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The Civilization of the Greeks
In 431 B.C.E.,
war erupted in Greece as two very different Greek city-states—Athens and Sparta—fought
for domination of the Greek world. The people of Athens felt secure behind their walls and
in the first winter of the war held a public funeral to honor those who had died in
battle. On the day of the ceremony, the citizens of Athens joined in a procession, with
the relatives of the dead wailing for their loved ones. As was the custom in Athens, one
leading citizen was asked to address the crowd, and on this day it was Pericles who spoke
to the people. He talked about the greatness of Athens and reminded the Athenians of the
strength of their political system: "Our constitution," he said, "is called
a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When
it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law. . . .
Just as our political life is free and open, so is our day-to-day life in our relations
with each other. . . . Here each individual is interested not only in his own affairs but
in the affairs of the state as well."
In this famous Funeral Oration, Pericles gave voice to the ideal of democracy
and the importance of the individual. It was the Greeks who laid the intellectual
foundations of Western civilization. They asked some basic questions about human life that
still dominate intellectual pursuits: What is the nature of the universe? What is the
purpose of human existence? What is our relationship to divine forces? What constitutes a
community? What constitutes a state? What is true education? What are the true sources of
law? What is truth itself and how do we realize it? The Greeks not only gave answers to
these questions; they proceeded to create a system of logical, analytical thought in order
to examine them.
The story of
ancient Greek civilization is a remarkable one that begins with the first arrival of the
Greeks around 1900 B.C.E. By the eighth century B.C.E., the characteristic institution of
ancient Greek life, the polis or city-state, had emerged. Greek civilization flourished
and reached its height in the classical era of the fifth century B.C.E., which has come to
be closely identified with the achievements of Athenian democracy. But the inability of
the Greek states to end their fratricidal warfare eventually left them vulnerable to the
Macedonian king Philip II and helped to bring an end to the Greek world of independent
city-states.
Although the Greek
city-states were never the same after their defeat by the Macedonian monarch, it did not
bring an end to the influence of the Greeks. Philip's son Alexander led the Macedonians
and Greeks on a spectacular conquest of the Persian Empire and opened the door to the spread of Greek culture throughout the
Middle East. We use the term Hellenistic to designate this new period of Greek history.
The Hellenistic world was the world of Greeks and non-Greeks, and it resulted, in its own
way, in a remarkable series of accomplishments.
Early Greece
Geography played an important role in the evolution of Greek history. Compared to the landmasses of Mesopotamia and Egypt, Greece occupied a small area. It was a mountainous peninsula that encompassed only 45,000 square miles of territory, about the size of the state of Louisiana. The mountains and the sea played especially significant roles in the development of Greek history. Much of Greece consists of small plains and river valleys surrounded by mountain ranges 8,000—10,000 feet high. The mountainous terrain had the effect of isolating Greeks from one another. Consequently, Greek communities tended to follow their own separate paths and develop their own way of life. Over a period of time, these communities became so fiercely attached to their independence that they were unwilling to join into larger units of organization and only too willing to fight one another to gain advantage. No doubt the small size of these independent Greek communities fostered participation in political affairs and unique cultural expressions, but the rivalry among these communities also led to the internecine warfare that ultimately devastated Greek society.
The sea
also influenced the evolution of Greek society. Greece had a long seacoast, dotted by bays
and inlets that provided numerous harbors. The Greeks also inhabited a number of islands
to the west, south, and particularly to the east of the Greek mainland. It is no accident
that the Greeks became seafarers who sailed out into the Aegean and the Mediterranean Seas
first to make contact with the outside world and later to establish colonies that would
spread Greek civilization throughout the Mediterranean world.
Greek topography
helped to determine the major territories into which Greece was ultimately divided.
South of the Gulf of Corinth was the Peloponnesus, virtually an island as seen on a map.
Consisting mostly of hills, mountains, and small valleys, the Peloponnesus was the
location of Sparta, as well as the site of Olympia where the famous athletic games were
held. Northeast of the Peloponnesus was the Attic peninsula (or Attica), the home of
Athens, hemmed in by mountains to the north and west and surrounded by the sea to the
south and east. Northwest of Attica was Boeotia in central Greece with its chief city of
Thebes. To the north of Boeotia was Thessaly, which contained the largest plains and
became a great producer of grain and horses. To the north of Thessaly lay Macedonia,
which was not of much importance in Greek history until 338 B.C.E. when the Macedonian
king Philip II conquered the Greeks.
Minoan Crete
By 2800 B.C.E., a
Bronze Age civilization that used metals, especially bronze, in the construction of
weapons had been established in the area of the Aegean Sea. The early Bronze Age
settlements on the Greek mainland, created by non-Greek-speaking peoples, were
overshadowed by another Bronze Age civilization on the large island of Crete, southeast of
the Greek mainland.
The civilization
of Minoan Crete was first discovered by the English archaeologist Arthur Evans, who named
it Minoan after Minos, the legendary king of Crete. Evans's excavations on Crete at the
beginning of the twentieth century led to the discovery of an enormous palace complex at
Knossus near modern Heracleion. The remains revealed a rich and prosperous culture with
Knossus as the probable center of a far-ranging "sea empire," probably largely
commercial in nature. Because Evans found few military fortifications for the defense of Knossus itself, he assumed that Minoan Crete had a strong navy. We do know from
archaeological remains that the people of Minoan Crete were accustomed to sea travel and
had made contact with the more advanced civilization of Egypt. Egyptian products have been
found in Crete and Cretan products in Egypt.
The Minoan civilization reached its height between 2000 and 1450 B.C.E. The palace at Knossus,
the royal seat of the kings, demonstrates the obvious prosperity and power of
this civilization. It was an elaborate structure built around a central
courtyard and included numerous private living rooms for the royal family and
workshops for making decorated vases, small sculptures, such as ivory figurines,
and jewelry. Even bathrooms, with elaborate drains, formed part of the complex.
The rooms were decorated with frescoes in bright colors showing sporting events and naturalistic scenes that have
led some to
assume that the Cretans had a great love of nature. Storerooms in the palace held enormous
jars of oil, wine, and grain, presumably paid as taxes in kind to the king. The kings were
apparently assisted by a large bureaucracy that kept detailed records of the payments.
The
centers of Minoan civilization on Crete suffered a ridden and catastrophic collapse around
1450 B.C.E. The use of this destruction has been vigorously debated. Some historians
believe that a tsunami triggered by a powerful volcanic eruption on the island of Thera was
responsible for the devastation. Most historians, however, maintain that the destruction
was the result of invasion and pillage by mainland Greeks known as the Myce-naeans.
The Mycenaean
Greeks
The term Mycenaean
is derived from Mycenae, a remarkable fortified site first excavated by the amateur
German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann. In a series of shaft graves, Schliemann
discovered an incredible collection of gold masks, cups, jewelry, bronze weapons, and
pottery, all belonging to the Mycenaean Greek civilization, which flourished between 1600
and 1100 B.C.E. The Mycenaean Greeks were part of the Indo-European family of peoples
(see Chapter 1) who spread from their original location into southern and western
Europe, India, and Iran. One group entered the territory of Greece from the north around
1900 B.C.E. and, over a period of time, managed to gain control of the Greek mainland and
develop a civilization.
Mycenaean civilization, which reached its high point between 1400 and
1200 B.C.E., consisted of a number of powerful monarchies based in fortified palace
complexes, which were built on hills and surrounded by gigantic stone walls, such as those
found at Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, Thebes, and Orchomenos. These various centers of power
probably formed a loose confederacy of independent states with Mycenae the strongest.
Next in importance to the kings in these states were the army commanders, the priests,
and the bureaucrats who kept careful records. The free citizenry included peasants,
soldiers, and artisans with the lowest rung of the social ladder consisting of serfs
and slaves.
The Mycenaeans
were, above all, a warrior people who prided themselves on their heroic deeds in battle.
Archaeological evidence indicates that the Mycenaean monarchies also developed an
extensive commercial network. Mycenaean pottery has been found throughout the
Mediterranean basin, in Syria and Egypt to the east and Sicily and southern Italy to the
west. But some scholars also believe that the Mycenaeans, led by Mycenae itself, spread
outward militarily, conquering Crete and making it part of the Mycenaean world. The most
famous of all their supposed military adventures has come down to us in the epic poetry of
Homer (see Homer later in this chapter). Did the Mycenaean Greeks, led by Agamemnon,
king of Mycenae, sack the city of Troy on the northwestern coast of Asia Minor around
1250 B.C.E.? Since the excavations of Heinrich Schliemann, begun in 1870, scholars have
debated this question. Many do believe in the basic authenticity of the Homerian legend,
even if the details have become shrouded in mystery.
By the late
thirteenth century, Mycenaean Greece was showing signs of serious trouble. Mycenae itself
was torched around 1190 B.C.E., reinhabited, and finally abandoned around 1125 B.C.E.
Other Mycenaean centers show similar patterns of destruction. By 1100 B.C.E., the
Mycenaean culture was coming to an end.
Modern scholars
have proposed a number of theories to explain the collapse of Mycenaean civilization.
According to the Greeks' own legend, their mainland was invaded from the north by
another Greek-speaking people who were less civilized than the Mycenaeans. Called the
Dorians, these invaders supposedly destroyed the old centers of Mycenaean power and
ultimately established themselves in the Peloponnesus. But there is little
archaeological evidence to support the idea of massive Dorian invasions. Other
historians argue that internal conflict among the Mycenaean kings and major earthquakes
were more important factors in the Mycenaean decline. What is certain is that by 1100 B.C.E., the Greek world had entered a new period of considerable insecurity.