Early Greece

 The Minoans of Crete ◦ 3000 BC to 1000 BC ◦ Traders ◦ Named by archaeologists based on the myth of the Minotaur and King Minos ◦ Sailed all over the Aegean Sea ◦ Trade Colonies ◦ Buildings had basic plumbing

 Information about the society comes from artwork ◦ Ships engaged in sailing, trading, and fishing ◦ Priests were women ◦ Dangerous game of leaping over charging bulls  Language has not been deciphered ◦ We refer to it as Linear A

 The son of King Minos was killed by Athenians  In response, Athens had to send 7 young men and 7 young girls every year or ninth year as a sacrifice to the minotaur  Theseus was the 3 rd man into the maze  He killed the minotaur

 Volcanic island near Crete blew apart affected weather patterns around the world  Damaged crops and ports  Weakened society  Warlike Mycenaeans conquered them

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 Name based on fort they had built, Mycenae  Society owed much to the Minoans ◦ Traded with them ◦ Developed their writing based on the Minoans  We have deciphered this style ◦ Trade increased once they conquered the Minoans

 Mycenaean was a warlike society  Frequent warfare and powerful kings  Kings taxed trade and farming to build great monuments ◦ Lion’s Gate at Mycenae  Constant quests for power and glory inspired many later legends ◦ Battle of Troy led by Mycenae  1100 BC downfall of the Mycenaean States ◦ Drought, famine ◦ Warfare between states ◦ Dark ages for 300 years

 Paris to judge between Hera, Athena, Aphrodite  Got Helen as a prize  Agamemnon led troops to get her back  Ten year war

 Greece was in chaos for 300 years  800 BC life stabilized and a new society emerged based on the polis, or city-state  Travel and communication was difficult between cities  Each polis developed independently of each other  Each had its own form of government, laws, and customs

 People did not consider themselves Greeks but by the polis they lived in (i.e., Athenians, Spartans)  Typically a polis was build around a high area called an acropolis which housed temples  Below was the agora, marketplace  A gymnasium, training ground, and public baths  Polis surrounded by a sturdy wall

 One of the mightiest city-states in Greece  Sparta would expand overtime and conquer neighboring cities (like Messenia)  The people became slaves of the state, helots  Helots did all of the work  Spartans used their time to train for war  Fighting was not for fun but to keep order in society  Helots outnumbered Spartans by 7 to 1 on average

 Spartans demanded their children to be strong and tough  Babies, boys and girls, were inspected at birth for defects  Any that were found with defects were left in the wilderness to die  Boys were taught physical and mental toughness by their mothers until age seven  Afterwards, they were sent into a combat school  At the end of their training, boys were sent into the wilderness with no food or tools and expected to survive  At age 20, boys became hoplites, foot soldiers  “Come home with your shield held high or on it” common quote by Spartan women

 Spartan women were trained in physical fitness  Thought was that women had to be fit to bear strong children  Women had the right to own property, a right forbidden to women in most of Greece  Sparta was led by two kings who served as military commanders  Over time, responsibility fell to an elected council of elders

 The Gods of Olympus  Almost all of Greece worshipped the same gods but each polis claimed one god or goddess as its special protector (i.e. Athens/Athena, Corinth/Apollo)

 Before the Gods of Olympus, there were the Titans led by Cronus  Cronus believed his children would overthrow him like he did his father  So every time a child was born to his wife, he swallowed it whole  When his youngest son, Zeus, was born, his wife hid him and placed a large rock in his baby blankets for Cronus to swallow

 When he was older, Zeus got his mother to feed Cronus a drink that forced him to vomit his siblings out  They fought Cronus and the other Titans and overthrew them from power  Zeus and his brothers, Hades and Poseidon, drew lots to split the world between them  Zeus won the sky, Poseidon won the oceans, and Hades won the underworld  Zeus married his sister Hera, goddess of marriage and women

 There were hundreds of Gods and goddesses but the most famous are: ◦ Demeter – goddess of agriculture ◦ Hestia – goddess of hearth and family ◦ Athena – goddess of wisdom ◦ Apollo – god of prophecy, healing, poetry, music, and the sun ◦ Artemis – goddess of hunting and the moon ◦ Ares – god of war ◦ Aphrodite – goddess of love ◦ Hephaestus – god of metalworking ◦ Dionysus – god of wine ◦ Hermes – the messenger god, god of trade

 Heroes were used to teach Greeks where they are from and what sort of people they should try to be  They would also have some great fall due to their great pride, hubris  Heracles, son of Zeus  Theseus, an Athenian prince who killed the Minotaur of Crete