ancient history short answer essay

Topic s in Thi s Chapter

Minoan Mentors The Mycen aeans , Greec e's First Civilizat ion • The A eg ean

Dark Ag e The Hell eni c Era ' The Ris e of the Main land Pow ers

Th e Persia n W ars: Cr uc ibl e of a Civilizatio n

-, Aegean Civilizations

"} '(,~ !ld : . ,fIH" b(! ,1humhle servant plow ing fields fo r the ow ner of a tiny fa1'111 t han th e ." , .:;,' -". ',~;"I ' 11 t!w kingciO Ill 01the dead,

- Achi ll es, The Odyssey

KEY : Ouestion When does civilization in the West become "West ern" civilization ?

On his w ay home f rom the Trojan W ar, a Gree k king nam ed Odyss eus paid a v isit to t he mouth of the un der w orld to con su lt the ghost of Ac hilles, a friend w ho died in that war , Ach illes, w ho had bee n t he gre atest of Gree ce's he roes, used the occasio n to exp lain t he fact s of deat h to Odysse us. He said t hat he w ould rat her occupy the lo w est stat ion in t he land o f the liv ing than the high est pos t in t he w orld of t he de ad . Ac hilles ' passion for life and faith m the value of eart hly exist enc e, w hich are im ptied by t his rema rk, he lp to expla in the achieve m e nts o f th e Gree ks . The civ ilization they foun ded on the sh ores of t he Aegean Sea tr ansf orm ed the ancien t w orld, and it cont inues to infl uence t he mode rn w orld. People still adapt the Gree ks ' arch it ec t ure, im itat e the ir sculpture, de bate t he th eo ries of the ir phi loso­ phe rs, us e the ir sci en tif ic vocabu lary, and ev en go to the th eater to be ente rtained by t heir playwr igh ts

The inf luen ce o f t he an cie nt Gree k th in ke rs and art ist s has be e n so per vas ive t ha t som e hi sto rian s claim that the Gre e ks w e re t he fou nd ers of W es te rn civ ilizat ion. Ot he rs ca ut ion that t he Gre e ks di d no t d eve lo p in a vacuum - t hat t hey had clos e t ies w ith Mi dd le- East e rn sta tes and bo rrowe d mu ch f ro m the m , A controversial schoo l of c ontem po rary scho lars has gon e so f ar as to cl aim t hat mo st o f Gree k civi lizat ion w as der ived fr om Egy pt an d A fr ica.

62

64 Chapter 3

Advocate s for all t hese pos itions ma ke their cas es by listing specif ic th ings that the Gree ks are said e ither to have borrowed or to have originated . Arguments of this kind are not ve ry pers uas ive, for a civi lization is more than its compone nt parts . The debate does, howeve r, ill us trat e how difficult it is to draw hard and fast lines across th e con tinuum of his­ tory, and it is a healt hy co rrec tive to the belief that Wes te rn civili zat ion deve loped in isola­ tion and e ntire ly from its own intellec t ua l resources .

The ancient Gree ks' expe rience with civili zation de monstrates how comp lex t he inter­ action bet w e en pe ople a nd environments can be . People inha bit two worlds simultane­ ousl y; one constructed by nature and one cre ate d in their minds . What t hey make of the form er depends to a great exten t on how they frame the latte r. Different people react dif­ fe rent ly to s imilar s e ts of challenges and oppo rtunities, and explanations for their be haviors are rooted in the mysteries of huma n psych ology.

Gre ek history illustrates the role that imaginat ion and creativity play in the human strug ­ gle for sur vival. fo r nature provided the Gree ks wit h fe w re source s . The Gree k mainland w as small (about the s ize of the state of Louisiana) and poor. It had no rivers li ke the Nil e or Euphrate s and no fields as produ ctive as those of Egypt or Mesopotamia . Greek farmers could wo rk only abou t 18% of their coun try's mounta inous terrain . Greece 's forests w e re depleted in prehistory, and even the seas off its coasts we re not particularly rich in fish. The su ccess the Gree ks had in building a civil ization under such circums tances proves that en­ vironme nta l reso urces alone are not en ough to explain the rise of a great culture . The Gree ks made e xtraordinary use of w hat th ey wer e given by thei r homeland, but they also profited from contacts wit h older c ivi lizations . The fame of Gree k civili zation shou ld also not obscure the fact that the role the Middle East played in the format ion of "the West " did not end w ith the arrival of the Greeks .

Minoan Mentors

What has lo n g been regarded as t he West's most influential ancient civilization ap- .,.

p eared in the Aegea n, the part of the Mediterranean that is bound by the island of C rete on the so ut h, Asia Minor on the east, and the Greek peninsu la on the west and north. It was the work of a p eople who called themselves Hellenes, but who ar e be tt er known as Greeks, the name the Romans gave them .

The Greeks were int ro d u ced to civilization by the in hab itan ts of ancient Crete. Ar ­ cha eo log ists have named th em Minoans after Minos , a legen dary king of Crete. What th ey called themselves is unknown, for the docume nts they left us have not yet been de-: ciphered. Scholars speculate th at their lan gu age was related to on e of the Semitic ; to ngues of th e Middle East. If so, significant elements in the ir population may have mi - -: grated fro m that regio n.

Minoan Civ ilization Cre te was inh abited as early as 7000 B.C.E., but the kind of mon umental architecture that often signa ls the presence of a civilization did not appear . until about 2000 B.C.E. Crete's grea t buildings, un like those of Mesopotamia and Egypt, were not temples or tombs. They were palaces for m erchant-princes, ru lers whos e major interest was tr ade, not conquest. Mi noan civilization was forgotten u ntil t he ruins of the largest of these st r uctures were discovered at a place called Knossos in 1899. No one knows whether the ruler of Knos sos presided over all of Crete or was on ly one of several Minoan

Aegean Civilizations 65

•. _ ..:.'t<. . ~ : :· ~>tr.r.1':. : . " .\" Black Sea

TH RACE:

0 ':l - . Q)

':l P

(J)

a> .JE:, """"'t(] Q)

~ ,$1 \£rCYTHERA """7ffiHHODES

'" G7~

.. .~. ~ ,v '~-"" ; ' <O-' .. . ' .~ ",; J

Hacis _ "'~"- ' . - kro ~ 100 MILES /Lf

e d i 100 KILOMffiRS sea

ranea n

Map 3-1 The Bron ze.Age Aegean Worl d Two dist inct but relat ed civi lizati ons (th e Mino an and the Mycenaean) arose in t he Aegean regi on betwee n 2000 and 1200 B.C.E. Bot h we re maritime pow ers w hose w ealt h deri ved fr om Medite rranea n t rade.

Q uestion: How woul d you expect Minoan civilizatio n to d iffer fro m Mycenaean civiliza­ tion given th at t he Minoans lived on a n isla nd an d t he Mycenaean s on the ma inla nd?

pri nces. His court was certain ly magnificent. The multistoried pa lace at Knossos h ad about 300 rooms arranged around its great courtyards-as well as lavish ly decorated re­ ception h alls, ceremonial staircases, workshops, warehouses, and well-engineered ventila­ tion , drainage, and sewage disposal systems. The fact t hat it was not fortified sugges ts that

its owner enjoyed mastery of the sea and had no fear of invasion (see Map 3-1) . Seafaring fu nded M in oan civilization . Egypt h ad an insatiable appetite for

no r th ern products such as wood and olive oil (t he all -purpose lub rican t , fuel , and the chief source of fat in the ancient world's grain-based diet). Peoples such as the Minoans and Ph o en ician s, whose islan d and coasta l homes oriented them to the sea, were eager to serve t he Egyptian market. Minoan merchants we re active in Egypt as

66 Chapter 3

early as the Middle Kingdom (2100-1700 B.C. E.) , and Egypt greatly influenced Mi­ noan c ultu re.

Minoan trad e supported the aristocrats who lived in palaces, such as Knossos on Crete's northern coast and Phai stos on its so uthe rn rim. It also enabl ed the residents of the towns scatt ered about Crete and on neighboring island s to erect comfortable hom es. Little is known about its impa ct on the Minoan peasant ry, for few traces of their villages survive .

Like other an cien t peoples who se eco n om ic activiti es required them to ma in ­ tain inven to ries of go ods, th e Minoan s invented a system of writing. Crete's scribes ma y have been in spired by Egyp t ian hierogl yph s, but by 1800 B.C. E. , the y had evol ved a di stin cti ve scr ipt o f their own . Schol ar s have nam ed it Linear A to di stin­ guis h it fro m a lat e r ver sio n , Linear B, that the early Greeks adapted for writin g their lan gu age . Both scr ip ts were dr awn (using traced lin es rather th an cuneiform 's imprint ed wed ges ) on clay tablets a nd both were probabl y used exclusively for the purp ose of compiling economic reco rd s. Becau se Linear A cannot yet be read, mo st o f wha t we know a bo ut M inoa n civili zation co mes from the study o f its rui ned buildin gs.

Th e fresco es th at decorated the walls of homes and palac es prov ide windows into the Mino an world , for M ino an art was rea listic . It described plants, an im als, land­ scap es, and a vari ety of human activities. The paucity of military scenes in paintings and o f weapon s in grave s has led so m e sch olars to conclude that the Minoan s were not a war like people. No so ciety that depended on the dangero us profession of long­ di stance trade could, how ever, have been indifferent to th e martial arts, and myth s and archaeological remains suggest that human sacr ifices may have featured in Mi­ noan religiou s ritual.

Minoan frescoes depi ct a slender, gra ceful, and athleti c people. The men of Cret e, like those of Egypt, wore short kilts. Female court costumes featured floor-le ngth skirts and tight fitting bod ices that left the breasts bar e. Women are prominent subject s of a few frescoes, and Minoan religion featured a goddes s, a young woman associated with snak es and bird s. Some people claim th at this is evide nce that Minoan society was dom­ inated by women , but many com munities have honored a few privileged females and venerated goddesses whi le denigrating ordinary women . Minoan religiou s symbolism was also not exclusively female. Bulls represe nted the male element in what was doubt­ less a fertility cult. The horns of bulls decora ted the walls of th e palace at Knossos, and some frescoes depict yo ung men and women engaged in a fo rm of bull fighting that may have had religious significance. Recently what is believed to be a Minoan temp le has been discovered, but the pauc ity of such sites suggests that Minoans may more com­ monl y have wor ship ed at sacred places under the open sky, in caves, and at shrines in th eir homes.

Minoan History Minoan civilization belonged to the Bronze Age and evolved in dis­ tinct stages. During the Early Minoan Period (2600-2000 s.c .z.), Crete developed its trade. The Minoa ns clustered into urban settlements and built th eir first palaces during the Mid­ dle Min oan Period (2000-1600 s.c .s.). The Late Minoan Period (1600-1125 a.C E.)

Aege an Civilizations 67

, ~ .......

The Mino an Bull -Leapers This m uch reconstruc ted f resco from the palace at Knossos ill ust rates what may have been a sport. a religi ous ri tual. or an ill ust rati on of a myth . The part icipants leaped at chargi ng bull s. gra bbed t heir horn s. and somersau lted over t heir backs. Simila r f rescoes have been discovered in a palace in t he Egyptia n port of Avar is. New Kingdom Egyp t had close comme rcial ti es wit h the Minoa ns.

emerged in the wake of a disaster that caused widespread destruction on the island. Be­ cause there was no change in Minoan culture, the damage was probably the result of a nat­ ural catastrop he, such as an eart hquake, and not a foreign invasion.

About 1450 B.CE ., the scribes working at Knossos switched from Linear A to Lin­ ear B. The significance of this change became clear in 1952, when a you ng British scholar pr oved that Linear B recorded an early form of Greek. The use of Greek at Knos­ sos suggests that warriors from the mainland conquered and occupied Crete. About 50 years later the whole island was again devastated by the hand of eithe r man or God, and Minoan civilization began to fade from memory. The Minoans may have sowed the seeds of their own destruction by introducing the Greeks of the mainland to seafaring, trade, and civilization.

The Mycenaeans, Greece's FirstCivilization

The Greeks created two quite different civilizations. Th e one for which they are famous is the second, their Hellenic or "classical" civilization . Their first , which flouris hed fro m abo ut 1600 to 1200 B.C.E., mo deled itself on the Minoan example. Historians have named it for Mycenae, a city in the northeastern Peloponnese (the southern portion of th e Greek peninsula) that Homer's Iliad says was rule d by Agamemnon, the leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War.

Aegean Civilizations 6968 Chapter 3

Origin of the Greeks The ancestors of the Greeks were part of the great wave of migration th at spread Indo-European languages from the Atlantic Coast to the In­ dian Ocean . They entered the Greek penin sula from central Europe between 2100 and 1900 B.C E. and displaced its earlier inhabitants, villagers with cultural ties to Asia Minor. They were a warlike people with stron gly patriarchal customs, and as nomadic herders from the northern plains, they had no maritime experience. Their language even lacked a word for sea.

The Greeks' appearance in the Aegean world roughl y coincided with the rise of Mi­ noan civilization on Crete. There is no evidence that the Minoans ever ruled the Greek mainland, but mythology suggests that the early Greeks were overawed by Crete's supe­ rior culture. The myth known as "Theseus and the Minotaur" narrates the adventures of a prince of Athen s who was sent to Crete as human tribute . He negotiates a labyrinth, a ma ze that King Minos built to hold the Minotaur (Minos-bull) , a beast born of a union between a bull and Minos 's wife. Theseu s kills the mon ster and escapes-with the help of Minos's daughter. The story suggests that the primitive Greeks knew that bulls fea­ tured in Minoan religious sacrifices and that Minoans erected mysterious buildings, such as the ma ze-like palace at Knossos, a "labyrinth," so-called because it was decorated with a sacred sym bol, a double-headed axe called a labys. Another Greek myth claimed that in infancy the god Zeus had been hidden on Crete to prevent his father from killing him . When he grew up, he overthrew the older deities and established the reign of the Greeks. This may preserve a faint memory of the transition from Minoan to Mycenaean dominance in the Aegean. ~-...: . ; )~.. :» :..:~ ':: """"" ::?~ ' . -~

The Lion-Gate at Mycenae The gate that provided entrance to the citadel at Mycenae was formed The Mycenaean Kingdoms Mycenaean civilization was the invention of main­ from huge blocks of stone and decorated with a tympanum depicting two lions guarding a pillar. a

motif found in Middle-Eastern art. land kingdoms that were tiny versions of the great states of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Mycenaean kingdom s had centralized governments administered by elaborate bu­ reaucracies, and they were inten sely militaristic. Their palaces were citadels into monarchies sometimes bolster their authority by acts of conspicuous consumption in­ which besieged populations could retreat. Th eir art featured battle scenes. Their lead­ tended to overawe their subjects . Tholoi were probably shrines for the worship of royal ers were buried with weapons, armor, and chariots, and their merchants trafficked in ancestors. Unlike the later Greeks, the Mycenaeans seem not to have built temples. The armaments. The Mycenaeans had inherited a warlike disposition from their nomadic , f ortress-palaces, which began to rise about 1400 B.C E., were constructed of huge, irreg­ Indo-European ancestors, and Greece's environment did little to moderate it. The ."". ularly shaped stone blocks that were fitted together like pieces of a puzzle . So monu­ country's mountainous terrain hampered political unification, and competition for .._: mental were their remains that later Greeks concluded that these "cyclopean" structures its scarce resources and commercial opportunities sparked vicious rivalries among its :',: . were the work of the Cyclopes, an extinct race of giants.

~...... inhabitants. ,,,,~~ r.,,; The reception rooms of the Mycenaean fortresses were decorated with frescoes

Mycenaean kings were, like the Minoan ruler s, merchant-princes. The professions r::. ~ and tiled floors and had furnishings made from exotic woods and precious metals. of mer chant and warrior were closely allied in the ancient world , for traders who ven­ " .:~. : Like Minoan palaces, the Mycenaean royal residences housed the workshops, ware­ tured far from home had no protection other than what they provided for themselves. ~. , houses, and scribal offices essential to the livelihood of a merchant-prince. Myce­ They were heavily armed, and only opportunity distinguished them from pirates. When rt~ean scribes developed Linear B, a writing system based on the Minoans' Linear A. they encountered the strong, they traded. When they met the weak, they looted. Two major collections of their tablets have been found. One, as previously men­

The earliest evidence for the wealth and power of Mycenaean kings comes from of­ ,,,.' tioned, is from Knossos. The other is from Pyles, a fortress on the southwestern coast ferings found in shaft-graves dating from about 1600 to 1500 B.CE. Later, the Myce­ ¥\~ ofthe Peloponnese (the mainland's southern peninsula). The 1,200 Linear B tablets naeans constructed imposing tholoi to house their dead. Tholoi were vaulted masonry ' . !.~ lWmthe archives of Pylos owe their survival to the destruction of the people who chambers (shaped like bee hives) that were mounded over with soil and used for mul­ P.;t x{rote them. Pylos fell to an attacker about 1200 B.C.E., and the flames that consumed tiple burials. The tholos at Mycenae is 50 feet in diameter and 40 feet high. Young •. !"· th.~ palace baked the fragile clay tablets in its scribes' offices into durable tiles.

70 Chapter 3

The only things found on the Linear B tablets are inventories of supplies, but these reveal a great deal about Mycenaean life. Ration lists suggest that wheat and barley bread were the staples of the diet. Workers were also issued wine and figs. Meat is not often mentioned, but some must have been available. Many animals had to be slaugh­ tered to produce the quantities of leather that palace craftsmen used to manufacture ar­ mor. Some agricultural products, particularly olive oil and honey, were cultivated for export. The 400 bronze smiths that Pylos's king employed would have turned out far more weapons than he needed, so he must have been an arms dealer. About 600 women were attached to the palace to weave linen and woolen cloth. The Pylos documents mention many specialized professions and list titles for numerous kinds of bureaucrats. The peasants who inhabited the kingdom's 200 villages may have been semi-free labor­ ers who were legally dependent on a military aristocracy. Slaves, a byproduct of war, were plentiful. Most were female, for the males of defeated communities were usually slaughtered.

The Aegean Dark Age

Pylos was destroyed and abandoned about 1200 B.C.E., and within a few decadesall the Mycenaean kingdoms had collapsed. Linear B, which was known only to the 'scribes who served the Mycenaean kings, was forgotten, and a Dark Age (an era wnhout liter­ acy) descended on the Aegean. Not until commerce revived in the eighth century B.C.E. did the Greeks again sense a need for writing. About 800 B.C.E. they adapted the Phoeni­ cian script for their own use.

Homer and the Fall of Mycenae Although literacy disappeared from the Aegean with the Mycenaeans, an oral tradition preserved some memory of their exis­ tence and inspired the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the first major pieces of Greek literature. Tradition attributes both these epic poems to a certain Homer, who ~ supposedly flourished about 700 B.C. E., but stylistic features suggest that they may not " have been the work of one man . The Iliad is the story of a quarrel between two Greek leaders, Agamemnon and Achilles, which took place in the tenth year of a Greek siege of Troy, a city in northwestern Asia Minor. The Odyssey catalogues the adventures of Odysseus, one of their companions, on his way home from the Trojan War. Both poems purport to narrate events from the Mycenaean era, but they read back into that period the conditions of the later and more primitive Dark Age.

It was once assumed that Homer's stories were entirel y fictional, but in 1871 Hein­ rich Schliemann, a brilliant self-taught German archaeologist (who made a fortune in the California gold rush as a banker ) discovered the site of Troy. His excavations there and on the mainland of Greece uncovered evidence for several Trojan wars and for the great Greek kingdoms that could have fought them . Scholars dispute which of Troy's battles may have given rise to the tales collected in the Iliad, but Troy's location explains why the Greeks would have fought a Trojan War. Troy commanded the entrance to the Hellespont, the waterway by which Greeks imported grain from the Black Sea. If any­ thing could have persuaded the Mycenaean kings to set aside their differences and wage J"

t:.

'-_.•X''''~ · ''!"~~~__ho<,.:o ~-~.r-T

Aegean Civilizations 71

a joint expedition against a foreign power, it was a threat to their food supply. Troy was sacked sometime after 1250 B.C.E ., not long before the Mycenaean kingdoms themselves began to fall. If the destruction of Troy was the last proud achievement of the Myce­ naean era, stories about it would have come , during the Dark Age, to represent the glo­

ries of an increasingly mythic past. A spate of fortification building on the mainland of Greece suggests that around

1250 B.C.E. the Mycenaean governments sensed a need to strengthen their defenses. His­ torians once postulated that the Mycenaeans confronted a second wave of Indo- European migration from the north, an invasion by primitive tribes that spoke the Dorian dialect of Greek. But no archaeological evidence confirms a Dorian presence in Greece until after the Mycenaean decline. An attack from without is not the only explanation for a civi­ lization's fall. Internal problems can also bring it down . By the thirteenth century the Mycenaeans were struggling with overpopulation, declining agricultural production, and costly, unwieldy bureaucratic administrations. Under these circumstances, the fall of one shaky kingdom could have initiated a domino effect that brought them all down. Asrefugees flooded from a collapsing state into the territory of its neighbor, that neigh­ bor would be pushed over the edge and its people would join a swelling tide of refugees. Greeks seeking new homes probably triggered the invasions of the Sea Peoples who de­ scended on the coasts of Egypt and Palestine in the late thirteenth century. At this time Greeks also occupied the Aegean islands and the coast of Asia Minor.

The Homeric Era The Mycenaean collapse cleared the way for the Greeks to rein­ vent themselves, but almost five centuries passed before the outlines of their great Hel­ lenic, or classical, civilization emerged. These transitional centuries were not devoid of achievement. Iron came into widespread use. Pottery painters began to develop a dis­ tinctive and historically informative art. Religious traditions changed. New weapons and battlefield strategies were introduced. Novel political and social institutions ap­

,.p eared, and colonization scattered Greek cities throughout the ancient world. . Mycenaean trade, industry, and agriculture had been centrally managed by royal ~ g ents. Once these officials passed from the scene, a much simpler economy emerged. It centered on the village and the household. This is the world that Homer (or the school of poets he represents) knew and projected onto the Mycenaean past. It was far less wealthy than its Mycenaean predecessor. Few of its settlements had as many as a thousand residents, and the decline of trade in the Aegean meant that each community had to produce almost everything it needed for itself.

Conditions were difficult during the Dark Ages but not unpromising. A reduced population lessened competition for farmland , and an economy of self-sufficiency minimized class differences based on wealth and access to imported luxuries. The col­ lapse of centralized political authority allowed local governments to flourish. The chieftains who headed these were called kings, but they were far less powerful than Mycenaean royalty. The simple equipment they took to their graves suggests that the economic gap between them and their followers was not great. The Homeric king was

.' afirst-among-equals in a band of military companions. He fought at the side of his

~" men and shared their way of life.

72 Chapter 3

Homeric society was dominated by warrior bands that were only nominally sub­ servient to a hierarchy of regional overlords. The leaders of these bands constituted a hereditary aristocracy, but it was a working aristocracy. A king and his nobles defended their people and enriched them by raiding their neighbors' territory. The monarch's of­ fice passed to his son, but only if his men considered the heir to be competent. A leader E was accountable to a warrior code that demanded demonstrations of strength, courage, '" £~

"O~ >..and honor. He was expected to inspire his men by his superior prowess in battle and in Qj'" ­~-g '"0 the hunts and athletic competitions that proved his readiness for the rigors of combat. 5;-", '3

A Homeric king's income consisted of locally produced consumable items (olive ~cn o Vl~t

-0.oil, grain , and wine ). It made no sense to hoard such thing s, for they deteriorated in - 0

storage. However, if they were invested as social capital-that is, distributed among his '" E"O'" ~ I: VI e

Vl> 0. '" '" followers-they returned rewards in the form of increased loyalty. Noblemen were sup­ 00 ";l'" Eo; 'u posed to be openhanded and hospitable, and to strive to outdo one another in the giv­ I: > 0'" '­' ii) 'z "Cing of gifts. A chief had to be as generous with time and patience as with property. The ..c .'" !::! .0'" .... 1:"0 ....aristocratic warriors he led enjoyed freedom of speech in his councils and expected him 0­ nl - :J .co 0 ....to be capable of eloquent oratory. Men of less distinguished ancestry and reputation c c

c"'­were, of course , required to show deference to their betters. I: '" ~ "'~ 0>- ' 5ll The works of Homer occupied a place in Greek society comparable to that of the '" ~ .0 0 C Bible in the Christian communities of the medieval and early modern West. Most ~-e 0

Q) ctl . ­ "'~ ....Greeks, regardless of their social status, identified with Homer's aristoi ("best men ," l5-g ~

aristocrats) . Lineage and famous ancestors were important, but good bloodlines were ~ '§: : ~ ~u u

not enough . Individuals were expected to earn respect through their achievements. The w" .... cJ 0 c

ideal man had to be both competent and handsome-a harmony of muscle, bone, a) 5 e o ~ '" '" 0 . ..cbrain, and spirit that excited the envy of the gods. The greatest of men could, in myths ...... -(1) 0 ~~-g u

at least, become deities themselves. .8~~ ro <i.2! ~

> .S ill ~~..c 10­ ._ I- (1) U

0The Hellenic Era t . .z; ~ ~ .= ~ '2 c: ~ :::0As things settled down in the Aegean world, trade revived and popula tion increased. The ~~c. rd ~ Q) 0 VIDark Age drew to a close, and the vague outlines of a new Greek civilization appeared. % .":(1) ~ Q) "0 C. Q,l .cQ)(1) Q)Its fundamental institutions were quite different from those of the Mycenaean era. .....~> \­ _ (1,) '';; t..J ~£ ~ ~The Archaic Period (750-500 B.C.E.) Population did not have to increase much '§ -g E ~

befo re pressures on the limited resources of the Aegean environment caused social ..... co ~ "­ 'E ~ ~ ~

problems. Division of land among heirs reduced many farms to tiny plots that could ~(/):o >.. not support famili es. Th is forced thei r owners either to become dependents of more i~~ 5

!! Ci5 > .» "C'-.

~ "C C-o prosperous neighbors or to sell their land and relocate . Both options transformed Greek Cl .0

N _ Q) 0 Q,l society by concentrating land in fewer hands and widening class divisions . This caused cJ, "0:» .~ ~

c..5g. ~ tjpolitical unrest, and many Greeks chose to leave the Aegean for new homes elsewhere. '" 0 0 ::l nl ==~c. O':;{Emigration expanded trade networks, and entrepreneurs began to venture forth look­

ing for new markets. City-states in the homeland eased their population crunch by sponsoring colonies, but they did not exploit their colonies for their own benefit. Each colony was independent and self-governing, and many were in locations that gave them opportunities to grow larger and richer than their mother cities (see Map 3-2).

73

;...;~~

z q: llJ o o

o f:: <= q: -J f-­ q:

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 74 Chapter 3

P E 0 P LEI NCO NT EXT Hesiod, The Uncommon Common Man

' .omer ma y not ha ve been a real person , but the poet Hes iod, whose work dates fromH~ . t he same period as the Iliad and Odyssey, probably was . He is especially intr iguing, for while Homer, like most anc ient authors , concentrated on the ar istocratic warrior class, Hesiod was a common man who used his uncommon gifts to describe the lives of people like himself.

Hesiod is credited with two major poems: Theogony, a history of the Greek gods, and Works and Days, a description of the annual round of labor on a Gree k farm . In the latter, Hes iod speaks in the first person about w hat he alleges to be person al experiences . Some scholars think that this may have been a literary device, but , if so , that does not detract from the accuracy of the picture of rural life that Hes iod pa ints.

Works and Days takes the form of an open letter to Hes iod 's brother Perses . The two men had fought overthe division of their father 's estate , and Hesiod claimed that Perses br ibed the j udges to obta in the larger share (which he then squandered by mismanage­ ment ). Hes iod 's letter is a spec ies of "wisd o m liter ature, " a versio n of the collections of pro verbs and secular sermons that were popular throughout the ancient Middle East and that made their way into the Bible as the books o f Proverbs and Ecclesiastes . Works and Days lectures farmers and the agents of go vernment on the ir duties and singles judges out for special attention . Hesiod warns that authorities who take bribes risk divine punish -

Hesiod 's Theogony Th is painting from an ancient Greek vase dep icts Hesiod's story of the birth of t he goddess Athena. She em erges fully grown and armored from Zeus's head, wh ich the god Hephaestus is shown splitting open with an axe.

Aegean Civilizations 75

ment, for there is a moral order in the universe that holds rulers accountable-a natural standard of justice to which human laws must conform . Th is was a conviction he un­ knowingly shared with his contemporaries, the Hebrew prophets .

Hes iod believed that justice was simply common sense . People should pay their debts , honor their obligations, and deal fa irly and generously with one another. He also insisted that there was no substitute for hard work, that idleness was a personal disgrace and an offense to the gods . The small-property-holders whom he addresses are assumed to have a few slaves or hired hands, but they sweat in the ir fields alongside their servants . Hesiod saw in the work of these ordinary men the kind of nobility that Homer praised in the feats of aristocratic warriors . His defin ition of the good man is the self-sufficient in­ dividual whose unrelenting labor keeps his barns filled. Such a man, the poet warned, chooses a wife with care . Hesiod valued women as resources, not companions . He claimed that females were by nature deceitful , lazy, wasteful , and the source of most of mankind's problems . A man had to take a wife, for he needed children to care for him in his old age . But Hesiod advised the potential bridegroom to choose his fiancee not for her sex appeal but for her ability to pull a plow.

Hesiod was , in short, the champion of the frugal householder who kept a constant eye on the bottom line. The poet accused the upper classes of living off the backs of men like himself, but he was blind to his own exploitation of slaves and hired men. He advised that they be fed only enough to enable them to do a day's work. Hesiod was the spokesman for an emerging yeoman class that was destined to playa major role in shap­ ing Hellenic civilization .

Question: Why might Greece, at the start of the Classical era , have produced a poet with interests like Hesiod 's when Egypt and the Middle East d id not?

---------- -- - ----11 • • • • I

Between 750 and 500 B.C.E., Greeks scattered colonies around the Black Sea, across Sicily and southern Italy, and along the coasts of Asia Minor, France, Spain , and parts of North Africa. They preferred sites where the y could maintain contact with the sea .

,_ Although they generally avoided places occupied by other maritime peoples, some

.':X' long-established nations, such as Egypt , welcomed Greek merchants and gave them \'- land on which to build. ~~:,;; Greek colonists were exposed to alien cultural influen ces, but they resisted as­ ~~ -,sim ilatio n. The Greeks divided humanity into two cat egories : those who spoke ~~ ,. . Greek, and "b ar b ari an s" whose unintelligible babble sounded like "bar-bar-bar."

:~: Th ~y saw th~mse~ves as sca tte re~ m:mbers of,~ s i n~l ~ cultur~ and jealously g~arded ..~_ .}h~l r Greek Identity. Pan-Hellenic ( all-Greek) religious shnnes (e.g ., Apollo s ora­ ,'-. cle at Delphi) and festival s (e.g., the Ol ympic Games ) helped maintain ties among

' '' ~'~them and spread Hellenism (Greek culture) far be yond the Aegean. Many of classi ­ :':'_'cal civilization's major artists and intellectuals were citizens of the colonies, not the

~\Greek mainland. ~~' L The Greeks who spread throughout the world during the Archaic era took with ~h~m a unique institution called the polis (plural: poleis) . Polis is often translated as ~ity-state , but that ca p t ures only part of the word's me aning. The polis created the

76 Ch apt er 3

environmen t th at n ur tured He llen ic civilization . Polis is th e roo t of th e word politics, but a polis was m uch m o re th an a political en tity. It was an exper im en t in soc ial en ­ gin eering th at used art, religion , educa t ion, spo rt, and en ter tai n me n t-as well as govern ment al au tho r ity-to crea te m od el citi zens.

Classical civilization embra ced a p hi los o phical poi n t of view cen tere d o n th e hum an bei ng. It saw th e worl d as a rati on al, hum ane place a m en able to un ders ta nd­ ing and cont ro l. It ta ugh t th at h u man be in gs were o pen- en de d creatures who ha d ..-- . t he po wer and d uty to inve n t th em selves. T he polis pro vided a me an s to thi s end . Most poleis were sma ll sta tes situ ate d in spars e, co mp eti tive enviro n men ts. Unlike the wealt hy, po p ulo us k in gdo ms of t he Middle East th at co uld affor d to sq uan der man power, poleis n eed ed all th eir resid ent s to co n t r ib ute thei r b est . T he ir sma ll size also en co uraged activism , fo r individua ls were not lost in a m ass of hum an it y. T he imp act th ey h ad o n t heir co m m un ities was visible. T his crea ted a curio us lin kage in t he G reek min d be tween what ar e often con t rary drives: individ ua lism an d commu ­ ni ty spi rit.

The Hoplite Infantry Milita ry tech nology powerfully in fluenced the development of the polis. Th e Dark -Age ba ttles th at Homer describes were free-for -alls, simul tane­ o us sing le com ba ts foug ht by heavily armo red champi o ns who were carried abou t a battl efield in chario ts. A ho rde o f men fro m a chief's hou sehold accompan ied him to war, but th ey d id no t fight in o rgani zed u nits. True infant ry was an Assyrian invention of th e eight h cen tury. When it sp read to G reece at the end of the Dark Age, it becam e un iq uely leth al.

T he Gree k in fantry soldie r was called a hoplite-from his hoplos, a shie ld shaped like a ro und, sha llow bowl that was his m ost distinctive piece of equipme nt. A hoplite was a foo t soldier wh o was lad en with abo ut 70 pounds of equi pme nt (abo ut half the bod y weight of an average male in the an cient world). He had a helm et an d brea st plat e, was a rm ed with a thrustin g spea r and a sho rt sword, and car ried his hoplos on his left ar m. T he hoplos was m ad e of woo d and leather and was abo ut three feet in diam eter. It was carried on t he left arm to protect its bearer' s left sid e and shelter his n eighbor's right. Hopl ites fought shou lder to shou lder in a tightl y packed com pa ny called a pha ­ lanx. A p ha lanx was eight ran ks de ep, and o nly the m en in the front lines could wield their weapo ns. Men in th e rear ran ks used th eir shie lds to pu sh int o th e backs of the m en in front of the m. Th eir st rategy was to poo l the ir st rengt h, th eir weight, and th e m om entu m of their char ge so as to deal a cru shi ng blow to the ir o ppo ne nt's formation . Tactics were simple. Arm ies cha rged each ot her, smas hed together, and th e phal anx th at first broke expos ed its scattere d me n to slaugh ter.

Hoplite battles wer e in tend ed to be b r ief and murd erou s. Th ey relied more o n st reng t h, end ura nce , an d co u ra ge th an on skill wit h weapo ns. T h ere wa s no ro om for fan cy swo rd pl ay, but any man wh o ho ped to su rv ive had to stay in pe ak physi cal co n di tio n an d learn to co nt ro l him self. Spo rts an d ath letic activit ies were not mere ente rt ainme nts for the Gre eks. T hey pr ovid ed th e p hys ical tr ain in g th at pr ep ar ed a ma n for th e m ilita ry duti es of citi zen sh ip and pre ser ved his life. The m ales of a polis

/!.-.::r-v ,,~

Aegean Civilizations 77

1',

Warriors in Hoplite Armor This carv ing illustrates opposing soldiers in battl e. each w ith hopl it e

equipment.

were liable for military service fro m their teenage years until the age of 60, and th ey could expect to be called in to the field at freque nt intervals . Because the st ren gth of a polis literally depended on the ph ysical condition of its men , the polis provided public facilities for tr aining, m ade phys ical education part of their upbringing, and inspired th em with ar t th at celeb rated the perfectly developed m ale body. The uniquely Greek custo m of exercising in the nude spre ad after Homer's da y and ac­ companied the rise of th e polis. Th e Greek s themselves were not certain why this

. practice began, but it was co ns isten t with the pressure the polis put o n its men to demonst rate th at they were keeping themselves in physical condition for co m ba t. The gymnasiums in which people train today take their name from gymnos, a Gree k

.word meaning "n aked."

Hoplite Culture As the Greeks cam e to rely on their new infantries, the bal anc e of power shifted in the ir communities. In fantr y armies depend on numbers for their strength, and th e small circle of aristocratic families that had traditionall y monopolized

78 Chapter 3

military power and politi cal leadership could not provide all the manpower that they required. A polisneeded every man who was competent to serve. Competence was de­ termined by health, strength, and money. Simple governments were not equipped to collect taxes with which to finance armie s. They expected their subjects to pay for their own arms and training. Only the rich could afford horses and chariots , but these were no longer all that important. Hoplite equipment was within the reach of men of mod­ erate means, and they had good reason to invest in it. If their polis relied on them for its defense, it could not deny them some political recognition .

Service in the hoplite infantry enfranchised the male residents of a polis. Further­ more, because hoplite warfare put all soldiers on roughly the sam e footing, it promoted social egalitarianism. It turned the polis into a kind of militar y fraternity, a brotherhood

from foreign invaders.

she was a life-long dependent.

. ~~.~~_..-~~-~?,(

of men who shared the bond of a common battlefield experience. The link the polises­ tablished between citizenship and soldiering also fueled intense patriotism and , like modern sports competitions, heightened rivalry among city-states . Greek poleis found it hard to coexist peacefully, and they often had more to fear from one another than

The militarized environment of the polis put women at a major disadvantage . The aristocratic women in Homer's epics are respected, influential people. There were some constraints on their activities, but they enjoyed freedoms that most poleis denied to women from their citizen families. Because women lacked the upper-body strength that would have enabled them to serve as hoplites (and earn citizenship), men regarded them as inferior creatures. They were declared unfit for public life and confined to their home s. A citizen woman had the same legal statu s as her children, but unlike her sons,

The legitimacy of children was extremely important, for citizenship in a polis was hereditary. The only way fathers could be sure that their offspring were their own was to limit the contact their wives had with other men . A woman's primary duty was to marry and produce the heirs that would perpetuate her husband's oikos (household). This was crucial , for a polis's strength depended on preserving the oikoi that provided its fighting men . Poor women had no choice but to go out in public and work to earn money to support their families, but their better-off sisters were confined to special quarters in their homes and expected to be as invisible as possible. A woman could visit family members, go to the neighborhood well to draw water, and attend some religious festivals, but she did not take part in social gatherings with her husband and his friends. Indeed , her husband may not have thought of her as a companion. Men often delayed marriage until they were about 30 years old and financially established . Their brides were usually girls just past puberty who were half their ages.

Men were seldom at home and invested little in making their homes impressive or comfortable. They spent their time out of doors or in the public facilities that were a polis's chief source of civic pride-its temple precincts or its agora, a place to conduct commercial and political business. A man had no opportunity to make female friends outside his family circle. When he desired female company, he turned to hetairae; pro­ fessional entertainers who ranged from simple prostitutes to highly educated women who could engage a man in witty repartee and serious discussion. These women were

Sparta The Spartans possessed the most intimidating army in Greece. They created it by doing what the citizens of a polis were supposed to do. They decided what they wanted to be and then ruthlessly implemented a program of social engineering to

achieve their goal. The Spartans' ancestors were Dorian-speaking tribes that wandered into the Pelo-

ponnese during the Dark Age and settled along the Eurotas River.They expanded their territory by making war on their neighbors, and late in the eighth century they overran the plain of Messenia (the old Mycenaean kingdom of Pylos). This drastically changed the context for Spartan life. The war made Sparta the largest state on the mainland, but it left the Spartans outnumbered perhaps seven to one by people whom they had en­ slaved. The Spartans concluded that they would not survive unless they created a stand­ ing army that was so powerful it could frighten the polis's resentful helot (slave) population into submission. That meant that every male Spartan had to commit to be­

coming a superb, full-time soldier. Legends claim that a sage named Lycurgos devised the system that kept Sparta in a

,state of permanent, total military mobilization. Sparta had to ensure that each of its cit­ izens automatically accepted the lifetime of harsh discipline and regimentation that turned him into a professional soldier. It did so by making sure that it never entered his mind to be anything else. His training began at birth. State officials examined each new-

':.. ' . born, and only those infants that were strong were allowed to live. Because all males : ! ~: . ,: .were destined to serve the state as full-time soldiers, the state had to support them. Each .~ , . : boy was assigned a kleros, a farm worked by slaves, to maintain him, and the state did " not invest in raising boys who could not fight.

At the age of 6 or 7, a boy left home and reported to a military camp . The army played a larger part in rearing him than did his family. He was taught basic literacy and

.subjected to trials that made him strong, courageous, and indifferent to hardship. At the i ;~ age of 20 he saw front -line service. Ifhe acquitted himself well in battle until the age of

'-'i:.,) O, he was granted full citizenship. Those who failed to measure up were publicly hu-

'~J~ 'miliated and shunned. ~ ' For most of his life, a Spartan lived in barracks as a member of a is-man mess unit ":!,:"'called a sussition. A man's mess mates were closer to him than were his family members.

t :Hew as expected to marry and sire children, but he could not set up a household and :#~e ope nl y with his wife until he received his full citizen privileges. This created unique

Aegean Civilizations 79

usually slaves or foreigners. They entertained at symposia (drinking parties), feasts for male guests only that offered a citizen his primary opportunity for relaxed social inter­

action with his peers.

The Rise of the Mainland Powers There were hundreds of poleis scattered throughout the Mediterranean and along the shores of the Black Sea. It is difficult to generalize about them, but we can gain insight into how poleis operated by examining the two quite different city-states that domi­

nated political life on the Greek mainland.

81 80 Chapter3

opportunities for Spartan women. Because their husbands were rarely at home and a man 's time was taken up with military duties, women had both freedom and responsi­ bility. Sparta could not afford , like other poleis, to confine women to their homes , and the interests of the state dictated that they be given much better treatment than most Greek women received. To ensure that they grew up to give birth to healthy children, Spartan girls were fed well, given physical training, and not married until they were fully mature at age 18.

The Spartan system produced the best army in Greece for the simple reason that the Spartans were the only Greeks who could devote all their time to training and phys­ ical conditioning. Most poleiswere defended by part-time citizen militias, but the Spar­ tans had a professional army. Sparta's primary weakness was the difficulty it had in maintaining its population. Birthrates were low, and the harsh conditions of Spartan life increased mortality.

The Spartans paid a high price for their system, but it gave them a tremendous sense of pride. They did not marry foreigners and kept a careful eye on visitors to make sure that outsiders did not spread alien ideas that caused citizens to question the Spar­ tan way of life. The polis's economy ensured social stability by preventing the develop­ ment of a gap between rich and poor. Some trade was necessary, but a primitive medium of exchange using iron bars kept it to a minimum. Each Spartan had his kleros to guarantee him a living wage. Private property existed, but the flaunting of wealth was discouraged. The Spartans boasted of their coarse food, rough attire, and indifference to comfort and luxury. Their educations taught them obedience to authority and tra­ dition, and discouraged inquiry and speculation.

The Spartan polis had what the Greeks called a mixed constitution: that is, a gov­ ernment that combined aspects of different political systems. The monarchical element was represented by two royal families from whose princes the Spartans chose their kings. Spartan kings had little civil authority. Their chief function was to serve as com­ manders in the field. Sparta was a kind of all-inclusive aristocracy. Its chief organ of government was a council called the Gerousia. It was composed of 28 men over the age of 60 who held office for life. The Gerousia set policies that were implemented by five executives called ephors. The democratic element in the system was represented by a popular assembly to which all full citizens belonged . It elected the members of the Ger­ ousia and the ephors, but had very limited powers. It met primarily to be advised of gov­ ernment decisions . It could ratify or reject proposals put to it, but it could not debate or suggest alternatives. Sparta also had a krypteia, a secret police corps that terrorized the helots and eliminated potential troublemakers.

Sparta had reason to be proud of its achievements. It was more stable than most poleis, and the other Greeks were in awe of its military might. But Spartan success came at a cost. By refusing to evolve and by turning their backs on the outside world, the Spartans lived through one of the most creative periods in Western history with­ out being touched by it. In an era of unprecedented artistic and intellectual activity, the Spartans, with the exception of a few early poets, produced no great thinkers, au­ thors, or artists. They focused exclusively on military matters and prided themselves on ignoring most of the things for which Greek civilization became famous. Worse,

Aegean Civilizations

their decision to halt development, ignore change, and pin their survival on a single

_

,

_ 1~/:

:~: " .

strength ultimately proved fatal.

Athens The polis that is most associated with the achievements of Hellenic civiliza­ tion is Athens, an Ionian-speaking community on the plain of Attica in the upper por­ tion of the Greek peninsula. By the end of the Dark Age, its Mycenaean monarchy ("one-man rule") had been replaced by an aristocracy ("rule by the best," by those of elite lineage). Its chief organ of government was the Council of the Areopagus, a com­ mittee of leaders from aristocratic families. The council's mandates were enforced by three officials called archons, and it occasionally convened a popular assembly to pub­ licize its edicts. At this stage in its development Athens resembled Sparta, but the two poleis steadily diverged. Sparta halted its economic and social evolution at this point by absorbing all its men into a single class and training them for the same profession. Athens allowed an unregulated economy to create divisions and tensions within its so­

ciety,and these propelled further political development. The citizens of Athens were not supported by the state. They had to earn their

own livings. As trade began to revive in the eighth century B.C.E., new sources of wealth enabled some commoners to prosper, and they acquired the means to force the landed aristocracy to share its power with them. This delivered Athens into the hands of an oligarchy ("rule by the few"), a government dominated by the rich as well as the well born. Athenians who did not have large estates or commercial inter­ ests were at a serious disadvantage economically and politically. Each year, they had~

ato raise enough grain on their small farms to feed their families and, if they hOPr to accumulate any savings to fall back on, some surplus for sale. In years when ha ­ vests were poor, they could not make ends meet. They had to borrow from th rich and pledge to pay back their loans out of next year's crop. In effect, they mort a ed\ a portion of their labor for the following year and bound themselves to work heir, ____ land for someone else's benefit. Over the long haul, the poor tended to dig the ­

' selves so deeply into debt that they were enslaved. Societies that allow wide gaps to develop between the few rich and the many poor flirt with disaster. The poor resent

, their condition, and when a leader appears to mobilize them, they have the strength of numbers to foment revolution. Revolutions are often begun by a member of the privileged class who rallies the people and uses them to drive his competitors from the city. This leads to a form of government the Greeks called tyranny ("rule by an

individual who seizes power"). During the seventh century, many poleis passed into the hands of tyrants. The lead­

.- ing families in a polis were highly competitive and inclined to feud. When their fights threatened to destabilize a community, the lower classes often rallied behind a tyrannos ("a ruler who takes control by force") in an effort to restore order. Some tyrants abused their authority and oppressed their subjects. But if a tyrant was wise, he remembered the source of his power and courted the people by doing things that improved their

' lives. He funded buildings, festivals, and programs that provided jobs, promoted civic pride, and enhanced the reputation of his polis. In the process, he might encourage the growth of popular government. That, at least, was the Athenian experience.

B2 Chapter 3

In 632 B.C.E. the aristocrats of Athens thwarted an attempted coup by a popular Olympic victor named Cylon. He raised a private army and seized the Acropolis, the citadel at the heart of Athens . He hoped that the Athenian masses would join him, but they were not ready. The ar istocrats put Cylon down, but the crisis alerted them to the danger they faced.

In 620 B.C . E. the Council of the Areopagus asked an elderly aristocrat named Draco to improve the enforcement of justice in Athens . Athens was governed by vague oral tra ­ ditions that were subject to manipulation by powerful individuals, and rather than looking to the stat e for help, men often waged vendettas to punish those who wronged them. These private wars could easily get out of hand, and Draco sought to create a credible alternative to them . His plan was to publish a code of law and make neutral state officials responsible for enforcing a standard of justice that applied equally to everyone . Our word dracon ian ("extremely severe") derives from the harsh punish ­ ment s that Draco decreed for even minor offenses. He may have hoped that fear would inspire respect for the novel idea of rule by law.

Legal reforms were a good thing, but they did not address the economic problems that were the chief source of discontent in Athens . In 594 B.C.E. the politicians in Athen s took the remarkable step of granting a man named Solon absolute authority to reorganize the polis. Solon began by abolishing the debts of the farm ers who had become enslaved agricultural laborers. This got both the rich and the poor out of what had becom e a mutually unprofitable situation. By cancelling their debts, Solon freed poor pea sants to sell the sm all farm s that could not sustain them, and he pro­ vided them with alternative forms of employment. He promoted trade, made loans to small bu sines ses, and invited foreign craftsmen with valuable skills to settle in Athens. The rich were compensated by the opportunity this gave them to increase their estate s and turn the land to more profitable uses. Poor farmers grew grain. They needed it to feed themselves, and it was the only crop that brought them a rapid re­ turn on the little capital they had to invest. Grain did not grow all that well in Attica, but olives and grapes did . It made more sense to import grain and devote Athenian land to the production of olive oil and wine for export. These were, however, capital­ intensive crop s. Only the rich could afford the decades that it took to bring an olive grove or a vineyard into production. Solon 's reforms cleared the way for wealthy in­ vestors to convert Attica from minimally profitable grain production to valuable ex­ port crop s and for Athens to become a thriving manufacturing center.

Solon also im plemented political reform . He reserved archonships, the polis'smost prestigious offices, to candidates from the wealthiest strata of society. Men who could afford hoplite armor qualified for lesser offices, and the poor (who had no equipment but who rowed the city's warship s) were allowed to vote in the popular assembly and serve on juries. To help the assembly assert its authority, Solon created the boule, a council of 400 repre sentatives chosen from the four tribes into which the Athenian elec­ torate was divided. It prepared the agenda for meetings of the assembly.

Solon's reforms were well conceived , but they did not improve people 's lives quickly enough to head off support for tyranny. In 560 B.C. E. a well-known military hero named Peisistratus won control of Athens . He cultivated the masses who had lofted him to

Aegean Civilizations B3

power by providing loans for the poor, promoting trade, financing public works proj­ ects to provide employment, and spon soring festivals. He commissioned a definitive edition of Homer's works for the city's archives, and his support for rites honoring the

.

'"

popular rural god Dionysus marked the dawn of one of th e glories of Athenian civiliza­

tion: the theater (see Chapter 5). When Peisistratus died in 527 B.C.E., his sons Hippias and Hipparchus succeeded

him. In 514 B.C.E . two men who had a personal grudge against Hipparchus tried to as­ sassinate him and his brother. Hippias escaped , but fear turned him into a ruthless, sus­ picious dictator. In 510 B.C.E. the Alcmaeonids, an aristocratic family that Peisistratus had driven into exile, enlisted Spartan aid and forced Hippias to flee Athens. The Ale­ maeonids' leader, Cleisthenes, became the city's next tyrant.

Cleisthenes set out to destroy the political machines on which the power of his aris­ tocratic opponents was based by reforming Athens' electoral system. Each Athenian cit­ izen inherited membership in a tribe through which he exercised his rights. These tribes were under the thumbs of the great families that had long dominated Athenian politics. Cleisthenes minimized their influence by limiting the four original tribes to religious functions and transferring their political duties to ten new and differently constituted tribes. Attica was divided into demes (counties or townships) , and each of the new tribes was made up of demes from every region of the country. This meant that great land ­ lords, who had always voted in tribes filled with their local dependents and retainers, now had to vote with strangers over whom they had no power. Cleisthenes may have gerrymandered the system for the benefit of his family, but it had the long-term effect of freeing up individuals to vote as they pleased. Aristocratic advantage was further di­ minished by the practice of filling many offices by casting lots. Each tribe chose 50 of its members by lot to serve on a new 500-member boule that led the assembly and over­ saw state finances. .

The assembly governed Athens, but it met only occasionally. When it or the boule was not in session, the aristocratic Council of the Areopagus was likely to assume power by default . Cleisthenes forestalled this by creating the prytaneis ("presider"). He divided the year into ten equal segments, each of which was assigned to one of the tribal com­ mittees that composed the boule. For the tenth of the year entrusted to it, each 50-man committee met daily as the prytaneis, the body that "p resided " over Athens. Each day during their term, the members of the prytaneis cast lots to determine which of them would serve as Athens' chief executive that day.

The army was also reorganized to reflect the principles by which the state was to be governed. Each tribe provided a company for the army, and the soldiers elected their own leader, their strategos ("general") . Because soldiers much prefer to follow officers who have earned their trust, generals, unlike civilian leaders , could serve consecutive terms. The board of ten strategoi was able, therefore, to provide some continuity for

Athens' government. Finally, according to tradition, Cleisthenes instituted a special vote called an

. ostracism to prevent anyone from overthrowing the system he had established. From ': time to time the Athenian electorate was asked to take ostraca (fragments of pottery used . as ballots) and scratch on them the name of any man suspected of posing a danger to

84 Chapter 3

the city. No trial was held , but if an individual garnered 6,000 votes, he was immediately exiled for ten years.

Cleisthenes's reforms launched Athens on an experiment with a radical version of an untested form of government that the Greeks called democracy ("rule by the demos:' the people) . All laws and major policy decisions were made by the people themselves, not by a small group of their representatives. The use of lots to select men for office meant that any individual, regardless of his talents and experience, had a chance of find­ ing himself charged, if only briefly, with major responsibilities. Small villages could op­ erate informally on similar principles, but Athens was no village. History was to prove if the unprecedented trust the Athenians placed in the masses was justified.

The Persian Wars: Crucible of a Civilization

The larger world did not stand still while Greek civilization reorganized itself in the Aegean. In the wake of Mycenae's collapse and the invasions of the Sea Peoples, succes­ sive empires rose and fell in the Middle East. The Assyrians built on the ruins of the Hit­ tite and Egyptian empires. In 614 B.C.E. the Assyrians fell to the Chaldaeans, and in 539 B.C.E. Chaldaean Babylon surrendered to Cyrus the Great (r, 559-530 B.C.E.), founder of a gigantic Persian Empire that ultimately stretched from Egypt to the bor­ ders of India and the Himalayan Mountains.

Ionia and Marathon In 547 B.C.E. Cyrus conquered the wealthy kingdom of Lydia in central Asia Minor and pushed on to the Aegean to subdue Ionia, a coastal district oc­ cupied by Greek cities. More important campaigns elsewhere and palace coups subse­ quently distracted him and his immediate successors from further adventures in the ' · Aegean. In 499 B.C. E. the Ionian city of Miletus organized a rebellion that prompted the Persian emperor, Darius I (r. 522-486 B.C. E.), to return to the Greek world. Miletus asked lj the poleis of the mainland for assistance. Sparta refused, but Athens sent help. Athens was · dependent on imported grain , and it feared that Persian control of the Hellespont might endanger its access to supplies from the Black Sea. The Athenians also worried that Dar­ ius might restore their exiled tyrant Hippias, who had fled to his court. The Greek rebels had some initial successes, but after they drove the Persians from the former Lydian cap­ ital at Sardis, their alliance fell apart. Darius then counterattacked, recovered Ionia, and inflicted a horrible punishment on Miletus as a warning to the Greeks.

In 492 B.C.E. Darius decided to make sure that a hope of support from the main­ land never again tempted the Ionian cities to rebel. He demanded that the Aegean sub- . mit to Persia. Many of the Greek poleis, mindful of Miletus's fate, yielded, but Athens . and Sparta refused. In 490 B.C.E. Darius's fleet landed an army of 20,000 men on the ., . plain of Marathon about 20 miles north of Athens. Some Athenians wanted to surren~ j der, but the strategos Miitiades persuaded the assembly to fight. A champion runner was__~I! dispatched to Sparta to ask for help, but the Spartans claimed that a religious festival,,; prevented them from offering immediate assistance . The tiny polis of Athens (led by its : ~ new, untested democratic government) was left almost entirely alone to confront the 1

,'''' superpower of its day (see Map 3-3).

Aegean Civilizations 85

o

SR? Aegean

D

4~ ..0

ciI!wV/~............ ~ -- .... ~ , '-J ,. , 'LrJ__ 4 ' . -0'.,'1" MlletusP ~ .... r---/?__ ~ __

(/ a l1 ~V " If ~ /)0

e,

Q '\) .•~O \j<,..~ o"'t:-1

Cb "b • O~ •

L:;;:-J

- - • Invasion by Darius ItA. -- Invasion by Xerxes ,-"""~ :1:5:M:IL:E~S~~~~;===- _

• Battles

CYTHERA l) ~ 15 KILOMETERS Map 3-3 The Persian Wars The first of the Persian Wars was an attack from the sea on the plain of

. Marathon. The second involved a Persian army that was too large to be ferried across the Aegean . This map shows the routes taken by Xerxes' soldiers and the navy that accompanied them. (Stars

.~:. mark the sites of major battles .)

"Quest io n: What advantages and disadvantages did each ofthese strategies offer for

invaders ofthe Greek mainland?

86 Chapter 3

Miltiades's arm y may have been half th e size of th e Persian force, but the battle on

-"

•

. t

"

' ,~~

th e plain of Marathon gave his hop lites a chanc e to pro ve that Greek training and dis­ cipline could compensate for inferio r numbers. Greek sources claim that 6,400 Persians, but only 192 Greeks, died at Marathon . Whatever the statistics, the losses per suaded the Persians to withdraw. The delighted , but stunned , Atheni ans credited their victor y to the patri ot ic morale generated by democracy, and like the Spartans, their confidence in the program of their polissoared .

Thermopylae and Salamis The loss at Marathon angered the Persians far more than it hurt them , but a rebellion in Egyp t and other problems prevented Darius from con tinuing th e war. It fell to his son and heir, Xerxes (r. 486-465 B.C.E.) , to determine the Persian respon se. In 484 B.C.E. Xerxes began to make highl y visible plan s for a mas­ sive assault on the Aegean . This had the intended effect of persuading a number of poleis to sub mit voluntarily, but 31 states pledged to cooperate in defending the mainland. Prosp ects for their success were not good. Th e Persian army was hu ge-perhaps a quar­ ter of a million men . Even the sacred oracles to whom the Greeks turned for advice were intim idat ed and did not offer much encouragement.

The Greeks wisely cho se to take their stan d at Th errnopylae, a narrow strip of beach in northern Greece that had mountains on one side and the sea on the other. The Persians had to pa ss through Therm opylae to reach their targets in Greece, but its confines prevented their great army from spre ading out and using the advantage of its numbers. If the Greeks' navy prev ented Persia's ships from landing soldiers be­ hind the Greek lines , the allies could halt Persia's advance, and th is alon e might have forced Xerxes to retre at . Sanitation problems spread disease in large armies un less they stayed on the mo ve.

The Greek allies mustered a mere 7,000 men to face the Persians at Thermopylae, but with the help of their comm ander, the Spartan king Leonidas, they repelled the Persians' assaults for three days. The batt le was lost when a Greek traitor guided a troop of Persians through the' mountains to a position behind Leonidas's lines. Realizing that

h is position was untenable, Leonidas dismissed most of his men; He, his 300 Spartans, and a handful of allies chose, however, to stay and fight to the death . Th eir willing self-sacrifice turned Ther­ mop ylae into a moral victory and made them the most celebrated heroes in Greek histor y.

The Greek army fell back to the Isthmus of Corinth; the land -bridge between north ern and southern Greece. The plan \ was again to halt the Persian advance by blocking a narrow pas-

Spart an Warrior Art objects from Sparta are rare finds , and this is one of the most famous . It dates to the early fifth century B.C.E. It has been called "Leon idas," after the famous Spartan com m ander at the battle of Thermo pyla e, but there is no proof th at he was the intend ed subject.

Aegean Civilizations 87

sage. This had failed at Therrnopylae, but the Spartan generals who commanded the army saw no alternative. Athens , which lay north of the Isthmus, was abandoned to th e enemy. Its women and children were ferri ed to various islands, and its men took to their

ships and watched as the Persians burned their city. In 482 B.C.E. the Athenian voter s had made a remarkably intelligent decision th at

now saved their homeland . A rich vein of silver was discovered in the state mines, and the assembly had to decide what to do with the profits. Some politician s courted pop­ ularity by proposing that the money be shared among the citizens, but Themistocles, the first non-aristocrat to rise to prominence in the you n g democracy, per suaded th e

The Rise of Hellenic Civilization

THIRTEENTH CENTURY

1250 B.C. E., sack of Troy 1200 B.C.E., fall of Mycenaean Civilization Dark Age

EIGHTH CE NTURY

776 B.C.E. , first Olympic victor 750-700 B.C. E., Homer 750 B.C.E., Greek colonization beg ins 700 B.C. E., Hesi od Hoplite warfare develops Poleis appear

SEVENTH CENTURY

Spa rt an system establish ed Atheni an system evolves: 632 B.C.E., Cylon's coup 620 B.C. E., Dra co's law 614 B.C.E., Assyrian Empire falls

SIXTH CENTURY 594 B.C.E., Solon 's constitution 560-527 B.C. E., Peisistratus tyranny 539 B.C.E. , Chaldaean Empire falls 5 10 B.C.E., Cleisthenes exiles Hippias Cyru s found s the Persian Empi re Democrac y establis hed

FIFTH CENTURY

499 B.C.E., Miletus rebels 492 B.C.E., Persian Wars: Darius 484-479 B.C.E. , Persian Wars : Xerxes

'.;.

Aegean Civilizations 89 88 Ch apter 3

voters to pr efer their publ ic to their private interest. He convin ced them to use the mon ey to expand the ir navy and make Athens a m ajor sea power . The Spartans wanted the Athe n ians to use their navy to prevent the Persians from outflanking the Greek de ­ fenses on the Isthmus of Corinth, but Themistocl es saw no advantage to Athens in send ing its ships to protect the Pelop onnese, wh ich was Spartan territory. Because prospects for success on land were dismal, as Thermopylae had proved, he decided to risk everything on a battle at sea. Themistocles lured the Persian navy into the str aits between Att ica and the island of Salamis , and his smaller, faster ships, which were op­ erating in familiar waters, outmaneuvered and sank many of the Persian transports. Xerxes could not afford to lose th e navy th at was his communications link with his em ­ pire . He chose to go home but to leave behind an army, under a general n amed Mar ­ donius, to continue the fight.

Mardonius went into winter camp at Plataea , west of Attica , and prepared to re­ sum e th e campaign the following spring. The Greeks used the time to am ass the largest a rmy the y had ever assembled , and in the spring of 479 B.C.E. they took the of­ fensive . Pausanias, th e Spartan regent for the hero ic Leonidas's infant heir, com ­ manded the allied army. When he drove through the Persian line and killed Mardonius, the leaderless Persians scattered. The Greeks were again .am azed to dis­ cover th at th ey had succeeded again st all odds. The conclusion seemed obvious: Their in stitutions were superior to all others, an d there was no lim it to what they might do.

KEY QUESTION I Revisited The Greeks' victories over the Persian s persuaded them that there was a wide gap be­ tween their civilization and that of their opponents. The Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484-425 B.C. E. ) , who wrote the first history of the Persian Wars, claimed that the Greeks won because they were free men fighting for their homeland, while the Persians were th e dispirited subje cts of an autocrat. The war had been a contest between free­ dom and slavery, and Greek liberty had proved its superiority.

Th ere were obvious contrasts betwe en Persia 's empire and Greece's city-states, but th ere were also ties between the Greek and Persian worlds. The Mycen aean king­ doms had closely resembled and borrowed much from th eir Middle-Eastern neigh ­ bors. Many of the Gre eks who fled their collapse settled in the Middle East, st ren gthen ed tr ade ties between the Aegean and the M iddle East , and adapted Middl e-Eastern technologies (su ch as writ ing and infantry warfare ) as the y emerged from the ir Dark Age. Trade with Egypt and the M iddle East was extremely impor­ tant to both th e Mycenaean and the Hellenic civilizations, and Greek artists and in ­ tellectuals drew in spiration from , and had great respect for, the M iddle East's older civiliza tio ns. There is no doubt that the Greek s were original and that they ulti­ mately changed the course of civilization throughout the ancient world , but the long-popular assumption that the y created a "West" that was independent of-and opposed to-an "East" can certainly be challenged.

Review Ouestions 1. What were the similarities and differences between the Minoan and Mycenaean

kingdoms and those of Egypt and the Middle East? Do environments help to

explain these? 2. Might people who live in a Dark Age be more open to cultural innovation than

those who inhabit a fully civilized period? Why?­ , 3. How did the Hellenic poleis differ from the Mycenaean kingdoms?

. ~ 4. What explains the differen ces between the polis systems of Athens and Sparta? 5. What impact did the milit ary have on the development of Hellenic civilization? 6. How did the Persian Wars affect the way the Greeks viewed themselves and their

relationships with other peoples?

Please consult the Suggested Readings at the backofthe book to continue your study of the material covered inthis chapter. For a list of documents on the Primary Source DVD­ ROM that relate to topicsin this chapter, please referto the backofthe book.