Daily life in Ancient Greece
In Ancient Greece people survived by farming. Farming in Greece was very hard for the Greeks. Even in the plains and valleys, the terrain was rocky and water was scarce. No rivers run through Ancient Greece, and it rains only during the winter months. Many people traded for the goods that they needed if they couldn't farm for it. Some people in their settlements had enough farmland to take care of their own needs, but others relied on trade because they had little land to grow. Most of the goods were transported on ships owned by people called
merchants. Navigating the ships was difficult because the Greeks had no compasses or charts. They only had the stars to guide them. The stars could tell sailors where they were, but they could not tell them what hazards lay nearby. The terrain of Ancient Greece was quite difficult and was very harsh to travel on. In Ancient Greece, communities were isolated from one another because of mountains. It was hard to travel over the mountains so there was little communication between people in different settlements. Traveling by land was even more difficult. They either had to walk or ride in carts pulled by oxen or mules, on unpaved roads. As the population of these Greek communities grew, some of them did not have enough farmland to feed their people. One solution to this problem was to start colonies. Many Greek communities sent colonists over the sea, hoping they could grow food in new lands and send it back. In these communities they did not have a leader they had a government. In these communities they had very harsh lives and it was difficult to survive there.