Where it all began
Leaving prehistoric times aside, the first Greek culture to appear is the one known as "Minoan civilization", a kingdom situated in the island of Crete that spanned from around the year 2700 BC to 1400 BC. This early society was ruled by king Minos, one of the legendary judges of the underworld, according to Virgil's Aeneid and Dante's Divine Comedy.
Around 1400 BC Crete was invaded and devastated by a Greek-mainland civilization localized in the city of Mycenae, who absorbed the new culture and flourished with it: The Mycenaean Civilization
Near 1100 BC, a nomad-barbarian culture took Greece and destroyed everything found on their way; no trace to historians was left on the period that lasted from the fall of the Mycenaean culture to 800 BC, an epoch commonly known as "the dark age".
We are going to focus in the Classical Greece (also known as Ancient Greece), a period that isn't precisely defined, but is traditionally placed between 776 BC - moment when the first Olympic Game was held - and the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC; from the rise of the first Greek city-states to the moment when Greek culture started contagiously bursting all over the world.
Athens and Sparta
The basic unit of politics in Ancient Greece was the polis, independent city-states (at least in theory) that joined each other for cross-commerce and protection. This meant that when Greece went to war (for example, against the Persian Empire), it took the form of an alliance against the enemy. Athens and Sparta were the most powerful of these cities, something which led them to a long-lasting confrontation for supremacy in land and sea (see "The Wars"), each of the two leading their own alliance (Delian and Peloponnesian League respectively)
The Wars
Two major wars shaped the Ancient Greek world:
(1) The Persian Wars (500–448 BC): Ionian Greek cities revolted from the Persian Empire and were supported by some of the mainland cities, eventually led by Athens. The most notable battles of this mega-clash include:
- Marathon (490 BC) legendary known for the 42-kilometer-run that the Greek soldier Pheidippides did from Marathon to Athens to warn the latter city of the eminent arrival of the enemy. The Greeks prevailed, and the Persian naval force is set back to Asia.
- Thermopylae (480 BC): Leonidas's 300 Spartans epic defense. On the arrival of Xerxes, the heroes held the narrow pass into Greece against the hole Persian army for three days, delaying the entrance of the Persians and giving the Greek armada enough time to prepare for war.
- Salamis (480 BC): the decisive battle between both civilizations; Greeks were victorious.
(2) The Peloponnesian War: the 27 year battle for supremacy held between Athens and Sparta along with their correspondent allies (431 BC to 404 BC). Under Spartan leadership, the Peloponnesian League defeated Athens and its supporters in 404 BC.
The war left devastation, followed by a period of Theban dominance in Greece. In 346 BC Thebes called upon Philip II of Macedon for aid, who in exchange quickly and easily conquered the exhausted cities of Greece. The basic unit of politics from that point was the empire, and the Hellenistic Age had begun.
The Hellenistic period of Greek history begins with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and ends with the annexation of the Greek peninsula and islands by Rome in 146 BC. Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture (indeed Greek culture would be the one to conquer Roman life), it did mark the end of Greek political independence.
The Philosophers
- Heraclitus: "fire is the origin of all things" (...) "permanence is an illusion as all things are in perpetual flux".
- Democritus: founder of the atomistic theory of matter: "all matter is made up of various imperishable, indivisible elements".
- Parmenides: "being is the basic substance and ultimate reality of which all things are composed" (...) "motion and change are just sensory illusions".
- Socrates: teacher of Plato. He represented the turning-point in Greek philosophy.
- Plato: pupil of Socrates and teacher of Aristotle. Knowledge based upon consideration of ideal forms outside the material world; proposed ideal form of government based on abstract principles in which philosophy ruled. The world of ideas.
- Aristotle: pupil of Aristotle. Wrote on diverse subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, biology and zoology, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, and ethics. Along with Socrates and Plato, he was one of the most influential of the ancient Greek philosophers.
The myth-writers
Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Sappho
The historians
Herodotus, Thucydides
The politicians
Themistocles, Pericles, Lysander, Epaminondas, Alcibiades, Philip II of Macedon, and his son Alexander the Great
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