years it put up marble buildings on the Acropolis. They included the Parthenon, the Propylaea and the Erechtheum. The Parthenon is a temple for the goddess Athena. It was built between 447 and 432 BCE.

The Parthenon looks perfectly straight. Yet it contains no straight lines and no right angles. Its builders gave long horizontal lines a slight upward curve. That way they would not seem to sag. Its marble looks white today. But the Parthenon sculptures were once painted in vivid colours. Most Greek sculpture was painted, not polished.

The ancient Olympic Games were held every four years. They were held at Olympia, in the western Peloponnese. The first event was a footrace. A winner got a crown, or wreath, of olive leaves. The athletes competed naked. Later the Games added chariot races, wrestling, boxing and the discus. They added the javelin and a five-part contest called the pentathlon. They also added the pankration, a mix of boxing and wrestling.

The Olympic Games were revived in 1896. The first modern Games were held in Athens. A new race was added for those Games. It was the marathon. It was inspired by the story of a messenger who ran from the plain of Marathon to Athens. In 490 BCE the Athenians beat a Persian army at Marathon. The first marathon was won by a Greek. His name was Spiridon Louis.

Words to know

• polis: Greek city-state
• democracy: rule by citizens
• ostracism: sending away
• wreath: ring of leaves
• marathon: long race