Now the early period of what would be considered Greek history starts around 2800 BC and is split into three different cultures in what is the modern Aegean Peninsula (Greece Dawg!)
I will be referring to this, there will be a test dammit! DAMMIT!
Anyway, lets start with the mainland, what is also archeologically called the Helledic period from 2800 BC- 1060 BC. Little is really known about this period actually, the region was extremely hilly, with little space for standard crops and most of the things that are important to sprouting civilizations noticeably lacking. However we still find the beginnings of all the great city states that would dominate Greek history in like another few hundred years. Athens, Corinth, Sparta, were all founded, however called by different names.
Alright, now that we've established that people were living on the mainland of Greece we can move on to one of the bazillion islands that are off the coast where people lived too. One of the more important islands was Crete, where the Minoan civilization saw its birth and eventual collapse in between the years 3650-1150 BC. The Minoans were named such by a 20th century historian who equated King Minos (of Labyrinth fame)
No. Not you, King Minos...this guy, the one who appears in Dante's Inferno.
You know what, whatever. Jareth, you will now be playing King Minos.
Anyway, the Minoans were traders who traveled all across the ancient Mediterranean, boring people with their unremarkable history and their lovely pottery. The Minoans appeared to be repeatedly attacked or annihilated either by earthquake or outside forces invading them. In later Greek popular legend Knossos (major city on Crete during the Minoan era) was home to the fabled Labyrinth, where King Minos' wife banged bulls and made minotaurs.
No, well I don't...I know a few people who would, but that's irrelevant to our journey. Onward to Cyclades! They lived on an island...around 3000 BC to 2000 BC. They carved large round statues of women out of marble. They are more boring than our first post. Man the Cycladic culture was dull. If only there was some way to make this better...
Dammit Jareth! not now!
Lets get away from truly ancient Greece and move to what is called the 'Greek Dark Ages', a time also referred to as the Dorian Invasion. The Greeks explained that the descendants of the banished Hercules returned to the Peloponnesian islands and changed up the language and reorganized everything. there is really no historical evidence to support this, save that Greek culture all of a sudden changed like crazy with no definitive reason why. Although some people also suggest that the change and desertion of many towns in this period was due to the Sea People. Sea People appear repeatedly in ancient texts, all over the Mediterranean. The story remains the same however, a group of guys no one knows, who don't speak the lingo show up and complete obliterate everything they find leaving nothing behind. Fun times in the past.
Now then, this brings us to around 1100 BC, which is roughly the time when there is a possibility the Trojan War happened. See, since the whole thing occurred in a culture that had largely spoken word poems as their method of recording events it's difficult to nail down what actually happened, and because I am more interested in humor and adventure I'll toss around the story of the more than likely made up history of the Trojan War.
It all begins after Zeus, having risen to the position of ruler of the Gods, decides that there are A) Too many damned people in the world and B) A lot of them are half human and half God. Funny thing about that though, because Zeus was father to a lot of those as well, because he could not stop having sex with human women. Plus the lengths he would go to! Turning into animals and all sorts of crap. Zeus had a hard on for mortals, and because he was trying to overcome addiction he was going to kill everything he could bang. It's like a junkie becoming President then proactively hunting down and obliterating anyplace that has poppies in it.
So Zeus heard from Prometheus (recently saved by Hercules) that one of his sons would be his downfall, or at the very least eclipse him. As such Zeus passed off one of his recent conquests Thetis (a woman, not a city) to Peleus a King of the Aegina. At the party all the Gods showed up, except Discord, who was barred from the event (can't imagine why). Well she got seriously pissed and threw her gift into the reception hall. The gift was a golden apple which was inscribed with 'to the fairest.' So Hera, Athena and Aphrodite got into a cat fight over who would get this kick ass paper weight.
Since no headway was being made on the issue it was decided that the three of them would appear...nude...before Paris the hair to the throne of Troy (who was living as a shepherd because he was foretold to bring about the fall of Troy) who would decide. Incidentally the Gods didn't answer because they were acutely aware that if they answered at all the odds of them having extramarital affairs with one or more of these Goddesses would go down the tubes. So Athena, Hera and Aphrodite appeared before Paris offering him treats!
That's right, of the above options Paris picks the 'Most Beautiful Woman in the World' Helen of Sparta. So Aphrodite wins the apple, yay. Paris goes on an adventure or two, then heads on back to Troy where he is recognized as a long lost heir and reinstated...because Trojans are dumb as hell. Now rather amusingly that wedding that we saw earlier, between Thetis and Peleus, guess who the son of the union is...none other than Achilles. Achilles at birth was destined to have one of two possible lives, either he would lead an ordinary and uneventful life, dying of old age, or he would die young and be remembered forever. I think you can guess which one he ended up with...you know, because a guy of mostly Scottish/French descent living on the West coast of a country where the dominant language is not Greek knows his name.
So to make their son immortal, so as to prevent the more tragic 'young death' they either dip the baby Achilles in the River Styx or they hold him over a fire until his mortal-ness burns away. Incidentally we should try this out more often...holding babies over fires and seeing if they become immortal.
Anyway, back to Helen...who incidentally was the love child of Zeus and a mortal women Leda (Zeus was a swan...who raped a woman...rapist swan) which means that almost everyone in this story has had sex with Zeus at one point or another, dudes lucky he didn't get syphilis.
So Helen's fake dad, the King of Sparta finds himself in a difficult spot, everyone wants to marry the hell outta Helen, except that if any one of them does Sparta and the dude whose married her will find themselves immediately under attack by every other suitor. God dammit Helen, get ugly would you? Eventually though the King of Sparta got the suitors to agree to defend the eventual husband no matter who he was. Meanwhile King Menalaus, a rich douche, has a chat with Aphrodite, to whom he promises the sacrifice of 100 oxen if he gets Helen. As a side note the brilliant idea of making the various kings agree to defend the marriage was Odysseus', so he could get help with his marriage to Penelope. Menalaus sends his brother Agamemnon to ask for Helen's hand, and the King of Sparta agrees. Menalaus promptly forgets to give the promised sacrifice...because you know it's Aphrodite he's dealing with, a goddess, what could she possibly do to fuck this up for him?
So Paris arrives in Sparta to collect on his new bride, whilst Menalaus is away burying his dad. Aphrodite sends Cupid along too, with the goal of shooting Helen with a love arrow when she glimpses Paris sneaking into her room...to kidnap her. Well Hera was still pissed off about the whole 'he didn't say I was the prettiest' thing and sent a storm to blow them off course. Which really only hampered them a little, they make it back to Troy and promptly the whole Aegean goes fucking insane!
Menalaus and Odysseus (the worlds craftiest man at the time) head for Troy and ask that Paris stop being a complete asshole and return Helen. Paris refuses and the two return home to Sparta where Menalaus asks Agamemnon to go around Greece asking the various kings to hold up their previous promise to defend the marriage (smooth move Odysseus). Odysseus at the time had just married Penelope and had a son named Telemachus, so the idea of going to war was not terribly appealing to him so when the emissaries arrived with the demand he join up he decided to act like he had gone insane to avoid being conscripted. His fool proof plan was to gibber like a loon while plowing his fields naked, where one of the emissaries placed his infant son. Odysseus' fool proof plan backfired when he stopped plowing so he wouldn't kill his son and he was promptly dragged off to war.
Meanwhile Achilles, at the time 15 years old, was summoned to fight because at the time he was widely considered one of the greatest warriors of the day...at 15. Well his mom disagreed with this plan and disguised him as a girl, which would have worked if the emissaries sent to retrieve him hadn't blown a horn that was used to warn of attack causing the disguised Achilles to leap into action, ripping off his disguise and grabbing a spear.
In no time at all the various Kings, generals and princes of the Greek world met at Aulis and got down to brass tacks about exploding the shit out of Troy.
We'll leave the story there, to be continued next time on Complete History of the World!
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