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Mediterranean Society: The Greek Phase - Lecture Notes |, Study notes of Humanities

Material Type: Notes; Class: Humanities; Subject: Humanities; University: Santa Fe Community College; Term: Forever 1989;

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2009/2010

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Chapter 10
Mediterranean Society: The Greek Phase
Arguably no society has cast a longer shadow over the Mediterranean,
European, and American worlds than that of the ancient Greeks. The influences of
Greek democracy, tragedy, and philosophy have transcended the centuries and
continue to shape minds today. At the core of the Greek mind was an inquiring
spirit and refusal to accept anything less than the truth.
After escaping near disaster in the Persian War, the Greeks went on to create one
of the world’s most glorious cultural epochs. In the end, unfortunately, the
Greeks’ own arrogance and warlike manner led to their destruction in the
Peloponnesian War. The conquests of Alexander of Macedon led to the creation of
the Hellenistic age and a perpetuation of Greek brilliance.
Early Development of Greek Society
In Crete, people came to the island from Anatolia around 6500 BC and
settled in the area near Knossos. These people lived in small communities
and were mostly farmers. This changed in about 2400 to 1500 BC when the
Minoan civilization, named for the legendary King Minos flourished.
Life in Bronze Age Crete revolved around a series of palaces, scattered
around the island whose design and complexity is unlike anything that
preceded it in Greece.
All of the Cretan palaces share a similar design with the largest one in
Knossos, which had been discovered by Sir Arthur Evans, an amateur
archaeologist, in the nineteenth century. These palaces were the part of a
system which included a number of sanctuaries in caves, on the mountains
and in houses.
Though little is known about the belief system of this ancient religion, (since
no sacred texts have been discovered, so far) from the figurines and shrines
it can be assumed that the Cretans, if they did not worship nature and human
beauty, held it in a very high regard.
The legend of the minotaur, the half-man, half-bull off-spring of Pasiphae,
the wife of King Minos and a bull, and other archaeological finds seem to
confirm the worship of the bull as some sort of divine being or symbol. It
has also been suggested that this could refer to the constellation of Taurus
and perhaps the commemoration of some event that occured.
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Chapter 10 Mediterranean Society: The Greek Phase Arguably no society has cast a longer shadow over the Mediterranean, European, and American worlds than that of the ancient Greeks. The influences of Greek democracy, tragedy, and philosophy have transcended the centuries and continue to shape minds today. At the core of the Greek mind was an inquiring spirit and refusal to accept anything less than the truth. After escaping near disaster in the Persian War, the Greeks went on to create one of the world’s most glorious cultural epochs. In the end, unfortunately, the Greeks’ own arrogance and warlike manner led to their destruction in the Peloponnesian War. The conquests of Alexander of Macedon led to the creation of the Hellenistic age and a perpetuation of Greek brilliance. Early Development of Greek Society  In Crete, people came to the island from Anatolia around 6500 BC and settled in the area near Knossos. These people lived in small communities and were mostly farmers. This changed in about 2400 to 1500 BC when the Minoan civilization, named for the legendary King Minos flourished.  Life in Bronze Age Crete revolved around a series of palaces, scattered around the island whose design and complexity is unlike anything that preceded it in Greece.  All of the Cretan palaces share a similar design with the largest one in Knossos, which had been discovered by Sir Arthur Evans, an amateur archaeologist, in the nineteenth century. These palaces were the part of a system which included a number of sanctuaries in caves, on the mountains and in houses.  Though little is known about the belief system of this ancient religion, (since no sacred texts have been discovered, so far) from the figurines and shrines it can be assumed that the Cretans, if they did not worship nature and human beauty, held it in a very high regard.  The legend of the minotaur, the half-man, half-bull off-spring of Pasiphae, the wife of King Minos and a bull, and other archaeological finds seem to confirm the worship of the bull as some sort of divine being or symbol. It has also been suggested that this could refer to the constellation of Taurus and perhaps the commemoration of some event that occured.

 The Palaces themselves were also the centers for economic production with storehouses for grain, wool, oil, and international trade. From artifacts found in excavations we know that the Minoans had contact with some of the other ancient civilizations like the Summarians and the Egyptians.  The problem with understanding the Minoan Civilization is that despite the buildings and artifacts that have been left behind we have no written history or literature of the inhabitants of Crete in the Second Millenium. We can only look at the stones, statues, pottery and painting and try to guess what their society was like and how it came to an end. In short, the Minoan Civilzation is still a mystery  Also, the earliest Greek writing style, Linear B, was adopted from the Minoan Linear A.  Decline of Minoans  The early Mycenaeans were influenced by the extraordinary Minoan society. Egyptian and Phoenician concepts reached the Mycenaeans indirectly through their contact with the Minoans. The Mycenaeans were incredibly warlike and spent much of their time fighting among themselves as well as launching campaigns against the Minoans in Crete and the Trojans in Anatolia.  During the Bronze Age between 2100 and 1900 BC this area was invaded by people from the east who introduced an advanced culture to the primitive local people who had been there since Neolithic times. The Mycenaean princes used the Linear B script to keep track of possessions and their enterprises throughout the Mediterranean.  The walls to their fortresses were made of stones so large that it was difficult to imagine a mortal man lifting them and were therefore dubbed Cyclopean walls, named after the race of one-eyed giants of Homer's Odyssey. Considering their contentious nature, it is not surprising that the Mycenaeans never unified and instead settled into an uneasy alliance of city-states.  It was the Hellenic people from this period who were the Achean heroes of Homer's Illiad and Odyssey. The Illiad is the epic poem about the abduction by Paris, a Trojan prince, of Helen, wife of King Menelaus of Sparta, and the alliance of Greeks, led by King Agememnon who traveled to the city of Troy (Illium) in Asia Minor and fought for 10 years, eventually destroying the city, just to get her back. + pic  The Odyssey is the story of King Odysseus of the island of Ithaki, and his journey home.

abolishing a system of mortgage which had turned many poor land owners into slaves, Solon made a more level playing field. Solon wanted even the poor to take part in Athenian government and  He formalized the rights and privileges of the four social classes whose access to public office now depended on how much property they had instead of by birth. The lowest class was called the thetes (laborers) who could take part in the general assembly but they could not run for office. The other economic groups from the bottom up were the Zeugitai (Yeomen), Hippeis (Knights) and the Pentakosiomedimnoi (Those with over 500 measures of wet and dry produce). By offering citizenship he attracted some of the finest craftsmen of the Greek world to Athens. He made being unemployed a crime. After he left, the Athenians began fighting amongst themselves again and for two years the city was a leaderless anarchy.  Athens would reach its peak during the fifth century B.C.E. under the leadership of Pericles. Greece and the Larger World  The inquiring spirit that so marked Greek philosophical thought also carried over into exploration. Greek mariners explored widely and set up extensive colonies that would have, if the Greeks had been able to unify, turned the Mediterranean into a Greek lake. + pic  In addition to playing a key role in trade, these explorations also helped to spread the Greek language and cultural traditions around the Mediterranean. Expansion also brought the Greeks into conflict with the Persian empire.  The Persian War, while serving mainly as an annoyance to the Persians, turned out to be the turning point in Greek history.  When the Persian empire expands to encompass the Ionian Greek city states in Asia Minor they decide to punish the Athenians for sending a contingent during the rebellion that burns the city of Sardis in 498.  An expedition sent by the Persian King Darius lands on the coast at Marathon, just 26 miles from Athens where they are defeated by the Athenian army. When a herald named Phidippides runs the 26 miles from Marathon to Athens to announce the Greek victory and dies on the spot, an event which may or may not have happened, we have the origin to the marathon races which are now run all over the world. (That's why they are 26 miles. The distance from Marathon to the center of Athens). Those who fought at Marathon are treated as heroes for the rest of their lives.

 Almost twenty years later Darius has died and his son Xerxes mounts another attack on Athens, this time with overwhelming force by land and sea, planning to conquer and annex all of Greece.  In the years following the battle of Marathon the Athenian statesman Themistocles had convinced the Athenians to use the silver which had been discovered in Lavrion, to build a fleet in order to fight the Greek state on the island of Aegina, which was so close it could be seen from the Acropolis. As the Persians advance this Athenian fleet is sent north where they fight an inconclusive battle with the Persian fleet at Artemisium. On land the Greeks cannot agree on the best way to fight the Persians. Their first defense at Tempe is abandoned and there are plans to fall back as far as the Peloponessos and make their last stand there.  A Spartan King named Leonidas is sent with his Royal Guard of 300 men to delay the Persians at a narrow pass at Thermopylae where they hold out for three days before being overwhelmed and killed. The epitaph of the heroic Spartans was written by the poet Simonides and carved in the stone walls of the pass. (Movie 300) Tell them in Lacedaemon passerby that here obedient to their words we lie  As the Persians continue their relentless march south towards Athens, the Greek fleet lures the Persian fleet into the straits between Attica and the island of Salamis where their smaller and more maneuverable ships have an advantage. As Xerxes watches from a hill the Greeks sink 200 Persian ships, capture some and the rest flee.  Xerxes and his army retreat north where they wait through the winter and return in the summer of 479 to burn and sack Athens. The Greeks are now one hundred thousand strong, commanded by the Spartan General Pausanias and reinforced by other Greek city-states which have entered the war sensing a Greek victory, defeat the Persian army in the battle of Plataea while the Greek's navy destroys the Persian fleet at Mykale off the coast of Asia Minor. This is the end of the Persian wars and the beginning of the end of the Persian Empire.  With the threat from the east gone Athens begins a fifty year period under the brilliant statesman Pericles (495-429 BC) during which time the Parthenon was built on the Acropolis and the city becomes the artistic, cultural and intellectual as well as commercial center of the Hellenic world  In 478 the Delian League is formed by Athens and its allies on the island of Delos, the sacred island of Apollo. After swearing an oath, these Greek city-

called homosexual or lesbian. (The word "lesbian" comes from the island of Lesbos and the communities of women there.)  Sparta provided women the greatest opportunity for freedom in the Greek world.  As in the rest of the ancient world, slavery in Greece played an important economic role. The Cultural Life of Classical Greece  While building on Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Phoenician traditions, the Greeks branched off to leave a unique and lasting cultural legacy. Philosophically the Greeks attempted to construct a system based on pursuing the truth at all costs through human reason. Socrates’ proposal that “The unexamined life is not worth living” perfectly represents the Greek quest for truth.  Plato turned inward to the World of Forms for intellectual perfection.  And While writing on fields as varied as biology, astronomy, psychology, politics, and ethics, Aristotle created a worldview so comprehensive that he became known as “the master of those who know.”  Playwrights such as Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides examined the parameters of human nature. Later Hellenistic philosophical schools also examined the role of the individual in relation to society.