1. From the Dark Ages to Colonization

2. The Dark Ages ( BCE)
Following the collapse of Mycenaean civilization, Greece entered period historians call the Dark Ages
Lasted 300 years
Period historians know very little about
No written documents
Greeks remembered their distant, Mycenaean past as an age of heroes and supermen
Mainland Greece experienced a depopulation up to 90% in century following 1200 BCE

3. The End of the Dark Ages Appearance of new national literature
Homer’s the Iliad and the Odyssey (800 BCE)
Homer’s work provided the Greeks with a glorious past, whether real or imagined
Gave Greeks a common view of their gods – national religion
Resurgence of Trade
Skills and ideas they learned including the alphabet (from Pheonicians)
Colonization
Hundreds of new Greek settlements established
Colonies of new independent Greek city-states
First Olympic Games (776 BCE)
In honour of God Zeus
Only Greeks permitted to participate
All wars among Greeks were to cease while they took place
Strengthen Greeks’ sense they shared a common culture despite political and linguistic differences
First firm date we have in Greek history
Starting point from which Greeks even mark their past

4. The Rise of the City-State
Greeks gradually developed independent communties
These communities form the basis of Greek city-state or polis (“community of people”)
A polis rarely exceeded people (more like a town or city)
Athens and Sparta are exceptions

5. Age of Colonization
By 8th century BCE, population growing, putting a strain on food supply
Around Athens, the population may have quadrupled during 9th and early 8th centuries
Heavy demands on resources of Greece, a mountainous country with limited agricultural land
Needed to find land to grow more food and resettle people from overcrowded city-states
Colonization became essential

6. Colonization 1st Greek colony 750 BCE on Bay of Naples
Greek cities appeared in Sicily and sourthern Italy
Eventually in Northern Africa, Spain, and France
Syracuse in Sicily was the greatest (population grew to people by 5th century BCE)
More colonization around 650 BCE
Cities around Black Sea