# History and Mythology

- History

- Introduction
- Ancient Greece
- Byzantine Greece
- New Greece

- Mythology

- Introduction

# History

Introduction

Ancient Greece

In many moments of its history Greece included Epirus, Macedonia and Thrace, part of Asia Minor and Magna Graecia. Archaeological remains show that Greece has had a long prehistory, dating from the Neolithic (4000 BC). With the Bronze Age (2800 BC) important cultures developed. In fact, the Aegean civilization had several phases, two of the most important being the Minoan civilization and the Mycenaean civilization. These cultures disappeared in 1100 BC while the Greek-speaking Achaeans migrated in the Peloponnese during the 14 th and 13 th century. B.C. The Aeolians and the Ionians apparently preceded the Dorians, who migrated into Greece before 1000 BC The Ionians, moving back, perhaps as refugees or as conquerors, settled in the Ionian islands and the coasts of Asia Minor, which became part of the greek world. After the Doric invasion, the peoples of Greece, under the influence of geographical division and in relation to the great variety of tribes, developed the city-state, small settlements that grew into minor kingdoms.

Homeric Greece (named after the great epic poet Homer) was based on agriculture in areas relatively unproductive, but it was already open to the sea. Although the Greeks did not rival as sailors with the Phoenicians, Carthaginians and Romans, the sea offered them an opportunity for expansion and trade. In '8 th, 7 th and 6 th century BC the Greeks founded important colonies, many of which became autonomous city-state, starting from the Black Sea and the Bosphorus (Byzantium, where it was founded) up in Sicily, southern Italy (Magna Graecia), Mediterranean France, the northern coasts of Africa and Spain. These colonies had a great influence on the history of the Greek mainland, where the city-states were fighting for liberation. Because of their independence, the cities developed separate

However, there was a general pattern of development, with the necessary changes. Monarchies transferred to aristocracies, which were in turn replaced by tyrants, who usually gained power espousing the cause of the underprivileged and by using force. Although the tyrants usually tried to establish dynasties, their families have always had short-lived. Pisistratus, Hipparchus and Hippias in Athens, Gelo, Dionysius the Elder, and Dionysius the Younger in Sicily were typical tyrants. Greek tyranny on the continent will soon have given way to democracies, oligarchies or limited by the low of citizenship and of slavery. It was in Greece that the idea of political democracy was light.

The conflicts of the city-state had a sense of unity, all their citizens considered themselves Hellenes, and religious unity gave rise to alloys known as Amphictyon, in particular Amphictyon the great center of Delphi (the Amphictyons was a confederation of neighboring cities, linked by a common worship at the shrine itself for which you collected the money for religious ceremonies. later in the assemblies of Amphictyon is discussed, as well as of religion, including economic affairs, trade and political interests in common. Finally, the original sacred significance disappeared entirely and Amphictyon turned into a political-military alliances). The celebration of contests such as the Olympic Games also fostered unity.

However, the Ionian cities of Asia Minor received little help from Greece when they revolted (499 BC) against Persia, which also threatened the Greek mainland, while mainland cities were poorly united in the Persian Wars that continued until 449 BC Successes in these wars, however, was the powerful impulse of Greek civilization. Athens, in particular, with the support of the Delian League as the basis of the empire, grew dramatically, and the time of Pericles (495-429 BC) developed a culture that would have left their mark in the Western and Eastern civilizations. Drama, poetry, sculpture, architecture and philosophy flourished, along with a vigorous intellectual life.

The leader of the Greeks and 4 th 5 th century BC included Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Phidias, Myron, Polyclitus, Heraclitus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Hippocrates. Even if Athens succumbed in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) and Sparta triumphed briefly before continued fighting gave the hegemony over Greece to Corinth and Thebes, the civilization that had created continued to live. When Philip II of Macedon attacked the warring city-states and conquered Greece by defeating the Athenians and Thebans in the battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), his son, Alexander the Great, would soon spread Greek civilization in the Western world, Asia and India. After Alexander's death, his empire was torn by his generals in the ongoing conflict in the period 323-276 BC.

Some Greek cities formed the League Aetolians to oppose Macedonian rule, but some members of the Achaean League took sides with the Macedonians. The Greek city-states continued their rivalries, and Macedonia under the Antigonidi became completely Hellenized. The continuing war in Greece made ​​it increasingly weak, while Rome grew stronger. In 146 BC, after the Fourth Macedonian War, the remains of the Greek states fell definitively into the hands of Rome. Under Roman rule, cities have long maintained a certain independence and fervent intellectual life, but had little political or economic importance.

The Hellenism, however, had triumphed, and Greek intellectual supremacy continued for many centuries. The Byzantine Empire was full of Greek origin, and Hellenistic civilization, centered at Alexandria, Pergamum, Dura, and other cities, spread Greek influence and preserved the heritage greek in later centuries. The Greeks were the first to write narrative secular history, and the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon and Polybius were the sources of events and contemporary ideas, as well as the classics of world literature.

Byzantine Greece

New Greece

# Mythology

Introduction

The history of Greece can be traced back to Stone Age hunters. Later came early farmers and the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations. This was followed by a period of wars and invasions, known as the Middle Ages. Around 1100 BC, the people of the Dorians invaded from the north and spread along the west coast. In the period 500-336 BC, Greece was divided into small city-states, each of which consisted of a city with the surrounding countryside.

The ancient Greek classical and Hellenistic eras are without doubt the most beautiful times, having left behind a myriad of ideas, concepts and the basics of what we now call "Western civilization". However, the previous two millennia leading to these ancient times, as well as the following two millennia, are all part of the history of Greece after leaving an equally rich cultural imprint on the territory. Much of the Greek civilization has survived either directly or through changes to the present day.

The dialects of ancient Greece have greatly influenced both the modern Greek language and the vocabularies of other languages ​​spoken in the world today. The art and architecture of ancient Greece have proved highly influential in our time for the inner western society. The much-celebrated Renaissance was driven in large part by the rediscovery of ancient Greek ideas through texts and works of art, which until then had been repressed from the recognition of the authority of the church and the supernatural power.

It should be noted that history is a discipline that has been conceived for the first time in ancient Greece. Herodotus (484-425 BC) is considered the "Father of History" and was the first to record the events and human actions for the sole purpose of handing down to future generations. Not much later than Herodotus, Thucydides (460-395 BC) in his History of the Peloponnesian War, he enrolled his name in the discipline of history, in an attempt to present the story in an "objective", creating links between human actions and events. Their approach and method for recording the historical events would become the guiding light for historians of the following two thousand years.