If the arrival of the alphabet in the early eighth century affected the way in which Greeks thought, this is not reflected in the surviving inscriptional evidence. On the contrary, the new technology, perhaps adopted in the first instance for the pragmatic reasons set out above but quickly utilized for a variety of other functions, was incorporated into existing cultural practices. The epitaph and the written dedication did not replace their un-inscribed counterparts, just as written law did not supersede unwritten. Archaic Greece did not become a literate culture insofar as writing did not become the dominant form of communication. It is reasonable to suggest that more people listened to poetry than read it, made oral rather than written agreements, and passed on messages, if at all possible, by word of mouth rather than by a note scratched on a potsherd. To suggest, however, that archaic Greece was and remained fundamentally an oral culture is to oversimplify the situation. This is not merely because, in certain spheres of Greek life, writing grew more important than oral communication - in the commercial sphere, writing, whether of letters or contracts, was of some importance by the end of sixth century - or because in certain regions levels of basic literacy were perhaps high - such as Attica in the second half of the sixth century. Rather, it is because literate and oral, literacy and orality, are not antithetical.52 No one should doubt that, in the archaic period, “the written word was subordinate to the spoken” (Thomas 1992: 91). But nor should anyone doubt that writing had considerable impact on existing cultural practices: that it amplified the power of the curse, gave greater political meaning to a dedication, and added to the communal significance of a law. This places writing at the heart of Greek culture in the archaic period. Ultimately, writing may not have transformed Greek society in the spectacular fashion sometimes claimed for it, but it did have a pervasive and lasting influence.
World History
