Ancient Greece — Summary

Heroic Age   Eastern Kingdoms   Greek City States   Persian War   Athenian Empire   Decline of Greece   Hellenistic Age   Greco-Roman Era  

Heroic Age

Prior to 1000 B.C.

Voyage of Jason and the Argonauts to Aftermath of the Trojan War.

Perseus and the Gorgons

The folklore and legends of the heroic age of Greece are inexpressibly rich, and gives the most remote period of Greek History, an almost mystical quality. Various authors describe it as a wonderland or fairyland where almost all of nature, including brooks, trees, lightening, animals, and even cities were imbued with spirits and stories of gods, heroes, and monsters. The Greeks believed that their gods shared a great many human foibles, so the stories about their Gods were almost invariably dramas involving jealousy, posturing, revenge, drunkenness and debauchery, and misunderstandings—often quite humorous, and occasionally imbued with a morale applicable to human relations. The hundreds of hero stories, myths and legends often had many variations, some suitable for children, and others of a tenor more appropriate for adults.

The myths, heroes and legends of Ancient Greece are too numerous to list, but a few general categories of the types of heroes and stories can be given. The first category of Greek myths involves the Gods, or immortals, who have a human form, and decidedly human personality traits, but possess enormous powers over the earth. The twelve 'Olympians' are the most important Gods, and they include Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades who rule over the heaven, Sea, and Underworld respectively. Aside from these twelve Gods, there are hundreds of other less gods, fairies, and demigods that preside over lesser entities, such as field and stream, or poetry, music or medicine.

The second category of Greek myths involves human, or semi-human heroes, and a spectacular array of monsters and villains. These legends are often associated with a hero specific to a particular town or region, and may possibly have been very loosely based on a historical character since most of the aristocratic classes in the major Greek cities claim descent from them. The four most important Greek heroes are Hercules, Theseus, Perseus, and Jason and the Argonauts, but there are many others.

The final category of Greek legends involves the famous characters who appear in the Iliad and Odyssey, the two epic poems most closely associated with Ancient Greece. These poems recount the story of the Trojan War, during which hundreds of warriors from mainland Greece set sail to besiege the city of Troy, located in Asia Minor, near the Dardanelles. The Iliad tells the story of Achilles, Hector, Odysseus, Agamemnon, Helen, and many other very famous characters who participated in the ten year siege. Far from being only a battle story however, the poem examines a great variety of philosophical issues from the meaning of fame, fate, and honor, the destructive forces of jealousy, the virtues of friendship, loyalty and patriotism, and the apparent arbitrary whims of the gods. It is generally recognized as one of the greatest masterpieces of literature in existence, and was for all purposes, the 'Bible' of the Ancient Greeks.

The relationship between the very rich and complicated world of Greek folklore, and the extraordinary sophistication and intelligence of the ancient Greeks is an interesting subject, and almost all historians agree that it was of utmost importance. The Greek cities states were governed nearly independently, so it was the religion and folklore that tied the Greeks together as a civilization, and they were immensely proud of what we would call their 'literary' heritage. Amazingly, these stories and poems which comprise Greek folklore, were largely passed on before the Greek alphabet and habit of writing were developed. Minstrels would memorize these stories, which were often in the form of poems, and travel throughout the Greek world, singing them to audiences who then themselves memorized many verses. The most famous of these minstrels of course, was the blind poet Homer who is credited with composing both the Iliad and the Odyssey, the two most famous epic poems in the Greek world. It is almost beyond comprehension to realize that these poems, which comprise over twenty-six thousand lines of beautiful verse, were "composed" before the Greek Alphabet and writing were well established. The propensity of the Ancient Greeks to formally memorize enormous tracts of beautiful and spiritually uplifting verse was well established at the very outset of recorded Greek History, and could not have had any but a terrifically civilizing effect.

Eastern Kingdoms

600 B.C. to 500 B.C.

Foundation of Lydian and Babylonian Empires to Reign of Darius the Great

Croesus on the funeral pyre

The rise of Ancient Greece needs to be seen against the backdrop of the Mediterranean world of which it was a part. By the third century B.C. the Greek Language and culture came to dominate the educated classes of all civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean. Prior to the "Golden age" of Classical Greece however, which corresponds to the fifth century B.C., Greece was only a poor and disunited collection of city-states centered around the Aegean Sea, surrounded by wealthier and more powerful neighbors, in particular, Lydia, Media, Babylon, and later the Persian Empire. The histories of these regions are often associated with Ancient Greece, not only because they are contemporary civilizations from which one can draw comparisons, but also because the best histories we have of them are written by Greek Historians, such as Herodotus and Xenophon.

The region directly east of mainland Greece (present day Turkey) was called Asia Minor, or the "Near East". Its coastline was populated with Greek speaking colonies, but by 600 B.C. the interior mainland controlled by the family of Croesus, king of Lydia. It was also the legendary home of Midas, a king of Phrygia, whose touch turned all to gold. The region was well-known for large silver and gold deposits and both kings were famous for their fabulous wealth.

Directly South of Asia Minor was the middle eastern region, composed of modern day Syria (Assyria), Iraq (Babylon), Lebanon (Phoenicia), and Israel (Judea). In Ancient Times, the control of this region alternated between the Egyptian, Assyrian, and Babylonian Empires. By 600 B.C., the region was primarily in control of the Babylonian Empire under Nebuchadnezzar, and Babylon was the greatest city in the region. To the East of Babylon was the empire of the Medes, which controlled most of modern day Iran, and the small kingdom of Persia, which in 600 B.C. was only a vassal kingdom of Media located on the Persian Gulf.

In 550 B.C., Cyrus the Great king of Persia, and grandson of the Emperor of the Medes started a great career of conquests, and brought all of the above mentioned regions, under his control. The Persian Kingdom, which arose under his leadership, became the most powerful Empire the Ancient world had ever seen. Cyrus died in 529 B.C. on a campaign in Scythia to add yet more territory to his vast domains. His Empire was briefly ruled by his son Cambyses who extended his conquests into Egypt, but died shortly thereafter. As Cambyses died with no heir, there was considerable palace intrigue before an heir was settled on, but the headship eventually fell to Darius the Great. Darius suffered several rebellions under his leadership including the rebellion of Babylon, and the Ionian Revolt. It was due to the Greek city of Athens involvement in the Ionian Revolt that Darius determined to conquer Greece and hence launched the Greco Persian Wars.

The kingdoms of the east varied significantly in customs, religion and livelihood. They included sea-faring kingdoms, such as Phoenicia, agricultural kingdoms, such as Phrygia, and pastoral kingdoms, such as Media, but all were governed as autocracies. All cities and states paid tributes to the emperor, or great king, and all city administrators served at the pleasure of an autocratic higher authority. The idea of self-governing city-states, was nearly unknown outside of the Greek colonies. Even more striking and unique to Greece was the idea of satire and open dissent toward authority figures, and the idea that all citizens shared in the common culture. The Greek were self-consciously civilized, and considered their neighbors, however wealthy and powerful, to be mere slaves.

Greek City States

800 B.C. to 500 B.C.

Rise of Sparta to Democratic Reforms in Athens

Young Spartans learning a lesson from drunken helots

In marked contrast to the Persian Empire, which had a centralized and despotic government, the Greek cities were largely independent and self-governing, likely due to the mountainous terrain of the Greek mainland, which led to relatively isolated communities in valleys and harbors throughout the region. The government of the cities was usually oligarchic, that is, controlled by several powerful families and in some cases, there were local tyrants but the city-states themselves were generally independent of each other, and there was no Greek overlord to which all cities paid tribute. Instead of a common government, the Greek towns were held together by a common language, religion, and culture.

The two most important cities in Ancient Greece were Sparta, the foremost city in Greece, and a military powerhouse from about 800 B.C. on, and Athens, which rose to great predominance in the fifth Century B.C. Not only were these cities very different in character from cities that were under the sway of Eastern tyrants, but they were radically different from each other. Sparta was possessed of a very stoic, severe, military temper, and Athens exhibited an epicurean, or artistic temperament. They were both however vigorous examples of the Greek dedication to self-determination and love of freedom.

The city of Sparta, located in the center of the western Peloponnesian Peninsula, rose to great distinction among Greece cities after it underwent a transformation in culture, under the leadership of Lycurgus in about 800 B.C. After a devastating series of wars with neighboring Messina, he convinced the Spartan nobility to give up their riches and their land, and to allow for the equal division of wealth among all Spartan citizens. He further prohibited almost all display of wealth, and occupations among Spartans that would tend towards accumulation of wealth. Sparta was henceforth to be a military aristocracy, and all its citizens were engaged full time in developing the military virtues of strength, courage, and self-sacrificing dedication to country. Pedestrian matters such as tending fields, and craftwork, and transporting goods, were left to slaves (called helots), and neighboring tribes under Sparta's sway (called peroci). Sparta did have two kings, who usually acted as generals in battle, but the state itself, was lead by a council of city elders. Sparta recognized her heroes, but didn't not necessarily grant them political power until relatively late in life. The conditions, therefore, for the reign of a long-term individual tyrant did not exist in Sparta.

The city of Sparta did not cultivate the arts, and so relative to Athens, there are few relics of Ancient Sparta, but its cultural influence on the rest of Greece was enormous—"greatly admired but hated", probably sums up the situation well. There is no question that the impulse to military excellence that infused all of Greece was centered in Sparta, but it embodied as well, many of the other great stoic virtues. One of the many striking things about the city of Sparta was its enormous stability—its government was among the least changeable in human history. During an age of constant political upheavals and conquests, in which cities were often besieged and overthrown, and their inhabitants killed or sold into slavery, Sparta, an unwalled city, was an unperturbed fortress. From the time of the Messenian War, in about 750 B.C., to the Battle of Leuctra in 371 B.C., no enemy ever marched on Sparta's soil. Even Sparta's most powerful latter-day enemies, who held sway over all of Greece long after Sparta's glory days, were content to isolate, rather than conquer the famous city.

The early government of Athens was more typical of other Greek towns. Athens was the greatest city of the Ionian Greeks, who were scattered throughout the islands of the Aegean Sea and the West Coast of Asia Minor. In ancient times they had a king, but by about 600 A.D. were governed as an oligarchy. Draco and Solon were two of their early law-givers. They wrote laws that prevented some oppressions of the lower classes by the richer, but the democratic reforms that made Athens famous in later years, came about slowly over times. Pisistratus, although ruling as a tyrant for many years, was responsible for laying much of the foundation for the Athenian democracy as well as its reputation as a cultural center, but other reformers, including Cleisthenes reorganized the government to more fairly represent all classes.

Other important Greek cities in the era before the Persian War included Thebes, to the northwest of Athens, Corinth, on the gulf of Corinth, Argos and Olympia, on the Peloponnese, and Delphi, the location of the most important Oracle in Greece. In addition to the mainland cities, some important Islands were Euboea, Samos, Lesbos, and Delos. There were also many Greek cities on the cost of Asia Minor, such as Miletus and Halicarnassus but most of these fell under the sway of the Persian Empire. The Greeks that settled in the islands and coasts near Asia Minor were called the Ionian Greeks, and along with Athens, produced most of the well known philosophers, scientists, and writers of early Greek. Some well known Ionian Greeks who lived before the Persian war include Pythagoras and Polycrates of Samos, and Thales of Miletus.

Persian War

499 B.C. to 477 B.C.

Ionian Revolt to Aftermath of the Persian War

Ship dashed against ship, till the Persian dead strewed the deep.

Like the Trojan War, the Greco Persian Wars were a defining moment in Greek history. The Athenians, who would dominate Greece culturally and politically through the fifth century B.C., regarded the wars against Persia as their greatest and most characteristic moment.

The Persian Wars began when Athens agreed to come to the aid of the greek-speaking city-states on the coast of Asia Minor (modern Turkey) who were in rebellion against the Persian empire. Their participation in the insurrection turned Persian attention to Athens and so (coaxed along by some disgruntled Greek exiles of course), in 490 B.C. Darius the Great launched an attack against the Greek mainland. The Athenian forces were under the command of Miltiades, a general who had previously been governor of an Ionian city, and involved in the revolt against Persia. At the Battle of Marathon he urged the Athenians to attack immediately without waiting for reinforcement, even though their army was only a fraction of the size of the Persians. The Battle of Marathon is perhaps the single most important battle in Greek history. Had the Athenians lost, Greece would have eventually come under the control of the Persians and all the subsequent culture and accomplishments of the Greeks may have been lost to posterity.

The Persians did not attack Greece again for ten years, but when Darius’s son Xerxes (486-465 B.C.) became king, the Persians launched another expedition against Athens. This time they were determined to use overwhelming force so in 481 B.C., Xerxes gathered together an army of several hundred thousand infantry and a navy of six hundred ships. He demanded that the Greek city-states submit to him without resistance, and many did, including Thebes. The Athenians and Spartans however, insulted the Persian ambassadors and vowed resistance to the end. Fortunately for all of Greece, the Athenian politician Themistocles had foreseen trouble many years ahead of time, and had convinced the Athenians to begin a navy-building project so by the time of the great Persian invasion, Athens had a navy of over two hundred ships.

While Xerxes gathered his army at the Hellespont, the 31 Greek city states that had decided to resist the Persians (many of the smaller cities had already conceded defeat and refused to send armies), were fielding a united Greek army, under the leadership of Sparta. A Spartan admiral was even put in command of the navy, although Athens provided by far the largest fleet, but Themistocles was very influential in all naval operations. The first great battle of the united Greeks against Xerxes army was at Thermopylae, a narrow pass in the north of Thessaly. It was there that the Spartan King Leonidas, with 300 Spartans held out for three days against the entire Persian army. After a lopsided battle in which thousands of Persians were slaughtered, the resolute Spartans were eventually surrounded and killed to a man, and Xerxes army passed unopposed to Athens, which it burned to the ground.

As soon as the pass of Thermopylae was lost, the Greek fleet worked full time to evacuate Athens and its surrounding communities to local islands. They were stationed on the Island of Salamis, in sight of the ruins of Athens, when after a fit of contentious infighting, the decision was made to give battle to the Persians at once. The famous naval Battle of Salamis ensued, during which the Greek fleet won a dramatic and decisive victory over the much larger Persian navy. The Persian fleet was destroyed, and Xerxes returned to Persia, leaving Mardonius in charge of the conquered region. Most of the citizens in Athens retired to islands off the mainland, or to the Peloponnesian Peninsula, which the Spartans had fortified in anticipation of a Persian attack. It was not until the following spring that Spartan leadership realized the Persians had no intention of meeting them at their fortified isthmus, and that in order to drive the Persians from Greek soil they would have to meet them in open battle. After considerable hesitation and delay, a terrific battle was fought at Plataea, and the Persians were defeated, and nearly killed to a man.

The Persian war was remarkable not only for its ferocious battles, which showcased the superiority of Greek military methods, but also for the striking personalities involved, the democratic character of the military command, and the ability of the fractious Greeks to drop their strong divisions and unite behind a single cause. The war is a popular one to study, not only because of its striking military engagements and historical significance but also for the great human dramas that were played out behind the scenes.

Athenian Empire

477 B.C. to 404 B.C.

Formation of the Delian League to the Fall of Athens

Phidias and the statue of Athena at the Parthenon.

In the years following the Persian War, Athens was rebuilt and the Greek navy expanded its domination of the Aegean Sea. Further naval victories over Persia resulted in the freeing of several Ionian Greek colonies from the Persian yoke, and the increased prestige of Greece as a sea power. The Athenian domination of the Greek navy was formalized the by creation of the Delian league, a group of Greek colonies located in the Aegean Sea united for common defense. Although this league was nominally a confederation, it was dominated by Athens, and eventually became the foundation of the Athenian Empire. Athens became very wealthy due both to its domination of trade in the region, and also to the inflow of tribute that had to be paid to Athens in return for protection from Persia.

The most important statesmen in Athens in the years immediately after the Persian war, were Cimon, son of Miltiades, and Aristides. Both were involved in the organization of the Delian league and the rebuilding of Athens, including the construction of a fortified wall around the city to protect it from future invasions. Sparta resisted the building of walled cities, lest they fall into enemy hands, but the Athenians insisted, and eventually a great wall was built from Athens to the sea, wide enough to drive two Chariots abreast. During the same period, great temples and state houses were built, funded mostly from the Delian league tributes, on a scale never before seen on the continent of Europe.

In 461 B.C. one of the greatest statesmen in Greek history came into power in Athens. Pericles, more than any other person, determined the character of classical Athens. He was a great patron of the arts and architecture, and he extended the democratic franchise to virtually all Athenian citizens. Greek theatre thrived under his leadership, and all four of the great Greek playwrights, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, lived during his thirty year reign. He made Athens the cultural center of the Mediterranean, and paid pensions to philosophers, artists, sculptures, and poets, to encourage their contributions. The Parthenon and many other great public buildings were built under his leadership, and the famous Greek Historians, Herodotus, and Thucydides were both contemporaries.

Sparta, although shunning luxury and empire, looked upon Athens with distrust and jealousy. As Athens became more arrogant and contemptuous of the rights of its colonies, the dispute between the cities grew, and eventually Sparta and its allies declared war on Athens, and thus began the Peloponnesian War. It was a futile and drawn out affair, lasting almost 30 years, with many horrendous atrocities, and its only long term effect was to critically weaken and depopulate all of mainland Greece. Athens for the most part, avoided meeting Sparta in battle on land and instead trusted to its fortified walls, and control of the seas to provide for its people during the long years of siege. Ten years of battles resulted in almost no change of the state of affairs, and a ceasefire was arranged, which lasted several years, until Athens, under the influence of Alcibiades, undertook an ill-fated expedition to conquer the island of Sicily. This disastrous campaign was the turning point of the war. It destroyed Athens naval supremacy and greatly weakened it in its continuing struggle against Sparta. For ten more years the conflict raged on, until Sparta finally defeated the last remnant of Athens navy at the battle of Agos Potami, and starved the walled city into submission.

Even during the Peloponnesian war, Athens produces some of its greatest geniuses. Socrates, Aristophanes, Euripides and Thucydides all lived during this period, and their writings are among the most cherished in Western Civilization. Undeniably however, the Peloponnesian war was a disaster from which Greece and Athens never fully recovered. Athens regained its reputation as a center of culture and education, but was never again politically powerful.

Decline of Greece

404 B.C. to 338 B.C.

Aftermath of Peloponnesian War to the Battle of Chaeronea

Timoleon holding the ford of the Crimesus

After the defeat of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta became the undisputed first power among the Greek city-states. The walls of Athens were pulled down, and the Spartan general Lysander appointed thirty men who were loyal to Sparta to run the city. The leaders were called the "thirty tyrants" and they put many of their political opponents, including Socrates to death. Plato was a student of Socrates and witnessed these oppressions and they greatly influenced his later writings.

The period immediately after the Peloponnesian war is called the "Spartan Hegemony" because, although Sparta did not collect tribute, it allowed only governments which were friendly to Sparta to exist throughout Greece. The major figure of this period was Agesilaus, a brave and noble Spartan king who came very near to freeing all of the Greek Colonies in Asia Minor before he was recalled to deal with a political crisis, at home. While Agesilaus was off fighting Persians in the east, the Spartan government had fallen into a great deal of trouble. The riches and spoils from the successful wars had done much to corrupt the leadership of Sparta as well as the general population; there was destructive intrigue and infighting; and wars with Corinth and Thebes. These problems combined with a significantly reduced population led to the disaster in 371 B.C. at the Battle of Leuctra. Only 33 years after they prevailed in the Peloponnesian War, the Spartans suffered a humiliating defeat against Thebes. This was the first major land battle that the Spartans had lost to another Greek state in 500 years and they never recovered their mystique. The spoils of victory had done more to damage Sparta in a single generation then any enemy had been able to do in half a millennium.

The rise of Thebes as a dominant power in Greece was unprecedented. Although always a large and prosperous city, it had never had particularly talented military leaders until the rise of Epaminondas and Pelopidas, the two great generals of Thebes. Under their leadership, Thebes achieved for the first time, a military predominance over most of Greece and provided a real check to Sparta’s influence. The battle of Leuctra revealed Epaminondas as a military genius of first rank, and his subsequent diplomatic victories also showed his talent as a statesman. The period of Theban influence however, did not long survive the death of Epaminondas at the Battle of Mantinea. Sparta was humiliated, Thebes was leaderless, and no great power arose to provide dominant leadership to Greece. The fortunes of Athens did eventually improve, but it never recovered its former predominance, and was not prepared to resist the Macedonian threat when it did arise.

Macedonia was a semi-barbaric country, north of Greece that had never been considered as fully civilized by the great city-states of the Greek mainland. Philip of Macedonia, however, had spent his youth as a hostage in Thebes, under the great Epaminondas. There he had learned the best of Greek military strategies, and became a great admirer of Greek culture. He ascended to the throne of Macedonia in 359 and spent the early part of his reign reforming the Macedonian military, expanding his power, and promoting Greek culture. His first military dealings with Greece involved the Sacred War during which he generously defended the interests of the Oracle at Delphi against a band of marauding Phocians. Once this foothold was made, he used statesmanship and diplomacy to gain ascendency over many weaker Greek allies until Athens and Thebes, at the behest of the Athenian orator Demosthenes finally recognized the threat. When Philip finally met their combined forces in 338 at the Battle of Chaeronea however, the Greeks were soundly thrashed, and fell under the Macedonian Yoke. Philip was however, an admirer the Greeks and granted them many freedoms, but little power. Greek culture and philosophy continued to thrive in Athens for many years afterward, but the political autonomy on mainland Greece was gone forever.

Just as mainland Greece was losing its independence, however, the island of Sicily overthrew Dionysius the Younger, a tyrant whose family had reigned in Syracuse for two generations. The tyrants of Syracuse were notoriously oppressive and paranoid, although the younger Dionysus did make many pretensions of great culture, and even hired Plato as a private tutor for several years. Finally, in 343 the hero Timoleon, a native of Corinth, became the great hero of the Sicilian Wars, when he overthrew the tyrant of Syracuse, fought off invaders from Carthage, and established an independent Greek republic in Syracuse that thrived until it was conquered by Rome.

Hellenistic Age

336 B.C. to 146 B.C.

Ascension of Alexander the Great to the Destruction of Corinth

Death of Alexander

Philip of Macedonia died shortly after the battle of Chaeronea, leaving his young son Alexander the Great to the throne. The Greeks, led by Thebes, immediately tried to throw off the Macedonian garrison, but Alexander, only twenty years old at the time, quickly put down all revolts with an iron hand. He razed Thebes to the ground, sold their citizens into slavery, and he prevented a revolution in Athens by a combination of threats and diplomacy.

Immediately after pacifying Greece, he started planning for an ambitious Invasion of Persia. The idea was not originally his, since his father had already laid the groundwork by building up the Macedonian army into the finest fighting force of the ancient world, and Alexander had his father’s generals, including Parmenio, to rely on. Nevertheless, Alexander’s own military instincts were near genius, as his subsequent series of astounding victories against enormous Persian armies showed. Macedonia was a very poor nation, and Alexander crossed the Hellespont with only about 40,000 Greek and Macedonian soldiers. With this, he set about to conquer an empire of around forty million people, the largest and wealthiest in the ancient world.

The story of Alexander’s conquest of Persia is full of interest, but boils down to several large scale battles, in each of which the Macedonian forces prevailed over a vastly larger Persian host. The four great battles of Alexander’s conquest of Persia were Granicus, Issus, Guagamela, and Hydaspes, which won for him the Near East, Syria, Media, and Hindustan respectively. The entire conquest took only seven years and was completed before Alexander’s 30th birthday. It was his very youth that caused his downfall however, not to a conqueror, but to dissipation. Only a few years after returning from his farthest campaign in India, he succumbed to an illness undoubtedly brought on by excessive drink.

The results of Alexander’s conquests were enormous both culturally and politically. There was neither any legitimate heir to inherit his empire, nor was there a single general strong enough to hold it together. The empire was therefore divided, after twenty years of , between four of his generals. The main divisions early in the wars were Ptolemy I in Egypt, Seleucus in the Far East, Antigonus I in the Near East, and Antipater in Macedonia and Greece, but in the final settlement, the descendents of Antipater lost their kingdom to those of Antigonus. The kingdoms were all of the traditional despotic variety, with no pretense of self-rule or democratic government.

The cultural effects of Alexander’s conquests were therefore, much more striking and significant than his political legacy. Alexander, who had grown up with Aristotle as a tutor, believed that Greek culture was superior to any other, and did all he could to spread the Greek language and learning throughout the regions he conquered. Both Alexander and his generals founded many new cities based on the greek model, with streets laid out in grids, market places, gymnasiums, theatres, council halls, and baths. The greek language became the one used for education and higher learning. Libraries and schools of learning were maintained in most of the major cities. Many of the towns founded by the Macedonians were never more than military camps and didn’t take root, especially in the far east. But in the regions around the Mediterranean, greek culture became completely dominant, and prevailed until the Moslem Conquests of the seventh century.

Greco-Roman Era

146 B.C. to 476 A.D.

Fall of Mainland Greece to the Fall of the Western Empire

A Corinthian nobleman being sold as a slave in the marketplace.

The first contact between Roman and Greco-Macedonian powers occurred during the Pyrrhic Wars in Italy in 291 B.C. when the Greek city states in southern Italy invited the Pyrrhus, King of Epirus and the greatest general of his age to help them resist Rome. At first successful, Rome eventually overcame Pyrrus, and absorbed the Greek cities into its growing empire. It was not until the second of the Punic Wars, however, that Hannibal made an alliance with Macedonia, and a Roman Army was sent into Macedonian Territory. Three Roman Macedonian Wars followed, with Rome increasing its influence over Macedonia in each. The first occurred during the Second Punic War (214-205 B.C.), and the last, culminating in the Battle of Pydna, was fought in 168 B.C., resulted in the complete overthrow of Macedonian rule over mainland Greece. About this time, several of the city-states on mainland greece fought a series of Wars of the Achaean League to defend their interests against Sparta, Macedonia, and ultimately Rome. As a result of an uprising in 146 B.C. lead by the Achaean league, a Roman army invaded Greece and destroyed the city of Corinth. After this, mainland Greece was ruled as a Province of the Roman Empire.

The influence of Greek culture on that of Rome was tremendous. Even before the Roman conquest of Greece, Greek scholars and teachers were very influential in Rome, since Greek was the language of learning throughout the Mediterranean. The Roman religion, art, philosophy, literature, and even the formalization of Latin grammar was heavily influenced by Greek culture. Educated Greek slaves were very expensive and sought after by aristocratic Romans families as teachers for their children. But just as in Classical Greece, where there was tension and distrust between stoic Sparta, and cultured Athens, the greek influence was resisted by stoic Romans, such as Cato (the censor), who feared its decadent influence.

Eventually Rome conquered most of the territory that was once part of Alexander’s hellenistic empire, but Greek was so entrenched by that time, that it remained the language of trade and learning in the eastern Mediterranean long after Rome’s political domination of the area. It was only the western part of the Empire, including Italy, Gaul, and Britain, where Latin became the predominant language. The Greek centers of learning in the east, including Athens, Alexandria, Rhodes, Ephesus, Tarsus, Perganum, continued to prosper under the Pax Romana, and produced many of the greatest scholars of Roman times, in the fields of literature, medicine, geography, astronomy, philosophy, and many others. Among them were Archimedes, one of the greatest scientists of Ancient Times, Plutarch, the great biographer, Erasthenes, who correctly measured the size of the earth, Galen, who made great advances in medicine, and Hypathia, a female philosopher and teacher. In addition, Christianity thrived in the eastern empire, and produced many of the most important early saints and missionaries of the time.