Freedom and Despotism

Greek Periodization

Points of Reference

ca. 1500 eruption of Thera (Knossos destroyed, rebuilt)
ca. 1380 Mycenean conquest of Crete, eastern Mediterranean
ca. 1200 Trojan War
ca. 750 Homer
480-79 Persian invasion

Greek Dark Ages
ca. 1200 - 700 B.C.

1. Historical - Thucydides, Peloponnesian War (433-399 B.C.)
2. Archaeology - Peloponnesus abandoned
   • Cyprus
3. Language
   • North Greek: Boeotians, Dorians (in Thessaly)
   • South Greek: Myceneans (in Peloponnesus)

Troy
Hittites
Embario (Chios)
Melitus (Ionia)

Myth: memory of cultural trauma

Geographic factors

• isolation
• regionalism

Archaic Greece (ca. 750 B.C. - 480/479)
Polis

• Attica - Athens
• Boeotia - Thebes
• Laconia - Sparta
• Euboea - Chalkis

Agriculture (George - a farmer)
yeoman farmer - private ownership of land
orchard - grafting
slavery
year-round work

autarkeia - self-sufficiency
Homer, Odyssey, 24.225-433
Laertes
Dolios

Idealization

Agriculture (George - a farmer)
yeoman farmer - private ownership of land
orchard - grafting
slavery
year-round work

Warfare
bronze age - cavalry, chariot
archaic, classical Greece = infantry
hoplites < hoplon (a shield) = "heavily armed infantry"

• breast plate
• helmet
• greaves
• shield
• spear
• sword

phalanx
casualties

• winner: 3-10% (av. 5%)
• loser: 10-20% (av. 14%)