so 7,000 BC is an important year for
Greece before that pretty much everyone
outside the Middle East was at least
semi-nomadic but in 7,000 BC the people
living in what we call modern Greece
learned the big three technologies right
agriculture husbandry and then a bit
later pottery so that is a big step
forward right these guys were the first
non Middle East people to learn those
things or at the very least to first
Europeans to learn those things but even
so we don't really know much about what
happens after that
no one's writing looking down obviously
or even making paintings so yeah there's
not much to say after that until about
3000 BC and at this point the people
living here undergo a significant
cultural change and also learn bronze
work there is a whole bunch of
controversy about what actually happened
here but the most straightforward
explanation is that a bunch of guys from
the Levant where you know they already
knew bronze looking camera and yeah
taught them basically so yeah cultural
change happens and then in around 2000
BC which is when we start sort of
getting a better idea of what's going on
there are these three cultures living in
the Greek sort of area there's the
Cyclades
which is basically the people living on
the islands the most interesting things
about these guys is they're frigging
amazing little sculptures I mean just
like this look at these guys so yeah
obviously those guys were pretty cool
next is the Minoans who lived on crete
and we're basically the Big Kahuna's of
this whole area they had the biggest
palaces most advanced bronze working and
they seem to have been trading with
Egypt as well and then the third set of
guys is the Helms who lived on the main
line they seem to have taken a lot from
the Minoans but the helens are by far
the least advanced of all the three
cultures importantly though by around
2,000 BC the helens have started to
exhibit characteristics of classical
Greeks right their spoken language seems
a bit similar to ancient Greek and they
worship the Olympian gods so that's you
know you can think of these guys as like
the first predecessors of the Greek we
recognizes you know being kind of Greek
and then around 1600 BC a new sort of
Mycenaean civilization arises in
mainland Greece it's headed by like a
warrior aristocracy who loves you know
hunting and fighting and drinking in
you know doing all those sorts of things
I like to think of them as kind of being
jocks and around 1450 BC the Minoans
decline and the Mycenaeans proceeded to
assimilate Crete and the Cyclades and
you know also a big chunk of the west
coast of Anatolia so yeah you know they
majorly become the dominant cultural
group in Greece and this period becomes
a setting for pretty much all of
classical Greek mythology so yeah like
Hercules Perseus
you know all those guys were supposed to
have done whatever they did in this
period and some of the some of the myths
like the siege of Troy probably actually
did happen in this period quite
literally and the next big thing that
happens is a massive collapse and
looting and burning of nearly all the
civilizations living around méditerranée
in around 1200 BC and this is referred
to by historians as the Late Bronze Age
collapse now nobody's entirely sure why
this happened but one Kingdom that did
survive is Egypt and all I talk about is
how they got invaded from the ocean by
these guys called The Sea Peoples who
they fended off but apparently they did
so at great cost because Egypt then goes
into a bit of a decline no one knows
exactly who these people were or whether
they were responsible for all the
destruction that occurred but it is a
super interesting topic and definitely
worth reading in to bottom line from all
this though is that among many other
civilizations all the guys in Greece get
completely totaled as a result of
whatever happens they forget to write
which is always a very bad sign most of
the cities fall into ruin and they lose
a lot of the bronze working skill and
basically they spend the next 400 years
recovering 800 BC is generally
considered the beginning of ancient
Greece an important date here is 776 BC
which was the date of the first ever
Olympic Games but even before this the
Greeks had started to write again using
a new alphabet which we now recognize as
the ancient Greek alphabet
like this is the alphabet that Petr
odorous uses and Socrates and Plato and
so forth they're also making that
distinctive black on red pottery and
really nice marble sculptures they're
making those columns that we you know
see on all our government building still
and they're doing a lot of trading
very importantly there are now a whole
bunch of independent city-states sort of
emerging like Athens and Corinth and
Sparta Pheebs you know so the city's
mostly hate each other and go to war all
the time but they also feel they have
some sort of common connection with one
another
so yeah this set up is pretty
recognizable like ancient Greece has now
properly begun the last important thing
that happens in this period is that
there are ton of popular revolts against
the ruling aristocrats a lot of the time
these end in tyranny but other times the
leaders of the revolutions end up having
to drop these constitutions that limit
the power of you know whatever ruling
class has been put it the best example
of this is of course Athens when in
around 508 BC the post-revolution regime
was so scared of the mob that it
actually made itself into a like a quasi
democracy and it had you know these
things drawn up and sanctify in a
constitution I mean this may seem kind
of reasonable to us but actually this is
super innovative stuff for the time
right in the Middle East all the kings
are still trying to style themselves as
gods while in Europe I was looking at
warrior istic rats basically government
through a constitution you know not not
the power of an individual or divinity
you know like an actual legal document
is pretty pretty racy and pretty crazy
stuff like a person after this things
kind of take off the Greeks cart trading
like nuts and when a city becomes too
populist which happens a lot they found
new colony and you know through this
process they pretty much colonize the
whole north shore of the Mediterranean
as far as France being even a little bit
if you're interested the Phoenicians
colonize the bottom half plus the Black
Sea and East Coast Anatolia and again
most of these colonies make a big effort
to keep ties with Greece and Greek
culture they send athletes with the
games and they make lavish offerings
Delfy you know tetra Tech then in about
546 BC all the Greek colonies in
Anatolia fall into the hands of the
Persians who have pretty much conquered
the whole of the known world by this
point like these guys were seriously
humans arguably they're the first Empire
that ever existed on the earth
that contained it's estimated one-third
of all the people on the planet and this
includes other places like China and
Mexico too so one one in every three
people who existed at that time was
beholding to the Persian Emperor um not
to mention they also had all the biggest
cities and the most advanced cities and
you know all the best farming land in
the world so yeah basically you know a
super super power these guys are a big
freaking deal anyway the Greek colonies
in Anatolia are pretty unhappy about
being real by the Persians so in 499 BC
durable and for some crazy reason athens
and eretria decide that they're going to
support the rule and of course the
revolt is crushed mercilessly by the
persians and the persians very
reasonably decide to teach athens in a
retro Els so in 492 BC they set out with
an expeditionary force to conquer Greece
and effectively this is the start of the
greco-persian Wars so the Persians
marched over in degrees quickly
subjugating three Macedon and then
burning a rectory to the ground then
moved on to weapons where to everyone's
surprise they've got us not beaten out
of them at the Battle of Marathon now
this is a big deal the Persian Empire
was massive as I've already said and it
has just lost a war against two tiny
city-states at the very edge of the
civilized world it's you know not the
figure for ever but it's still really
embarrassing and really really
unexpected
so the Persians decided that now was not
the time for half-measures and
eventually mounted a full-scale invasion
of Greece in 480 BC long story short the
massive Persian Navy render someone like
you storms and then Philip is in Greek
trickery and sunk so the army got
worried about its supply lines and
motioned out to retreat the Greeks
mopped up the remaining Persians in
Greece and then went further still
taking back pretty much all the colonies
in Anatolia and since then the Persians
didn't really want to have to fight the
Greeks again you know they didn't know
why I keep losing and it's frustrating
so they were like please can leave see
effectively the Greeks from now on the
war and with all their news and
territory and recedes Greece became
really rich and influential and
basically had a mini renaissance most of
the best sculpture and architecture like
the Parthenon and the Artemis in bronze
are from this post-war period plus a
bunch of really nice plays and most
only pleasure when Aristotle invented
philosophy in science and founded their
Academy so you know this is generally
considered the golden age degrees
so after this Greece and you know the
unique Greek culture starts to go into a
bit of a decline after the post war in
431 BC Athens and a bunch of its allies
fought a war against Sparta and a bunch
of its allies this became known as the
Peloponnesian War it lasted thirty years
on and off causing ludicrous amounts of
devastation throughout Greece and ended
with an eventual Spartan victory spyder
couldn't hold on to its position for
longer and various wars between Greek
cities continued for the next half
century the Persians took advantage of
all this infighting to reclaim most of
what they had lost to the Persian was
including pretty much the whole of
Anatolia in around 300 BC with the rest
of Greece being worn down by ceaseless
Wars Macedonia kind of considered the
primitive backwater until then became a
big player in Greece and in 335 B see a
young macedonian king called alexander
conquers art in greece and persuades the
rest of Greece to swear allegiance to
him he then does the craziest thing
anyone could think of and attacks the
Persians who are still by far and away
the largest most technologically and
administrative ly advanced nation the
world has ever seen and somehow even
though he's vastly outnumbered he wins
these three huge land battles against
the full might of the Persian army plus
a whole bunch of difficult teachers in
between and you know again just to give
you an idea about how crazy all this was
the annual income of Athens one of the
biggest if not the biggest Greek city at
the time was equivalent to around like
one thousand five hundred talents right
but when Alexander conquered the Persian
Empire inherited a treasury of an
estimated two hundred and twenty five
thousand silver talents just just
sitting there in palaces so this is a
massive wealth disparity here Greece was
so poor comparatively the overall more
Greeks fought against Alexander on the
Persian side as mercenaries than in his
own up but still you want some ham
anyway the Persian Empire then collapsed
Alexander simulated it and then went on
even further contribute of India and
then died at a really inconvenient young
age in 323 BC which prompted
- divided his empire between themselves
and then fight countless pointless wars
against each other for like the next
century and from my view this is really
the end of the history of ancient Greece
because you know while while great
culture remain influential we poach
Alexander empires were so large that
Greece itself and its cities and the
people living there became file as
important basically you know just being
another province for this or that
Macedonian dynasty divided over plus in
a moment the Romans are about to come
and take center stage so yeah I think
this is an appropriate place to leave