Pg. 97-98 (2)
The Greeks In A Dark Age
World History, Comprehensive Volume, 3rd Edition, by William J. Duiker & Jackson J. Spielvogel.
During the Dark Age, large numbers of Greeks left the mainland and migrated across the Aegean Sea to various islands and especially to the southwestern shore of Asia Minor, a strip of territory that came to be called Ionia. Based on their dialect, the Greeks who resided there were called Ionians. Two other groups of Greeks settled in established parts of Greece. The Aeolian Greeks who were located in northern and central Greece colonized the large island of Lesbos and the adjacent territory of the mainland. The Dorians established themselves in southwestern Greece, especially in Peloponnesus, as well as on some of the south Aegean islands including Crete.
Other important activities occurred in this Dark Age as well. There was a revival of some trade and some economic activity besides agriculture. Iron replaced bronze in the construction of weapons, making them affordable for more people. And at some point in the 8th century B.C.E., the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet to give themselves a new system of writing. Neat the very end of this so-called Dark Age appeared the work of Homer, who has come to be viewed as one of the truly great poets of all time.
Homer
The Origins of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the first great epics of early Greece,
are to be found in the oral tradition of reciting poems recounting the deeds of
heroes of the Mycenaean age. It is generally assumed that early in the 8th
century B.C., Homer made use of these oral traditions to compose the Iliad, his
epic of the Trojan War. The war was caused by an act of Paris, a prince of Troy.
By kidnapping Helen, wife of the king of the Greek state of Sparta, he outraged
all the Greek. Under the leadership of the Spartan king’s brother, Agamemnon of
Mycenae, the Greeks attacked Troy. Ten years later, the Greeks finally won and
sacked the city.
But the Iliad is not so much the story of the war itself as it is the tale of
the Greek hero Achilles and how the “wrath of Achilles” led to disaster. As is
true of all great literature, the Iliad abounds in universal lessons. Underlying
them all is the clear message, as one commentator has observed, that “men will
still come and go like the generations of leaves in the forest; that he will
still be weak, and the gods strong and incalculable; that the quality of a man
matters more than his achievement; that violence and recklessness will still
lead to disaster, and that this will fall on the innocent as well as on the
guilty.
Although the Odyssey has long been considered Homer’s other masterpiece, some
scholars believe that it was composed later than the Iliad and was probably not
the work of Homer. The Odyssey is an epic romance that recounts the journeys of
one of the Greek heroes, Odysseus, after the fall of Troy and his ultimate
return to his wife. But there is a larger vision here as well: the testing of
the heroic stature of Odysseus until, by both cunning and patience, he prevails.
In the course of this testing, the underlying moral message is “that virtue is a
better policy than vice.”
Although the Iliad and the Odyssey supposedly deal with the heroes of the
Mycenaean age of the 13th century B.C.E., many scholars believe that they really
describe the social conditions of the Dark Age. According to the Homeric view,
Greece was a society based on agriculture in which a landed warriors-aristocracy
controlled much wealth and exercised considerable power. There is no doubt that
Homer’s society was divided along class lines with the warrior-aristocrats as
the dominant group. Homer’s world reflects the values of aristocratic heroes.
This, or course, explains the importance of Homer to later generations of
Greeks. Homer did not so much record history; he made it. The Greeks regarded
the Iliad and the Odyssey as authentic history and as the works of one poet,
Homer. These masterpieces gave the Greeks an ideal past with a legendary age of
heroes and came to be used as standard texts for the education of generations of
Greek males. As on Athenian stated, “My father was anxious to see me develop
into a good man…and as a means to this end he compelled me to memorize all of
Homer.” The values of Homer inculcated were essentially the aristocratic values
of courage and honor. It was important to strive for the excellence benefiting a
hero, which the Greeks called aręte. In the warrior-aristocratic world of Homer,
aręte is won in struggle or contest. In his willingness to fight, the hero
protects his family and friends, preserves and expands his own honor and that of
his family, and earns his reputation. In the Homeric world, aristocratic women,
too, were expected to pursue excellence. Penelope, for example, the wife of
Odysseus, the hero of the Odyssey, remains faithful to her husband and displays
great courage and intelligence in preserving their household during her
husband’s long absence. Upon his return, Odysseus praises her for her
excellence: “Madame, there is not a man in the wide world who could find fault
with you. For your fame has reached heaven itself, like that of some perfect
king, ruling a populous and mighty state with the fear of god in his heart, and
upholding the right.”
To a later generation of Greeks, these heroic values formed the core of
aristocratic virtue, a fact that explains the tremendous popularity of Homer as
an educational tool Homer gave to the Greeks, a single universally accepted
model of heroism, honor, and nobility. But in time, as a new world of
city-states emerged in Greece, new values of cooperation and community also
transformed what the Greeks learned from Homer.
Pg. 99
Homer’s Ideal of Experience
The Iliad and the Odyssey, which the Greeks believed were both written by Homer, were used as basic texts for the education of Greeks for hundreds of years during antiquity. This passage is from the Iliad, describing the encounter between Hector, prince of Troy, and his wife Andromache, illustrates the Greek ideal of gaining honor through combat. At the end of the passage, Homer also revels what became the Greek attitude toward women: they are supposed to spin and weave and take care of their households and children.
from Homer's Iliad:
Hector looked at his son and smiled, but said nothing. Andromache, bursting into tears, went up to him and put her hand in his. “Hector,” she said, “you are possessed. This bravery of yours will be your end. You do not think of your little boy or your unhappy wife, whom you will make a widow soon. Some day the Achaeans (Greeks) are bound to kill you in a massed attack. And when I lose you I might as well be dead…I have no father, no mother, now…I had seven brothers too at home. In one day all of them went down to Hades’ house. The great Achilles of the swift feet killed them all…
“So you, Hector, are father and mother, and brother to me, as well as my beloved husband. Have pity on me now; stay here on the tower; and do not make your boy an orphan and your wife a widow…”
“All that, my dear,” said the great Hector of the glittering helmet, “is surely my concern. But if I hid myself like a coward and refused to fight, I could never face the Trojans and the Trojan ladies in their trailing gowns. Besides, it would go against the grain, for I have trained myself always, like a good soldier, to take my place in the front line and win glory for my father and myself…”
As he finished, glorious Hector held out his arms to take his boy. But the child shrank back with a cry to the bosom of his girdled nurse, alarmed by his father’s appearance. He was frightened by the bronze of the helmet and the horsehair plume that he saw nodding grimly down at him. His father and his lady mother had to laugh. But noble Hector quickly took his helmet off and put the dazzling thing on the ground. Then he kissed his son, dandled him in his arms, and prayed to Zeus and the other gods: “Zeus, and you other gods, grant that this boy of mine may be, like me, preeminent in Troy; as strong and brave as I; a mighty king of Ilium. May people say, when he comes back from battle, ‘Here is a better man than his father.’ Let him bring home the bloodstained armor of the enemy he has killed, and make his mother happy.”
Hector handed the boy to his wife, who took him to her fragrant breast. She was smiling through her tears, and when her husband saw this, he was moved. He stroked her with his hand and said, “My dear, I beg you not to be too much distressed. No one is going to send me down to Hades before my proper time. But fate is a thing that no man born to a women, coward or hero, can escape. Go home now, and attend to you own work the loom and the spindle, and see that the maidservants get on with theirs. War is men’s business; and this war is the business of every man in Ilium, myself above all.”