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Greek Dark Ages and Homer |
The
Greeks in a Dark Age
After the collapse of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilization, Greece entered a difficult period in which the population declined and food production dropped. Because of the difficult conditions and our lack of knowledge about this time period, historians call it a Dark Age (we have no written records from the time period). After many years, farming revived, and at the same time, some new developments were forming the basis for a renewed, revived Greece.
During the Dark Ages, large numbers of Greeks left the mainland and migrated across the Aegean Sea to various islands and especially to the western shores of Asia Minor, a strip of territory that came to be called Ionia. Based on their language, the Greeks who lived there were called Ionians. Two other major groups of Greeks settled in established parts of Greece. The Aeolian Greeks, located northern and central Greece, and the Dorians, who established themselves in southwestern Greece, especially in the Peloponnesus, as well as on some of the islands in the south Aegean Sea including Crete.
Other important activities occurred in the Dark Age. Greece saw a revival of trade and some economic activity besides agriculture. Iron came into use for the construction of weapons. The Greeks also adopted the Phoenician alphabet to give themselves a new system of writing. Near the end of this Dark Age, the work of Homer appeared – Homer has come to be considered one of the great poets of all time.
Homer
The Iliad and The Odyssey, the first great epic poems of early Greece, were based on stories that had been passed on from generation to generation. Homer, an ancient Greek poet, used these oral traditions to write The Iliad, his epic of the Trojan War. The war was caused by an act of Paris, a prince of Troy. By kidnapping Helen, wife of the king of the Greek state of Sparta, he outraged all the Greeks. Under the leadership of the Spartan king’s brother, Agamemnon of Mycenae, the Greeks attacked Troy. Ten years later the Greeks finally won and destroyed the city. The Iliad is not so much the story of the war itself but more a tale of the Greek hero Achilles and how the “wrath of Achilles” led to disaster.
Homer’s other great masterpiece is The Odyssey, an epic romance that tells the journey of one of the Greek heroes, Odysseus, after the war and his eventual return to his wife.
Later Greeks considered The Iliad and The Odyssey as authentic history as recorded by one poet, Homer. These two works gave the Greeks an ideal past with a cast of heroes and came to be used as standard texts for the education of Greek (males). The values Homer taught focused on courage and honor. A hero strives for excellence. Homer gave the Greeks a model of heroism, honor, and nobility.