Chapter Two, Lecture One The Cultural Context of Classical Myth To Greek Society

Cultural Context of Classical Myth “Myths reflect the society that produces them. In turn, they determine the nature of that society. They cannot be separated from the physical, social, and spiritual worlds in which a people lives or from a people’s history.”

Greek Geography Greece not rich in minerals or tillable land –mountainous Principal Areas: –Thessaly, Macedonia, Boeotia, Attica, Peloponnesus, Argolis, Laconia, Elis –Maps of GreeceMaps of Greece Horses were scarce

Greek Geography Some areas rich in limestone, marble, and clay –the basis for Greek material culture –temples and pottery tell us much about their gods and myths The Aegean Sea the greatest natural resource –Maps of GreeceMaps of Greece

Greek Geography Cycladic Islands and the SporadesCycladic Islands Sporades Importance of trade and colonization Mountainous terrain encourage political independence of cities and spawned myths of city founders

Greek History – 7000 BCPaleolithic 7000–3000 BCNeolithic 3000–1150 BCBronze Age

Greek History

Early/Middle Bronze Age 3000–1600 BC Early Bronze Age (3000–2000 BC) peoples in the Greek area not Greek Agricultural peoples mainly Worshipped goddesses of fertility

Early/Middle Bronze Age 3000–1600 Minoans (on Crete) Started building elaborate palaces toward the end of the Early Bronze Age and beyond (2200–1450 BC) –Knossos Reconstruction and other imagesKnossos Reconstruction

The Origin of the Greeks 2100 BC? Migration of a people, whom we call the Indo-Europeans – first around 2100 BC? Were no doubt speaking an early form of Greek –Their language the basis for many world languages today Language of the people they replaced still in many place names and names for plants and animals

The Origin of the Greeks 2100 BC? Appear to be more warlike that aboriginal peoples Society divided into –(1) kings and priests –(2) warriors –(3) food producers

The Late Bronze Age BC Known also as the Mycenaean Age People called “Mycenaean” because that is one of their main sites –They may have called themselves “Achaean” Mycenae taken over by Indo-Europeans in 1650 BC –Other Mycenaean sites: Thebes, Athens, Orchomenus, Pylos

The Late Bronze Age 1600–1150 BC Ruled by powerful and rich warrior kings Perhaps the Mycenaean destroyed the Minoan sites on Crete in 1450 Ruled on Crete until 1400 –Impressed by Minoan art and culture Their writing system: Linear BLinear B –Translated in 1952; proved to be an early form of Greek

The Late Bronze Age 1600–1150 BC Great heroic legends of classical myth set in this period Historically related to a conflict with Troy in about 1230? Perhaps the Trojans were Mycenaean Greeks themselves?

The Dark Age:1150–800 BC Great Mycenaean palaces destroyed around 1180–1150 BC The Dorian Invasion (a.k.a. the Heraclidae) Athens survived Period of migration of Mycenaean Greeks across the Aegean –Ionia and Aeolis on the western coast of modern-day Turkey

The Dark Age:1150–800 BC Social disorganization, depopulation and impoverishment Petty kings and small dominions –Families and small villages The island of Euboea a possible exception –Continued contacts with the Near East –Greek alphabet first appears on Euboea, allowing Homer and Hesiod to be written down

The Archaic Period: 800–490 BC Invention of the Greek alphabet Includes symbols for vowels, not just consonants Colonization from Euboea to southern Italy and Sicily A cultural revival

The Archaic Period: 800–490 BC The Greek polis –People identified themselves geographically and not just by family ties –“Citizenship” –Competitiveness encouraged, not so much cooperation

The Archaic Period: 800–490 BC Rebirth of commerce depended on the sea Greek economy thus decentralized and competitive, not like landed/river monarchies such as Egypt and Mesopotamia 6 th century innovation of coined money spurned economic growth even more

The Archaic Period: 800–490 BC The “new” economy strains old social orders –Period of conflict between the old, landed aristocracy (the aristoi) and the entrepreneurial class (the kakoi) Period of tyrants (650–600) –Perhaps can be thought of as populists –Negative connotation of the word tyrant from the hostility of the literate aristoi

The Archaic Period: 800–490 BC Toward the end of the Archaic Period and series of conflicts with Persia Persia conquers the Greek cities on the western coast of Turkey Mainland Greeks drawn into the conflict

The Classical Period 490–323 A democracy in Athens (508 BC) –Cleisthenes –All free men had a stake in the city and a role to play in its administration Persians first repelled by Athenian citizen army at Marathon in 490 –“What a noble thing freedom is” Persians finally defeated in 480 by Athens and other Greek cities

The Classical Period 490–323 Classical floruit of Athens and Greece inspired by their national pride and their military prowess Greek cities fought with one another but they recognized that they were all Hellenes, different from the barbaroi around them The great “civil” war of the Greeks in the Peloponnesian War ( ) fatally weakened them all

The Classical Period 490–323 Myth reworked and re-presented in new forms to reflect the political and social realities of the day –Tragedy above all Philosophy and science developed in the late Classical Period as a counterpoint to myth

The Classical Period 490–323 The Macedonian king Philip II overran the southern Greeks in 338 and changed the political landscape Greece cities yoked in a kingdom; their freedom limited Alexander the Great follows; leads campaign against Persia Death in 323 the conventional date for the end of the Classical Period

The Hellenistic Period: 323–30 BC Greek culture the “global” culture in the Mediterranean area Center moved from the “old” Greece to the new cities of Alexandria 146 BC, Greek mainland conquered by Rome, followed by another 100 years of conflict Finally pacified in 30 BC with the conquest of Egypt, by then a Greek dynasty

Beginning of the Roman Period 30 BC the beginning of the Roman period and the end of Greek “independence”

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