We are sitting at the airport waiting for our next adventure to begin. We're going to Greece! Frankie always wanted to go there for her honeymoon, that was awhile ago. Better late than never! Before the real fun begins, here's some background to set the stage for what's coming.
Ancient Greece is one of the oldest civilizations still in existence. It began on the island of Crete and was known as the Minoan Civilization.
Another civilization named the Mycenaeans sprang up on the mainland in the 1500s BC. The Mycenaeans conquered the Minoan capital somewhere between 1500 to 1400 BC. They also fought a war against the city of Troy, a city in northwestern Turkey. The war was probably linked to important trade routes, but Homer in The Iliad tells us that the Trojan War was all for the love of a woman. Enter 2 men: Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy, and King Menelaus of Sparta. Helen was the wife of King Menelaus, but Paris fell in love with her and convinced her to flee to Troy with him.
Alas, poor Menelaus wanted his wife back! Agamemnon, the brother of Menelaus, launched a war against Troy. The war went on for 10 years until the Greek hero Odysseus came up with the idea of building a huge hollow wooden horse to trick the people of Troy. The Greeks pretended to flee the fighting and abandon their horse. The men of Troy took the horse into their city and lo and behold, out popped a bunch of soldiers (probably 30-50). It was enough so that the Greeks won the war, and Helen went back and lived happily ever after with her husband Menelaus.
A few hundred years later, the Mycenaean Civilization came to an end around 1100 when the Dorians from the northwest invaded. The Dorians settled in the west and the Ionians in the east. This was the beginning of classical Greece, and the people called themselves Hellenes. No, not after Helen of Troy, but after Hellen the son of Deucalion (the Greek version of Noah who survived a flood sent by Zeus). Confused yet?
Around this time came the rise of independent city-states such as Athens and Sparta. The city of Athens has recorded history that goes back 3200 years. It was first named Aktaio after its first king. Then named Kekropia after its second king. This could have gone on forever except for the war between two gods, Athena and Poseidon.
They each wanted patronage of the city, ensuring that temples and sacrifices would be made to them. Since both gods wanted the same city, the king of Kekropia was to serve as judge in the war. The winner was to be whichever god offered the best gift to the city. Poseidon gave a mighty blow to the ground and created a lake. However, it was sea water and not drinkable. Athena planted a seed on a rock and an olive tree sprang forth, much more useful. The legend is that Athena's tree still stands on the Acropolis.
The city of Sparta was built in 1539 BC by the ruler Lacedaemon, who named the city after his wife. Sparta still exists as a small town, built near the original city in 1834. If you've seen the movie 300, it roughly chronicles the war that took place at Thermopylae when Leonidas took 300 highly trained men to defend the city against 100,000 invading Persians. We've never watched the movie because of its rating.
However, Draco's laws had a large influence on the creation of democracy because they made all citizens equal despite position or wealth.
Persia (modern Iran) attacked the Greek mainland in the 500s BC, leading to the Persian Wars which ended in victory for the Greeks in 479 BC. Athens had grown too powerful for the Spartans, so Sparta began the Peloponnesian War (between Athens and Sparta) in 431 BC. The Athenians held their own until 430 BC when a plague wiped out a huge portion of the population, including their leader Pericles.
The Spartans won the war in 404 BC. However, in 371 BC the city of Thebes defeated the Spartans.
In the 300s BC, the northern kingdom of Macedonia was gaining power. By 338 BC King Phillip II gained control of the Greek city states. His son Alexander came to power in 336 BC. He became known as Alexander the Great. Alexander was only in power for 10 years before he died, but during this time he conquered much of the world. The period after his death is known as the Hellenistic (Greek-like) Age.
The Romans had control of Greece from 30 BC until 395 AD, when the Roman Empire split and Greece became part of the Byzantine Empire until 1453. In 1453 Greece became ruled by the Ottomans (Turks) for 400 years. The Greek War of Independence occurred between 1821 and 1829. The first king of the independent Kingdom of Greece was Otto of Bavaria.
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During the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, Greece gained major territory including Macedonia, Crete, and the Aegean Islands. Germany brutally conquered Greece in 1941 which led to cruel occupation and famine. Greece has been slowly rebuilding itself into a modern nation since then.
