Overview of the History of Ancient Greece

The Greek Foundation of Western Culture

The following excerpt is taken from an account of a funeral oration given by Pericles, the political leader of Athens, shortly after the beginning of the Peloponnesian War (430 B.C.). It illustrates, as well as anything can, the reasons why Ancient Greece, the society of which he was a part, is regarded as the foundation of western civilization.

Let me say that our system of government does not copy the institutions of our neighbors. It is more the case of our being a model to others, than of our imitating anyone else. Our constitution is called a democracy because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which the man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty. And, just as our political life is free and open, so is our day-to-day life in our relations with each other. We do not get into a state with our next-door neighbor if he enjoys himself in his own way, nor do we give him the kind of black looks which, though they do no real harm, still do hurt people's feelings. We are free and tolerant in our private lives; but in public affairs we keep to the law. This is because it commands our deep respect.

When studying Ancient Greece, the first thing to keep in mind, is that for over 2400 years, the intelligence and sophistication of that ancient civilization has been the marvel of historians and a constant inspiration for all who cherish the best ideals of western culture. How did such an advanced and sophisticated culture, arise? Why did it evolve so differently from the autocratic governments common in the eastern Mediterranean, and why after such a glorious and productive reign, did it descend into decadence and dissipation. There are, of course, much discussed answers to all of these questions, but the point here is not to answer the questions, but only to raise them. For Ancient Greece was, in fact, utterly unique among ancient civilizations, and it is undeniably the foundation of some of the best innovations of western culture. The above quotation, so shockingly modern in its tone, is but one of hundreds of quotes derived from the literature of Ancient Greece that put the importance of the study of Greek Civilization in proper perspective. It is easy to become lost in the remoteness of the past, and the apparent foolishness of some of the local customs, and forget how astonishingly relevant the Greeks are to us today.

The Acropolis at Athens

Ancient Greece was not a unified nation, but a collection of Greek city states and colonies concentrated in mainland Greece, but spread throughout the Aegean Sea, Asia Minor, and Italy. They shared a common language, religion and culture, and like the Phoenicians, were a sea-faring as well as an agriculturally based society. By about the seventh century BC a written Greek language had developed to such as extent that the stories of many of these various cities states were written down, and a reasonably reliable history of Greece from that time is given.

There are two important points of background that need to be understood before tackling the actual history of the Ancient Greeks. The first is the very rich field of Greek Mythology and legends. The idea of history, as distinct from legend, arose during the golden age of Greece, and Thucydides is often regarded as the first modern historian, but before that time, history, legend, and myth were an undifferentiated mixture, and yet it was this mix of myth and legend that formed the basis of the Greek character. The first unit on Greek History, therefore, incorporates mythology and legend, extending from the most remote past to the legends of the Trojan War, which are thought to have been based on historical instances.

The other background history that is necessary to understand the unique culture of Ancient Greece is that of the Eastern Empires which surrounded Greece, and by which the values and culture of Ancient Greece must be held in contrast. Media, Lydia, Persia, Babylon, and Egypt were just a few of the autocratic regimes which rose and fell in the middle east before the rise of the Greeks. The best histories of these empires, were of course, written by Greek Scholars, such as Herodotus and Xenophon, but the great differences in culture between the autocratic eastern despots and the democratic Greek City States, is apparent in many striking anecdotes, such as those of Bulis and Sperthias and Pythius. The citizens of the Greek city states, were self-consciously free and independent, although their idea of "freedom", only meant that some citizens were free, since slavery was an accepted practice. Their conceit was that it was enough that some citizens were free and enjoyed self-government, since under the eastern autocracies, there were no free citizens. Even the wealthiest and most exalted of the satraps under the eastern dictators, were but tax-collectors who held their positions purely at the whim of their overlord.

The recorded history of Greece begins in about 800 B.C. with the individual stories of some of the most important Greek city-states, including Sparta, Athens, Corinth, and Samos in the centuries before the Greco Persian Wars. The Persian War (500-479 B.C.,) was of course, the watershed event in Greek History, during which a remote and disorganized collection of city-states arose to defeat the invasion of a far larger and wealthier empire, which had henceforth, laid vanquished all who dared resist it. The battles of the Persian War, and some of the stories and personalities associated with them, are among the most famous and inspirational in the history of warfare.

The prestige and prosperity which fell to the Greek states after their victory over the Persians was ultimately concentrated in the hands of the Athenian Empire, which came to dominate most of the Greek states sea-faring states scattered throughout the Aegean Sea. It was during this golden age of Greece, that many of the most famous personalities, writings, and relics of classical Greece are dated. The non-aligned Greeks, fearful of Athenian hegemony, now rose against her, and after the terribly destructive Peloponnesian War, the dominance of Athens was finally broken for good.

After the Golden Age of Athens, other powers arose; first Sparta, then Thebes, and finally, Macedonia. Although Macedonia, had been a semi-barbaric country, its dramatic rise under Philip of Macedonia and his son Alexander the Great, led to the spread of Greek culture throughout the eastern Mediterranean. The Greco-Macedonian, or Hellenistic Era, lasted from the conquest of Persia to the second century, when Roman influence began to spread throughout the Mediterranean. The Greek culture was so well established by that time, that Greek remained the language of commerce and education throughout the eastern Mediterranean even during the seven centuries that Greece was a province of the Roman Empire. Even after the Roman Empire fell, the Greek speaking Byzantine Empire, centered in Constantinople, continued to be the storehouse of classical Greek learning, and helped spread Christianity throughout eastern Europe.

Dionysiac Theatre at Athens

Historical Eras of Ancient Greece

Greek History, therefore starts with two divisions that are prior to Ancient Greek History proper; the Heroic, or legendary history, and the history of the Eastern Kingdoms. Then follow three units covering the periods before, during, and after the Persian War continuing until fall of Athens at the close of the Peloponnesian War in 404 B.C. The period between the fall of Athens and the Macedonian conquests of Alexander the Great is the Decline of Greece, and the period between the Macedonian Conquest and the fall of Greece to the Romans is the Hellenistic Age. The unit finishes with a very short unit on the Greco-Roman era, during which Greece was under Roman occupation, but still retained its language and culture. Many of the most famous literary and scientific figures of the Roman Empire were greeks, and most of the great centers of learning during the imperial age were in Greek-speaking regions in the east. When the Western Roman empire finally fell, the Eastern Empire became the Byzantine Empire, and by the 7th century was Greek rather than Latin based two divisions that occurred after the Hellenistic Age: Greco-Roman, and Byzantine. These later sections detail the histories of the Greek speaking peoples during the Roman Empire, and after the fall of most of the Eastern Empire to the Moslems in 642. It was not until the fall of Greece and Constantinople to the Ottomans in the fifteenth century that the last vestiges of Ancient Greek culture were lost to the world.