Greece's mountainous geography led to the development of independent city-states. The Minoan civilization established the first complex society on Crete in the Bronze Age. The Mycenaeans created the first Greek state, consisting of powerful monarchies living within walled cities. They had a warrior culture and traded widely. Homer's epic poems, the Iliad and Odyssey, emerged from the subsequent Dark Age and taught Greek values like courage and honor.

1. Chapter 4
World History
Ancient Greece

2. Impact of Geography
 Greece
consists of a mountainous
peninsula and numerous islands.
 The
many mountain ranges caused
small, independent communities
 Their
size and independence probably
encouraged political participation
within, and war among the different
communities.

4. The Mionan Civilization
A
Bronze Age civilization called the
Minoan civilization was established on
Crete.
 It
was named after Minos, by the
British archaeologist Arthur Evans,
who discovered the ruins on Crete.

6. The First Greek State:
Mycenae
 It
was made up of an alliance of powerful
monarchies, each living in a fortified center
within large stone walls.
 The
rest of the population lived outside these
walls.
 One interesting architectural feature is the
large beehive-shaped tholos tombs, where
the royal family was buried.

8. The First Greek State:
Mycenae
 The
Mycenaeans had a warrior culture.
 Their
murals show the typical
occupations of a warrior aristocracyfighting and hunting.
 Their
pottery has been found
throughout the Mediterranean.

10. The First Greek State:
Mycenae
 The
most famous of their supposed
military adventures comes to us in the
poetry of Homer.
 According
to Homer, Mycenaeans
sacked the city of Troy,

11. The Greeks in the Dark Age
 The
period from 1100 to 750 BC in
Greece is called the Dark Ages
because few records of that period
exist.
 Iron
replaced Bronze during the Dark
Age, improving weaponry and farming.

12. The Greeks in the Dark Age
 The
works of Homer appeared near
the end of the Dark Age.
 Homer’s
epic poems were the Illiad
and the Odyssey. An epic poem is a
long poem that tells of a great hero’s
deeds.

13. The Greeks in the Dark Age
 The
Illiad takes place during the Trojan War.
 Paris, a Trojan prince, kidnaps Helen, the
wife of the king of Sparta.
 The
 The
Greeks laid siege to Troy for 10 years
Illiad, is about the destruction caused by
the anger of the Greek hero Achilles.
 The Odyssey tells of the Greek hero
Odysseus’s ten-year return to his home

15. The Greeks in the Dark Age
 Both
of Homer’s poems gave the
Greeks an ideal past and a set of
values.
 The values in them were used to
educate Greek males for generations.
 Fathers
had their sons memorize all of
Homer to learn how to act well and be
good men.

16. The Greeks in the Dark Age
 The
basic Homeric values were courage and
honor.
 Through
fighting and protecting family and
friends, the man preserves his and his
family’s honor.
 He
also wins an honorable reputation, the
sign of arete.