IT ALL STARTED IN GREECE (Teaching Guide nr. 1)

 

In the ancient World Europe was situated in the far West

1. Introduction: 

The foundation of the European Union in 1992 is the last stage of a process that started many centuries ago. Concretely when the cultural foundations of “Europa” appeared, namely in Ancient Greece. 

Europa is a Greek name to start with. It probably comes from the combination of the words eurys, meaning “wide,” and ops, meaning “face” or “eye”, which give to the expression “wide-gazing” as an appropriate description of Europe’s broad shoreline as seen from the shipboard perspective of the maritime Greeks.

 From this maritime perspective, and considering that the oldest civilizations come from the East, from Asia, another possibility to be found in the Semitic Akkadian language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia, point to the Akkadian word erebu, meaning “sunset,” and reason that, from the Mesopotamian perspective, the western-setting sun descended on Europe. As a corollary, they cite the Akkadian word for sunrise, asu, from which they believe the name Asia is derived. From a Mesopotamian ground zero, the eastern-rising sun would have ascended from Asia.

 This is why Europe ended for many to be the synonym of Western. We Europeans are the essence  of the Western Civilization.

 But the Ancient Greeks were magnificent artists and poets and this why they had also a wonderful Mythology, through which they embellished their origins. Yuval Noah Harari considers that the superiority of the Sapiens comes from the fact that we are the only animals that can cooperate in large numbers, because 70.000 years ago we went through what he calls the Cognitive Revolution that provided us with subtle language that not only enabled us to describe more precisely the reality and facilitated communication, but also because we could figure out fictions and large numbers of strangers can cooperate successfully by believing in common myths  

 And one of the most captivating Greek myths is directly related to Europe, a young lady that was kidnapped by Zeus, the King of the Gods, brought from Phoenicia to Crete, and got her pregnant. The son of this strange union was called Minos and became the head of the oldest Western civilization: the Minoan culture.  Europe’s history begins in Phoenicia, continues in Crete and ends initially in the Hellenic peninsula, giving birth to the magnificent Greek civilization of the 5th century BC, still one of the pillars of our European-Western culture.

 From the perspective of human organization we owe to the Ancient Greeks two major innovations: the polis and legislation. 

 After the Agricultural revolution, that took place 12.000 years ago, the Sapiens ended generally the stage of hunter-gatherers and fixed themselves in concrete territories. 10.000 years ago appeared the oldest city known: Jericho in the Middle East. The first organized cities would appear in Mesopotamia like the city of Ur that started developing 5.800 years ago. 

 Greek civilization started in Crete with the Minoan civilization much later 3.800 years ago. But since then it attained an amazing level of cultural development, and an advanced stage from the perspective of social organization. The model of Greek cities was the “polis”, based on the reunion of small villages of a geographical area (synoecism). Since then the word “politics” refer to the way of organizing the government of a human community. 

 An interesting innovation of the Greek politicians was that they were the first to distinguish the social order created by the gods, and the one they could create by written political orders: “laws”. The Ancient Greeks “humanized” the law, as before them the legal organization of human community was something directly related to the divine.  

 Politics and laws, since then, have been part of the European-Western civilization. 

The Parthenon (5th century BC)

2. How to study Teaching Guide 1. 

a) Read the corresponding text of the “Aula virtual” 

b) Complete looking at the text in your Class Notebook the following exercises: 

CONCEPTS:

Afro-Eurasia (Orwell), Nymph, Pasiphae, Asterion, Synoecism, Panathenea, polis, Iliad, Odyssey, Cleisthenes, Pericles, Aspasia, Philipics (Demosthenes), Diadochi, Themis, Dike, nomoi, Antigone, Dreros inscription, Gortyn Code

 QUESTIONS:

Concrete questions

1. ¿Is Europe a geographical expression? Justify your answer. 

2. Explain the linguistic approach to the etymological origin of the word Europe: in its Greek version and in Semitic Akkadian. 

3. Which territories are involved in the Myth of the Abduction of Europe?

4. How did the nymph Europa become the queen of Crete?

5. Who was the Minotaur and what was his relationship with king Minos of Crete?

6. Which are the two versions of the Myth of the Minotaur? The classic one and the one reflected by Borges and Cortázar.

7. What is the connection between Greek Mythology and the Minoan Civilization? Why is this culture important from the European historical perspective?

8. What is the relationship of the Mycenaean civilization and the literary works of Homer?

9. What were the Panathenaic Games? What did Athenians celebrate?

10. Did all the Greek polises had the same social structure?

11. What measure adopted by Pericles consolidated Athenian Democracy?

12. Explain briefly what dilemma faced Antigone, in Sophocles play of 441 B.C.

13. Why the young Cretans of the 2nd century AD had to learn by heart their laws, according to the Roman author Claudius Aelianus?

14. Why did the German Romanist Schulz, speaking of the Ancient Romans, affirm that “The People of the Law is not the People of legislation”?

General Questions:

1. What two essential innovations do we owe to the Ancient Greeks from the perspective of the organization of our Western societies. 

2. Explain which were the drawbacks of the polis model from the perspective of developing a solid social structure 

The Epidaurus Theatre (4th century BC)

c) Learn the following chronology: 

CHRONOLOGY: 

300.000 BC Homo Sapiens appear in Africa

70.000  BC Cognitive Revolution

12.000 Agricultural Revolution

10.000 First cities (Jericho)

5.800 Founding of the city of Ur (Mesopotamia)

4.600 Giza Pyramids

4350 First Empire (Akkadian Empire)

Pre-Hellenic Cultures

1750-1500 B.C. Height of Minoan civilization (Knossos)

1500-1200 Mycenaean civilization (Agamemnon)

1230 Conquest and destruction of Troy

1200 Beginning of the Dorian invasion. The Dark age. 

900 Foundation of Sparta

Hellenic Stage

776 Foundation of the Olympic Games

750 (approx.) Composition of The Iliad and The Odyssey by Homer? 

630-560 Life of Solon, Athenian Law giver. 

508 Cleisthenes founds the Democratic Regime in Athens

492-449 Medic wars (against Persian invasion) 

490 Marathon Battle  

480 Thermopylae Battle

461-429 Government of Pericles

431-404 Peloponnesian Wars. 

427-347 Life of Plato

401 Anabasis, or the March of the 10.000 (Xenophon)

Hellenistic Stage

399 Trial and execution of Socrates

384-322 Life of Aristotle

359-336 Reign of Philip II of Macedon

351    "Philipics". Demosthenes defends Athenian liberties against Philip II's ambition.

336-323 Reign of Alexander the Great

323-279 Clashes between the Diadochi (Seleucus, Ptolemy, Antigonus).

146     Rome annexes Greece (Province of Achia)

A pleiad of Greek polises