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Votives were kept on display in the god's sanctuary for a set period of time and then were usually ritually discarded. Bronze tripods, prize cauldrons and figurines, terracotta tablets and figurines, lamps, and vases are typical examples. Armor, weapons, jewelry and other more personalized items were dedicated in large numbers, along with marble statuettes and reliefs. Some of the healing sanctuaries housed replicas of body parts donated in thanks for or in hope of cures. Large sculptural monuments in bronze, marble and other costly materials were routinely dedicated by either private donors or individual city-states in the great Panhellenic sanctuaries like Olympia and Delphi.

The 1975 constitution, which describes Greece as a "presidential parliamentary republic," includes extensive specific guarantees of civil liberties and vests the powers of the head of state in a president elected by parliament and advised by the Council of the Republic. The Greek governmental structure is similar to that found in many Western democracies, and has been described as a compromise between the French and German models. The prime minister and cabinet play the central role in the political process, while the president performs some governmental functions in addition to ceremonial duties.

About 80% of Greece is mountainous or hilly. Much of the country is dry and rocky; only 28% of the land is arable. Greece has mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers. Temperatures are rarely extreme, although snowfalls do occur in the mountains and occasionally even in Athens in the winter.

The low pitch of Greek rooves produced a flat triangular shape at each end of the building, the pediment, which was usually filled with sculptural decoration. Along the sides of the building, between the tops of the columns and the roof, was a row of blocks now known as the entablature, whose outward-facing surfaces also provided a space for sculptures, known as friezes, which consisted of alternating metopes and triglyphs. No surviving Greek building preserves these sculptures intact, but they can be seen on some modern imitations of Greek buildings, such as the Greek National Academy building in Athens

Funeral statuary evolved during this period from the rigid and impersonal kouros of the Archaic period to the highly personal family groups of the Classical period. These monuments are commonly found in the suburbs of Athens, which in ancient times were cemeteries on the outskirts of the city. Although some of them depict "ideal" types — the mourning mother, the dutiful son — they increasingly depicted real people, typically showing the departed talking his dignified leave from his family. They are among the most intimate and affecting remains of the Ancient Greeks.

At the other end of the time-scale, art historians generally hold that Ancient Greek art as a distinct culture ended with the establishment of Roman rule over the Greek-speaking world in about 100 BC. After this date they argue, Greco-Roman art, though often impressive in scale, was largely derivative of earlier Greek models, and declined steadily in quality until the advent of Christianity brought the classical tradition to an end in the 5th century AD. (For the later periods, see Roman art and Byzantine art).

The Fathers of the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church are not legalistic in their views of sin. Sin does not exist as an abstract entity and must be approached on an individual basis. Likewise, the prescription for sin must be filtered through human understanding in order to be effective. There is nothing within the Church that is automatic (latae sententiae). What is a sin for one man may not be for another; neither does the Orthodox Church see all sin as being the same. The traditional practice of the Orthodox is to have a spiritual Father (or Mother) to whom one confesses and who treats the sin on an individual basis. An experienced spiritual father will know how and when to apply strictness in dealing with sin and when to effectively "bend the rules." This relationship (father and son) is a reflection of our relationship to God and is pervasive in the Church—see the section concerning the Mystery of Repentance.

Hellenistic sculpture was also marked by an increase in scale, which culminated in the Colossus of Rhodes (late 3rd century), which was the same size as the Statue of Liberty. The combined effect of earthquakes and looting have destroyed this as well as other very large works of this period

Greek painters worked mainly on wooden panels, and these perished rapidly after the 4th century AD, when they were no longer actively protected. Today nothing survives of Greek painting, except some examples of painted terra cotta and a few paintings on the walls of tombs, mostly in Macedonia and Italy. Of the masterpieces of Greek painting we have only a few copies from Roman times, and most are of inferior quality. Painting on pottery, of which a great deal survives, gives some sense of the aesthetics of Greek painting. The techniques involved, however, were very different from those used in large-format painting.

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