Timeline

Historical Dictionary

First posted on June 1st 2004

Narratives : Classical Greece http://www.zum.de/whkmla/sat/texts/narrclasgr.html

Classic Greek history commences with the beginning of writing in Greek alphabet, assumed to set in with the codification of the Iliad in c.850 B.C. The Iliad depicts a romantic world in which heroes fought for honour and glory, in which wealth was expressed in the ownership of items made of metal (iron, copper, bronze), in which the gods directly interfered in what happened on earth. Greece, since the time supposedly described in the Iliad, underwent a gradual, fast change. Trade became more impartant, greatly facilitated by the invention of coins in Lydia c.643-630 B.C.; the decline of Greek colonization c.550 may be explained by export-oriented industries (pottery production in the cerameicos) and the merchant navy providing jobs for people who earlier would have been forced by circumstances to emigrate. Another job opportunity was provided by the mercenary business, flourishing after the Greeks defeated the Persians in the Persian Wars 490-479. In the world of the Iliad, phenomena are explained by the deeds of gods. Classical Greece liked the mythology of old, taught the legends in their schools, depicted mythology in their art. However, classical Greece did no longer produce mythology, and did no longer seek to explain phenomena in a mythological way. Instead, philosophers used the rational approach; they searched for ideas. In Greek understanding, philosophy covered the entire area of knowledge. In his fascinating account of the Persian Wars, Herodotus provides us with rational explanations of events, only marginally said to have been influenced by the gods. Athenian leader Themistocles appears as a statesman whose foresight had laid the foundation to the Athenian victory in the Battle of Salamis, by investing the windfall revenue of the Laurion silver mines into the conmstruction of a fleet of small triremes. Yet, with the Spartan defensive position at Thermopylae doomed and the Persian army sure to arrive in Athens within a matter of days, the Athenians still regarded it opportune to ask the oracle in Delphi what to do. Modern history books celebrate Greek philosophy as one of the most important stages in the development of human thought. It seems that contemporary Greeks were less enthusiastic; Socrates was accused of spoiling the youth and was condemned to drink poison. While Classical Greece, to be more precise the period between c.550 and 334 B.C., was culturally one of the most productive eras in the history of mankind, Greece, during antiquity never was unified in one single state. It consisted of numerous states and statelets, Athens and Sparta being among the larger ones. The dominant form of the state was a polis controlling the surrounding countryside - Athens controlling Attica, Argos controlling Argolis, Sparta controlling Laconia (and even Messenia) etc. Most poleis had begun as acropoleis and then expanded into the plains (Athens, Thebes, Corinth); Sparta was the great exception, merely a conglomerate of 5 villages, a polis in the sense of city-state, but not in the sense of a city, located in the valley of the Eurotas River and even lacking a surrounding wall. The recorded history of classical Greece is a history of warfare, wars which in most cases saw Greeks face Greeks. The Persian Wars were an exception rather than the rule. So one may wonder, what were the ties which held the Greeks together. The Greeks had one common mythology and religion, had common religious institutions, such as the Oracle of Delphi, the Olympic Games, had one common language - Koine. The sanctuary of Apollon at Delphi, where oracles were given, owned rich treasures, but was located in the countryside, defenseless (the priests were unarmed). Seemingly an open invitation to thieves, but few ever tried. Delphi was protected by an amphictyonia, a federation of neighbouring states which had sworn to fight anyone who violated the sanctuary. The men of Phocis had tried once - and paid the price. The Olympic Games were regarded as a form of religious service; while the games were held, all of Greece enjoyed two weeks of peace. An opportunity to hold negotiations or to trade. Non-Greeks (or Barbarians, as they were called by the Greeks) were barred from participating in the Olympic Games. The emergence of classical Greece often has been explained as, in part, having been caused by the Hoplite Revolution. Hoplites were the Greek infantry soldiers, armed with helmet, breastplate, shield, spear and sword. Fighting in the phalanx formation, they were the core force on the battlefields of antiquity. The Persian army - the figures given by Herodotus obviously are exaggerated, but we may assume they were clearly numerically superior to the forces mustered by the Greeks - suffered defeat after defeat. The way the Persian Emperors prevented Greeks from conquering their Empire decades before Alexander finally did, was by bribing one Greek state to fight another. And the Persians, from 479 onward, fought their own wars using Greek mercenaries. Sparta was the master of land battles; their capital being located in the plains, without a surrounding wall, gives us an idea of the trust Sparta had in her army. From 479 to 371 B.C., Sparta was unquestioned hegemon on the Greek mainland. Athens, from 479 to 404, was hegemon at sea. The Battle of Leuctra ended Sparta's hegemony and replaced it by a short-lived Theban hegemony (371-362); it had come with an innovation in military technique, the oblique phalanx introduced by the Thebans. Following the Battle of Mantinea, Greece did not have a hegemon; then, King Philip II. of Macedon threatened to establish a new, Macedonian hegemony - by developing the cavalry into the decisive force on the battlefield. Classical Greece has been called a experimental lab for political constitutions; many Greek political expressions we still use today, and the centuries following Classical Greece seem to have brought only minor alterations to institutions the Greeks have created.

click here for an older WHKMLA narrative on the history of Pre-Classical Greece

EXTERNAL FILES

Perseus Digital Library at Tufts University Classical Greek Coins (Replicas) : Central Greece, Illyria, Northern Greece, Peloponnese, Crete, Sicily, Italy, from Antiqua Nova (commercial site)

REFERENCE

Victor Davis Hanson, The Western Way of War. Infantry Battle in Classical Greece, Oxford : UP 1989, KMLA Lib.Sign. 355.009 H251w W.G. Forrest, A History of Sparta, NY : W.W. Norton 1968, KMLA Lib.Sign. 938.9 F728a John Boardman a.o., The Oxford Illustrated History of Greece and the Hellenistic World, Oxford : UP 1986, KMLA Lib.Sign. 938 B662o Donald Kagan, Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy, NY : The Free Press 1991, KMLA Lib.Sign. 938.504 K11p Simon Hornblower, The Greek World 479-323 B.C., London (1983) 3rd. edition : Routledge 2003, KMLA Lib.Sign. 930 H814g

This page is part of World History at KMLA First posted on June 1st 2004, last revised December 4th 2006 Click here to go Home Click here to go to Information about KMLA, WHKMLA, the author and webmaster Click here to go to Statistics