A brief introduction to Greek Antiquity
The main concern of the Greek Antiquity was the formation of autonomous cities. This peculiar state organization did not develop overnight, nor did it have the same state structure in all places. However, it clearly gave the stigma of the political self-consciousness of the ancient Greeks. In the classical era, political and law equity expanded with a significant expansion of the body of citizens.
During the archaic and classical times, the political unity of the Greeks was not ideal for either the rulers or the rulers. Citizens wanted to live independently and autonomously within the confines of their own limited territory. Although the Greeks felt that they were a racial, linguistic and religious unit with a common origin, common language and common worship customs, the idea of their political unification was foreign and disgusting.
The vision of a political confederation of Greeks, of a generalized alliance (which could be considered a harbinger of their political unification) came as a result of the hegemonic tendencies, first of Sparta and then of the strengthened Athens. The only way to achieve this was through violence and coercion. But Athens was defeated in the Peloponnesian War and Sparta was unable to capitalize on its victory.
The political unification of the Greeks (except those living in the West) was achieved by the Macedonian king Philip II, and of the Eastern Mediterranean, almost entirely, by Alexander the Great. The Persian dream of an ecumenical empire, as described by Herodotus, was not fulfilled by the Successors with the fierce wars between them but by the Romans. The conquest of Greece by Rome is, in this sense, a continuation of the expansionist policy of the Persians and the Macedonians during the 5th and 4th centuries. In this context, it is worth wondering what has remained unchanged and what has changed in the formation of Hellenism.
The technology of war has undergone significant changes in this millennial history. The hoplite phalanx, the organic participation of the cavalry in the battles, the mass utilization of the peltas, the oblique phalanx, the Macedonian sarissa, the siege engines and the catapults, the triremes and the warships with the most rows of oars, the war elephants Roman legion were some of the many improved methods for dealing more effectively with the enemy.
In politics, perhaps the most important legacy of the archaic era was the rule of law, and of the classical era, democracy and the development of rhetoric. The art of persuasion was not lost when the conditions of political freedom that had made it a necessary weapon for anyone who wanted to have a public speech were curtailed. On the contrary: the diligence of the language and the expressive ability were considered distinctive features of the Greek way of perceiving things and spread in areas unrelated to politics.
In the field of high culture, the development of philosophy and science, poetry and art indicated the typically Greek search for the beautiful and the true in reason and art. However, the most important technological change achieved by Greek antiquity was probably the invention of phonetic writing and the gradual spread of literacy.
The written word complemented the oral as a means of disseminating knowledge, especially the specialized (scientific, philosophical and philological), and the ancient societies prepared to receive one of the most important changes in every respect: the first religion of the Book which was to acquire a universal scope.
During the Archaic period, the consciousness of common ancestry, customs, and language was strengthened among all Greeks. At the same time, however, a sense of particular “local” pride was cultivated, related to the development of city-states. In Athens, social structures became more clearly defined between the 8th and 6th centuries BCE.
The demos, a form of social organization known from earlier times, was the last to acquire institutional status at the end of the 6th century BCE. During the same century, a clear class distinction emerged, while social mobility increased compared to the past. It has been argued that the geomorphology of the Greek landscape was the main cause of this diversity within a broader unity. However, it is evident from observations in other times and places that the physical division of the land is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the birth of a competitive diversity.
Greater emphasis should perhaps be placed on the worldview, as reflected in Greek mythology. The relationship between man and the divine, the promotion of values such as individual initiative, inventiveness, the elevation of individuality to a right, and freedom to a good, the idea of measure and timing, reveal the anthropocentric concerns of society during the Archaic period.
In their efforts to survive initially and subsequently dominate their neighbors, the city-states employed a series of ideological-propagandistic arguments. Among these arguments, the superiority of ancestry and the systematic beautification of the past were already well developed in the Archaic years.
Cities claimed a special relationship with a particular deity, sometimes even direct descent from that deity. Others, however, sufficed with a heroic lineage. Institutions and each city’s ambitions were linked to gods and heroes, convinced of the superiority of their legal and political institutions.
Where pan-Hellenic gods and heroes were insufficient, local deities took on the role of the founder and enjoyed special honors. In the colonies, this role rightfully belonged to the settlers, who, after their deaths, were typically heroized and gained the prestige and acceptance of a progenitor.
In a reciprocal process, where elements related to the founding of a city had disappeared from collective memory, a hero was “invented” and given the city’s name. This hero, called the eponymous hero, was recorded in the common consciousness as the ancestor from whom the city was founded and derived its name.
In 800 BCE, the Greek world was poor, small, and disorganized. Its communities were tiny and severely pressured for survival in a hostile natural environment. The Greeks had minimal contact with the outside world and no significant capital, except perhaps for a treasure trove of traditional stories and the powerful guilds that narrated and disseminated them.
By 479 BCE, after repelling the invasion of the Persian Empire in mainland Greece, the Greek world appeared expansive and dynamic, with complex organization, a continually growing population, and immense creativity.
What intervened was the so-called Archaic period. The term “Archaic” (borrowed from the history of ancient art) refers to the historical era from the end of the “Dark Ages” (8th century BCE) to the beginning of the Classical period (mid-5th century BCE). This period was characterized by spectacular changes that shaped a mixed scene of intense crisis and great creativity throughout the Greek world.
At the onset of the Archaic period, the Greek world entered the stage politically fragmented: the previous broader formations of the “Dark Ages” (1200-800 BCE), a limited number of “tribal states” (a shadow of the still few but much stronger kingdoms of the Mycenaean era), had either collapsed or lost their practical political significance. This began the long process of their replacement by a multitude of tiny “city-states” (poleis).
The polis, the new micro-unit of state organization, consisted of the “city” and its associated “country”: the city was an urban settlement built on a fortified hill where a significant part of the population and the aristocracy lived; the rest of the population resided in the countryside, the area of agricultural production that fed and supported the city, enabling it to function institutionally as a place of citizen assembly, administration, and political decision-making.
City-states were created over many centuries: the oldest polis was founded in the 10th century BCE in Attica, and the last in the mid-4th century BCE in Achaia. For five centuries, in most of mainland Greece and its colonies in the Mediterranean, there was no form of state organization superior to the city.
Such an extensive and radical transformation of the political map could not happen peacefully, especially when accompanied by a combination of political instability and economic hardship. Indeed, throughout these years, serious disturbances followed one after another due to the lack of agricultural land, droughts, underproduction in agriculture, and human overpopulation.
In the absence of strong central authority, local political stability was undermined by tyrants, powerful individuals without legitimate hereditary rights to power, and was shaken by the claims of large masses of the population, now bolstered by the mystical Dionysian worship, a sweeping movement of religious radicalism. Political uprisings and interstate wars became the norm.
Balance was gradually achieved through processes that varied from place to place: the way out of adverse economic conditions and uprisings was identified with the magnificent colonial expansion of Hellenism. With the initiative of the individual city-states, roughly five centuries after the previous Achaean colonization, the boundaries of the “Greek world” were once again expanded.
In the vast area from Spain to the Caucasus and from southern Russia to Egypt, where copies of Greek cities were established, and in the rejuvenated metropolis, everything began to grow: monumental architecture (never before had so many and imposing temples and sanctuaries been built in such a short time in the Greek world); art flourished in pottery, sculpture, and minor arts; critical innovations were introduced, such as coinage and writing, and history, philosophy, and sciences were established.
However, colonization also entailed a massive influx of Eastern influences in all areas; the visual arts and music “orientalized” more than anything else. Nevertheless, the Greeks managed to assimilate foreign influences, and in this process, not only did they not lose themselves, but they found themselves.
For through contact with non-Greeks (the foreign-tongued, “barbarians”), the Greek “genius” was now shaped and took its definitive characteristics, as well as its consciousness from the observation that all who spoke the same language, worshipped the same gods, and maintained the same customs and traditions must undoubtedly belong to the same ethnicity.
Homer emerged as a symbolic reference point for Greek consciousness and national unity. By definition, the epic reproduces a complete and total image of the world. And the ideology of the complete world of the epics projects as its primary virtue the indomitable competitiveness (always striving to excel), embodied by iconic figures like the heroes of the Iliad and Odysseus.
This martial-athletic version of competitiveness permeated every form of collective and individual behavior, including politics, and had enough attraction to lead the new generations of Greeks to their magnificent expansion.
Thus, it is no coincidence that we owe the recording of the Homeric epics (which had circulated and spread orally by the guilds of rhapsodes until then) to the tyrannical house of the Peisistratids, who also decreed that the Iliad and the Odyssey be performed by expressive recitation at the Panathenaic Games.
As a counterbalance, therefore, to the political fragmentation of the Greek world, the effort to unify it in the cultural sphere eventually prevailed. Its pinnacle was the establishment of the Panhellenic Games, the founding of amphictyonies, and the great religious-political prestige of the Oracle of Delphi.
Within this context, the phenomenon of lyric poetry must be understood, as its great representatives responded to the surrounding cosmogony with their inspiration—sometimes differentiating or even clashing with the dominant Homeric ideology.
Thanks to their stance, the traditional role of poetry as social and ideological criticism acquired polyphonic characteristics, favoring philosophical inquiry and paving the way for democracy, the crowning achievement of the next, Classical, period of Hellenism.
Who is who in Greek antiquity
Ancient Greeks who for one reason or the other have gone down to posterity. It is sometimes difficult to know whether a person in antiquity or mythology really existed or not, so if you can’t find the name you’re looking for here, have a look at the Who is Who in Greek Mythology as well. We have tried to separate the names as clearly as possible but in some instances the line between reality and myth is very vague.