Classic Greek history begins with the introduction of the Greek alphabet, itself an adaptation of the Phoenician alphabet. In the 9th or 8h century
B.C., Greece's great epics, the ILIAD and the ODYSSEY were written, both attributed to HOMER, codifications of ancient legends and myths.
These epics tell of past Greek heroes battling the Trojans, interacting with gods, fighting monsters and giants. The world Homer describes had
no currency (although metal was regarded precious). Monarchy was the typical form of constitution. But Greece had many kings, and heroes
such as Achilles seem to have been proud, obeying royal orders unwillingly. There have been towns, such as Mycenae and Troy.
The event Homer described, the Greek conquest of Troy, took place ca. 1220 B.C. In the 8th century B.C., Greece still was split up in many states,
centered around walled cities (POLIS) mostly located on hilltops (ACROPOLIS). Such a polis had a number of features : the AGORA (market),
minimum a TEMPLE, a THEATRE, a city wall. In addition, most cities had control over a harbour. The city controlled the surrounding area. The
polis economy was based on agriculture , tilling farmland outside of the city walls, on fisheries, on craftsmenship (CERAMICS, metalworking,
textiles, leatherworking etc.) and on trade. Major Greek export products were pottery, olive oil, wine. Greece, being a mountainoous country,
imported grain. Frequently the population of a polis outgrew the number the land could sustain. So the population decided to draw lots. Every
second family had to leave with an expedition searching for a new place to settle, a COLONY. Between 750 and 550 B.C. Greek settlers established
colonies between Emporion (near Barcelona) and Kition (on Cyprus). The coasts of Sicily and Southern Italy were settled by so many Greek
colonies, that the area became known as MAGNA GRAECIA. The most important Greek colonies were SYRACUSA, NEAPOLIS, CAPUA, TARAS,
MASSALIA. Often, several poleis participated in a common religious cult, frequenting festivities, questioning ORACLES at a countryside temple.
Such groupings of poleis who gave protection to such a sanctuary were called AMPHICTYONIAS.
B.) DIVERSE CONSTITUTIONS
Although we know little about the old constitution, it seems to have been dominated by the nobility and a monarchy with limited authority. Economic
changes lead to the emergence of the class of not noble wealthy landowners/merchants. They competed with the nobility for political power, and
in many poleis the political structure underwent changes, different changes at different places. The early reformers were called
LAWGIVERS; LYCURGUS was credited with having shaped the peculiar SPARTAn constitution - a warrior-based society with a DIARCHY (Dual
Monarchy) and a strong GERONTOCRATIC element, the GEROUSIA. Spartan society consisted of three classes - the SPARTIATES, professional
soldiers who did not engage in any commercial activity and lived in a kind of socialist society, the PERIOKOI, half free men who were permitted to
bear light arms in war, and the HELOTS, slaves who had to till the lands allotted to the Spartiates. The Spartans were known for their
SPARTAN LIFESTYLE, consisting of harsh military training, a simple diet and few distractions (theatre, the arts, philosophy were discouraged).
Sparta had only an iron currency, discouraging the attempt to hoard riches. CORINTH was a city based on commerce. In 650 B.C.,
CYPSELUS seized power and established Greece's first TYRANNY. Tyrants ruled autocratically, without legitimation. ATHENS, another city based
on commerce, went through the stage of TIMOCRACY under DRACON and SOLON, PEISISTRATUS turned it into a tyranny (546). When his son
HIPPIAS was expelled in 510, CLEISTHENES turned Athens into a DEMOCRACY (510). BOEOTIA and THESSALY were FEDERATIONS. In 550,
Sparta defeated Tegea and established its HEGEMONY on the Greek peninsula. ELIS, ARCADIA and CORINTH joined the PELOPONNESIAN LEAGUE,
under the lead of LACONIA (i.e. SPARTA). The Greek cities on the Ioian and Aeolian coast, among them MILETUS and EPHESUS, had become
dependent of the kingdom of LYDIA. Metal-rich Lydia had introduced gold and silver COINS. In 540, Lydia was conquered by Persian king Cyrus,
and became a Persian satrapy.
Greek writings of the 7th and 6th century B.C. differ from Homer's epics; authors like HESIOD and THALES wrote PHILOSOPHY (which, until into the
19th century, included all sciences).
C.) THE PERSIAN AND PELOPONNESIAN WARS
The IONIAN REVOLT (500-494 A.D.) was quickly suppressed by the Persians. However, Athens and Eretria had assisted the Ionians; Persian
king Darius regarded this as interference in Persian affairs and planned revenge. In 490 B.C. he embarked a large army and sailed along the
Aegaean coast into mainland Greece, bringing with him Hippias, the ex-tyrant of Athens (exiled in 510). The Persians burnt Eretria and headed
for ATTICA next. They landed and met the Athenian army near MARATHON. The Persians broke off the battle, reembarked and sailed around Cape
Sunion, planning to reach Athens before the army could march back. However, the Athenian runner PHEIDIPPIDES had run the 42 km distance
and warned those who had stayed home. The Athenians were on guard and the Persians returned home, their aim not achieved. In Athens,
THEMISTOCLES prepared for the next invasion by investing Athen's treasury in building a fleet. Darius' successor Xerxes started another invasion
in 480 B.C. According to HERODOTUS, the invading army was 1.700.000 man strong. At THERMOPYLAE, a narrow pass, they were forced to stop
by LEONIDAS, his 300 Spartans and several hundred Greek allies. The Spartans decided to stay even after a traitor had shown the Persians a
path around, and death was inevitable. The delay permitted the Athenians to evacuate their city; the Persians burnt it down. Then the Persian and
Greek fleets met in the straits of SALAMIS, where the small, manoeuvrable Athenian TRIREMES proved superior over the larger ships representing
the Persian Empire; Xerxes watched his fleet being defeated. He returned and left an army reportedly 300.000 man strong behind in Greece. In
479, the Greek and Persian armies faced each other at PLATAEA in BOEOTIA. Persian cavalry poisoned the well the Spartans were depending on,
so they had to retreat. The Persians mistook retreat for flight and attacked in disorder - and were cut down by the Spartans respectively Athenians.
The remnant Persian troops fled Greece, never to return. A coalition of tiny Greek states had defeated an Empire 50 times the size of Greece.
Sparta had the hegemony on land, Athens on the seas. The Athenians immediately dispatched their fleet and liberated the Aegaean islands and
the Greek cities located in Asia Minor. They formed the DELIAN LEAGUE, under leadership of Athens. After Plataea (479), Athens and Sparta lead
alliances roughly equal in strength - the Delian League respectively the Peloponnesian League. First, Athens and Sparta respected each other,
did not interfere in each other's affairs. However, that changed when Athens turned the Delian League into the ATHENIAN MARITIME LEAGUE.
Athens enforced tributes and did not permit any secession. The Athenian fleet was vastly superior to that of any other League member. Political
opponents of Athens fled to Sparta and asked for help. Greece now lived through a period of cold war, the hostile blocks characterised by different
types of constitution : Sparta (OLIGARCHY) and Athens (democracy). In Athens, Pericles turned the POPULAR DEMOCRACY into an
ARISTOCRATIC DEMOCRACY by excluding the lowest of Athens' four classes from participating in the ASSEMBLY. Under Pericles, Athens flourished
culturally : SOPHOCLES, EURIPIDES, HERODOTUS lived there. In 431, the cold war turned hot : the PELOPONNESIAN WAR started. However, direct
confrontations were rare. ALCIBIADES, Athenian archon, led an Athenian expedition against SYRACUSA, a Spartan ally. It ended in a disaster.
Alcibiades was ostracised from Athens. He went to Sparta, giving advice on how his native town could be defeated. The Spartans raided
ATTICA regularly, establishing a garrison at Dekeleia outside Atrhens. The Athenians built the LONG WALLS, securing their vital connection to the
harbours of Phaleron and Piraeus. Finally, Athens was exhausted and had to sign a humiliating peace in 404. Sparta now was the unconstested
hegemon in Greece; the Persians again moved to occupy the Greek cities in Asia Minor.
D.) THE THEBAN INTERLUDE AND ATHENIAN RESURRECTION
With Athens paralysed, Sparta took over the charge of defending the Ionian cities in Asia minor. King AGESILAUS led a Spartan army against the
Persians. Never defeated, he took Sardis - to be recalled, because Persian bribes had made Athens and Thebes take up arms against Sparta.
The Ionian cities fell to the Persians. Year after year, Sparta sent an army against THEBES, until in 371 the Thebans under EPAMINONDAS
defeated the Spartans in the BATTLE OF LEUCTRA. The Peloponnesian League was dissolved, Sparta had to concede the independence of
MESSENE. The Thebans inherited the hegemony from Sparta, but lost it on the occasion of Epaminondas' death in 362. Athens, in the meantime,
had established its (2nd) Maritime League. Since 431, Athens, Sparta and Thebes were watching each other with suspicion, even at times
engaging inj an alliance with Persia. In the meantime, a state on Greece's periphery, MACEDONIA, rose to become a power.
E.) CLASSICAL GREECE
Through the entire period, Greece never was politically united. The petty polis-state controlling its adjacent territory was the typical form of state,
although there were also (often inequal) federations. What united Greece was its culture - its common religion, with features such as the
OLYMPIC GAMES and the ORACLE OF DELPHI, its common PHILOSOPHY and ARTS, especially its literature. The basis of these was a common
language, KOINE. The various regions used specific dialects, but Koine was accepted as a standard for literature which was not regarded to be
local. HOMER and the PERSIAN WARS had shaped Greek identity, to a lesser extent also philosophy. The Greeks felt strongly about the difference
between Hellenes and barbarians. IONIA, especially MILETUS, was an early centre of classic Greek culture; most colonies were settled by people
coming from Ionia. With the suppression of the IONIAN REVOLT, the centre moves west, to Athens, with SYRACUSA as the cultural center of Magna
Graecia in the 4th century B.C. Greece is a mountainous country. Here, the old fighting style of using a chariot was difficult to use, and even
cavalry had its limitations. The Greeks adapted to the situation by developing a fighting style based on a group of well-trained, well-equipped and
highly disciplined foot-soldiers, the HOPLITES. A hoplite was equipped with a long shield, a long spear, a sword, a helmet and breastplate.
96 hoplites formed a PHALANX, a formation of 8x12 soldiers. They marched and fought shield by shield, with only the spears sticking out. The
spears were used as stabbing weapons, and only when they were broken, the hoplites drew their swords. Greeks were famous in the
Mediterranean world for their fighting skills, and the rich kings of the east regularly hired Greeks as mercenaries. They fought with the Egyptians
when it was conquered by the Persians in 525. When Persian prince Cyrus wanted to oust his brother in 400, he enlisted 10.000 Greek mercenaries
who marched into Babylonia. Victorious, they found themselves in hostile territory, when Cyrus died of disease, and marched back, their adventures
reported by XENOPHON in his ANABASIS. When Alexander invaded the Persian Empire in 334, he had to deal with an army of Greek mercenaries.
EXTERNAL LINKS :
Encyclopedic description from Hellasnet, Univ. Twente : Pt.1 :
Archaic Greece
Scholarly, detailed description of Ancient Greek History from
Perseus Project, by Thomas Martin,
page title : Overview of Archaic and Classical Greek History
This page is part of World History at KMLA Last revised on August 28th 2001
