Greece

Here are the notes we took today in West Civ. class:

Greece: mountains+ peninsula+hard to maneuver= people learning to travel by and build ships

Adriatic Sea

Developed independent communities mostly hated each other

Athenians vs Spartans (w/Persians) completely different type of people

20% of land good for farming

¼ fertile valleys

Grew grains, grapes, and olives

What they didn’t have they traded for w/ boats throughout the Mediterranean Sea

Lack of resources led to colonizing all over the place

Temperate weather conditions 48* in winter- 80* in summer

Mycenaean’s 2000 BC rocky ridge protected by a 20ft. wall

Monarchy

Dominated Greece for like 400 years

Controlled trade, got money, used money to build ships/buildings

1400 BC they invaded Crete by beating the Minoan’s

Absorbed their culture into their own

Homer was an old, blind man who composed the Iliad and the Odyssey

The Iliad was about the Trojan war w/ gods involved

The Odyssey was about a man trying to get home from war with the god of the sea throwing him off track for 20 years.

Arete- virtue/excellence

 Epics- narrative poems celebrating heroic deeds

Myths were created to explain creation

            Zeus: leader of all gods

            Hera: Zeus’s wife

            Athens- goddess of wisdom and beauty (Athens was named after her)