Ancient Greece

Notes :

Crucible 

Geography of Greece

• Mountainous Peninsula
• Cover 3/4 of Greece
• 1,400 islands in the Aegean and Ionian Seas
• Location shaped its culture
• Skilled sailors 
• Poor natural resources
• Difficult to unite the ancient Greeks because of the terrain
• developed small, independent communities call city states
• Only 20% of Greece was suitable for farming
• Fetile valleys cover 1/4 of peninsula
• Because of geography the Greek diet consists of grain, gapes, and olives 
• Lack of resources most likely led to Greek colonization
• Right on the Med. sea
• Temperatures range from 48 in the winter to 80 in the summer
• Made them very physical active people

Mycenaeans 

• Began around 2000 BC
• Mycenae is located on a rocky ridge and protected by a 20 ft. thick wall
• Mycenaean kings dominated Greece from 1600-1200 BC
• Controlled trade in the region
• 1400 BC Mycenaean invaded Crete and absorbed Minoan culture and language

Culture in Decline

• Around 1200 BC sea people began to invade Mycenae and burnt palace after palace
• The Dorians moved into the war-torn region
• Far less advanced
• Economy collapsed
• Writing disappeared for 400 years

Homer and Myths

• Only stories were kept and passed on by word of mouth 
• Homer lived at the end of the "Greek Dark Ages"
• Recoreded stories of the Trojan War in The lliad and The Odyssey (written 750-700 BC)
• Trojan war was probably one of the last conquests of the Mycenaeans 
• They would remember all these stories by singing or music

Greek Concepts

• Arete
• virtue and excellence
• Epics
• narrative poems celebrating heroic deeds
• Myths were created to explain creation
• Zeus : leader of the gods
• Hera : Zeus' wife
• Athena: goddess of wisdom