Zeus is scheduled for release fall 2000

Ancient History

The Mycenan Civilisation
For four centuries the Mycenean Culture thrived. Grown out of the tribes trading with Crete their cities grew, their graves became more spectacular and their art more common. The warlords settled down and began to rule their little kingdoms. While they seem to have taken a lot from the Minoan culture, the Myceneans are quite a different people. Their kings are the undisputed rulers of their realms and were buried in splendid tombs, with immense wealth. Greedy for battle and conquest, their art concentrates ion warfare and the hunt. They're raiding parties have troubled the Hyksos in Asia, the Egyptians and, after the decline of their civilisation, the Minoans on Crete. Their most famous raid, however, is the one on Troy.

Mycenean traders crossed the Mediterranean and don't seem to have felt themselves above a little piracy on the side. Most of our knowledge derives from the writings of the likes of Homer and his recounting of the Illiad and the Odyssey. It is not strange this time is also known as the Age of Heroes.

Mycenean religion appears to have been a lot like the latter Greek religion, with Zeus or a similar sky god at the head of the pantheon. It might have involved sacrifices and it seems the Minoan goddesses were added to their pantheon after it was conquered.

Shortly after the sack of Troy, however, the Mycenean cities were abandoned. Some say they were conquered by the Dorians, who next settled in Greece, others say their civilisation collapsed under its own weight.

Whatever happened, Mycenean cities are exchanged for small agricultural settlements and the Greek Dark Ages begin…

The Greek Dark Ages
As the Mycenean cities fall or are abandoned, so their culture disappears. Strangely enough one of the things that disappears with it is the art of writing. Thus we don't have a single written source from inside Greece from the 12th century BC till about 750BC. People seemed to have lived short, nomadic lives. Trade ground to a halt and for over 4 centuries Greece was a place life just seemed to pass by on its way to more exciting places.

At the end of the Dark Ages, people started, slowly, to gather into cities once more. Near the end of this time a blind storyteller, by the name of Homer, is said to have told two of the greatest stories ever: the Illiad and the Odyssey.

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