Eric I of Denmark
Eric I known as Eric the Good, was King of Denmark following his brother Olaf I Hunger in 1095. He was a son of Sweyn II, his mother's identity is unknown. He married Boedil Thurgotsdatter. Eric was born in the town of Slangerup in North Zealand. During the rule of his half-brother Canute IV he was an eager supporter of the king, but he was spared during the rebellion against Canute IV. Eric remained at the royal farm instead of accompanying Canute IV to St Albans priory in Odense where Canute IV was killed. Eric talked his way off the farm and fled to Zealand fled to Scania, part of Denmark at the time. Olaf I Hunger was elected King of Denmark. At last Eric was elected as a king at the several landsting assemblies in 1095. Eric was well liked by the people and the famines that had plagued Denmark during Olaf Hunger's reign ceased. For many it seemed a sign from God. Medieval chroniclers, such as Saxo Grammaticus, myths portrayed Eric a “strapping fellow” appealing to the common people, he could keep his place.
Eric was a good speaker, people went out of their way to hear him. After a ting assembly concluded, he went about the neighborhood greeting men and children at their homesteads, he had a reputation as a loud man. Though a presumed supporter of a strong centralized royal power, he seems to have behaved like a diplomat avoiding any clash with the magnates, he had a reputation for being ruthless to pirates. On a visit to the Pope in Rome he obtained canonization for his late brother, Canute IV, an archbishopric for Denmark, instead of being under the Archbishop of Hamburg-Bremen. Bishop Asser became the first Archbishop of Lund. King Eric announced at the Viborg assembly; the cause, according to Danmarks Riges Krønike, was the murder of four of his own men while drunk at a feast in his own hall. Despite the pleadings of his subjects, he would not be deterred. Eric appointed his son, Harald Kesja, Bishop Asser as regents. Eric and Boedil and a large company traveled through Russia to Constantinople where he was a guest of the emperor.
While there, he took ship for Cyprus anyway. He died at Paphos, Cyprus in July 1103; the queen had him buried there. He was the first king to go on pilgrimage. Queen Boedil became ill, but made it to Jerusalem where she died, she was buried at the foot of the Mount of Olives in the Valley of Josaphat. Eric and Boedil had Canute Lavard. Harald Kesja was Canute's half-brother. Eric had two sons outside marriage Eric II the Memorable and Benedict, the daughter Ragnhilde. Canute Lavard was king Eric's eldest son, he was a chivalrous and popular Danish prince. Canute was murdered 7 January 1131 by Eric's nephew Magnus the Strong, the son of King Niels, who viewed Canute as a competitor for the throne. Canute's death occurred days before the birth of his child, Valdemar I the Great, who would become King of Denmark from 1157 to 1182. Eric Ejegod is the ancestor of Danish monarchs
Greek wine
Greece is one of the oldest wine-producing regions in the world and among the first wine-producing territories in Europe. The earliest evidence of Greek wine has been dated to 6,500 years ago where wine was produced on a household or communal basis. In ancient times, as trade in wine became extensive, it was transported from end to end of the Mediterranean. In the medieval period, wines exported from Crete and other Greek ports fetched high prices in northern Europe; the origins of wine-making in Greece go back 6,500 years and evidence suggesting wine production confirm that Greece is home to the second oldest known grape wine remnants discovered in the world and the world’s earliest evidence of crushed grapes. The spread of Greek civilization and their worship of Dionysus, the god of wine, spread Dionysian cults throughout the Mediterranean areas during the period of 1600 BC to the year 1. Hippocrates used wine for medicinal purposes and prescribed it. Greek wines and their varieties were well traded throughout the Mediterranean.
The Ancient Greeks introduced vines such as Vitis vinifera and made wine in their numerous colonies in Italy, southern France, Spain. The Vitis vinifera grape which thrives in temperate climates near coastal areas with mild winters and dry summers adapted well and flourished in the Northern Mediterranean areas; the most reputable wines of ancient Greece were Chian, Corcyraean, Euboean, Leucadian, Peparethan wine and Thasian. Wine was important for ancient Macedonia. Two other names may or may not be regional: Bibline wine and Pramnian wine are named in the earliest Greek poetry, but without any reliable geographical details. In 1937, a Wine Institute was established by the Ministry of Agriculture. During the 1960s, retsina became the national beverage. With growing tourism, retsina became associated worldwide with Greece and Greek wine. Greece’s first Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard was planted in 1963. In 1971 and 1972, legislation established appellation laws. A system of appellations was implemented to assure consumers the origins of their wine purchases.
The appellation system categorizes wines as: Protected Geographical Origins, i.e. an Appellation of Origin of Superior Quality Protected Geographical Identification, i.e. a Quality wines of Origin Epitrapezios Oinos, i.e. a Vin de table Not certified wine in a region of greece Epitrapezios Oinos, regular table wine which comes in screw-top containers Cava, more prestigious, aged "reserve" blends Retsina, a traditional wine, flavored with pine resinThe main wine growing regions - so called appellations of Greece are: Lemnos Paros Rhodes Samos Santorini Archanes Dafnes Peza Sitia Zitsa Kefalonia Corfu zakynthos Lefkada Amynteo Epanomi Goumenissa Naoussa Mantineia Nemea Monemvassia-Malvasia Patras Nea Anchialos Rapsani Messenikola Red Wine Agiorgitiko is a variety native to Nemea that grows in the Peloponnese area, producing a soft, fruity red in many styles. Its sensory attributes are similar to Beaujolais Nouveau but, unlike its French counterpart, the St. George ages well for about 5 years.
Kotsifali is a variety grown on Crete. It is blended with Syrah to enhance its color. Limnio, or Kalambaki is an important red grape variety, indigenous to the Aegean island of Lemnos and has been used in red wine production for more than 2000 years; as a varietal wine Limnio is full-bodied, high in alcohol and herbaceous, with a distinctive taste of bay leaves. Mandilaria known as amorgiano, is cultivated on the islands of Rhodes and Crete. Wine from this grape is very tannic and blended with other grapes to soften the mouthfeel. Mavrodaphne, or "black laurel", is a variety that grows in the Ionian Islands, it is blended with the Black Corinth currant grape to produce a prized fortified dessert wine made in the Solera style. Negoska is found in Northern Greece and produces rose and red wines of carbonic maceration worth mentioning, with the expected aromas. Blended into the PDO Goumenissa wine. Romeiko is a red grape found on Crete, most prominently in the region of Chania. Vertzami is a thick, dark-skinned grape variety, best known for single-varietal wines produced on the Ionian island of Lefkada.
It is grown in central Greece and Peloponnese, where it is blended with other Greek wines, Cyprus, where it is known as "Lefkas". Xinomavro is the predominant grape variety in Macedonia, centered on the town of Naousa; this variety has great aging potential with a palate reminiscent of tomatoes and olives, a rich tannic character. It is compared to Nebbiolo. White Wine Assyrtiko is a multi-purpose variety, it is similar in character to Riesling, is island-based, being a native variety of the island of Santorini, whose old vines have been resistant to Phylloxera. Athiri is one of the most ancient. From Santorini, it is now planted in Macedonia and Rhodes. Debina is a white Greek wine grape in the Zitsa region of Epirus; the grape's high acidity lends itself to sparkling wine production. Lagorthi is a variety cultivated on high slopes in the Peloponnese; the grape produces a malic and fruity wine. Malagousia is a grape growing in Macedonia, with a special aroma leading to elegant full bodied wines, with medium-plus acidity and exciting perfumed aromas.
Moschofilero is a Blanc de gris variety from the AOC region of
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until it fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire was the most powerful economic and military force in Europe. Both the terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" are historiographical terms created after the end of the realm. Several signal events from the 4th to 6th centuries mark the period of transition during which the Roman Empire's Greek East and Latin West diverged. Constantine I reorganised the empire, made Constantinople the new capital, legalised Christianity. Under Theodosius I, Christianity became the Empire's official state religion and other religious practices were proscribed.
Under the reign of Heraclius, the Empire's military and administration were restructured and adopted Greek for official use in place of Latin. Thus, although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians distinguish Byzantium from ancient Rome insofar as it was centred on Constantinople, oriented towards Greek rather than Latin culture, characterised by Eastern Orthodox Christianity; the borders of the empire evolved over its existence, as it went through several cycles of decline and recovery. During the reign of Justinian I, the empire reached its greatest extent after reconquering much of the Roman western Mediterranean coast, including North Africa and Rome itself, which it held for two more centuries; the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 exhausted the empire's resources and contributed to major territorial losses during the Early Muslim conquests of the 7th century, when it lost its richest provinces and Syria, to the Arab caliphate. During the Macedonian dynasty, the empire expanded again and experienced the two-century long Macedonian Renaissance, which came to an end with the loss of much of Asia Minor to the Seljuk Turks after the Battle of Manzikert in 1071.
This battle opened the way for the Turks to settle in Anatolia. The empire recovered during the Komnenian restoration, by the 12th century Constantinople was the largest and wealthiest European city. However, it was delivered a mortal blow during the Fourth Crusade, when Constantinople was sacked in 1204 and the territories that the empire governed were divided into competing Byzantine Greek and Latin realms. Despite the eventual recovery of Constantinople in 1261, the Byzantine Empire remained only one of several small rival states in the area for the final two centuries of its existence, its remaining territories were progressively annexed by the Ottomans over the 15th century. The Fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453 ended the Byzantine Empire; the last of the imperial Byzantine successor states, the Empire of Trebizond, would be conquered by the Ottomans eight years in the 1461 Siege of Trebizond. The first use of the term "Byzantine" to label the years of the Roman Empire was in 1557, when the German historian Hieronymus Wolf published his work Corpus Historiæ Byzantinæ, a collection of historical sources.
The term comes from "Byzantium", the name of the city of Constantinople before it became Constantine's capital. This older name of the city would be used from this point onward except in historical or poetic contexts; the publication in 1648 of the Byzantine du Louvre, in 1680 of Du Cange's Historia Byzantina further popularised the use of "Byzantine" among French authors, such as Montesquieu. However, it was not until the mid-19th century that the term came into general use in the Western world; the Byzantine Empire was known to its inhabitants as the "Roman Empire", the "Empire of the Romans", "Romania", the "Roman Republic", as "Rhōmais". The inhabitants called themselves Romaioi and as late as the 19th century Greeks referred to Modern Greek as Romaiika "Romaic." After 1204 when the Byzantine Empire was confined to its purely Greek provinces the term'Hellenes' was used instead. While the Byzantine Empire had a multi-ethnic character during most of its history and preserved Romano-Hellenistic traditions, it became identified by its western and northern contemporaries with its predominant Greek element.
The occasional use of the term "Empire of the Greeks" in the West to refer to the Eastern Roman Empire and of the Byzantine Emperor as Imperator Graecorum were used to separate it from the prestige of the Roman Empire within the new kingdoms of the West. No such distinction existed in the Islamic and Slavic worlds, where the Empire was more straightforwardly seen as the continuation of the Roman Empire. In the Islamic world, the Roman Empire was known as Rûm; the name millet-i Rûm, or "Roman nation," was used by the Ottomans through the 20th century to refer to the former subjects of the Byzantine Empire
Pinus halepensis
Pinus halepensis known as the Aleppo pine known as Jerusalem's oren, is a pine native to the Mediterranean region. Its range extends from Morocco and Spain north to southern France, Croatia, Montenegro and east to Greece, all over Malta and northern Tunisia, with an outlying population in Syria, southern Turkey, Jordan and Palestinian territories. Pinus halepensis is found at low altitudes from sea level to 200 m, but can grow up to 1,000 m in southern Spain, well over 1,200 m on Crete, up to 1,700 m in the south, in Morocco and Tunisia; the tree is able to colonize open and disturbed areas. It can grow on all substrates and in all bioclimates in the Mediterranean. Pinus halepensis is a small to medium-sized tree, 15–25 m tall, with a trunk diameter up to 60 cm, exceptionally up to 1 m; the bark is orange-red and fissured at the base of the trunk, thin and flaky in the upper crown. The leaves are slender, 6–12 cm long, distinctly yellowish green, produced in pairs; the cones are narrow conic, 5–12 cm long and 2–3 cm broad at the base when closed, green at first, ripening glossy red-brown when 24 months old.
They open over the next few years, a process quickened if they are exposed to heat such as in forest fires. The cones open 5–8 cm wide to allow the seeds to disperse; the seeds are 5–6 mm long, with a 20-mm wing, are wind-dispersed. The Aleppo pine is related to the Turkish pine, Canary Island pine, maritime pine, which all share many of its characteristics; some authors include the Turkish pine as a subspecies of the Aleppo pine. Brutia Holmboe, but it is regarded as a distinct species, it is a nonvariable species, in that its morphological characteristics stay constant over the entire range. The resin of the Aleppo pine is used to flavor the Greek wine retsina. From the pine nuts of the Aleppo pine is made a pudding called asidet zgougou in the Tunisian dialect. Aleppo pine are used for bonsai. In its native area, P. halepensis is planted for its fine timber, making it one of the most important forestry trees in Algeria and Morocco. In Israel, the Aleppo pine, along with Pinus brutia, has been planted extensively by the JNF.
It proved successful in Yatir Forest in the northern Negev, where foresters had not expected it to survive. Many Aleppo pine forests are used for recreational purposes. Although it is a local species, some argue that the historical replacement of natural oak maquis shrubland and garrigue with tall stands of pine has created "ecological deserts" and has changed the species assemblage of these regions. In Israel natural patches of Aleppo pine forests can be found in the Galilee regions; the species produces timber, valued for its hardness and unproblematic seasoning. Seasoned timber is inclined to tear out with planing, but this can be avoided by using sharp blades or adjusting the sharpening angle of tools; the Aleppo pine is considered an invasive species though useful in South Africa. Pinus halepensis is a popular ornamental tree, extensively planted in gardens and private and agency landscapes in hot dry areas such as Southern California and the Karoo in South Africa, where the Aleppo pine's considerable heat and drought tolerance, fast growth, aesthetic qualities, are valued.
Paul Cézanne had an Aleppo pine in his garden at Aix-en-Provence. As of 2005, the tree is still growing in Cézanne's garden. Media related to Pinus halepensis at Wikimedia Commons Data related to Pinus halepensis at Wikispecies Gymnosperm Database: Pinus halepensis Pinus halepensis - distribution map, genetic conservation units and related resources. European Forest Genetic Resources Programme
Middle Ages
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery; the Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early and Late Middle Ages. Population decline, counterurbanisation, collapse of centralized authority and mass migrations of tribes, which had begun in Late Antiquity, continued in the Early Middle Ages; the large-scale movements of the Migration Period, including various Germanic peoples, formed new kingdoms in what remained of the Western Roman Empire. In the 7th century, North Africa and the Middle East—once part of the Byzantine Empire—came under the rule of the Umayyad Caliphate, an Islamic empire, after conquest by Muhammad's successors. Although there were substantial changes in society and political structures, the break with classical antiquity was not complete.
The still-sizeable Byzantine Empire, Rome's direct continuation, survived in the Eastern Mediterranean and remained a major power. The empire's law code, the Corpus Juris Civilis or "Code of Justinian", was rediscovered in Northern Italy in 1070 and became admired in the Middle Ages. In the West, most kingdoms incorporated the few extant Roman institutions. Monasteries were founded; the Franks, under the Carolingian dynasty established the Carolingian Empire during the 8th and early 9th century. It covered much of Western Europe but succumbed to the pressures of internal civil wars combined with external invasions: Vikings from the north, Magyars from the east, Saracens from the south. During the High Middle Ages, which began after 1000, the population of Europe increased as technological and agricultural innovations allowed trade to flourish and the Medieval Warm Period climate change allowed crop yields to increase. Manorialism, the organisation of peasants into villages that owed rent and labour services to the nobles, feudalism, the political structure whereby knights and lower-status nobles owed military service to their overlords in return for the right to rent from lands and manors, were two of the ways society was organised in the High Middle Ages.
The Crusades, first preached in 1095, were military attempts by Western European Christians to regain control of the Holy Land from Muslims. Kings became the heads of centralised nation-states, reducing crime and violence but making the ideal of a unified Christendom more distant. Intellectual life was marked by scholasticism, a philosophy that emphasised joining faith to reason, by the founding of universities; the theology of Thomas Aquinas, the paintings of Giotto, the poetry of Dante and Chaucer, the travels of Marco Polo, the Gothic architecture of cathedrals such as Chartres are among the outstanding achievements toward the end of this period and into the Late Middle Ages. The Late Middle Ages was marked by difficulties and calamities including famine and war, which diminished the population of Europe. Controversy and the Western Schism within the Catholic Church paralleled the interstate conflict, civil strife, peasant revolts that occurred in the kingdoms. Cultural and technological developments transformed European society, concluding the Late Middle Ages and beginning the early modern period.
The Middle Ages is one of the three major periods in the most enduring scheme for analysing European history: classical civilisation, or Antiquity. The "Middle Ages" first appears in Latin in 1469 as media tempestas or "middle season". In early usage, there were many variants, including medium aevum, or "middle age", first recorded in 1604, media saecula, or "middle ages", first recorded in 1625; the alternative term "medieval" derives from medium aevum. Medieval writers divided history into periods such as the "Six Ages" or the "Four Empires", considered their time to be the last before the end of the world; when referring to their own times, they spoke of them as being "modern". In the 1330s, the humanist and poet Petrarch referred to pre-Christian times as antiqua and to the Christian period as nova. Leonardo Bruni was the first historian to use tripartite periodisation in his History of the Florentine People, with a middle period "between the fall of the Roman Empire and the revival of city life sometime in late eleventh and twelfth centuries".
Tripartite periodisation became standard after the 17th-century German historian Christoph Cellarius divided history into three periods: ancient and modern. The most given starting point for the Middle Ages is around 500, with the date of 476 first used by Bruni. Starting dates are sometimes used in the outer parts of Europe. For Europe as a whole, 1500 is considered to be the end of the Middle Ages, but there is no universally agreed upon end date. Depending on the context, events such as the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks in 1453, Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas in 1492, or the Protestant Reformation in 1517 are sometimes used. English historians use the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485 to mark the end of the period. For Spain, dates used are the death of King Ferdinand II in 1516, the death of Queen Isabella I of Castile in 1504, or the conquest of Granada in 1492. Historians from Romance-speaking countries tend to divide the Middle Ages into two parts: an earlier "High" and late
Jerusalem
Jerusalem is a city in the Middle East, located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the oldest cities in the world, is considered holy to the three major Abrahamic religions—Judaism and Islam. Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority claim Jerusalem as their capital, as Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there and the State of Palestine foresees it as its seat of power. During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times and recaptured 44 times, attacked 52 times; the part of Jerusalem called the City of David shows first signs of settlement in the 4th millennium BCE, in the shape of encampments of nomadic shepherds. Jerusalem was named as "Urusalim" on ancient Egyptian tablets meaning "City of Shalem" after a Canaanite deity, during the Canaanite period. During the Israelite period, significant construction activity in Jerusalem began in the 9th century BCE, in the 8th century the city developed into the religious and administrative center of the Kingdom of Judah.
In 1538, the city walls were rebuilt for a last time around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent. Today those walls define the Old City, traditionally divided into four quarters—known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian and Muslim Quarters; the Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, is on the List of World Heritage in Danger. Since 1860 Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries. In 2015, Jerusalem had a population of some 850,000 residents, comprising 200,000 secular Jewish Israelis, 350,000 Haredi Jews and 300,000 Palestinians. In 2011, the population numbered 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000, Muslims 281,000, Christians 14,000 and 9,000 were not classified by religion. According to the Bible, King David conquered the city from the Jebusites and established it as the capital of the united kingdom of Israel, his son, King Solomon, commissioned the building of the First Temple. Modern scholars argue that Jews branched out of the Canaanite peoples and culture through the development of a distinct monolatrous — and monotheistic — religion centered on El/Yahweh, one of the Ancient Canaanite deities.
These foundational events, straddling the dawn of the 1st millennium BCE, assumed central symbolic importance for the Jewish people. The sobriquet of holy city was attached to Jerusalem in post-exilic times; the holiness of Jerusalem in Christianity, conserved in the Septuagint which Christians adopted as their own authority, was reinforced by the New Testament account of Jesus's crucifixion there. In Sunni Islam, Jerusalem is the third-holiest city, after Medina. In Islamic tradition, in 610 CE it became the first qibla, the focal point for Muslim prayer, Muhammad made his Night Journey there ten years ascending to heaven where he speaks to God, according to the Quran; as a result, despite having an area of only 0.9 square kilometres, the Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance, among them the Temple Mount with its Western Wall, Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Outside the Old City stands the Garden Tomb. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
During the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, West Jerusalem was among the areas captured and annexed by Israel while East Jerusalem, including the Old City, was captured and annexed by Jordan. Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan during the 1967 Six-Day War and subsequently annexed it into Jerusalem, together with additional surrounding territory. One of Israel's Basic Laws, the 1980 Jerusalem Law, refers to Jerusalem as the country's undivided capital. All branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset, the residences of the Prime Minister and President, the Supreme Court. While the international community rejected the annexation as illegal and treats East Jerusalem as Palestinian territory occupied by Israel, Israel has a stronger claim to sovereignty over West Jerusalem. A city called Rušalim in the execration texts of the Middle Kingdom of Egypt is but not universally, identified as Jerusalem. Jerusalem is called Urušalim in the Amarna letters of Abdi-Heba.
The name "Jerusalem" is variously etymologized to mean "foundation of the god Shalem". Shalim or Shalem was the name of the god of dusk in the Canaanite religion, whose name is based on the same root S-L-M from which the Hebrew word for "peace" is derived; the name thus offered itself to etymologizations such as "The City of Peace", "Abode of Peace", "dwelling of peace", alternately "Vision of Peace" in some Christian authors. The ending -ayim indicates the dual, thus leading to the suggestion that the name Yerushalayim refers to the fact that the city sat on two hills; the form Yerushalem or Yerushalayim first appears in the Book of Joshua. According to a Midrash, the name is a combination of "Yireh" and "Shalem" the two names were un
Boeotia
Boeotia, sometimes alternatively Latinised as Boiotia, or Beotia, is one of the regional units of Greece. It is part of the region of Central Greece, its capital is Livadeia, its largest city is Thebes. Boeotia was a region of ancient Greece, since before the 6th century BC. Boeotia lies to the north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth, it has a short coastline on the Gulf of Euboea. It bordered on Megaris in the south, Attica in the southeast, Euboea in the northeast, Opuntian Locris in the north and Phocis in the west; the main mountain ranges of Boeotia are Mount Parnassus in the west, Mount Helicon in the southwest, Cithaeron in the south and Parnitha in the east. Its longest river, the Cephissus, flows in the central part, where most of the low-lying areas of Boeotia are found. Lake Copais was a large lake in the center of Boeotia, it was drained in the 19th century. Lake Yliki is a large lake near Thebes; the earliest inhabitants of Boeotia, associated with the city of Orchomenus, were called Minyans.
Pausanias mentions that Minyans established the maritime Ionian city of Teos, occupied the islands of Lemnos and Thera. The Argonauts were sometimes referred to as Minyans. According to legend the citizens of Thebes paid an annual tribute to their king Erginus; the Minyans may have been proto-Greek speakers, but although most scholars today agree that the Mycenean Greeks descended from the Minyans of the Middle Helladic period, they believe that the progenitors and founders of Minyan culture were an autochthonous group. The early wealth and power of Boeotia is shown by the reputation and visible Mycenean remains of several of its cities Orchomenus and Thebes; the origin of the name "Boeotians" may lie in the mountain Boeon in Epirus. Some toponyms and the common Aeolic dialect indicate that the Boeotians were related to the Thessalians. Traditionally, the Boeotians are said to have occupied Thessaly, the largest fertile plain in Greece, to have been dispossessed by the north-western Thessalians two generations after the Fall of Troy.
They moved south and settled in another rich plain, while others filtered across the Aegean and settled on Lesbos and in Aeolis in Asia Minor. Others are said to have stayed in Thessaly, withdrawing into the hill country and becoming the perioikoi. Though far from Anthela, which lay on the coast of Malis south of Thessaly in the locality of Thermopylae, Boeotia was an early member of the oldest religious Amphictyonic League because her people had lived in Thessaly. Many ancient Greek legends are set in this region; the older myths took their final form during the Mycenean age when the Mycenean Greeks established themselves in Boeotia and the city of Thebes became an important centre. Many of them are related to the myths of Argos, others indicate connections with Phoenicia, where the Mycenean Greeks and the Euboean Greeks established trading posts. Important legends related to Boeotia include: Eros, worshiped by a fertility cult in Thespiae The Muses of Mount Helicon Ogyges and the Ogygian deluge Cadmus, said to have founded Thebes and brought the alphabet to Greece Dionysus and Semele Narcissus Heracles, born in Thebes The Theban Cycle, including the myths of Oedipus and the Sphinx, the Seven against Thebes Antiope and her sons Amphion and Zethus Niobe Orion, born in Boeotia and said to have fathered 50 sons with a local river god's daughters.
Many of these legends were used in plays by the tragic Greek poets, Aeschylus and Euripides: Aeschylus's Seven Against Thebes Sophocles's Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, known as the Theban plays Euripides's Bacchae, Phoenician Women and HeraclesThey were used in lost plays such as Aeschylus's Niobe and Euripides's Antiope. Boeotia was notable for the ancient oracular shrine of Trophonius at Lebadea. Graea, an ancient city in Boeotia, is sometimes thought to be the origin of the Latin word Graecus, from which English derives the words Greece and Greeks; the major poets Hesiod and Pindar were Boeotians. Boeotia had significant political importance, owing to its position on the north shore of the Gulf of Corinth, the strategic strength of its frontiers, the ease of communication within its extensive area. On the other hand, the lack of good harbours hindered its maritime development; the importance of the legendary Minyae has been confirmed by archaeological remains. The Boeotian population entered the land from the north before the Dorian invasion.
With the exception of the Minyae, the original peoples were soon absorbed by these immigrants, the Boeotians henceforth appear as a homogeneous nation. Aeolic Greek was spoken in Boeotia. In historical times, the leading city of Boeotia was Thebes, whose central position and military strength made it a suitable capital, it was the constant ambition of the Thebans to absorb the other townships into a single state, just as Athens had annexed the Attic communities. But the outlying cities resisted this policy, only allowed the formation of a loose federation, religious. While the Boeotians, unlike the Arcadians acted as a united whole against foreign enemies, the constant struggle between the cities was a serious check on the nation's development. Boeotia hardly figures in history before the late 6th century BC. Previous to this, its people are chiefly known as the makers of a type of geometric pottery, similar to
Media related to Retsina at Wikimedia Commons
