Ancient Greece conti.

around 1200 BCE the mysterious “sea people” began to invade Mycenae and burnt palace after palace

so, the Dorians moved into this war-torn region, dominating from 1150 - 750 BCE

• Dorians were far less advanced

• the trade-based economy collapsed
• writing disappeared for 400 years

talk about a culture in decline… except...

Greek oral tradition - stories passed on by word of mouth

Homer lived at the end of these “Greek Dark Ages”

he composed stories (epics) of the Trojan War c. 750-700 BCE

• The Iliad - probably one of the last conquests of the Mycenaeans (the Trojan War)
• The Odyssey - Odysseus attempts to return home after the Trojan War, being thwarted by the angry god of the sea, Poseidon

The Odyssey was 12,110 lines of dactylic hexameter

• “Homeric question” - Homer may have been a mythical creation himself
• a blind wandering minstrel; a heroic figure
• Iliad and Odyssey may be the culmination of many generations of storytelling
• or…Homer actually existed and he was just that awesome