Archaic Greece

1. Archaic Greece 700 - 500

2. From dark to light? • Kingship disappears: After the destruction of palace economies, kingship was weakened so that by the end of the dark age most monarchies were replaced by aristocracies. • Unlike the Romans, later, the Greeks had little cultural memory of the kings: they were really petty chieftains surrounded by scores of other tribes and chiefs. • They began to experiment with governments of increased participation. • At the end of the dark age there is a general population rise.

3. Local life at end of the dark age • Chief (basileuV) and/or village presbyters judge from a fund of customary laws. • Household (oikoV) is the basic societal unit. Includes patrilineal extended family, all slaves, and poor free employees. • Villages are bedroom communities for surrounding farmsteads (klhroi). • Related villages form the demos, or province/region. The leading town was the polis, or capital. • Unlike medieval Europe, or even modern United States, there was not a clear “urban/rural” polarity.

4. Great Developments of the Archaic Age of Greece • Refining development of the polis (πολις). • Diffusion of Greek civilization (αποικια). • Rise of the middlings and their service in the hoplite armies. • Rise of the Tyrants from social conflicts (στασις).

5. Early development of the polis (πολις). Sometimes referred to as “city-state”

6. Meet the polis • We know kings disappeared, but so did kingdoms. • Greek civilization was divided up into many independent parts called poleis. • Poleis grew for defensive and economic reasons: proximity to fortified hills and farms. • Disunity was partially geographical, partially competitive and very Greek. • Only three poleis more than 20,000 citizens or about 200,000 population estimated: Athens, Syracuse, and Acragas of Sicily.

7. What is the polis? • Not a mere city, and much more than a state. • An organic community based on actual or assumed kinship that was relatively self-sufficient. • Something formative that trains the minds and characters of the “citizenry.” (κρεβάτι σπόρων) • Seldom did one refer to the name of the city, but to its citizens: One may travel to Athens, but one battles the Athenians.

8. What else is the polis? • A way of life that citizens wanted to be involved in, where they could see and be seen face-to-face. • The common cultural life of the citizens that included “instruction and spectacle” as well as political organization. • We have no adequate synonym for it, and no similar institution.

9. Where poleis came from • When kingship failed, aristocrats circled the wagons and were forced to formalize their relationships through unification and organization. • Greek regions where cultural ties were maintained without formalized unification were called ethnoi. • In forming a polis, magnet cities united surrounding villages and countryside by mutual agreement or force (as did Sparta).

10. Making the polis work • Usually aristocratic families divided the administrative, judicial, religious, and military responsibilities up and created separate bureaus. • Terms were limited, usually to a calendar year without immediate renewal, as a check to power. • After retirement the highest administrators were prime candidates for the Βουλη (boulē), often the board of elders (πρεσβυτεροι) or trustees of the polis.

11. How poleis affected life • Community proper was made up of a minority of native freeborn adult males, especially who held property. • Naturalization was unknown until late fifth century, one may live among the Athenians. • The polis was everything—had the right to interfere in any aspect of the population’s lives: resident aliens, women, slaves etc. • Aristotle and others later wrote that the polis was civilization. • Law is king—freedom found in ordered existence in community where all respect the established civic codes.

12. What were the poleis? • Greeks seemed to know the difference between poleis and ethnoi, but no two poleis were alike and they developed differently. • People from Attica were Athenian citizens, 250K total population lived in 1K square miles. • Boeotia was next door, about the same size but had 12 poleis, that effectively resisted the continual attempts of Thebes to dominate, and thus unite them. • Corinth 90K, Thebes 50K, Sparta 5K with much larger subjugated population.

14. Diffusion of Greek civilization (αποικια). “Colonization” during the Archaic Period

15. Αποικια—home away from home • Colonization is not a good term: these new poleis were independent of the mother polis (metropolis). • Diffusion occurred in two phases: a western and northeastern phase. • The plants were generally organized out of civic crises that arose from stasis. • Αποικια was therefore a “safety valve” that moved off “surplus” and disaffected populations.

16. Who went • Emigres were almost always males who either volunteered or were drafted to go. • Emigres were generally farmers, not tradespeople. Land was the major issue. • Parties of settlers had leaders, or “founders,” chief of aristocrats called gamaroi, “the dividers of land.” • Compulsion was the effective motive for most emigres to go.

17. What did they find? • Lands that were already occupied. • That it was best to stay near the shorelines. • Natives either coexisted on trade, became servile, or, like the Etruscans actively resisted.

18. Waves of immigration • Initial wave began about 750 and was directed westward. • Tradition says first colony was in southern Italy near present-day Naples, called Cumae. • Second wave began about 650 and was directed to the northern Aegean and the Black Sea. • By 500, Greek settlements ringed the entire Mediterranean and Black Seas.

19. Rise of the hoplite armies The phalanx revolution and rise of the middlings

20. Tactical revolution • According to legend Pheidon of Argos invented the phalanx, a formation of heavily armed infantrymen in close formation in close ranks. • These infantrymen were called hoplites, or “those who wear armor.” (οπλα) • Hoplites wore helmets, breastplates, and greaves; carried spear (doru, 9 ft), short sword, and most importantly a round shield about a meter in diameter.

21. The phalanx • Hoplites used their shields to protect their left sides and the right side of their neighbor. • Ranks were eight deep and close: those behind pushed the soldiers in front of them. • The idea was to cause the enemy soldiers to buckle under the weight of so many. • This formation not only intimidated; It saved lives. Casualties were usually about 15 percent, unheard of in ancient times. • It became the mark of Greek armies during the classical period.

23. Social implications • More soldiers returned alive from the engagements. • These farmer-soldiers had to be sufficiently well-off to buy their own armor and weapons. Poor were exempt from service. • These commoners had a heightened military function that eventually led to demands for a share of political power. • Like modern war veterans, they became a powerful group that agitated more societal ferment.

24. Rise of the Tyrants The mid-7th century brought the rise of tyrants…a fourth legacy of Archaic Greece. But first, let’s consider Sparta.