Ideas from Greece and Rome

Ages 9 to 12 Read alone or together · about 35 minutes

Read together

Ancient Greece and Rome left ideas that shaped later history. In Athens, around 508 BC, reforms began a kind of democracy where citizens voted on laws. But only free adult men were citizens. Women and enslaved people were left out.

The Romans built roads, aqueducts and cities across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. They wrote down their laws on the Twelve Tables around 450 BC. Roman law influenced many legal systems.

The New Testament was written in Greek, and the Roman roads and sea routes helped the first Christians travel and share their message.

Do it

1. Make a two-column chart: “Ideas we still use” and “Ideas that were unfair”. Add democracy, roads, law, slavery, the Olympic Games and public baths.
2. Hold a mini “assembly”: pose a question, such as “Should we choose the family movie?”. Vote by raising hands. Who is allowed to vote? Is it fair?
3. Find the Mediterranean Sea on a map. Mark Athens, Rome, Jerusalem and Alexandria.
4. Draw a Roman road in cross-section, with layers of stone and gravel. Why were they built to last?

Talk about it

• Why was Athenian democracy limited?
• What do we still use from Rome?

For the grown-up

The ancient world gave much, and it also relied on slavery and excluded many people from power. Good history includes both. The Roman Empire shaped the world in which the church began, and Greek was the common language of the eastern Mediterranean.

Mark as done

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Where this comes from

• Mary Beard, SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome (Profile Books, 2015)
• Paul Cartledge, Democracy: A Life (Oxford University Press, 2016)
• Aristotle, Politics (on the Greek city-state and citizenship)

Written with AI assistance and checked against the sources listed. Please read it before sharing it with a child.