A BRIEF HISTORY OF GREECE

The culture of ancient Greece had its origins in a long "prehistoric" period, for which we have almost no written records. This period is subdivided according to major changes in technology. Thus the time from roughly 6000 to 3000 B.C.E. is known as the Neolithic, or "New Stone" Age, because tools and weapons were made of stone. (It is called the New Stone Age because it marked certain improvements over the technology of the "Old" Stone Age, or Paleolithic; in particular, the Neolithic period saw the invention of pottery and agriculture.) About 3000 B.C.E., the making of bronze was introduced into Greece; thus the period from 3000 to about 1200 B.C.E. is known as the Bronze Age. Finally, the period from 1200 B.C.E. onward is called the Iron Age, because iron then replaced bronze as the predominant metal. The prehistory of Greece is complicated by the fact that not one but two distinct cultural groups flourished in the country during this period. We call these two groups the Minoans and the Mycenaeans. They originally came from different regions outside Greece, and each group spoke its own distinct language. Both left some written records, but the Minoan records (in a script which archaeologists call Linear A) have not yet been deciphered; thus we do not know what language these people spoke, or what they called themselves. (We call them "Minoans" after a mythical king of Crete named Minos.) The Mycenaeans left records in a script called Linear B, which was deciphered in the 1950's; thus we know that the Mycenaeans spoke an early form of the Greek language. Because they came into Greece later than the Minoans, we sometimes refer to the Minoan civilization as "pre-Greek". The Minoan culture developed primarily on the island of Crete, south of the Greek mainland, during the period from 3000 to 1400 B.C.E. Archaeologists have found many large palaces, which served not only as residences for the rulers but also as storehouses for agricultural produce (olive oil, wine, wool). Religious rituals were also carried on there, and some scholars have argued that the "palaces" were actually temples. The economy of each region seems to have been focused on the palace as a center of collection and distribution of goods; a certain amount of bureaucracy was involved, and records were kept on clay tablets. The palaces and the art work they contain indicate a prosperous and highly developed civilization, which probably derived its wealth and power from its control of the seas (the palaces are not fortified). Minoan religion seems to have focused on divinities of fertility, most of them female, and human women play prominent roles in the religious ceremonies depicted; but because the Linear A script cannot yet be read, we have little definite information about the religious beliefs, social organization, or history of the Minoan people. The Mycenaean culture, which is so called because Mycenae was its most prosperous site, developed on the Greek mainland--chiefly in the Peloponnese--between 2000 and

1200 B.C.E. It thus overlapped in time with the Minoan culture, though it got a later start and survived for several centuries after the fall of the Minoans. The Mycenaeans, in contrast to the Minoans, built heavy fortification walls around their palaces, which were often situated on hills for better defense. From their art work too, we get the impression that the Mycenaeans were a warlike people. When they first came into contact with the Minoans, the Mycenaeans were at a more primitive stage of technological development; they learned bronze working and many other crafts from the Minoans, and apparently adopted some of the Minoan religious beliefs as well. Later Greek religion grew out of the fusion of two originally distinct systems of beliefs and practices: the Minoan and the Mycenaean. Around 1400 B.C.E., the Minoan palaces were destroyed, and most were not rebuilt. Archaeologists are not certain what caused the destruction; it is usually attributed to some combination of natural and human causes, such as earthquake followed by invasion or civil war. (A tsunami might have been enough to wipe out the Minoan navy, leaving the palaces vulnerable to attack.) Whatever caused the destruction, it is clear that the Mycenaeans profited by it: their own sea trade expanded at this time, and they seized control of the largest Minoan palace (at Knossos); we know this because the clay tablets from the latest palace are in the Linear B script, which was also used on the mainland to record the form of Greek spoken by the Mycenaeans. Unfortunately this script was used only for bookkeeping purposes; we have found no literary, historical or religious texts written in it. Yet we know that Greek mythology has its roots in the Mycenaean age, because the heroes of Greek myth are described as fighting with weapons of bronze, and the greatest of them are said to be natives of cities that were prominent Mycenaean settlements. (For example, Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army in the myths about the Trojan War, is said to be the king of Mycenae.) Since there was no writing in Greece during the Dark Age which followed the fall of Mycenaean culture, stories about the Bronze Age must have been passed down to later generations by means of a strictly oral tradition. The Greeks of the Classical age thought of the myths as their history, and in fact archaeology has verified certain details, such as the wealth of Mycenae and the existence of some specific weapons and artifacts (including a "labyrinth" in Crete!) The Trojan War, one of the central events in Greek mythology, may also have actually taken place. Only a few hundred years after the fall of the Minoans, the Mycenaean palaces were likewise destroyed; again the causes are unclear to us. The result, however, was a drastic drop in the population and material prosperity of Greece. Some people who were able to leave the country fled overseas and established Greek-speaking cities on the coast of Asia Minor. The Linear A and B scripts were forgotten, with the result that no written records were kept in the 300-year period that followed. This period is known as the Dark Age-primarily because we know so little about it. The Dark Age was an important one, however, for the development of Classical Greek culture. It was during this time that iron replaced bronze as the primary metal, and that Greek religion evolved into its Classical form.

The Dark Age ends with the reintroduction of writing into Greece; the new script (which the Greeks of today still use) was borrowed from the Phoenicians, with whom the Greeks traded. The first texts of any length to be recorded in writing were the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer; these are the oldest extant works of Greek literature, and behind them lies a long oral tradition stretching back to the Bronze Age. The age of Homer is known as the "Geometric" period (after a style of pottery decoration). It lasted from approximately 900 to 700 B.C.E., and was followed in turn by the Archaic Age (700-500) and the Classical Age (500-300). These three periods saw a gradual increase in Greek prosperity and power, which reached their height in the fifth century B.C.E. (500-400). During the Geometric Age the polis or "city-state" (an independent state consisting of a city and its surrounding territory) became the primary unit of political organization in Greece. This era also saw the establishment of several important "pan-Hellenic" institutions (=involving "all Greeks"), including the Delphic oracle and the Olympic games. The Archaic Age was a time of conflict between social classes, as the gap widened between rich and poor. The political outcomes of this conflict varied from city to city. In Athens, a single individual named Solon was entrusted with the task of producing a revised constitution and law code. He helped the poorest classes by extending their political rights and abolishing enslavement for debt, but he also preserved the privileges of the rich by refusing to redistribute their lands. Unrest continued, and in the course of the 6th century B.C.E. the tyrant Peisistratus seized power. Though he was an autocrat and a member of the aristocracy, he actually helped to pave the way for Athenian democracy by making the poorer classes his "power base" and weakening the political grip of the aristocracy. By keeping the peace, he made possible a period of economic growth during which Athens became one of the leading cities of Greece, both economically and culturally. (It was during the rule of Peisistratus that the City Dionysia, the greatest of the dramatic festivals, was established.) When Peisistratus' son Hippias, who succeeded him, was driven from power, the political reforms of a leader named Cleisthenes made Athens the most democratic city of its day. The so-called "Classical" age (500-300 B.C.E.) was the period during which the citystates of mainland Greece reached the height of their political and economic power. At the beginning of this period, they successfully repulsed not one but two attempted invasions by the kings of Persia, Darius and Xerxes (in 490 and 480 B.C.E., respectively). The "Persian Wars" increased still further the prestige of Athens, which played a major role in the decisive victories of Marathon (490) and Salamis (480). After the second invasion had been repulsed, the other Greek cities, recognizing the effectiveness of the Athenian navy, agreed to make contributions of money to maintain it for the defense of Greece as a whole. As time went on, however, the Athenians came to regard these contributions as tribute, and began to use them for purposes of their own (e.g., to subsidize the building of the Parthenon). As the league of allied cities became an Athenian empire, opposition to Athens grew, and Sparta (the next most powerful Greek city) assumed the leadership of that opposition. In a thirty-year war of attrition, the Peloponnesian War (431-404), the Spartans and their allies finally defeated the

Athenians and their allies. In the fourth century B.C.E., the Greek kingdom of Macedonia began to expand under the leadership of a vigorous warrior king named Philip. The political disunity of the other Greek states made their resistance ineffective, and they lost their independence. Philip's son, Alexander ("the Great"), expanded the Macedonian empire enormously during his short reign (336-323 B.C.E.). Alexander introduced elements of Greek culture (especially art and architecture) throughout his empire. At his death the empire broke up into three large pieces, which became kingdoms ruled by Alexander's generals and their heirs: the Ptolemies in Egypt, the Seleucids in Persia, the Antigonids in Macedonia and mainland Greece. The ensuing period is often referred to as the Hellenistic Age (from the verb hellenisthenai, "to learn Greek" or "to adopt Greek ways" [the Greeks call themselves Hellenes]). During this age, which lasted until the territories once ruled by Alexander were absorbed into the Roman empire, the old Greek city-states had little political power; but Greek became the language of trade, diplomacy and learning throughout the new Greek kingdoms of the eastern Mediterranean, and Greek art and literature provided models for artists and writers of many ethnic origins. Lillian Doherty