Civilization #7: Homer's Iliad and the Birth of Greek Civilization

After the Bronze Age collapse around 1200 BCE, Greece fragmented into independent city-states called poleis. Each polis governed itself autonomously without centralized authority, creating a unique political landscape.

Greek city-states developed in remarkably varied geographic settings - mountains, coastal areas, fertile plains, and islands - creating diverse local economies, cultures, and political systems within a relatively small region.

After the Bronze Age collapse, Greeks became illiterate and had to relearn literacy. They adopted and transformed Phoenician writing symbols, creating the first true alphabet where symbols represented individual consonants and vowels rather than syllables or ideas.

During the Greek Dark Ages (1200-800 BCE), after losing literacy following the Bronze Age collapse, Greek culture survived entirely through oral tradition. Poets memorized and performed epic stories, passing cultural knowledge across generations without written records.

Kings and rulers in ancient societies hired elite poets to solve three critical political problems: legitimizing their authority, creating unified cultural identity, and differentiating their people from outsiders. Poets served as professional myth-makers whose beautiful songs supposedly channeled divine inspiration.

The Trojan War story, preserved through oral tradition and immortalized by Homer around 750 BCE, recounts a conflict between united Greek kingdoms led by Agamemnon and the city of Troy, culminating in Greek victory through the famous wooden horse stratagem.

Homer, composing the Iliad around 750 BCE for a Greek audience celebrating their ancestors’ victory over Troy, made a revolutionary choice: portraying Trojan enemies as heroic, courageous, and morally superior to Greek warriors.

Homer pioneered psychological character development in the Iliad through figures like Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior who refuses to fight after a dispute with King Agamemnon, and Hector, the Trojan prince defending his family and home.