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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