Fun Facts
Tools of Ancient Greeks:
A Kid's Guide to the History & Science of Life in Ancient Greece

Early ideas of democracy were first introduced into the governments of Ancient Greece.

Ancient Greek jurors voted at trials by anonymously dropping a metal disc into a ballot box—if the disc was solid, that meant “innocent,” and if the disc had a hole in the middle, that meant “guilty.”

The ancient Greeks preferred their drinks chilled, so they stored their beverages in containers underground. While this worked reasonably well, those who could afford it used ice, which mule trains hauled from the mountains into the city on a daily basis.

Instead of being written down, literature of Ancient Greece was told aloud by performers, like the theatre today.

Aesop, the famous writer of fables, was from ancient Greece!

The Greeks had created an analog COMPUTER to track the movement of the planets and stars!

According to one story, ancient Greeks overcame the pain of gout (a painful foot inflammation) by standing on electric eels until their feet were numb.

Ancient Greece was a collection of over 1,000 independent settlements called city-states.

If an audience disliked a play or performance in ancient Greece, they expressed their dissatisfaction by throwing food and rocks at the performers!

Immediately after Archimedes discovered the principle of buoyancy in the bathtub, he ran naked through the streets of Syracuse, shouting "Eureka! Eureka!" ("I have found it! I have found it!").

The Greeks invented the Olympic Games in 776 BCE, over 2500 years ago. The honor of winning sporting events was so great that some victorious athletes were given free meals for the rest of their lives!

Women could not compete in the Olympics or even watch. Unmarried girls were allowed to attend the games, but any married woman found in the stadium was supposed to be punished by being thrown off Mount Typaeum.

The five intertwined rings of the Olympic flag represent the unity of the five continents. The white background symbolizes the field and the colors of the rings—red, blue, green, yellow, and black—were carefully chosen so that every nation had at least one of the colors in their flag.

When Greek mathematicians first proved that the square root of two is an irrational number, they celebrated by sacrificing 100 oxen.

We use Greek gods to name all sorts of things today—Nike Shoes gets their name from Nike, the Greek goddess of triumph and victory. Think about Amazon.com, Midas mufflers (after the king who could turn all that he touched into gold!), Olympus cameras, and even Ajax bathroom cleanser.

When Cronos, leader of the Titans, worried that his children would take power away from him, he swallowed all of his kids to protect his position—except his son Zeus, who later became king of all the gods.

The trial of Socrates had a jury of over 500 men!