Untitled Document

Greek Dark Ages

Greek Periodization

2000	-	1380	Minoan Civilization (Crete)
1600	-	1200	Mycenean Civilization
1200	-	700	Greek Dark Ages
700	-	480	Archaic Greece
480	-	338	Classical Greece
post	-	338	Hellenistic Greece

Points of Reference

ca. 1645 eruption of Thera (Knossos destroyed, rebuilt)
ca. 1380 Mycenean conquest of Crete, eastern Mediterranean
ca. 1200 Trojan War
ca. 750 Homer
479 Persian invasion

Ioclus - Jason
Orchomenus - Athamos
Corinth - Creon
Mycenae - Agamemnon
Sparta - Menelaus
Pylos - Nestor
Ithaca -Odysseus

House of Atreus

                             Tantalus
                                   |
                              Pelops
      _______________|________________
     |                                                               |
Thyestes                                                  Atreus
     |                                                 _______|______
     |                                                |                            |
Aegisthus = (Clytemnestra) = Agamamnon          Menelaus = (Helen)
                     __________|___________
                    |                    |                      |
              Iphigenia          Electra          Orestes

Apollo (justice) - oracle at Delphi
Furies
Athena (wisdom - "Athens")

Homer
Aeschylus, Agamemnon, Oresteia (trilogy)
Euripides, Electra, Iphigenia
Sophocles, Electra

Myth
memory
stability of verse ...

Dorian

Greek Dark Ages
ca. 1200 - 700 B.C.

Historical - Thucydides, Peloponnesian War (433-399 B.C.)
Archaeology - Peloponnesus abandoned
- Cyprus
Language
- North Greek: Boeotians, Dorians (in Thessaly)
- South Greek: Myceneans (in Peloponnesus)

Troy
Hittites
Embario (Chios)
Melitus (Ionia)

Myth: memory of cultural trauma

Geographic factors

isolation
regionalism

Archaic Greece (ca. 750 B.C. - 480/479)
Polis

Attica - Athens
Boeotia - Thebes
Laconia - Sparta
Euboea - Chalkis

Agriculture (George - a farmer)
Odyssey, 24.226-433
yeoman farmer - private ownership of land
orchard - grafting
slavery
year-round work

autarkeia - self-sufficiency

Warfare
bronze age - cavalry, chariot
archaic, classical Greece = infantry
hoplites < hoplon (a shield) = "heavily armed infantry"

breast plate
helmet
greaves
shield
spear
sword

phalanx
casualties

winner: 3-10% (av. 5%)
loser: 10-20% (av. 14%)