More Notes

• Adriatic Sea
• 20% good for farming
• Valleys covered 1/4 peninsula
• Diet of grains, grapes, and olives
• Lack of resources most likely caused Greek colonization
• 48-80 degrees (winter/summer)

Mycenaean:

• Began at 2000B.C.
• Mycenae located on a rocky ridge and protected by 20ft. thick wall
• Kings dominated Greece 1600-1200B.C.
• Controlled trade in the region
• 1400B.C. Mycenaean invaded Crete and absorbed Minoan culture and language

Culture in Decline:

• Around 1200B.C. sea people began to invade Mycenae and burnt palace after palace
• The Dorians moved into the war-torn region
• Far less advanced, economically collapsed, and writing disappeared for 400yrs

Homer and Myths:

• Stories were passed on by word of mouth
• Blind, poet, and old
• Homer lived at the end of the "Greek Dark Ages"
• Recorded stories of the Trojan War and The Iliad and the Odyssey (written 750-700B.C.)
• Trojan war was probably one of the last conquests of the Mycenaeans
• Odyssey was 12,110 line of dactylic hexameter

Greek Concepts:

• Arête: virtue and excellence  
• Epics: narrative poems celebrating heroic deeds
• Myths were created to explain creation
• Zeus: leader of the gods
• Hera: Zeus' wife
• Athena: goddess of wisdom