10/23/2015What do you know

about Greek Mythology?

Tell me anything that comes to mind.

Early Greeks and the Rise of City-States

Geography• Long, uneven coast makes everything closer to the sea• Most Greeks became fishers, sailors, and traders

• Mountain ranges kept villages separated• Rivers were short so did not aid trade between villages• Because of all of the above reasons, the City-States arose

City-States:• or Polis: A fort, its city, the lands, and farms around it• 3 Basic Ideas-• Geographical territory• Community it represented• Political and economic independence

• All city-states in Greece were similar by:• Small area of land• Population usually fewer than 10,000• Acropolis: a hill where the fort is built• Agora: a marketplace• Sense of patriotism for their own city-state

Early Greek Peoples

• The Minoans:• Nobles had running water• Colorful frescoes (paintings on wet plaster walls)• Soil was poor so they traded for food• Ruined when: a Volcano erupted nearby and caused tidal waves

• The Mycenaeans:• People split into clans/tribes and headed by a warrior• By 1200 BC, all cities were destroyed by earthquakes and war

Greek Government and Society

Greek GovernmentCity-States with Warrior as leader who relied on

wealthy to support them

Wealthy became known as nobles

Nobles overthrew leaders of City-States

and took power

Armies hired by non noble people started

fighting city-states

Tyrants took power to relieve the people of

the nobles rule

The people overthrew tyrants and established

Democracy

Iliad and Odyssey• Epic: long historical poem• Homer wrote two great epics:• Iliad:• Legend of the Trojan War

• Helen and Paris, Wood Horse

• Odyssey:• What happened after the Trojan War when King Odysseus

heads home from Troy

Olympic Games• Held every four years to honor Zeus (the head god)• They showed their strength and bravery in athletic contests like:• Boxing, foot races, javelin and discus throwing, wrestling

• Winners received wreaths of wild olive branches• There were NO 2nd and 3rd places

Greek Religious Beliefs• Greek religion is different than others at the time because:• DID NOT emphasize highs standards of morality• DID NOT believe in the afterlife, just a gloomy underworld

• 3 basic things:• Religion had to explain nature• Religion had to explain why some people sometimes got overly

emotional and lost control• Religion could bring them certain benefits such as good luck and

good harvest

Mythology• To explain the world around them, the Greeks created

Myths: traditional stories about gods and heroes• All the gods live on Mount Olympus in northern Greece