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92-496: An antagonist is a character in a story who is presented as the main enemy or rival of the protagonist . The English word antagonist comes from the Greek ἀνταγωνιστής – antagonistēs , "opponent, competitor, villain, enemy, rival," which is derived from anti- ("against") and agonizesthai ("to contend for a prize"). The antagonist is commonly positioned against the protagonist and their world order. While narratives often portray

184-546: A 'strongman' was often the best solution. Athens fell under a tyranny in the second half of the 6th century BC. When this tyranny was ended, the Athenians founded the world's first democracy as a radical solution to prevent the aristocracy regaining power. A citizens' assembly (the Ecclesia ), for the discussion of city policy, had existed since the reforms of Draco in 621 BC; all citizens were permitted to attend after

276-417: A century into the past, discussing 6th century BC historical figures such as Darius I of Persia , Cambyses II and Psamtik III , and alluding to some 8th century BC persons such as Candaules . The accuracy of Herodotus' works is debated. Herodotus was succeeded by authors such as Thucydides , Xenophon , Demosthenes , Plato and Aristotle . Most were either Athenian or pro-Athenian, which

368-500: A coalition of 31 Greek city states, including Athens and Sparta, determined to resist the Persian invaders. At the same time, Greek Sicily was invaded by a Carthaginian force. In 480 BC, the first major battle of the invasion was fought at Thermopylae , where a small rearguard of Greeks, led by three hundred Spartans, held a crucial pass guarding the heart of Greece for several days; at the same time Gelon , tyrant of Syracuse, defeated

460-609: A council of elders (the Gerousia ) and magistrates specifically appointed to watch over the kings (the Ephors ). Only free, land-owning, native born men could be citizens entitled to the full protection of the law in a city-state. In most city-states, unlike the situation in Rome , social prominence did not allow special rights. Sometimes families controlled public religious functions, but this ordinarily did not give any extra power in

552-528: A decisive victory, and in 447 lost Boeotia again. Athens and Sparta signed the Thirty Years' Peace in the winter of 446/5, ending the conflict. Despite the treaty, Athenian relations with Sparta declined again in the 430s, and in 431 BC the Peloponnesian War began. The first phase of the war saw a series of fruitless annual invasions of Attica by Sparta, while Athens successfully fought

644-554: A device to increase their shows' ratings. Characters may be antagonists without being evil – they may simply be injudicious and unlikeable for the audience. In some stories, such as The Catcher in the Rye , almost every character other than the protagonist may be an antagonist. Another example of this occurring is through Javert in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables , in which Javert displays no malicious intent, but instead represents

736-436: A group of city-states allied themselves to defend Greece, the vast majority of poleis remained neutral, and after the Persian defeat, the allies quickly returned to infighting. Thus, the major peculiarities of the ancient Greek political system were its fragmented nature (and that this does not particularly seem to have tribal origin), and the particular focus on urban centers within otherwise tiny states. The peculiarities of

828-655: A loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and other territories. Prior to the Roman period , most of these regions were officially unified once under the Kingdom of Macedon from 338 to 323 BC. In Western history , the era of classical antiquity was immediately followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period. Three centuries after the decline of Mycenaean Greece during

920-520: A prize'). The earliest known examples of a protagonist are found in Ancient Greece . At first, dramatic performances involved merely dancing and recitation by the chorus. Then in Poetics , Aristotle describes how a poet named Thespis introduced the idea of one actor stepping out and engaging in a dialogue with the chorus. This was the invention of tragedy, and occurred about 536 B.C. Then

1012-760: A result of Epaminondas ' liberation of Messenia from Spartan rule, the helot system there came to an end and the helots won their freedom. However, it did continue to persist in Laconia until the 2nd century BC. For most of Greek history, education was private, except in Sparta. During the Hellenistic period, some city-states established public schools . Only wealthy families could afford a teacher. Boys learned how to read, write and quote literature. They also learned to sing and play one musical instrument and were trained as athletes for military service. They studied not for

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1104-523: A special type of slaves called helots . Helots were Messenians enslaved en masse during the Messenian Wars by the state and assigned to families where they were forced to stay. Helots raised food and did household chores so that women could concentrate on raising strong children while men could devote their time to training as hoplites . Their masters treated them harshly, and helots revolted against their masters several times. In 370/69 BC, as

1196-722: A war with the Roman Republic in the late 3rd century. Although the First Macedonian War was inconclusive, the Romans, in typical fashion, continued to fight Macedon until it was completely absorbed into the Roman Republic (by 149 BC). In the east, the unwieldy Seleucid Empire gradually disintegrated, although a rump survived until 64 BC, whilst the Ptolemaic Kingdom continued in Egypt until 30 BC when it too

1288-467: A war. Though many people equate protagonists with the term hero and possessing heroic qualities, it is not necessary, as even villainous characters can be protagonists. For example Michael Corleone from The Godfather (1972–1990) film series (1978–1983). In some cases, the protagonist is not a human: in Richard Adams ' novel Watership Down , a group of anthropomorphised rabbits, led by

1380-684: A year, the Thirty had been overthrown. The first half of the fourth century saw the major Greek states attempt to dominate the mainland; none were successful, and their resulting weakness led to a power vacuum which would eventually be filled by Macedon under Philip II and then Alexander the Great. In the immediate aftermath of the Peloponnesian war, Sparta attempted to extend their own power, leading Argos, Athens, Corinth, and Thebes to join against them. Aiming to prevent any single Greek state gaining

1472-430: Is also a claim that the poet did not assign or create the protagonist as well as other terms for actors such as deuteragonist and tritagonist primarily because he only gave actors their appropriate part. However, these actors were assigned their specific areas at the stage with the protagonist always entering from the middle door or that the dwelling of the deuteragonist (second most important character) should be on

1564-558: Is generally considered the cradle of Western civilization , the seminal culture from which the modern West derives many of its founding archetypes and ideas in politics, philosophy, science, and art. Classical antiquity in the Mediterranean region is commonly considered to have begun in the 8th century BC (around the time of the earliest recorded poetry of Homer) and ended in the 6th century AD. Classical antiquity in Greece

1656-458: Is mountainous, and as a result, ancient Greece consisted of many smaller regions, each with its own dialect, cultural peculiarities, and identity. Regionalism and regional conflicts were prominent features of ancient Greece. Cities tended to be located in valleys between mountains, or on coastal plains, and dominated a certain area around them. In the south lay the Peloponnese , consisting of

1748-466: Is often used by an author to create conflict within a story. This is merely a convention, however. An example in which this is reversed can be seen in the character Macduff from Macbeth , who is arguably morally correct in his desire to fight the tyrant Macbeth , the protagonist. Examples from television include J.R. Ewing ( Larry Hagman ) from Dallas and Alexis Colby ( Joan Collins ) from Dynasty . Both became breakout characters used as

1840-479: Is unclear exactly how this change occurred. For instance, in Athens, the kingship had been reduced to a hereditary, lifelong chief magistracy ( archon ) by c. 1050 BC; by 753 BC this had become a decennial, elected archonship; and finally by 683 BC an annually elected archonship. Through each stage, more power would have been transferred to the aristocracy as a whole, and away from a single individual. Inevitably,

1932-440: Is unique in world history as the first period attested directly in comprehensive, narrative historiography , while earlier ancient history or protohistory is known from much more fragmentary documents such as annals, king lists, and pragmatic epigraphy . Herodotus is widely known as the "father of history": his Histories are eponymous of the entire field . Written between the 450s and 420s BC, Herodotus' work reaches about

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2024-723: Is usually counted from the Roman victory over the Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC to the establishment of Byzantium by Constantine as the capital of the Roman Empire in 330 AD. Finally, Late Antiquity refers to the period of Christianization during the later 4th to early 6th centuries AD, consummated by the closure of the Academy of Athens by Justinian I in 529. The historical period of ancient Greece

2116-471: Is why far more is known about the history and politics of Athens than of many other cities. Their scope is further limited by a focus on political, military and diplomatic history, ignoring economic and social history. The archaic period, lasting from approximately 800 to 500 BC, saw the culmination of political and social developments which had begun in the Greek dark age, with the polis (city-state) becoming

2208-655: The Achaemenid Empire by Alexander the Great spread Hellenistic civilization across the Middle East. The Hellenistic Period is considered to have ended in 30 BC, when the last Hellenistic kingdom, Ptolemaic Egypt , was annexed by the Roman Republic . Classical Greek culture , especially philosophy, had a powerful influence on ancient Rome , which carried a version of it throughout the Mediterranean and much of Europe. For this reason, Classical Greece

2300-710: The Archaic period , the Greek population grew beyond the capacity of the limited arable land of Greece proper, resulting in the large-scale establishment of colonies elsewhere: according to one estimate, the population of the widening area of Greek settlement increased roughly tenfold from 800 BC to 400 BC, from 800,000 to as many as 7 + 1 ⁄ 2 -10 million. This was not simply for trade, but also to found settlements. These Greek colonies were not, as Roman colonies were, dependent on their mother-city, but were independent city-states in their own right. Greeks settled outside of Greece in two distinct ways. The first

2392-647: The Battle of Aegospotami , and began to blockade Athens' harbour; driven by hunger, Athens sued for peace, agreeing to surrender their fleet and join the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. Following the Athenian surrender, Sparta installed an oligarchic regime, the Thirty Tyrants , in Athens, one of a number of Spartan-backed oligarchies which rose to power after the Peloponnesian war. Spartan predominance did not last: after only

2484-745: The Boeotian League and finally to the League of Corinth led by Macedon . This period was shaped by the Greco-Persian Wars , the Peloponnesian War , and the Rise of Macedon . Following the Classical period was the Hellenistic period (323–146 BC), during which Greek culture and power expanded into the Near and Middle East from the death of Alexander until the Roman conquest. Roman Greece

2576-655: The Bronze Age Collapse , Greek urban poleis began to form in the 8th century BC, ushering in the Archaic period and the colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. This was followed by the age of Classical Greece , from the Greco-Persian Wars to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, and which included the Golden Age of Athens and the Peloponnesian War . The unification of Greece by Macedon under Philip II and subsequent conquest of

2668-576: The Delian League gradually transformed from a defensive alliance of Greek states into an Athenian empire, as Athens' growing naval power intimidated the other league states. Athens ended its campaigns against Persia in 450, after a disastrous defeat in Egypt in 454, and the death of Cimon in action against the Persians on Cyprus in 450. As the Athenian fight against the Persian empire waned, conflict grew between Athens and Sparta. Suspicious of

2760-740: The Paeonians due north, the Thracians to the northeast, and the Illyrians , with whom the Macedonians were frequently in conflict, to the northwest. Chalcidice was settled early on by southern Greek colonists and was considered part of the Greek world, while from the late 2nd millennium BC substantial Greek settlement also occurred on the eastern shores of the Aegean , in Anatolia . During

2852-449: The poleis grouped themselves into leagues, membership of which was in a constant state of flux. Later in the Classical period, the leagues would become fewer and larger, be dominated by one city (particularly Athens , Sparta and Thebes ); and often poleis would be compelled to join under threat of war (or as part of a peace treaty). Even after Philip II of Macedon conquered the heartlands of ancient Greece, he did not attempt to annex

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2944-437: The "good guys" of the narrative. Examples include DC Comics' Superman (hero) and Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games (heroine). An antihero (sometimes spelled as anti-hero) or antiheroine is a main character in a story who lacks conventional heroic qualities and attributes such as idealism, courage, and morality. Examples include Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye , Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With

3036-464: The 146 BC conquest of Greece after the Battle of Corinth. Macedonia became a Roman province while southern Greece came under the surveillance of Macedonia's prefect ; however, some Greek poleis managed to maintain a partial independence and avoid taxation. The Aegean Islands were added to this territory in 133 BC. Athens and other Greek cities revolted in 88 BC, and the peninsula was crushed by

3128-583: The Carthaginian invasion at the Battle of Himera . The Persians were decisively defeated at sea by a primarily Athenian naval force at the Battle of Salamis , and on land in 479 BC at the Battle of Plataea . The alliance against Persia continued, initially led by the Spartan Pausanias but from 477 by Athens, and by 460 Persia had been driven out of the Aegean. During this long campaign,

3220-525: The Corinthian empire in northwest Greece and defended its own empire, despite a plague which killed the leading Athenian statesman Pericles . The war turned after Athenian victories led by Cleon at Pylos and Sphakteria , and Sparta sued for peace, but the Athenians rejected the proposal. The Athenian failure to regain control of Boeotia at Delium and Brasidas ' successes in northern Greece in 424 improved Sparta's position after Sphakteria. After

3312-668: The Greek city-states. It greatly widened the horizons of the Greeks and led to a steady emigration of the young and ambitious to the new Greek empires in the east. Many Greeks migrated to Alexandria, Antioch and the many other new Hellenistic cities founded in Alexander's wake, as far away as present-day Afghanistan and Pakistan , where the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and the Indo-Greek Kingdom survived until

3404-460: The Greek colonies Syracusae ( Συράκουσαι ), Neapolis ( Νεάπολις ), Massalia ( Μασσαλία ) and Byzantion ( Βυζάντιον ). These colonies played an important role in the spread of Greek influence throughout Europe and also aided in the establishment of long-distance trading networks between the Greek city-states, boosting the economy of ancient Greece . Ancient Greece consisted of several hundred relatively independent city-states ( poleis ). This

3496-578: The Greek colony Sybaris in southern Italy, its allies, and the Serdaioi. In 499 BC, the Ionian city states under Persian rule rebelled against their Persian-supported tyrant rulers. Supported by troops sent from Athens and Eretria , they advanced as far as Sardis and burnt the city before being driven back by a Persian counterattack. The revolt continued until 494, when the rebelling Ionians were defeated. Darius did not forget that Athens had assisted

3588-420: The Greek system are further evidenced by the colonies that they set up throughout the Mediterranean , which, though they might count a certain Greek polis as their 'mother' (and remain sympathetic to her), were completely independent of the founding city. Inevitably smaller poleis might be dominated by larger neighbors, but conquest or direct rule by another city-state appears to have been quite rare. Instead

3680-815: The Greeks began 250 years of expansion, settling colonies in all directions. To the east, the Aegean coast of Asia Minor was colonized first, followed by Cyprus and the coasts of Thrace , the Sea of Marmara and south coast of the Black Sea . Eventually, Greek colonization reached as far northeast as present-day Ukraine and Russia ( Taganrog ). To the west the coasts of Illyria , Southern Italy (called " Magna Graecia ") were settled, followed by Southern France , Corsica , and even eastern Spain . Greek colonies were also founded in Egypt and Libya . Modern Syracuse , Naples , Marseille and Istanbul had their beginnings as

3772-423: The Greeks were very aware of their tribal origins; Herodotus was able to extensively categorise the city-states by tribe. Yet, although these higher-level relationships existed, they seem to have rarely had a major role in Greek politics. The independence of the poleis was fiercely defended; unification was something rarely contemplated by the ancient Greeks. Even when, during the second Persian invasion of Greece,

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3864-535: The Ionian revolt, and in 490 he assembled an armada to retaliate. Though heavily outnumbered, the Athenians—supported by their Plataean allies—defeated the Persian hordes at the Battle of Marathon , and the Persian fleet turned tail. Ten years later, a second invasion was launched by Darius' son Xerxes . The city-states of northern and central Greece submitted to the Persian forces without resistance, but

3956-483: The League of Corinth following the death of Philip, Alexander began his campaign against Persia in 334 BC. He conquered Persia, defeating Darius III at the Battle of Issus in 333 BC, and after the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BC proclaimed himself king of Asia. From 329 BC he led expeditions to Bactria and then India; further plans to invade Arabia and North Africa were halted by his death in 323 BC. The period from

4048-634: The Roman general Sulla . The Roman civil wars devastated the land even further, until Augustus organized the peninsula as the province of Achaea in 27 BC. Greece was a key eastern province of the Roman Empire, as the Roman culture had long been in fact Greco-Roman . The Greek language served as a lingua franca in the East and in Italy , and many Greek intellectuals such as Galen would perform most of their work in Rome . The territory of Greece

4140-480: The Wind , Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby , and Walter White from Breaking Bad . A tragic hero is the protagonist of a tragedy. Examples include Oedipus from Oedipus Rex and Prince Hamlet from Shakespeare's Hamlet . The protagonist is not always conventionally good. Contrasting the hero protagonist, a villain protagonist is a protagonist who is a villain , driving the story forward regardless of

4232-579: The ancient Greeks did not think in terms of race . Most families owned slaves as household servants and laborers, and even poor families might have owned a few slaves. Owners were not allowed to beat or kill their slaves. Owners often promised to free slaves in the future to encourage slaves to work hard. Unlike in Rome, freedmen did not become citizens. Instead, they were mixed into the population of metics , which included people from foreign countries or other city-states who were officially allowed to live in

4324-433: The audience is invested in that story. Tybalt, as an antagonist, opposes Romeo and attempts to thwart the relationship. In Shakespeare's play Hamlet , Prince Hamlet, who seeks revenge for the murder of his father, is the protagonist. The antagonist is the character who most opposes Hamlet, Claudius (though, in many ways, Hamlet is his own antagonist). Sometimes, a work will have a false protagonist , who may seem to be

4416-409: The cause of the protagonist's main problem, or lead a group of characters against the protagonist; in comedies, they are usually responsible for involving the protagonist in comedic situations. Author John Truby argues that a true opponent not only wants to prevent the hero from achieving his desire but is competing with the hero for the same goal. According to John Truby, "It is only by competing for

4508-666: The center, while in the east lay Boeotia , Attica , and Megaris . Northeast lay Thessaly , while Epirus lay to the northwest. Epirus stretched from the Ambracian Gulf in the south to the Ceraunian Mountains and the Aoos river in the north, and consisted of Chaonia (north), Molossia (center), and Thesprotia (south). In the northeast corner was Macedonia , originally consisting Lower Macedonia and its regions, such as Elimeia , Pieria , and Orestis . Around

4600-455: The course of the archaic period. Already in the seventh century, the right of all citizen men to attend the assembly appears to have been established. After a failed coup led by Cylon of Athens around 636 BC, Draco was appointed to establish a code of laws in 621. This failed to reduce the political tension between the poor and the elites, and in 594 Solon was given the authority to enact another set of reforms, which attempted to balance

4692-473: The course of the eighth and seventh century. According to Spartan tradition, this constitution was established by the legendary lawgiver Lycurgus . Over the course of the first and second Messenian wars , Sparta subjugated the neighbouring region of Messenia , enserfing the population. In the sixth century, Greek city-states began to develop formal relationships with one another, where previously individual rulers had relied on personal relationships with

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4784-461: The death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC until the death of Cleopatra , the last Macedonian ruler of Egypt, is known as the Hellenistic period. In the early part of this period, a new form of kingship developed based on Macedonian and Near Eastern traditions. The first Hellenistic kings were previously Alexander's generals, and took power in the period following his death, though they were not part of existing royal lineages and lacked historic claims to

4876-552: The death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. The Classical Period is characterized by a "classical" style, i.e. one which was considered exemplary by later observers, most famously in the Parthenon of Athens. Politically, the Classical Period was dominated by Athens and the Delian League during the 5th century, but displaced by Spartan hegemony during the early 4th century BC, before power shifted to Thebes and

4968-423: The deaths of Cleon and Brasidas, the strongest proponents of war on each side, a peace treaty was negoitiated in 421 by the Athenian general Nicias . The peace did not last, however. In 418 BC allied forces of Athens and Argos were defeated by Sparta at Mantinea . In 415 Athens launched an ambitious naval expedition to dominate Sicily; the expedition ended in disaster at the harbor of Syracuse , with almost

5060-674: The dominance that would allow it to challenge Persia, the Persian king initially joined the alliance against Sparta, before imposing the Peace of Antalcidas ("King's Peace") which restored Persia's control over the Anatolian Greeks. By 371 BC, Thebes was in the ascendancy, defeating Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra , killing the Spartan king Cleombrotus I , and invading Laconia. Further Theban successes against Sparta in 369 led to Messenia gaining independence; Sparta never recovered from

5152-409: The domination of politics and concomitant aggregation of wealth by small groups of families was apt to cause social unrest in many poleis . In many cities a tyrant (not in the modern sense of repressive autocracies), would at some point seize control and govern according to their own will; often a populist agenda would help sustain them in power. In a system wracked with class conflict , government by

5244-726: The east to the Indian king Chandragupta Maurya in exchange for war elephants, and later lost large parts of Persia to the Parthian Empire . By the mid-third century, the kingdoms of Alexander's successors was mostly stable, though there continued to be disputes over border areas. The great capitals of Hellenistic culture were Alexandria in the Ptolemaic Kingdom and Antioch in the Seleucid Empire . The conquests of Alexander had numerous consequences for

5336-552: The elites of other cities. Towards the end of the archaic period, Sparta began to build a series of alliances, the Peloponnesian League , with cities including Corinth , Elis , and Megara , isolating Messenia and reinforcing Sparta's position against Argos , the other major power in the Peloponnese. Other alliances in the sixth century included those between Elis and Heraea in the Peloponnese; and between

5428-437: The end of the first century BC. The city-states within Greece formed themselves into two leagues; the Achaean League (including Corinth and Argos) and the Aetolian League (including Sparta and Athens). For much of the period until the Roman conquest, these leagues were at war, often participating in the conflicts between the Diadochi (the successor states to Alexander's empire). The Antigonid Kingdom became involved in

5520-433: The entire army killed, and the ships destroyed. Soon after the Athenian defeat in Syracuse, Athens' Ionian allies began to rebel against the Delian league, while Persia began to once again involve itself in Greek affairs on the Spartan side. Initially the Athenian position continued relatively strong, with important victories at Cyzicus in 410 and Arginusae in 406. However, in 405 the Spartan Lysander defeated Athens in

5612-425: The events of the story and are not as involved within the "main action" of the plot. The supporting protagonist may be telling the story while viewing another character as the main influence of the plot. One example is Nick in The Great Gatsby . Euripides ' play Hippolytus may be considered to have two protagonists, though one at a time. Phaedra is the protagonist of the first half, who dies partway through

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5704-405: The evil qualities the main character has. These traits can include being cruel, malicious, and wicked. Examples include Humbert Humbert in Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita and Richard III in the eponymous play by William Shakespeare . When a supporting protagonist appears, the story is told from the perspective of a character who appears to be minor. This character may be more peripheral from

5796-425: The exact borders of the Hellenistic kingdoms were not settled. Antigonus attempted to expand his territory by attacking the other successor kingdoms until they joined against him, and he was killed at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. His son Demetrius spent many years in Seleucid captivity, and his son, Antigonus II , only reclaimed the Macedonian throne around 276. Meanwhile, the Seleucid kingdom gave up territory in

5888-412: The founding of Greek colonies around the Mediterranean, with Euboean settlements at Al-Mina in the east as early as 800 BC, and Ischia in the west by 775. Increasing contact with non-Greek peoples in this period, especially in the Near East, inspired developments in art and architecture, the adoption of coinage, and the development of the Greek alphabet. Athens developed its democratic system over

5980-512: The government. In Athens, the population was divided into four social classes based on wealth. People could change classes if they made more money. In Sparta, all male citizens were called homoioi , meaning "peers". However, Spartan kings, who served as the city-state's dual military and religious leaders, came from two families. Women in Ancient Greece appear to have primarily performed domestic tasks, managed households, and borne and reared children. Slaves had no power or status. Slaves had

6072-428: The increasing Athenian power funded by the Delian League, Sparta offered aid to reluctant members of the League to rebel against Athenian domination. These tensions were exacerbated in 462 BC when Athens sent a force to aid Sparta in overcoming a helot revolt, but this aid was rejected by the Spartans. In the 450s, Athens took control of Boeotia, and won victories over Aegina and Corinth. However, Athens failed to win

6164-514: The loss of Messenia's fertile land and the helot workforce it provided. The rising power of Thebes led Sparta and Athens to join forces; in 362 they were defeated by Thebes at the Battle of Mantinea . In the aftermath of Mantinea, none of the major Greek states were able to dominate. Though Thebes had won the battle, their general Epaminondas was killed, and they spent the following decades embroiled in wars with their neighbours; Athens, meanwhile, saw its second naval alliance, formed in 377, collapse in

6256-495: The mid-350s. The power vacuum in Greece after the Battle of Mantinea was filled by Macedon, under Philip II . In 338 BC, he defeated a Greek alliance at the Battle of Chaeronea , and subsequently formed the League of Corinth . Philip planned to lead the League to invade Persia, but was murdered in 336 BC. His son Alexander the Great was left to fulfil his father's ambitions. After campaigns against Macedon's western and northern enemies, and those Greek states that had broken from

6348-443: The most important unit of political organisation in Greece. The absence of powerful states in Greece after the collapse of Mycenaean power, and the geography of Greece, where many settlements were separated from their neighbours by mountainous terrain, encouraged the development of small independent city-states. Several Greek states saw tyrants rise to power in this period, most famously at Corinth from 657 BC. The period also saw

6440-436: The play. Her stepson, the titular Hippolytus, assumes the dominant role in the second half of the play. In Henrik Ibsen 's play The Master Builder , the protagonist is the architect Halvard Solness. The young woman, Hilda Wangel, whose actions lead to the death of Solness, is the antagonist. In Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet , Romeo is the protagonist. He is actively in pursuit of his relationship with Juliet, and

6532-434: The poet Aeschylus , in his plays, introduced a second actor, inventing the idea of dialogue between two characters. Sophocles then wrote plays that included a third actor. A description of the protagonist's origin cited that during the early period of Greek drama, the protagonist served as the author, the director, and the actor and that these roles were only separated and allocated to different individuals later. There

6624-410: The power of the rich and the poor. In the middle of the sixth century, Pisistratus established himself as a tyrant, and after his death in 527 his son Hippias inherited his position; by the end of the sixth century he had been overthrown and Cleisthenes carried out further democratising reforms. In Sparta, a political system with two kings, a council of elders , and five ephors developed over

6716-495: The protagonist Hazel, escape their warren after seeing a vision of its destruction, starting a perilous journey to find a new home. Ancient Greece Ancient Greece ( Ancient Greek : Ἑλλάς , romanized :  Hellás ) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( c.  600 AD ), that comprised

6808-552: The protagonist as a hero and the antagonist as a villain , like Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort in Harry Potter , the antagonist does not always appear as the villain. In some narratives, like Light Yagami and L in Death Note , the protagonist is a villain and the antagonist is an opposing hero. Antagonists are conventionally presented as making moral choices less savory than those of protagonists. This condition

6900-510: The protagonist, but then may disappear unexpectedly. The character Marion in Alfred Hitchcock 's film Psycho (1960) is an example. A novel may contain a number of narratives, each with its own protagonist. Alexander Solzhenitsyn 's The First Circle , for example, depicts a variety of characters imprisoned and living in a gulag camp. Leo Tolstoy 's War and Peace depicts fifteen major characters involved in or affected by

6992-617: The reforms of Solon (early 6th century), but the poorest citizens could not address the assembly or run for office. With the establishment of the democracy, the assembly became the de jure mechanism of government; all citizens had equal privileges in the assembly. However, non-citizens, such as metics (foreigners living in Athens) or slaves , had no political rights at all. After the rise of democracy in Athens, other city-states founded democracies. However, many retained more traditional forms of government. As so often in other matters, Sparta

7084-420: The regions of Laconia (southeast), Messenia (southwest), Elis (west), Achaia (north), Korinthia (northeast), Argolis (east), and Arcadia (center). These names survive to the present day as regional units of modern Greece , though with somewhat different boundaries. Mainland Greece to the north, nowadays known as Central Greece , consisted of Aetolia and Acarnania in the west, Locris , Doris , and Phocis in

7176-480: The right hand, and the tritagonist (third most important character), the left. In Ancient Greece, the protagonist is distinguished from the term "hero", which was used to refer to a human who became a semi-divine being in the narrative. In literary terms, a hero (masculine) or heroine (feminine) protagonist is typically admired for their achievements and noble qualities. Heroes are lauded for their strength, courage, virtuousness, and honor, and are considered to be

7268-518: The right to have a family and own property, subject to their master's goodwill and permission, but they had no political rights. By 600 BC, chattel slavery had spread in Greece. By the 5th century BC, slaves made up one-third of the total population in some city-states. Between 40–80% of the population of Classical Athens were slaves. Slaves outside of Sparta almost never revolted because they were made up of too many nationalities and were too scattered to organize. However, unlike later Western culture ,

7360-417: The rigid and inflexible application of the law, even when it leads to moral and ethical dilemmas. An aspect or trait of the protagonist may be considered an antagonist, such as morality or indecisiveness. An antagonist is not always a person or people. In some cases, an antagonist may be a force, such as a tidal wave that destroys a city; a storm that causes havoc; or even a certain area's conditions that are

7452-402: The root cause of a problem. An antagonist may or may not create obstacles for the protagonist. Societal norms or other rules may also be antagonists. An antagonist is used as a plot device, to set up conflicts, obstacles, or challenges for the protagonist. Though not every story requires an antagonist, it often is used in plays to increase the level of drama. In tragedies, antagonists are often

7544-407: The same goal that the hero and the opponent are forced to come into direct conflict and to do so again and again throughout the story." Protagonist The protagonist is the character whose fate is most closely followed by the reader or audience, and who is opposed by the antagonist . The antagonist provides obstacles and complications and creates conflicts that test the protagonist, revealing

7636-448: The state. City-states legally owned slaves. These public slaves had a larger measure of independence than slaves owned by families, living on their own and performing specialized tasks. In Athens, public slaves were trained to look out for counterfeit coinage , while temple slaves acted as servants of the temple's deity and Scythian slaves were employed in Athens as a police force corralling citizens to political functions. Sparta had

7728-459: The strengths and weaknesses of the protagonist's character, and having the protagonist develop as a result. The term protagonist comes from Ancient Greek πρωταγωνιστής ( prōtagōnistḗs )  'actor who plays the chief or first part', combined of πρῶτος ( prôtos , 'first') and ἀγωνιστής ( agōnistḗs , 'actor, competitor'), which stems from ἀγών ( agṓn , 'contest') via ἀγωνίζομαι ( agōnízomai , 'I contend for

7820-695: The territories they controlled. The most important of these rulers in the decades after Alexander's death were Antigonus I and his son Demetrius in Macedonia and the rest of Greece, Ptolemy in Egypt, and Seleucus I in Syria and the former Persian empire; smaller Hellenistic kingdoms included the Attalids in Anatolia and the Greco-Bactrian kingdom . In the early part of the Hellenistic period,

7912-515: The territory or unify it into a new province, but compelled most of the poleis to join his own Corinthian League . Initially many Greek city-states seem to have been petty kingdoms; there was often a city official carrying some residual, ceremonial functions of the king ( basileus ), e.g., the archon basileus in Athens. However, by the Archaic period and the first historical consciousness, most had already become aristocratic oligarchies . It

8004-626: The time of Alexander I of Macedon , the Argead kings of Macedon started to expand into Upper Macedonia , lands inhabited by independent Macedonian tribes like the Lyncestae , Orestae and the Elimiotae and to the west, beyond the Axius river , into Eordaia , Bottiaea , Mygdonia , and Almopia , regions settled by Thracian tribes. To the north of Macedonia lay various non-Greek peoples such as

8096-539: Was a notable exception to the rest of Greece, ruled through the whole period by not one, but two hereditary monarchs. This was a form of diarchy . The Kings of Sparta belonged to the Agiads and the Eurypontids, descendants respectively of Eurysthenes and Procles . Both dynasties' founders were believed to be twin sons of Aristodemus , a Heraclid ruler. However, the powers of these kings were held in check by both

8188-460: Was a situation unlike that in most other contemporary societies, which were either tribal or kingdoms ruling over relatively large territories. Undoubtedly, the geography of Greece —divided and sub-divided by hills, mountains, and rivers—contributed to the fragmentary nature of ancient Greece. On the one hand, the ancient Greeks had no doubt that they were "one people"; they had the same religion , same basic culture, and same language. Furthermore,

8280-752: Was conquered by the Romans. The Aetolian league grew wary of Roman involvement in Greece, and sided with the Seleucids in the Roman–Seleucid War ; when the Romans were victorious, the league was effectively absorbed into the Republic. Although the Achaean league outlasted both the Aetolian league and Macedon, it was also soon defeated and absorbed by the Romans in 146 BC, bringing Greek independence to an end. The Greek peninsula came under Roman rule during

8372-417: Was in permanent settlements founded by Greeks, which formed as independent poleis. The second form was in what historians refer to as emporia ; trading posts which were occupied by both Greeks and non-Greeks and which were primarily concerned with the manufacture and sale of goods. Examples of this latter type of settlement are found at Al Mina in the east and Pithekoussai in the west. From about 750 BC

8464-610: Was preceded by the Greek Dark Ages ( c.  1200 – c.  800 BC ), archaeologically characterised by the protogeometric and geometric styles of designs on pottery. Following the Dark Ages was the Archaic Period , beginning around the 8th century BC, which saw early developments in Greek culture and society leading to the Classical Period from the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC until

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