Glossary

Archaic period Traditionally dated c. 700-479BC. Some scholars prefer different dates: starting from c. 800 BC with the appearance of the Greek alphabet; or from c. 750 BC, to coincide with the onset of the Greek renaissance; or identify c. 700-600 BC as the Orientalizing period, when many ideas and features came from the Near East. 479BC marks the end of the Persian Wars, a significant turning-point in Greek history.

A period of significant Greek achievement in pottery, sculpture, architecture, lyric poetry, philosophy, and new forms of political organization (from tyranny to democracy).

Classical period c. 479-323 BC. From the end of the Graeco-Persian Wars to the conquest of the Near East by Alexander the Great and his death. The fifth century marks the development by Athens of her empire, the conflict between Athens and Sparta, resulting in the Second Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC), the defeat of Athens and the loss of its empire; culturally a golden age thanks to Pericles; further refinement of democratic government. The fourth century is marked by the fight for dominance between Sparta, Athens, and Thebes. Athens remained the dominant intellectual center (Plato, Aristotle, philosophy, rhetoric, etc.).

Colonization A form of migration, deliberate in intent. For the Archaic period of ancient Greek history, it dates from c. 750 down to c. 490 BC and describes Greek expansion throughout the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, which took place for a variety of reasons. Colonization continued in the Classical, Hellenistic, and Roman periods. Ancient colonization was different from its ‘modern’ counterpart.

Hellenistic period 323-31BC - from Alexander’s conquest of the Persian empire to the defeat of Cleopatra VII of Egypt by Rome (and her suicide in 30BC). Under Alexander’s successors, numbers of small kingdoms emerged throughout the Near East from the defeated Achaemenid empire. Greek culture spread beyond the Mediterranean, resulting in the Hellenization of local cultures and the absorption of features of local cultures by the Greeks; Alexandria became the true center of Greek culture. From the late third century BC, Rome gradually conquered the whole Mediterranean world; from c. 200 BC it began to develop a culture of its own, heavily influenced by Greek models.

Migration Movement of a group of people as a body, usually in large numbers and over large distances. Migrations happen in every period of human history, for many and various reasons, for example, displacement by war, collapse of empires, natural disaster, shortage of food or raw materials, etc.

Post-and-pisce construction Vertical wooden framework with rammed earth/clay infilling to make walls.

Major Greek expansion around the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, called in academic literature ‘Greek colonization’, dates from the Archaic period (eighth century BC to beginning of the fifth century BC). Migration and colonization feature in every period of Greek, Roman, and Near Eastern history, but Archaic Greek colonization is distinguished from most others by its scale and extent (the only comparisons to be made are with Alexander the Great’s campaign in the Near East and the Hellenistic period, but the nature and character of these are different).

Greece itself had witnessed migration even before the Archaic period: the Ionians migrated from mainland Greece (followed by Dorians and Aeolians) in the late eleventh to tenth century BC and settled the islands of the Aegean and on the west coast of Asia Minor, founding 12 cities; earlier still, the My-cenaeans had established their settlements around the Mediterranean.

The reasons why Archaic Greek colonization was such an important phenomenon are simple and straightforward. Greeks set up colonies in new environments, establishing themselves in the lands stretching from the Iberian Peninsula in the West to North Africa in the South and the Black Sea in the North East (Figure 1). In this colonial world, Greek and local cultures met, influenced, and enriched each other, and together with the spread of the Roman empire and Christianity formed the foundations of modern European culture.