Ancient Greece: an Illustrated History

193 Pages·2010·37.94 MB·English

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Ancient Greece
AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY
Marshall Cavendish
Reference
New York
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Marshall Cavendish This publication represents the opinions
Copyright © 2011 Marshall Cavendish Corporation and views of the authors based on personal
experience,knowledge,and research.The
Published by Marshall Cavendish Reference information in this book serves as a general
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Alam,Selangor Darul Ehsan,Malaysia
Ancient Greece :an illustrated history.
Marshall Cavendish is a trademark of
p.cm.
Times Publishing Limited
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-7614-9955-8 (alk.paper)
All websites were available and accurate
1. Greece--History--To 146 B.C.2. Greece--Civilization--To
when this book was sent to press.
146 B.C.
DF215.A55 2010
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CONTENTS
Foreword 4 Macedon and Alexander
the Great 154
Bronze Age Greece 6
After Alexander 166
The Minoans 14
The Greek Legacy 174
Mycenae and Troy 26
Glossary 184
The Dark Age and
Greek Expansion 40 Major Historical Figures 187
Sparta and Athens 52 Index 188
From Tyranny to
Democracy 64
Greek Religion 80
The Birth of Drama 88
The Persian Wars 96
The Age of Pericles 110
The Great
Philosophers 122
The Peloponnesian
War 138
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FOREWORD
I
n the preface to his lyric drama “Hellas” gives them the background needed to interpret
(1821), written the year before he died, the current circumstances.Such background is sore-
poet Percy Bysshe Shelley declared to readers ly needed,for the past has always served as the
throughout the English-speaking world that: prologue to the future.Beginning with a survey
“We are all Greeks.Our laws,our literature,our of Stone Age culture from the Paleolithic era and
religion,our arts,have their root in Greece.”For a study of the life of the island peoples inhabit-
citizens of the West,Shelley’s statement is as true ing Crete and the Cyclades, this book then
now as it was then.Take, for example, the evi- introduces its readers to the Bronze Age warrior
dence from our everyday language. Nouns in culture populated by the men and women who
common usage such as “democracy,” “tragedy,” were made immortal by the poet Homer in the
“odyssey,”“tyrant,”“theater,”and “poet,”as well Iliad:Agamemnon,Helen,Hector,and Achilles,
as the adjectives “spartan,” “stoic,” “comic,” among others.When the Mycenaean hegemony
“olympic,”“epic,” and “platonic,” testify to the fell apart,there followed a prolonged period of
enduring influence of the Hellenic past. decline,from whose ruins rose a system of city-
At no time in recent history have the peoples states such as those of Sparta, Corinth,Thebes,
of Europe and of Western civilization in general and Athens.These cities in turn created eco-
been as engaged as they are today in areas of the nomic engines, forms of art and architecture,
globe that were involved for centuries in repeat- structures of government, techniques of diplo-
ed conflicts and continuous cultural exchange macy,methods of warfare,and systems of philos-
with the Greeks.Scarcely a day passes in which ophy, religion, and law that are now applied
an event in the Near East,western Asia,or South worldwide. The successes, failures, biases, and
Asia does not make up some aspect of the daily shortcomings of these systems remain of great
news cycle.Looking back to the last century,the consequence to us.The warning made by the
British invasion of Iraq during the Anglo-Iraqi Greek historian Herodotus to his audience in
War in May 1941 marked the first time since the fifth century BCE still pertains:the divinities
Alexander the Great’s siege of the island city Tyre who sanction prosperity will just as frequently
in 333 BCE that armed forces of any nation had destroy it.
marched east from the eastern shores of the Over time, this pan-Hellenic network of
Mediterranean Sea to the Mesopotamian city of Greek-speaking city-states absorbed and was
Babylon. That invasion occurred roughly 70 itself absorbed by neighboring cultures. The
years ago.How little the world changes! network became truly multicultural as it spread
Covering the major periods of Greek histo- westward throughout the Mediterranean region
ry,Ancient Greece:An Illustrated Historybrings the into Sicily, portions of Italy, southern France,
past alive to a new generation of students and and the Iberian Peninsula,southward into Africa,
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FOREWORD
and eastward as far as the Hindu Kush and artifacts as well as presenting modern views of
northern India—where Alexander the Great ancient sites—sustains the reader’s interest.
made the final thrusts of his military campaign. Instructors will enjoy teaching from this book
Alexander’s death in Babylon in 323 BCE and students who learn from it will come away
marked the beginning of the Hellenistic Age. with a strong sense that “the glory that was
It may indeed be no exaggeration to say that we Greece,” vis-à-vis Edgar Allan Poe’s poem “To
are still living in the Hellenistic Age, because Helen”(1845),is no frothy sentiment of poetic
the Greek cultural diffusion, quickened by hyperbole,but in fact an assertion well worth the
Alexander’s wide reach and later extended by scrutiny and analysis of every generation.
the Romans and the Byzantines, has not yet
ended. Michele Ronnick
Ancient Greece:An Illustrated History has many Michele Ronnick is president of the Classical
merits and is a commendable asset to the 21st- Association of the Middle West and South and a pro-
century classroom. Its prose is clear and well- fessor in the Department of Classical and Modern
paced,and its pagination and format are visually Languages,Literatures,and Cultures at Wayne State
attractive.In addition to the neat summations of University,Detroit,MI.
information arranged in time lines and the valu-
able details of geography conveyed by the vol- Additional related information is available in the
ume’s many maps,a positive boon is the book’s 11-volume History of the Ancient and Medieval
illustrations. World, second edition, and the corresponding
The images are large, mostly in color, and online Ancient and Medieval World database at
their varied arrangement—depicting actual www.marshallcavendishdigital.com.
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BRONZE AGE
GREECE
In the third millennium BCE, a relatively sophisticated culture
TIME LINE
grew up on both the Greek mainland and the surrounding
islands. In particular, the inhabitants of the Cyclades began to
c.6500 BCE
Farming produce beautiful works of sculpture.
communities
established on
Greek mainland. Greece consists of mainland Greece on third millennium BCE.In addition to a
the Balkan Peninsula and a mass of knowledge of bronze,the invaders intro-
c.3000 BCE
islands,large and small,scattered over the duced the swing-plow, which greatly
Distinctive culture
Aegean Sea and extending as far south as improved farming methods.The period
emerges on
Cycladic islands Crete in the Mediterranean.The climate between around 2800 and 2600 BCE
in Aegean Sea. is volatile, with extreme fluctuations in (called Early Helladic I) was a time of
temperature, strong winds, and sudden great change. Walled hilltop villages
c.2800 BCE
downpours of torrential rain.The main appeared, with a chief who ruled over
Invaders with
knowledge of agricultural products are olives, grapes, the surrounding farmland.Trading with
metalwork arrive and figs.In ancient times,both cattle and other communities,some of them over-
on Greek mainland;
horses were grazed in the eastern central seas, led to the emergence of a wealthy
beginning of
regions of mainland Greece. class, who built their houses of stone
Early Helladic I
period. rather than mud bricks.Along with the
Greece in the Stone Age
rise of this merchant class came the
c.2600 BCE
There is evidence of Stone Age hunters craftsman class and the use of symbols to
Beginning of Early
living in mainland Greece in the mark goods and seal containers.
Helladic II period.
Sophisticated Paleolithic Age,and by the seventh mil- During the period called Early
stone settlements lennium BCE it seems that farming Helladic II (c.2600–2100 BCE),this civ-
built. communities were established. These ilization peaked, building settlements
c.2100 BCE early farmers lived in villages of circular surrounded by towering stone walls and
mud huts, grew grains, peas, and lentils, containing houses with several rooms.
Migrants from
central Asia and kept animals, such as pigs, cattle, Excavations at Lerna have uncovered
arrive on Greek goats,and sheep,for meat and milk.The what was probably an important civic
mainland to
farmers supplemented their diet by building, the massive House of Tiles,
establish Minyan
hunting and fishing and made stone tools which was built two stories high with a
culture.
such as axes and chisels.By the end of the balcony on the upper story.The house
c.1500 BCE
Neolithic Age, people were living in takes its modern name from a number of
Traditional date
walled towns,in which some large hous- small, flat tiles of baked clay that were
given for eruption
es had a central hall—indicating that found in its ruins. The tiles may have
of volcano on
Greek island of some individuals had now become covered a sloping roof and are thought to
Thera. wealthier than others, or had even be the earliest roof tiles ever discovered.
become chieftains. From 2100 BCE onward, successive
On the mainland, metalworking waves of hostile migrants from central
invaders arrived in the first part of the Asia swept through the Balkan Peninsula
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BRONZE AGE GREECE
and destroyed most of the fortified uncovered it in the late 19th century CE This marble
towns. In their place, the invaders built when he was excavating at Orchomenus, sculpture,made on
dwellings of more primitive,one-storied, a city in Boeotia that rose to prominence the island of Keros
houses.The invaders brought with them in the Mycenaean era. Schliemann around 2000 BCE,
a new kind of pottery,which was made named both the pots and the people who depicts a musician
on a wheel and whose angular shapes had produced them Minyan. These playing the harp.
seemed to imitate metal pots.This pot- Minyans spoke an Indo-European lan-
tery was first discovered by the German guage and have since come to be consid-
archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann,who ered the first Greeks.
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ANCIENT GREECE
ITALY
Scoglio del
Tonno
SICILY
This gold goblet The invaders eventually integrated
dates to around with the indigenous inhabitants and
2100 BCE,an learned from them seafaring skills that
era known to had been notably lacking. The general
archaeologists level of culture remained low, however,
as the Early for the Minyans. They lived in simple
Helladic IIperiod. “long houses” arranged in villages, and The Cyclades get their name from
some of the villages were enclosed the Greek word kyklos,meaning “circle,”
within walls. because they are arranged roughly in a
circle around the island of Delos,which
Island cultures
was considered sacred to the god Apollo
Prior to the Early Helladic Iperiod on (see box,page 11).The islands have been
the Greek mainland,another culture had inhabited since very early times.There is
started to develop on the Cycladic evidence of settlements on the larger
islands. Located in the southwestern islands, such as Kythnos, Mykonos,
Aegean Sea, the Cyclades are a group Naxos,and Milos,dating from the sixth
of more than 30 major islands formed millennium BCE.
from the peaks of mountain ranges sub- These early Neolithic settlers proba-
merged long ago.The islands are rocky bly came from southwestern Anatolia
and volcanic and are rich in miner- (present-day Turkey), and as they were
als such as gold, silver, obsidian, and seafaring people, they settled near the
marble,as well as the ores of lead,iron, coasts on the chosen islands.The settlers
and copper. grew barley and wheat,raised pigs,sheep,
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BRONZE AGE GREECE
GREECE IN THE BRONZE AGE
Troy
GREECE Aegean Sea LESBOS ANATOLIA
Gla
Orchomenus
Mycenae
DELOS Miletus
MYKONOS
KYTHNOS PAROS NAXOS
Pylos
M CYCLADES
editerranean MILOS THERA
Sea
CRETE
and goats, and caught fish, particularly hard rock that the sculptors obtained
tuna, in the Aegean.There is evidence from Naxos. Details were then often
from some excavated sites that these peo- picked out in red and blue paint.
ple were familiar with copperworking The figurines are extremely distinc-
from around 4000 BCE. tive in their style.To begin with, they
almost always portray women rather than
Cycladic art
men.The elongated figures stand upright
From around 3000 BCE, the Cycladic with the head tilted back,while the arms
islanders began to develop a distinct cul- are usually folded across the chest, with
ture of their own.They became expert the left arm above the right.The legs and
at carving small, elegant figurines in feet touch one another.The statues vary
the pure white marble that they found in size enormously;the smallest are only
on the islands of Paros and Naxos. 2 inches (5 cm) tall,while the largest are
Archaeologists have discovered these almost life-size.
statuettes in burial chambers.To achieve Archaeologists are unsure about the
a smooth surface, the figures were purpose of these statuettes. Because
rubbed with emery stones, a dark, very many of these figurines were found in
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