Who Is Homer's Destruction Of Athens In Ancient Greece?

1.course introduction

2.The Chronology of Greek hx

BC (before Christ) 3000 2000 1000 480_______/AD (year of our Lord latin)_________2013

1/1
7000-3000 Neolithic/New stone age--
3000-2100 Early bronze age
2100-1600 Middle bronze age
1600-1200 late bronze age
1200-750/700 Dark age/Iron age (1200 about troy timeline) writing reemerges in the 700-800 getting out of the dark ages.
750/700-480 Archaiac period (ends with persion destruction of athens)
480-323 Classical period (great bldgs in athens/plays/comdies/tradgeies
323-30 Hellenistic period (period after the death of alexander the great) hellous became greek

776 first olypimcs (about the time emerging from the dark ages)
480 persians destroy athens
404 sparta defeats athens (near end of
athenian domination) maybe called a civil war
323 Alexander the great dies
30 Suicide of Cleopatra (last queen/last monarch for a hellenistic period)

3.Sources for greek history almost everything we have is fragmented in one shape or form. do we really want to believe that form of the story. there are archlogical sources and written records
Material record: archaeologtical sournces. Sometimes underwater archology finds such as ships with cargo. the mollecullar make up of the clay/pots can determine where it came from and how old.
Written: scriptures/writting on pieces of clay, stone papyrus (reeds woven togehter into paper)
Written record: Linear A, Crete,(found on crete evid of linear A going all the way back to the 15th century--never decifered (language)
Linear B, mycenae, pylos, crete (language) has been deciferred. Palace records (this much wine/bread etc) appears linear B all disappeared by the end of the 12th century by 1100 by a general collapse of society. wasn’t until the 8th century that a greek alphabet was developed based on a phoencian element. Greeks based their alphabet on someone elses language (writting)
Papyrus. much of it wasted away some saved.
5th century and beyond 400, 300, 200 lots of inscriptions, praise worthy things to themselves on stone, example grave stone/death memory- statues-rememberences. written sources incld, prose, hx, speeches, laws, scientific, treaties. it is from these we get a good understanding of culture. by using archelogic and written we can try to get a picture of what greek life looked like.

Looking at our sources: Illiad 1.1-7 first document comes from Homer-we don’t know who homer is, existed in the 8th century, some sugg he may be a woman, some sugg there wasn’t one person but multiple people who wrote the iliad and odessye.
Iliad the final stages of the trojan war describes a few short weeks in the war the oddessy, describes how one of the warriors of the war traveled around the meditrainnian and told how he fought in the war and is trying to make it home. who don’t know who he was some sugg he was blind. there were prob many ppl like homer would would sing and tell stories and sometime in the 8th century a text was written down of the whole thing.

written in the 8th and 7th century talking about events in the 12th century it becomes questionable for the historian and how they can use it. there is debate among some if he can be used as a scource.
its dificult sometimes to see a text that mixes together myth and history. its usable to view cultural values. Homer wrote it down, its just one of dz of stories.
Homer is a relection on society at the time. even in antiquity there are multiply stories as to why the trojan war happen.

Herodotus is in the mid 5th century 450 inventor of modern history. (per socretes) He is writing about his findings without bias and he wants orepor so that it’s not lost. (persians =barbarians)
Herodotus puts his name on his work.

Thucydides (written after herodotus) died about writting ab out the peloponnesian war (two greek cities) Home wrote about greeks and trojans. spartan and athens (the two cities) write clearly and plainly (paper)
Biggest loser (thucydides gets kicked out of his own city)

Thucydides is a participant talking to the ppl there he is seeing hearing things
Herodotus (was telling a story--some ppl say--its a story he heard and is not repeating it)

Thucydides says this is what happened. (could be biased is he right?)
Heordotus says this and this and this happened--did it happen because of
this?

4.The geography of ancient greece map hellas, (greek word for greece-entire map) inhabitants helleneas (hellenaor of troy) included modern day turkey and coast of crete. along coast of asia minor.not a perfect unified city. its a bunch of small places that share a common heritage. tiny little communites as seen by the terrian/;mountainous.Greeks looked beyond their world for items of need for trade but also for solving problems of over population. mts not super high. by the 5th century most mainland had been deforested. so another reason why they had to look elsewhere for trade. centers for trade for wood and macedonia and epirus. hellenese thessalsy -plains region became a place to get grain and horses/calvary. epirus macedonia messenia-strip of green. very important center for grain production/food production attica-little triangle. territory is where athens is located. ppl from attica is like saying the ppl from athens boeotia-just north of attica had many connections with egypt for trade and cultural trade. easiest way to travel was by sea. they became very capable seamen. looking abroad. needed tin and cooper so had to become dependent on central major minor and west europe to build bronze. what they could trade and send out wheat, olives/grapes.small farms and farmers dominating. Greeks really felt attached to the land. autchthonus sprang from the land. they protective of their land and was very important. but individual communities and there was a development of rivaliries among them.