A Brief History of Ancient Greece PDF

A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society, and Culture Sarah B. Pomeroy, et al. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREECE This page intentionally left blank  TITLE PAGE A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREECE Polit...

A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society, and Culture Sarah B. Pomeroy, et al. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREECE This page intentionally left blank  TITLE PAGE A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREECE Politics, Society, and Culture Sarah B. Pomeroy Stanley M. Burstein Hunter College and California State University, the City University of New York Los Angeles Graduate Center Walter Donlan Jennifer Tolbert Roberts University of City College and California, Irvine the City University of New York Graduate Center New York Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2004 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright © 2004 by Sarah B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A brief history of ancient Greece : politics, society, and culture / by Sarah B. Pomeroy... [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-515680-3 — ISBN 0-19-515681-1 (pbk.) 1. Greece—History—To 146 B.C. I. Pomeroy, Sarah B. DF214.B74 2004 938’.09—dc22 2003060873 Printing (last digit): 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For Our Children and Grandchildren This page intentionally left blank  CONTENTS List of Maps xi Acknowledgments xii Preface xiii Time Line xv Introduction 1 I Early Greece and the Bronze Age 12 Greece in the Stone Ages 12 Greece in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages (c. 3000–1600 BC) 13 Greece and the Aegean in the Late Bronze Age (c. 1600–1150 BC) 22 II The “Dark Age” of Greece and the Eighth-Century “Renaissance” (c. 1150–700 BC) 36 Decline and Recovery (c. 1150–900 BC) 36 Revival (c. 900–750 BC) 41 Homeric Society 44 The End of the Dark Age 53 III Archaic Greece (c. 700–500 BC) 61 The Formation of the City-State (Polis) 61 Government in the Early City-States 63 The Colonizing Movement 65 vii viii Contents Economic and Social Divisions in the Archaic Poleis 68 Hesiod: A View from Below 71 The Hoplite Army 73 The Archaic Age Tyrants 75 The Arts and Sciences 76 Panhellenic Institutions 87 Relations Among States 88 IV Sparta 91 The Dark Age and the Archaic Period 91 The Spartan System 95 Demography and the Spartan Economy 100 Spartan Government 103 The Peloponnesian League 105 Historical Change in Sparta 106 The Spartan Mirage 107 V The Growth of Athens and the Persian Wars 110 Athens from the Bronze Age to the Early Archaic Age 110 The Reforms of Solon 113 Peisistratus and His Sons 116 The Reforms of Cleisthenes 122 The Rise of Persia 122 The Wars Between Greece and Persia 127 VI The Rivalries of the Greek City-States and the Growth of Athenian Democracy 138 The Aftermath of the Persian Wars and the Foundation of a New League 139 New Developments in Athens and Sparta 142 The “First” (Undeclared) Peloponnesian War (460–445 BC) 143 Pericles and the Growth of Athenian Democracy 145 Literature and Art 148 Oikos and Polis 157 The Greek Economy 161  Contents ix VII Greece on the Eve of the Peloponnesian War 166 Greece After the Thirty Years’ Peace 166 The Physical Space of the Polis: Athens in the Fifth Century 169 Intellectual Life in Fifth-Century Greece 177 Historical and Dramatic Literature of the Fifth Century 179 Currents in Greek Thought and Education 189 The Breakdown of the Peace 193 Resources for War 198 VIII The Peloponnesian War 200 The Archidamian War (431–421 BC) 200 Between Peace and War 211 The Invasion of Sicily (415–413 BC) 213 The War in the Aegean and the Oligarchic Coup at Athens (413–411 BC) 217 The Last Years of War (407–404 BC) 220 IX The Crisis of the Polis and the Age of Shifting Hegemonies 225 Oligarchy at Athens: The Thirty Tyrants 226 The Trial of Socrates (399 BC) 227 The Fourth Century: Changing Ideas, Continuing Warfare 230 Law and Democracy in Athens 235 The Fourth-Century Polis 238 Philosophy and the Polis 241 X Phillip II and the Rise of Macedon 254 Early Macedon 254 Macedonian Society and Kingship 255 The Reign of Philip II 258 Philip’s Plans for Greece 265 XI Alexander the Great 270 Consolidating Power 271 From Issus to Egypt: Conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean (332–331 BC) 278 x Contents From Alexandria to Persepolis: The King of Asia (331–330 BC) 281 The High Road to India: Alexander in Central Asia 283 India and the End of the Dream 287 Return to the West 290 The Achievements of Alexander 292 XII The New World of the Hellenistic Period 294 The Struggle for the Succession 294 The Regency of Perdiccas 296 The Primacy of Antigonus the One-Eyed 298 Birth Pangs of the New Order (301–276 BC) 299 The Polis in the Hellenistic World 302 The Macedonian Kingdoms 306 Hellenistic Society 308 Alexandria and Hellenistic Culture 310 Social Relations in the Hellenistic World 319 Epilogue 326 Glossary 331 Art and Illustration Credits 341 Index 347  LIST OF MAPS Greece and the Aegean world xxii Mycenaean sites in the thirteenth century BC 26 Greek colonization: 750–500 BC 67 Peloponnesus 92 Attica 123 The Persian Empire in the reign of Darius 126 The Persian wars 134 The Athenian Empire at its height 141 Sicily and southern Italy 167 Alliances at the outset of the Peloponnesian War 196 Theaters of operation during the Peloponnesian War 201 Pylos and Sphacteria 207 Macedonia and its neighbors 257 Alexander’s campaign 274 The Greek view of the inhabited world 287 The Hellenistic world 300 xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors wish to acknowledge the following publishers for their kind per- mission to reprint material from their publications: Cambridge University Press: The Hellenistic Age from the Battle of Ipsos to the Death of Kleopatra VII, edited and translated by Stanley M. Burstein. Copyright © 1996. Reprinted with the per- mission of Cambridge University Press. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.: Homer: Iliad, translated by Stanley Lombardo. Copyright © 1997. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Johns Hopkins University Press: Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, Shield, translated by Apostolos N.Athanas- sakis, p. 73. Copyright © 1983. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hop- kins University Press. Pindar’s Victory Songs, translated by Frank Nisetich, pp. 256–257. Copyright © 1980. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press. Oxford University Press: The Republic of Plato, translated by Francis MacDonald Cornford. Copyright © 1945. Xenophon: Oeconomicus: A Social and Historical Commentary, edited and trans- lated by Sarah B. Pomeroy. Copyright © 1994. Schocken Books: Sappho and the Greek Lyric Poets, translated by Willis Barnstone. Copyright © 1962, 1967, 1988. Reprinted by permission of Schocken Books, distributed by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc. University of California Press: Sappho’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient Greece, translated by Di- ane J. Rayor. Copyright © 1991. University of Chicago Press: Aeschylus: The Persians, translated by S. Bernardete, and Aeschylus: Agamemnon, translated by R. Lattimore, in The Complete Greek Tragedies: Aeschylus, edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Copyright © 1992. Sophocles: Antigone, translated by E. Wyckoff, in The Complete Greek Tragedies: Sophocles, edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Copyright © 1992. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.: Herodotus: The Histories, edited by Walter Blanco and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, translated by Walter Blanco. Copyright © 1992. Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War, edited by Walter Blanco and Jennifer Tol- bert Roberts, translated by Walter Blanco. Copyright © 1998. xii  PREFACE T he history of the ancient Greeks is one of most improbable success stories in world history. A small people inhabiting a country poor in resources and divided into hundreds of squabbling mini-states created one of the world’s most remark- able cultures. Located on the periphery of the Bronze Age civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Greeks absorbed key technical skills such as metallurgy and writing in the process of developing a culture marked by astonishing cre- ativity, versatility, and resilience. Finally, having spread from Spain to the bor- ders of India, Greek culture gradually transformed as it became an integral part of other civilizations: Latin, Iranian, Arabic, and Byzantine. In the process, how- ever, the Greeks left a rich legacy in every area of the arts and sciences that is still alive in Western and Islamic civilizations. Almost ten years ago the authors of this book set out to write a new history of the country the English poet Byron called “the land of lost gods.” We hoped that our work, Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History, would flesh out the romantic images of Greece with the new understanding of the realities of Greek history gained from the patient scholarship of a half-century of talented Greek historians. Thanks to their achievements, we were able to give full recog- nition to the significance of the Dark Age in the formation of Greek civilization and incorporate into the story of Greece the experiences of those who did not be- long to the “scribbling class,” such as women and slaves. A Brief History of Ancient Greece is not merely an abridgement of our previous work, but a new book in which greater emphasis is given to social and cultural history. At the same time we have tried to retain all those qualities that made our first book such a success. Every paragraph and sentence has been carefully re- viewed. The suggested readings have been updated, and suggestions and correc- tions sent to us by our readers have been incorporated into the text. The maps have been completely redesigned and new translations selected or prepared wher- ever necessary. An old saw has it that the purpose of studying Greek history is to xiii xiv Preface understand Greek art and literature. We hope that the result of our efforts is a book that will prove a valuable guide for those people who wish to follow that recommendation and enable them to better appreciate the remarkable legacy of the ancient Greeks. All works of historical synthesis depend on the contributions of innumerable scholars whose names do not appear in the text. We would like to thank them and our generous readers and students, from whose comments and suggestions we have greatly benefited. We again are indebted to Robert Miller and his talented staff at Oxford University Press, who have been generous with their support and assistance throughout the long gestation of this project. Beth Cohen and H. Alan Shapiro have again given our illustration program their careful attention but are not responsible for any lapses in judgment on the part of the authors. We would also like to express our gratitude to Professor Walter Blanco of the Department of English at Lehman College of the City University of New York for the excellent new translations of Herodotus that he prepared for our book and to Professor Miriam E. Burstein of the Department of English at the State University of New York at Brockport for again taking charge of the difficult tasks of acquiring per- missions from various publishers and reminding us that our prose was intended for the elusive “general reader” and not specialists in Greek history. We would also like to thank the various publishers who have granted us permis- sion to reprint translations. Unattributed translations in the text are by the authors. Jennifer T. Roberts, New York City Walter Donlan, Irvine, California Stanley M. Burstein, Los Alamitos, Sarah B. Pomeroy, New York City California  TIME LINE Political/ Cultural Period Military Events Social Events Development 6500–3000 Permanent farming Domestication of plants Neolithic villages and animals; pottery 3000–2100 Early Social ranking emerges; Bronze Age villages and districts (Early Helladic 2800–1900) ruled by hereditary chiefs 2500 Widespread use of bronze and other metals in the Aegean 2100–1600 2100–1900 Lerna and 2100–1900 Incursions of 2100–1900 Indo- Middle Bronze Age other sites destroyed Indo-European speakers European gods intro- (Middle Helladic into Greece duced into Greece 1900–1580) 2000 First palaces in Crete 1900 Mainland contacts with Crete and the Near East 1800 Cretans develop Linear A writing 1600–1150 Late Bronze 1600 Mycenae and other 1600 Shaft graves Age (Late Helladic sites become power 1580–1150) centers; small kingdoms emerge continued xv  xvi Time Line Political/ Cultural Period Military Events Social Events Development 1500–1450 Mycen- 1500 Tholos tombs aeans take over Crete 1450 Linear B writing 1375 Knossos 1400–1200 Height of 1400 New palaces in destroyed Mycenaean power Greece and prosperity 1250–1225 “The Trojan War” (?) 1200 Invaders loot 1200–1100 Palace- 1200 Cultural decline and burn the palace system collapses centers 1150–900 Early Dark Age 1050 Small chiefdoms 1050 Iron technology (Submycenaean 1125–1050) established; migrations (Protogeometric 1050–900) of mainland Greeks to Ionia 1000 Dorian Greeks 950 Monumental build- settle in the mainland ing at Lefkandi and the islands 900–750/700 Late Dark Age 900 Population (Early Geometric 900–850) increases; new settle- (Middle Geometric 850–750) ments established; trade and manufacture expand 800 Rapid population 800 Greeks develop an growth alphabet; earliest temples built 776 Traditional date of first Olympian games 750/700–490 Archaic Period 730–700 First 750–700 City-states 750–675 Iliad and (Late Geometric 750–700 Messenian War emerge Odyssey composed 750 Overseas coloniza- 720 “Orientalizing period” tion to the West begins in art begins 700–650 Evolution of 700 Hesiod; period of hoplite armor and lyric poetry begins tactics 669 Battle of Hysiae 670–500 Tyrants rule in many city-states continued  Time Line xvii Political/ Cultural Period Military Events Social Events Development 650 Second Messenian 650 Colonization of Black 650 Temples built of War Sea area begins; earliest stone and marble; known stone inscription Corinthian black-figure of a law; “Lycurgan” technique Reforms at Sparta; the “Great Rhetra” (?) 632 Cylon fails in attempt at tyranny in Athens 620 Law code of Draco in Athens 600 Lydians begin to 600 Beginnings of science mint coins and philosophy (the “Presocratics”) 582–573 Pythian, Isth- mian, Nemean games inaugurated 560–514 Peisistratus and Peisistratus expands his sons tyrants of Athens religious festivals at Athens 550 Sparta dominant in the 530 Athenian red-figure Peloponnesus technique 507 Cleisthenes institutes political reforms in Athens 499 Ionian Greeks rebel from Persian Empire 5th-century rationalists and scientists; Hippo- crates; advances in medicine; increase in literacy 490–323 Classical Period 490 Battle of Marathon Classical style in sculpture 486 Decision to choose Athenian archons by lot 482 Ostracism of Aristides 480–479 Persian Invasion of Greece continued  xviii Time Line Political/ Cultural Period Military Events Social Events Development 477 Foundation of Delian League 470–456 Construction of temple of Zeus at Olympia Growth of democracy in Athens 463 Helot rebellion in Sparta 461 Reforms of Ephialtes at Athens 460–445 “First” Peloponnesian War 458 Aeschylus’ Oresteia 454 Athenians move treasury from Delos to Athens Flourishing of Greek trade 451 Pericles carries law and manufacture limiting citizenship at Athens 445 Thirty Years’ Peace Herodotus at work on his Histories 447–432 Construction of Parthenon at Athens Sophists active in Athens 431–404 Peloponnesian Thucydides begins his War History 429 Death of Pericles 428 Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannus 425 Aristophanes’ Acharnians 423 Thucydides exiled from Athens 421 Peace of Nicias continued  Time Line xix Political/ Cultural Period Military Events Social Events Development 415–413 Sicilian 415 Euripides’ Trojan campaign Women 411–410 Oligarchic coup in 411 Aristophanes’ Athens; establishment of Lysistrata Council of 400; regime of the 5000 403–377 Sparta the 404–403 Regime of the Thirty most powerful state Tyrants in Athens in Greece 399 Trial and execution of 399–347 Dialogues of Socrates Plato; foundation of the Academy 395–387 Corinthian Fourth century: Rise of War class of rhetores at Athens; economic inequalities and social stasis throughout Greece 377–371 Athens the most powerful state in Greece 371–362 Thebes the most powerful state in Greece Serious population decline in Sparta; impoverished class of “Inferiors” at Sparta; increasing amount of property in hands of Spartan women 359 Defeat of 359 Accession of Philip II Perdiccas III 357 Marriage of Philip II to Olympias 356 Birth of Alexander the 356 Philip II’s Olympic Great victory 355 Demosthenes’ first speech 347 Death of Plato 356–346 Third Sacred 346 Isocrates’ Philippus War; Peace of Philocrates continued  xx Time Line Political/ Cultural Period Military Events Social Events Development 338 Battle of 338 Assassination of 338 Death of Isocrates Chaeronea Artaxerxes III; foundation of Corinthian League; marriage of Philip II and Cleopatra 336 Invasion of Asia 336 Accession of Darius III; by Philip II assassination of Philip II; accession of Alexander III 335 Revolt of Thebes 335 Destruction of Thebes 335 Aristotle returns to Athens; founding of Lyceum 334 Battle of Granicus 333 Battle of Issus 333 Alexander at Gordium 331 Battle of 331 Foundation of 331 Visit to Siwah Gaugamela Alexandria by Alexander 330–327 War in Bactria 330 Destruction of and Sogdiana Persepolis; death of Philotas 329 Assassination of Darius III 328 Murder of Clitus 327–325 Alexander’s 327 Marriage of Alexander invasion of India and Roxane 326 Battle of the Hydaspes 323–30 Hellenistic Period 323 Death of Alexander III; accession of Philip III and Alexander IV 323–322 Lamian War 322 Dissolution of the 322 Deaths of Aristotle Corinthian League and Demosthenes 321 Invasion of Egypt 321 Death of Perdiccas; 321–292 Career of Antipater becomes regent Menander 318–316 Revolt against Polyperchon 315–311 Four-year war 315 Freedom of Greeks against Antigonus proclaimed by Antigonus the One-Eyed continued  Time Line xxi Political/ Cultural Period Military Events Social Events Development 311 Peace between Antigonus and his rivals 307 Demetrius invades 307–283 Foundation of Greece the Museum 306 Battle of Salamis 306 Antigonus and 306 Epicurus founds Demetrius acclaimed kings Garden 305 Ptolemy, Seleucus, Lysimachus, and Cassander declare themselves kings 301 Battle of Ipsus 301 Death of Antigonus; 301 Zeno founds Stoa division of his empire 300–246 Construction of the Pharos 283 Death of Ptolemy I; accession of Ptolemy II 281 Battle of 281 Deaths of Lysimachus Corupedium and Seleucus 279 Invasion of Gauls 235–222 Reign of Cleomenes III at Sparta 222 Battle of Sellasia 222 Exile of Cleomenes III; end of his reforms at Sparta 200–197 Second Macedonian War 196 Romans proclaim freedom of the Greeks at Isthmian games 171–168 Third Macedonian War 167 End of the Macedonian 167 Polybius comes to monarchy Rome 31 Battle of Actium 30 Suicide of Cleopatra VII; Rome annexes Egypt xxii T H R A C E ry St mo Philippi n R Mt. Pangaeus. Pella Amphipolis Abdera I A Derveni Levkadia O N Therme Thasos (Salonica) Stageira D E Aegae C CHALCIDICE A (Vergina) Pydna Olynthus M Mt. Athos Mt. Olympus Potidaea Dium Mende Torone E P IR Mt. Ossa Lemnos M Tricca U t. Dodona Larissa Mt. Pelium P in S THESSALY dus Corcyra Pharsalus Pagasae Pherae AEGEAN Ambracia SEA Nicopolis C. Artemisium Actium ACARNANIA Eu Scyros Leucas Thermopylae bo Stratus Mt. Kalapodi ea Thermum Parnassus Chalcis Delphi O CIS L. Copais Lefkandi IA PH E TOL Orchomenus Chaeronea BOEOTIA Eretria Ithaca A Mt. Helicon Thebes Delium Tanagra Patrae A Aegira Leuctra Cephallenia AE Plataea Marathon ACH Sicyon Megara Elis Mt. Pentelicum Athens Andros DIA Corinth Isthmia E C A Piraeus L Nemea Cleonae Salamis AR IS Zacynthus ARGO Mycenae Aegina Laurium Mantinea L IS Ceos Olympia Epidaurus Argos Tiryns Sunium Bassae Tenos Tegea Troezen Calauria Lycosura Cythnos I A Megalopolis Delos N SSE clade s ME Messene Seriphos y C Paros Sparta Pylos Mt. Taygetus Siphnos LACONIA Methone Gythium Melos Cythera MEDITERRANEAN SEA Cydonia Knossos 0 20 40 60 80 100 miles Crete 0 40 80 120 160 km Phaistos Greece and the Aegean world.  xxiii BLACK SEA Byzantium Chalcedon Perinthus Nicomedia PROPONTIS Samothrace SE NE San R SO CHE Cyzicus ar g Sestus Lampsacus i u s R. Imbros Hellespont Abydus Elaeus Sigeum Troy M Y S I A Gargara ANATOLIA I A Assus G Lesbos Y R Pergamum H P Mytilene R. Eresus aicus C L Y D Pitane I A Cyme Psara Phocaea Herm us R. Sardis Chios Smyrna Chios Clazomenae Teos Cayster R. Erythrae Colophon R. Lebedus ander Ephesus Tralles Mae Samos Aphrodisias Icaria Priene Magnesia Samos Miletus C A R I A Didyma Myconos Myndus Naxos Halicarnassus Elmali Cos Amorgos L Y Cnidus C I A Thera Ialysus Xanthus Rhodes Camirus Rhodes Lindus Mallia Zakro This page intentionally left blank  INTRODUCTION H istorians who study ancient civilizations have the daunting task of follow- ing the path of societies and cultures on the basis of scant sources. Actually, as past civilizations go, ancient Greece has left us a comparatively rich record. Even so, we possess only a tiny fraction of what was originally there. Inevitably, then, many aspects of society and culture, even in the most well-documented periods of Greek antiquity, cannot be viewed in bold relief. Yet there is good news, too. Every year new discoveries are made that continue to enlarge our fund of infor- mation, while, at the same time, new ways of looking at the old sources have broadened our perspectives. SOURCES: HOW WE KNOW ABOUT THE ANCIENT GREEKS Sources are the raw material of history out of which historians weave their sto- ries. Just about everything preserved from antiquity is a potential source for the history of antiquity. Our sources fall into two broad categories: the physical re- mains, which include anything material, from bones to buildings, and the writ- ten remains, which include the words of the Greeks themselves or of others who wrote about them in antiquity. Of course, the line between the material and the written is often blurred, as in the case of words scratched on a piece of pottery, or an inscription carved on a stone pillar. Given that our primary sources are at least two thousand years old, and in many cases much older, it is not surprising that most of them require rehabilita- tion or reconstruction even before they can be of substantial use. But, fortunately, historians do not have to examine them from scratch. They rely on archaeologists to excavate, classify, and interpret most of the material evidence; paleographers to decipher and elucidate the texts written on papyrus and parchment; epigraphists and numismatists to interpret inscriptions on stones and coins. Without the ex- pertise of those specialists who process the raw sources, the work of historians would not be possible. 1 2 A Brief History of Ancient Greece Archaeologists study past societies primarily through the material remains— buildings, tools, and other artifacts. They create a history of the material culture on the basis of the changing patterns that they discern in the physical record. His- torians, on the other hand, primarily use documents, inscriptions, and literary texts to construct a narrative of events and the people who were involved in them: what they did, why they did it, and the changes brought on by their ac- tions. Nevertheless, both disciplines are engaged in a single collaborative project, the reconstruction of the lifeways of the Greek peoples over time. RETRIEVING THE PAST: THE MATERIAL RECORD Ancient Greece lies underground. Except for a few stone buildings, mostly temples, which have survived above ground, everything we have has been dug up from be- neath, very often from dozens of feet below the present surface. Materials decay, and the soil of Greece is not good for preserving things. Accordingly, artifacts made of wood, cloth, and leather are rarely found. Metals fare better: gold and silver last almost forever; bronze is fairly durable; while iron is more subject to corrosion. An- other material, which is virtually indestructible, is terra-cotta, clay baked at very high temperatures. Clay was used in antiquity for many different objects, includ- ing figurines and votive plaques, but most of our clay objects are vessels that have been found by the thousands in graves and other sites. It was mainly on the basis of pots that archaeologists were able to construct a chronology for prehistoric and early historic Greece that could be translated into actual dates. Clay pots were made wide-bellied or slender-bodied, long-necked or wide- mouthed, footed or footless, with one, two, or no handles. Some pots, such as the perfume flasks called aryballoi, stood only two or three inches high; others, like the pithoi used for storing olive oil and grain, were often as big as a human be- ing. In the ancient world, clay vessels had to be made in all sizes and shapes, be- cause they served virtually every purpose that a container can serve. They were our bags, cartons, and shipping crates, our cooking pots, bottles, and glasses, as well as our fine stemware and “good” china bowls. Because their basic shapes re- mained much the same, yet they underwent gradual changes in style and deco- ration, pots could be placed in relative chronological sequences. Earthenware from one site is cross-dated with examples from other sites, thus confirming that site A is older or younger than sites B and C. But the big breakthrough for es- tablishing “absolute” or calendar dates comes about when a datable object from an outside culture is found amidst the Greek material. Such an object might be a scarab inscribed with the name of an Egyptian king. Since the actual dates of his reign are known independently from the Egyptian king-lists, it follows that the Greek objects found with it in that deposit belonged to approximately the same time. Through the repeated process of establishing key cross-dates, a workable chronology emerges that allows us to place an object, or grave, or building in real time: “late fourteenth century BC” or “around 720 BC.” Today’s archaeologists also have at their disposal more scientific techniques for dating objects and sites, such as measuring the radioactive decay of organic materials (carbon-14 dating).  Introduction 3 Yet, notwithstanding the considerable success that modern archaeology has had in bringing the ancient past to light, the fact is that wordless objects can tell us only so much about how people lived, what they experienced, or what they thought. RETRIEVING THE PAST: THE WRITTEN RECORD Ancient writings were inscribed upon many different materials including clay, stone, metal, and papyrus (and from the second century BC on, parchment). Most of the written sources that have come down to us were composed in the Greek alphabet, which was introduced in the eighth century BC; but we also have clay tablets from a very brief time in the second millennium BC that were written in a syllabic script called Linear B. (We shall discuss Linear B writing in Chapter One and the Greek alphabet in Chapter Two.) With the rapid spread of the alphabet came a torrent of written texts that would continue unabated throughout the rest of antiquity. Unfortunately, most of this has been lost; yet that so much has survived is something of a miracle in itself. We may lament that of the more than 120 plays written by Sophocles, one of the most famous of the fifth century BC dramatists, only seven have come down to us whole. We are grateful, however, to have as much as we have. After all, 20,000,000 words are stored in the electronic database of Greek literary texts written down from the late eighth century BC to the second century AD. The most common medium for writing in the ancient Mediterranean was pa- pyrus (the paper of antiquity), which had been used in Egypt since the third mil- lennium. Papyrus sheets were made by bonding together layered strips sliced from the papyrus reed; these were then glued together to form a long roll, 20 or more feet long. Words were written horizontally to form columns, which the reader iso- lated by scrolling back and forth along the roll. A papyrus roll could hold, on av- erage, a play of about 1,500 lines or two to three “books” of Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey. Every text had to be copied by hand (usually by slaves), a time-consuming and ex- pensive proposition. The ancient Greeks were fairly assiduous in preserving the au- thors from their past. A reader visiting the great library at Alexandria during the first century BC would have had access to about 500,000 book-rolls, while the col- lection at Pergamum is said to have exceeded 200,000 rolls. But already by this time the process of selection had begun. The Alexandrian scholars themselves appear to have used the term “those included” to denote a list of authors who were deemed most worthy of being studied in schools. Natu- rally the “included” writers had the best chances for survival. And as literary tastes continued to change during later antiquity, many manuscripts ceased to be copied and crumbled into dust. Fortunately, papyrus endures well in a hot, dry environment, as in the desert sands of Egypt, where many thousands of Greek pa- pyri, dating from the fourth century BC onward, have been found. Most of these are contemporary documents; however, papyri rescued from desert dumps have also preserved major literary works from all periods of Greek antiquity that oth- erwise would have been lost completely. In addition to texts originally written on papyrus, hundreds of inscriptions on stone and metal, including coins, survive Figure i. Part of a papyrus roll from the second century AD, showing how the text is divided into columns. This and other papyri are our only sources for the speeches of Hyperides, one of the leading Athenian politi- cians of the fourth century BC. Figure ii. A school-room scene from Athens (c. 490–480 BC). In the center, a pupil is recit- ing his lesson before a teacher who is holding a papyrus roll. 4  Introduction 5 that range in subject matter from private funerary epitaphs and dedications to public decrees, treaties, and laws. The latter are especially valuable, because they preserve information about public life that is seldom recorded elsewhere. Our sources vary in both quantity and quality according to time and place. For the Mycenaean Age (c. 1600–1200 BC), we have a wealth of material evidence (in- cluding the Linear B tablets) that permits a fairly detailed picture of the society. For the subsequent period, the Dark Age, down to the eighth century BC, mater- ial remains are very sparse and there are no written records. After the seventh century BC, however, when both material and literary remains start to proliferate, we begin to have a dynamic picture of change and continuity. The picture will show how the Greeks responded to environmental pressures with ideas and tech- nological innovations, how they interacted as individuals within communities and as communities within communities, and how they developed a distinctive culture while preserving individual distinction. Our literary sources are a diverse group, written in many different genres, that is, categories of composition defined by form and content. These include various types of poetry such as epic, lyric, tragedy, and comedy, as well as the prose gen- res of history, biography, oratory, and philosophy. Naturally, modern historians rely especially on the writings of ancient historians and biographers, but the other genres, both of poetry and of prose, are no less essential as sources. Of course, there is a big distinction between mythical and historical narratives of the past. We don’t expect historical veracity from Homer’s account of the Trojan War. At the same time, not even an historian who strives for veracity can give us a truly objective and unbiased account of the past. The ancient historians, no differ- ent from us really, aimed to convey only what they deemed historically significant. Because they selected some facts to the exclusion of others, even two roughly con- temporary historians—the fifth-century Herodotus and Thucydides, for example— would necessarily produce different accounts of the same past events. Another lim- itation of our written sources is that, with very few exceptions, they are all produced by a privileged group: urban males, mostly from the upper class. In order to illu- minate the lives of women, the very poor, and slaves, who do not generally speak for themselves, historians employ a variety of strategies, often drawing upon femi- nism, Marxism, cultural studies, and other interdisciplinary approaches. A SYNOPSIS OF WRITTEN SOURCES BY PERIODS 3000–700 BC As we have seen, the Greeks of the Bronze Age (c. 3000–1150 BC) left no written records except for the Linear B tablets near the end of the Late Bronze Age. The long silence which followed baffled the efforts of even ancient Greek historians to describe the centuries before the reappearance of writing in the eighth century. Their source material was a body of orally transmitted myths and legends, some of which probably went back to the second millennium. The Greeks of the histori- cal period generally regarded these stories as their ancient history. The central 6 A Brief History of Ancient Greece event of their distant past was the Trojan War, which, if it really happened, would have taken place in the thirteenth century BC. The Trojan War and its immediate aftermath are the setting for the earliest texts that we have, Homer’s Iliad and Odys- sey, which are believed to be the end product of a tradition of oral poetry going back many centuries. It is currently thought that they were committed to writing in the later eighth century or early in the seventh. The use of these two very long epic poems as historical sources has been debated since the end of antiquity and is still a matter of controversy. Do they reflect a real society? If so, when? Or do they reveal, rather, the values and norms of later ancient Greeks who contrasted their own time with a former “age of heroes”? 700–490 BC Hesiod (c. 700) stands at the beginning of the Archaic Age. The two texts that have come down under Hesiod’s name, the Theogony and the Works and Days, are, like the Iliad and the Odyssey, lengthy poems composed in the epic meter. In con- tent, however, they differ not only from Homer but also from each other. While the Theogony reaches back in time to tell the origins of the Greek gods and the creation of the universe, the Works and Days is set in the poet’s own day and is our earliest source that directly addresses contemporary social concerns. The Archaic Age poets—who composed in the variety of forms we lump together under the rubric of lyric—abuse their enemies, praise the gods, argue politics, and pine over unrequited love in their verses. Even in the fragmentary shape in which we have them, the poems let us glimpse the political, social, and intellectual move- ments that distinguished the seventh and sixth centuries BC. Yet, in a sense the Archaic Age is still prehistory, for there are no historical writ- ings from this period. The fifth-century historians, Herodotus (c. 484–425) and Thucydides (c. 460–400), however, provide us with much valuable information about the development of the early city-states, especially Athens and Sparta. Sources for early Athens, though meager, are not quite as sparse as they are for Sparta. By good fortune, a papyrus from Egypt has preserved part of The Athen- ian Constitution, written by the philosopher Aristotle (384–322) or one of his stu- dents. This document, as well as Plutarch’s Life of Solon, quotes fragments of the poetry of the lawgiver Solon (c. 600), who is our earliest source for Athenian so- ciety. The bulk of what we know about early Sparta and its institutions, however, comes primarily from later writers, particularly the fourth-century BC historian Xenophon and the biographer Plutarch (46–120 AD). Since the Spartans them- selves left almost no written records, and the accounts of later writers tended to idealize or criticize their culture, it is particularly challenging for historians to separate the real Sparta from the fictional Sparta. 490–323 BC What modern historians call the Classical period of Greece begins in 490 with the victory of the Greeks over the Persians in the Battle of Marathon and ends with the  Introduction 7 death of Alexander the Great. The sources for this period are fuller than for any other period of ancient Greece and are drawn from all over the eastern Mediter- ranean world, not from Greece alone. The wars of these two centuries formed the themes of our first extant Greek historians. The Histories of Herodotus (c. 485–420 BC) ask the question “why did Greeks and non-Greeks go to war?” and respond with a chain of mutual wrongful acts and cultural misunderstandings reaching far back in time and space. Herodotus is our primary source for the Persian wars from the Greek perspective, and provides much information about relations among Greek city-states in the sixth and early fifth centuries, especially Athens and Sparta. The principal source for the actions that led to the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta and their allies and for the war itself is the History of Thucydides (c. 460–395 BC). Thucydides aimed for accuracy; his account is informed by con- temporary documents as well as by interviews with witnesses on both sides. But, as we have noted, no historian is ever truly impartial. As an interpreter of events, he couldn’t help making judgments with every selection or arrangement of his “facts.” Xenophon (c. 428–354 BC), who began his Hellenica almost exactly where Thucydides left off and continued his history down to 362 BC, seems to have made an effort to practice what he understood as “Thucydidean historiography.” Sev- eral other fourth-century historians who wrote about the Peloponnesian War and its aftermath survive in the biographies of Plutarch and the historical books of Diodorus (first century BC). During these two centuries of alternating war and uneasy peace, poetry, phi- losophy, and the visual arts flourished, and the extant works reflect changing ideas, tastes, concerns, and lifestyles, particularly in Athens where most of our evidence comes from. Of the hundreds of dramas that were produced during this period, only the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides and the come- dies of Aristophanes and Menander have survived (and even their works are mostly lost). With exception of Menander’s comedies, the plays do not attempt to mirror society; nor, like today’s “docu-dramas,” can they be seen as “history with the boring parts taken out.” Yet, social historians can extrapolate from them evidence about many aspects of Athenian life. The tragedians Aeschylus, Sopho- cles, and Euripides use plots and characters from ancient myths, but their dra- mas often offer insights into the contemporary concerns of the citizenry. Unlike the characters in the tragedies, those of the comic playwright Aristophanes are represented as contemporary Athenians. Some of them are well-known public figures whom he makes the butt of parody and abusive satire. While it is diffi- cult for us to tell how Aristophanes really felt about the people he attacked in verse, his comedies do show us what made male audiences in a democracy laugh. Philosophers were among the numerous intellectuals in the fourth century who were voicing their dissatisfaction with traditional democracy and suggesting new models of government. The surviving works of Plato (428–348 BC) and Aristotle (384–322 BC) not only fault the fundamental ideals of democracy, liberty, and equal- ity, but even undertake to redefine them. Yet philosophical writings, no less than drama, defy our attempts to fasten down their viewpoints. Plato, for example, con- veniently detaches himself from his arguments by expressing them in the form of 8 A Brief History of Ancient Greece dialogues in which he does not appear himself. Nevertheless, their theories about statecraft are evidence for the debate among the intellectual elite over the viability of democracy as they knew it in their day. Varied aspects of Athenian public and private life in the fourth century are made vivid to us by the dozens of extant speeches. Lysias, Andocides, Isocrates, and Demosthenes were among the influential politician-orators (rhētores) who composed speeches for delivery in the law courts and the popular assembly. Be- cause they were constructed to dazzle their audiences and persuade them with clever rhetoric, the “facts” brought forth in their arguments (e.g., the wording of a particular law) must be regarded with some skepticism. Demosthenes (384–322 BC) was most famous for his “Philippics,” orations against the ruler of Macedon, Philip II, who was then threatening to become the master of all the Greek states. 323–30 BC The conquests of Philip’s son, Alexander III (the “Great”) extended as far as the borders of India. Curiously, the huge number of books written about Alexander after his death in 323, survive only in fragments. We are left with five ancient bi- ographies—Plutarch’s Life of Alexander is one—written three to five hundred years later and thus subject to the biases of their own times. The sources for Alexander’s successors, who ruled over the various parts of the huge empire, are equally scanty. Except for Diodorus’ account (first century BC) of the final decades of the fourth century and scraps of other later writings that yield some information about the two generations after Alexander, little else remains to tell their story. Fortunately, ample sources exist that illuminate everyday life and the admin- istrative, military, and economic apparatus of the various Hellenistic kingdoms. In Egypt, for example, numerous inscriptions and thousands of public and pri- vate documents preserved on papyrus record all aspects of urban and village life. Among the papyri we find private letters, marriage contracts, wills, tax assess- ments and records of legal proceedings. New philosophies such as Stoicism and Epicureanism (whose precepts are pre- served in later sources) offered advice on how to cope with the sense of dislocation produced by this vastly enlarged, culturally diverse universe. Not surprisingly, the surviving works of the Hellenistic poets, Callimachus, Theocritus, and Apol- lonius Rhodius, expressed a double urge: to recreate the past so that it conformed to the needs of a complex world and at the same time to preserve the past exactly as it was. THE PHYSICAL CONTEXT: THE LAND OF GREECE The material and written sources are only part of the story, however. History does not occur in a vacuum but in particular places. Greek historians, therefore, must also consider the character of the land of Greece itself, for the natural  Introduction 9 environment of a people—the landscape, the climate, and the natural resources— is a major factor in determining the way they live and how they develop socially. Hellas, the homeland of the Greeks, ancient and modern, covers the southern por- tion of the Balkan peninsula and the islands that lie to the west and east of the mainland. The Greek islands to the east, in the Aegean Sea, are numerous; some are closer to the coast of Anatolia (modern Turkey) than to the mainland. The largest Greek island, Crete, lies to the south, about midway between the Greek mainland and North Africa. A place of myth and legend, Crete will have a promi- nent role in the early part of our narrative. In terms of square miles, Greece is about the size of England in Great Britain or the state of Alabama in the United States. The landscape is very rugged, with mountains covering almost 75 percent of the land. Only about 30 percent of the land can be cultivated at all, and only about 20 percent is classified as good agri- cultural land. Except in the northern mainland, where there are extensive plain- lands, the mountains and lower hills cut the land into many narrow coastal plains, and upland plains and valleys. Except for Mt. Olympus in Thessaly (nearly 10,000 feet), the mountain ranges are not terribly high (3,000–8,000 feet), but they are quite steep and craggy, which made overland travel in antiquity difficult and somewhat isolated the small valleys and their people from one another. By far the easiest way to travel was by sea, especially in the islands and the southern mainland, where the coast is never more than 40 miles away. The chains of islands in the Aegean Sea facilitated sea voyages. Although the coastlines of the mainland and the islands are generally quite rugged, sailors could usually find a safe landfall where they could beach their boats for the night or wait out a threatening storm. The few locations that offered a good harbor became ports early on, destinations for the exchange of trade goods. Throughout antiquity, the narrow Aegean tied the Greeks to the Near East and Egypt, commercially, cul- turally, politically, and militarily. The commercial contacts were vital; for, with the exception of building stone and clay, Greece is not well endowed with raw materials. The necessity to trade overseas for raw materials, especially for bronze, destined the Greeks very early in their history to take to the sea and mingle with people from the other, older civilizations to the east and south. The Mediterranean climate is semiarid, with long, hot, dry summers and short, cool, moist winters, when most of the rain falls. This general pattern varies from region to region in Greece. Northern Greece has a more continental climate, with much colder and wetter winters than the south. More rain falls on the western side of the Greek mainland than on the eastern side, while the Aegean islands re- ceive even less. The generally mild weather permitted outdoor activity for most of the year. The soil in Greece, though rocky, is fairly rich, the most fertile plow- land being in the small plains where, over the ages, earth washed down from the hills has formed deep deposits. The lower hillsides, which are rockier, can be cul- tivated through terracing, which prevents the soil from washing farther down the slope and captures soil from above. The mountains, with their jagged limestone peaks and steep cliffs, support only wild vegetation, but some enclose mountain valleys suitable for farming and for grazing animals. Wood, essential for fuel and 10 A Brief History of Ancient Greece construction, especially shipbuilding, was originally abundant in the highland ar- eas. As time went on, however, forests became depleted and by the fifth century BC the more populous regions were forced to import timber. Water, the most pre- cious natural resource, is scarce in Greece, because there are very few rivers that flow year-round and few lakes, ponds, and springs. Unlike in the huge river val- leys of Egypt and Mesopotamia, irrigation on a large scale was not possible; farm- ing depended on the limited annual rainfall. It should be emphasized that this description of the land and resources of Greece is a generalized one. Though small in area, Greece has a variety of local landscapes and micro-climates in which the rainfall, the quantity and quality of farmland, pastureland, and raw materials are decidedly different. On the whole, however, the land, which the Greeks called Gaia (“Mother Earth”), allowed the majority of the farmers a decent though modest living. But she offered no guar- antees. Drought, especially in the more arid regions, was a constant and dreaded threat. A dry winter meant a lean year, and a prolonged drought meant hunger and poverty for entire villages and districts. Torrential rainstorms, on the other hand, could send water rushing down the hillsides and through the dry gullies, suddenly wiping out the terraces, flooding the fields, and destroying the crops. Life on the sea was equally unpredictable. The Aegean, though often calm with favoring winds, could just as suddenly boil up into ferocious storms sending ships, cargo, and sailors to the bottom. (Drowning at sea, unburied, was a hate- ful death for the Greeks.) It is no wonder, considering the extent to which the Greeks were at the mercy of the land, sky, and sea, that the gods they worshiped included personifications of the elements and forces of nature. Food and Livestock In general, the soil and climate amply supported the “Mediterranean triad” of grain, grapes, and olives. Bread, wine, and olive oil were the staples of the Greek diet throughout antiquity and for long afterward. Grains—wheat, barley, and oats—grow well in Greek soil, having been cultivated from native wild grasses. Olive trees and grapevines, also indigenous to Greece, flourished in their culti- vated state. Legumes (peas and beans) and several kinds of vegetables, fruits (es- pecially figs), and nuts, rounded out and varied the basic components of bread, porridges, and olive oil. Cheese, meat, and fish, which are rich in proteins and fat, supplemented the diet. Meat, however, provided a very small part of the av- erage family’s daily food intake, and was usually consumed at feasts and festi- vals. The Greeks did not care for butter and drank little milk. Their beverages were water or wine (usually diluted with water). Honey was used for sweeten- ing, and various spices enhanced the flavor of food. Though it might appear mo- notonous to modern tastes, the Greek diet was healthful and nourishing. The pasturing of small animals did not interfere with agriculture. Flocks of sheep and goats grazed on hilly land that could not be farmed and on the fallow fields, providing manure in return. As suppliers of wool, cheese, meat, and skins, they had great economic importance. The Greeks also kept pigs, relished for their  Introduction 11 meat, and fowl. The two largest domesticated animals, horses and cattle, occupied a special niche in the economy and the society. Oxen (castrated bulls) or mules (hybrids of the horse and donkey) were necessary for plowing and for drawing heavy loads. A farmer without ready access to a yoke of oxen or a pair of mules would be classified as poor. Herds of cattle and horses did compete with agricul- ture, since the stretches of good grazing land they required were also prime farm- land. Practically speaking, there could be large-scale ranching of cattle and horses (except in the northern plains) only in times of low population density. Because they require so much in the way of resources, only the wealthy could afford the luxury of keeping cattle and horses in large numbers. As the most prestigious an- imals for sacrifices and feasts, cattle were a status symbol for the rich. Horses, though, were the prime markers of high rank: beautiful creatures, very expensive to maintain, and useful only for riding and for pulling light chariots. This agricultural and pastoral way of life remained essentially unchanged throughout antiquity. The fundamental economic fact that ancient Greece was es- sentially a land of small-scale farmers (most of whom lived in farming villages and small towns) governed every aspect of Greek society, from politics to war to religion. It has been estimated that even in the fifth to third centuries BC, the peak population periods, possibly as many as 80 to 90 percent of the male citizens of a city-state were engaged in agriculture in some degree, while their wives worked inside the house. One of the major unifying forces within the Greek city-states was the citizen-farmers’ devotion to their small agricultural plain and its sur- rounding hillsides, and their willingness to die defending their “ancestral earth,” as the poet Homer called it. And the primary disunifying force throughout Greek history was the perpetual tension between those citizens who had much land and those who had little or none. SUGGESTED READINGS Easterling, P. E. and E. J. Kenney, eds. 1985. The Cambridge History of Classical Literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Separate chapters on individual au- thors and genres by distinguished critics cover the entirety of ancient Greek litera- ture, from Homer to the period of the Roman Empire. Renfrew, Colin and Paul Bahn. 1991. Archaeology: Theories, Methods, and Practice. New York: Thames and Hudson. Comprehensive introduction to the discipline of archaeology today: what it is, what it does, and how it is done. Runnels, Curtis and Priscilla M. Murray. 2001. Greece Before History: An Archaeological Com- panion and Guide. Stanford: Stanford University Press. A brief history of the archae- ology of Greece from the Old Stone Age to the end of the Bronze Age, written by experts for the general reader. van Andel, Tjerd and Curtis Runnels. 1987. Beyond the Acropolis: A Rural Greek Past. Stan- ford: Stanford University Press. A description of the topography, flora, fauna, and subsistence strategies of ancient Greek farming life.  1 EARLY GREECE AND THE BRONZE AGE T he most charismatic cultural hero of the ancient Greeks was Odysseus, a man who “saw the towns of many men and learned their minds, and suffered in his heart many griefs upon the sea...” (Odyssey 1.3–4). Like their legendary hero, the Greeks were irresistibly drawn to distant shores. From early in their history and continually throughout antiquity, they ventured over the seas to foreign lands seeking their fortunes as traders, colonizers, and mercenary soldiers. Their limited natural resources forced the Greeks to look outward, and they were for- tunate in being within easy reach of the Mediterranean shores of Asia, Africa, and Europe. By the fifth century BC, they had planted colonies from Spain to the west coast of Asia and from north Africa to the Black Sea. The philosopher Plato (c. 429–347 BC) likened the hundreds of Greek cities and towns that ringed the coasts of the Mediterranean and Black seas to “frogs around a pond” (Phaedo 109b). The story of those far-flung Greeks is a long and fascinating one. GREECE IN THE STONE AGES Humans entered Greece about 40,000 years ago, during the Middle Paleolithic (Old Stone) Age. These early inhabitants lived mainly by hunting and some gath- ering of wild plants, using finely crafted tools and weapons of stone, wood, and bone. At the end of the Ice Age, when the glaciers that had covered much of Eu- rope were receding (c. 12,000 BC), the climate of Greece warmed considerably; in the process the landscape and its plants and animals evolved into their present forms. Evidence from a cave at Franchthi in the Peloponnesus shows that the in- habitants at the end of the Ice Age hunted deer and smaller game, caught fish in the coastal waters, and gathered wild cereals, wild peas and beans, and nuts. Early in the Neolithic (New Stone) Age (c. 6500 BC) the inhabitants began to cultivate the wild cereals and other plants, to domesticate animals, and to weave cloth on a loom. Agriculture forces people to settle down permanently. Small 12  Early Greece and the Bronze Age 13 farming villages sprang up, made up of one-room mud-brick houses similar to those of the Near East. Under the favorable conditions of the warm New Stone Age, villages grew larger and new village communities were formed. The society of the small Stone Age villages was probably egalitarian, with no inequality outside of sex, age, and skill. Families cooperated and shared with their neighbors, most of whom were kinfolk. Leadership was probably tempo- rary, assumed now by this man, now by another, as the need for a decisive voice arose. With the growth of population, however, a more lasting leadership role emerged. Anthropologists call such a leader the “big man” or the “head man,” the one who is better at “getting things done.” His wisdom, courage, skill in solv- ing disputes, and similar qualities propel him to the front and keep him there. In time, this position becomes a sort of “office” into which a new man, having demonstrated that he is better suited than other would-be leaders, steps when the old head man retires or dies (or is pushed out). Henceforth, the division into two status groups, the very small group of leaders and the large group of the led, would be a permanent feature of Greek political life. GREECE IN THE EARLY AND MIDDLE BRONZE AGES (c. 3000–1600 BC) Nearly four thousand years after the adoption of agriculture, another fundamental technological innovation was introduced into the villages of Greece: bronze. Ne- olithic craftsmen in southeastern Europe and western Asia were already skilled at smelting and casting copper, but because it is a soft metal, its usefulness was lim- ited. The pivotal step of adding 10 percent of tin to copper to produce bronze, a much harder metal, was taken in the Near East during the fourth millennium and arrived in Greece about 3000 BC. This was a momentous technical advance, for tools and weapons of bronze were considerably more efficient than those made of stone, bone, or copper. By 2500, metalworkers in Greece and the Balkans had mastered not only the use of bronze but also other metals such as lead, silver, and gold. The high-ranked families, those with greater surpluses of wealth, would have had the greatest access to scarce metals and metal products. Possession of these and other prestige items further distinguished them from the mass of the population. Their increasing demand for metal goods created a need for more specialists and work- shops and accelerated trade for copper, tin, and other metals, throughout the Mediterranean region. And as the economy expanded and the settlements grew larger, so did the wealth, power, and authority of their leaders, now established as hereditary chiefs ruling for life and accorded exceptional honors and privileges. The Civilizations of the Near East In contrast to Greece and the Balkans in the Early Bronze Age (c. 3000–2100 BC), the Near East had already progressed to that higher level of organization of the natural and social environment termed “civilization.” The Aegean civilizations of 14 A Brief History of Ancient Greece Crete and Greece, as we shall see, owe their rise in the second millennium to their close contact with the palace-kingdoms of the East. Around 3500 BC in the wide fertile plain the Greeks named Mesopotamia, “the land between the rivers” Tigris and Euphrates (in what is now southern Iraq), there appeared, for the first time in history, the markers of advanced civilization: large-scale irrigation, cities with thousands of inhabitants, bureaucratic govern- ment, wide trade networks, written documents, legal systems, and science. Egyp- tian civilization, which arose around 3200 BC along the long, narrow valley of the Nile, followed the same trajectory as that of Mesopotamia, except that very early on it became a united kingdom under a single ruler, the pharaoh. In Mesopotamia, however, and in the rest of western Asia, societies evolved in the form of discrete polities, centered around great cities which drew the sur- rounding towns and villages into a single political unit—the city-state—adminis- tered from the capital. During the third millennium the more powerful city-states conquered their weaker neighbors, giving rise to territorial kingdoms which were ascendant for a time only to be conquered in turn by rival kingdoms. Within individual kingdoms society was highly stratified; the masses were heavily dependent on and completely subject to an elite ruling class, headed by a hereditary monarch. The kings and the high nobles, deploying a huge amount of surplus wealth from agriculture, manufacture, and trade, and millions of hours of human labor, built massive defensive walls and temples, as well as luxurious palaces and elaborate tombs for themselves and their families. Architecture es- pecially served religion, which became the most important means of control, for it identified the will of the ruler with the will of the gods. Vast wealth and in- creased population allowed the frequent wars of conquest and retribution to be fought on a huge scale by well-organized armies. These early civilizations would have an enormous influence on the cultural de- velopment of the Greeks, and increasingly, as time went on, the histories of the Near Eastern and Aegean peoples became more and more entwined. The First Greek-Speakers Though far less advanced politically and technologically than the Near East, Greece attained a fairly high level of social complexity during its Early Bronze Age (c. 3000–2100 BC). The remains of Lerna in Argolis, for example, show that it was a large town with stone fortification walls and monumental buildings, the largest of which may have been the house of the ruling chief. At the end of this period, Lerna and similar sites in southern and central Greece were destroyed. Historians have traditionally associated the destructions and the cultural stagna- tion that followed during the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2100–1600 BC) with the in- cursion of a new people, who spoke an early form of Greek. That dating is by no means certain, however, and the questions of when the first Greek-speakers ar- rived and the route they took remain open today. More certain is that the newcomers were part of a great and lengthy ancient mi- gration of peoples, known collectively as the Indo-Europeans. In the late eighteenth century AD linguists observed that ancient Greek bears many similarities to other  Early Greece and the Bronze Age 15 dead languages, such as Latin and Sanskrit (the language of ancient India), as well as to entire families of spoken languages, such as the Germanic and Slavic. Take for example our word “mother”: Greek mētēr, Latin mater, Sanskrit mātar, Anglo-Saxon mōdor, Old Irish mathir, Lithuanian mote, Russian mat’. The close likenesses in vocabulary and grammar among these ancient languages and their descendants led scholars to conclude that they had all sprung from a com- mon linguistic ancestor, which they termed “Proto-Indo-European.” A current hy- pothesis is that Greek and the other Indo-European languages evolved during the long waves of emigrations from an original Indo-European homeland, located per- haps in the vast steppes north of the Black and Caspian seas. Over the course of many centuries (beginning perhaps in the fourth millennium BC) the Indo-European languages spread across Europe and Asia, from Ireland to Chinese Turkestan. The Greeks Eventually, the Greek language completely submerged the non-Indo-European “Aegean” languages. The relatively few words that survived from the old language were chiefly names of places (e.g., Korinthos, Parnassos) and of native plants and animals, such as hyakinthos (“hyacinth”) and melissa (“bee”). During the nineteenth century of our era, there was considerable conjecture about the social organization and culture of the Indo-Europeans. Many assumed that they were a superior race of horse-riding “Aryan” warriors, who swept into southern Europe and obliterated the cultures of the weak, unwarlike, agrarian natives. Such suppositions were the products of a racially biased Eurocentrism. No scholar today accepts this myth of Aryan superiority which was the pretext for so many crimes against humanity in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, culminating in the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis and Fascists in the 1930s and 1940s.The imposition of their language does suggest that the Greek-speakers came in as conquerors and initially dominated the indigenous populations. It is likely, however, that by the end of the Middle Bronze Age (c. 2100–1600 BC), the two peoples had merged into a single people and their two cultures had fused into a single Hellenic culture that contained elements of both. Indeed, their cultures were similar in many respects. The newcomers were not wild horse-riding nomads, fresh out of the steppes, as they were once por- trayed to be (although they may have introduced horses to Greece). Like the in- digenous peoples, they subsisted as herders and farmers and practiced metallurgy and other crafts, such as pottery and clothmaking. Indo-European society was pa- trilineal (descent is reckoned from the father, patēr in Greek) and patriarchal (the father is the supreme authority figure). There is no reason, however, to accept the once prevalent notion that this system was imposed by the newcomers on a ma- trilineal and matriarchal form of social organization. The Discovery of the Aegean Civilizations Around the time when Greek-speakers entered the Aegean (c. 2000 BC), the first palaces appear on the island of Crete, signaling that the Cretans had joined the company of complex state societies. Four hundred years later, the Greeks would 16 A Brief History of Ancient Greece also reach that level of development, under the general influence of the Near East, but especially through their relationship with the Cretans (who were not Greek-speakers). That there had been advanced civilizations in the Bronze Age Aegean became demonstrated only in the late nineteenth century when archaeologists unearthed three cities, which up to that time were known only from the legends about the Trojan War, the central event of the Greeks’ mythical “age of heroes.” First, in 1870 Heinrich Schliemann discovered the ruins of Troy in northwest Anatolia (modern Turkey). In Schliemann’s day most historians regarded the Greeks’ re- membrance of an ancient war against Troy as just another fable. Four years later, Schliemann turned to the site of Mycenae in southern Greece, which tradition held to be the city of King Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek invasion of Troy. To everyone’s surprise, Schliemann’s excavations of the Bronze Age level uncov- ered a large fortified palace-complex, worthy of a mighty warrior king. Although Schliemann’s discoveries are not conclusive evidence of a large-scale war between Trojans and Greeks, the impressive ruins unearthed at both sites, with their immense quantities of gold and other costly things, do confirm the Greeks’ remembrance of their heroic age (i.e., the Late Bronze Age) as a time of fabulous wealth and splendor. Because of the importance of Mycenae in fact and myth, the Late Bronze Age in Greece (c. 1600–1150 BC) is commonly referred to as the “Mycenaean period.” Equally spectacular was Sir Arthur Evans’ discovery in 1899 of the palace com- plex of Knossos on Crete, whose magnificence gave credence to the legends that in ancient times Knossos had been the center of a powerful naval state. Evans named this first Aegean civilization “Minoan,” after the mythical King Minos of Knossos, who lived, according to Homer, three generations before the Trojan War. The Minoans First settled around 7000 BC by Neolithic farmers and stock-raisers of unknown origin and language, Crete followed the regional path of slow growth helped along by technological innovation. During the fourth millennium, some of the small farming villages had grown into large towns. Eventually, the chiefs of these early centers emerged as monarchs over other chiefs and people in their districts. Thus Crete became a land of small city-kingdoms. The earliest large, multiroom complex (which Evans named the “Palace of Mi- nos”) was built about 2000 BC at Knossos, by then a town with several thousand inhabitants. Other major palaces, not as grand as Knossos, followed at Phaistos, Mallia, Zakro, and elsewhere, each center controlling an area of a few hundred square miles. The political and cultural flowering in Crete (and on other Aegean islands as well) probably can be attributed to their inclusion in the international trade. The island’s location and natural harbors made it an important crossroad in the trade routes across the Mediterranean Sea. The palace-centered economies  Early Greece and the Bronze Age 17 a Figure 1.1a. Plan of the Minoan palace at Knossos, Crete (c. 1400 BC). 18 A Brief History of Ancient Greece Figure 1.1b. Plan of the Mycenaean palace at Pylos (c. 1200 BC). Note the distinctive megaron in the center of the complex, in contrast to the open central court at Knossos. Figure 1.1c. (Facing page) View of the ruins of the Minoan palace at Phaistos, Crete. c 19 20 A Brief History of Ancient Greece that emerged in Crete were replicas, on a much smaller scale, of the economies of the Near Eastern states. It has not been established, however, whether Knos- sos ever became the center of a unified island-wide kingdom or was the largest and most powerful among a number of self-ruling states. The Knossos we see today was begun around 1700 BC, after the first palace was destroyed by an earthquake. Knossos and the other smaller Cretan palaces con- sisted of a maze of rooms—residential quarters, workshops, and storerooms— clustered around a large central courtyard. This impressive residence of the ruler and a few high-ranking subordinates was the political, economic, and adminis- trative center and indeed the focal point of state ceremony and religious ritual for the entire kingdom. The palace economies were based on storage and redistribution. Food and other products from the palace’s lands and from private farms and herds, paid as taxes, were collected and stored in the palace. The income both sustained the palace and its crafts workers and was redistributed back to the villagers as ra- tions and wages. The palace’s reserves of grain and olive oil could also be dis- tributed to the population during famines. The main use of the royal surplus, however, was for trade. Produce and goods manufactured in the palace went out on ships along the wide Mediterranean trade network in exchange for goods from foreign lands, especially metal and luxury items. To administer their complicated economies the Cretans developed a writing system (in a script Evans named “Linear A”) comprised of specific signs that stood for the sounds of spoken syllables. Linear A writing, preserved on small clay tablets found not only on Crete but in other Aegean islands, remains largely untranslated. It is clear, however, that its main purpose was for keeping eco- nomic and administrative records. As in the Near East, there was an enormous gulf between the ruling class and the people. The multitude of ordinary Cretan farmers and crafts workers paid for the opulent lifestyles of the few with their labor and taxes, while they themselves lived very modestly, in small mud-brick houses clustered together in the towns and villages. To be sure, the people received benefits in the form of protection from famine and from outside aggressors, but their compliance with the rigid hi- erarchy suggests something more—a positive identification with the center, that is, the king. In Crete, as in all ancient kingdoms, the king was a symbol as well as the actual ruler. He was the embodiment of the state: supreme war leader, law- giver and judge, and, most important, the intermediary between gods and the land and people. Indeed, some Mediterranean scholars describe the Minoan kings as priest-kings like their counterparts in Egypt and Mesopotamia, whose legiti- macy derived from the official equation of royal power with the will of the gods. Minoan Art and Architecture Minoan art and architecture owe a large debt to the civilizations of the Near East, and especially Egypt. Yet, even as they borrowed extensively from the techniques and styles of the older civilizations, the Cretans developed their own distinctive  Early Greece and the Bronze Age 21 style and spirit. Visitors to the ruins of Knossos are dazzled by its size and com- plexity (it covered 3.2 acres with perhaps three hundred rooms) and the elegance of its architecture. The palace was constructed of stone and mud brick and stood two and three stories high with basements beneath. Numerous porticoes, balconies, and loggias, all brightly painted, gave the exterior a theatrical look. Light wells brought day- light and fresh air into the interior of the palace. A system of conduits and drains provided many of the rooms with running water and waste disposal. On the walls and passageways there were brilliantly colored depictions of plant and an- imal life and scenes of human activity, often religious processions or rituals. Sim- ilar subjects and motifs are found not only at other Cretan palaces, but also in wealthy private homes in the towns and villages. Minoan art is much admired today for its sophistication, vitality, and exuber- ance. The frescoes, vase paintings, and small sculptures give us a glimpse into how the inhabitants of the palaces and villas saw themselves. Men and women Figure 1.2. Fresco of a fisherman from Thera. 22 A Brief History of Ancient Greece both are represented as youthful, slender, and graceful. The men are smooth shaven and wear only a short kilt, similar to the Egyptian male dress. The women are shown wearing elaborate flounced skirts and a tight, sleeved bodice that ex- poses their breasts. Both men and women have long hair, stylishly curled, and wear gold bracelets and necklaces. A remarkable example of Minoan cultural influence was discovered in 1967 at Akrotiri on the small island of Thera (modern Santorini), north of Crete. A pros- perous city of several thousand inhabitants, Akrotiri was destroyed by a power- ful volcanic eruption around 1630 BC, which preserved it, nearly intact, under a deep layer of volcanic ash. Its remains show how extensively the Therans ab- sorbed Cretan art, architecture, religion, dress, and lifestyles into their own island culture. Nevertheless, the distinctly “local” features on Thera and the