Greek Flashcards
Land
a) Almost the opposite of the Nile/Mesopotamian civilizations in the physical respect
i) Harsh land
ii) Mountainous
(1) Broken up into small valleys
iii) Lack of rivers
(1) Existing rivers were muddy
iv) Also, lacking in minerals
b) Nuclear settlement
i) Situated around a well or spring
c) The sea
appealed to the Greeks
i) Very close it
ii) Many Greeks could see it
iii) Counterpoise to the land
iv) Good for trade
v) Very “tide-less”
polis/poleis
i) Athens was a polis
(1) Large polis (about 1000 square miles)
(a) Average was a tenth of that
(2) Each polis is independent
(3) Law was different per each polis
(4) When counting population
(a) Women and children did not count
(b) Metics (resident foreigners) did not count
(c) Slaves did not count
(i) Not even considered human
e) Ostracism
i) Derived from Greek term for broken pottery
ii) People would write the name of an individual that they feel they would be better off without
(1) If someone got enough “votes” they would be exiled for 10 year
distas
f) About 1200 BC Eastern Mediterranean
i) This commenced the start of the “Dark Age” or the “Homeric Age”
(1) Collapse of society and economy
(2) Economies were kept within a family
(a) Produced and consumed what they needed
(b) Trading was still needed for salt and iron
(3) There was a fall in law and order
(4) Collapse in literacy
g) The Archaic Period
800BC–>500BC
Archaic Economy and population
have increased
(a) Greeks discovered the value of using coins/money in place of bartering
Archaic Slavery
was different in terms of use
(a) Attitude towards it was different
(b) Silver mine called Laurium in Athens was worked by slaves
(i) Slaves had a quota they had to fill
(ii) Slave life expectancy was 11 months in the mines
(c) Slaves tended to be people who fell through the ranks in the polis due to not doing well economically
(d) The other slaves were captured people from different civilizations
Sappho
a female poet
(a) Poems were about the mental/emotional state of people’s minds
(i) Genre was called Lyric
(6) Greek Drama
(a) More sophisticated than epics
(b) Had a chorus
(c) Many more interactions
(7) Olympics
(1) started in 776BC
(a) Only available for the Greeks
(10) 4 Coping Mechanisms to the deal with the times
(a) Infanticide
(i) To lower population
(b) Colonization
(i) Make members of the younger generation to leave and found a new polis to start a new population at
(c) Tyranny
(i) Enforcing power
(ii) Many poleis experienced this
(d) Religion
(i) A way to handle social tension
(ii) Apollo
1. Sun God
(iii) Dionysus
1. Wine God
(iv) Dementer/Persephone
1. Agriculture and Fertility Goddesses
(v) Orpheus/Eurydice
1. Music
h) Athens
i) The other superpower of the Greek world besides Sparta
Athens slavery
ii) Was troubled by the problem of slavery
(1) Many came from warfare
(2) Others were the losers in society
(a) Fallen through the ranks