Vocab

Glossary

Greek words:

• Agios: saint; as in Agios Nikolaos Museum, the St Nicklaus museum. Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of sailors and of all of Greece.
• kannathra: "floats," wagons, probably not chariots, although the first time I saw this word I thought they might be talking about chariots; but kannathra/wagons/floats make much more sense. In Helen of Troy, Bettany Hughes, c. 2005, p. 72. Apparently used only once in that book, not defined, and not in the index.
• orea Eleni, "beautiful Helen" -- p. 5. 
• "thyrsus" -- (in ancient Greece and Rome) a staff or spear tipped with an ornament like a pine cone, carried by Bacchus and his followers; p. 266;
  

English words:

• Cyclopean: remains of Bronze Age fortifications, so huge that it was thought that only giants -- the one-eyed Cyclops -- were big enough to move the huge stones. -- p. 5.

****************************

Greeks

Aeolians:
Achaeans:
Dorians:
Ionians: 

******************************

Geographic Locations -- Place Names

Crete: Minoan culture; co-existed with Mycenaean culture; settled by the Dorian Greeks; directly south of the island of Thera (Akritori volcano - 1650); Kythera is an island west of Thera; Thera is south of Athens; Kythera is south of Sparta; Kythera is north of the far, far west end of Crete; Thera is north of the center of Crete;

Eurotas River: main river of Laconia; one of the major rivers of the Peloponnese; just to the east of Sparta;

Lakonia - Sparta region

Mycenaean culture: maybe as far back as the third millennium BC; certainly the 2nd millennium; when it disappeared around 1000 BC, it really, really disappeared;

Pylos: major city in the Peloponnese; seacoast town; far west side of the Peloponnese;

Sparta, region of Sparta:

• Eurotas River
• Dromus
• Therapne
• Amyklai 

Taygeta Mountain range: on the Peloponnese; Sparta on the Taygeta plain; Bettany Hughes spells it "Tayageta."