希腊的“黑暗时代”
提起希腊，我们的第一反应就是美丽的爱琴海和影响了西方两千年的希腊文明以及那些瑰丽的希腊神话。可你知道吗？希腊也有一段“黑暗时代”（Greek Dark Ages），正是在那段Dark Ages中，诞生了欧美历史上最璀璨的著作之一——荷马史诗。因此，希腊的黑暗时代又被称为荷马时代（Homeric Age）。那是一段怎么样的历史呢，为什么“黑暗”呢？
Reading in a single sitting 一口气读完这段历史
The Greek Dark Age or Ages (1100 BC–800 BC) are terms which have regularly been used to refer to the period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian（多里安人）invasion and end of the Mycenaean（迈锡尼）Palatial civilization around 1200 BC, to the first signs of the Greek city–states in the 9th century BC. These terms are gradually going out of use, since the former lack of archaeological evidence in a period that was mute in its lack of inscriptions (thus “dark”) has been shown to be an accident of discovery rather than a fact of history.
The archaeological evidence shows a widespread collapse of Bronze Age（青铜时代）civilization in the eastern Mediterranean（地中海）world at the outset of the period, as the great palaces and cities of the Mycenaean’s were destroyed or abandoned. Around this time, the Hittite（赫梯） civilization suffered serious disruption and cities from Troy（特洛伊）to Gaza（加沙）were destroyed. Following the collapse, fewer and smaller settlements suggest famine and depopulation. In Greece the Linear B writing of the Greek language used by Mycenaean bureaucrats ceases. The decoration on Greek pottery after ca 1100 BC lacks the figurative decoration of Mycenaean ware and is restricted to simpler, generally geometric styles (1000–700 BC). It was previously thought that all contact was lost between mainland Hellenes and foreign powers during this period, yielding little cultural progress or growth; however, artifacts from excavations show that significant cultural and trade links with the east, particularly the Levant coast, developed from 900 BC onwards, and evidence has emerged of the new presence of Hellenes in sub–Mycenaean Cyprus and on the Syrian coast at Al Mina.
With the collapse of the palatial centres, no more monumental stone buildings were built and the practice of wall painting may have ceased; writing in the Linear B script ceased, vital trade links were lost, and towns and villages were abandoned. The population of Greece was reduced, and the world of organized state armies, kings, officials, and redistributive systems that offered security to inpiduals disappeared. Most of the information about the period comes from burial sites and the grave goods contained within them. To what extent the earliest Greek literary sources, Homeric epics (8th–7th century) and Hesiod’s（赫西奥德，希腊诗人）Works and Days (7th century) describe life in the 9th–8th centuries remains a matter of considerable debate.
The fragmented, localized and autonomous cultures of reduced complexity are noted for such persity of their material cultures in pottery styles (conservative in Athens, eclectic at Knossos), burial practices and settlement structures, that generalizations about a“Dark Age society”are misleading. Tholos tombs are found in early Iron Age Thessaly and in Crete but not in general elsewhere, and cremation is the dominant rite in Attica（阿提卡，古希腊的一个地方）, but nearby in the Argolid it was inhumation. Some former sites of Mycenaean palaces, such as Argos（阿哥斯）or Knossos（克诺索斯）, continued to be occupied; other sites’ experienceing an expansive“boom time”of a generation or two before they were abandoned, James Whitley has associated with the“Big–man social organization”, based on personal charisma and inherently unstable: he interprets Lefkandi in this light.
Some regions in Greece, such as Attica, Euboea（埃维厄岛）and central Crete（克里特岛）, recovered economically from these events faster than others, but life for the poorest Greeks would have remained relatively unchanged as it had done for centuries. There was still farming, weaving, metalworking and potting in this time, albeit at a lower level of output and for local use in local styles. Some technical innovations were introduced around 1050 BC with the start of the Proto–geometric style (1050–900 BC), such as the superior pottery technology, which resulted in a faster potter’s wheel for superior vase shapes and the use of a compass to draw perfect circles and semicircles for decoration. Better glazes were achieved by higher temperature firing of clay. However, the overall trend was toward simpler, less intricate pieces and fewer resources being devoted to the creation of beautiful art.
During this time the smelting of iron was learnt from Cyprus（塞浦路斯）and the Levant, exploited and
improved upon, using local deposits of iron ore previously ignored by the Mycenaeans: edged weapons were now within reach of less elite warriors. Though the universal use of iron was one shared feature among Dark Age settlements, it is still uncertain when the forged iron weapons and armour achieved superior strength to those that had been previously cast and hammered from bronze. From 1050 BC many small local iron industries appeared, and by 900 almost all weapons in grave goods were made of iron.
The distribution of the Ionic Greek dialect in historic times indicates early movement from the mainland of Greece to the Anatolian coast to such sites as Miletus（米利都）, Ephesus（以弗所）, and Colophon, perhaps as early as 1000 BC, though the contemporaneous evidence is scanty. In Cyprus some archaeological sites begin to show identifiably Greek ceramics, a colony of Euboean（埃维亚岛）Greeks was established at Al Mina on the Syrian（叙利亚）coast, and a reviving Aegean（爱琴海）Greek network of exchange can be detected from 10th–century Attic Proto–geometic pottery found in Crete and at Samos（萨摩斯）, off the coast of Asia Minor（小亚细亚）.
从约公元前1200年至公元前800年，多利安人入侵、迈锡尼文明灭亡、最早的希腊城邦开始崛起、荷马史诗等最早的希腊文写作出现……这就是“黑暗时期”的大致轮廓。在这一时期，希腊的文明世界开始衰落，迈锡尼人雄伟的宫殿被摧毁或是遗弃，希腊语停止被书写，陶器只有简单的几何装饰。人口急剧减少，国际贸易逐渐丧失，与其他文明的联络也消失了，导致社会文化等的全面停滞。希腊先民在经济、文化的“黑暗”中度过了整整400年，等待着希腊城邦崛起的曙光。
invasion：入侵，侵略
Palatial：壮丽的、宫殿般的
archaeological：考古学的
bureaucrat：官僚、官僚主义者
artifact：手工艺品
monumental：不朽的、纪念碑的
tholos：圆屋、圆形建筑
charisma：魅力、非凡领导力
pottery：陶器、制陶术
intricate：复杂的、纠缠的
armour：盔甲、护面
contemporaneous：同时期的
Key Words in History 历史关键词
1．Homer荷马
In the Western classical tradition Homer is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics are at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.
When he lived is controversial. Herodotus estimates that Homer lived 400 years before Herodotus’ own time, which would place him at around 850 BC; while other ancient sources claim that he lived much nearer to the supposed time of the Trojan War, in the early 12th Century BC.
For modern scholars“the date of Homer”refers not to an inpidual, but to period when the epics were created. The formative influence played by the Homeric epics in shaping Greek culture was widely recognized, and Homer was described as the teacher of Greece.
2．Iliad伊利亚特
The Iliad is an epic poem in dactylic hexameters, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set in the Trojan War, the ten–year siege of Ilium by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles. Although the story covers only a few weeks in the final year of the war, the Iliad mentions or alludes to many of the Greek legends about the siege. Along with the Odyssey, also attributed to Homer, the Iliad is among the oldest extant works of Western literature, and its written version is usually dated to around the eighth century BC. The Iliad contains over 15,000 lines, and is written in Homeric Greek, a literary amalgam of Ionic Greek with other dialects.
3．Odyssey奥德赛
The Odyssey is one of the two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work traditionally ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon. Indeed it is the second–the Iliad being the first–extant work of Western literature. It was probably composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek–speaking coastal region of what is now Turkey.
The poem mainly centers on the Greek hero Odysseus (or Ulysses, as he was known in Roman myths) and his long journey home following the fall of Troy. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten–year Trojan War. In his absence, it is assumed he has died, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must deal with a group of unruly suitors, the Mnesteres or Proci, competing for Penelope’s hand in marriage.
It continues to be read in the Homeric Greek and translated into modern languages around the world. The
original poem was composed in an oral tradition by an aoidos (epic poet/singer), perhaps a rhapsode (professional performer), and was more likely intended to be sung than read. The details of the ancient oral performance, and the story’s conversion to a written work inspire continual debate among scholars. The Odyssey was written in a regionless poetic dialect of Greek and comprises 12,110 lines of dactylic hexameter. Among the most impressive elements of the text are its non–linear plot, and that events seem to depend as much on the choices made by women and serfs as on the actions of fighting men. In the English language as well as many others, the word odyssey has come to refer to an epic voyage.
Background Knowledge 背景知识补充
“黑暗时代”开始于迈锡尼文明的没落。而迈锡尼文明的衰落，在时间上恰恰与赫梯文明、埃及文明的衰落相对应，其原因可能为某个装备有铁兵器的海上民族的入侵。当多利安人南下希腊的时候，他们也装备有更为先进的铁兵器，可以轻易地将已然衰弱的迈锡尼人逐走。于是，这些武器先进，但是文明欠发达的民族，开创了希腊的黑暗时代。
这一历史时期之所以被称为“黑暗”主要有两个原因：黑暗，最明显的理由，是因为我们没有任何关于他们的史料和记录，我们找不到这些记录，因此称之为黑暗。另一个理由是，黑暗从悲观的角度来说就是不好的、坏的。这是一个艰难的时代，一个困苦的时代，一个不幸的时代，一个悲惨的时代，这就是黑暗时代。黑暗时代紧随着迈锡尼文明的陨落到来，这段历史的部分内容，是迈锡尼文明与地中海地区源远流长的关系，尤其是与东部港口城市的联系切断了。不管是政治、经济还是文化，希腊成了一个孤岛。
现在，我们只能从考古学发现以及《荷马史诗》中去追寻那一时期的历史踪迹。人们相信，荷马史诗中含有一些黑暗时代口头传承下来的传统，但是荷马作品的历史真实性仍广为争论。因为荷马史诗中所塑造的大多为半人半神的英雄（Hero)，是介于人和神（God)之间的一种生物。所以，黑暗时代的真相到底如何，还有待历史学家和考古学家进一步研究。