A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society, and Culture
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A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society, and Culture Sarah B. Pomeroy, et al. OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREECE This page intentionally left blank TITLE PAGE A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREECE Politics, Society, and Culture Sarah B. Pomeroy Stanley M. Burstein Hunter College and California State University, the City University of New York Los Angeles Graduate Center Walter Donlan Jennifer Tolbert Roberts University of City College and California, Irvine the City University of New York Graduate Center New York • Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2004 Oxford University Press Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi São Paulo Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright © 2004 by Sarah B. Pomeroy, Stanley M. Burstein, Walter Donlan, and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A brief history of ancient Greece : politics, society, and culture / by Sarah B. Pomeroy . [et al.]. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-515680-3 — ISBN 0-19-515681-1 (pbk.) 1. Greece—History—To 146 B.C. I. Pomeroy, Sarah B. DF214.B74 2004 938’.09—dc22 2003060873 Printing (last digit): 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper For Our Children and Grandchildren This page intentionally left blank CONTENTS List of Maps xi Acknowledgments xii Preface xiii Time Line xv Introduction 1 I Early Greece and the Bronze Age 12 Greece in the Stone Ages 12 Greece in the Early and Middle Bronze Ages (c. 3000–1600 BC) 13 Greece and the Aegean in the Late Bronze Age (c. 1600–1150 BC) 22 II The “Dark Age” of Greece and the Eighth-Century “Renaissance” (c. 1150–700 BC) 36 Decline and Recovery (c. 1150–900 BC) 36 Revival (c. 900–750 BC) 41 Homeric Society 44 The End of the Dark Age 53 III Archaic Greece (c. 700–500 BC) 61 The Formation of the City-State (Polis) 61 Government in the Early City-States 63 The Colonizing Movement 65 vii viii Contents Economic and Social Divisions in the Archaic Poleis 68 Hesiod: A View from Below 71 The Hoplite Army 73 The Archaic Age Tyrants 75 The Arts and Sciences 76 Panhellenic Institutions 87 Relations Among States 88 IV Sparta 91 The Dark Age and the Archaic Period 91 The Spartan System 95 Demography and the Spartan Economy 100 Spartan Government 103 The Peloponnesian League 105 Historical Change in Sparta 106 The Spartan Mirage 107 V The Growth of Athens and the Persian Wars 110 Athens from the Bronze Age to the Early Archaic Age 110 The Reforms of Solon 113 Peisistratus and His Sons 116 The Reforms of Cleisthenes 122 The Rise of Persia 122 The Wars Between Greece and Persia 127 VI The Rivalries of the Greek City-States and the Growth of Athenian Democracy 138 The Aftermath of the Persian Wars and the Foundation of a New League 139 New Developments in Athens and Sparta 142 The “First” (Undeclared) Peloponnesian War (460–445 BC) 143 Pericles and the Growth of Athenian Democracy 145 Literature and Art 148 Oikos and Polis 157 The Greek Economy 161 Contents ix VII Greece on the Eve of the Peloponnesian War 166 Greece After the Thirty Years’ Peace 166 The Physical Space of the Polis: Athens in the Fifth Century 169 Intellectual Life in Fifth-Century Greece 177 Historical and Dramatic Literature of the Fifth Century 179 Currents in Greek Thought and Education 189 The Breakdown of the Peace 193 Resources for War 198 VIII The Peloponnesian War 200 The Archidamian War (431–421 BC) 200 Between Peace and War 211 The Invasion of Sicily (415–413 BC) 213 The War in the Aegean and the Oligarchic Coup at Athens (413–411 BC) 217 The Last Years of War (407–404 BC) 220 IX The Crisis of the Polis and the Age of Shifting Hegemonies 225 Oligarchy at Athens: The Thirty Tyrants 226 The Trial of Socrates (399 BC) 227 The Fourth Century: Changing Ideas, Continuing Warfare 230 Law and Democracy in Athens 235 The Fourth-Century Polis 238 Philosophy and the Polis 241 X Phillip II and the Rise of Macedon 254 Early Macedon 254 Macedonian Society and Kingship 255 The Reign of Philip II 258 Philip’s Plans for Greece 265 XI Alexander the Great 270 Consolidating Power 271 From Issus to Egypt: Conquest of the Eastern Mediterranean (332–331 BC) 278 x Contents From Alexandria to Persepolis: The King of Asia (331–330 BC) 281 The High Road to India: Alexander in Central Asia 283 India and the End of the Dream 287 Return to the West 290 The Achievements of Alexander 292 XII The New World of the Hellenistic Period 294 The Struggle for the Succession 294 The Regency of Perdiccas 296 The Primacy of Antigonus the One-Eyed 298 Birth Pangs of the New Order (301–276 BC) 299 The Polis in the Hellenistic World 302 The Macedonian Kingdoms 306 Hellenistic Society 308 Alexandria and Hellenistic Culture 310 Social Relations in the Hellenistic World 319 Epilogue 326 Glossary 331 Art and Illustration Credits 341 Index 347 LIST OF MAPS Greece and the Aegean world xxii Mycenaean sites in the thirteenth century BC 26 Greek colonization: 750–500 BC 67 Peloponnesus 92 Attica 123 The Persian Empire in the reign of Darius 126 The Persian wars 134 The Athenian Empire at its height 141 Sicily and southern Italy 167 Alliances at the outset of the Peloponnesian War 196 Theaters of operation during the Peloponnesian War 201 Pylos and Sphacteria 207 Macedonia and its neighbors 257 Alexander’s campaign 274 The Greek view of the inhabited world 287 The Hellenistic world 300 xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The authors wish to acknowledge the following publishers for their kind per- mission to reprint material from their publications: Cambridge University Press: The Hellenistic Age from the Battle of Ipsos to the Death of Kleopatra VII, edited and translated by Stanley M. Burstein. Copyright © 1996. Reprinted with the per- mission of Cambridge University Press. Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.: Homer: Iliad, translated by Stanley Lombardo. Copyright © 1997. Reprinted by permission of Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. All rights reserved. Johns Hopkins University Press: Hesiod: Theogony, Works and Days, Shield, translated by Apostolos N.Athanas- sakis, p. 73. Copyright © 1983. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hop- kins University Press. Pindar’s Victory Songs, translated by Frank Nisetich, pp. 256–257. Copyright © 1980. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press. Oxford University Press: The Republic of Plato, translated by Francis MacDonald Cornford. Copyright © 1945. Xenophon: Oeconomicus: A Social and Historical Commentary, edited and trans- lated by Sarah B. Pomeroy. Copyright © 1994. Schocken Books: Sappho and the Greek Lyric Poets, translated by Willis Barnstone. Copyright © 1962, 1967, 1988. Reprinted by permission of Schocken Books, distributed by Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc. University of California Press: Sappho’s Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient Greece, translated by Di- ane J. Rayor. Copyright © 1991. University of Chicago Press: Aeschylus: The Persians, translated by S. Bernardete, and Aeschylus: Agamemnon, translated by R. Lattimore, in The Complete Greek Tragedies: Aeschylus, edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Copyright © 1992. Sophocles: Antigone, translated by E. Wyckoff, in The Complete Greek Tragedies: Sophocles, edited by David Grene and Richmond Lattimore. Copyright © 1992. W.W. Norton and Company, Inc.: Herodotus: The Histories, edited by Walter Blanco and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts, translated by Walter Blanco. Copyright © 1992. Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War, edited by Walter Blanco and Jennifer Tol- bert Roberts, translated by Walter Blanco. Copyright © 1998. xii PREFACE The history of the ancient Greeks is one of most improbable success stories in world history. A small people inhabiting a country poor in resources and divided into hundreds of squabbling mini-states created one of the world’s most remark- able cultures. Located on the periphery of the Bronze Age civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia, the Greeks absorbed key technical skills such as metallurgy and writing in the process of developing a culture marked by astonishing cre- ativity, versatility, and resilience. Finally, having spread from Spain to the bor- ders of India, Greek culture gradually transformed as it became an integral part of other civilizations: Latin, Iranian, Arabic, and Byzantine. In the process, how- ever, the Greeks left a rich legacy in every area of the arts and sciences that is still alive in Western and Islamic civilizations. Almost ten years ago the authors of this book set out to write a new history of the country the English poet Byron called “the land of lost gods.” We hoped that our work, Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History, would flesh out the romantic images of Greece with the new understanding of the realities of Greek history gained from the patient scholarship of a half-century of talented Greek historians. Thanks to their achievements, we were able to give full recog- nition to the significance of the Dark Age in the formation of Greek civilization and incorporate into the story of Greece the experiences of those who did not be- long to the “scribbling class,” such as women and slaves.