Athenai/History

While it was independent, the ancient Greek world never unified into a central polity. Rather, individual city-states fought for dominion over many centuries, fighting with one another as to who would be prominent. This was especially true between Athens and Sparta. But while they fought amongst themselves, when a foreign entity sought to invade, such as the Persian Empire, the Greeks would come together in a unity seldom rivaled in history. Alexander the Great of Macedonia would eventually subdue Greece along with almost the entire known world at the time, but that would only lead to the spreading of Greek culture as Macedon was Hellenistic in nature and Greece was once again "free" after his death. Rome eventually put an end to ancient Greek independence, but not its influence.

Greek life was dominated by religion and so it is not surprising that the temples of ancient Greece were the biggest and most beautiful.They also had a political purpose as they were often built to celebrate civic power and pride, or offer thanksgiving to the patron deity of a city for success in war.[2]

The beginning of the ancient or classical Greece (see map above) was 776 B.C. The peak of ancient or classical Greece was 500-336 B.C. when Greece consisted of many small "city-states". A city-state is a nation containing only one city.

Why didn't classical Greece begin before 776 B.C.? After all, Greeks migrated southward into the Greek peninsula as early as about 1600 B.C. But The momentous event that heralded the beginning of ancient or classical Greece was the first Olympic Games in 776 B.C. This played a unifying role for the culture, and the Olympics were then held every four years for a millennium until A.D. 393, when they ended. They were restarted in A.D. 1896, and held again every four years. (The winter Olympics did not begin until A.D. 1924, in France.)

Greece thrived for hundreds of years, from 776 B.C. until Alexander the Great died in 323 B.C. Afterward the term "Hellenistic Greece" is used to describe the region. Greece's land extended far and wide during this period, even to Jerusalem. Ultimately the Roman empire conquered Greece in 146 B.C.

Around 800 B.C., the Greeks formed their alphabet by borrowing from the Phoenician alphabet and adding vowels to it, and this sparked the progress and learning that we remember ancient Greece for. The spread of this new alphabet provides written records pf Greek society, culture, and life which survive today. Greece divided itself into many small self-governing communities because of Greek geography, which made travel and communication between areas difficult. In Greece, every region is separated from its neighbors by water or mountain ranges. Once again we see how geography shaped history: the terrain of ancient Greece led the people to create city-states. (Earlier we saw how the geography of Egypt supported the rise and power of that civilization and prevented its boundaries from changing, even when it was conquered.)

Magnificent Greek literature began to appear almost as soon as the Phoenician alphabet became the standard. Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey in the 800s or 700s B.C., and they remain great works of literature to this day. They describe adventures arising from the mythical "Trojan War" caused by the Greek gods, which included the famous gift of a "Trojan horse" to fool the enemy. In our internet era, a "Trojan horse" is a program or download that looks helpful, but actually contains a harmful computer virus. Greek mythology remains a powerful influence even now, as the names for gods have inspired many common terms today, such as "Achilles heel," "Amazon", "atlas" and "titans". Some would say that modern sports heroes, music stars, and media figures are appealing to the public in the same way as Greek mythological gods were so popular nearly 3000 years ago.

Poetry and fables developed. Aesop's Fables were written around 600 B.C., containing popular insights well worth remembering. For example, the term "sour grapes" applies to someone who complains after he loses, based on Aesop's fable about the fox unable to reach grapes. Aesop was smart enough to know that foxes are the only canines that like grapes. All the Fables are now available for easy access online.

One of Aesop's Fables is "The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing," which conveys a message about the harmful power of deceit: A Wolf found great difficulty in getting at the sheep owing to the vigilance of the shepherd and his dogs. But one day it found the skin of a sheep that had been flayed and thrown aside, so it put it on over its own pelt and strolled down among the sheep. The Lamb that belonged to the sheep, whose skin the Wolf was wearing, began to follow the Wolf in the Sheep's clothing; so, leading the Lamb a little apart, he soon made a meal off her, and for some time he succeeded in deceiving the sheep, and enjoying hearty meals.

As Greeks and other Gentiles learned insights from Aesop's Fables like the one above, Jewish and Christian warnings about the deceit of the devil became even easier to understand and accept.

The government of Athens in this early period was controlled by aristocrats who owned land. They elected "archons", who were the government officials who made the law. But in the 600s B.C., tyrants rose to power. The tyrants were primarily rich upstarts who illegally took over the government by violent means and catered to the lower classes to maintain popularity.

Athens was then ruled by a series of tyrants. One tyrant was "Draco", who wrote strict laws that had the same penalty of death for every crime, no matter how minor. The negative term "draconian laws" is used to today to criticize overly rigid rules. But Draco was not all bad: he granted voting rights only to people who would bear arms in self-defense! Other tyrants included Pisistratus (transferred estates from the nobles to the peasants and started building projects to create jobs) and Cleisthenes (created the democratic Council of 500 and promoted freedom of speech). Cleisthenes is also believed to have founded "ostracism", a system by which any citizen believed to have too much power by other citizens could be voted into exile for ten years, or "ostracized".

In 594 B.C. the Athenians selected Solon to revise their laws. He was a reformer who allowed most "citizens" (males descended from citizens) to vote. This was the beginning of a real democracy. By this time, the 500s B.C. (6th century), Hellas had become a culture larger than the geographical area of Greece. The basic political unit was the city, which in Greek is called the "polis" (PAH-lus). The plural of "polis", to express many cities, is "poleis" (PAH-lace). Each polis was made up of a city surrounded by a countryside. From that root we obtained our word "politics". Over 200 Greek city-states arose in the Greek landscape and geography, which has many hills and valleys well-suited to separate city-states. The unsuitability of the Greek terrain for farming encouraged more trade.

Several important cities arose: Athens, Corinth, Sparta and Thebes. Athens and Corinth were powerful economically, controlling maritime and mercantile trade. Athens and Sparta were powerful militarily, and were rivals of each other for a long time.

The large cities dominated the areas around them. Sparta, for example, exercised influence over the other cities of the Peloponnese, which was the large island in south Greece, connected to the mainland (where Athens was) by only an isthmus (a thin pathway of land). Sparta was allied with Corinth and Thebes, but was an enemy of Athens.

Athens, as a city-state, instituted a semi-constitutional system of government run by aristocrats, most notably Pisistratus and his sons. Ultimately the Pisistratids lost power, and the world's first democracy was established in 500 B.C. in Athens The powerful body became an assembly open to all (male) citizens.

The Greek city-states were remarkable because they adopted a form of democracy that inspired our Constitution: citizens elected representatives who would then make decisions for everyone. But there was only a legislature in Athens and no president or court system, so there was no separation of powers that is unique to our Constitution. Also, not all Greek males in Athens were citizens. The city-state of Athens had 225,000 residents at its peak, but only 30% of the males were citizens. Males born to families with large incomes became citizens. Still, Athens is considered to have invented "democracy", and its residents felt an allegiance to the State because of this.

Athens had a direct democracy: every citizen (Athenian adult males) could propose laws and participate in their consideration and approval. Nobles served as judges to interpret the law, but there was a right to appeal and citizens served as jurors for trials in court.

https://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/background/6.html

When Pisistratus became tyrant of Athens in 547 BC it marked a change of direction for the city-state and the surrounding land of Attica, which despite its large size and power was overshadowed by many of the other city-states of Greece. During the long period of his rule, Pisistratus sought to correct this.

He began by constructing new public buildings, such as a 'fountain house' to improve the city's water supply, and new temples on the Acropolis. Eager to glorify the city, he introduced major new festivals, including the Panathenaic Festival, a midsummer procession and sports event dedicated to Athene, and the City Dionysia, the first known drama competitions. Promising to help the common people, he also reformed the legal system.

But perhaps his greatest achievement was the transformation of the economy by introducing loans and encouraging farmers to grow 'cash crops', like olives.

A highly prized crop, olives provided cooking oil, lubricant, soap and even fuel, but political instability had always made them too risky a crop to cultivate: an average olive tree took 10 years to produce fruit. Pisistratus' stable reign made growing such crops viable, and before long Athens was producing enough olives to become an export economy. In turn this produced a massive boost to crafts, especially pottery, which was used to transport the harvest.

Pisistratus had literally sown the seeds of future greatness. He died in 527 BC and was succeeded by his son Hippias.