Ancient Greece

This article is about the civilization. For the language, see Ancient Greek.

Ancient Greece (Ancient Greek: Ἑλλάς, romanized: Hellás) was an ancient civilization that existed from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th to 9th centuries BC until the end of classical antiquity (c. 600 AD). It was a loose collection of culturally and linguistically related city-states and regions, mostly centered in the northeastern area of the Mediterranean Sea. Before the Roman period, most of this area was officially unified only once, from 338 to 323 BC, under the Kingdom of Macedon. In Western history, the era of classical antiquity was followed by the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine period.

Scholars mark Ancient Greece as beginning with Mycenaean Greece, which declined during the Bronze Age collapse around 1100 BC. Three centuries later, Greek city-states called poleis began to form in the 8th century BC. This started the Archaic period and Greek colonization of the Mediterranean Basin. The Classical period that followed was a time of great learning and creativity. It ran from the Greco-Persian Wars to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC. It included the Golden Age of Athens, the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, the short-lived Spartan and Theban hegemonies, and the creation of the Hellenic league led by Philip II of Macedon. Philip's son Alexander the Great then conquered Persia's Achaemenid Empire.

Alexander's conquests spread Greek culture into Northern Africa and Western Asia. This time is known as the Hellenistic period, which ended around 30 BC. That was when the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt, centered in Alexandria, was annexed by Rome.

Classical Greek culture, especially Greek philosophy, had a powerful influence on Ancient Rome. Rome spread versions of it throughout the Mediterranean and much of Europe. For this reason, Classical Greece is generally considered the cradle of Western civilization. It was a seminal culture, meaning it gave the modern West many of its founding ideas in politics, philosophy, science, and art.

Chronology

For a chronological guide, see Timeline of ancient Greece. Classical antiquity in the Mediterranean region is commonly considered to have begun in the 8th century BC, around the time of the earliest recorded poetry of Homer, and to have ended in the 6th century AD. Classical antiquity in Greece was preceded by the Greek Dark Ages (c. 1200 – c. 800 BC), which are known through archaeology and the protogeometric and geometric styles of designs on pottery. The Dark Ages were followed by the Archaic period, beginning around the 8th century BC. This was a time of early developments in Greek culture and society, which led to the Classical period. The Classical period lasted from the Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC until the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC.

The Classical period is known for a "classical" style, which later observers considered an excellent example, most famously seen in the Parthenon of Athens. Politically, Athens and the Delian League led during the 5th century, but Spartan hegemony took over in the early 4th century BC. Power then shifted to Thebes and the Boeotian League, and finally to the League of Corinth, led by Macedon. This period was shaped by the Greco-Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian War, and the Rise of Macedon. The Hellenistic period (323–146 BC) followed, when Greek culture and power expanded into the Near East until the Roman conquest. Roman Greece is usually counted from the Roman victory over the Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC until 330 AD, when Constantine made Byzantium the capital of the Roman Empire. Finally, Late Antiquity refers to the period of Christianization in the later 4th to early 6th centuries AD, which ended when Justinian I closed the Academy of Athens in 529.

Historiography

Main article: Greek historiographers

The time of ancient Greece is special in world history because it is the first period known directly from full, story-style historiography. Earlier ancient history, or protohistory, is known from much smaller pieces of evidence, such as yearly records, lists of kings, and practical epigraphy.

Herodotus is widely known as the "father of history." His book Histories gave its name to the entire field. Written between the 450s and 420s BC, it covers about a century of the past. It tells about 6th-century BC people such as Darius I of Persia, Cambyses II, and Psamtik III, and it mentions a few 8th-century BC people such as Candaules. Historians still debate how accurate Herodotus' works are. After Herodotus, other writers such as Thucydides, Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plato, and Aristotle continued the work. Most of them were from Athens or supported Athens, so we know much more about Athens than about many other cities. These writers also focused mostly on politics, war, and diplomacy, and paid less attention to economic and social history.

History

For a chronological guide, see Timeline of ancient Greece.

Further information: History of Greece and Ancient Greek tribes

Main article: Archaic Greece

Main article: Classical Greece

Main articles: Wars of Alexander the Great, Diadochi, Hellenistic period, and Hellenistic Greece

Main article: Greece in the Roman era

Further information: Byzantine Greece

From about 800 to 500 BC, during the Archaic period, the polis (city-state) became the most important way that Greeks organised their government. Small, independent city-states grew up partly because mountains separated many towns from one another. Greeks founded colonies around the Mediterranean, such as Al-Mina and Ischia. In Athens, citizen men gained the right to attend the assembly, and leaders such as Solon, Pisistratus, and Cleisthenes helped shape its democratic system. In Sparta, the Peloponnesian League was formed under Spartan leadership. In 499 BC, the Ionian city-states rebelled against Persian rule, and Athens sent help. In 490 BC, Athens defeated a Persian army at the Battle of Marathon. Ten years later, Persia invaded again. The Greeks fought back at Thermopylae, at the Battle of Salamis, and at the Battle of Plataea. The Delian League later became an Athenian empire. A long war between Athens and Sparta, the Peloponnesian War, began in 431 BC and ended with Athens defeated. In the 4th century, Thebes and other states competed for power until Philip II of Macedon defeated a Greek alliance at the Battle of Chaeronea. His son Alexander the Great then conquered Persia and reached India.

After Alexander died in 323 BC, his generals ruled new kingdoms, including Demetrius, Ptolemy, and Seleucus I. This time is called the Hellenistic period, and it ended when Cleopatra, the last Macedonian ruler of Egypt, died. Greek city-states joined alliances such as the Aetolian League and the Achaean League. Over time, the Romans conquered Macedon and the other Greek lands. Greece became part of the Roman world, and the Romans organised Macedonia as a Roman province. The Greek language was widely used in the eastern Roman Empire, and many Greek thinkers, such as Galen, did much of their work in Rome.

Placeholders for tables and figures, in order:

Geography

Main article: Regions of ancient Greece

Main article: Greek colonisation

Further information: Magna Graecia, Greeks in pre-Roman Gaul, and List of ancient cities in Thrace and Dacia § Greek

The land of Greece is mountainous, so ancient Greece was made up of many small regions. Each had its own dialect, customs, and identity, and conflicts between regions were common. Cities were usually built in valleys between mountains or on coastal plains, and they controlled the land around them. In the south lay the Peloponnese, with regions such as Laconia, Messenia, Elis, Achaia, Korinthia, Argolis, and Arcadia. Some of these names are still used for regional units of modern Greece. North of the Peloponnese was the area now called Central Greece, which included Aetolia, Acarnania, Locris, Doris, Phocis, Boeotia, Attica, and Megaris. Thessaly lay to the northeast and Epirus to the northwest. Epirus ran from the Ambracian Gulf to the Ceraunian Mountains and the Aoos river, and included Chaonia, Molossia, and Thesprotia. In the northeast corner was Macedonia, which first included Lower Macedonia and regions such as Emathia (Macedonia), Pieria, and Bottiaea, and later Almopia and Amphaxitis. The first capital of Macedon was Aigai, and in the 4th century BC it moved to Pella. Around the time of Alexander I of Macedon, the Argead kings of Macedon began to expand into Eordaia and the rest of Upper Macedonia. That area was home to independent Macedonian tribes, such as the Lyncestae, Orestae, and Elimiotae. The kings also expanded east, across the Axius river, into Mygdonia and lands settled by Thracians. North of Macedonia lived non-Greek peoples, including the Paeonians to the north, the Thracians to the northeast, and the Illyrians to the northwest, who often fought with the Macedonians. Chalcidice was settled early by southern Greek colonists and was seen as part of the Greek world. From the late 2nd millennium BC, many Greeks also settled on the eastern shores of the Aegean, in Anatolia.

During the Archaic period, the Greek population grew larger than the small amount of arable land in Greece could support, which led to the establishment of colonies in other places. One estimate says the population of the growing area of Greek settlement rose about ten times, from 800 to 400 BC, from 800,000 to as many as 7 1/2 to 10 million. These settlements were not only for trade but also to found new towns. Unlike Roman colonies, Greek colonies were not controlled by their mother cities. They were independent city-states. Greeks settled outside Greece in two ways. The first was through permanent settlements that became independent poleis. The second was through emporia, trading posts where Greeks and non-Greeks both lived and which mainly made and sold goods. Examples are Al Mina in the east and Pithekoussai in the west. From about 750 to 500 BC, Greeks founded colonies in every direction. To the east, the Aegean coast of Asia Minor was settled first, followed by Cyprus, the coasts of Thrace, the Sea of Marmara, and the south coast of the Black Sea. The colonies reached as far northeast as present-day Ukraine and Russia, at Taganrog. To the west, the coasts of Illyria, Southern Italy (called "Magna Graecia"), Southern France, Corsica, and even eastern Spain were settled. Greek colonies were also founded in Egypt and Libya. Today's Syracuse, Naples, Marseille, and Istanbul began as the Greek colonies Syracusae, Neapolis, Massalia, and Byzantion. These colonies helped spread Greek influence across Europe and built long-distance trade networks between the Greek city-states, which boosted the economy of ancient Greece.

Politics and society

Further information: History of citizenship § Ancient Greece

Main article: Ancient Greek law

Ancient Greece was made up of several hundred fairly independent city-states (poleis). This was unlike most other societies of the time, which were either tribal or kingdoms ruling over large areas. The Greeks shared the same religion, culture, and language, but they rarely joined together, and each city-state fiercely defended its independence. The land itself, divided by hills, mountains, and rivers, helped keep the city-states separate. Smaller city-states often formed leagues with one another, and later in the Classical period, a few large cities such as Athens, Sparta, and Thebes came to dominate them. Although Philip II of Macedon conquered most of ancient Greece, he did not take over its land but instead brought most city-states into his own league. At first, many city-states were ruled by kings, but by the Archaic period most had become oligarchies, ruled by small groups of wealthy families. In Athens, the government changed step by step, and the Athenians later founded the world's first democracy. Only free, land-owning, native-born men could be citizens, and slaves and metics had no political rights. Sparta was an exception, ruled by two hereditary kings whose power was limited by a council of elders (the Gerousia) and officials called the Ephors.

Slavery was common, and by the 5th century BC, slaves made up one-third of the population in some city-states. Slaves had no political rights, but some could own property and have families. Sparta's helots were enslaved people who were assigned to families and forced to stay there. For most of Greek history, education was private, except in Sparta, and boys learned reading, music, and sports to prepare for citizenship and military service. Girls learned reading, writing, and simple arithmetic to manage their households. Greece's free citizens were among the most prosperous in the ancient world. Warfare changed greatly after the Greco-Persian Wars, and the Peloponnesian War brought bigger armies and new strategies. Athens had one of the largest war fleets, with over 200 triremes. According to Josiah Ober, Greek city-states faced about a one-in-three chance of destruction during the Archaic and Classical periods.

Culture

Main article: Ancient Greek philosophy

Ancient Greek philosophy focused on the role of reason and inquiry. It had a big influence on later philosophy and science, and lines of influence run from ancient Greece to the modern day. Greek thinkers were not the first to ask questions, but many historians study what made their search for knowledge different. The first Greek philosophers tried to describe the world without myths. Socrates laid the basis of Western philosophy, even though his ideas are known only through other people's accounts. His student Plato wrote The Republic, and Plato's student Aristotle wrote about nature and ethics. Early Greek poetry was meant to be performed, and the poet Homer is the earliest known Greek poet. The first poet known to have written down their work was Archilochus.

Main articles: Ancient Greek literature and Theatre of ancient Greece

Greek plays and comedies were performed for audiences, and the comic writer Aristophanes wrote one of the first comedies that still survives. Greek prose, such as philosophy, history, and stories, grew strong in the classical period. Music was very important in ancient Greek life. Men sang and played music at the symposium, and people sang at work and at ceremonies. The Greeks played mostly singing music, often with instruments such as the lyre and the reed instrument called the aulos.

Main articles: Music of ancient Greece

Main articles: List of Graeco-Roman geographers, Greek astronomy, Greek mathematics, Ancient Greek medicine, Ancient Greek technology, and Science in classical antiquity

Greek mathematicians gave the world many important ideas, including the basic rules of geometry. Mathematicians such as Pythagoras, Euclid, and Archimedes are still studied in schools today. Greek thinkers also studied the sky in great detail. The physician Hippocrates is called the "father of medicine" for his lasting work in the field. Greek art has greatly influenced the art of many countries, especially sculpture and architecture.

Main articles: Ancient Greek art and Ancient Greek architecture

Main article: Ancient Greek religion

Religion was central to ancient Greek life. Greeks in different cities worshipped similar gods, but their practices and ideas about the gods varied from place to place. The Greeks were polytheistic, meaning they worshipped many gods. The most important religious act was animal sacrifice, most often of sheep and goats, and it was accompanied by public prayer and hymns.

Legacy

Further information: Classics

The civilization of ancient Greece has been hugely influential on language, politics, schools, philosophy, science, and the arts. Greek culture became the Leitkultur of the Roman Empire, to the point that it pushed aside native Italic traditions. As Horace put it in his Epistulae:

Graecia capta ferum victorem cepit et artis / intulit agresti Latio

Captive Greece took captive her uncivilised conqueror and instilled her arts in rustic Latium.

Through the Roman Empire, Greek culture became a foundation of Western culture in general. The Byzantine Empire inherited Classical Greek and Hellenistic culture directly. Keeping Greek learning alive in Byzantine tradition later influenced the Slavs, the Islamic Golden Age, and the Western European Renaissance. Greek learning was revived again in the Neoclassicism movement in 18th- and 19th-century Europe and the Americas.