1. The Greeks of the Ancient World

2. The Minoan Culture 2nd millennium BCE The mythical king Minos
The larger land of Crete
The citadel—Mycenae
The palace—Pylos
With centers of wealth and power
Its language the early form of Greek

3. The Dark Age of Greece
Palaces destroyed by fire in the last century of the millennium BCE
Written language lost and the Greeks were illiterate for the next few hundred of years
Only a body of oral epic poetry left that was the raw material of Homer

4. Homer and His Epics 8 century BCE—Greeks learned how to write again
Shaping the oral epic poetry into written form
The Iliad and The Odyssey
The basis of an education and a whole culture

5. A Completely Different World View
Pantheism
The arbitrary tendencies of gods
The disorder of the world
A ruler of heaven that can be feared, laughed at, cheated, blamed and admired at the same time
Gods’ sublime disregard of humans
The limited power of Zeus

6. A Completely Different World View
the blind forces of universe which are not necessarily connected with morality
Death is a human fear, just as the courage to face it is a human quality
Our real admiration are not toward gods but toward mortals [vs. The Old Testament]

7. City-States of Greece
Geographical features: mountain barriers and scattered islands
Differing from each other in custom, political constitution, and even dialect
Rivals and fierce competitors
8th-7th centuries BCE: age of great expansion—all over the Mediterranean coast
Adapting the Phoenician system of writing