Ancient+Greece

=Geography= toc Greece is a peninsula, which means that it is surrounded on three sides by water. Greece has a lot of smaller peninsulas sticking out from it, which means Greece enjoys many natural harbors. Greece is also covered with mountains. They are not huge mountains but if you are trying to go from place to place in Greece, you'll find the mountains a bit of a hindrance. Three thousand years ago, it was very difficult to get from place to place in ancient Greece by walking. But it was easy to get from place to place in Greece by boat. In the ancient world that grew up around the Mediterranean Sea, the Greeks became known as great sailors. They sailed about the Mediterranean, setting up colonies and outposts where they could. They tried to set up a colony or two in Egypt, but the Egyptians chased them away. They had more luck establishing new towns on the coast of Turkey, on the coast of Italy, on the coast of Africa, and on the coast of France.

Meanwhile, back in mainland Greece, cities were thriving. The soil was mostly fertile. The Greeks had a wealth of seafood, fresh fish, a wealth of vegetables, and fresh drinking water. The Greeks were very happy with their land.

=The Early Period= The Greeks were great sailors. As the Greeks were out and about, sailing the Mediterranean Sea in search of food, trade, and adventure, they were also on the lookout for new places to build Greek cities and outposts. While sailing about, the Greeks stumbled across a tribe of people living on the island of Crete. These people, the Minoans, were a very advanced civilization for the times. They had a strong navy, which is probably why the Greeks never succeeded in colonizing the Minoan people.

The Minoan king lived in the capital city of Knossos, in a maze of a palace with 1500 rooms! It was a gorgeous palace. But during Minoan times, even poor people on the island of Crete had 4-room houses, with running water for drinking and bathing, and bathrooms that flushed! This was a very advanced civilization.

The ancient Minoans did have a written language. Far more than the records they left behind, the paintings on the walls of the palace at Knossos share the daily life of these ancient people. Some walls were painted with pictures of starfish and water scenes, much as you would expect from a civilization that lived on an island. But some walls were painted with pictures of young people, both boys and girls, jumping over bulls. Scholars believed that bull jumping must have been a very popular sport in Minoan times.

Around 1700 BCE, an earthquake hit Crete. Much of the Minoan civilization was destroyed. The Minoans rebuilt. Around 1500 BCE, a volcano erupted near the island of Crete. Tidal waves followed the eruption.

The Minoans might have been wiped out by natural disaster or by war. There were warrior tribes on the mainland of Greece. But scholars believe the tidal waves certainly weakened them. Whatever the cause, around 1500 BCE, this civilization disappeared from the island of Crete.

The storytellers in ancient Greece loved to tell stories about the ancient Minoans. Some of the stories were about the mythical creature, the Minotaur - a mix of man and beast - who supposed lived on the island of Crete long, long ago. As the intriguing Minoan Civilization disappeared, due to natural disasters or losses in war, a new tribe, the Mycenaeans, came to power on the Greek mainland.

The Mycenaeans believed themselves to be great warriors. They fought with everyone with whom they came in contact. Some people think that they might have been responsible for the disappearance of the Minoan civilization. They fought with stone weapons. The Mycenaean age is sometimes called the “Heroic Age” or The Age of Heroes. This is because much of their art depicts single warriors performing heroic feats, sometimes in war and sometimes against wild animals.

We know quite a bit about the ancient Mycenaeans because they wrote things down. We know, for example, they worshiped a great many gods. The ancient Mycenaeans prayed to their gods for help. They expected their gods to take care of them, provided they said the right words in the right way. The Mycenaeans built their palaces on hilltops. By building on hilltops, the Mycenaeans caught what rainwater they could. These early people learned from experience that if you drank dirty water, you got sick or died. A source of clean water was very important to them, as it is to all people, everywhere. They built on hilltops, but they also prayed to their gods to make their water safe to drink.

=The Dark Ages= Around 1200 BCE, a new group, the Dorians, came down from the north. The early tribes who lived on the Greek peninsula never really had a chance to beat the Dorians. The Mycenaeans were great warriors, but they fought with stone weapons. The newcomers, the Dorians, had iron weapons. The Mycenaeans did not have a chance of winning against such superior equipment. After the fall of Mycenaea, Greece entered the Middle Period, which is sometimes called the Dark Ages. Little is know about this period in Greek history since there are no written records.

Historians and archaeologists have found written records left by the early tribes on the Greek peninsula that tell how they tried to save their women and children by moving them from one town to another, and how they stockpiled war material in preparation for the next battle with the Dorians. Around 1200 BCE, all written records stop because the Dorians had won. All written records stopped for about the next 400 years. For the next 400 years, Greece fell into a dark age. The Dorians had no written language. They did not paint pictures of their life on vases and pottery. The 400 years that the Dorian people ruled ancient Greece is called the Grecian dark ages. A dark age is time a period of time in history that we usually know very little about because people did not write things down. But the Greek dark age was different. We know quite a lot about this period of time because of the storytellers. The storytellers went from town to town, earning a living telling stories. They told the same stories over and over, and they told them in the same language, Greek. It was not long until nearly everyone in ancient Greece knew all the stories by heart. They also knew the Greek language by heart, as it was the language of the storytellers. The storytellers told three kinds of stories - fables, legends, and myths.

A **fable** is a story that ends with a lesson to be learned. Probably the most famous of all fables came out of ancient Greece during the Greek dark ages - the stories of Aesop.

A **legend** is a popular story that has been told over and over again about something that happened in the near or far past. To be a legend, there can be no proof that the story is true.That does not mean that it is not true. It only means that to be a legend, there cannot be proof that the story is true. One of the most popular legends was the story of the Trojan Horse.

A **myth** is a story about one or more magical deities. The Greeks believed in many gods and goddesses and magical monsters and mythical animals. The Greek myths are still enjoyed today. The Greeks believed in two myths known as the Iliad and the Odyssey. These myths were taught in schools, and were also used as examples of the type of life that a Greek Citizen should strive to live. Among the stories found in these myths is that of a giant wooden horse. In the Myth of the Iliad, an army attempted to conquer the city of Troy. After ten years, when they have still been unable to break through the Trojan’s defenses. In frustration, they devise a plot to get the Trojan’s to let them into their city. The soldiers of this army build a giant wooden horse, which they fill with their best and strongest soldiers. The rest of the soldiers climb on their ships, and sail away. The Trojans think that the army has left, and take the gift horse into their city. During the night, the soldiers climb out of the horse, and finally overthrow the city.

Before the dark ages, many different tribes of early people lived on the Greek peninsula. They did not have a common language. They did not have a common history. They did not use metal tools or weapons. Their tools and weapons were made of stone. During the 400 years of the Greek dark ages, thanks to the traveling storytellers, the Greeks developed a common spoken language, a common history composed of fables, legends, and myths, and the ability to make tools and weapons out of metal. The Mycenaeans, Dorians, Ionians, Greeks, and other tribes who lived in scattered villages throughout the Greek peninsula had gradually became one people.

When the early Greek people began to organize themselves into defensible units called city-states, the days of Dorian rule came to a end.

Villages started to band together to form strong trading centers. These groups of villages that banded together were called city-states. Soon, hundreds of city-states had formed in ancient Greece. The ancient Greeks referred to themselves as citizens of their individual city-states. Each city-state (polis) had its own personality, goals, laws and customs. Ancient Greeks were very loyal to their city-state. The city-states had many things in common. They all believed in the same gods. They all spoke the same language. But if you asked an ancient Greek where he was from, he would not say, "I live in Greece." If he was from Sparta, he would say, "I am a Spartan." If he lived in Athens, he would say, "I am Athenian." The city-states might band together to fight a common foe. They also went to war with each other. Greece was not yet one country. Ancient Greece was a collection of Greek city-states.

Because Greece was not yet one country, there was no central government in ancient Greece. Each city-state had its own form of government. Some city-states, like Corinth, were ruled by kings. Some, like Sparta, were ruled by a small group of men. Others, like Athens, experimented with new forms of government. Sometimes these city-states cooperated, sometimes they fought each other.

Each polis was a separate unit that developed its own government. It not only consisted of the city, but included areas surrounding the city as well. Each polis had a market place called an agora. An area that was higher than the rest of the polis was called an acropolis. A wall to protect the polis was often built.

The best known and most powerful city states were Athens and Sparta. People from Athens were called Athenians. Those living in Sparta were Spartans. One difference between the two was the manner in which they governed themselves. In order to understand how different Athens and Sparta were, it is important to understand how government developed in the Greek city states. Several people thought they could govern better than one person. so the established an aristocracy. An aristocracy is a government by a ruling class. the ruling class in this case was the land owners. This type of government was eventually replaced by an oligarchy. An oligarchy is run by only a few people. In the case of the Greeks, the rulers were the wealthiest in town. Many city states eventually abandoned this type of government and establish a democracy. A democracy is a government run by the people who are being governed. In the Greek democracy, all citizens (except slaves and women) were able to vote and to decide how the city state was to be run.

=Religion= Many of the civilizations that existed prior to the Greeks believed in gods and goddesses that were terrible, mean, and most importantly, that were not human. Instead, these gods often took the form of animals, monsters, and beasts. The people believed that mankind existed for the sole purpose of serving and pleasing the gods. The Greeks had a new outlook on religion. They believed that the gods and mankind had a partnership with one another, and that both existed to serve one another. They believed that their gods were human in form, and that they exhibited human emotions, including jealously, love, and hatred. Their gods married, had families, and even committed murder.

The only difference between mankind, and the gods was that the gods had supernatural powers, while mankind did not. Greek students were taught to strive to be the best individuals they could possibly be, so that they could be more like the gods.

Each Greek city-state selected a patron god as their protector. This god was worshiped, in an effort to please them, so that their good favor would fall upon the people of that region. Every Greek Citizen also worshiped the chief god Zeus.

The Greeks believed that the 12 most important and most powerful gods lived on top of a mountain in Northern Greece known as Mount Olympus. From this holy mountain, the people believed that the gods ruled, and controlled all aspects of the natural world, as well as all aspects of the lives of individual people.

Geography Outline ||  || media type="file" key="Sing_Along_with_History_-_Ancient_Greece.failed-conv.flv" width="360" height="270" || Study Guide ||  ||  || Ancient Greece Section 3 ||  ||  || Planner Check ||  ||   || Write A Fable ||  ||   ||
 * February 20 ||  || Unit Test Review ||   ||   ||
 * February 21 ||  || Ancient Greece Section 1
 * February 22 ||  || Ancient Greece / guided reading - City-States ||   || [[file:section 1.pdf]] ||
 * February 23 ||  || Ancient Greece/Section 2 Guided Reading
 * February 24 ||  || 2 Hour Delay - no class ||   ||   ||
 * February 27 ||  || Religion and Mythology ||   || [[file:religion and mythology.pdf]] ||
 * February 28 ||  || Vocabulary Quiz Section 1 and 2
 * February 28 ||  || Vocabulary Quiz Section 1 and 2
 * February 29 ||  || No School - Snow Day ||   ||   ||
 * March 1 ||  || Notes: Ancient Greece ||   || [[file:Notes Ancient Greece.docx]]media type="custom" key="12835122" ||
 * March 2 ||  || Study guide ||   || [[file:Greece Unit Test study guide.docx]] ||
 * March 5 ||  || Notebook Test ||   ||   ||
 * March 6 ||  || Unit Test
 * March 6 ||  || Unit Test
 * March 7 ||  || Review Tests ||   ||   ||
 * March 8 ||  || Teacher Parent Conferences ||   ||   ||
 * March 9 ||  || Aesop's Fables - unity ||   || [[file:aesop_unity_middle.pdf]] ||
 * March 12 ||  || Aesop's Comprehension Questions ||   ||   ||
 * March 13- 15 ||  || PSSA testing - each section will meet twice over the next three days.
 * March 13- 15 ||  || PSSA testing - each section will meet twice over the next three days.
 * March 16 ||  || Shape Island ||   || [[file:ShapeIsland.pdf]] ||