EARLY MEDITERRANEAN CULTURE

I. The Minoans

Crete was "discovered" by the British archeologist Arthur Evans in 1893. ca. 3400 B.C.. bronze age. by 1650 everything destroyed, but renewal at Cnossus (Late Minoan Age).

• palace courts; theaters; literature flourishes (ca. 1800 B.C. linear script, later a Phoenician [syllabic] alphabet); commerce flourishes; etc.

• 16th and 15th centuries B.C. are zenith of Minoan civilization. legendary ruler of Crete was Minos. sacred symbol of Crete is the fertility god, the Minos-bull or Minotaur. palace of Cnossus went up in flames at 1450 B.C. Conquered by Mycenaeans.

II. The Achaeans and Mycenaeans--The "Heroic Age"

Ancestors of the Greeks came from the Caucasus into India, Iran, and Europe. ca. 2100 and 1900 B.C. Greek tradition called the Mycenaeans the Pelasgi or people of the sea. A second racial group were the Achaeans. Since there is no sharp demarcation between the Mycenaean culture and its later phase, the Achaean (which we find in Homer), the two cultures mingled into one. Greece topography contributes to independent city states. Greek culture is especially competitive: panhellenic festivals at Olympia and Delphi centered on athletic competitions. A common tongue binds these peoples together.

• Mycenaean Greeks were culturally dependent on the Minoans. ca. 1500 B.C. two great fortress-palaces were built at Mycenae and Tyrins.

• The sagas of this "Heroic Age" of Greece (12th and 13th century B.C.) celebrated the struggles of confederated Greek tribes to establish new kingdoms in Asia Minor--Troy.

• The "traditional" date for the Fall of Troy is 1184 B.C.

• ca. 1104 B.C. a new wave of immigration/invasion came down upon Greece from the north with iron weapons. These people were called the Dorians. Mycenae and Tiryns went up in flames and Argos became the capitol.

III. Homer

late 8th cen. B.C. Greek alphabetic scripts are developed from Phoenician models. Greek culture at this time was enduring a "dark age." ca. 700 B.C. the oral versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey of "Homer" are written down. These epics look back to a heroic past.

IV. The Archaic Period

Major development of Greek political life is polis. Roughly, it was a community of citizens (adult males), citizens without political rights (women and children), and non-citizens (resident foreigners and slaves) who occupied a defined area with a constitution, independent of any outside authority. Focal point of religious, political, and administrative life was the city, the polis proper, usually fortified, offering a market (agora), place of assembly (usually the agora itself), a seat of justice and government.

• In the early 7th century a great Spartan lawgiver, Lycurgus, laid down the rules for a system of military training, which turned Sparta into the most efficient military power in Greece. Sparta's constitution guaranteed some form of political equality--Spartans called themselves homoioi, the equals.

• In Athens, the citizens elected Solon chief magistrate for 594 B.C. and he instituted major reforms there by opening up government to "new men" (as against old families).

Athens itself was becoming an attraction by its public works, temples, fountain-houses, even drains, by its fostering the cult of Athena, by the encouragement of national festivals and games (the Panathenea and the Dionysia).

V. The Persian Wars:

About 500 B.C. Athens decided to help some Dorian and Ionian Greeks in Asia Minor who were rebelling against the Persians, Sparta refused to help. In 494 B.C. a Persian fleet (with perhaps 100,000 troops) was defeated at Marathon: Of the 10,000 Athenians only 200 died, while more than 6,000 Persians died.

• Darius' son, Xerxes led an army of about 200,000 with over 1,000 ships to conquer Greece. After a land battles (a victory of sorts for the 300 Spartans who held the pass for three days) at Thermopylae and a great sea battle at Salamis in 480 B.C., the Greeks forced the Persians to retreat.

The Greeks were becoming increasingly aware of their commonality, especially in the face of the Barbarians--i.e., those who didn't speak Greek--now defined as national enemy. According to the historian Herodotus, "shared blood, shared language, shared religion, and shared customs" were the ingredients of to hellenikon, "Greekness."

• In 478 B.C. the Delian League--a mutual defense organization--was formed; its treasury came to Athens in 454 B.C. and it was decided to use the money to build the glorious public buildings of Athens.