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In ancient Greece, mixed-gender choruses performed for entertainment, celebration and spiritual reasons. Instruments included the double-reed aulos and the plucked string instrument, the lyre, especially the special kind called a kithara.

The Roman formula expressed the attitude of worshippers to their gods in the formula do ut des; I give sacrifices, so that the god will reward me in return. Public worship was aimed at pleasing the gods so that the gods would send rain, good harvest, military victories, and other public blessings. Private sacrifice was offered for personal goals. Prayer was highly formulaic and ritualized. Most places did not have professional full-time clergy; priests were local officials whose priesthoods were not full time jobs. Major religious sites such as the oracles of pilgrimage brought in enough spiritual tourism to need a full time clerical staff.

The variety in Greek religion is also caused by the long history of Greece. Greek religion spans a period from Minoan and Mycenean periods to the days of Hellenistic Greece and its ultimate conquest by the Roman Empire. Religious ideas continued to develop over this time; by the time of the earliest major monument of Greek literature, the Iliad attributed to Homer, a consensus had already developed about who the major Olympian gods were. Still, changes to the canon remained possible; the Iliad seems to have been unaware of Dionysus, a god whose worship apparently spread after it was written, and who became important enough to be named one of the twelve chief Olympian gods.

Greek folk traditions are said to derive from the music played by ancient Greeks. There are said to be two musical movements in Greek folk music: akritic and klephtic. Akritic music comes from the 9th century akrites, or border guards of the Byzantine Empire. Following the end of the Byzantine period, klephtic music arose before the Greek Revolution, developed among the kleftes, warriors who fought against the Ottoman Empire. Klephtic music is monophonic and uses no harmonic accompaniment.

Greece is located in southeastern Europe on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula. The Greek mainland is bounded on the north by Bulgaria, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Albania; on the east by the Aegean Sea and Turkey; and on the west and south by the Ionian and Mediterranean Seas. The country consists of a large mainland; the Peloponnesos, a peninsula connected to the mainland by the Isthmus of Corinth; and more than 1,400 islands, including Crete, Rhodes, Corfu, and the Dodecanese and Cycladic groups. Greece has more than 14,880 kilometers (9,300 mi.) of coastline and a land boundary of 1,160 kilometers (726 mi.).

Thales' most famous belief was his cosmological doctrine, which held that the world originated from water. Aristotle considered this belief roughly equivalent to the later ideas of Anaximenes, who held that everything in the world was composed of air. Thus it is sometimes assumed that Thales considered everything to be made from water. According to Lloyd, however, it's likely that while Thales saw water as an origin, he never pondered whether water continued to be the substance of the world.

Greece is divided into 51 prefectures, each headed by a prefect (nomarch), who is elected by direct popular vote. There are also thirteen regional administrative districts (peripheries), each including a number of prefectures and headed by a regional governor (periferiarch), appointed by the Minister of the Interior. In northern Greece and in greater Athens, three areas have an additional administrative position between the nomarch and periferiarch. This official, known as the president of the prefectural local authorities or "super nomarch," is elected by direct popular vote. Although municipalities and villages have elected officials, they do not have an adequate independent tax base and must depend on the central government for a large part of their financial needs. Consequently they are subject to numerous central government controls. This also leads to extremely low municipal taxes (usually around 0.2% or less).

The oldest surviving folk songs in all of Greece can be traced to the 17th century, when songs in the rizitika type were recorded by monks at Iviron and Xyropotamos at Mount Athos. Recording secular folk songs was almost certainly forbidden by the monk's code of conduct. However, the connection between music and religion continues in modern Crete; priests are said to be excellent folk singers, including the rizitiko singer Aggelos Psilakis. It was during this period, when modern Cretan folk music was formed, that Francisco Leontaritis was active. Leontaritis is said to be the father of modern Greek music.

The Roman Catholic Church shares many of the same characteristics as the Orthodox Church especially in reference to the early church because of their common origin. For nearly 1000 years, the two churches were united, with the Roman Pope being counted as one of the five major hierarchs, along with the patriarchs of Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Constantinople. The division of the Church into separate churches is regarded as having occurred in 1054 in what is known as the Great Schism, though their divergence began as much as two centuries earlier. Both churches claim to be the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and reject the other's claim to this title. The term "Orthodox" was adopted by the Eastern Church to signify its adherence to, and preservation of, the original apostolic traditions, teachings, and style of worship. Both churches, to signify the universality of the church, retain the term "Catholic". Both churches also continue to claim apostolic succession. The churches differ, however, in their ecclesiology: the Orthodox Church views all bishops as equal, and rejects the idea that one patriarch may have authority over another's jurisdiction. The Patriarch of Constantinople currently enjoys the honorary title of "First Among Equals"; which simply means that in council, he occupies the position of president in what is otherwise a democratic organization. This, in the view of the Orthodox, is the same position held by the Pope before the Great Schism. The Roman Catholic Church, on the other hand, views the Patriarch of Rome as the head of the Church and ascribe to him all-encompassing authority on Christian matters.

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.

The standard format of Greek public buildings is well known from surviving examples such as the Parthenon, and even more so from Roman buildings built partly on the Greek model, such as the Pantheon in Rome. The building was usually either a cube or a rectangle made from limestone, of which Greece has an abundance, and which was cut into large blocks and dressed. Marble was an expensive building material in Greece: high quality marble came only from Mt Pentelus in Attica and from a few islands such as Paros, and its transportation in large blocks was difficult. It was used mainly for sculptural decoration, not structurally, except in the very grandest buildings of the Classical period such as the Parthenon.

Parliamentary deputies are elected by secret ballot for a maximum of four years, but elections can be called earlier. Greece uses a complex reinforced proportional representation electoral system which discourages splinter parties and makes a parliamentary majority possible even if the leading party falls short of a majority of the popular vote. A party must receive 3% of the total national vote to qualify for parliamentary seats.

In the Byzantine period, religious art was the dominate theme, with highly-decorated mosaics and icons adorning religious buildings. The Renaissance artist, El Greco (Domenikos Theotocopoulos), responded to Byzantine and 16th century Mannerist art, producing sculpture and paintings with a liberated form, light and colour that inspired 20th century artists such as Pablo Picasso and Jackson Pollock

The transition from the Classical to the Hellenistic period occurred during the 4th century. Following the conquests of Alexander the Great (336 BC to 323 BC), Greek culture spread across the known world as far as India. Thus it became more diverse and more influenced by the cultures of the peoples drawn into the Greek orbit. In the view of most art historians, it also declined in quality and originality; this, however, is a subjective judgement which artists and art-lovers of the time would not have shared. New centres of Greek culture, particularly in sculpture, developed in Alexandria, Antioch, Pergamum, and other cities. By the 2nd century the rising power of Rome had also absorbed much of the Greek tradition — and an increasing proportion of its products as well.

As with pottery, the Greeks did not produce sculpture merely for artistic display. Statues were commissioned either by aristocratic individuals or by the state, and used for public memorials, as offerings to temples, oracles and sanctuaries (as is frequently shown by inscriptions on the statues), or as markers for graves. In the Archaic period, statues were never intended to be representations of actual individuals. They were depictions of an ideal — beauty, piety, honour or sacrifice. They were always depictions of young men, ranging in age from adolescence to early maturity, even when placed on the graves of (presumably) elderly citizens. Kouroi were all stylistically similar. Gradations in the social importance of the person commissioning the statue were indicated by size rather than artistic innovation.