Archaic Greece

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Archaic Greece

• 700 - 500

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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.

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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.

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Great Developments of the Archaic Age of Greece

• Refining development of the polis (p????).
• Diffusion of Greek civilization (ap????a).
• Rise of the middlings and their service in the
  hoplite armies.
• Rise of the Tyrants from social conflicts
  (stas??).

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Early development of the polis (p????).

• Sometimes referred to as city-state

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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.

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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. (??eß?t? sp????)
• Seldom did one refer to the name of the city, but
  to its citizens One may travel to Athens, but
  one battles the Athenians.

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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.

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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).

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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 ????? (boule), often the
  board of elders (p?esß?te???) or trustees of the
  polis.

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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 everythinghad the right to
  interfere in any aspect of the populations
  lives resident aliens, women, slaves etc.
• Aristotle and others later wrote that the polis
  was civilization.
• Law is kingfreedom found in ordered existence in
  community where all respect the established civic
  codes.

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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.

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Diffusion of Greek civilization (ap????a).

• Colonization during the Archaic Period

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?p????ahome 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.
• ?p????a was therefore a safety valve that moved
  off surplus and disaffected populations.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Rise of the hoplite armies

• The phalanx revolution and rise of the middlings

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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. (?p?a)
• Hoplites wore helmets, breastplates, and greaves
  carried spear (doru, 9 ft), short sword, and most
  importantly a round shield about a meter in
  diameter.

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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.

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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.

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Rise of the Tyrants

• The mid-7th century brought the rise of tyrantsa
  fourth legacy of Archaic Greece.
• But first, lets consider Sparta.