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Natural Conditions

p Ancient Greece occupied the southern part of the Balkan peninsula, a mountainous country with scant rainfall and infertile soil, bordered by an extremely rugged coastline. Only in isolated areas such as Laconia and Messenia in the south, Boeotia in central Greece and Thessaly in the north are fertile plains to be found which are suitable for agriculture.

p Rivers and their tributaries, which played such an important part in the early history of the countries of the East, are of no particular significance in Greek history since there is not a single large river in the whole of the Balkan peninsula. On the other hand, the sea was of tremendous importance in the development of Greek society. As a result of the jagged coastline, the large number of sheltered bays and harbours, the proximity of Asia Minor and the islands in the Aegean Sea providing as it were stepping stones between the Greek mainland and the coast of Asia Minor, sea-faring and trade developed in Greece very early on. Greek sailors could voyage to the Black Sea or Asia Minor without losing sight of land.

p Ancient Greece was rich in minerals: iron in Laconia, silver in Attica (central Greece), gold in Thrace (on the northern shore of the Aegean). In addition there was an abundance of clay, building stone and marble.

The infertile soil, and hence a constant grain shortage on the one hand, and an abundance of minerals on the other, stimulated the development of trade and various techniques for fashioning metal and stone, and building skills.

Important Archaeological Discoveries

p The early history of Greece until almost the end of the last century could be gleaned only from myths and legends and the famous epic of the Iliad, attributed to the blind poet Homer, 52 which tells of the war between the Greeks and the city of Troy in Asia Minor. This material was long regarded by scholars as purely fictitious.

p However, the factual basis of the legends was unexpectedly confirmed in the 1870s, when Heinrich Schliemann, a self-taught German archaeologist and passionate enthusiast, started excavating the area purported to be the site of Troy. His efforts were crowned with dazzling success: he succeeded in unearthing city walls, the ruins of various buildings, numerous utensils and articles of jewelry. After his discovery of Troy Schliemann then went on to undertake excavation work on the Greek mainland at the sites of the ancient cities of Mycenae andTiryns, with equal success.

p At the beginning of this century the English archaeologist Arthur Evans started excavation work on the island of Crete, also frequently mentioned in ancient Greek myths and legends. At the town of Knossos he unearthed an enormous palace, complete with throne rooms, labyrinthine corridors, a water system and bath chambers. The walls of the central hall were decorated with intricate frescoes. All these features bore witness to the highly developed engineering techniques and culture of the Cretans during the 3rd and 2nd millennia B.C.

Yet probably the most remarkable of all the archaeological finds at Knossos was an archive containing hundreds of clay tablets 53 covered with a mysterious unknown script. For a long time all attempts to decipher this script met with failure. Scholars came to the conclusion that the Knossos tablets bore writing in two different scripts and probably two different languages. These two scripts were referred to as linear A and B and in 1953 the young English scholar Michael Ventris announced his method for deciphering the linear B script, which at the present time is recognised by the majority of scholars. According to Ventris, the language of linear B is an early Greek dialect, thanks to archaeological discoveries and the deciphering of this script it is now possible to gain a general picture of the history of Ancient or Achaean Greece.

Achaean (Mycenaean) Greece

p By approximately the seventeenth century B.C. the ancient Greek or Achaean states of the Peloponnesus had reached a high level of economic and cultural development. The largest of these city-states were Mycenae and Tiryns in Argolis, and Pylos in Messenia.

p At Mycenae and Tiryns ruins of the one-time impregnable fortified palaces survive to this day. Remains of implements and utensils made of both pottery and metal, and jewelry found during excavations show highly developed craftsmanship. From documents written in linear B found during excavation work at Pylos we learn that slavery was practised in Achaean Greece.

p The Achaean states on the Greek mainland were at their height between the fifteenth and thirteenth centuries B.C. The Achaean Greeks held sway not only throughout the southern part of the Balkan peninsula but also on a number of islands in the Aegean, including Crete. They carried on lively trade with Cyprus, Egypt and Phoenicia. At the end of the thirteenth century and beginning of the twelfth a number of Achaean states under the leadership of the king of Mycenae (known traditionally as Agamemnon) undertook what for those times represented a formidable enterprise, a campaign against the city-state of Troy.

However the heyday of the Achaean states was destined to be of comparatively short duration. By the end of the thirteenth century B.C. Dorian tribes had begun to invade Greece from the north. This invasion appears to have been not so much a direct conquest as a lengthy process of infiltration consisting of wave after wave of increasingly fierce attacks. The centres of Achaean culture were destroyed, and the people were either killed or taken into captivity, as the invaders gradually conquered Thessaly, then the Peloponnesus and finally the subject islands. Thus 54 the highly developed Achaean civilisation perished. The devastated towns were gradually covered over and the scientific and artistic achievements of their inhabitants were condemned to oblivion.

Homeric Greece (the Dark Age)

p The period of Greek history stretching from the twelfth to the eighth century is often referred to as the Homeric period, for the events and way of life of Greek society described in the famous epics, the Iliad and the Odyssey, which the Greeks attributed to the pen of Homer, all belong to this particular period. Homeric society developed after the Dorian conquest and the fall of the Achaean civilisation and represented a step back in many ways from the preceding age. From the works of Homer we learn that in the Greece of that period a natural economy was practised. The people were engaged mainly in cultivation and stockbreeding. The old trade links had collapsed and trade had decayed and was based first and foremost on primitive barter.

p Social relations were patriarchal and retained many relics of primitive society on the clan pattern. The hereditary nobility played a very important role in this society, as the section of the population owning the best lands, and its members are referred to as the "richly endowed" in Homer’s works. Side by side with them there lived the peasants who either owned small allotments of poor land or no land at all. The landless peasants were virtually nothing more than farm labourers. Slavery was also of a patriarchal variety. Slaves were few and mainly employed for household duties.

Each tribe had a leader or basileus, who led his tribe in battle and also fulfilled the functions of supreme judge and high priest. His power was limited to some extent by a council of elders, which incorporated the heads of all the noble families. The tribal leader was obliged to deliberate with them when matters of extreme importance were being discussed. In Homer’s poems mention is made of a popular assembly but obviously it did not play an important part at that period.

Archaic Greece

p The period from the eighth to the sixth century B.C. is marked by important economic and social advances. This was a time of momentous discoveries and technical innovations. Wide use was made of iron and skill in fashioning it grew apace: soldering was 55 first developed on the island of Chios and casting on the island of Samos. Weaving (mainly in the town of Megara), pottery and stonework (mainly in Athens) also developed widely. A new variety of trades and professions grew up. Trade links were reestablished, especially those with the Phoenicians from whom the Greeks adopted various religious practices and later an alphabet (their earlier one having been forgotten after the Dorian invasion). As a result of the growth of trade a monetary system evolved and the Greeks soon started to mint metal coins.

p The development of crafts and their separation from agriculture combined with the growth of trade led to the growth of various economic (and political) centres, and of real townships. Although towns were mentioned in Homer’s poems, in fact these were little more than fortified settlements. Gradually, owing to various factors, these tribal settlements started to amalgamate and turn into larger centres, for example Athens in Attica ( central Greece), Sparta (in Laconia), and Corinth (on the isthmus connecting the Peloponnesus with the rest of the peninsula). The distinctive feature of these Greek towns was the fact that each of them became not merely an economic but also a political centre, constituting the focal point of the social life of a whole region. Thus each Greek town resembled a small independent state. They were known as poleis, or city-states. In ancient times Greece never constituted a united centralised state but always consisted of a number of these city-states, which not only led completely separate existences but frequently warred among themselves.

p Parallel to this process on the mainland, intensive colonisation was being carried on, and this period of Greek history ( eighthsixth centuries B.C.) is sometimes known as the era of Greek colonisation.

p The word “colony” at that period implied a settlement of Greeks in a foreign country. Colonies were set up by individual poleis and they remained completely independent of the polis which originally set them up (i.e., from the mother city or " metropolis”). Each colony had its own separate constitution, citizenship, laws, courts and coinage. Colonies were set up for a variety of different reasons: sometimes as a result of the development of trade when they served as trading posts; sometimes because a certain polis was overpopulated and part of the population set off in search of better lands; sometimes as a result of political conflict. Thus, where a democracy was established, the aristocrats (representatives of the patriarchal nobility) might be banished and settling in a foreign land proceed to found their own polis. Or again democratic sections of the population might be banished by the aristocratic leaders.

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From the eighth to the sixth century the three main centres of Greek colonisation were: 1) the coast of Asia Minor and the islands in the Aegean Sea (Ephesus, Miletus, Halicarnassus, the islands of Samos and Rhodes, etc.); 2) the western Mediterranean (southern Italy and Sicily; Massilia in Gaul, Saguntum in Hispania), and 3) the eastern straits and the Black Sea coast ( Byzantium, Sinope, Olbia, Chersonesus, Panticapaeum, etc.). Many of these colonies developed into large independent centres, flourishing city-states which in their turn founded colonies of their own. In this way between the eighth and sixth centuries Greek poleis spread across the whole of the Aegean area and along the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts.

Ancient Sparta

p Sparta was situated in the fertile valley of the Eurotas river between ranges of mountains leading in a north-south direction across Laconia. The ancient population of Sparta were most probably Achaean peoples who had been conquered by the invading Dorian tribes. We know little of the early history of Sparta. Many of the interesting customs and laws which existed there at early periods and later and have been handed down to us, are attributed to the legendary law-giver Lycurgus, for example the division of the territory of Laconia into 39,000 estates, the suppression of gold and silver coins (in Sparta only iron money was used).

p The whole of the population of Laconia was divided into three groups. The first and most privileged were the Spartans, descendants of the Dorian conquerors, who referred to themselves as "the commune of equals”. The Spartans owned all the land, which was divided up into approximately equal estates, but they themselves did not work it. They made up ten per cent of the population and lived in the city of Sparta, enjoying full political and civil rights.

p The second group was that of the perioeci (those living around Sparta) who were descended from subject or immigrant peoples. This group enjoyed personal freedom but no political rights. The majority of the perioeci worked as artisans.

p Finally the third and largest group were the helots—- descendants of subject and enslaved Achaeans. The helots were attached to landed estates, which they worked, being obliged at the same time to pay quit-rent to their Spartan absentee landlords. The helots had no rights whatsoever and were virtually deprived of their personal freedom. Nevertheless the Spartans lived in continual fear of the helots and the eventuality of an uprising among 57 them, and from time to time punitive expeditions were organised against them which led to mass slaughters.

p Sparta had its own special constitution. The "commune of equals" was ruled by two kings and a gerousia or council of elders, made up of representatives of the noble families (none of whom were younger than 60). The gerousia supervised state affairs and also acted as the main organ of justice. There was also an apella or assembly of citizens, which however was convened infrequently, for the election of important officers or for the deliberation of questions of war and peace. An interesting institution was the ephoralty, an elective collegium of five members, which was in effect the supreme organ of power, to which even the kings were accountable.

p The Spartans’ everyday life and customs were all directed to one end—military training. From the age of seven children were sent to state lyceums where courage, initiative and endurance were fostered in them and where the accent was on physical training. From the age of 20 every young Spartan was liable for military service and his life from then on was one of military subordination—communal meals, frugal in the extreme, regular physical and military training, conversations with the elders at public gatherings, at which the young Spartans were expected to converse concisely and with an accurate choice of words—hence the word “laconic”.

Such customs and rules enabled the Spartans to build up a remarkable army which for a long period was considered invincible. In the south of Greece Sparta conquered Messenia, part of Argolis and concluded a military alliance with a number of other poleis. This alliance was called the Peloponnesian League and Sparta was its acknowledged figure-head and leader.

The State of Athens

p The town of Athens grew up in Attica (central Greece) in a mountainous, infertile region. The soil of this area required very thorough, painstaking cultivation and the main crops were thus fruit and vegetables, olives and vines being two of the most important. Attica could not grow enough corn and had to import it. The indented coastline of Attica led to the rapid development of sea-faring and trade.

p In ancient times Attica was ruled over by a king but our knowledge of this period of Athenian history is fragmentary and based mainly on legends. The Athens of classical times was a republic, at first of a distinctly aristocratic type. The aristocratic council or the Areopagus took the place of a council of elders and 58 constituted the leading state organ. Those occupying the leading state posts were called archons, nine of which were appointed annually from among representatives of the leading rich aristocratic families by the Areopagus. At this period the citizens’ assembly played no significant role.

p The free population of Athens consisted of three groups. The privileged stratum of society was the hereditary aristocracy, the class of the Eupatridae, who enjoyed full political and civil rights. The bulk of the population was known as the demos or people, a term including farmers, artisans, traders, sailors, etc., and covering a wide range of occupations and levels of material well-being from the poor peasants to the prosperous traders and manufacturers. The demos enjoyed civil rights, but hardly any political ones. The third and last group was made up of the socalled metics or foreigners, settled in Athens, engaged for the most part in trade or manufacture. The metics were not granted any civil or political rights. The slaves of course represented a category of their own, being completely without rights and considered as animals or livestock rather than people.

Political contradictions in the Athenian state structure made themselves felt early on and a bitter political struggle developed, a struggle waged by the poor peasants for their rights to freedom and the land, in particular against the practice of debt slavery. Strife also developed between the demos and the Eupatridae, as the richer strata of the demos sought to gain the same political rights and privileges as those enjoyed by the aristocracy.

The Reforms of Solon and Cleisthenes

p This political battle reached its height at the end of the seventh and beginning of the sixth century B.C., aggravated as it was by plague epidemics, bad harvests and setbacks in the war for the island of Salamis. In 594 Solon was elected archon and he proceeded to introduce a series of bold revolutionary reforms. In the first place he abolished all existing debts, freed all debt slaves and prohibited this practice in the future. Then he introduced a new constitution, which divided all Athenian citizens into four classes, depending on the size of their landed property or the income which they drew from it. From then on it was not noble blood but property and wealth which was required for membership of the privileged class. Political privileges were also made subject to property.

p Under Solon a new elective organ was also set up—the Council of 400, which was gradually to oust the Areopagus. The assembly of citizens also started to assume a much more important 59 role in state affairs, since it was given the last voice in decisions taken on all important problems of state. The reforms introduced by Solon served to consolidate the political position of the upper strata of the demos and thus led to a general democratisation of the Athenian state.

p These democratic reforms were improved on still further by Cleisthenes (510-509 B.C.) who abolished many vestiges of the former clan society, by introducing a new territorial division of Attica. The distribution of state posts and military service obligations were reorganised in accordance with the new territorial divisions, which ruled out any possibility of the predominance of the hereditary nobility. Cleisthenes also replaced the Council of 400 by the Council of 500 and set up an elective military collegium consisting of 10 strategoi.

Cleisthenes’ reforms dealt the death blow to the political supremacy of the hereditary aristocracy and laid the foundations for still further democratisation of the Athenian state.