Mediterranean Peoples - Archaic Greece

MEDITERRANEAN PEOPLES HIST 1301 | History Archaic Greece Following the fall of the Mycenaean civilization, the Greek Dark Ages (1100–800 BCE) continued, although they started to fade from 800 BCE. Greece saw a renaissance from this point on, spanning many centuries, during which a distinct and lively culture arose and developed into what is now known as Classical Greek civilization. After the Greek word arche, which means "beginning," this period, which spanned 800–500 BCE, is known as Archaic Greece. The Greek Renaissance was characterised by a sharp increase in population as well as the division of islands and valleys into separate city-states called polis (Greek for city-state). Communities sprang up around an acropolis or hill castle where locals might retreat to when things became dangerous. Every polis had colossal temples for the gods, such as the temple of Hera in the city-state of Argos, who is the wife of Zeus and guardian of marriage and the family. Each polis also had its own administration and religious cults. The Greeks, who called themselves Hellenes after the legendary monarch Hellen, were politically divided but had a shared language and religion. The most well-known of their holy locations were Olympia in southern Greece, which was dedicated to Zeus, the ruler of the pantheon of gods at Mount Olympus, and Delphi, which was located close to Mount Parnassus in central Greece and housed the oracle of Apollo, the god of prophecy. According to Aristotle, Greeks travelled to Olympia every four years to participate in athletic competitions held in Zeus' honour beginning in 776 BCE. This is how the Olympic Games got their start. Specialisation returned to Greek society around the beginning of the Archaic period. Greek artists developed their craft and grew more accomplished. Greek traders were involved in long-distance trading in Phoenicia and Egypt, where they frequently imitated creative forms. Greek and Phoenician traders exchanged commodities at the location of Al-Mina, near the Mediterranean coast in Syria, where historians think the Phoenician script was originally taught to the Greeks. Greek and Phoenician traders were vying with one other for trade with the locals on the far-western Italian island of Ischia, where iron ore was highly valued. Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet for their own language and made a significant invention by adding vowels (a, e, i, o, u) as a result of their commerce and interaction with the Phoenicians. Thus, following the Greek Dark Ages, the ninth century BCE saw the resurgence of reading and the end of the Aegean world's relative isolation. The epic poems The Iliad and The Odyssey, which are commonly credited to the blind poet Homer, were also written in the ninth century BCE. Historians concur that the epics began with the songs of oral poets during the Greek Dark Ages, even if they disagree as to whether Homer was a real person or a myth. These stories were initially recorded by scribes in the eighth century BCE, using the Greek alphabet. Dramatic changes resulted from a lack of cropland throughout the Archaic era as the population grew. Many Greeks fled their homeland in search of land to farm, founding colonies in North Africa at Cyrene in Libya, in southern Gaul (modern-day France) at Massalia (Marseille), and along the beaches of the Black Sea and the northern Aegean. The majority were found in southern Italy and the island of Sicily, which the Greeks called Magna Graecia, or "Greater Greece." A colony founded by Greeks developed into a separate polis with its own set of rules. The colony's territory was split into equal portions by the community's free adult males. As a result, a novel notion—that community citizenship was linked to equality and involvement in state governance—emerged in the colonies. The aristoi, or aristocratic landowners, were usually in charge of the city-states' governments and priesthoods in Archaic Greece. However, as a result of the novel ideas brought out by the colonies, the ordinary people, or kakoi, started to demand land and a say in how the polis was run. Because city-states need armies in their conflicts over farmland, they were able to exploit this to their advantage in these discussions. The wealthy commoners, who could afford to outfit themselves with iron weapons and armour, were the ones the nobles looked to for support. The aristoi and the kakoi were unable to come to a peaceful resolution of their conflicts in certain city-states. In these situations, an individual with a sizable following among the populace would take control and govern the city. These populist leaders were considered to be tyrants by the Greeks. The development of currency in the sixth century BCE helped to alleviate the problems brought on by the scarcity of land. A hundred years prior, Athens imprinted the image of an owl, a sign of knowledge sometimes connected to the goddess Athena, on silver coins, following in the footsteps of the kings of Lydia in western Asia Minor (Turkey). Coins were an easy way for merchants to transact without having to weigh precious metals to use as money or dispute the worth of bartered items. As a result, each city-state's agora, or place of assembly, developed into a marketplace for the exchange of products. The emergence of a market economy in the sixth century BCE encouraged economic expansion as farmers, craftspeople, and traders found greater motivation to create and acquire more products for profit. For instance, instead of always looking for new land, farmers discovered how to produce more food on the area they already had. The numerous new temples that the Greek city-states built during this time demonstrate the period's economic prosperity.