Ancient Greece

I

Introduction

Ancient Greece, homeland of the Greek civilization that flourished c. 800-300 bc. It spread by Greek settlement across the Mediterranean (1050-500 bc) and then across Asia to north-western India through the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 4th century bc. Until c. 500 bc its main centres were the Greek cities on the western coast of Asia and the larger islands of the Aegean Sea; from 600 bc onward it was the mainland city of Athens that was the hub of the Greek world. In these two focal points of Greek civilization there developed democracy and philosophy, athletics, the theatre, tragedy and comedy, ideas of freedom and autonomy, and the practice of politics. Western civilization is their heir, as it is not the heir of any other ancient civilization, except (through scripture) that of the Jews.

This civilization arose within the framework of a basic social unit, the polis (literally “city”), which was not so much a town or city state as a citizen-community. It becomes accessible to us when writings survive from it, first in the epic poems of Homer (c. 8th century bc) and the religious and practical poetry of Hesiod (dating from the late 8th century bc). The polis arose in Greece in the 8th century bc and was certainly established by 735 bc. By 800-750 bc, Greeks had also invented an alphabet and begun to be literate. However, both of these fundamental changes occurred late in the history of Greek as a language and of Greek-speakers as settlers in Greece. Their earlier history goes back another 1,000 years or so, and is known only through archaeology.

II

Early Palace Societies

By c. 1500 bc, royal dynasties had developed great palace societies, which are best known on Crete at Knossos and in mainland Greece at Mycenae. For their palace records, they used a form of Greek whose script, known as Linear B, represents syllables (so that “tripod”, for example, is rendered by signs standing for “ti-ri-po”). New texts in Linear B continue to be found, most recently at Thebes, in central Greece.

However, these palaces were not poleis (cities). The social structure of palace societies, their bureaucracy, and patterns of land-tenure were totally different. Nor was Linear B a widespread alphabet. It reflects the use of a shared Greek language, but it is known only as a script used by scribes to keep records of palace resources. Perhaps the palace societies had a tradition of poetry and perhaps they even kept a chronicle of events. If so, they are lost to us. We know their style of life only through archaeology, especially in the fine gold objects and charmingly painted frescoes of the palace of Knossos, but we have no written histories or inscriptions with which to interpret them.

The palace societies in Greece were destroyed by invasion, war, and natural disasters c. 1200-1180 bc. They were followed by a “dark age” of four centuries which archaeology has recently helped to illuminate. Writing was lost, but we know that Greeks in this era did travel east and west in the wake of their Mycenaean forebears. In Italy, we find Greek goods from Cyprus dating from c. 1000 bc, and then from the prominent island of Euboea, c. 800-750 bc. On the western coast of Asia, migrants from mainland Greece settled a line of small communities c. 1050-950 bc. Further south, in Syria and the Levant, early traders from Cyprus, the larger Aegean islands, and Euboea visited and settled on the coast c. 900-800 bc. In the Levant they named the people “Phoenicians” (“phoinix”, which in Greek means “red”, referring to their copper-coloured complexion). These Phoenicians are best known for their cities of Tyre and Sidon (now Şaydā), and for their influences on the inland kingdom of Israel in the age of Solomon and the first biblical prophets.

III

Expansion of the Greek World

Travel and emigration from Greece remained a persistent fact of Greek history and an important impulse for the achievements in art and thought which are admired today. These three early ventures abroad were the necessary preliminary to the “Greek Renaissance” that followed in the 8th century bc. From contact with Phoenicians, Greeks developed a new, accessible alphabet with consonants and vowels. They also learned new techniques of metalwork and enlarged their myths about gods and heroes. By settling in western Asia, they founded the poleis that became leading centres of power and culture until 500 bc. Cities like Miletus and Ephesus developed through foreign contact overseas and close encounters with the kingdoms of inland Asia. This eastern Greek world is almost certainly the homeland of Homer and the setting of his epic poetry.

The western adventure also proved long-lasting. By c. 900 bc, Phoenicians had already voyaged as far as Spain, searching for precious metals, especially silver and the rare tin which was needed for alloying with copper to make bronze. Greeks, also in search of scarce metals, were their followers into the west. They settled first on Ischia, in the Bay of Naples, c. 770 bc. When Greek traders’ reports of a “New World” became known, Greeks at home followed up with a wave of new colonies in Sicily and southern Italy which were located outside the Phoenicians’ zone. These colonies were poleis from their first foundation and mark a clear break with the villages and homesteads of the previous century. The beginnings of the change to a polis are visible in the background to Homer’s Odyssey. Greek history, thereafter, is dominated by separate poleis and their mutual alliances, especially by Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Syracuse in Sicily, or Miletus in the east. They shared a common Greek language and similar gods and customs, but their awareness of this heritage did not enable them to unite into one Greek state.

IV

Life in the Polis

Poleis were not “city states”, divided from the surrounding countryside. They included both the countryside and urban centres within the boundaries. Nor were they temple cities or sacred areas, although, within each polis, space, time, and money were set aside for public worship. Greek religion always included many gods whom it honoured with sacrificed animals, precious gifts, and offerings of grain and wine. There was no one Church, no orthodoxy of belief. Different gods helped with different areas of life—Hera with married life, Poseidon with seafaring—but their powers extended widely. Each polis had its own religious calendar of festivals for gods, most of whom were honoured at public altars outside temples, the houses for their images. Citizens served as priests and priestesses on fixed days, but they were not a trained or specialized group of experts. The gods helped with mortals, crops, families, and worldly successes, and the cults of the polis helped life to go on better. Life after death was not usually their concern, and there was no general belief in an afterlife. Opinions on the matter varied and, although a few cults did emerge to assure a safer fare after death, many people accepted that they died for ever or, at most, that their souls lived a shadowy existence in an underworld without punishments.

Poleis were communities of citizens, not of members of a faith. The wives and daughters of citizens did have an important public role as priestesses of public cults and festivals. However, they played no role in politics or war. In Athens, they could not own land and, even in poleis where they could inherit a small share of a family’s estates, they were under the control of a kyrios, or guardian. War, land, and politics were the business of men.

As the life of a polis-community developed, so did political constitutions which recognized the rights of male citizens. Those males had also owned slaves, home-based or taken in war. Slaves helped with the work on farms and did most of the work in mines. By definition, they were bought and sold like objects, but in the poleis which developed into democracies, they were usually foreigners, bought from non-Greek homes or captured by war or piracy.