Greek Essay1

8/8/2019 Greek Essay1

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Kimberly Diaz Katie Day

Greek Essay The Dorians were a very important group of people. Before, in ancient Greece, there

were two main groups of Greeks: the Dorians and the Ionians. The Dorians lived in

Sparta and are said to have come from Epirus and Macedonia. Most archeologists

aren·t sure though because they have yet to find any archeological evidence thatwould lead them to believe they came from Epirus and Macedonia. Important Dorian

cities include: Sparta, Rhodes, Corinth, and Argos. In Sparta, they were the ´upper

classµ and kept the indigenous people as their serfs. Dorians in Sparta weren·t allowed

to mate with the indigenous people since they were very powerful when it came to

military in Sparta. This helped them achieve their most famous accomplishment

starting from 1200 B.C.: take over the Mycenaean civilization from Macedonia

southwards all the way until Peloponnese (most southern tip of mainland Greece) and

even part of Italy. This astonished many people since the Dorian·s society was not as

developed as the Mycenaean·s. This may seem like a great thing but when combined

with the civil war in Mycenaean, it resulted in the Greek Dark Ages. So with theDorian·s less developed economy, society, and the Mycenaean civil war, Greece was

plunged into the Dark Ages. During the Dark Ages the Mycenaean writing was rarely

practiced, the urbanized areas were declining in population, and many important parts

of the Mycenaean culture were lost too. Much more was also lost.

Who were the Ionians then? They were the people who lived in Turkey, which

was known as Asia Minor. They fled from Greek Mainland before 1000 B.C., probably

fleeing from the Dorians and other invading tribes. It was said that the Athenians

originally colonized Ionia, although this was disputed by a few Ionians such as

Herodotus, a historian from these times. By 700 B.C., Ionia had a very advanced

culture c. Homer was an Ionian bard who first wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey in theIonian Dialect. Other renowned Ionian philosophers were Thales of Miletus and

Pythagoras. East of the Greek mainland, all Greeks were referred to as Ionian. In the

late 500 B.C., the Persian Empire controlled Ionia. Ionia tried to rebel for five years

before being crushed in 495 B.C. Following the Persian control, Ionia was occupied by

Athenians, Persians again, and Alexander the Great before being handed over to

Rome in the will of King Attalus the third of Pergamum. During the Roman Empire,

the Ionian cities of Ephesus, Miletus, Samos, and Smyrna became some of the most

prosperous and important cities in the Roman Empire. These miraculous cities did not

last long though, because the Dorians soon took them over.

It didn·t take long before the Dorians wanted to conquer all of Greece and not

just the Ionian part of it. They expanded southward and towards the coastal regions

in hopes of conquering this land too. They did not, however, expect to find the

Phoenicians on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The Phoenicians were

people who had always been close to the sea and were masters of boat-making and

much more. They practically ruled the international shipping industry on the eastern

coast. Their important cities were Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. Tyre was the head port city

of the Phoenicians. Tyre itself was no match for the Dorian military. The Phoenicians




had been conquered. The Dorians mainly took three things from the Phoenicians: their

land, their pride, and their alphabet. The Dorians adopted the Phoenician alphabet in

order to communicate. The Dorians did make their own minor adjustments though.

The Dorians did change much of the culture of the native people whom they

overtook. The Dorians were classified as ´top class.µ The people they overtook became

their serfs, wives, or laborers. A citizen was expected to do all of their work; this isbecause only men could become citizens. Women had to stay home and do their chores

(take care of young children, cook, clean, etc.) A serf was expected to do all of their

work correctly and receive little or no kindness from their masters. They could be sold

with the land if the master wished it so. , the marriage rituals were changed. Also,

marriage rituals were different in all cities but some of the most drastic changes took

place in Athens. Before the Dorians, the city of Athens the woman would marry to

form alliances. This way if a man (citizen) married a foreign woman, the children would

not have lower status just because the mother was foreign. It was hard for an

Athenian father to find their daughters husbands, because lower status people would

give a larger dowry to get their daughters· married to Athenian men, so Atheniandaughters couldn·t find as many available Athenian husbands. Then the Dorians took

over and the Peruvian citizenship Law of 451 made it a law that if the parents of a

child were not both citizens then the child could not be a citizen. This made 1st

cousins, uncles, and nieces marry to remain citizens. The Incest laws only prohibited

ascendants and descendants, half-siblings of the same mother, and full siblings from

marriage. Another cultural element that changed thanks to the Dorians was the

rituals for dead people. Normally the body was washed, anointed with oil, and then the

women took care of the funeral, which was divided into three parts. They were:

Prostheses (laying out of the body), Ekphora (funeral procession), and the internment

(burial) of the body or cremation of the remains. Friends came to mourn the deceasedperson, like a wake. During the procession, which was usually during Dawn, the

deceased was buried with little personal objects. They used elaborate statues among

other things to mark the grave of their family or friend. From here it said that the

people hoped that their friend either went to the Elysian Fields or Tartarus. The

Elysian Fields was the final resting place for people of virtue or heroes who have done

heroic deeds. Tartarus was the pit where the Titans were sent in exile by Zeus· wicked

men. They were sent there for their crimes. But first their friends had to pass the

River Styx, Cerberus, and Hades, the god of the underworld himself. First, they passed

the River Styx, which is the river of eternal sleep, it served as a crossroad where the

living world met death and mortal world met the immortal world. Next, they had to

pass Cerberus, a three headed dog that guarded the underworld. Lastly, there was

Hades, god of the dead and death itself. He was also the god of hidden wealth (i.e.

fertile soil, rained gold and silver, etc.) After the Dorians took over, cremation began

rather than burial. The people were still given statues, pottery and other gifts. The

people believed in this and in many other things such as the epic poem of The Iliad.

This is a story about how Menelaus lost his beloved wife, Helen, to a guest, Paris. Paris

lived in Troy and had been chosen by the Zeus to pick the fairest out of the three




goddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. He accepted Helen as a bribe from

Aphrodite. So he sailed to Sparta and was welcomed there as a guest by Menelaus and

his wife Helen. As luck (or the gods) would have it Menelaus had to sail to Crete so as

to attend his grandfather·s funeral. During this time, Helen and Paris became lovers

and fled by boat at night back to Troy. When Menelaus returned, he found that his

wife and some of his prized possessions had gone back to Troy with Paris but thatHelen had left her nine year old daughter Hermione behind. Then, he remembered the

oath that Helen·s past suitors had made; that they would help him if it were ever

necessary. So he gathered up the men and set sail for Troy to fight for Helen. It was

called the Trojan War. It lasted for ten years. Paris had allies and so did Menelaus in

the war. The peoples who helped Paris the most were people from Asia Manor and the

Amazons. The Amazons were believed to have lived n ear the Black Sea, the Edge of

the Known

World. They

may or may not

have existed. Amazons were

women

warriors and

were called

´man-hatersµ

by the Greek

playwright

Aeschylus.

They were

supposed tohave

descended

from Ares, the

God of War, as they were very highly skilled in battle. They fought with bows and

arrows, spears, axes, and crescent-shaped shields. They were only female and they

mated with men of other nations. When they had children, they kept the daughters

and either killed, sent away, or made slaves of their sons. Their name comes from a

Greek word meaning ´without breastsµ because it was said that Amazons cut off their

right breasts to better draw their bows. It is also said that because Amazons relied

only upon the meat they hunted for food, the word Amazon is derived from a Greek

word meaning ´without grain.µ The myth continued into the 1800·s when Spanish

explorers named the longest river in South America, the Amazon after seeing female

warriors leading their men into battle. To this day, independent, strong women are

referred to as Amazons because of the possible myth.

In conclusion, the Dorians threw Greece into the Dark Ages since they

conquered many other peoples who were more advanced than they were and in the

process many native cultural elements of the indigenous people were lost.

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Greek Essay1