Greek Dark Age

Question 1

The Greek Dark Age

Answer 1

1100-700 b.c.e.
Early Iron Age, absence of writing
Low settlement numbers, Material impoverishment
Few material remains-Later memory of a “Heroic Age” (homer in 400s etc)

Question 2

The trojan War, and the Illiad (homer)

Answer 2

1300s and 1200s- greek colonies living in nw part of anatolia interacting with hittites etc- ahhiwayan question- WILUSA
Iliad is small part- in media res…. Starts and finished during the war, really about the wrath of Achilles. (high priestess was his trophy) – they need achilles and his troops to fight etc.
The Ahhiyawa question
The making & nature of the Homeric poems (Iliad & Odyssey)

Question 3

The Illiad- plot

Answer 3

The Achaeans (Greeks) go to Troy/Ilion to recover Helen, who has run away with Paris/Alexander (son of Priam, king of Troy) & leaft her husband, Menelaus (king of Sparta), brother of Agamemnon (king of Mycenae)
Agamemnon (the Greek commander) takes for himself Briseis (a Trojan widown), whom the Achaeans had given to Achilles as a spoil of war → the wrath of Achilles ... (mh~nij / menis)

Question 4

Teenage boys

Answer 4

object of sexual desire for both adult men and women

Question 5

The Iliad: Main characters (Achaeans)

Answer 5

Agamemnon, Menelaus, Achilles, Ajax- festering wound, Diomedes, Patroclus- achilles friend, Nestor ,Helen (in Troy)

Question 6

The Iliad: Main characters (Trojans)

Answer 6

Priam- father, Paris- pretty boy
Hector serious warrior, mature man, Andromache- perfect marriage w/ Hector, Glaucus (Lycian)
Aeneas (later, Virgil’s Aeneid)

Question 7

The Ahhiyawa Question

Answer 7

Hittite sources be identified with the Achaeans (the Homeric term for Greeks, i.e., 2nd-millennium Greeks)?near Ilion/Troy (Wilusa)?
Alaksandu, king of Wilusa = Alexandros (Alexander) = Paris in the Iliad ??

Question 8

Greeks were obsessed with being naked

Answer 8

olympians… whoop whoop

Question 9

Mykonos vase (archaic period, ca. 670 B.C.E.)

Answer 9

Earliest depiction of the “Trojan Horse”-Pictures come before literary representation
(This episode is not in the Iliad… but in the Epic Cyle and the Aeneid)

Question 10

The Odyssey

Answer 10

Descent of Odysseus into underworld to get his friends, similar to gilgamesh… probably passed in oral traditions, and not written down until after 700s, meanwhile orientalized art was popular in this time period.
Odysseus = Ulysses
Ancient Near Eastern influences: “Orientalizing period” (8th century)

Question 11

genre of nostoi (nostos

Answer 11

“return,” cp. nostalgia “the pain of returning home”): the Greeks going back home after the Trojan war

Question 12

katabasis

Answer 12

(descent to the Hades), parallels with the Mesopotamian Gilgamesh → the Orientalizing Period

Question 13

oral-formulaic theory

Answer 13

Milman Parry & (later on) Alfred Lord
Bosnian guslari singing in the Serbo-Croat language (a gusle is a one-string violin, and the singer who plays it is a guslar)
oral composition through the use of formulas: performance as a compositional act

Question 14

rhapsodos/rhapsode

Answer 14

singers/storytellers

Question 15

blameless Aegisthus…

Answer 15

hint to Parry!! (He slept with his brother’s wife (Clytemnestra) while his brother (Agamemnon) was fighting in Troy and then had him killed when he returned… (see the Oresteia by Aeschylus)

Question 16

Red-figure oinochoe (οἰνοχόη) or wine jug from Apulia (SE Italy), ca. 430-300 B.C.E. (Louvre)

Answer 16

Aegisthus being killed by Orestes (Agamemnon’s son) and Pylades (Orestes’ friend)

Question 17

(M.L. West)

Answer 17

narrative inconsistencies , do not necessarily originate in their oral prehistory, but may have been introduced by the poet or poets once the compositions had acquired their final written form

Question 18

The 8th century: “Renaissance”

Answer 18

return of writing, Homer (Illiad) & Odyssey in final written form, trade in prestigious items, wealth= colonies, temple architecture, city states!

Question 19

First recorded Olympic games:

Answer 19

776 b.c.e, named after the city state it was hosted in, done naked

Question 20

Reappearence of Writing

Answer 20

the first inscriptions date to the Late Geometric Period (2nd half of the 8th cent.): Dipylon Vessel, Nestor’s Cup
740-710, borrowed from Phoenecians - didn’t write down vowels, greeks would

Question 21

Dipylon inscription on vessel (ca. 740 B.C.E.)

Answer 21

“whoever now of all dancers most nimbly dances… he shall get me as his prize(?)”

earliest inscriptions, still not uniform, crooked

Question 22

Nestor’s cup

Answer 22

clay drinking cup found at Pithikoussai (Ischia) - ca. 750-700 B.C.E.
“I am Nestor’s cup, good to drink from.Whoever drinks this cup empty, straightawaybeautifully crowned Aphrodite’s desire will seize him.”

Question 23

The rise of communal authority and the Greek poleis (city-states) in 7th & 6th centuries b.c.e.

Answer 23

Archaic Greece: The age of hoplites, lawgivers & tyrants

Question 24

polis (πόλις)

Answer 24

city-state

Question 25

polites

Answer 25

citizen

Question 26

politeia

Answer 26

citizenship, constituion

Question 27

politika

Answer 27

politics

Question 28

acro-polis

Answer 28

high-city: Both main temples and place of assembly is located- agora (public square where citizens- men, born in city with ownership- met to discuss issues of politics)
Huge gathering where everyone can speak! (probably 10% or less in most city-states)

Question 29

1150 BC Warriors, 750 (dark age), 650 prosperous

Answer 29

shields get bigger- protect arteries, heavy, can’t also have heavy armor, helmets protect more of head

Question 30

asssyrian warriors c. 750 bc

Answer 30

Assyrians used shields together to protect one another (created a wall of shields with soldiers)
Handles in middle

Question 31

Corinth-

Answer 31

mostly Orientalized, mainland Greece- traded a lot with near east

Question 32

Hoplite warfare

Answer 32

hoplite=armor, enlarge and equip phalanx, = need money, fight as a unit, serves to erode aristocratic priveleges, gives communal solidarity, citizenship (tyrants can’t maintain if lives are at stake)

Question 33

croessus (Tyrant)

Answer 33

Sardis is capital of Lydia

Question 34

Cypselos and Periander

Answer 34

in Corinth (657-585), big area for wealth

Question 35

age of tyrants

Answer 35

ca. 660–510

Question 36

Sparta

Answer 36

in Laconia (laconic) elected kings, The Reforms of Lycurgus
separates them into 3 classes (ca. 700-630 ?)

Question 37

Population of Laconia:Spartiates

Answer 37

: the Spartans, full citizens of the polis

Question 38

Population of Laconia: Periokoi

Answer 38

“those who live around”) did not have full citizen rights

Question 39

Population of Laconia: Helots

Answer 39

: serfs, property of Sparta, main population of Laconia and all of Messenia, Helots are owned by city/polis of sparta, not owned by individuals, Helots are used as canon fodder in wars (many mnay more of them in war than the spartans)

Question 40

Spartan education: agoge

Answer 40

7 year old boys- agon means fight, by age 15 they could kill

Question 41

Spartan government: Gerousia:

Answer 41

the Spartan senate, with 30 members (60 y.o. & over), including 2 kings – gerousia (2 kings are elected by them)
geriatric

Question 42

Spartan government: Apella:

Answer 42

all citizens 30 y.o. & over, elected 5 ephors (“overseers”) who presided over the Gerousia
able bodied men, probably already fought in wars by age 30. 2 kings mostly ruled, 5 ephors had last say in matters of war “international relations”