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Votives were gifts offered to the gods by their worshippers. They were often given for benefits already conferred or in anticipation of future divine favors. Or they could be offered to propitiate the gods for crimes involving blood-guilt, impiety, or the breach of religious customs. They could be given either voluntarily or in response to demands by the cult's priesthood that the donor fulfill a religious vow or honor some religious custom.

Greeks elect members of the country's unicameral parliament (the Vouli ton Ellinon) by secret ballot for a maximum of four years, but elections can occur at more frequent intervals. Greece uses a complex reinforced proportional representation electoral system which discourages splinter parties and ensures that the party which leads in the national vote will win a majority of seats. A party must receive 3% of the total national vote to gain representation.

The 1975 constitution includes extensive specific guarantees of civil liberties and vests the powers of the head of state in an indirectly-elected president, who is advised by the Council of the Republic. 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. The parliament elects the president for a five-year term and can re-elect once.

The primary causes of Orthodox differences with Rome include the addition to the Symbol of Faith (Nicean Creed) of the Filioque clause, papal claims to authority over all Christians (papal primacy), and other doctrinal and liturgical developments approved by the See of Rome. After the split, Roman Catholics defined other dogmas that the Eastern Orthodox also considers heretical, among them papal infallibility, the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, and purgatory. The See of Rome considers the Eastern Orthodox churches to be in schism. The general Eastern Orthodox consensus is that Roman Catholics are both schismatics and heretics, although a minority of Orthodox Christians believe that the difference in reality is smaller than it appears superficially.

Pythagoras was born on the island of Samos, off the coast of Asia Minor. As a young man he left his native city for Croton in Southern Italy to escape the tyrannical government of Polycrates. Many writers credit him with visits to the sages of Egypt and of Babylon before going west; but such visits feature stereotypically in the biographies of many Greek wise men, and are likely more legend than fact.

Greece was inhabited as early as the Paleolithic period and by 3000 BC had become home, in the Cycladic Islands, to a culture whose art remains among the most evocative in world history. Early in the 2nd millennium BC, the island of Crete nurtured the sophisticated maritime empire of the Minoans, whose trade reached from Egypt to Sicily. The Minoans were challenged and eventually supplanted by the Mycenaeans of the Greek mainland, who spoke a dialect of ancient Greek. Initially, Greece's mosaic of small city-states were ethnically similar. During the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires (1st century-19th century), Greece's ethnic composition became more diverse. Since independence in 1829 and an exchange of populations with Turkey in 1923, Greece has forged a national state which claims roots reaching back 3,000 years.

However, when the Germans attempted to seize Crete in a massive attack by paratroops — with the aim of reducing the threat of a counter-offensive by Allied forces in Egypt — Allied forces, along with Cretan civilians, offered fierce resistance. Although Crete eventually fell, this delayed German plans significantly, with the result that the German invasion of the Soviet Union started fatally close to winter.

Major challenges remaining include the reduction of unemployment and further restructuring of the economy, including privatising several state enterprises, undertaking social security reforms, overhauling the tax system, and minimising bureaucratic inefficiencies. Forecasts predicted economic growth of 4 - 4.5 % in 2004. Reducing the government deficit also remains a major challenge, as it is currently running at nearly twice the Eurozone target (of 3% of GDP). The new conservative government revealed to Eurostat that the previous figures supplied, on which was the basis of Greek entry into the Eurozone, were incorrect.