Ancient Greek Terms: A Thucydides Glossary

Welcome! This glossary offers clear, concise definitions of key terms from ancient Greece, as presented in The Landmark Thucydides. You’ll find these terms essential for understanding the Peloponnesian War and the world of the ancient Greeks.

🏛️ Ancient Greek Terms Explained

⛰️ Acropolis

What it is: The highest point of a city.
What you’d find there: Temples, shrines, and public buildings.
Its purpose: It was a secure retreat during invasions, enclosed by its own walls.

🌬️ Aeolians

Who they were: Greeks who spoke the Aeolian dialect.
Where they lived: Boeotia, Thessaly, Lesbos, and a small part of northern Asia Minor’s coast.

🛍️ Agora

What it was: A Greek city’s central marketplace.
Its function: It served as the hub for commercial, social, and political activities.

⚖️ Archon

Who they were: Magistrates in Athens.
How they were chosen: By lot in the later fifth century.
Their duties: Administering justice, overseeing foreign residents, managing family property disputes, and more. The eponymous archon gave his name to the civil year.

🏺 Ceramicus

What it was: A district in Athens, both inside and outside the city wall.
Its residents: Potters lived and worked here.
Other features: It was also home to a significant and famous cemetery.

🔮 Delphic Oracle

What it was: A shrine to Apollo located at Delphi.
Its purpose: People consulted the god there as a prophet.
Its importance: It was the most crucial oracular shrine in the Greek world.

👥 Demos

Original meaning: Greeks living in villages (demes).
Later meaning (Athens): The common people, the most numerous body of citizens.
Political role: Often a strong political force (“The People” or “The Many“), contrasting nobles, oligarchs, or despots. In Democratic Athens, it also meant the entire citizen body.

🛡️ Dorians

Who they were: Greeks who spoke the Doric dialect.
Their culture: They shared distinct cultural, governmental, and religious features.
Where they lived: Mainly in southern Greek settlements like Sicily, Peloponnesus, Crete, Libya, Rhodes, and nearby islands.

💰 Drachma

What it was: A unit of Greek currency.
Its value: Six obols equaled one drachma; one hundred drachmas equaled a mina; six thousand drachmas (or sixty minas) equaled a talent.

🇬🇷 Hellenes

Who they were: Men of Hellas, of Greek descent and Greek-speaking.
Simply put: The Greeks.

⛓️ Helots

Who they were: The lowest class in the Spartan state.
Their status: Lived in oppressive, hereditary servitude, mostly involved in agriculture.
Where they lived: Throughout Laconia and Messenia.
Their situation: They outnumbered their masters significantly, who both feared and exploited them.

⚰️ Hermes

His roles: Messenger of the gods, escort of the dead, and a fertility figure.
Symbols of fertility: Hermae—stone columns with Hermes’ head at the top and an erect penis at the midpoint.
Their purpose: Placed in front of homes, likely as good-luck charms.

✍️ Homer

Who he was: A poet believed to have lived in the eighth century B.C.
Possible location: The Ionian coast.
His works: Author of the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey. These were widely known and familiar to almost all educated Greeks.

⚔️ Hoplite

Who they were: Heavily armed Greek foot soldiers.
Their equipment: Could afford bronze armor (helmet, breastplate, greaves), a heavy bronze shield, a spear, and a short iron sword.
Their fighting style: Fought in close rank and file, supporting each other.

🌊 Ionians

Who they were: Greeks who spoke the Ionic dialect.
Their culture: Shared distinct cultural, governmental, and religious features.
Athenian belief: Athenians believed Ionians originated in Athens and spread through early colonization to Ionia on Asia Minor’s central coast, forming a loose league of cities there.

🐎 Knights

Who they were: The second rank of Athenian citizens.
Their income: Annual income was between three and five hundred medimnoi of grain. (See Pentecosiomedimnoi, Zeugitae, and Thetes for other classes).

🗺️ Lacedaemon

What it was: The region of southeastern Peloponnesus governed by Sparta.
Usage in Thucydides: Terms like “Lacedaemon,” “Lacedaemonian,” and “Lacedaemonians” were used almost interchangeably with “Sparta,” “Spartan,” and “Spartans.”

⚔️ Mede

Greek term for Persians: Greeks often called Persians “the Mede” or “the Medes.”
Persian Wars: The Persian Wars were referred to as the “Median Wars.”
Important note: The Medes and Persians were distinct but related peoples.

🧺 Medimnos

What it was: An Attic dry measure.
Its quantity: Approximately twelve gallons.
Example: Pentecosiomedimnoi were Athenian citizens whose annual income was five hundred medimnoi of grain or more.

🤝 Medism

What it meant: Greeks who submitted to, joined, or assisted the Persians.
The accusation: They were accused of “Medism” or of having “Medized.”

🌍 Metics, Resident Aliens

Who they were: Inhabitants of Athens who were not citizens.
Their rights: They could not own land.
Their obligations: They were subject to special taxes and military service. Many worked in commerce.

💰 Mina

What it was: A unit of currency.
Its value: Worth one hundred drachmas. Sixty minae equaled one talent.

🎖️ Neodamodeis

Who they were: A special military class created by Sparta.
Their numbers: Seemingly increased over time.
Their status: Their exact status is unknown, but most scholars believe they were not made full citizens, despite the name’s implication.

🪙 Obol

What it was: A small unit of Greek currency.
Its value: Six obols equaled one drachma.

🗳️ Ostracism

What it was: A formal Athenian procedure for banishing a citizen.
Its duration: For ten years, without loss of property or citizenship.
How it worked: If chosen for a vote, the citizen receiving the most votes, and a total of at least 6,000 votes (noted on pottery shards called ostraka), was ostracized.

🎶 Paean

What it was: A ritual chant.
When it was sung: By Greek soldiers and sailors as they advanced into battle, rallied, or celebrated victory.

🎉 Panathenaea

What it was: An Athenian festival celebrating Athena’s birthday.
Activities: Included games, sacrifices, and processions (along the Panathenaic Way from the Ceramicus to the Acropolis).
Frequency: Celebrated yearly, with exceptional grandeur every fourth year (the Great Panathenaea).

🚢 Paralus

What it was: One of two special Athenian state triremes.
Its use: Used for sacred embassies and official business. (The other was the Salaminia).

🏃 Peltasts

Who they were: Lightly armed soldiers.
Their fighting style: Fought without formation from a distance, throwing javelins or other missiles.
Their name: Derived from the small, light shield they carried.

🌾 Pentecosiomedimnoi

Who they were: Athenian citizens of the highest economic class.
Their income: Annual income equaled or exceeded five hundred medimnoi of grain.
Other classes: Below them were Knights (300-500 medimnoi), Zeugitae (200-300 medimnoi), and Thetes (less than 200 medimnoi).

🏘️ Perioikoi

Who they were: People who “lived around Sparta.”
Their obligations: Paid taxes to Sparta and served in the Spartan army.
Their rights: Did not participate in Spartan government or enjoy full Spartan citizen rights.

💂 Peripoli

What they were: A special military corps.
Their role: Perhaps young recruits serving as a frontier guard.

🗣️ Pnyx

What it was: The hill where the Athenian assembly met.
Its purpose: To conduct its deliberations.

🤝 Proxenus

Who they were: A citizen residing in their own state.
Their role: Served as a “friend or representative” of a foreign state, much like a modern honorary consul.

📜 Pythia

Who she was: The priestess who conveyed Apollo’s prophecies at Delphi.

⛵ Salaminia

What it was: One of two special Athenian state triremes.
Its use: Used for sacred embassies and official business. (The other was the Paralus).

💪 Spartiate

Who they were: A full citizen of Sparta.
Their status: A member of Sparta’s highest citizen elite.

📏 Stade

What it was: A unit of distance. Our word “stadium” comes from this.
Measurements: The Attic stade was 607 feet long; the Olympic stade was 630.8 feet.

🏗️ Stoa

What it was: A shed-like structure.
Its design: One open side with a roof supported by columns.

💰 Talent

What it was: A large unit of currency.
Its value: Equal to sixty minae or six thousand drachmas.

impoverished Thetes

Who they were: The lowest rank of Athenian citizens.
Their income: Annual income was less than two hundred medimnoi of grain. (See Pentecosiomedimnoi, Knights, and Zeugitae for other classes).

🛶 Thranitae

Who they were: The uppermost bank of rowers in a trireme.

🚣 Zeugitae

Who they were: The middle bank of rowers in a trireme.
Their status: Also Athenian citizens of middling status.
Their income: Annual income was between two and three hundred medimnoi of grain. (See Pentecosiomedimnoi, Knights, and Thetes for other classes).

📚 Bibliography

Strassler, Robert B., editor. The Landmark Thucydides – A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War. Free Press, 1998.