Download Chapter Two, Lecture One

Chapter Two, Lecture One
The Cultural Context of Classical
Myth
To Greek Society
Cultural Context of Classical Myth
• “Myths reflect the society that produces
them. In turn, they determine the nature of
that society. They cannot be separated
from the physical, social, and spiritual
worlds in which a people lives or from a
people’s history.”
Greek Geography
• Greece not rich in minerals or tillable land
– mountainous
• Principal Areas:
– Thessaly, Macedonia, Boeotia, Attica,
Peloponnesus, Argolis, Laconia, Elis
– Maps of Greece
• Horses were scarce
Greek Geography
• Some areas rich in limestone, marble, and
clay
– the basis for Greek material culture
– temples and pottery tell us much about their
gods and myths
• The Aegean Sea the greatest natural
resource
– Maps of Greece
Greek Geography
• Cycladic Islands and the Sporades
• Importance of trade and colonization
• Mountainous terrain encourage political
independence of cities and spawned
myths of city founders
Greek History
– 7000 BC
7000–3000 BC
3000–1150 BC
Paleolithic
Neolithic
Bronze Age
Greek History
3000–1600: Early/Middle Bronze Age
1600–1150: Mycenaean (Late Bronze) Age
1150–800: Dark Age
800–490: Archaic Period
490–323: Classical Period
323–30: Hellenistic Period
Greek History
3000: Writing and Cities, Bronze
1600: Ascendancy of Mainland Greeks
1150: Sack and Collapse of Cities
800: Greek Alphabet
490: Persian Invasion of Greece
323: Death of Alexander the Great
30: Rome's Conquest of Egypt
Early/Middle Bronze Age
3000–1600 BC
• Early Bronze Age (3000–2000 BC)
peoples in the Greek area not Greek
• Agricultural peoples mainly
• Worshipped goddesses of fertility
Early/Middle Bronze Age
3000–1600
• Minoans (on Crete)
• Started building elaborate palaces toward
the end of the Early Bronze Age and
beyond (2200–1450 BC)
– Knossos Reconstruction and other images
The Origin of the Greeks
2100 BC?
• Migration of a people, whom we call the
Indo-Europeans – first around 2100 BC?
• Were no doubt speaking an early form of
Greek
– Their language the basis for many world
languages today
• Language of the people they replaced still
in many place names and names for
plants and animals
The Origin of the Greeks
2100 BC?
• Appear to be more warlike that aboriginal
peoples
• Society divided into
– (1) kings and priests
– (2) warriors
– (3) food producers
The Late Bronze Age
1600-1150 BC
• Known also as the Mycenaean Age
• People called “Mycenaean” because that
is one of their main sites
– They may have called themselves “Achaean”
• Mycenae taken over by Indo-Europeans in
1650 BC
– Other Mycenaean sites: Thebes, Athens,
Orchomenus, Pylos
The Late Bronze Age
1600–1150 BC
• Ruled by powerful and rich warrior kings
• Perhaps the Mycenaean destroyed the
Minoan sites on Crete in 1450
• Ruled on Crete until 1400
– Impressed by Minoan art and culture
• Their writing system: Linear B
– Translated in 1952; proved to be an early form
of Greek
The Late Bronze Age
1600–1150 BC
• Great heroic legends of classical myth set
in this period
• Historically related to a conflict with Troy in
about 1230?
• Perhaps the Trojans were Mycenaean
Greeks themselves?
The Dark Age:1150–800 BC
• Great Mycenaean palaces destroyed
around 1180–1150 BC
• The Dorian Invasion (a.k.a. the
Heraclidae)
• Athens survived
• Period of migration of Mycenaean Greeks
across the Aegean
– Ionia and Aeolis on the western coast of
modern-day Turkey
The Dark Age:1150–800 BC
• Social disorganization, depopulation and
impoverishment
• Petty kings and small dominions
– Families and small villages
• The island of Euboea a possible exception
– Continued contacts with the Near East
– Greek alphabet first appears on Euboea,
allowing Homer and Hesiod to be written
down
The Archaic Period: 800–490 BC
• Invention of the Greek alphabet
• Includes symbols for vowels, not just
consonants
• Colonization from Euboea to southern Italy
and Sicily
• A cultural revival
The Archaic Period: 800–490 BC
• The Greek polis
– People identified themselves geographically
and not just by family ties
– “Citizenship”
– Competitiveness encouraged, not so much
cooperation
The Archaic Period: 800–490 BC
• Rebirth of commerce depended on the sea
• Greek economy thus decentralized and
competitive, not like landed/river
monarchies such as Egypt and
Mesopotamia
• 6th century innovation of coined money
spurned economic growth even more
The Archaic Period: 800–490 BC
• The “new” economy strains old social
orders
– Period of conflict between the old, landed
aristocracy (the aristoi) and the
entrepreneurial class (the kakoi)
• Period of tyrants (650–600)
– Perhaps can be thought of as populists
– Negative connotation of the word tyrant from
the hostility of the literate aristoi
The Archaic Period: 800–490 BC
• Toward the end of the Archaic Period and
series of conflicts with Persia
• Persia conquers the Greek cities on the
western coast of Turkey
• Mainland Greeks drawn into the conflict
The Classical Period
490–323
• A democracy in Athens (508 BC)
– Cleisthenes
– All free men had a stake in the city and a role
to play in its administration
• Persians first repelled by Athenian citizen
army at Marathon in 490
– “What a noble thing freedom is”
• Persians finally defeated in 480 by Athens
and other Greek cities
The Classical Period
490–323
• Classical floruit of Athens and Greece inspired
by their national pride and their military prowess
• Greek cities fought with one another but they
recognized that they were all Hellenes, different
from the barbaroi around them
• The great “civil” war of the Greeks in the
Peloponnesian War (431-404) fatally weakened
them all
The Classical Period
490–323
• Myth reworked and re-presented in new
forms to reflect the political and social
realities of the day
– Tragedy above all
• Philosophy and science developed in the
late Classical Period as a counterpoint to
myth
The Classical Period
490–323
• The Macedonian king Philip II overran the
southern Greeks in 338 and changed the
political landscape
• Greece cities yoked in a kingdom; their
freedom limited
• Alexander the Great follows; leads
campaign against Persia
• Death in 323 the conventional date for the
end of the Classical Period
The Hellenistic Period: 323–30 BC
• Greek culture the “global” culture in the
Mediterranean area
• Center moved from the “old” Greece to the
new cities of Alexandria
• 146 BC, Greek mainland conquered by
Rome, followed by another 100 years of
conflict
• Finally pacified in 30 BC with the conquest
of Egypt, by then a Greek dynasty
Beginning of the Roman Period
• 30 BC the beginning of the Roman period
and the end of Greek “independence”
Next Lecture
Greek Society