Roots in the Cellar: The Dark Ages of Greece Marshall High School Mr. Cline Western Civilization I: Ancient Foundations Unit Three DA
By the year 1000 B.C., the complete isolation of Greece was ending, thanks in large part to the venturing of the Phoenicians, who brought a great deal of near eastern culture back to Greece. As a result, Greek society was becoming more complex. Pottery became more sophisticated reflecting an upswing in the material culture and prosperity of the Greek mainland, and provided Greek traders with a valuable commodity to exchange for luxury goods from abroad. Increased trade led to wealth and greater social stratification as a small group of aristocrats began to emerge, who justified their preeminence as a reflection of their own superior qualities as the best men. Their wealth derived from a shifting combination of trade, plunder and piracy. But in dark age Greece, wealth alone was not sufficient to establish one s aristocratic standing. A great man had also to be a singer of songs, a doer of deeds, a winner of battles, and above all favored by the gods. In short he had to be a hero.
As contact between the Greeks and Phoenicians intensified, the Greeks began to adopt a lot of Phoenician technology and adapting it to their needs. This included such things as the; Phoenician alphabet (the Greeks improved upon this by converting unneeded consonantal symbols to vowels. Homer s rolling melodies could now be read and recorded as well as heard.) Artistic and literary traditions such as the epic poem Designs for merchant trading vessels As commercial activity increased, significant numbers of Greeks began to move among the homeland, the islands, and Anatolia, foreshadowing a great colonial expansion in the 8 th and 7 th centuries B.C. Greek population almost quadrupled during the 9 th and early 8 th centuries, and this rapid population growth placed heavy demands on the resources of Greece, a mountainous country with little agricultural land.
As smaller villages grew into towns, inhabitants of these rival communities came into more frequent contact with one another. Some degree of economic, political, and social cooperation amongst the inhabitants of these towns soon became necessary. However, the heroic values of dark age Greece did not make this easy. Each local community treasured its traditional autonomy and independence, celebrated its own religious cults, and honored its own aristocratic wise men. The Greek solution to this problem was the polis, a unique blend of institutional and informal structures of organization. Although polis is the root word for our word politics, many Greeks thought of the polis as less a state than as a social collectivity. Poleis (the plural of polis) differed widely in size and organization. Structurally, however, most poleis were organized around a political and social center known as the asty, where markets and important meetings were held and where the basic business of the polis was conducted in open air.
Surrounding the urbanized asty was the khora, or the land. The khora of a larger polis might support several other towns besides the asty, as well as numerous villages, for example all of the residents of the entire territory of Attica were considered to be citizens of Athens. The majority of Athenians then were farmers, who might come to the asty to participate in the affairs of their polis, but did not themselves reside in the urban center. Synoikismos ( the bringing together of dwellings ), or synoecism, was how Greeks described the process of early polis formation. It could come about through conquest, or absorption of smaller areas by larger ones, and/or through the slow process of neighboring communities working together to accommodate one another. What spurred synoikismos is a matter of debate, but some poleis took shape around defensible hilltop forts, such as the Acropolis in Athens, while others may have borrowed the Phoenician tradition of centering urban areas around temple complexes.
Comparing Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece Greek civilization, like Greek religion, was a decentralized affair. For most of ancient Greek history the largest political unit was the city-state, which they called a polis (plural poleis). From this word we derive many English words: politics, for the running of a polis; police, a man who serves the polis; and even polite, meaning you have the manners of a civilized person. But the Greeks did not invent the polis. You may recall that both Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations started out as competing city-states. What makes the Greeks unique was that they stuck with the polis long after their neighbors had created kingdoms and empires. This raises an important question: why?
Comparing Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece Why didn't the Greek polis behave like the other city-states of the period, unite all of Greece into a single kingdom and expand to form a Greek empire? The answer lies not in political ideals, but geography. Let us compare the geography of Greece to that of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Mesopotamia is open on all sides, it is broad and it is flat. It is unified by the Tigris and Euphrates. It is fully accessible from all sides. It is easily unified and easily invaded. By contrast, Egypt in closed in by deserts.
Comparing Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece It is narrow, it is flat, it is unified by the Nile and it is fully accessible from within but not from without. This made Egypt easily unified but hard to invade. Now let's look at Greece. Greece is closed in by mountains and the sea. Greek civilization is scattered over this mountainous terrain. This terrain is inaccessible from within and from without; this made Greece effectively impossible to unify and impossible to invade. The effect of geography on Greek politics can be seen rather clearly.
Comparing Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece When Hammurabi decided to expand his city-state of Babylon into a Kingdom (and then to an Empire), he encountered no real geographical barriers. In fact, geography helped Hammurabi. The network of rivers between the Tigris and Euphrates and the uninterrupted plains of the region allowed Hammurabi to move his troops in any direction. Yet the same lack of barriers that made Mesopotamia so easy to unite also made it vulnerable to invasion. Hammurabi's Babylonian empire was very short lived. The Pharaohs of Egypt did not have to worry so much about invasion, as Egypt is protected by deserts on three sides.
Comparing Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece Yet within its borders, Egypt was very easy to unify and maintain, since the entire civilization clustered along a single river. Thus, the city-states of Egypt were consolidated into a single kingdom with relative ease. The kingdom was protected from the outside by deserts, but the same deserts made it difficult to expand the kingdom of Egypt into an empire. Where the Sumerians built their empires on an open plain, the Greeks were restricted by mountains on all sides. Where the Egyptians united their kingdom along a single river, the Greeks were scattered in mountain valleys and islands. This isolation made unifying the Greeks into a single kingdom all but impossible.
Comparing Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece It took too long to move soldiers across the mountainous terrain of Greece, and the seasonal storms along the Mediterranean made naval empires difficult to maintain. Even the Mycenaean kings, who dominated the eastern Mediterranean for a couple centuries, never reached the level of power exercised by a Babylonian emperor, let alone the absolute authority of an Egyptian pharaoh. We can see this clearly in The Iliad. Agamemnon might be king of Mycenae, but Achilles is King of the Myrmidons and Odysseus the King of Ithaka. Agamemnon is, at best, first among equals - and barely qualifies for that title, being neither as mighty as Achilles, nor as clever as Odysseus.
Comparing Mesopotamia, Egypt and Greece Comparing the Greek City-States Agamemnon may have led the invasion of Troy, but it was Achilles and Odysseus who won it. Compare the depiction of Agamemnon in The Iliad to accounts of pharaohs and emperors who could freely claim 'I conquered so-and-so' as if they had done so single handedly. Thus we can see how the mountainous geography of Greece prevented the consolidation of a unified Greek kingdom and maintained the independence of the Greek polis. Each polis was fiercely independent, with its own customs, its own myths and its own festivals. With such variety, it is difficult to make generalizations about them.
Comparing the Greek City-States Yet there are some things that the Greek poleis shared in common. For one, they all spoke Greek. This may seem a given, but many a Mesopotamian empire had subjects speaking half a dozen different languages. The Greek poleis also all worshiped the same pantheon of gods, albeit in different ways. They all knew the same myths, though each polis had myths of its own. And they all recognized certain places as holy, like Olympia and Delphi; though each polis also had its own holy sites as well.
Comparing the Greek City-States The importance of these holy sites in uniting Greek culture cannot be overstated; they gave the Greeks places to meet and compete without bloodshed. Yet the shared values of Greek culture run even deeper. There are three other common features of Greek city-states that are uniquely Greek. These can be summarized with three Cs: constitutions, colonialism and competition. Constitutions Every Greek polis had a constitution.
Comparing the Greek City-States Colonialism While these constitutions varied greatly from one polis to another, the fact that every polis felt they needed a codified system of government (one which held true for the high as well as the low) bears witness to the Egalitarian spirit of all Greek poleis. Yet we must remember that this spirit of equality was restricted to citizens of a given polis, and did not extend to outsiders. Another thing the various Greek Poleis had in common was colonialism. Since the mountainous terrain of Greece offered little arable land, a prosperous polis would quickly outgrow its limited surrounding countryside.
Comparing the Greek City-States As populations grew, new sources of food needed to be found. The Spartans solved this problem by conquering and enslaving their neighbors. This was made possible by the relative flatness of the Peloponnese compared to the rest of Greece. Most Greek poleis did not have this option; instead, they established colonies elsewhere. With the Mediterranean as a trade route, Greek poleis could transport harvests from hundreds of miles away to feed their growing populations at home.
Comparing the Greek City-States Conversely, colonies allowed a polis to relocate some of its population elsewhere, and thus relieve crowding. Finally, founding colonies in strategic positions allowed city-states to control trade routes and expand their influence. As a result, the Greeks established colonies from Asia Minor to the Iberian Peninsula. Indeed, Southern Italy was so densely colonized by Greeks that the Romans would later call the South Magna Graecia, or Great Greece.
Comparing the Greek City-States Competition The most important unifying feature of Greek culture was their focus on competition Greek Competition Perhaps the most important unifying feature of Greek culture was their fixation on competition. The Greeks always want to find out the best of every field: the best potter, the best playwright, the best athlete, the best constitution, the best polis. To decide the winners, the Greeks held countless competitions at all levels.
Comparing the Greek City-States Competition From local court cases that read like high school speech competitions to Pan-Athenaic theatrical festivals in which citizens from all of Attika competed at Athens. To Pan-Hellenic Olympics, athletic competitions between all the Greek poleis, at the holy city of Olympia. To the Pan-Hellenic sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, where the Greek poleis tried to outshine each other with ornate treasuries full of lavish donations to the oracle.
Comparing the Greek City-States Competition While these rivalries might seem like a divisive force, in fact they worked in just the opposite way, bringing the disparate Greek poleis together. While each polis believed its system of government and its way of life was the best, they did not simply assert their beliefs as fact. Instead the Greeks put their competing perspectives to the test with contests, games and festivals. This open competition of ideals allowed rivals to respect and even admire one another instead of simply hating one another.
The unique nature of the Greek poleis becomes abundantly clear when we compare them to the Mesopotamian city-states of Assur and Babylon. Like the Greek poleis, Assur and Babylon shared a common Akkadian language. Yet, though they also shared a common pantheon, unlike the Greeks, they did not agree on common holy sites. Each was more than willing to burn the other's temples to the ground as they vied with one another for religious supremacy. With no neutral ground to meet on, they had no Pan-Mesopotamian competitions to bring them together; instead, each insisted on its own superiority. With no mountains to keep them from one another's throat, they engaged in centuries of near constant bloodshed as each tried to impose its system on the other.
Thus we've seen the basic characteristics of the Greek polis. Each polis was fiercely independent, with a unique culture and set of values. Each polis codified its values and customs in a constitution. Each polis had to expand to feed its people through colonialism. Finally, each polis engaged in competition with the other poleis. Though rivalry between the Greek city-states sometimes led to military squabbles, the Greeks also had peaceful methods to resolve conflicts and establish relative precedence in the form of competitions - ranging from local contests like the Pan-Athenaic theatre festival to Pan-Hellenic contests like the Olympics.
* The Dark Age of Greece