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17-05-2015, 14:11

Classical Greece

Greek culture reached its apex, producing philosophers, tragedians, orators, and buildings such as the Parthenon. Its city-states rose and fell as military powers, and Greek dominion reached the eastern and western basins of the Mediterranean.

Date: 500 b. c.e.-323 b. c.e.

Category: Cities and civilizations

Locale: Greek peninsula, southern Italy, Sicily, eastern Mediterranean

History The Panhellenic religious and cultural developments of the seventh and sixth centuries b. c.e. provided impetus, but two events played a signal role in the making of Classical Greece, giving it a definition and figure that differentiates it from its Archaic antecedent. The first was the deposition of the tyrants. Tyrants (from tyrannos, aword possibly of Lydian extraction) had dominated the poleis, or city-states, during the late seventh and sixth centuries b. c.e. Tyrants usually came to power at the instigation of the lower economic classes and were in many cases a forerunner to democratic government. Although tyrants were usually no worse than their aristocratic predecessors (and in some cases they were considerably better), tyranny seldom lasted more than two generations. The tyrants were for the most part gone by the end of the sixth century b. c.e., although tyranny did last longer in Sicily, where it was even revivified in the fourth century b. c.e.

By the end of the sixth century b. c.e., the best-known Greek states had developed the system of government they would maintain throughout the Classical period: Athens had democracy, put in place by Cleisthenes; Sparta was ruled by a dual kingship and military aristocracy; Corinth had an elected council and a board of magistrates; and Thebes and the other cities of Boeotia were governed by the somewhat enigmatic Boeotarchs. Sparta in this period took the lead in Greek affairs, helping to depose many of the tyrants, developing the Spartan Alliance, and entering into international relations with Lydia.

The second major event was the conflict with Persia. When Persia defeated the Lydian kingdom of Croesus and gained control of the lucrative Greek cities of Ionia and western Asia Minor, a collision with the mainland Greeks became inevitable. The conflict was accelerated by the expansionist policies of the Persian king Darius the Great, who crossed over into Europe and annexed portions of Thrace and eventually extended Persian rule to the Danube. When the Ionian states rebelled against Persia in 499 b. c.e., the Athenians and Eretrians exacerbated a volatile situation by assisting their fellow Ionians and sending troops to aid the rebels. One detachment sacked the Persian regional capital, Sardis, in 494 b. c.e.

Darius suppressed the revolt and determined to punish the Athenians and Eretrians for their role in aiding the rebels. He also intended an eventual annexation of mainland Greece. In 490 b. c.e., a Persian expedition sacked Eretria and deported the population to Asia but was subsequently defeated at Marathon by the combined forces of Athens and Plataea.

Under Darius’s successor, Xerxes I, Persia mounted a true invasion. The Persians won a victory at Thermopylae and killed the Spartan king Leonidas in 480 b. c.e., but the Greeks won a subsequent naval victory at Salamis later that same year and then scored a decisive victory on land at Plataea in 479 b. c.e. a subsequent engagement at Mycale crippled the Persian fleet. At the same time, Gelon, the tyrant of Syracuse, crushed a synchronously timed invasion of Sicily by Carthage, defeating the Carthaginians at Hi-mera and breaking Carthaginian power in the west for two generations.

The defeat of the Persians left Athens and Sparta as the dominant powers in mainland Greece. Sparta did little to exploit its advantage, content to preserve the status quo. By contrast, the Athenians, whose city had been sacked twice by the Persians during the invasion, resolved to continue the war in order to liberate the Greek cities of Asia Minor. Athens and the Greek maritime powers created an alliance known as the Delian League because the treasury of the league was kept at Delos, the island sacred to Apollo. Under the leadership of the Athenian Cimon, the league vigorously prosecuted the war, winning a great double victory at the Eurymedon River circa 466 b. c.e.

At home, Athens radicalized its democracy under Ephialtes and Pericles. It continued to pursue an aggressive foreign policy against Sparta and Persia, consolidated its leadership ofthe Delian League, and transformed it into the Athenian Empire. Athens removed the treasury of the league from Delos to Athens and used the revenues to finance its own building projects, imposed terms and garrisons on the other cities in the league, required all members to use Athenian coinage and standards, and ordered the other cities to bring offerings to the Great Panathenaic festival every four years.

These policies caused rebellions throughout the league and eventually caused Sparta to bring an army into Attica. Pericles, the architect of Athenian policy, was able to negotiate a withdrawal of the Spartan army and a Thirty Years’ Peace (445 b. c.e.). The peace left Athens free to consolidate its empire but laid the groundwork for the Peloponnesian War by essentially dividing Greece into two armed camps.

Hostilities with Sparta and its allies exploded in 431 b. c.e. for a variety of reasons. The first ten years of the war, known as the Archidamian War (431-421 b. c.e.), were inconclusive, although Athens suffered greatly from the plague in 429-428 b. c.e. The Peace of Nicias guaranteed a fifty-year truce, but Athens opted to break the peace by invading Syracuse, the wealthiest Greek city in the west. The invasion ended disastrously for Athens and renewed the general war with Sparta. Athens suffered a final humiliating defeat at Aegospotami in 405 b. c.e. and surrendered the next year, enduring the loss of its democracy and the imposition of a Spartan garrison on the Acropolis.

Sparta was unable to hold Athens for long, and the democracy was restored in 401 b. c.e. Sparta embarked on an interventionist foreign policy under Agesilaus II, who was forced ultimately to sell out the Greek cities in Ionia in order to gain Persian aid in controlling affairs in mainland Greece. Athens, Thebes, Argos, and Corinth, in a rolling system of alliances, opposed Sparta. Spartan power was finally broken at Leuctra in 371 b. c.e., and Thebes and the Boeotian League enjoyed a brief hegemony under Epaminondas, but he was killed at the indecisive Battle of Mantinea (362 b. c.e.), and Thebes never recovered its position.

The last few decades of the Classical era witnessed the growth of Macedonia under Philip II. He first consolidated his own power in Macedonia, then exploited the chaotic conditions in Greece after Mantinea to gain a foothold in Greece. He intervened in the Third Sacred War (357 b. c.e.-346 b. c.e.), was invited by Isocrates to lead a Greek invasion of Persia, and eventually overwhelmed Greek opposition to Macedonian domination at Chaeronea in 338 b. c.e. His son and successor Alexander the Great took two years to consolidate his own position, defeating Celtic tribes in the north and west of Macedonia and then quelling any possible Greek opposition by annihilating Thebes. Alexander then led his army into Persia, where he overwhelmed Persian opposition at Granicus, Issus, and Gaugamela. He took over Darius III’s throne and reached as far as southern Russia, Afghanistan, and India before returning to Babylon and dying in 323 b. c.e.

In western Greece, Syracuse remained the dominant state. After the invasion by Athens, internal difficulties led to a restoration of the system of tyranny that had been jettisoned sixty years earlier when Syracuse overthrew the unfortunate Thasyboulos. The new tyrant, Dionysius the Elder, warred almost incessantly against Carthage and gained control of much of Sicily and Magna Graecia before a serious defeat at Cronium (375 b. c.e.). His son Dionysius the Younger, briefly a student of Plato, attempted to consolidate Syracusan power in Sicily but saw his position usurped by his uncle, Dion, who held Syracuse until his murder in 354 b. c.e.. Dionysius the Younger eventually recovered Syracuse but was defeated by the Corinthian Timoleon, who sent Dionysius the Younger into exile at Corinth. Timoleon made peace with Carthage and was able to consolidate his power at Syracuse until his retirement from public life, caused by encroaching blindness. He died about 334 b. c.e.

Performing Arts In Athens, the fifth century b. c.e. was the era of the theater. At the festival of the City Dionysia, Athenian citizens watched the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The tragedians competed with one another, both for the right to have plays funded and to perform them. The Oresteia (458 b. c.e.; English translation, 1777) of Aeschylus is the only surviving trilogy from ancient Greece, and Sophocles’ Oidipous Tyrannos (c. 429 b. c.e.; Oedipus Tyrannus, 1715) remains the most famous of all Greek plays. Aristophanes was the leading comic poet of Athens. His comedies mocked the leading citizens of Athens and denounced the excesses of the prowar parties. His most famous work, the LysistratT (411 b. c.e.; Lysistrata, 1837), has remained a staple of pacifism to the present day.

Language and Literature The fifth century was the age of Pindar, whose Epinikia (498-446 b. c.e.; Odes, 1656) celebrated the glories of athletic victory. Bacchylides of Ceos, a proximate contemporary, wrote epini-cian (victory) odes and dithyrambs, while Simonides, also of Ceos, wrote hymns and epitaphs to celebrate and to mourn the fallen of the Greco-Persian Wars. The same century also saw the development of historical writing. Herodotus wrote Historiai Herodotou (c. 424 b. c.e.; The History, 1709), focusing on the war against Persia and recording a great deal of ethnographic, religious, and sociological information on Greece as well as Egypt, Persia, and other states of the Near East. Thucydides wrote the definitive history of the Peloponnesian War, and where his account breaks off in about 410 b. c.e., it is picked up by Xenophon, whose Ellinika (411-362 b. c.e.; History of the Affairs of Greece, also known as Helenica, 1685) extends the account to the second Battle of Mantinea in 362 b. c.e. Xenophon also gave the world one of the great “true” adventure stories, the Kurou anabasis (between 394 and 371 b. c.e.; Anabasis, also known as Expedition of Cyrus and March Up Country, 1623), an account of the expedition of

10,000 Greek mercenaries, called the March of the Ten Thousand, against the Persian king Artaxerxes II, and their subsequent escape.

Xenophon and the March of the Ten Thousand reach the sea's edge. (F. R. Niglutsch)

The late fifth and fourth centuries b. c.e. also saw the development of oratory as an art form. The canonical Attic orators practiced at this time. Lysias, a metic (resident noncitizen) of Athens was the master of the simple, smooth style of Attic Greek. Demosthenes, who spoke out repeatedly against Philip II of Macedonia, earned a place in history for himself with his Philippic orations, which were later copied by Cicero in his writings against Marc Antony.

Philosophy The three most famous figures of Greek philosophy belong to this period. Socrates was an Athenian stonecutter who abandoned his trade to inquire into the nature of humankind, thus moving philosophy from natural science to ethics. He wrote nothing, and his greatest contribution was as a teacher to Plato. He was executed by the state for impiety and corruption of the youth. His great disciple, Plato, authored a number of works in dialogic form in which Socrates challenges the conventional wisdom of his interlocutor and works through logical analysis to educate. Plato’s greatest works are the Politeia (c. 388-368 b. c.e.; Republic, 1701), Symposion (c. 388-368 b. c.e.; Symposium, 1701), Phaedros (c. 388-368 b. c.e.; Phaedrus, 1792), and Phaedfn (c. 388-368 b. c.e.; Phaedo, 1675).

Aristotle, born in Stagirus in Chalcidice, came to Athens at the age of seventeen to study with Plato and remained at the Academy until Plato’s death in 347 b. c.e. He latertutored Alexanderthe Great (then aboy) and finally returned to Athens in 335 b. c.e., establishing his own school at a grove sacred to Apollo Lyceius and the Muses. His extensive works include the Physica (c. 335-323 b. c.e.; Physics, 1812), Metaphysica (c. 335-323 b. c.e.; Metaphysics, 1801), Technt rhetorikis (c. 335-323 b. c.e.; Rhetoric, 1686), and Ethica Nicomachea (c. 335-323 b. c.e.; Nicomachean Ethics, 1797).

Religion and Ritual The Panhellenic aspects of Greek religion focused on the major festivals and shrines. From the eighth century b. c.e., Delphi had been predominant for the worship of Apollo, and its influence grew in the Classical period as it became the place to which the Greek cities resorted for information, approbation, and direction from the god. It played a particularly important part in the Greco-Persian Wars, although it did lose some of its authority. It was pro-Spartan during the Peloponnesian War and later was pro-Macedonian, suggesting either a great conservatism or a keen if sometimes errant estimate of comparative military force by Apollo and his minions.

The city of Athens opened its Panathenaic and Dionysia festivals to foreigners, but perhaps its most famous ritual was the Eleusinian Mysteries, held at the village of Eleusis and sacred to Demeter. Other significant sites included Delos, sacred to Apollo, the Heraion at Argos, the temple of Artemis Orthia at Sparta, and the shrine of Zeus at Dodona.

The great spiritual longing that would characterize the Hellenistic Age seems not yet apparent in the Classical period, although, in addition to the rites of Demeter at Eleusis, there is substantial evidence for Orphic and Dionysiac practice at this time.

Women’s Life The condition of women varied considerably from one Greek state to another, and it is a mistake to view any one instance as paradigmatic. In Athens, women were generally isolated from men, to the extent that the better houses included separate women’s quarters. Nonetheless, women did play a central role in family ritual and held important roles in burial practices. The principal female festival at Athens was the Thes-mophoria. Spartan women were, by contrast, able to own property and were noted for the extensive freedom of behavior and movement they enjoyed. Educated women from Ionia and the Greek cities of Asia Minor were actively sought as courtesans, and it is from this group that Aspasia of Miletus, the mistress of Pericles, was drawn. Women were also noted for acts of great heroism. The poet Telesilla of Argos (whose work survives in nine fragments only) led a group of women who repelled Spartan invaders under Cleomenes after the Argive army was defeated at Sepeia.

Economics By the Classical period, most of the Greek world had adopted coined money. The availability of coinage made easier the acquisition and preservation ofcapital and encouraged both commerce and private wealth. Trade was conducted on an international basis, with Greek cities acquiring goods from across the Mediterranean basin, the Black Sea, inland Europe, and Asia. Greek wares reached the Atlantic coast and India. Athens, Corinth, Rhodes, and the cities of the Asiatic coasts (depending on political conditions) were all leading market cities.

Government and Law The major cities of Greece had, for the most part, established forms of government before the Classical period. Each city was essentially self-governing, although owing to victory or defeat in war or the dominance of one power or another in the shifting alliances that characterized the period, the larger powers sometimes gained control of the internal government and foreign policy of their allies. Nor were the governments entirely static. Athens revised its democratic practices on more than one occasion, even going so far as to vote the democracy out of existence in 411 b. c.e. under the stress of the Greco-Persian Wars. The Thebans and the other states of the Boeotian confederacy were under the rule of the Boeo-tarchs. Sparta was governed by two kings who operated at the direction of the board of ephors (magistrates), a gerousia (council of elders), and an assembly of citizen-soldiers. Corinth enjoyed for the most part a rule of stable oligarchy, although it did flirt briefly with democracy. Argos established a type of democracy sometime after 480 b. c.e.

The famous law code of Gortyn, in Crete, which dates from the fifth century, gives an idea of both the substantive and procedural laws that might have been common throughout the Greek states. Most knowledge about the laws in Athens, however, comes from the large number of speeches preserved from the law courts of the late fifth and fourth centuries b. c.e.

War and Weapons Greece defeated Persia in no small part because of its naval supremacy. Athens built a substantial fleet of triremes (warships) to keep its maritime empire in charge. On land, hoplite warfare reigned supreme during the Classical period. The later fifth and the fourth centuries b. c.e. saw the first widespread use of mercenary soldiers in Greece. The preferred weapon of the hoplite was the spear, backed by the use of a short, straight sword. Hoplite armies were effective against cavalry on even terrain, but when scattered or on broken ground, they were much more vulnerable. The Thebans under Epaminondas proved the ultimate effectiveness of cavalry backed by heavy infantry, particularly at Leuctra in 371 b. c.e. Philip II and Alexander the Great perfected such tactics.

Education and Training Sparta demanded that every boy enter the army at age seven and remain there until his retirement from active service. In addition to military skills, young men learned to read and write and received some instruction in music. Women were educated in gymnastics, dancing, and music. Elementary education at Athens might consist of a boy hearing a grammatistes, who taught reading, writing, literature, and the elements of arithmetic; a kitharistes who taught music; and a paidotribes, who taught physical education. Evidence from vase painting suggests that upper-class young women might receive education in all three areas as well. Higher education in professional fields was available, as was advanced study at the philosophical schools. Plato’s Academy, Aristotle’s Lyceum, and Isocrates’ school of rhetoric were the most famous. Professional itinerant educators known as Sophists taught rhetoric, logic, and other skills. Schools are mentioned in other cities as well (for example, Troezen and Mycalessus), but little is known of how they functioned.

Architecture and City Planning The fifth century b. c.e. witnessed the great period of Athenian building. A wall was built around the city in 479 b. c.e., replacing an Archaic wall, and the famous Long Walls were built to connect the city to the Piraeus in the 450’s. The Piraeus, a harbor complex built to accommodate the new Athenian navy as well as to foster trade, was laid out on a rectangular plan by the architect Hippodamus of Miletus, who was also responsible for planning the Panhellenic colony at Thurii (443 b. c.e.).

On the Acropolis, most of the original buildings had been destroyed by Persian invaders. In the 450’s b. c.e., the major building projects were begun, and Phidias’s colossal statue of Athena Promachus was erected. Phidias superintended the overall work on the Acropolis. The Parthenon was completed by 432 b. c.e.: Ictinus and Callicrates were the architects. Mnesicles was responsible for the Propylaea, finished in the same year, and the latter part of the fifth century b. c.e. saw the completion of the Erech-theum. An earlier building program under Cimon had seen a substantial rebuilding of the Agora, including the famous Stoa Poecile. The shape of the fifth century b. c.e. Theater of Dionysus is amatter of considerable dispute. In imitation of Athens, however, substantial theaters were built at Epi-daurus and Megalopolis. Megalopolis, founded by Epaminondas as the center of the Arcadian League, was perhaps the most ambitious foundation of the fourth century b. c.e. until Alexander founded Alexandria in Egypt to provide him communication by sea with Europe.

Calendars and Chronology The Greek world had no universal calendar. The Athenian calendar, the best known, was a twelve-month lunar calendar of approximately 354 days with an occasional thirteenth month added to restore pace with the solar year. The names of some individual months are known from other cities. Years were generally reckoned on the four-year cycle of the Olympic Games, while an individual year might be known from a particular officeholder (in Athens, for example, the Archon Eponymous).

Medicine and Science Medicine developed greatly during the Classical period. Hippocrates of Cos was said by Plato to be the first who attempted to treat the body as a whole, although the body of works that have come down in the Hippocratic corpus show no overt signs of such concern. It is likely that the peripatetic Hippocrates left disciples throughout the Greek world who followed in outline, at least, his theories. However, the popularity of the cult of Asclepius at Epidaurus, the use of incubation in Asclepian rites, and the persistent use of charms and amulets suggest that nonrational elements continued to exercise a strong influence on Greek medical practice. The great scientific and astronomical discoveries of the Hellenistic Age lay in the future, but some progress was made in mathematics and natural science by both Plato and Aristotle. The expedition of Alexander the Great into Persia and Central Asia greatly increased knowledge in geography, botany, and biology.

Transportation and Navigation The Greeks of the Classical period continued to improve on their shipbuilding. The trireme was the principal warship in Classical times, replacing the pentekontor in the late sixth century b. c.e. It was fairly narrow, with a removable mast that was taken down and sometimes put ashore before battle. The regular merchant vessels were much squarer, relying primarily on sail power, although they could use long sweeping oars for maneuverability. The original merchant ships had one mast, although later a forward mast was added. The sailing season generally fell between March and October. Ships did not tack well, and there were no instruments such as the sextant or compass to assist in finding position at sea.

Sports and Entertainment The Olympic Games, celebrated every fourth year, remained the most important of the athletic festivals of this period. In addition, Panhellenic games were celebrated at Corinth (Isthmian Games), Nemea (Nemean Games), and Delphi (Pythian Games). Two of the most famous athletes of the Classical period were Theagenes of Thasos, who won nine Nemean and ten Isthmian Games, and Dorieus of

Rhodes, whose victories in boxing and thepankration (a type of “no-holds-barred” wrestling) extended over a career of at least twenty-six years.

Visual Arts Athenian red-figured pottery came into use around 530 b. c.e. and dominated throughout the Classical period. Vase painting became less stiff although still idealized. A freer style of painting characterized fourth century b. c.e. vases. In sculpture, Phidias completed the monumental Athena Promachos for the Acropolis in the 450’s. The sculptures of the pediment are either his work or were done under his direction. There was some larger painting done on walls at this period, particularly by Micon and Polygnotus, who decorated the Stoa Poecile and the Theseum. Zeuxis of Heraclea was perhaps the best known of all the painters of the Classical period, known for his use of shading and highlighting. A famous story alleges that his painting fooled birds.

Current Views Much scholarship has focused on integrating the cultural and religious elements of the Classical period with the more familiar politics and literature. There has been a rejection of the Apollonian/Diony-sian split favored by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in favor of an attempt to find the unity that underlies the rationalism of Plato and Aristotle, the mysticism of Eleusis, the superstition of Delphi, and the ordinary savagery of Greek warfare and politics. In addition, comparative evidence is being mined for insights into the lives of women and the political underclasses in Greek society, and much more work is being done on those elements that connect Classical Greece to its own Archaic past. There has also developed a greater appreciation of the role that cultural exchange with Asia, other parts of Europe, and Egypt played in the development of Classical Greece.

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Classical Greece