Around 2000BC a magnificent city was built atop Neolithic settlements in northern Crete. With a huge palace complex, this was Knossos, capital of the Minoan civilisation, named after one of its kings, Minos.
Destroyed and rebuilt in 1700 and 1550BC, it was finally lost following the eruption of nearby volcano, Thera. At the crossroads between European history and prehistory, the Minoans had an advanced culture built upon a large naval fleet, trading with other civilisations in the Mediterranean.
Producing distinctive art and culture, they also evolved the pictorial writing known as Linear A by 1800BC. This evolved into Linear B, the basis of Greek.
MYCENAEAN
About 1400BC the Minoans went into terminal decline, their culture passing on to mainland Europe. Europe of the time was still in its agricultural village phase. But on the eastern Peleponnese (south east Greece) and the western coast of Asia Minor (Turkey), settlements were turning towards Classical civilisation.
The largest of these growing cities was Mycenae, hence the period was dubbed Mycenaean. By the 16th century BC their cities had huge defensive walls and seemed geared to perpetual war, yet they also produced excellent pottery and had produced a more than adequate administration, including accounts and stores records.
The reason for these contradictions is that the region did not develop into a co-ordinated kingdom, but remained a series of independent mini-states. By the 13th century BC, this culture seemed to disappear and for 400 years there was a Dark Age.
GREECE AND GEOGRAPHY
Out of this, the first truly modern civilisation grew. This civilisation flowered in the 8th century BC with the creation of the ‘polis’, a small, self-governing city supporting agricultural development of the surrounding land. Scorning defensive walls, the polis included a citadel on high ground known as the ‘acro-polis’ in which the people would take refuge.
This life was different to the empire builders before them, and the difference was mainly down to geography. The region was mountainous and studded with small, isolated plains.
Expansion was impractical, and the plain limited the size of growth. Yet even though independent states littered the region, a spirit of identity fused them, based on a common language, politics, religion and a thirst for trade.
THE GREEK PANTHEON
This was best expressed in the Olympic Games, first held in 776BC and continuing until 393AD. They celebrated Olympia, the main shrine to Zeus, the sky god and ruler of a great pantheon of gods, shared by all Greeks.
These included Hera, wife of Zeus and goddess of marriage; the sea god Poseidon; Athene, goddess of arts; her siblings Apollo and Artemis, the sun and moon; Diana, goddess of hunting; Aphrodite, goddess of love; the war god, Ares; Demeter, goddess of fertility and agricultiure; and Hermes, the messenger. And also came super-humans such as Jason and the semi-divine Herakles.
The land of the dead was Hades and for the first time this was an unpleasant place, suggesting life was better than death. Indeed, the Greek pantheon celebrated life, the gods being stereotypical media-forms of man’s individuality.
Amoral, they were accessible; reflections of human virtues and foibles alike. Indeed, they seemed to celebrate human choice as opposed to supernatural guidance. This was modern, and Greek gods can be seen as one of the primary reasons for ancient Greek culture going on to define the modern world. Indeed, the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi can be seen more as a political think tank than a supernatural arbiter.
EXPANSION AND REASON
From the 7th century BC onwards Greece expanded through the Mediterranean, founding colonies such as Massilia (Marseilles), Neopolis (Naples), Syracuse and Byzantium (Istanbul).
They also became independent. Modern legal structures appeared, arbitrating between individuals rather than imposing from above; sculpture venerated the human form; drama appeared to express moral dilemma; and life sciences appeared to usurp the gods, causing the 4th centaury explosion of reason with Socrates, Plato and Aristotle.
Interaction with neighbours brought new influences from Egypt, Syria and Asia Minor, causing changes in the 5th century BC when aristocracy challenged the right of kings to rule.
POLITICS
This led to two separate forms of administration. The first was the state of Laconia, occupied by Dorian Greeks about 950BC and based on their capital, Sparta. By the 5th century BC they had subjugated their neighbours, instituting mass slavery and militarisation based on a dictatorship of two kings and a Senate.
And then there was Athens. When aristocrats first usurped the power of kings here, the statesman Draco introduced his oppressive Draconian Laws in 620BC. But with individuality well entrenched, they could not hold, with Solon introducing major reforms in 590BC.
In 461BC Athens entered its ‘Golden Age’ under Pericles, who ruled until 429BC. Builder of the Acropolis, democracy flowered, based on an Assembly of all Athenian citizens, and an Executive, or Boule, of 500 citizens elected for a year.
Giving free expression to intellectuals, a capitalist philosophy was followed, based on property, a grouping of city-states dedicated to commerce and based on Athens transforming from the Delian League to the Athenian Empire.
A TIME OF WAR
The period was dogged by wars with the Persians. The Greeks of Ionia in Asia Minor revolted against their Persian masters in 499BC, razing Sardis with Athenian help. The Persians regained control and in 490BC invaded Attica. Met by a smaller Athenian force, the Persians were defeated at Marathon.
Ten years later they were back, driving the Greeks out of central Greece. Athens was abandoned, the Greeks regrouping on Corinth, whilst the Athenian fleet lured the Persians into shallow waters and beat them at Salamis. A further battle at Plataea in 479BC resulted in another Greek victory.
Victory led to a resurgence of power politics between Sparta and Athens, causing the Peleponnese War from 431-404BC, beginning with a Spartan invasion of Attica. Pericles abandoned Athens and the people took refuge behind defensive walls between Athens and the port of Piraeus while the Athenian fleet raided Spartan supply lines.
However, plague hit the Athenians, killing a third, including Pericles. Weakened, both sides signed a truce in 423BC, but war resumed in 413BC. Realising the Athenian fleet was superior, the Spartan admiral Lysander built up his fleet and had a number of victories in 406BC, allowing him to blockade the Aegean, forcing a starving Athens to surrender in 404BC.
A year long reign of terror by the Thirty Tyrants commenced, but even though democracy was restored in 403BC, the Golden Age of Athens was over, the new power being Sparta.
In the north, 370BC saw Thebes rising to defeat the Spartans, but Greek culture was on the change, the polis giving way to a new notion of empire. Macedonia was on the rise, and soon Alexander the Great would take the world by storm.
© Anthony North, June 2007
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