The Legacy of Greece

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The Legacy of Greece
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We Are the Heirs

• Beyond myth and religion (more later)
• Philosophy
• Virtually all sciences
• Politics
• Logic
• History
• Literature (drama/poetry/epics, etc.)
• Arts (sculpture, architecture, ceramics, etc.)

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Two Broad Periods

• Hellenic, 2000 BC - 338 BCArrival of the Greeks
  to Philip
• Hellenistic, 338 - 148 BCPhilip conquers Greece
  to Rome conquers Hellenistic East

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This Chapters Questions

• Geographic factors led to city-state
• Impact of Minoans and Mycenaeans
• How did democracy and tyranny come out of this
  people?
• What did the Greek intellectual triumph entail?
• Why did they fall?

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Hellas

• Description on p. 64 map on p. 65
• Includes peninsula and islands
• Very rocky, no great rivers, not easily farmed,
  traveled, inhabited
• Many good harbors, lots of coast line
• Result small pockets of population leading to
  political fragmentation

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Minoans and Mycenaeans

• Who knows when it began
• Mycenae inhabited by 650 BC
• Even the Greeks did not recall much of this
• Schliemann, finder of Troy, excavated Mycenae and
  others uncovered the Minoans in Crete at Cnossus

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Crete/The Minoans

• About 1650 BCE civilization was flourishing
• Linear A
• Palace at Knossus or Cnossus
• Bronze-age implements
• Wealthy and peaceful
• Enthusiastic sailors and merchants, they traded
  with the whole Eastern Mediterranean

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Mycenae

• By 1650 BCE a large city
• Spread to Thebes, Athens, Tiryns
• Political unit was the kingdom with a warrior
  aristocracy
• Fine craftsmen in ceramics, jewelry, forged
  weapons, leathers and woolens
• Linear B! used to account and tax

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War

• Around 1450, the Mycenaeans attacked Crete and
  ruled it for about 50 years.
• Something happened (?) and Cnossus was destroyed.
  (Not a natural disaster as was thought.)
• Mycenaeans benefited by remaining the areas
  super-power, becoming serious merchants across
  the eastern Mediterranean.

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What Goes Up

• Between 1300 and 1000, Mycenaean civilizations
  get torched one city at a time
• Originally, it was thought that the Dorians were
  the culprits, but it is now believed that the
  Mycenaeans offed themselves.

12
Dark Ages

• Thus began the Dark Ages of Greece (1100-800
  BCE)
• Much poverty, destruction, and back-peddling of
  culture.
• Greeks left in droves to colonize less dark
  areas (all over the Eastern Mediterranean)
• Took what there was left of their culture with
  them.

13
Homer and Hesiod

• No sacred book like the Bible. Instead, Illiad,
  Odyssey and the Theogony
• Homer 8th Century BCE, Illiad and Odyssey depict
  Mycenaean HUMAN BEINGS being human beings and the
  Gods being an arrogant, deeply flawed lot.
  Created an idealized past of heroes and legendary
  figures.
• Hesiod Theogony (700 BCE) first epic describing
  Greek Gods and mythology. Set forth the moral
  basis of the Gods. Works Days

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The Polis

• Polis or City State (Metro POLIS)
• A city or town and the surrounding countryside,
  water from a common well
• Out of the Dark Ages, the unit of governance,
  generally under a King
• Few could rise above the others (Sparta, Athens
  and Thebes)

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Polis (cont.)

• Acropolis temples, altars, monuments
• Agora government marketplace
• Unsettled land arable land, pasture, woods,
  wasteland
• Size varies by geography, 5000
• No standing army, citizen force
• Wealthy could afford better arms and horses