Western Civ

• First and greatest epic poem of Greece.  Written 750 BC
• Subject is the wrath of the great warrior Achilles.

• Poet
• the assumed writer of The Iliad and The Odyssey

• The first of 3 distinct cultures of the Bronze Age
• Rugged islands at the bottom of the Aegean Sea
• Not concentrated in towns and not warlike
• The artistically anbd economically sophisticated culture which flourished on islands in the Aegean Sea during the early and middle Greek Bronze Age (3000-1500 BC)

• The second of the 3 cultures of the Bronze Age
• The culture of Crete in the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1550 BC) in which elites based at great palaces, such as Knossos, dominated the island politically, economincally and religiously.

• First archaeological discovery of the legendary palace of Minos
• The capital of Crete

• Island south of main body of Greece
• Towns were not fortified

• The last of 3 cultures of the Bronze Age
• Late Greek Bronze Age civilization that arose ca 1600 BC at Mycenae and that encompassed the Greek mainland and parts of Aisa Minor.   Myceneans developed the Linear B script.

A syllabic form of writing from th elate Greek Bronze Age which preserves the earliste known form of Greek.  It was used by Mycenaean elites almost entirely for record-keeping.

• About 1200 BC after the Mycenaean Age.  
• Confused and little-known period during which Greece returned to a more primitive level of culture and society.
• Centralized government, literacy, urban life - civilization itself - seemed to disappear.

Dark Age Greeks, settled in much of Peloponnesus, Crete, and southwest Asia Minor

Dark Age Greeks, settled in Attica, Euboea, and the Aegearn islands.

Poet from the Dark Age, is known for two poems, Theogony and Works and Days 

Epic poem attributed to Homer.  

• At about 800-500 BC change came Greece
• Population increased which made more towns and villages and the need for more communication.

Large rural territorial units in the Dark Age and Archaic Greece focused around a central religious sanctuary and dominated by a local oligarchy, such as in Aetolia

Government by an elite few

Form of government in which the citizens choose their leaders; began in Athens, Greece, in the fifth century BC.

• Originally meant citadel
• The city-state of Archaic and Classical Greece, particularly found on the shores of the Aegean.  A city formed the center of government (tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy) and of religious life with temples on its "high citadel" (Acropolis)

Marketplace, in the polis, where farmers and artisans could trade and conduct business

• High Citadel
• High, fortified sites were sacred to specific gods

A tightly ordered and well-disciplined body of elite Greek warriors in heavy armor that attacked in close formation with long spears.

In Archaic Greece, armed infantry soldiers.

• Rulers who had seized power illegally.
• Did not have the negative connotations it does today, as many tyrants were popular leaders welcomed by their subjects

Tyrannies replaced oligarchies in many poleis in Archaic Greece, such as at Corinth and Athens.

• Archaic Greek Temple to house a god.  
• Oblong or rectangular room covered by a pitched roof and circled by columns.

all Greek

the Greek word for Greece

• Olympia was the main sanctuary of Zeus.
• Sporting contests held in honor of Zeus.
• Victors were treated as national heroes

• Site of the shrine of Apollo, god of music.
• People traveled to ask Apollo's advise through the oracle

Woman offered to man by Zeus, was said to have brought evil to humans.  Another version is that Pandora was curious and opened a box that brought evil to the world.

Ionian Philosopher, regarded water as the fundamental substance of the universe

Ionian Philosopher, regarded air as the primary substance of the universe

Ionian Philosopher who saw the universe not as one unchanging substance but rather as change itself.   The universe is constantly in flux.

Archaic sculpture, a standing male nude

• A commercial center dominated by an oligarchy.
• wealthy
• developed a navy

• Developed into a state in which citizenship was redically egalitarian but restricted to a small military elite
• 3-tiered social structure
• Warriors, homoioi
• Serfs, helots
• citizens of conquered cities, perioeci

The foundations of an equally redical democracy.

• Tyrant of Corinth
• Developed the Naval force at Corinth
• Introduced laws and puth Corinthians to work
• Erected temples and sent colonists to Italy
• Remembered for his cruelty and violence

• 7th century lawgiver, was credited with the reforms that saved Sparta during the war with Messenians.
• Radical redistribution of land

state serfs

the good order and obedience to the law which was the ideal of Sparta's militaristic society

• Was given the power to revise, systematize, and commit to writing traditional laws concerning vengeance and homicide
• Restructured procedures for limiting vengeance and preventing bloodshed
• 621 BC

• Aristocratic merchant
• 594 BC, elected chief archon (magistrate)
• Charged with restructuring the city's government
• Started with eliminating debt bondage, free men and women could not be mortgaged into bondage
• Divided society into 4 classes based on wealth instead of birth

• "made the demos his faction"
• pushed constitutional reform that became the basis for Athenian democracy
• reorganized local government by creating demes or local councils governing several settlements

• King of the Persian Empire
• Conquest and expansion west into Asia Minor
• Put governers (satraps) into conquered Greek territories

• Persian King
• Led a 5 year war against the Greeks to take back Asia Minor
• 494 BC
• Boys were castrated and girls were sent to kings court
• Balance of population was sold into slavery

Persian Empire expanded and covered Mesopotamia, Egypt, Asia Minor, including parts of Greece.