Greek Civilizations
Outline

8000 B.C.E.  Neolithic Farmers speaking Indo-European Languages settle
    in mountainous areas of mainland Greece and on the
    islands of the Aegean.

6000 B.C.E.  Neolithic Farmers from Anatolia (Modern Turkey)
    speaking a language that has not been clearly identified
    settle on the large island of Crete.  By the late third
    Millennium, they develop the first civilization in Europe
    known as the Minoan Civilization

Minoan Civilization on Crete ~2200 - 1450 B.C.E.
    Discovered by Sir Arthur Evans ((1851 - 1941)
    Named Minoan after an Athenean legend of Theseus, King Minos.
    the minotaur, and the labyrinth.  This legend symbolized the Mycenean conquest of
    Crete.

    Minoan Civilization was a Palace Civilization.  Knossos.  Phaistos.
    Linear A and Linear B (early version of Greek.  deciphered by Michael Ventris after WWII.)
    Policulture:  olives, grapes, and grains on same land. Commercial civilization.
    Bull-leaping.  Naturalistic art.  Not warlike.

    The Minoans appear to have been conquered by the Myceneans, who ruled at Knossos
    for several centuries before the final destruction of the palace complex in 1370 B.C.E.
 

Mycenean Civilization on Mainland Greece 1600 - 1100
    Warrior Civilization.

Sea Peoples Period 1200 - 1000  

Dark Ages ~ 1100 - ~750 B.C.      

Hellenic Civilization 750 - 338 B.C.

Hellenistic Civilization:  338 - 30 B.C.

 I:  Hellenic Civilization 750 - 338 B.C.  
Political Developments

             Archaic Greece 1100 - 750 B.C.
                Dorian Invasion
                Tribal Monarchy
                Settle down in Greek peninsula
                Formation of Polis

http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/Greek/map2.htm 

http://www.museum.upenn.edu/Greek_World/ 

Colonization about 750 B.C.

              Sicily, Southern Italy, Black Sea, Ionian Cost of modern Turkey

              Greek City States of Ionia
                Miletus
                Adoption of Phoenecian Alphabeth
                Thales first Greek Philosopher
                Homer:  Iliad and Odyssey

              The Greek Poleis  
                  Both the Glory of Greece
                  And its Downfall
                  City States
                    Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Argos
                    Pylos, Eretria, Messenia, Delphi, Olympia

              The Evolution of Government  
                    Tribal Monarchy
                    Aristocracy
                    Tyranny
                    Democracy and Oligarchy

              Sparta  
                    Conquest of Messenia
                    Enslavement of the Helots
                    Garrison State

                Athens  
                    Formation of Democracy
                         Draco
                         Solon
                         Pisistratus
                         Cleisthenes
                    Period of the Persian Wars
                    Delian League
                    Athenian Empire    
                    Age of Pericles
                    Peloponnesian Wars  

              Persian Wars
                Ionian Greeks rebel against Persian rule 499
                Athens and Eretria help uprising
                Uprising squashed by Persians in 493 B.C.

                  Darius I, grandson of Cyrus, sends a fleet to
                punish Athens and Eretria.
                Eretria destroyed.
                Athens fights battle of Marathon 490 B.C.
                                         Miltiades won battle of Marathon.  See:
                                http://joseph_berrigan.tripod.com/ancientbabylon/id27.html 
 http://campus.northpark.edu/history/Classes/Sources/Herodotus-Marathon.html   

                                    Themistocles persuades Athenians to build a Navy
                                 Xerxes launches attack on Greece.  100,000 man army.

                                 Battle of Thermopylae 480 B.C.
                                 King Leonidas and his 300 Spartan warriors stop Persians
                                 for three days.
                                    Athens evacuated; destroyed by Persians
                                 Naval Battle of Salamis 480
                                 Battle of Plataea 479 Persians army defeated by Greeks
                Under Spartan leadership.
                Spartans in Athens on their way home.
                Spartans refuse leadership of Greek world to
                liberate Ionian Greek Cities.  Athens assumes
                leadership.

              Delian League 477 - 467 B.C.
                 Themistocles ostracized in 471
                 Cimon, son of Miltiades, leads Athens;
                 pursues war against Persia but seeks to
                 maintain friendly relations with Sparta.

              Athenian Empire 467 - 404 B.C.
                    Cimon ostracized
                    Ephiales d.462
                    Pericles led 462 - d. 429 B.C.

              Peleponnesian War 431 - 404 B.C.
                    Pericles
                    Cleon
                    Nicias
                    Alcibiades

                    Athens surrenders to Sparta in 404 B.C.

              Decline and Conquest 404 - 338 B.C.
                    Philip II of Macedonia defeats Greeks
                    at Battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C.

II  Legacy of the Classical Age (Hellenic Civilization)

1. Greek Mythology, Religion, and Legends
       Olympian Gods (http://www.mythweb.com/gods/index.html)
           Zeus, father and Hera, his wife
           Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, and Demeter, his siblings
               Hades did not live on Mt Olympus.  He was king of the Underworld.
           Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Hephaestus, Hermes,
            and Dionysus, his children with different mothers

2. Polis or City-State as a political Ideal

3. Olympic Games at Olympia in Honor of Zeus started in 776 B.C.

4. Oracle at Delphi for Apollo

5. Greek Drama at Athens in honor of Dionysus

6. Development of Direct Democracy

7. Greek Poetry
   Homer  
       Iliad
       Odyssey
   Hesiod
       Theogony   
       Works and Days
   Sappho wrote about 600 B.C
   Pindar wrote about 498 to 446 B.C.
    

8. Greek Architecture
       Greek Temples are symmetrical, harmonious,
           proportional, balanced.
       Columns:  Doric, Ionian, and Corinthian
   
       The Parthenon Temple in honor of Athena 
       on the Acropolis of Athens
   

9. Greek Sculpture
       Idealization of human forms.  We receive our 
       notions of beauty from the Greeks. Serenity, 
       calm, youth, unemotional.
        
       Phidias ~490 - 430 B.C.
       Praxiteles ~370 - 330 B.C.

10. Greek Drama
    Tragedy
        Thespis
        Aeschylus 525 - 456 B.C. (seven plays survived)
            The Oresteia 
                        Trilogy on the Curse of the House of Atreus
                Agamemnon
                Choephoroe or Libation Bearers
                Eumenides
            The Persians
                        Prometheus Bound
                        The Seven Against Thebes 
            The Suppliants
     http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc1.htm
        Sophocles ~497 - 406 B.C. (seven plays survived)
                         Nausicaa or the Women Washing Clothes    
            Oedipus the King
            Oedipus at Colonus
            Antigone
            The Women of Trachis
            Electra
            
     http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc4.htm   
        Euripides ~485 - 406
                Hippolytus
                The Bacchae 
                Medea
                Hecuba
                His Trojan Women
                The Cyclops (A satyr play)
                Helena
                Iphigenia in Aulis
    Old Comedy
    http://www.imagi-nation.com/moonstruck/clsc13.htm   
    
        Aristophanes ~445 - 385 B.C. (11 plays survived)
                The Acharnians
                The Knights
                The Clouds
                The Wasps
                Thesmophoriazusae or Women at the
                     Festival of Demeter
                The Frogs
                The Birds
                Lysistrata 411 B.C.
    New Comedy
        Aristophanes
                Plutus
        Menander 342 - 292 B.C.
    

11. Greek Historians
        Herodotus ~484 - ~420 B.C.
                History of the Persian Wars
        Thucydides ~460 - ~400 B.C.
                            History of the Peloponnesian War
                

12. Philosophy
    Natural Philosophy
        Monists
            Ionian Philosophers
                Thales ~636 - ~546 B.C.
                    Predicted eclipse of sun 585 B.C.
                    Water is basis of all things
                Anaximander
                Anaximenes
        Pluralists
        Atomists
            Leucippus ~440 B.C.
            Democritus ~460 - ~370 B.C.
        Other
            Heraclitus ~505 B.C.
            "One can not step twice into the same river."
        Pythagorean or Italian Philosophers
            Pythagoras ~560 - ~480 B.C.
     Moral Philosophy
        Sophists
                Protagoras ~490 - ~420
        Socrates ~470 - 399 B.C.
        Plato ~428 - 348 B.C.
        Aristotle 384 - 322 B.C.

III:  The Hellenistic World

         Macedonia  

           Philip II ruled from 359 - 336 B.C.
            Battle of Chaeronea in 338 B.C.
            Hellenic League formed with Philip at HEGEMON

         Alexander III, the Great 356 - 323 B.C.