Out of the Darkness and Into the Light: Greece in the Making

1. Out of the Darkness and Into the Light: Greece in the Making

2. The Origins of Greece • Greek civilization begins with Mycenae around 1400 BC • The Mycenaeans were the legendary Greeks of Homer’s Illiad • Fact and Fiction: The Iliad • Troy was a real city in the Greek world • The leader of the Greeks, Agamemnon, may have been a real king around 1250 BC

3. Mask of Agamemnon

4. The Dark Ages, 1100-750 BC • During the Greek Dark Ages, Greek civilization collapsed for close to 400 years • Many Greeks leave to start colonies in other parts of the Mediterranean • Homer writes Iliad and Odyssey

5. The City-State • The POLIS: the Greek term for city-state • We get words like “politics” from this root • The central meeting point was on a hill, called an ACROPOLIS: high city • Below the acropolis is the AGORA: an open meeting place

6. Government in the Polis • Tyrant: rulers who seized power by force and were not subject to the law • ARISTOCRACY: rule of the best men • The ‘Aristoi’ were the best men: warriors and nobility of Greece • OLIGARCHY: rule of the few • Sparta is the most famous example of oligarchy • DEMOCRACY: rule of the people • ‘Demos’ is the Greek word for people