Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece

1. The Greek speaking world in ancient times, geographically referring not only to modern Greece and southern Balkan peninsula but also to areas of Hellenic culture that were settled during ancient times by Greeks: Cyprus, the Aegean coast of Ionia, southern Italian peninsula and Sicily (known as Magna Graecia) and the scattered Greek settlements on the coasts of what are now Albania, Bulgaria, Egypt, Libya, southern France, southern Spain, Catalonia, Georgia, Romania, and Ukraine.
2. The civilization that flourished around the Mediterranean Sea from the 3rd millennium to the 1st century BCE (including the first two European civilizations, Minoan and Mycenaean), known as the cradle of Western civilization.

• Ancient Greek (adj.)