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The History of Greece: The Stone and Bronze Age
Ancient Greece
The history of the ancient Greek polis (800-500 BC)
The archaic period in the history of Ancient Greece covers only three centuries - from the VIII to VI centuries BC .
During this relatively short period of time, Greece significantly overtook neighboring countries in its development, including the countries of the ancient East that were at the forefront of the cultural progress of mankind at that time, as evidenced by an unprecedented explosion of creative activity.
During this period, architecture, monumental sculpture, painting were revived in Greece, poems and lyrical poems were created, the first philosophers appeared in the person of Thales, Anaximenes and Anaximander.
By the eighth century BC, the influence of the Dorian tribes in Ancient Greece had noticeably weakened, which led to the restoration of the state system: the archaic period is characterized by the so - called urban revolution the rapid growth of city states (polis), which became the main social and political unit of the Hellenistic world.
It was a period of intensive economic, political and cultural development of ancient Greece: with the growth of cities (polis) and shopping centers, crafts and arts flourished.
Thanks to the Great Greek colonization, the Hellenic polis statehood became widespread, in addition to the Aegean region, on the shores of the Mediterranean and Black Seas (the Euxine Pontus), which contributed to the development of commodity money relations in all corners of the ancient world.
All this combined, of course, affected the development of ancient Greek society as a whole and especially in the economic sphere.
Moreover, the development of crafts soon led to the establishment of close economic ties with the metropolis and with the cities of Asia Minor, and also contributed to the active development of trade relations with the local population, who were happy to purchase their products from Greek artisans.
In addition, the autochthons also bought agricultural products (wine, olive oil) from merchants from Greece.
In turn, grain, as well as raw materials, such as timber and metal, were supplied to Greece from the colonies.
Thus, thanks to colonization, the mass of the landless population left the territory of Ancient Greece beyond its borders, which, of course, smoothed out the existing social conflicts.
The stratum of society, which managed to accumulate wealth at the expense of crafts and trade, began to lead an aristocratic lifestyle, but at the same time it did not own any hereditary privileges: the land still remained in the hands of the ancestral nobility.
The aggravation of social conflicts in the VII VI centuries BC contributed to the birth of tyranny in large trade and craft centers - the sole power of the ruler.
It should be noted that initially the concept of "tyranny" did not have a modern shade of negativity for it, since the tyrants carried out an active foreign policy, strengthened the army, took care of the improvement of their cities.
In a word, tyranny meant a monopoly on political power.
But, nevertheless, as a rule, when seizing power, the tyrant mercilessly dealt with his political opponents, executing them without trial, or sending entire families and even families into exile, while their property passed into his treasury.
That is why, later, the word "tyranny" in the Greek language was associated with merciless bloody arbitrariness.
With all this, tyranny only weakened the ancestral nobility, without breaking its power.
After the overthrow of tyranny, outbreaks of acute struggle flared up.
During the endless civil wars, a new type of Greek state was gradually born - a slave owning policy, which was the result of many years of transformative activity of legislators and, in particular, the Athenian reformers - Solon and Cleisthenes, as well as the legislator of Sparta - Lycurgus.
As is known, the most significant transformations were carried out in the conditions of a political crisis, when the citizens of the polis, immensely tired of constant strife, elected someone from their environment as a mediator and conciliator, one of whom was Solon, who was elected in 594 BC to the post of the first archon.
The fundamental reform of Solon was the reform of debt law, the so called "seisakhteya", which literally means "shaking off the burden": indeed, the burden of debt bondage was thrown off the shoulders of the Athenian people, and all debts and interest accumulated on them were declared invalid.
Moreover, according to the reform of Solon, self mortgaging transactions were prohibited; the peasants restored the status of owners of their lands, and the amount of political rights no longer depended on the nobility, but on the size of the property.
Thus, the peasantry of Attica was saved from enslavement, which made possible the further development of Athenian democracy, which is an example of one of the possible ways of developing the early Greek polis - the abolition of the property qualification and the participation of all free citizens in government.
Another form of polis organization was oligarchic, when management was carried out according to the property qualification, and only individual citizens were considered the right holders, as was the case in Sparta, where power was in the hands of aristocrats.
At the end of the VI century BC, the first major association of the Greek cities of polis, led by Sparta, emerged - the Peloponnesian Union.
Gradually, Sparta concentrated in its hands the leadership of the entire political life of the Peloponnese.
Classical Era (500-300 BC)
The classical era in the history of ancient Greece is calculated from the end of the VI century to 338 BC.
During this period, the ancient Greek society reaches its highest flourishing in all spheres of life.
At the end of the VI century BC, with the beginning of the Greco Persian wars, the Greek polis were subjected to a severe test by the Achaemenid Persian despotism, which had grown stronger by that time.
10 years later, at Marathon, the Athenians defeated the army of the Persian king Darius I.
In the middle of August, 480 BC, the Persians approached Thermopylae: 300 Spartan soldiers led by their king Leonidas heroically fought against the Persian conquerors, defending the post entrusted to them.
After the disaster in the Battle of Thermopylae, the Greeks under the command of Themistocles retreated to the Saronic Gulf, where the Battle of Salamis took place in September of the same year, which ended with a triumphant victory of the Greek fleet.
In 479 BC, the Greeks won a brilliant victory over the Persians in the Battle of Plataea, after which the Spartans tried in vain to retain their naval hegemony, eventually ceding it to the Athenians (477 BC), due to the repeated victories of Athenian democracy in the Greco Persian wars.
As a result, the Delos Union, or the Delos Symmachia, also called the First Athenian Maritime Union, was formed.
The Delos Union, headed by Athens, included 200 polis located on the islands of the Aegean Sea and its coasts (with the exception of the southern one).
Thus, Athens became a major maritime power, conducting trade through its port of Piraeus - the largest port of the Mediterranean Sea.
Thanks to military successes, Athens became the main city of ancient Greece.
Magnificent temples were built on the Acropolis, artists created beautiful works of art, ancient Greek philosophy was replenished with such names as Socrates and Plato.
Finally, favorable conditions were created for the development of democratic institutions, which became an example not only for the civilizations of that era, but also for the entire history of Western peoples.
In a word, the "Golden Age" of Athens has come - the famous era of Pericles.
The Greek democracy established a tax system that allowed taking into account the difference in the financial situation of citizens and allocating funds to the poor for teaching arts and crafts at the expense of the state.
All free citizens were granted the right to participate in the people's government, as well as to control the work of the city administration.
It was the society of developed democracy that gave birth to such personalities as Herodotus, Aeschylus and Phidias.
Athens, having strengthened itself politically, gradually turned its allies in the Delian Symmachia into subjects, limiting their freedom in maritime trade and introducing the collection of taxes, the so called foros.
Moreover, the Athenian system of weights and measures began to be used in trade relations (the Athenian minted coin was among the policies of the First Athenian Maritime Union).
All this, together with the brewing conflict in foreign policy (the struggle of Athens and Corinth for trade routes, as well as the ongoing struggle of Athens with Sparta), led in 431 BC to the Peloponnesian War, which engulfed most of the Greek polis, which ended only 27 years later - in 404 BC - with the victory of Sparta and the deposition of Athens: they were forbidden to have a navy (the Maritime Union was dissolved).
From that moment on, Sparta became the leading policy of Greece, without ceasing to impose its military orders, which as a result led to ongoing internecine wars up to the new unification of Greece, but already under the hegemony of Macedonia: against the background of general instability, Macedonia was distinguished by a high level of economic development, technology and military affairs.
The main prerequisites for the creation of the empire of Alexander the Great were made by his father Philip II - a wise politician and a far sighted reformer.
In 337 BC, Greece was united under the rule of Macedonia.
After the assassination of Philip II, his place was taken by his young son Alexander, who led a victorious war against the Persians and created a new empire in just 9 years, reaching the Himalayas and the banks of the Ganges.
The main idea of Alexander the Great was to put an end to the centuries old quarrels between Persia and Greece, connecting the cultures of the West and the East through the policy of spreading the culture of the ancient Hellenes.
That is why the next epoch in the history of Ancient Greece is called Hellenistic.
Hellenistic period (300-30 BC)
At the end of the IV century, the hegemony of Sparta became the main enemy of Greek freedom and independence.
Thus, a Spartan garrison was introduced into Thebes, but in 379 BC the Democrats, led by Pelopidas and Epaminondas, expelled the Spartans, restoring the Boeotian union that existed in the VI century.
In 378-377 BC established a Second Athenian Alliance against Sparta and Thebes, defeated the Spartans at the battle of Leuctra (371 BC).
However, the rise of Thebes over pretty quickly - with the death of Theban commander Epaminondas in the battle of Mantinea (362 BC).
But despite this, the Greek government still has not managed to establish a Second Athenian Alliance orders, which were valid in the First Union, as the Athenians met strong resistance allies, which resulted in resulted in the Allied war 357-355 BC, which led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
During this period, a new force appeared in the north of Greece - Macedonia, the remnants of the Dorian tribes that did not migrate during the Great Greek Colonization.
In 346 BC, Philip II was the king of Macedonia.
By that time, he had already conquered Thessaly, Phocis, the peninsula of Chalkidiki and the coast of Thrace.
It should be noted that in Athens and other Greek polis, at the sight of such a powerful military force, society was divided into its supporters and opponents, with the emergence of the pro Macedonian and anti Macedonian parties, the latter of which included Demosthenes, Hypereides and others.
Through the efforts of Demosthenes, a coalition of Greek cities was created, which, however, suffered a complete defeat in the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC).
The congress convened by Philip II in Corinth (338-337 BC) finally formalized the subordination of Greece to Macedonia: at the Corinth Congress, the creation of a union of Greek states led by Macedonia was announced.
An oligarchic regime was established in all the polis, which was supported by Macedonian garrisons.
The Battle of Chaeronea and the subsequent conquests of the army of Alexander the Great in the east opened the period of Hellenism, during which the so called Hellenistic societies and states were formed, which became part of the ancient Greek world.
In the Hellenistic era, the Greek world covered the space from Sicily, in the west, to India - in the east and from the Northern Black Sea Coast in the north to the first rapids of the Nile in the south.
However, in all periods of ancient Greek history, the Aegean region was considered its central part, where Greek statehood and culture were born, reaching their heyday.
The huge empire of Alexander the Great collapsed immediately after his death (323 BC).
The long struggle of the Diadochi and their successors, the so called epigones, led to the creation of a number of independent Hellenistic states, such as the Seleucid monarchy founded by Seleucus, with Antioch (Syria)as its capital; Ptolemy, founded by Diadochus Ptolemy Laga in Egypt with its capital Alexandria, as well as Macedonia itself with its capital in Thessalonica, of which Cassander became king.
The struggle of the polis led by Athens against Macedonia after the death of Alexander the Great (the Lamian War of 323-322 BC) ended with the victory of Macedonia and the massacre of the Greek Democrats.
After the second defeat in the Chremonid War (267-261 BC), named after the Athenian commander Chremonides, Athens became completely dependent on the Macedonian monarchy.
But, despite this, Macedonia was unable to restore its former power over the Balkan peninsula, since two new powerful alliances entered the struggle against it - the Achaean (revived around 280 BC), which covered most of the Peloponnese (except Sparta) and the Aetolian (founded around 320 BC), which included the regions of central Greece (except Athens), southern Thessaly and other Greek polises.
The struggle of the diadochs of Alexander III the Great, and later Macedonia with the Achaean and Aetolian union led to negative consequences: Greek cities were destroyed, the inhabitants were sold into slavery, and large shopping centers were populated by new colonists.
As a result, the middle strata of the Greek population suffered ruin, the number of the poor increased, and, moreover, here and there - in Corinth, Argos, Miletus - unrest broke out, which at that time became almost a common occurrence.
After the defeat inflicted in 197 BC by the Romans of Macedonia in the Battle of Cynoscephalae, Greece fell under the influence of Rome, and with the establishment of the Roman Empire (27 BC), it became the Roman province of Achaia (except Athens, which was nominally considered a free city).
Since the IV century AD, Greece has formed the core of the Eastern Roman Empire Byzantium.
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Roman period
The History of Greece: The Stone and Bronze Age
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