The Mycenaean kingdoms had enjoyed a long period of peace and stability with steady economic growth prior to their downfall. The Kingdom of Pylos in particular could look back on a long history during which the central administration carried out various reorganizations of the kingdom’s territory, brought large tracts of grazing land under cultivation to meet the demands of a growing population, and presided over a period of prosperity during which more and more people (including some from the lowest ranks of society) rose to positions in which they could lease land and farm it independently. The Mycenaean kingdoms, moreover and despite occasional assertions to the contrary, were not particularly warlike. Although the Wanax of Pylos could call on a highly organized military, the tablets reveal just one warlike act in the last generation of the kingdom, a slaving raid in Anatolia.
The overall picture that emerges from the tablets is not so much one of warfare as one of bureaucracy. At Knosos the bureaucrats kept track of bulls by name: Stomargos (“Whitmouth”), Podargos (“Whitfoot”), and Woinokworsos (“Purple-Rump”) (Ch 898, 899, and 897 respectively). Palace bureaucrats at both Pylos and Knosos requisitioned and distributed large amounts of natural produce, thus probably controlling a significant portion of the each kingdom’s economic activity. Nevertheless, the Mycenaean states’ high population must have produced and consumed far more in a given year than is recorded in the tablets. Either a great deal of economic activity was documented in the palace’s lost permanent records or a significant portion of the kingdom’s economy fell outside of the palace’s purview.
World History
