It is telling that the two earliest Greek historians, Herodotus, writing in the mid-fifth century BCE, and Thucydides, writing in the last third of the fifth century BCE, began their respective histories with the Trojan War, each treating it as a historical event. The Homeric epics Iliad and Odyssey portray the war as an organized attack of a unified Greek army against Troy, a city in Asia Minor (see map 5.5.1). The instigating offense? The Trojan prince Paris kidnapped Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. This offense, interpreted as a slight to Menelaus’ honor, prompted Agamemnon, king of Mycenae and Menelaus’ brother, to raise an army from the entire Greek world and sail to Troy. The mythical tradition had it that after a brutal ten-year siege, the Greeks resorted to a trick: they presented the Trojans with a hollow wooden horse, filled with armed soldiers. The Trojans tragically accepted the gift, ostensibly intended as a dedication to the goddess Athena. That same night, the armed contingent emerged from the horse, and the city finally fell to the Greeks. Picking up the story ten years after the end of the Trojan War, the Odyssey then told the story of Odysseus’s struggles to return home after the war and the changes that reverberated throughout the Greek world after the fall of Troy.
The Homeric epics were the foundation of Greek education in the Archaic and Classical periods and, as such, are a historian’s best source of pan-Hellenic values. A major theme throughout both epics is personal honor, which Homeric heroes value more than the collective cause. For example, when Agamemnon slights Achilles’ honor in the beginning of the Iliad, Achilles, the best hero of the Greeks, withdraws from battle for much of the epic, even though his action causes the Greeks to start losing battles until he rejoins the fight. A related theme is competitive excellence, with kleos (eternal glory) as its goal: all Greek heroes want to be the best; thus, even while fighting in the same army, they see each other as competition. Ultimately, Achilles has to make a choice: he can live a long life and die unknown, or he can die in battle young and have everlasting glory. Achilles’ selection of the second option made him the inspiration for such historical Greek warriors and generals as Alexander the Great, who brought his scroll copy of the Iliad with him on all campaigns. Finally, the presence of the gods in the background of the Trojan War shows the Greeks’ belief that the gods were everywhere, and acted in the lives of mortals. These gods could be powerful benefactors and patrons of individuals who respected them and sought their favor, or vicious enemies, bent on destruction. Indeed, early in the Iliad, the god Apollo sends a plague on the Greek army at Troy, as punishment for disrespecting his priest.
It is important to note that while the Homeric epics influenced Greek values from the Archaic period on, they do not reflect the reality of the Greek world in any one period. Furthermore, they were not composed by a single poet, Homer; indeed, it is possible that Homer never existed. Because the epics were composed orally by multiple bards over the period of several hundred years, they combine details about technological and other aspects of the Bronze Age with those of the Dark Ages and even the early Archaic Age. For instance, the heroes use bronze weapons side-by-side with iron. Archaeological evidence, however, allows historians to reconstruct to some extent a picture of the Greek world in the Bronze Age and the Dark Ages.
The Mycenaeans, similarly to the Minoans, were a palace civilization. Flourishing on mainland Greece c. 1,600 – 1,100 BCE, they received their name from Mycenae, the most elaborate surviving palace and the mythical home of Agamemnon, the commander-inchief of the Greek army in the Trojan War. The archaeological excavations of graves in Mycenae reveal a prosperous civilization that produced elaborate pottery, bronze weapons and tools, and extravagant jewelry and other objects made of precious metals and gems. One of the most famous finds is the so-called “Mask of Agamemnon,” a burial mask with which one aristocrat was buried, made of hammered gold.
The Mycenaeans also kept palace records in a syllabic script, known as Linear B. Related to the Cretan Linear A script, Linear B, however, has been deciphered, and identified as Greek.
Figure 5.8.35.8.3: Mask of Agamemnon, Mycenae Author: User “Xuan Che” Source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC BY 2.0
Archaeological evidence also shows that sometime in the 1,200s BCE, the Mycenaean palaces suffered a series of attacks and were gradually abandoned over the next century. The period that begins around 1,000 BCE is known as the “Dark Ages” because of the notable decline, in contrast with the preceding period. The Mycenaean Linear B script disappears, and archaeological evidence shows a poorer Greece with a decline in material wealth and life expectancy. Some contact, however, must have remained with the rest of the Mediterranean, as shown by the emergence of the Greek alphabet, adapted from the Phoenician writing system towards the end of the Dark Ages or early in the Archaic Period.(1)
While there were people living in mainland Greece already in the Neolithic Period, historians typically begin the study of the Greeks as a unique civilization in the Bronze Age, with the Minoans. The first literate civilization in Europe, the Minoans were a palace civilization that flourished on the island of Crete c. 2,000 – 1,450 BCE.
As befits island-dwellers, they were traders and seafarers; indeed, the Greek historian Thucydides credits them with being the first Greeks to sail on ships. Sir Arthur Evans, the archaeologist who first excavated Crete in the early 1900s, dubbed them Minoans, after the mythical Cretan king Minos whom the Classical Greeks believed to have ruled Knossos. In mythology, King Minos was best known for building a labyrinth to house the Minotaur, a monster that was half-man, half-bull. Bulls appear everywhere in surviving Minoan art, suggesting that they indeed held a prominent place in Minoan mythology and religion.
Four major palace sites survive on Crete. The most significant of them, Knossos, has been restored and reconstructed for the benefit of modern tourists. Depictions of bull leaping are found in various works of Minoan art suggesting it was some sort of sport or ritual. Map 5.8.15.8.1: Map of Minoan Crete Author: User “Bibi Saint-Poi” Source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC BY-SA 3.0
Historians hypothesize that the palaces were the homes of local rulers, who ruled and protected the surrounding farmland. The palaces seem to have kept records in two different writing systems, the earliest known in Europe: the Cretan hieroglyphic and Linear A scripts. Unfortunately, neither of these systems has been deciphered, but it is likely that these were palace inventories and records pertaining to trade. The palaces had no surrounding walls, suggesting that the Cretans maintained peace with each other and felt safe from outside attacks, since they lived on an island. This sense of security proved to be a mistake as, around 1,450 BCE, the palaces were violently destroyed by invaders, possibly the Mycenaeans who arrived from mainland Greece. Recent discoveries also suggest that at least some of the destruction may have been the result of tsunamis which accompanied the Santorini/ Thera volcanic eruption in the 1600s BCE.
King Minos & The Minotaur Zeus was enamoured of Europa and decided to seduce or rape her, the two being near-equivalent in Greek myth. He transformed himself into a tame white bull and mixed in with her father's herds. While Europa and her helpers were gathering flowers, she saw the bull, caressed his flanks, and eventually got onto his back. Zeus took that opportunity and ran to the sea and swam, with her on his back, to the island of Crete. He then revealed his true identity, and Europa became the first queen of Crete. Zeus gave her a necklace made by Hephaestus and three additional gifts: the bronze automaton guard Talos, the hound Laelaps who never failed to catch his quarry, and a javelin that never missed. Zeus later re-created the shape of the white bull in the stars, which is now known as the constellation Taurus.(1)
During her time with Zeus, Europa gave birth to Minos, Rhadamanthus and Sarpedon. Zeus eventually returns to Olympus and Europa marries king Asterion. Asterion and Europa had no other children, so the king raised Zeus’s sons as his own. When he died, he left his kingdom to his wife’s eldest child, Minos. Minos and his brothers argued over the succession, however. After a brief conflict, Minos was victorious and expelled his brothers from his kingdom.(2)
Because of his disputed claim to the throne, however, Minos asked for a sign of the gods’ favor. He prayed to Poseidon to send a white bull to show that Minos had his approval. Poseidon sent Minos the bull, with the understanding that bull would be sacrificed to the god. Deciding that Poseidon's bull was too fine of a specimen to kill, Minos sent the bull to his herds and substituted another, inferior bull for sacrifice.(2)(3) Poseidon was furious that a mortal king would show such disrespect and break a vow to a god. Poseidon punished Minos harshly for the offense. First, he turned the Cretan Bull from docile creature to a raving beast. The bull went completely wild, rampaging around the island and leaving destruction everywhere it went. The sea god then went a step farther. He asked Eros to make Pasiphae, Minos’s wife, to fall in love with the now-wild bull. With a shot from Eros’s bow, the queen fell desperately in love with the animal. She was wholly consumed by this unnatural attraction. Pasiphae commanded Daedalus, the great inventor in service to Minos, to construct a wooden cow. Hiding inside, she was able to lure the Cretan Bull close to herself. The result of Pasiphae’s curse was the birth of the Minotaur. The half-bull, half-human monster was a voracious cannibal who soon began to threaten the people of the capital city, Knossos. To contain the beast, Minos had Daedalus build the Labyrinth. The maze-like underground prison was designed to make sure that the Minotaur could not find its way out.
The creature still terrorized the people of Knossos, however. When it grew hungry it roared and bellowed with such fury that it shook the ground beneath the city. Minos found a solution in the recently conquered city of Athens. He demanded that young men and women be sent to Crete, fourteen at a time, as sacrifices to the terrible monster.(2)
Theseus
Icarus Initially though, King Minos was more angry about the help given by Daedalus than he was about the intrigue of his own daughter Ariadne. Minos though did not want to lose the services of the master craftsman, and so rather than being executed, Daedalus and Icarus were instead locked away in a tall tower (or in other sources father and son were locked within the Labyrinth).
No prison would keep an inventor like Daedalus locked up, but Daedalus realised that he and Icarus need not to just escape their prison but they needed to leave Crete as well. Sailing away from Crete would appear to be the most likely solution, but the Cretan navy of King Minos comprised the quickest vessels of the age.(4)
“He [Minos] may thwart our escape by land or sea but the sky is surely open to us: we will go that way: Minos rules everything but he does not rule the heavens’.” Ovid, VIII.183
Daedalus decided that he and Icarus must fly away.
Of course manned flight had never been undertaken before, and so Daedalus had to invent a method of flying. The plan was simplicity itself, for he had Icarus gather together all of the shed feathers that were to be found in their prison, then with wax, Daedalus glued the amassed feathers to wooden frames, and soon two sets of wings had been manufactured.
Daedelus and Icarus - Domenico Piola (1627-1703) - PD-art-100
Daedalus realized that the wings he had manufactured had many weaknesses, and so pre-warned Icarus about the dangers of flying too high, or indeed flying too low. Too high would see the wax being used as glue melt, whilst too low, would see the seawater impregnating the feathers and wood, making the wings too heavy to fly.(4)
“Let me warn you, Icarus, to take the middle way, in case the moisture weighs down your wings, if you fly too low, or if you go too high, the sun scorches them. Travel between the extremes. And I order you not to aim towards Bootes, the Herdsman, or Helice, the Great Bear, or towards the drawn sword of Orion: take the course I show you!” Ovid, VIII.183-235
The day arrived when Icarus and Daedalus would escape from Crete, and the pair leapt from a ledge together, flapping the manufactured wings as they did so; thus man’s first flight was undertaken just as the birds did.
The escape was successful, and undetected, and soon through a mixture of wing flapping and gliding, Daedalus and Icarus had left Crete far behind. Many miles were soon put between King Minos and the escaping pair, but as Icarus and his father approached the island of Samos, disaster struck.
Icarus had become over confident, and ignoring the warnings previously given by Daedalus, he started to fly higher and higher. The worst fears of Daedalus were soon realised for as Icarus flew closer to the sun, the wax began to melt, and the feathers soon became detached from the wooden frame. In a very short time, all that Icarus was left clinging onto were the wooden frames, and so Icarus plunged seawards, dying as he hit the water.
The area of water where Icarus hit would become known as the Icarian Sea, whilst the previously unnamed island where the body of Icarus washed up was subsequently called Icaria.
Daedalus of course had to watch his son fall to his death with no way of intervening, the grieving Daedalus would have to fly on alone to safety. Some sources though claim that the Greek hero Heracles had witnessed the death of Icarus, and recognizing the boy as the son of Daedalus, Heracles was said to have performed the necessary funeral rites which Icarus’ father had been unable to do.(4)
Battle of Marathon: The Athenian hoplites under the command of Miltiades defeated the Persians in the Battle of Marathon.
-483 BCE
Themistocles persuades the Athenians to significantly expand their fleet, which saves them at Salamis and becomes their source of power.
-480 BCE
Second Persian War: King Xerxes led an invasion force into Greece. He is delayed by the Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae. Later in the year, a Greek coalition defeated the Persian navy at the Battle of Salamis. At the Battle of Platea, the Greeks finally drive the Persians from Greece.
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Figure 5.8.35.8.3: Mask of Agamemnon, Mycenae Author: User “Xuan Che” Source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC BY 2.0.png?revision=1&size=bestfit&width=808&height=485)
Map 5.8.15.8.1: Map of Minoan Crete Author: User “Bibi Saint-Poi” Source: Wikimedia Commons License: CC BY-SA 3.0