greetings mother factors my name is Sam
ancient god of facts today we are taking
a true me to ancient Greece I mean not
really I'd need a time machine for that
Plus Jared Butler would probably kick me
down a well as soon as I got there so
not great sorry to disappoint but how
did the Spartans train their soldiers
why were Athenian voters covered in red
paint and how do I become a Greek god
honestly I'll do the paperwork and
everything even though I'm not Greek to
utter 3 those questions are going to be
answered so coat yourself in olive oil
and grab a phalanx of your closest mates
because it's time for 101 facts about
ancient Greece number one this video may
well be about ancient Greece but Greece
itself as a unified country didn't
really exist
that is until philip ii of macedon swept
through on his horses and conquered
everybody in the third century number
two the ancient test of the ancient
Greeks were the Minoans they were around
between 2600 BC and 1100 BC or as
experts call it a really long time ago
number 3 the Minoans were named after
the mythical King Minos of Crete most of
the stories about his rule are thought
to be fictional mainly because of things
like his son apparently being the
Minotaur kind of stretches the realms of
believability if you ask me
number 4 around 1100 BC the Minoans were
wiped out from the myceneans who became
the preeminent civilization in Greece
until the end of the Bronze Age in the
8th century number 5 the myceneans did a
bunch of cool stuff actually like making
terrible looking suits of armor and
forming one of the very first alphabets
on record called the linear' be not that
kind of B number 6 though we know the
myceneans disappeared suddenly at the
end of the 8th century BC experts aren't
entirely sure why they did the top
theories that they were killed out by
tribe could the Dorian's but others
blame the sudden collapse on earthquakes
disease and of course aliens remember
what I said earlier about the realms of
believability yeah let's smash those
shall we
number 7 most of what people associate
with ancient Greece like philosophy
democracy hoplite warfare comes from the
Classical period the Classical period by
the way is between the 5th and 4th
centuries BC number 8 throughout this
period Greece was actually made up of
several independent city-states
most famous of these are Athens Corinth
Phoebus and of course the crazy crazy
Spartans number nine Athens were named
after the Athena supposedly because the
goddess gifted them with an olive tree
it's that all it takes to get a city
named after you
sounds like a great deal I'm gonna throw
some olives at Ipswich and see they
named themselves after me now number 10
Athena was the goddess of wisdom and one
of the Greek pantheon of Olympian gods
how brainy was she well she was
literally born out of Zeus his head
because I guess that's how Greeks
thought smart people were made whereas
actually you know it was as you can
probably imagine Greek myths got pretty
weird it sent it around the worship of
one family of gods all of whom lived
together on Mount Olympus mmm I smell a
sitcom number 12
unlike the perfect deities worshipped in
most religions the Greek gods were
basically a bunch of super-powered frat
bros Zeus in particular like to
shape-shift into animals like bulls and
swans and then make sweet sweet love to
mortals number 13 weird side fact for
you the daughter of Swann Zeus actually
ended up being Helen of Troy you know
the woman so beautiful she helped cause
the Trojan War
apparently Swann plus woman equals
beautiful who'd a thunk number 14
Zeus though wasn't only the god of
playing the field hanno apollo once
promised Cassandra the ability to see
the future if she slept with him but he
gave her the power first so then she
refused to sleep with him in somewhat of
an overreaction in return Apollo cursed
her so that she could see the future but
if she told anybody nobody would ever
believe her which you think she be able
to see that coming no number 15 we're
not sleeping around the gods love to
dish out extreme punishments for
instance a human called Arachne once
beat Athena in a weaving competition our
react nice prize was well you can I can
guess from the name but she was turned
into a spider by Athena what a sore
loser number 16 another harsh punishment
came from the aforementioned minor tour
King - once pray to Poseidon god of the
sea for a bull to sacrifice to him the
God obliged what - like the Bulls so
much he decided to keep it
this ticked Poseidon right off number 17
so beside indeed what anyone would do
cursed
his wife to fall in love with the bull
and conceived a child with it that child
was the Minotaur who - ashamedly hid in
his labyrinth number 18 in case you're
wondering how a woman in a bull were
able to do the deed the Greek inventor
died Ellis fashioned her a hollow bull
shaped wooden frame the Queen crawled
inside lured the Bulova
and yeah we'll leave the rest to the old
imagination just don't leave it there
too long she might come back when you
least expect it
number 19 perhaps the harshest
punishment dished out by the gods was
given to Tantalus after trying to feed
his son to the gods
Tantalus was trained up by Hades with
some just food and water that would
disappear after he reached turrets he
was also constantly starving but could
never starve to death so basically he
was there pretty much forever number 20
however the Real Housewives of Mount
Olympus weren't the first gods in creek
mythology as origin gods tend to be
across different cultures the first girl
to Creek mythology but broad archetypes
of a natural phenomena specifically they
were Uranus or the sky and Gaia who was
the earth number 21 the story of Greek
myth tends to really kick off when your
anus in Gaia starts sleeping together
yep the entire sky started sleeping with
the entire earth pretty metal am i right
but Uranus hated the monstrous children
they had created and so hid them deep
down inside Gaia
number 22 one of those children Chronos
wasn't too pleased that his siblings
being rammed underground he got his
revenge by castrating Uranus who I must
remind you is the sky and replaced him
as king of the gods that's gotta hurt
both physically and you know mentally
number 23
unfortunately Cronus wasn't much better
as a father scared of being toppled as
top god he ate his children as soon as
they were born Fair Play really his
partner Raya perhaps unsurprisingly got
fed off of this behavior and swapped the
babies used for a rock before he got
eaten
I guess babies and rocks taste the same
the more you know number 24
Zeus grew up and eventually fed Cronus a
meal that forced him to throw up his
siblings Hades and Poseidon the three
then fought a war against Cronus
defeating him and cut him into little
pieces that were spread across the
underworld so there you have it the
Olympian gods that you know and love are
the stomach children of the man who
castrated the sky
number 25 but perhaps the most unusual
of the Greek deities was Dionysus the
god of wine and fertility fittingly for
a God of all those things festivals
dedicated to him involved getting wasted
and carrying around large mortal penises
so you have clearly much better than you
know Eastern stuff number 26
they also involved putting on theatrical
performances offering featuring the God
Himself and these plays didn't have to
show Dionysus in a positive light either
as stuff anita's the frogs depicts
Dionysus as a coward who is constantly
outwitted by his slave or watch out or
he'll pour wine all over you from the
sky and then but fertilised you number
27 as you might be able to tell from the
penis carrying festival just mentioned
Greek worship was largely performative
religious rituals for instance most
often took the form of sacrifices number
28 but the Greeks also had an excuse as
for why only the worst cuts of meats
were burnt for the gods they claimed
that Prometheus of one strict Zeus in
Tubac seeing the worst meats meaning
that they could enjoy the nice parts
number 29 quick sidenote
Prometheus also famously stole fire from
the gods and gave it to mankind cheers
bro for that Zeus chained him to a rock
in Hades and had eagle's poked out his
liver every single morning every evening
it would grow back so again he would
never die from this they really loved
the whole perpetual punishment thing
didn't they number 30 though for us the
Olympics are many a chance to what Usain
Bolt zoom past everyone without breaking
a sweat for the ancient Greeks it was
originally a religious festival
dedicated to the worship of his use
number 31 the first sporting event added
to the ancient Olympics was actually a
foot race between young women competing
for the job of Priestess of Hera not
sure why priests s needed a good
100-meter time but cha whatever number
32 over the years other events were
gradually added these included boxing
pentathlon distance running and chariot
racing yep that's right
chariot racing we've got to find space
to put that back in modern games maybe
we could kick out rhythmic gymnastics or
dress arch I mean that's not race arch
dancing horses are cool number 30 spray
one of the more intense sports featured
in the ancient games was Pankratz on
this martial art allowed everything
except biting and gouging and it only
ended when one fighter submitted passed
out or died
number 34 in one particularly brutal
plan Crotty on finale are rich in a fig
alia died in the final battle but still
managed to win that's because as he died
he broke his opponent ankle forcing them
to submit from the pain number 35
one Olympic athlete wrestler Milo of
Croton is credited with the idea of
inventing progressive resistance
training he apparently carried a calf on
his back with the weights getting
heavier as the bull grew up away it was
alive oh my god that's even more
difficult
number 36 while most of the events were
a way of athletes to show off how jacked
they were the Chariot Racing was a great
way to show how much money you had and
seen the in politician al-kabir DS was
famously so desperate to show off our
minted he was he paid to enter three
chariot into one Olympic race he came
first second and fourth number 37 well
the Olympics were on all the Greek state
to breed a peace treaty the idea was to
allow everybody to travel to the games
without being attacked ah that's nice
number 38 this peace treaty was taken so
seriously that even when Athens and
Sparta force against each other in
something called the Peloponnesian War
they made peace specifically for the
games number 39
speaking of Athens the city's most
famous for inventing democracy
you see Athens owed its success to a
trireme Navy which took thousands of
volunteers to row as such it seemed only
fair to let them in on state decisions
number 40 of course one Athenian
democracy was revelatory and
world-changing
it's worth mentioning that it wasn't a
total democracy slaves and women for
example could not vote meaning it was
not a true democracy number 41 to
encourage Democratic involvement the
city sent slaves are on the marketplace
with a robe dipped in red paint anyone
touched by the Rope in the red paint's
had to go and vote as the People's
Assembly the meaning of life
Athens his passion for people power took
some pretty unusual forms such as the
city's annual ostracism in the ostracism
citizens could vote to kick any person
out of the city for a full decade
provided at least 6000 people voted the
person with the most votes would be
forced to leave for 10 years they should
bring that back anybody who stops the
myth of a London Street should be
ostracized for a hundred years number 43
another Athenian innovation were law
courts
use juries jurors could volunteer to
work and were paid a fixed sum to every
day they spent in court number 44 by
some estimates as much as 80% of
Athens's population were slaves these
slaves will usually defeated military
enemies and could do everything citizens
could do except vote number 45 at the
height of its power in the 4th century
BC Athens also had an empire called the
Delian League it was made up of athens
the region of Attica and a series of
Athenian colonies oh and the flash oh no
way that's a different league number 46
a bard from democracy the most famous
Athenian export was probably philosophy
yes that's right that thing your friend
with a beret keeps going on about the
city was home to such noted thinkers as
Socrates Aristotle and crazies of Athens
bust the name number 47 but for sheer
entertainment points the prize goes to
Diogenes this Athenian philosopher like
to challenge society by doing
unacceptable things like you know
touching himself in public and urinating
on people who annoyed him I know plenty
people who do that now and they're not
philosophers trust me number 48 Athens
its main enemies router's democratic
history were the insane military state
of Sparta you know the badasses from 300
the two cities were the most powerful in
Greece and had completely different
philosophies for instance Arno from
Jared Butler that Spartans like kicking
people in Wales number 49
although Sparta was arguably the most
powerful of the ancient Greek States
very little remains of their culture
murder because what Athenians focused on
writing stuff down the Spartans had
other pursuits such as killing
everything number 50 in fact smarter
didn't even build city walls why because
the shields of their soldiers were the
walls yeah I know it doesn't work but
tell that to Sparta they're scary
number 51 you probably know that life in
Sparta was pretty tough but the hardship
actually started from de una or won as
it's known immediately after birth
Spartan babies were inspected and those
with disabilities were thrown off Mount
t'ai cheetah's number 52 the survivors
entered spars this incredibly intensive
military training system the ACOG at the
age of five from then on they would be
taught in weapons carrying basic reading
and writing and oddly enough dancing I
missed that scene in 300
number 53 at the age of 12 the Spartans
were taken into the wilderness for
further training there they had to
survive without shoes enough food and
only one item of clothing that item was
a cloak that was deliberately too thin
winter and too thick for summer god
that's evil
it's evil number 54 the Spartan youths
were deliberately given too little food
for comforts
this was to encourage them to learn how
to steal and hunt skills that they might
need on a military campaign or playing
Skyrim
either way number 55 apart from military
training the Spartan boys went through
numerous exercises designed to toughen
them up one game involved having the
kids tried to steal cheese while being
flogged oh I remember that game from our
childhood too actually I thought it was
weird back then but now I know it's
normal number 56
when they reach the age of 18 spartans
were considered to have finished their
training however they had to live in the
barracks until they reached the age of
30 even if they were married number 57
speaking of marriage spartan weddings
were a little kooky the wife would be
dressed in boys clothing and half their
head shaved the husband would then rush
into the ceremony and kidnap her
although hang on wait this happen every
time surely then everyone in the
ceremony would know what happened so
it's not really that much of a surprise
or a kidnap because they know it's gonna
happen number 58 the reason behind these
unusual nuptials is thought to be the
Spartan men more more comfortable being
with men in fact an ox parts and
soldiers were encouraged to take male
lovers as young as 12 number 59 taking
on male lovers was thought to help
soldiers bond with each other I guess it
did in a way after all trust is pretty
important when your method of warfare is
standing in formation holding each
other's shields not even ISM also I
definitely didn't see this in 300 number
60 all that training and man love must
have paid off though the Spartans were
famously fearsome warriors and would
never drop their shield and flee in fact
there was a common saying in Sparta come
back with your shield or on it now kiss
me you fool maybe not the last bit but
you know artistic license number 61 the
most famous Spartan clash is the bus of
Thermopylae which took place in 480 BC
when 300 Spartans
and 7,000 other Greeks held off the
Persian army of 300,000 number 62 when
the Persian army at Thermopylae
threatened to fire enough shadows to
block out the Sun the spartan king
leonidas simply replied then we'll fight
in the shade oh my goodness
number 63 here's another awesome spartan
line just because it's cool before
philip ii of macedon began his invasion
of greece in 350 BC he sent a Spartans
and letter walling them if I win this
war we will be slaves forever
the Spartans sent a letter back with one
word if before nintendo64 the spartans
actually lost a lot at Thermopylae
however they held up Xerces and the
Persians long enough for the rest of
Greece to piece together a larger army
and finally defeat the Persians at the
Battle of Marathon number 65 despite
having the best army around the Spartans
were famously reluctant to fight that's
because they constantly feared that the
helots are local people they had
enslaved would revolt in their absence
number 66
terrified by the fact that the helot
sound numbered them 20 to 1 every year
the Spartans would ceremonially declare
war on their slaves during this time the
Spartans secret police the crypt ear
would appear outside random houses and
killed the helots there blimey that's
intense like the purge number 67 despite
sharing a few things like religion for
example Sparta and Athens were for the
most part antithetical to each other and
as anyone who remembers the cold war
will know two powerful states having
vastly different ideologies can turn
pretty nasty number 68
between 431 BC and 404 BC Athens and
Sparta fought each other in a conflict
known as the Peloponnesian War both
sides drank their empires into the
fighting effectively turning the war
into a Greece white struggle number 69
gaya when the ancient Greeks sports they
did so using hoplite warfare hoplites
were armored soldiers armed with a
stabbing spear a shield and a short
sword number 70 these soldiers would
line up in a rectangular box formation
known as a phalanx after this the two
sides would then crash into each other
pushing and shoving to try and topple
the other it's like a big old tug of war
except except pushing instead of tug tug
Duggan
number 71 hoplite shields were designed
to half cover the man holding them and
half cover the man to the left obviously
that means the guy on the rightmost end
only had half protection as they shoved
hoplite phallanx this would drift to the
right trying to protect the half
wonderful soldiers on the end haha
that's quite nice really isn't it number
72 all that armor was pretty pricey
meaning the warfare was something of an
elite activity this helps to explain why
so many of Greece's states were
oligarchies where only the rich had
power number 73 the clunky nature of
hoplite warfare meant that even in the
biggest battles body-count were kept
pretty low as soon as one side realized
they were likely to lose they would just
drop their shields and run away leaving
the heavily armored enemy soldiers too
heavy to catch up number 750 for this
death liked form of war suited the lowly
populated Greek states quite well even
at their peaks Athens only had 60,000
citizens and Sparta only had 40,000
number 75 but unfortunately it also made
them incredibly easy to beat when in the
mid 300s BC the aforementioned guy named
philip ii of macedon brought his 3,000
cavalry men down to the Greek mainland
and just ran circles around the
cumbersome Greeks number 76 anyway back
to the Peloponnesian War for the first
10 years the war was somewhat
unsatisfactory the spartan army was far
superior and couldn't breach athens
walls athens navy allowed them to pirate
around the edges of sparta however they
could not face Sparta's army
oh dear bit of a stalemate going on
number 77 this uneven situation led to
Sparta troops invading the land around
Athens and trying to siege the city but
since Athens shipped its food and goods
in an way the whole thing was pretty
pointless number 78 that's not to say
the Athenians didn't suffer in 430 BC a
plague broke out in Athens killing
between 1/3 and 2/3 of the population as
well as Athenians top general Pericles
number 79 though no one knows what
specifically caused the plague it's not
exactly surprising the Greeks were
advanced in many ways but hygiene was
not one of them Greek women for example
wore crocodile dung as a shadow and most
Greeks use stones to wipe themselves
after going to the toilet
ouch stones I even think that off-budget
toilet paper
number eighty on top of that doctors
thought the best way to tell if a
painter was healthy was to taste their
earwax vomit or urine the idea was that
a trained doctor could tell if a bodily
substance tasted odd and then prescribe
a cure wait that doesn't happen these
days a very nice doctor tasted my urine
the other day aren't you he wasn't in
any way number 81 rich Greeks were also
known to by the sweat of the successful
athletes spraying and rubbing it all
over themselves the thought was that
doing so but allowed them to take on the
strength of the athlete always sure
these are the guys who invented Western
philosophy number 82 regardless Athens
soon recovered from the disease and won
a major victory
that's bacteria that's slack teria by
the way not bacteria they're the
Athenians force 300 spartans to do the
unthinkable
surrender number 83 that loss led to the
piece of mickey ass
despite the ambitious name it was only
seven years until the war restarted
number 84 in 415 BC Athens made a huge
mistake when they democratically voted
to invade Sicily in the middle of the
war al-kabir deez you know the chariot
guy convince voters that the expedition
would be an easy military victory and
would provide the city with untold
riches you can see where this is going
already can't you number 85 in fact the
expedition was a disaster Sparta rocked
up to help Sicily and a series of
military defeats and storms led to the
entire Fenian fleets being destroyed
realizing he probably wouldn't be
welcome back in Athens al Kabeer days
defected to Sparta number 86 sensing
that Athens was weak Sparta did
something even more and thinkable than
surrendering they teamed up with Persia
in return for promising Persia all of
Athens colonies Sparta were gifted with
enough money to build a navy and
blockade Athens number 87 led by
Lysander the Spartans won a series of
naval victories and eventually forced
Athens to surrender in 404 BC sparse his
allies current and Themis demanded that
athens be destroyed and all of its
people destroyed all but in a rare show
of clemency the spartans refused number
88 however they did put an end to the
athens democracy and installed a pro
spartan oligarchy called the thirty
tyrants geez who's that PR guy but these
tyrants only ruled for eight months
before
volt kicked them out and reinstated an
independent Athenian democracy number 89
despite their short rule the thirty
tyrants were brutal through violence and
suppression the tyrants are thought to
have killed 3,000 people or 5% of Athens
population number 90 many historians
believe that the popularity of the
Peloponnesian War in Athens can be
reasonably accurately traced back
through the comedies of Aristophanes
around the piece of Nicky s Aristophanes
released the upbeat comedy piece but
when the war was going badly he wrote
the more aggressively anti-war satire as
the Arcadians
and lysis strata number 91 the reason
historians had to use comedies for this
was that ancient Athenian tragedies were
typically not set in Athens they were
thought to be too serious and negative
to be set within the city and the
playwrights wanted to give the audience
a sense of distance number 92 many
athenian tragedies are set in phoebus a
rival of the city that includes the
famous Sophocles plays Antigone and
Oedipus Rex you know that's the one with
the I stabbing and the mum stuff number
93 little sneaky factory you hear
sliding into DMS ancient Greek theater
only ever utilized three actors all of
whom would wear giant masks with
exaggerated expressions on so even those
that the back could tell how they were
supposed to be feeling number 94 Athens
Spartans and the rest of the Greek
states continued their independent
existences until the 330s BC that's when
you know who philip ii of macedon
decided to expand his empire into
southern greece with his huge Calvary
and girthy armies he was able to sweep
through the tiny city-states 95 Athens
and Thebes were both defeated by the
Macedonians at the Battle of Chaeronea
in 338 BC but fearing their awesome
reputation Philip steered clear of
Sparta even his son the arrogantly named
Alexander the Great never attempted to
conquer it number 96
Philip probably needn't have worried so
much tough though the Spartans were
their ability to wage war had been
severely undercut by population decline
the strict testing needed to be a
Spartan warrior added to the lack of
time spent around women meant that fewer
and fewer warriors were being created
the citizen population of Sparta may of
CHOP to slowest 8,000 people number 97
dwindling numbers made controlling the
hell
even harder and Sparta suffered a series
of slave revolts that further sapped its
energy number 98 Sparta may have lasted
longer than Athens but it suffered a
faint arguably more humiliating when the
Romans rolled into Greece in 195 BC they
teamed up with Athens in a number of
other Greek States to defeat Sparta in
the lasso nion Wars number 99 Sparta
lost the war and though it was never
formally invaded it lost all
independence and became just another
part of the Roman Empire more
embarrassingly the Romans were so taken
with the strange ways of the Spartans
that they allowed them to keep their
customs as a sort of theme park Roman
tourists were traveled to Sparta to
watch them train fight and just
generally be weird people geez that's a
humiliating fates but not as bad as the
whole living forever and being punished
thing that was in their mythology I
guess this is 100 oh one flats though
Athens tried lamely to revolt in 88 BC
Greece remained firmly part of Rome for
the rest of ancient history on the plus
side though the Romans appreciated the
Greeks greatly thinking of them as a
cultured and intelligent people and as
the way as we close the doors on ancient
Greece Bosch was more of a book closing
really oh well that was 101 facts about
ancient Greece I do hope you enjoyed it
did you learn anything let me know in
the comments below also what else would
you like to learn about perhaps with a
British comedian person speaking all
over it wah think of the possibilities
of that let me know in the comments down
below and hang in the meantime also
watch one of these two videos on screen
I'm sure you're gonna really dig it like
an archeologist haha see you next time
goodbye
you
