(p. 236a) Early Iron Age Greece seems composed of a patchy dispersal of villages and rare small towns, organized around elite families, probably with much instability of power
In Archaic era Athens, texts inform us that the elite of the city-state belonged to a class of aristocrats called the "Eupatridai" or "well-born," whose power rested both in the city and in the countryside, creating what Runciman (1982) has likened to the anthropologically attested "segmentary" state.
(p. 236b) Interactions within regions (due to intermarriage, migration, trade)
Dickinson (2006) points out wisely that virtually all communities of Early Iron Age-Archaic Greece needed to import materials such as bronze or iron, and the networks for exchange of raw material and finished products may have provided another important basis for the rise of shared religious customs, festivals, names of the months, and burial practices.
(p.236c) Luraghi (2002) believes that the Messenian "people" _ were largely "fabricated"
See Luraghi's 2008 monograph.
(p. 236d) In the Middle-Late Geometric and Early Archaic eras we see the recrystallization of intercommunal political structures, ranging from "village-states" through territorial oligarchic states, to federations of towns or villages and finally to territorial kingdoms of towns and villages
In fact Aristotle did not mean that ethne were merely village societies, as so many possessed towns and even clusters of towns within them. He argued instead that a polis was an integrated single whole of one center and lesser settlements, while ethne were made up of a federal mosaic with similar parts (Hall 2007). Sparta was a giant polis whose state incorporated no other Spartan town but did include numerous dependent towns of non-citizens, the "dwellers-around" or perioeci. The outstanding Copenhagen Polis Project, begun in 1993 and now completed, inventories 1035 Greek poleis, of which at least 862 can be shown to have existed contemporaneously around 400 BC. This vast research program has demonstrated that, with the exception of some regions on the edges of the Greek world, all Greeks lived in territories dominated by towns (Hansen and Nielsen 2004).
(p. 236e) Internal evolution is the central factor behind such emergent supra-family and supra-village communities, interacting however with external political and commercial contacts
As Hall (1997) expresses it, it is likely that many of the ancient traditions of tribal migrations were the product of later communities trying to think how they came into being. This viewpoint was anticipated in the ideas of the ancient historian Beloch in the nineteenth century, who envisaged the dialect groups as early historic inventions when diverse provinces wished to create their own identities. The strongest myth, that of a Dorian invasion, appears to have been first attested in the mid-sixth century BC and thus 500-600 years after the supposed event; for Hall this reflects a late merger of tales for contemporary political reasons. The absence of ancient names for many key sites of the Early Iron Age (A. Snodgrass, pers. comm.) argues for dislocation of tradition rather than a stability of historical memory since the end of the Bronze Age. Nonetheless, a critical migration of Dorian-speakers to Crete in LH3C still seems to be accepted (Prent 2007).
(pp. 236-238) The concept of a Greek identity was weak until the Persian and Carthaginian Wars of the fifth century forged this in opposition to threatening civilizations
Antonaccio (2007) notes how many early Greek colonies and the rarer emporia (trading-places inhabited by Greeks) were multiethnic in Archaic times, while Greek relations with non-Greeks both within and without the Aegean were often on an equal basis, with elites entering into formal "guest-friendships" (xenia) or trade partnerships. For her too, an exclusive Greek identity in opposition to "barbarians" who were usually considered inferior peoples, was an invention of the Classical fifth century BC.
(p. 237a) Archaic farms and hamlets are rare and usually late in the period This picture is appropriately clear in Attica itself (Lohmann 1992, 1993).
(p. 237b) Jameson has argued that in Classical Attica agricultural slaves largely replaced tied labor
The population of Classical Athens and its state territory of Attica has been continually debated. A figure of around 30,000 male citizens is widely accepted, which would indicate a population of some 120,000-150,000 for the total citizen families. The number of free resident aliens, merchants, artisans, and other professions, and the number of slaves, are the most uncertain additions, but their inclusion is considered to bring the overall regional total to between 200,000 and 300,000 (Fisher 1998, Morris 2000). A rule-of-thumb argues that texts suggest only the very poor citizens lacked a slave, while richer families would possess several; thus a minimum of 30,000 slaves would be derived this way. It should be far more, since the important Attic silver mines were worked by slave labor, with one well-known renter-out of slaves for this activity, Nicias, personally supplying no fewer than 1000 slaves for this industry. Middle - to upper-class households would probably have had at least one female house-slave to assist the housewife at home, and Jameson (1977-78) argues that the standard scale of plot for the hoplite farm would have required a permanent extra hand in the field, usually a male agricultural slave. When Athens was besieged by the Spartans at the end of the Peloponnesian War, some 20,000 slaves are recorded as taking the opportunity to escape their Athenian owners.
(p. 238a) In Classical city-states the free lower class were a valuable support force of lightly armed troops (peltasts) or exceptionally (for Athens) this class manned the prime weapon of its Classical maritime empire, as warship rowers (the thetes). Unsurprisingly it is in Athens where this class achieves its greatest political freedoms
In Athens, Solon's political and economic reforms gave aid and rights to the lower classes, and strengthened the power of the rising middle or hoplite class. This was followed by the strengthening of political power for the middle-lower classes through Kleisthenes' reforms of 507 BC. But it still required further democratic measures in the 450s BC by Ephialtes and Pericles to allow all wealth classes to hold the highest offices of state, and to remove residual political power from the Areopagus council of aristocrats (the former "upper house") (Parker 2007).
(p. 238b) In a considerable number of Archaic-Classical polis or ethnos regions, the support of the hoplite-elite class continued to rest on a large body of serfs; societies of this types could be found ranging geographically from Crete through the Peloponnese to Central Greece and Thessaly
Krentz (2007) adds to the well-known cases of the Cretan serf-state, and of Sparta dominating Laconian and Messenian serfs and other dependent if free peoples, serfs for the cities of Sicyon and Argos and the ethnos of Thessaly, and maybe also for the ethnos of the Lokrians, and the cities of Megara, Epidaurus, and Elis.
(p. 238c) The upper classes must have laid claim to all land taken into cultivation by the community, either by assuming direct, or indirect, rights to its surplus product. This model explains how peasant oppression remains in place, regardless of how intensely the countryside was being farmed
For similar views see Schils (1991), also with reference to earlier work by Andrewes along the same lines.
(p. 238d) There was no land shortage at this point in Southern Greece
Exceptions by later Archaic times may have included the small and largely rocky Cycladic island of Thera, where food problems are recorded for this time, and other unusually under-resourced islands.
(p. 238e) Political instability and limited rights for the lower class seem to continue through the sixth century in Attica, until Kleisthenes resolved their status more radically. Appropriately, as Morris (1987) shows, the changes in Attic burial norms closely reflect this
While the eighth-century gift of formal burial to the Attic lower classes suggests some relaxation of their dependency, followed by a retraction of this right in the seventh and early sixth century - exactly coinciding with the crisis of the classes in the Solonic era, the final reinstatement of their burial privileges comes only in the late sixth century BC, at the time of the more revolutionary Kleisthenic reform.
(p. 239a) Thus the rise of moderate democratic institutions in Archaic-Classical times reflects a shift in power from the dominant upper-elite families to lesser, client-elite families, rather than the rise of a suppressed serf class
It is important to note that Archaic states were "oligarchic" (ruled by the few), in that aristocratic clans were dominant in politics. However, in many cases their power was in part balanced against an assembly of the middle class, normally of hoplite status in landowning and military capability. The numerous lower-class citizens or thetes appear to have been excluded in Archaic times from the politicized demos, or "the people" (Hall 2007) and only in rare cases in subsequent Classical times, most notably in Athens, were they allowed to share power with the other classes in the polis. Even in the most democratic of states by the fifth century, Athens, the hoplite class had to wait till 453 before the constitution changed to allow them access to election for the top executive positions in the state (Shapiro 2007). Nonetheless this shift in the balance of power between the middle to upper classes was unstable, and the numerous sixth-century dictators and "autocratic" lawgivers in Greek poleis ("tyrants"), despite being aristocrats themselves, exploited this for their own ends, which often resulted in the (for them) unexpected momentum toward a dominance of the hoplite class by Classical times (Hall 2007, Parker 2007).
(p. 239b) In Homer's epics nobles conduct personal combat with their peers in open skirmishes, utilizing chariots as "taxis" around the field of combat
During Archaic times it seems chariots were still in use for ceremonial occasions such as processions and funerals, but also at times as backup battlefield "taxis" for the elite (Krentz 2007).
(p. 239c) The appearance of a new military formation, a solid block of citizen soldiers wedged together with spears to the fore like a hedgehog: the phalanx
It now appears that the rise of hoplite phalanx warfare may have been gradual. Thus the seventh-century war between Chalcis and Eretria probably mixed formation conflict alongside individual combat of a more "heroic" or "Homeric" style. Individual aristocrats received "heroic" burials at which funeral games were held (Crielaard 1998). The Spartan poet Tyrtaeus in the mid-seventh century also seems to describe mixed combat of open and closed formations (Snodgrass 1993). But recent evidence confirms Snodgrass's older view that from the end of the eighth century BC weapons and body armor gradually shifted from suitable equipment for loose-formation personal combat toward that uniquely adapted to the closed hoplite phalanx, as the dedications at the Phocian ethnos federal sanctuary at Kalapodi make clear (Felsch 2007). Bryant (1990) suggests a shift from aristocratic raids linked to the individual body fitness of the elite, to the hoplite citizen body acting to defend its land or seize land from its neighbors and training as a community in the gymnasium. In seventh-century Sparta, Tyrtaios in his verses praised the death of the hoplite citizenry in its military equivalent, the phalanx.
(p. 239d) A new heavier shield protected the left side of each warrior, the right being protected by the offensive weapons of spear and sword, but it also indicates limited mobility, as do metal greaves
Snodgrass (1993) has shown that the hoplite equipment develops step by step from before 700 BC, with the earliest representation of a phalanx on a vase ca. 675 BC (see Figure 9.2). In this scene the pipe-player is there to keep the ranks in joint rhythmic movement, another argument in favor of the "push" action theory for hoplite warfare (see following note).
(p. 239e) The formation was key, not the individual, and once the phalanx was broken it was difficult to escape the subsequent rout
Krentz summarizes the standard view on how the phalanx used the weight of men in ranks to try and break its opposing formation: "Each side tried to push through the other in a shoving match known as the othismos (from the verb othein, meaning 'to push'). Once one side broke, the battle ended, and the winner erected a trophy where the losers turned to run" (2007: 64). As anyone experienced in contact sports, or demonstrations/riots, will know, if ranks behind the front row which is actually doing the fighting push forward so as to combine their weight, propelling the front rank into the enemy, a far more powerful force is created. The aim of winning this "shoving match" is to break the opposing phalanx, the individual members of which, being heavily armed, are very weak once their protective formation disappears. Nonetheless an alternative view has its supporters, that each rank fought and died, being replaced from behind by the next rank. The immense superiority of the combined rank "push" however, seems to me to suggest that, wherever and whenever this was used, it would have given its phalanx such an advantage over a phalanx fighting with the weight of a row of individual men that the invention would have been rapidly adopted. The famous, unexpected victory of the Thebans over the Spartans at Leuktra in 371 BC was directly due to Epaminondas' innovation of packing one wing of his phalanx at far greater depth of ranks than normal, surely to create an overwhelming weight to drive the Spartan wing opposing it backward and into disintegration.
(p. 240a) The developing power of the middle-class citizens of the polis is still fundamentally linked to a fundamental revolution in warfare, because it was precisely the military potential of the burgeoning hoplite class in Late Geometric-Early Archaic times which challenged the traditional power-base of the basileis
The critical shift of power to the hoplite, middle-class farming population in the polis is also associated with a parallel move from a dominant ethos of elitist, interstate aristocratic mentalities to that of a chauvinistic and introverted farmer-citizen worldview (Holkeskamp 2000, Morris 2000). Georges (1993) suggests that the cost of a hoplite panoply in the Late Archaic era would have approximated to the price of 30 sheep, or two months' wages for a skilled artisan. Van Wees (2004), however, adopts a minority position in contending that the middle class are not equivalent to those who served as hoplites, since in his view the equipment could also be bought at a lower cost than the census qualification in Athens for acceptance into the supposedly equivalent class of zeugitai. He also argues that the flowing transition between "Homeric," more open warfare and that of the closed phalanx stretched throughout the Archaic era, with the latter becoming a universally adopted block formation only after the Persian Wars in the Early Classical fifth century BC. I find, nonetheless, that Snodgrass' (1993) review of this debate answers to such criticisms, and his restatement of the mainstream view on the significance of the Archaic "hoplite reform" remains the most convincing account.
(p. 240b) The threat of a coup from below, and/or the advantages of a hoplite phalanx in intercity warfare, were decisive considerations in persuading aristocrats to share power
A view shared among others by Cook (1991).
(p. 240c) As early as the end of the eighth century on Paros there has been claimed a possible communal military cemetery
There are two public tombs from that transitional Late Geometric-Early Archaic era on Paros, one with 160 combatants where a hero cult was established which would last for some two centuries (Coulie 2005).
(p. 240d) A dictator (tyrannos) may arise
The word "tyrant" in the Archaic context meant one who ruled outside standard law, without implying an immediate negative judgment. Thus there is a spectrum of individuals who achieved or were given personal supreme authority in the polis during these centuries, from those who used force and a coup, to the invited lawgivers. In a certain sense, all were for their time of rule "tyrants." The phenomenon is focused on the period 650-500 BC (Holkeskamp 1992, Parker 2007). Likewise, popular support for all these kinds of tyrant-lawgiver was normally based on the expectation that they would solve the growing political or economic crises of the polis rather than inaugurate social revolution. Dissatisfaction with the factional and often corrupt class of ruling basileis was frequently the stimulus to these developments. One important distinction, however, was that whereas lawgivers were relieved of their power after a short term of extraordinary legislation, tyrants often tried to make their rule hereditary. This led to increasing abuse of power, as was shown by the Peisistratid dynasty in Athens, for example. Lewis (2004) points out that the way ancient historians treat the phenomenon of tyrants has been unduly influenced by a very Athenocentric view of history created by the historians of the rise and fall of Athens, Herodotus and Thucydides. They saw the Archaic phase as a necessary stage before the creation of democracy, which superseded the aristocratic or tyrant political stages of that era. This is to ignore the fact that oligarchic or monarchic regimes were at least as common in the Classical Aegean as in moderate democracies. Other ancient writers, as noted above, blurred the term "tyrant" with that of lawgiver, or archon ("one who rules officially"), and in a case-study of the fourth-century tyrant Euphron of Sicyon, Lewis notes that such figures could be seen as able rulers who were later given "heroic" cult status.
(p. 240e) The most famous tyranny is the Peisistratid dynasty in Athens. Athens experienced some beneficial effects, through sponsored economic growth as well as encouragement to the arts
The city-state of Argos grew in Late Geometric to Archaic times to become the dominant power in the extensive Plain of Argos. A key role may have been played in this by a single ruler, Pheidon, in the early seventh century, who was credited with setting up standard weights and measures, the hoplite reform, and the leading role in the regional cult center of the Heraion (Antonaccio 1992), including its first monumental temple construction.
(p. 240f) Athens had already prevented revolution in the early sixth century through the reforms of the lawgiver Solon
Morris (1987) has argued that whereas the eighth-century cemeteries of Athens show the inclusion of the lower classes, in the seventh century there is a reversion to their politically motivated exclusion, probably marking severe social disorder in the state and attempts to reverse the concept of inclusive citizen rights for all classes (accepted by Papadopoulos 1993). The fact that most of these graves are now under mounds may also symbolize the elite's claims to identification with legendary heroes of the epics and their mode of burial (Whitley 1994, Morris 2000). The sixth-century return of all classes into the new extramural cemeteries signals the progressive victory of the "middling" civic approach, culminating in the creation of a developed democracy in 507 BC through the popularizing aristocrat Kleisthenes.
While Solon is given the prime role in the constitutional reforms which set Athenian democracy on its future path, Lycourgos was credited by the Spartans as the lawgiver who created their own very different political organization. However, since Lycourgos gave significant power to the hoplite class and instituted a rule of civic law for all, one could consider that the parallels between the two are greater than their differences (Holkeskamp 1992).
(p. 240g) Many Early Iron Age villages have defensive walls protecting all or part of the settlement, but the larger, usually dispersed towns tend to develop circuit walls late and rely on a smaller defensible or defended acropolis (upper town) refuge (Corinth, Athens). When these more sizeable dispersed towns acquire lower city walls they will understandably enclose large areas of open ground as well as the original hamlet clusters
Corinth possessed its mountain refuge close by the city, the Acrocorinth, but then by the midseventh century enclosed the still dispersed villages that made up its Geometric-Archaic settlement in the plain below. The same combination of refuge and town, and timescale, appeared with the dispersed Geometric-Archaic town of Eretria (Hall 2007). The fact that Homer's imaginary colony of Scheria is described as a walled town may reflect his likely home in Ionia, present-day Western
Turkey, where defenses could appear early because of an unstable, non-Greek hinterland (Snodgrass 1992). Indeed some suggest he came from Old Smyrna, which does appear similar to several features of Scheria (Crielaard 2009). Smyrna may have possessed its circuit wall as early as the ninth century, although there has been some discussion as to whether it is more a retaining than a defensive structure, and even if the wall can be dated so early (Snodgrass 1992). It was twice rebuilt before the town was sacked by the Lydians ca. 600 BC. In his useful recent review of Geometric-Archaic town walls Crielaard emphasizes their rarity, with Athens most notably lacking one, relying on its Acropolis until the end of the sixth century. Papadopoulos (2008) has recently dismissed attempts to reconstruct and an Archaic-era city wall at Athens.
(p. 241a) Public shrines in town and country were generally sponsored by elites, who also were the main source of conspicuous dedications
The aristocratic nature of the gifts to the early polis temple to Apollo at Eretria, ca. 725 BC, is noted by Crielaard (1998). It is clear that civic temples were erected under the authority of the basileus class, who may well have invested private wealth in their costs, but at the same time the workforce of citizen artisans and laborers, with their slaves, are unlikely to have been volunteers on such projects (Hall 2007). Nonetheless, an uneasy balance between a more citizen-focused polis and the signs of elite privilege mark potential class conflict, especially in states with oppressed yet free classes. On the Athenian Acropolis the seventh and early sixth centuries are notable for many aristocratic dedications, spanning the time of historic social disorder (Scholl 2006). Solon's contemporary critique of Athens' "greedy elite" matches these finds very closely. On the other hand, Morris (2000) argues that the pressure felt by the elite to divert display from the private sphere and into the communal symptomizes its gradual long-term decline in power to the state under a more balanced, upper-middle-class management.
(p. 241b) Symptomatic of the rise of the polis is thus increasing investment in focal, monumental temples: perhaps already within the eighth century, pioneers are temples on Samos and at Eretria, and at least one temple on the Athenian Acropolis
According to Scholl (2006), there is definitely an Acropolis temple to Athena Polias ("defender of the city") from the transition Late Geometric-Archaic, but perhaps too a first Parthenon of similar age. Subsequent discussion agrees with two temples but is more cautious in identifying one as a Parthenon or "Maiden Athena" example (N. Sojc, pers. comm.). It seems likely that these monuments mark the centralization of state cult to help unify the population of the large territory of Attica around the polis' religious focus. Snodgrass (1986) notes that early polis temples are far grander than the oldest temples at interstate sanctuaries, emphasizing the initial motivation to integrate the emergent polis before those states turn their attention to the adornment of shared religious foci.
(p. 242a) Possibly at Late Geometric Zagora and Emborio open places by shrines mark an early agora, but archaeologically it is at late eighth-century Dreros on Crete and late seventh - to early sixth-century Megara Hyblaea and Metapontum in Southern Italy, where built structures seem to mark out such a central facility
Megara Hyblaea already possesses this open space from its colonial foundation in the latter eighth century, but proof of its use for public meetings occurs only around a century later with its monumentalization (Hall 2007), while during the mid-sixth century another colony at Metapontum creates a formal amphitheater for its assembly (Carter et al. 2004). The likely agora at Dreros of late eighth-century age abutted the main temple of the Archaic town and was provided with a stepped platform suitable for meetings, while its famous seventh-century lawcode was prominently affixed to that temple's wall (Holkeskamp 1992). As Holkeskamp (2002) observes, the physical existence of the assembly place as a focus for the visible display of justice and civic debate created a public space for the repeated statement of behavioral norms, essential for the cohesion of the emergent polis-community.
(p. 242b) At Athens the Classical agora was formally laid out with early public buildings in the late sixth century
Both at Athens in the "new agora" (Ammerman 1996) and in the agora at Argos in the late sixth century (Hall 2007) drainage works in the area of a major river show community commitment to enhancing the civic center's main public space.
(p. 242c) In Morris' highly influential model, the Archaic era is a political and intellectual battleground between polis factions: one supports an "elitist" international culture, the other advocates a "middling," internalized civic society
Commentators have observed that even from the start of the Archaic era, in the poems of Homer and Hesiod, both conservative aristocratic, and progressive "middling" politics appear side by side, and this can be followed in the similarly contrasted traditions of later Archaic poetry. These poems can be taken as attempts by contemporaries to structure their reaction to an era of change (Holkeskamp 2002). Forsdyke (2005) characterizes Archaic societies as run by a relatively small group of wealthy families who dominated the early polis through rotation of public offices and their place on the ruling council. Formal public offices of the state appear throughout Greek poleis during the seventh century but are mainly a device to regulate competition between these families for control of the community. Bryant (1990) makes a strong division also between the aristocratic focus of mentalities in Homer and that in Hesiod. If the elite of Homer cultivate personal valor and a lavish lifestyle due to their warrior performance, Hesiod argues for the value of hard work creating wealth and criticizes war. Homer's gods are like the elite, fickle and competitive, whereas Bryant argues for Hesiod reforming "celestial politics" by giving the gods a moral force over human behavior.
(p. 242d) The disappearance of arms in graves at the turn of the Archaic era marks a watershed toward a civil society typical of the city-state, but in contrast the survival of the custom in more peripheral regions of the Aegean (such as at Knossos in Crete) demonstrates a conservatism in society
Vitsa in Northwest Greece (Felsch 2007) is an example from a peripheral region of the Mainland where weapon burials survive late. Even on Crete, however, coinciding with the emergence of city-states, a public refocusing is observed in the decline of wealthy burials and a rise in both elite and commoner dedications to temples (Haggis et al. 2007).
(p. 242e) In Archaic times aristocrats and wealthier middle-class citizens could distinguish their graves through tomb monuments of a "heroic" idealizing character, from surrounding lower-class burials, and through differential grave gifts, although significantly burial wealth will progressively decline in city-states
Solon, the Athenian lawgiver in the early sixth century, restricted elite funeral display, and this occurs widely in other city-states, marking a conscious attempt to prohibit aristocratic ostentation and its possible consequences for political ambition (Hall 2007). Morris (2000) comments that by Classical times in city-states, burying a gold cup in a family grave may have been seen as inappropriate to the communitarian ethos of the polis; indeed, in Athens out of some 3000 Classical graves not a single example has been found. An insightful contrast is drawn by Coulie (2005) to the city-states of Etruria in Northern Italy, where throughout the timescale parallel to the Archaic-Classical eras in Greece, power remained in the hands of aristocratic families. Here we find no decline in the decking out of elite tombs with elaborate architecture, wall-paintings, and expensive gifts. Natascha Sojc (pers. comm.) adds that the kouros and kore statues exhibit the names and "archival value" of key family members of the elite, as markers for others to the topography of power within the Archaic city.
(p. 242f) The association of a particular clan with the emergence of a city-state provided opportunities for underlining status, when a dominant family might receive a burial plot within the town. Here ancestor cults could be practiced communally to the "heroic" founders (as at Eretria)
At Eretria the general population was buried in a cemetery by the coast, but within the town, by the West Gate; this West Cemetery from ca. 700 BC represents a high-status clan in its lavish male and female cremation-burials (Crielaard 1998). This cluster was enclosed in a formal enclosure and received cult offerings as a heroic ancestral group into Classical times. It is likely that this clan was associated with the formation of the city-state out of a dispersed Early Iron Age community.
(p. 243a) The polis arose through assimilating surrounding villages and sometimes other proto-poleis into its territory. The identities of these formerly autonomous centers, forged through older cults, now required symbolic incorporation into the refocused sacred landscape radiating out from the new polis center
The traditional view has seen Argos seizing control of the Heraion on the opposite side of the Plain of Argos as part of its early expansion of power against neighboring poleis. It is seen as responsible for the construction of a great terrace there, perhaps for a predecessor of the oldest proven temple to Hera which is dated to the seventh century BC. Hall (1995) argues instead that Argive control occurred only in the mid-fifth century when Argos destroyed Mycenae and Tiryns. Hall notes that De Polignac (1995) has shifted his earlier position toward suggesting that Argos exercised dominance at this Heraion sanctuary during the Archaic era, even if other poleis shared in its management. On balance De Polignac's view seems more convincing, and does fit better with Herodotus' mid-fifth century recounting of a by then legendary tale of the great procession from Argos to the Heraion, bringing its priestess. Antonaccio (1992) also argues for an Archaic control over this regional if rural cult center.
Continuity of cult from the Bronze Age into Archaic-Classical times for shrines which lie external to settlements is rare (Dickinson 2006), except for Crete where, for example, peak sanctuaries such as that at Syme may have seen worship from the Middle Bronze Age into Roman times (Lebessi and Muhly 1990). Nonetheless the archaeological evidence from gifts and, later, larger works of art emphasizes the likelihood that elites controlled such cult foci in Early Iron Age-Archaic times.
Eleusis in Athenian legend and some semi-historical literary accounts was formerly an autonomous center absorbed into the polis of Athens at some point in later Geometric times. Lying on the state border, it also represented a statement of Athenian territory against its neighbors. A major enlargement and monumentalization of the sanctuary for the mystery cult of Demeter and Persephone during the sixth century seems to mark Athenian control over the cult center (Spivey 1997).
(p. 243b) At Olympia significant cult activity begins in the ninth century, while dedications only really take off in the eighth
Recent excavations indicate the Early Iron Age around the eleventh century BC as the start of cult activity at Olympia. A U-shaped building may be the oldest Zeus temple but its date is controversial, with the main early constructional phases at the sanctuary more securely dated from Late Geometric into Archaic times. In any case, the central focus appears to have been an ash altar in a sacred grove, which gradually rose to 7 m in height; no traces have been recovered. The numerous wells in the area of the later stadium suggest that athletic games could indeed date back to the official commencement of festivals in the eighth century BC (Lehmann 2007).
(p. 243c) Why did many such religious foci become centers for regional and interregional cult and games?
Significantly, key religious pilgrimage centers which became Panhellenic sanctuaries, such as Delphi and Olympia, seem not to have been associated with settlements but were considered from their inception as sacred localities visited by participants from their region (Dickinson 2006). However, even in their first flourishing it seems likely that these later great religious centers remained primarily of provincial rather than of wider importance (Morgan 1990). The management of the prime centers, with the rise of the polis, came to be either by weak states who could not manipulate the sanctuaries for personal game (such as Elis or Pisa for Olympia), or committees of several states (the Delphic Amphictyony). It is noteworthy that Nemea and Isthmia, which were in contrast run by the states of Argos and Corinth, possessed a lower status (Neer 2007).
Nonetheless Scott (2010) has disputed the neutral nature of the Panhellenic sanctuaries and even queried the appropriateness of what is a later concept of Panhellenism. He argues that Elis played a role in the architectural changes to Olympia, that wars were fought over control of the major sanctuaries, and that they were confrontational spaces of civic display.
Holscher (2002) has provided an excellent model for understanding the experience of participating in events at Panhellenic sanctuaries in his exploration of the placing of monuments in relation to processional and visitor routes at Olympia.
(p. 244a) The rich elite not only competed against each other in acts of manly prowess, but were also able to gain international honor as sponsors of charioteers
Perysinakis (1990) interestingly points out that the poet Pindar, famous for writing victory odes for successful elite winners or sponsors in religious games, praises athletes in the vocabulary of heroic warriors. The Late Geometric-Archaic Olympic Games, in particular, emphasized chariot and other horse competitions, quintessentially the normal preserve of aristocrats who could afford to maintain such animals and equipment (Spivey 1997), although later in Classical times cities could sponsor horses to assert communal values (Neer 2007). Major conflicts could arise when cities that had developed a moderate democracy focused on the city-state ethos, progressively sought to limit the acceptability of elite individuals displaying their personal wealth and importance through dedications in state temples or Panhellenic sanctuaries. Thus Miltiades, the victorious general of the Athenian army which defeated the Persians at Marathon in 490 BC, and Pausanias, leader of the allied Greek army which crushed another Persian land invasion in 479 at Plataea, dedicated a helmet and a monument respectively to Delphi in which they praised themselves as victors and omitted the states they led. Both significantly suffered afterwards at the hands of their own poleis (Neer 2007).
(p. 244b) Interstate oracles became a major force in polis decisions regarding internal and external affairs, and served to create a sense of shared values and norms between the hundreds of emergent city-states
Nightingale (2007) comments in a similar vein that Panhellenic festivals and oracles, although sponsored by particular cities or managing boards of cities, operated in a space which transcended the culture of ideology of any individual state and thus assisted in forming a shared concept of Hellenic (the Greeks' own word for themselves) identity. Morgan (1990) has argued likewise that the Panhellenic centers arose as venues for the prestigious display of elites via their athletic prowess and wealthy gift-dedications, and, when oracles were present, played an equally important role in helping to solve political problems within emergent states. Nonetheless, it seems clear that at times pressure groups may have manipulated or even invented oracular pronouncements to favor their aims (Snodgrass 1986).
(p. 244c) In elite societies the role of women can be greater than in male-dominated "democratic" polities, as they form vital links in marriage and property networks
Natascha Sojc (pers. comm.) points out, however, that in democratic Greek states women retained one significant civic role, as producers of future male citizens.
(p. 244d) Leisure for training in gymnasia was a natural privilege of the rich, giving them the advantage in athletic competitions
On the one hand, the rise of the middle or "yeoman" (hoplite) class in most Greek cities progressively weakened the privileged access of aristocrats in athletic training. On the other, the leisure to attend public gymnasia was not normally available to the lower-class citizens of the Greek state. If we combine these elements we can see that this helped to strengthen a certain merging of the lifestyles of the "yeoman" or middle-class farmers and artisans and the upper class who together formed the core of the citizen army. The main role of such public physical training was to be prepared for the defense of the city. The practical exclusion of the lower classes from gymnasium society hindered full political rights being extended below the middle classes.
(p. 245) A review of developments in wider arcs beyond this Southeast focus reveals a "wave effect," with increasingly later takeoff chronologies for rural and urban population climax development in Crete and in Western and Northern Greece
In a detailed study of these concentric growth patterns revealed by the general trends in extensive and intensive survey results throughout Greece (Bintliff 1997), some of the key elements that help to explain these patterns included: the impact of iron technology on agricultural production and population levels; climatic and ecological contrasts between large areas of Southern Greece and the North; core-periphery effects in which precocious growth regions exploited provinces of slower growth in military, economic, and political relationships; and the effect of contrasted social and political systems on economic development. It is essential to highlight a usually neglected fact, that empirical data show a quantum leap between levels of population in the Aegean Bronze and Iron Ages (the latter reaches to Hellenistic times in this technological formulation). Although trade increased and perhaps a greater proportion of the population became non-agricultural workers in industry and commerce, the scale change is far too great to explain this. The impact of iron technology on agricultural productivity and changes in the management of farming and pastoralism seem to be at the basis of the observable fact that the typical central places of the Mediterrean world showed urban populations larger by a factor of 2-3 than their rarer Bronze Age predecessors (Bintliff 2002). Hatzimichael and Whitley (n. d.) note without further explanation, for example, that on Crete in the Minoan palatial eras there were perhaps three to four sites over 40 ha, with the rest rarely greater than 10 ha; in Late Archaic times even the smaller autonomous towns are around 15 ha, while medium-sized poleis like Praisos reach 28 ha by the end of the Classical era. Unfortunately the data for Knossos and Gortyn are still unsatisfactory to mark the upper scale of top centers, according to these authors. These figures agree very well with the hierarchy of cities observed on Mainland Greece (Bintliff 1997).
(p. 247a) Aegean commercial sailing not only responded to the rise of Levantine merchant arrivals by heading also toward Eastern markets, but was already from the Late Geometric era exploring the Center and West Mediterranean and the Black Sea, where less developed markets than the Aegean were to be found
Dickinson (2006) succinctly summarizes the situation from recent research, which reinforces the traditional view that although Aegean trade was not extinguished in the Early Iron Age, it is the eighth-century "Renaissance" and the early Archaic when almost all the Aegean region was drawn into a dramatic takeoff in exchange systems. Bronze, ivory, gold, and exotic finished products now became far more widely available and visible, in contrast to the preceding period when trade was small-scale and based on rare and personalized links between Aegean elites and foreign traders, cemented by formal gift-giving. Snodgrass (1989) also notes that in the Archaic era bronze reappeared throughout the Aegean in almost unimaginable quantities compared to the preceding Early Iron Age, signifying that local communities now had the means and desire to obtain expensive raw material, and especially that the local elites could employ a new army of specialist artisans to fill their halls with prestigious objects, and allowing them to dedicate such valuable artifacts in the forest of new temples springing up all over the Aegean. Dickinson (pers. comm.) stresses his belief, however, that during the Early Iron Age gift exchange between indigenous elites, and between foreign traders and Greek communities, played a far larger role than formal trade in promoting the arrival of exotic objects into, and their circulation around, the Aegean.
(p. 247b) At a certain point, successful commercial exchanges encouraged both Greek trading settlements at entrepot points and genuine colonies
For foreign entrepots as controlled zones in Etruria see Spivey and Stoddart (1990). In Egypt, a similar situation occurred at Naucratis, which was founded by a cluster of Aegean cities ca. 650 BC under close Pharaonic supervision (Tsetskhladze 2006).
(p. 247c) Autonomous Greek colonies outside of the Southern Aegean, a key feature of the Late Geometric-Archaic era (ca. 800-500 BC)
Tsetskhladze (2006) enumerates around 230 Greek colonies or foreign outpost settlements, although many were founded secondarily by earlier colonies. He also summarizes much recent research to show that colonizing populations were usually small. On the other hand Morris (2005) suggests that some 24 colonies can be approximately dated between 750 and 700 BC, and if each involved just 500 people then some 10,000 Greeks emigrated in only two generations. De Angelis (2009) adds that the actual number of colonies in the Archaic-Classical era may be as high as 500, making up between a third and half of all Greek city-states.
(p. 247d) Colonies could go to war with their founder-city
The first recorded Greek naval battle took place between Corinth and its colony Kerkyra (modern Corfu) in the Ionian Islands, ca. 664 BC.
(pp. 247-248) Greek colonies were almost all intended to function like autonomous Aegean city-states, whose populations farmed and herded
Pithecoussai was a colony of many Aegean states and included Phoenician settlers too, but it has become clear that it was not, as was long believed, a purely merchant community on an island off the mainland Italian Bay of Naples. The island possessed rural sites contemporary with the main settlement and seems now to have been closer to a genuine mixed-economy colony (Snodgrass 1994). Snodgrass argues logically that that the chief founder-city, whether it was Chalcis or Eretria or both, would have possessed a polis-chora (town and country) model in mind when it set up the colony. De Angelis (2010) argues that the apparently large settlement, some 5000-10,000 over 100 ha, involving Italians, Greeks, and Levantines was probably too complex and diverse to have resulted from direct planning by the two Greek founder-cities. Megara Hyblaea on Sicily, another pioneer colony, likewise appears from the first to have had a mixed native and Greek population and only gradually took on the appearance of a monumentalized Greek city.
(p. 249a) Local populations formed a significant component in the demography of "colonial" settlements
Tsetskhladze (2006) underlines how archaeological finds from Greek colonies increasingly show how important the incorporation of local non-Greek populations was to their development. The most dramatic examples come from the Black Sea, where the frequency of local house types, pottery, burial practices, and other cultural aspects in colonial sites is so strong that, were it not for the ancient sources, one could argue from the finds on the ground that no Greeks settled in the Black Sea till the end of the Archaic era (for similar arguments see Solovyov 1999).
(p. 249b) State-organized directional trade was highly uncommon
The great exception would be the unparalleled and regular need for the giant city or megalopolis of Athens to import grain from the Black Sea, closely monitored by the state. But usually Archaic and Classical Aegean trading was a matter for individual merchants and their financial backers, and it mattered little if goods came and went in boats of your own state or those of others. No integrated commercial policy was expected in Archaic-Classical Greece. Thus the island of Aegina, a city-state close to Athens, is famous in our sources for its Archaic-period traders, but it does not seem to have produced a ceramic fine-ware export or bulk-container product which would indicate investment in marketing home products abroad, rather than transporting products from a wide network of other states. Likewise when Corinthian decorated pottery was displaced from its strong market position by Athenian production during the sixth century BC, it is suggested that continued overseas sales of its perfumed oil continued inside Athenian containers (Howgego 1995). Other examples are cited by Kreuzer (1994): both Athens and Laconia exported Black-Figure pottery around the Mediterranean in the sixth century, yet neither state appear to have been major seafaring peoples at this period, which argues for the carriers being ships of other states; the Giglio shipwreck in Italy revealed a wide range of Aegean and other products but the finds of everyday pottery, likely to have been in use by the crew, point to Etruscan merchants. Morgan (1988) reveals a surprisingly low involvement of the citizens of the city of Corinth in Late Geometric-Archaic commerce, with an independent export of fine ware and containers forming a far less important area of economic wealth than local agriculture. Much activity involving the dominant Corinthian elite seems designed to obtain metal for making objects they could use for prestigious display.
(p. 249c) Greek colonies arose from overpopulation?
For a statement of the traditional view on Archaic overpopulation in the Aegean see Ruschenbusch (1991).
(p. 249d) an ambitious aristocrat could also consider leading part of the community abroad
Snodgrass (2005) notes how anachronistic till recently was the discussion of ancient historians over the Archaic Greek colonial movement, relying implicitly on the analogy of nineteenth-century colonial movements: there were no nation-states that expected to retain possession of the settlement and it was not considered that local populations were to be dominated due to their natural inferiority. De Angelis (2009) mentions that the term "colonialism" has so many inappropriate Early Modern connotations that many follow Robin Osborne in preferring to see the bulk as "privately initiated migrations." De Angelis also (2010) makes a broad division between the main phase of Greek colonial foundations between 750 and 500 BC, which were usually private and multinational ventures (apoikia) not intended to be subordinate to founder cities, and the Classical to Early Hellenistic era when Athens (cleruchy) and then Macedon and the Successor Kingdoms founded genuine colonies dependent on the mother city or king.
(p. 249e) A third major reason for colonial expansion in Archaic times was oppression by foreign powers
Tsetskhladze (2006) points out that the Ionian cities of Western Anatolia were encroached on and finally absorbed, first by the indigenous kingdom of Lydia in their hinterland during the seventh century, then by the Persian Empire in the sixth century: this was a major factor in the foundation of between 75 and 90 Ionian colonies around the Black Sea and in the Western Mediterranean.
(p. 249f) Coinage: significantly, like the return of literacy, this was an invention from the East
Ancient sources and the dominance of Lydian coins, as well as its access to the natural sources of electrum (the alloy of gold and silver from which the earliest coins were made), agree with Lydia as the reasonable origin of formal coinage (Howgego 1995).
(p. 250a) Coinage was dangerously meritocratic
A close link has been drawn between the creation of formal coinages and their rapid diffusion through the Greek world in the sixth century, with contemporary emphases on divine balance and fairness in politics and philosophy (Nightingale 2007). As late as 590 BC the Athenian lawgiver Solon could divide the social classes of the state by the scale of their landholding (Parker 2007), but by the fifth century measures of wealth expressed in monetary income take over the definition of class and of its rights and obligations. Millett (1991) shows that in town and country the lending and borrowing of money between friends and organizations was very common for the middle to lower classes, whereas previous studies have overemphasized the role of banks and of the financial accumulations of the rich.
(p. 250b) The occurrence in Archaic times of an economic revolution in which market activity became a central feature of life for all citizens
Till recently it could be argued that Archaic coinage was in precious metal and too valuable to represent the small change of everyday sales in the marketplace, while the scale of minting was limited. Now it is clear that fractional coinage was widespread in the Late Archaic period, and calculations based on silver hoard finds in Ionia (Greek Western Anatolia) suggest that several million coins were produced in a small range of types (Howgego 1995). As for the metal used, an early emphasis on electrum (a natural alloy of gold and silver) in Lydia was already overtaken by the separate production of silver and gold coins there by the later sixth century. Silver remained the standard normal material for Greek coins well into the Classical era. Bronze coins become commoner only in the fourth century. The implications of a particularly important role for "commoditization" (the creation of a cash-based market economy) within Greek society deserve fuller discussion if we want to increase our understanding of how urban and rural economics functioned in Archaic-Classical Greece. By Classical times Athens' silver issues included coins so tiny it is hard to guess how they were stored safely on a person, but which certainly were suited to very small market business. When Athens sent its great Armada to besiege Syracuse in Sicily in 415 BC, its citizen army was paid by the state, but it is also recorded that individuals took their own small change for private purchases (Howgego 1995). Many major commercial transactions remain largely hidden from us, which considerably hinders our fuller comprehension of ancient Greek economics. This can be exemplified by the fact that major trading city-states such as Aegina and Corinth obtained their silver for coins and other purposes from the island of Siphnos and the state of Athens respectively, presumably in exchange for invisible agricultural exports.
(p. 250c) Among the innovations which arose from the growing intensity of Near Eastern trade was the recovery of writing. Logically, this should have encouraged an initial use for marking goods, but in fact the first examples (eighth-century, Late Geometric) relate rather to poetry and the world of the elite
According to Tsetskhladze (2006) and Dickinson (2006), the earliest inscription in the Greek alphabet is scratched onto a local vase at the Italic cemetery of Osteria dell'Osa near Gabii in Italy, ca. 770 BC. Dickinson cautions that it is unclear if this is intelligible. Nonetheless, it is considered likely that the transmission of the Phoenician alphabet to Greek pioneers who adapted it to write Greek took place in an environment with a significant mixing of Levant traders or craftsmen and Greeks, such as at Pithecoussai in Italy, on Crete or Cyprus, or in the busy commercial and colonizing environment of Euboean cities (Powell et al. 1992, Morris 2000, Dickinson 2006). Peter Rhodes (pers. comm.), however, cautions that a dozen or so traders' letters in Greek on lead tablets are now known from the Late Archaic period and it is possible that the early dominance of verse may turn out to be incorrect. Powell (2009) believes that the Greek alphabet must have been adapted from the Phoenician ca. 800 BC in order to allow time for the early practical examples we find. He notes that the improvements made by adding vowels and a rule that consonants are always paired with vowels allowed Greek to be a far more successful imitator of speech than its predecessors, and reiterates his earlier and rather unusual view that the adaptation was made in order to write down Homeric poetry.
(p. 250d) The public display of laws was a fundamental feature of the rights of all citizens within the polis
Moreover, Stoddart and Whitley (1988; cf. also Whitley 1997) suggest that the restricted appearance of writing on Crete, even in Late Classical times, compared to its far more extensive use (functionally and in class terms) in Athens, distinguishes the conservative politics of Dorian constitution states, to which we can add Mainland Sparta, from the democratic and progressive social environment of Athens.
The fact that much of our evidence for early inscribed lawcodes comes from Crete, which was till Hellenistic times renowned for its conservative politics, is shown by Whitley (1997) to reflect a concept of "unchanging" social rules rather than as an inspiration for political debate within the community. But even on the Mainland, where lawcodes were created to improve the social order of unruly states (e. g., by Solon in Athens), formal laws seem to have been created and inscribed to circumscribe the arbitrary decisions of individual aristocrats. The middling farmer Hesiod makes clear that he is not in favor of social revolution to put his own class into power; rather he expects the elite clans to rule justly and wisely on behalf of the citizens as a whole (Holkeskamp 1992, 2002). The Archaic citizen of the middle-lower classes did not generally appear to want democracy but rather isonomia, or equality before the law. In fact democratia always had an ambivalence even in Classical Athens, as "the people" or demos is a term that can simply refer to all citizens but equally used as a term for "the mob" by conservatives (Cartledge 1998, Hall 2007).
World History
