History Summarized: the Ancient Greek Post-Apocalypse

Turns out the "Studio Ghibli Post-Apocalypse" aesthetic has a historical basis in ancient Greek history's Bronze Age Collapse, long Dark Age, and slow re-emergence into the Polis Age. I don't know if I'd call the process *pleasant*, but it sure as hell is a *vibe*.
GO READ THE ILIAD: bookshop.org/p/books/the-ilia... -- We enjoy the Fagles translation, as it's the typical classroom and library standard, but if you want a real treat, try the Alexander Pope edition from the 1700s that's written entirely in RHYME. THE DAMN THING RHYMES!!!
SOURCES & Further Reading:
“The Age of Heroes” and “Delphi and Olympia” from “Ancient Greek Civilization" by Jeremy McInerney - “Dark Age and Archaic Greece” from “The Foundations of Western Civilization” by Thomas F. X. Noble - “Dark Age and Archaic Greece” from “The Greek World: A Study of History and Culture” by Robert Garland"The Greeks: A Global History" by Roderick Beaton, "The Greeks: An Illustrated History" by Diane Cline, Metropolitan Museum “Geometric Art in Ancient Greece” www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/grg... also have a degree in Classical Studies
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[@christicrochets9011]

Hi OSP, I feel that you need to know that Harvard University has a classical Mythology class which has like 200 students and is taught by one of the forerunners of Classical studies in the world. And guess what’s on our syllabus? YOUR VIDEOS for the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid. And our syllabus has a permalink to your channel and says “if you’re ever out of time just watch these little videos lol.” Your channel is the ONLY one provided by HARVARD UNIVERSITY that has been approved for accuracy and entertainment, and our syllabus is revised every year to include more of your videos. Make of that what you will.

[@ezraclark7904]

🤯🥳🎉

[@phoenixiscul]

OH

[@McDaddyDab]

Owen Wilson "hwow"

[@Alex-mn1fb]

wooow, that is seriously impressive, but then Red and Blue have been pumping out top notch quality content for years now, so, it kinda figures 😁😁

[@multiumx7896]

Holy baby Jesus! That's one HUGE accomplishment 🎉

[@annekeener4119]

I love that instead of focusing on what was lost during a civilization collapse, you focus on how it sets up the next civilization period. This is so rarely done but is an important piece to understanding so-called Dark Ages when they happen. Both the Rome after Rome and this video explore the topic instead of focusing on the doom and gloom. It’s a fascinating approach.

[@izzyj.1079]

And one frighteningly likely to be relevant soon

[@alecchristiaen4856]

People tend to fixate on the end of an era rather than see it as the dawn of a new one.

[@MogofWar]

The interesting situation with the Mycenean collapse, is most of what was preserved was the cool shit, and most of what was lost was the bullshit... Not that different from the fall of Western Rome TBH. The main tragedies of these collapses are the large scale death and destruction that come about when people who are entrenched in social structures that simply do not exist anymore get embroiled in the large scale violence that takes place when the new reality comes crashing down on them. But then again, that tragedy wasn't always a guaranteed outcome. And sometimes didn't really happen except in the imaginations of people trying to rationalize the populations declines of their homelands centuries after the fact. (Which just as often resulted from mass migration and low birth rates.) There's an argument to be made that "Nothing of value was really lost" during some of the collapse events, and that's actually why those societies collapsed. This was not the case in all collapses mind you, and some of these collapses had cascading effects on other societies who were not necessarily in situations that would actually benefit from radical transformation. So take Mycenean Greece. 50% of Mycenean Greece did not die off. Their underclasses rebelled, exterminated their aristocracy, and began to engage in large amounts of foreign adventurism in other realms that were also falling to pieces. Now other civilizations that had 90% population declines... Their missing people really did die, and in greater numbers than the population differences imply, because that 10% population afterwards IS NOT their survival rate, but the number of people who resettled from foreign regions after the fact. Mycenean Greece were one of the "Sea Peoples" Who were just the various coalitions of "non-civilized" folk who started taking over the lands of the collapsing bronze age empires. In some cases, they conquered lands outright (and there you had more survivors ironically because while warfare is destructive and violent, it does leave a question of what to do with the survivors of a conquered enemy, which creates a question where previously there wasn't one) but in most cases they just settled where the indigenous societies had already receded.

[@Leon-le9cn]

@@izzyj.1079 why

[@LordVader1094]

​​@@MogofWarhe most based take on the WRE collapse that I've ever seen

[@Bardic_Knowledge]

"When people told themselves their past with stories, explained their present with stories, foretold the future with stories, the best place by the fire was kept for... The Storyteller."

[@kipofthemany2213]

Dude! I fucking love that show!

[@connordorsey9959]

What’s that from

[@Bardic_Knowledge]

@@connordorsey9959 An old Jim Henson series called "The Storyteller," hosted by John Hurt.

[@connordorsey9959]

@@Bardic_Knowledge thank you.

[@Things_n_Stuff]

It’s kinda nice to realize that unless something catastrophic happens, like a meteor impact, humans will continue. No matter how much it seems like things are falling apart

[@lady_sir_knight3713]

We have such an indefatigable drive for survival we will push past the end of all we know, and tell stories the whole while.

[@coltonwilliams4153]

The world may end, but so long as the planet survives, so shall we.

[@denverarnold6210]

"Survive. Adapt. Overcome."

[@bosslca9630]

@@coltonwilliams4153 And even then, we will cast a light past the darkness of our doomed world and glitter in the sky as stars do. I pray for the human race to live evermore.

[@joshuahunt3032]

@@bosslca9630Or at least as “evermore” as genetic drift/taxonomic reclassification and the heat death of the universe will allow.

[@bearbearington9113]

"Now go read the Iliad!" I literally just finished my first ever read-through the day this video came out, and I only read it because I wanted to see if it was even half as entertaining as Red's videos on it. It's not -- it's at least THREE TIMES as entertaining, if only because Red breezed through so much of it in the interest of not making a five-hour video. I loved it. In fact, I loved it so much that I'm now reading it again by a different translator. I feel like I'm getting something of the original experience by doing so, sitting down to hear a different poet -- a different oral historian -- recite his or her rendition of the work to me. It's genuinely delightful. Thanks for the new hyperfixation, OSP!

[@atypicalprogrammer5777]

The Illiad is full of these themes of decay, and how this heroic age was supposedly so much better in every way. There is this one passage where Diomedes picks up a huge rock, and laments that twelve "modern" men could not lift it. It seems the Iron age people assumed that their age was so much worse because its very people were worse than their ancestors.

[@zanir2387]

And add to that Diomedes wasn't a demigod, which also allowed himself to humiliate Ares himself, then it talks a lot about him...

[@hangebza6625]

Thanks for mentioning Iron being a downgrade from bronze. Because it is in many cases, despite many people seeing iron as an upgrade. If both are in equal supply, bronze is the far better material. You can easily mass produce its goods. Just smelt it and pull it into prepareed forms. A bit more polishing and you made 100 swords. Whereas Iron didn't smelt properly and you had to forcefully hammer it into form. Also Bronze wasn't that much weaker than Iron and more longlasting, as it didn't rost much, compared to iron. Plus if a bronze tool broke, just smelt it in and make a new one. If an iron tool broke it was much harder to recycle/replace. Indeed the bronze age never really stopped. Critical tools and components could only be made out of bronze up until the mid-late the industrial revolution. Even Napoleon used bronze cannons for example. In this I too say that bronze age cultures likley had the knowhow to refine and forge iron weapons. But why do, if you have so much better bronze stuff around.

[@spencerthomas4087]

I really like the growing push (the public-facing side of which seems to have been led by youtube educators) toward not assuming that technology is a straight line and that people who don't have this thing that we take for granted just hadn't figured it out yet. I'm a materials scientist who studies metals and I don't think many people quite understand how easy it is to make iron that ancient societies would have found absolutely useless, and even the stuff that had the right combination of strength and formability would corrode unless you took very good care of it. Stainless steel was a 19th century invention. It's weird that it's a novel thought that bronze age societies were quite happy with bronze who would not have seen iron as a step up even though that's like the first straightforward upgrade in every Civilization style game.

[@sodadrinker89]

It's why the Chinese kept using Bronze for a lot longer, because no Bronze age collapse for the Chinese.

[@Osric24]

Ooh metallurgy insight! Very nice.

[@lyinar]

I've read something that may provide a similar example, because it posited that the Aztecs didn't bother trying to work out how to make metal weapons despite definitely having the organization to be able to support such an industry and plenty of decorative metalwork was because they felt obsidian was more than good enough for weaponry. Given that obsidian flaked the way they did for weapons has an edge sharper than steel is physically capable of, and Conquistadors wrote about losing mounts to battlefield decapitation by Aztecs wielding macahuitls, I can see where they were coming from on that. It's just that metal armor is, if you'll pardon the pun, a hard counter to a weapon that relies on an extremely sharp but very fragile cutting edge, and the Spaniards made up for their numerical and logistical disadvantages by allying with literally everyone the Aztecs had pissed off. And the fact that the connotations of the Iron Age got changed from "ew, we have to use this ugly shit now, even if it does make better tools and weapons" to "THE INEXORABLE MARCH OF PROGRESS IS GREAT!" is extremely unsurprising, but still annoying. I wonder when it got flipped.

[@argspid]

@@lyinar If I had to guess, I would say that it was around the time that blacksmiths could reliably make steel, and a lot of it is retroactive from Industrial Age Britain.

[@voidify3]

The deal with the Iron Age (according to another source I watched a while back) is that bronze was stronger but harder to make. Iron was worse but could arm a larger army so could outnumber the elite bronze fighting forces Then once these wars destabilised society enough for tin trade to break down, making bronze stopped being an option, so iron became the dominant metal because it was the next best option

[@AlixL96]

This video is making me so oddly emotional. Like, damn, people really spent so long remembering a civilization they came from after it had collapsed. I can't help but wonder what that felt like, growing up seeing the ruins of palaces your ancestors supposedly lived in, hearing stories about how civilization used to be so much bigger and stronger, even while you're just living your normal rural life life. And yet people really held onto those stories. Did they feel like they were living after the end of the world?

[@nightfall3605]

This sentiment reminds me of Tolkien’s approach to the history of Middle Earth. To paraphrase: civilization long ago reached its peak and each successive age is a poor mimeograph of the glory of what came before, doomed to decay. The peoples can only be inspired by the ruins and stories of what once was and build regressive copies, spiraling into barbarity.

[@jessefanshaw8948]

But if you close your eyes

[@thomasnesmith5426]

If this made you sad, imagine being an Egyptian. Around the Bronze Age collapse, you would have lived in the shadow of the Great Pyramids which were already a thousand years old. You sit there watching everything go down hill knowing (yet again) your people are slipping further away from that.

[@rowangirdler7428]

The Last Kingdom series by Bernard Cornwell (the books not the show, though both are great) explores this theme. The Saxons are well established in what would would become England and life isn't especially awful by the standards of the time (Viking attacks aside), but the presence of Roman ruins is a reminder that a mighty but vanished people once dominated the same lands and had far better technology and building techniques. The protagonist, Uhtred, reflects that the days of Rome were humanity's peak, and that the violence and upheaval of his time is proof that the world is descending gradually towards the primeval unmaking of Ragnarok. Of course, 21st century readers know that he is wrong and that great advancements lie in the future, but in its historical and sociological context it's a realistic view. Brilliant piece of writing by one of the best historical fiction authors.

[@tnaoro]

5:50

[@SandsBuisle]

The fact that the Phoenician Alphabet pretty much maps 1:1 (both in names and use, almost perfectly) with the Hebrew one is kinda amazing. Even if the letters themselves look very different.

[@sniccups8390]

Phoenecian and Hebrew are closely-related languages! And they're also related to the now-extinct language that the alphabet was originally designed for.

[@eliavrad2845]

The "Modern" Hebrew letters are not the original: they were replaced by Aramaic in the Babylonian exile. Before that, they were basically the same

[@gljames24]

All modern semetic languages derive from the pheonician abjad.

[@blacksage2375]

@@gljames24 ALL modern scripts are derived from either the Phoenician alphabet (which in turn adapted hieroglyphs) or from Chinese characters. Writing has been created independently a few more times but those scripts have all been outcompeted over time.

[@TheCBoysDotCom]

@@blacksage2375with the probable exception of certain words in pictographic languages (much of Korean takes a radically different form and set of meanings than the technical synonym in Chinese for instance)

[@bradstev14]

I'm a PhD historian, and the minute you said 'Dark Age' I felt my hackles rise. Just as I was getting ready to allow a head full of steam to allow me to vent in the comments section - you added the qualifiers, and slight accompanying mockery, and that hit home. Touché :D.

[@Letoiusprime]

I have never been so enticed by a video title before

[@Balmung3688]

Wow Blue, this was one of your best!! Once again showing that while history might be interesting by itself, the tapestry that it weaves about the lives of the peoples therein is the real treasure

[@mjschul]

I love the connection between the tone of the epics and the human experiences that must have inspired that tone--looking down on the still impressive ruins of what was not so long ago majestic palaces and structures. Of course the scattered peoples of a civilization fallen would pass on stories of their ancestors as "This is what we WERE" and that would inspire the future to build towards that idea for their future. Man I love history.

[@sasas845]

For a long time, I was freaked out by the "everyone dies" part of the Illiad. The context of the collapse of civilization would make a horrible amount of sense...

[@PillarofGarbage]

Also interesting to note that some historians believe that the development of the Greek alphabet in time to take down the Iliad might not have been simply good fortune - instead, there's some indication that the alphabet might have been developed *specifically* to record the epic.

[@anna_in_aotearoa3166]

Hmm! Interesting theory but seems unlikely, given the origin point of all languages I'm aware of has been economic rather than literary? (I.e. developing from systems and symbols used to tally trades and taxes). Literary usage can definitely coin new neologisms and metaphors (cf. Shakespeare's work) but do you know of any cases where it's prompted develolmemt of a whole from-scratch symbol set...?

[@solisemporium]

I just think it’s neat that so many times through history, humanity was on the brink of collapse so many times, all throughout the world and yet we continue to this day.

[@Justic_]

tbf, most of these times we're thinking of was probably mostly due to other humans, Bronze Age collapse, fall of Rome, all of those simply affected a part of humanity, not all of it, and also probably benefited other people, even if they might've been the minority. It's civilizations that collapsed, not humanity itself.

[@Lightwolf234]

Humanity is awesome

[@lauraknight5973]

​@Justic_ considering since we're dealing with man-made climate change that no one seems willing to fix, that's oddly comforting. like this isn't the first time humans have been our own worst enemy, it won’t be the last, and somehow we'll keep fucking going.

[@Kaijugan]

Hey OSP folks. Just thought I'd let you know that my college (that is the Louisiana Delta Community College) has recently started using your videos as materials for their history classes. And part of the reason why is because so many of their students and even the teachers watch your videos. You should be proud.

[@peaceflowerstudios6833]

🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@0ThrowawayAccount0]

imagine paying for college and they show you a freaking fan-made youtube video

[@connorgrynol9021]

@@0ThrowawayAccount0 I'm not sure what you mean by 'fan-made' but Blue has a degree in classics so his videos do have credibility behind them. All things considered, Red and Blue are probably happy. In the past, they've voiced their respect for teachers. And they've also said that though they want their videos to be educational, they don't think they are any substitute for a proper class. Perhaps their opinions have changed since then, but I doubt it. Anyway, though the class uses their videos, they are not necessarily the core of the class, just an aspect.

[@birthe9439]

I'm a classicist, so there wasn't really anything "new" in this video for me, but damn was it an excellent narration of that period in history. Being able to paint such a picture in ten minutes is truly an impressive skill. So much nuance in what's a summary of history. One minor detail that I want to nerd out about: from what I have learned about Mycenaean Greek, the word "basileus" did indeed exist in Mycenaean (though with slightly different sounds), but it didn't mean "king" yet. The Mycenaean word for "king" was "anax" (which is also used by Homer), and "basileus" likely referred to some kind of local leader. The exact meaning is of course hard to know for sure. But the theory is that after the collapse of Mycenaean civilisation, those local leaders became more important and that's how "basileus" gained its meaning of "king".

[@MatthewSmith-sz1yq]

The comparison between iron and bronze is pretty fascinating. Most people think of iron alloys, like steel, when they talk about iron, but just plain iron tools kind of sucked compared to bronze, it wasn't a clear upgrade. Sure, iron tools were technically "stronger," but they were also heavy, brittle, required a lot of maintenance to prevent corrosion, and were very difficult to repair if damaged. For example, if you hit a bronze sword too hard, it would just bend, and you could unbend it later without any significant permanent damage. Hit an iron sword too hard though, and it is likely to just break or even shatter. If by some miracle it only bent, it's basically guaranteed to break when you try to unbend it, or break along the bend point in the near future. This was in part due to the fact that iron was much more prone to metal fatigue, which also meant that if you kept using that sword, it would eventually just break for seemingly no reason. Not exactly a recipe for confidence compared to good old reliable bronze. People knew how to smelt iron for a while, but it just took a long time for people to figure out how to do a bunch of other metallurgical processes to make it actually functional. When bronze was so plentiful, there really wasn't any reason for people to play around with the "inferior cheap metal." These processes were only discovered through trial and error after the trade routes that provided bronze collapsed, because suddenly the bronze disappeared. Iron initially wasn't even an upgrade, but a downgrade.

[@matthewkeeling886]

From a historical point of view... the listing of the ships is the coolest part of the Illiad. Remembering the form of palace inventory tablets centuries after forgetting how to write them is just plain awesome! I isn't the most exciting part though; that would be either Odysseus' raid on the Trojan allies camp or the storming of the Achaean camp by the Trojans.

[@ChocoboProduction]

Blue: "Greek history is just such a joy for me that it is a miracle I'm able to do videos on literally anything else." Also Blue: "Let me tell you about VENICE!" Also also Blue: "Look. At. These. DOMES!"

[@charliericker274]

The wild part is that thanks to translations we can still read these epics today. And they are still fun to read. A bit hard at first but honestly no worse than most books and far easier than some.

[@aetherseeker3624]

I looked at the thumbnail and read the title and thought "Well this looks interesting" and I am not disappointed. Great work as always, Blue!

[@RiseAgainstShadows]

OSP putting out a video on the exact subject I’ve spent the last 2 weeks researching and hyper fixating on is one hell of a coincidence

[@josephsalmonte4995]

Greek history, mythology & philosophy are *SO* fascinating. So much wisdom & fantastic stories ♥️

[@month32]

Well half of our mythology can be condensed in "And then Zeus saw a hot chick", and the other half "The gods were having a spat".

[@marocat4749]

@@month32 Well, drama is a very timeless format, even more with hijinks and slapstick and romance.

[@pikpikgamer1012]

I agree OP

[@greekejones8406]

Choosing to smelt bronze because it's prettier is such a mood though

[@yakcm123]

I read the Iliad for the first time about a year ago, and I got a strong sense of both how truly transcendentally good it is and of why schools tend to emphasize the Odyssey

[@AubriGryphon]

In my head, the boat list functioned something like the shout-outs at a public event, with people waiting to cheer the mention of their town's culture hero.

[@thejudgmentalcat]

"Useful talky-scribbles" best description of books ever

[@WulfgarOpenthroat]

Going from mature bronze tech to early iron tech *was* a downgrade. It's not just harder to make, but good iron, much less steel, actually takes considerable knowledge and skill, and properly hardening it involves completely different methods. Even then, low carbon iron is softer than bronze, while high carbon iron is brittle, and you need techniques to mitigate or minimise slag inclusions which create hidden weak spots that could see a seemingly find tool or weapon suddenly snap(a possible reason that old swords were prized in the iron age; the more use an iron blade has seen the less likely it would fail suddenly). And then after all these issues, iron rusts; it's harder to make, lower quality, less reliable, and needs more maintenance or it will degrade fairly rapidly.

[@JustGrowingUp84]

Excellent comment, you wrote what I wanted to say, but in a much tighter and clearer fashion than I could have.

[@peaceflowerstudios6833]

Awesome addition!

[@wisdometricist880]

3:35 - I thought Basileius was expressly not a king in Mycenaean culture, but a lower official, and it only came to mean "king" later

[@sofiajacobsson1861]

I really like how you stress the importance of the epics for the hellenic identity, not that I'm an expert but I feel its not talked about enough and you do it so well, I just love the way you analyse. I'm so grateful for you guys

[@gollum1ring]

Achilles' blanket burrito is quite possibly the most entertaining way to picture him sulking in his tent.

[@ankoku37]

Genuinely I would love to see you make a video on the Phoenicians. They show up constantly when you and anyone else talks about the Greeks, but I don't know anything about them but "merchants that Greeks got writing from"

[@theanimeunderworld8338]

Man... now I want a Greek myth video

[@denverarnold6210]

I believe that's Red's niche.

[@matterhorn731]

Boy have I got a channel recommendation for you! (It's this one. The other host does mythology and literary stuff and has a whole bunch of stuff on Greek myths.)

[@amyr.7962]

@@matterhorn731 Your comment completely cracked me up. Thank you. :-) I don't know whether this specific commenter is one of the folks who indeed watches only one subset of OSP videos or whether that was a fully direct reference to wanting a complementary video by Red, but I know they're out there, poor souls, following only Red or only Blue and missing the synergy.

[@AegixDrakan]

MAN, this is so interesting! Seeing how people reacted to the collapse, kept the wheels of basic society turning, and turning the stories of the time just before the collapse into a mythologized pseudo-history and founding core of the society that would emerge from this period is so damn *fascinating!*

[@trishapellis]

I'd really like to know more about the concept of the Oikos. If I understand correctly, Blue presents the Oikos family unit here as basically a group of people, most of whom related, who live in a place (one family, their slaves, and their retainers) and eke out a living, both forming the basis of what would later become villages (as more and more people move into the same place, presumably) and also being comparable to the royalty of old (because the family that settled a place first gets to call the shots?). Wikipedia seems to present 'Oikos' mostly as a word that can mean both 'family' and 'house', both in their meanings as we know and understand them now, which is not immediately the same idea. So which is it/ is this how the concept has evolved over time/ which source or sources explain this? If my interpretation of Blue's phrasing is correct, I would like to know more... for TTRPG worldbuilding purposes...

[@Landis963]

Me too... (sorry for the ping)

[@inteligentidiot7233]

As I understand it, it is also a fantastic Greek yogurt...

[@Hypernefelos]

Consider House Atreides, in English. The word 'house' literally means house, but it also denotes the extended family, its retinue, and area of control.

[@alistairwall179]

I recommend The World of Odysseus by MI Finley (Pelican, predates ISBN).

[@jake_]

The reason behind the creation of "Oikos" as an extended family/farming unit was exactly because the vast majority of ordinary citizens could not afford to buy slaves. "Oikoi" were created in order to obtain the work force that was needed through family ties.. They also formed the backbone of the Athenian Navy, since they could not afford to buy their own armor. These farmers created what was called "the Democratic Fort of Athens", the Athenian Navy. Unlike the hoplites who where mostly affluent citizens, the military power of Athens came from the Navy, which greatly empowered ordinary people. Unlike what we see in the movies and often hear on TV, slaves were not allowed to be used as crews. Only free citizens were allowed, mostly as rowers. The upper class wealthy "Oikoi" however relied mostly on armies of slaves. I don't use the word "aristocracy" because it meant something completely different in Greek, (governed by the best, meritocracy). However, when we discuss history we have yet to move beyond wars and the lifestyle of the wealthier 1% and fail to examine the actual, real life of the vast majority of a population.

[@KaladinPaladin]

I just started reading The Song Of Achilles a few days ago, this video was very well timed

[@amanofnoreputation2164]

"Now go read the Iliad!" I did. And I watched Red's video on Dionysus. And then a story conspicuously similar to Supergiant's _Hades_ emerged. I'm also done with the Aeneid, thanks for prompting me on that one too.

[@Beryllahawk]

I find I particularly liked the point made about iron being "too much of a pain in the ass" to bother with. That is not only very accurate, it's just so relatable. "Maybe it's better, but I'm going to complain the whole time"

[@Canadamus_Prime]

I was initially confused by the title of this video, but I realize the complete collapse of a civilization could be described as an "Apocalypse." Good to know the Greeks eventually recovered.

[@aguywithalotofopinions412]

Going to Greece in about a month, OSP has been super useful in catching up with all the history

[@teridax4]

Don’t know if it was intentional but love the small detail of “heroic past” being Achilles dragging Hector’s dead body behind his chariot

[@wppb50]

There's a line from Joe Abercrombie's "Best Served Cold" that's something like "you were a hero in these parts. That's what they call you when you kill so many people 'murderer' is just too small to fit."

[@CreedofDarkness]

Dude, Blue, you're a historical badass. I've always loved history and learning about the past, but you've made it so much more fun than plopping down a book filled with dry text and scientific sentence structure. Such love, much wow, can't wait for the next.

[@michailtsi636]

Another very interesting book on this subject (the greek dark age) is "the Greeks of the West" or "The Western Greeks" (depending on the translation) by Valerio Manfredi. It's mostly about colonisation in that period.

[@wanderingrandomer]

I was always interested in so-called 'Dark ages', they seem so mysterious due to how little we know, and that really sparks the imagination.

[@AymarMaluenda]

Hell yeah, a video I loved about the things I learned in two whole college subjects, Greek Archaeology and Mediterranean Protohistory

[@elirantuil5003]

Technically iron was a downgrade for them because they had no way to heat it enough to get it to harden past their cast bronze, not to mention they couldn't shape it the way they wanted (again, because it's not cast)

[@CasualNotice]

And iron is actually softer than bronze. Early steels were harder, but they were much more brittle.

[@JustGrowingUp84]

@@CasualNotice Also, iron is much more vulnerable to oxidation. So it needs a lot of fussing around to protect it - specifically, by oiling it.

[@TheMimiSard]

One of the things I can't help but think about the Dark Age is that over in Egypt, they were having plagues and a whole servant class up and leaving. I have been listening to the Weird Bible podcast videos again, and Moses and the Ten Plagues is in the lead-up to the Bronze Age Collapse.

[@russergee49]

When Blue said “Euboea” with the modern pronunciation it made me happy 😊

[@DimKodo]

Blue casually pronouncing “Εύβοια” in greek is so awesome

[@kirbymarchbarcena]

Gotta give respect to Blue for promoting The Iliad at the end of the video

[@John_Weiss]

2:38 BTW: you missed one of the other major sources of Tin: The mountains of the Hindu Kush. When the Indus Valley Civilization when down, it took almost all of the tin supply for the Fertile Crescent and Eastern-Mediterranean Bronze-Age Civilizations' with it.

[@gastonmarian7261]

I love that you provide recommended translations for the Iliad, thank you!

[@ilejovcevski79]

Correction, iron isn't harder then bronze, steel is. And it a long LOONG while before iron became pure enough and methods of mixing it with carbon precise enough, for objects made of "iron" to actually become superior in quality to bronze. Those long bronze swords we find the Aegean or in Hallstatt digs? You could not make those out of iron till late antiquity and in some cases, till early middle ages. However, iron was more readily available, and people had to make do....

[@spacetimeghost]

5:50 Translation: "So, this is wonderwall"

[@heroepato]

2:53 Bronze is harder than pure iron though. The casting of iron came later because it's harder to cast, and iron was adopted because of it's bigger quantity over tin, not because of its hardness. (Steel is harder than bronze though)

[@GarethNutt-co5cd]

Thank you for all these history summarized videos. It allows me to talk to people more in depth about the subjects I love. Keep up the amazing work!

[@WolfBoy-om6dw]

Awesome video Blue now I know of the fall of the Greek Bronze, Age to the rise of the Greek Iron Age. Thank you guys for your entertaining and informative content, and thank you blue for getting me to love history, I love you.

[@dyllanaldridge1044]

THANK YOU FOR PROVIDING SOURCES!!! I love history and I will enjoy the good reads!

[@sk8rchris39]

Dude this is awesome. Thanks for this great & informative video

[@manoszamp1045]

Hello from Greece! Awesome work once again on this video , really takes me back to the time i first read the epics. What suprised me the most was your impeccable pronunciation of Euboea ,spot on! Keep up the good work! Really looking forward towards what you're cooking up next!

[@alexavukicevic2470]

Blue, I think I am talking for everyone when I say that we LOVE your Hellenic hyper fixation and share the same love for it as you do

[@kalli-ope]

Wonderwall. Really? :D Great video as always, I thoroughly enjoyed learning from it.

[@jean-paulaudette9246]

Very lovely, Blue! Thank you for this, and particularly for the chart of Greek letters/characters. That's something I've wanted for a long time.

[@leuxmas578]

Perfect timing. I got to watch a brand new episode about Greece, while visiting Greece for the first time.

[@melowlw8638]

have fun!! are you exploring a few cities or staying in one in particular??

[@Incrementium]

Just wanted to thank everyone involved in this channel. Honestly, when depression really sets in and I get really jaded at the world, for reasons unknown to me this is one of the few things that always brings me simple joy :)

[@ashtonimagine7924]

Started listening to OSPod, so I shall be putting in more watch time here as well. As a bonus. Y'all do high-quality

[@chrisdalton2701]

Pleasd keep making these videos, and please keep aggressively encouraging people to read!

[@paaailla9472]

The raw passion Blue speaks with is the highlight of these videos, his love for the subject is contagious.

[@w.5655]

the bronze-iron switch is so funky.. very cool video thank u Blue !!

[@vincentstuart9562]

I've been a history and mythology nerd since my age was in the single digits (I'm almost 30 now) so I always get happy seeing new videos from you guys, it's great and me and my friends constantly reference them both when we're serious and when we're not

[@danielsantiagourtado3430]

Your videos are incredible!

[@user-it5wu5iv1w]

This video about Greece and the miracle of how we know as much as we do about the past of it really puts human history into perspective. So much must've been lost because we're alive and know how rich life is, but we know so much still thanks to these incredible people of the past who refused to forget

[@thelontum2038]

"Now go read the Illiad!" *Gets to the chapter where they list out doods, their genetic ancestry, and how many doods and ships they brought with them* WHELP that's enough classical epics for one day.

[@Lionstar16]

Yeah, I'm just sticking with OSP's versions - same with Journey to the West

[@universalperson]

Tbf, those may have been real people, or loosely based on real people.

[@blubistheword]

Having just rewatched the Homer video, it’s really cool to notice I have actually learned a lot in the last couple of years (thanks in large part to OSP)

[@TVandManga]

Great episode!

[@Fantasygod930]

I always wondered what was pre-classical Greece and these videos definitely help my curiosity thank you OSP

[@bazzfromthebackground3696]

I need more Blue vids in my life. I need my history fix, and all my history channels slowed down.

[@gabem3593]

This was fascinating. Thank you so much!!

[@andrewjacquot]

Yes!! I've been waiting for another history vid

[@andrewrockwell1282]

Thanks Blue, always a pleasure.

[@Thatguyhasagenericname]

part of the enjoyment of OSP's videos comes from the enjoyment Red and you get from talking about your interests.

[@Jurek009]

"έτσι, αυτό είναι ωονδερωάλλ...." hahahaha that was great!

[@olivinemage4233]

Oh boy, a new OSP vid! 🎉

[@BLemonTea]

This was great! I have had a Wikipedia page for part of this time period open on my phone for weeks now but never actually read it. Now I can go in with some background and new perspectives to keep learning, thanks!

[@MultiNaruto900]

"Dark Age" brings me to wonder what the poet was experiencing as they wrote "The Ruin". Context: In _The Ruin,_ the unknown poet compares the ruins that were extant at the time of writing with the mighty structures, since destroyed by fate, that had once stood there. The desolate and lichen-grey stones of the poet's time are linked to their long-gone mighty builders and to the wealth and activity of their heyday.

[@Guydude777]

This might be one of my favorites from the channel. Keeping this one saved.

[@mathieuleader8601]

the Illiad & the Oddessey two of the greatest duologies

[@grimtheghastly8878]

Thank you for this video, it's the push I needed to actually want to finish the Iliad

[@riddhibawankar2890]

Hi! The jokes are landing hard, love to see it Absolutely adore the pillars as an addition to the city names, you guys always make my week💚

[@kargaroc386]

its interesting how when they first started writing the greek alphabet, there was still some experimentation with how it was written. The cup of nestor message that you show is written right-to-left, the same way Phoenician (and its descendants) was written. They also experimented with alternating the direction every other line, but of course left-to-right would win the direction war.

[@confusedquark826]

Is it possible to talk about the focus on hubris in Greek myth as a result or at least as informed by the Bronze Age Collapse?

[@TenkoBerry]

This this is great keep up the good work 👍

[@ViirinSoftworks]

Good morning to you too, blue!

[@grimreads]

Every Greek speaker hearing the term "no ambiguity" while refering to the Greek alphabet will probably laugh and cry at the same time.

[@homo_3rectus]

Sarpedon's words were gut wrenching man..

[@Facade953]

Ancient Greek : So, what do you think of these weird but fancy looking symbols we received from those sea travelling merchants? Time Travelling George Lucas: It's like...POETRY! It rhymes!

[@sandorfalusi3486]

No time to read the Iliad right now, but I’ll go watch Red’s video about it.

[@scottdelo7798]

Very good video