Greece E-Book

Carol G. Thomas

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 518

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Greece: A Short History of a Long Story presents a comprehensive overview of the history of Greece by exploring the continuity of Greek culture from its Neolithic origins to the modern era. * Tells the story of Greece through individual personalities that inhabited various periods in the lengthy sweep of Greek history * Uses an approach based on recent research that includes DNA analysis and analyses of archaeological materials * Explores ways in which the nature of Greek culture was continually reshaped over time * Features illustrations that portray the people of different eras in Greek history along with maps that demonstrate the physical sphere of Greece and major events in each of the periods

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title page

Copyright page

Preface

Acknowledgments

1 Mountains and Sea

The Physical Character of Greece

Earliest Inhabitants

Neolithic Period: Settled Life in Greece

Kuria

Further Reading

2 The Age of Heroes

The Role of Islands

The Greek Age of Heroes

Penelope and Odysseus

Further Reading

3 End of the Bronze Age

The Dark Age

Archaic Age: Revival

Establishing Classical Greece

Hesiod

Further Reading

4 The Second Age of Heroes

Mediterranean Impact

The Golden Age

Athens' Rise to Dominance

Socrates, Citizen of Athens: Wisest Man in the World?

Outcome: The Peloponnesian War

Fourth-Century Greece

Further Reading

5 Incorporation into a Larger State

The Northern Neighbor: Macedon

Alexander III

Alexander's Successors

The Greatest of Kings: Philip II

Further Reading

6

Graecia Capta

Roman Administration

Life in the Province of Achaea

Polybius: A Greek Captive Praises Rome

Further Reading

7 Power Returns to Greece

Separation from Rome

Restoration of Order

Decline

The Byzantine Greek World

Anna Comnena: Daughter of the Emperor and Historian of Byzantium

Further Reading

8 Ottoman Greece

Ottoman Control of Greece

Eighteenth Century

Those Who Said “No”

Further Reading

9 Building a New State

Enter Otto I

1862–1913

Eleftherios Venizelos, 1864–1936

1922–1935

Further Reading

10 A Player in the Modern World

Resistance Fighters

1944–1952

1952 to Present

Greece in the New World Order

Constantine and Costas Karamanlis

Further Reading

11 Conclusion

Further Reading

Chronology

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Preface

Figure 0.1 The Mediterranean Sea.

Chapter 01

Figure 1.1 Greece: “Mountains and Seas.”

Figure 1.2 Kuria.

Chapter 02

Figure 2.1 The Bronze Age Aegean.

Figure 2.2 Penelope and Odysseus.

Chapter 03

Figure 3.1 The sphere of the Greek recovery.

Figure 3.2 Hesiod.

Chapter 04

Figure 4.1 Classical Greece: Persian and Peloponnesian wars.

Figure 4.2 Socrates.

Chapter 05

Figure 5.1 The Hellenistic kingdoms.

Figure 5.2 Philip II.

Chapter 06

Figure 6.1 Greece within the Roman Empire.

Figure 6.2 Polybius.

Chapter 07

Figure 7.1 Shifting dimensions of the Byzantine Empire.

Figure 7.2 Anna Comnena.

Chapter 08

Figure 8.1 Greece within the Ottoman Empire.

Figure 8.2 “Those who said no.”

Chapter 09

Figure 9.1 Territorial expansion, 1832–1930.

Figure 9.2 Constantine II and Eleftherios Venizelos.

Chapter 10

Figure 10.1 Modern Greece, 1930 to the present.

Figure 10.2 Constantine and Costas Karamanlis.

Chapter 11

Figure 11.1 A subway image in Athens.

Plate 1 Painting by Elena Korakianitou.

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Pages

iii

iv

ix

x

xi

xii

xiii

xiv

xv

xvii

xviii

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

89

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

103

104

105

106

107

109

110

111

112

113

114

115

116

117

118

119

120

121

122

123

124

125

126

127

128

129

130

131

132

133

134

135

136

137

138

139

140

141

142

143

144

145

146

147

148

149

150

151

152

153

154

155

156

157

158

159

160

161

162

163

164

165

166

167

168

169

170

171

172

173

174

175

176

177

178

179

180

181

182

183

185

186

187

188

189

190

191

192

193

194

195

196

197

198

199

200

201

202

203

204

205

Greece

A Short History of a Long Story, 7,000bceto the Present

Carol G. Thomas

This edition first published 2014© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Registered OfficeJohn Wiley & Sons, Ltd, The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

Editorial Offices350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UKThe Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK

For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services, and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book please see our website at www.wiley.com/wiley-blackwell.

The right of Carol G. Thomas to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that appears in print may not be available in electronic books.

Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. It is sold on the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services and neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for damages arising herefrom. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Thomas, Carol G., 1938–Greece : a short history of a long story, 7,000 bce to the present / Carol G. Thomas.  pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index.

 ISBN 978-1-118-63190-4 (cloth) – ISBN 978-1-118-63175-1 (paper) 1. Greece–History.  2. Greece–Civilization. I. Title.  DF757.T46 2014 949.5–dc23     2014015660

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: Banana Pancake / Alamy

Preface

The history of Greece is the story of one of the world's most durable cultures. Even omitting the earliest wanderers into the Greek mainland who began to arrive about 70,000 years ago, the story reaches back to nearly 7,000 bce1 with the first settled villages of farmers and herders. No written evidence exists to identify these peasants as Greek speakers. However, one view is that agriculture and domestication spread from what is now Turkey to Greece and then further west and that the carriers were people who spoke an Indo-European language. Greek is an Indo-European language. Thus, if not in the form that Thucydides and Socrates spoke, the language of these early farmers would have been the ancestral version of Classical Greek. Inasmuch as an abiding characteristic of Greek identity is the Greek language, the account of people living in the peninsula jutting into the Aegean Sea and on the islands of that same sea reaches deep into prehistory.

This view that agriculture and Indo-European languages spread together is not universally accepted but, even so, it is certain that the language of the second millennium Bronze Age civilization in Greece was an early form of Greek. Tablets discovered in the remains of citadel centers like Mycenae, Pylos, and Thebes were inscribed in a syllabic mode of writing that has been deciphered as an archaic form of later Greek. Thus the heroic age associated with the Homeric epics can be associated with the latter-day heroes of the Persian Wars. While the Bronze Age centers in the Aegean underwent the same time of troubles that disrupted life in the entire eastern Mediterranean, shrunken relics of the past glorious world persisted through a 400 year period often known as the Dark Age, although as we will see it was not completely dark. After the widespread destruction and depopulation at the end of the second millennium, inhabitants of tiny hamlets survived, then slowly but steadily they began to grow in numbers and skills. By the end of the eighth century bce, an age of revolution marked the end of darkness. The product was the Classical Age, the age of the polis (the type of community that formed the basis of this period of Greek history) and the brilliant institutional and intellectual life it produced. Its language attested in texts and inscriptions was Greek.

When the Macedonian kings Philip II and his son Alexander III harnessed Greek hoplite strength to the Macedonian army and proceeded to conquer the east as far distant as the Indus River Valley, the Greeks found themselves in a larger, different world. Nonetheless, this world did not lose its Hellenic base and the three centuries from 323 to 30 bce are known as Hellenistic, or Greek-like, due to the strong continuing Greek elements that helped to secure its foundations. The language of the Hellenistic kingdoms was Greek, albeit influenced by languages in the territories brought under Greco/Macedonian control.

Much the same situation prevailed when the Romans replaced the Hellenistic kings: Greece became a province to be sure but some of the best of the Romans agreed with the Roman poet Horace that “Conquered Greece took its captor captive.”2 One concrete example is the important polis of Corinth which had been destroyed in the mid-second century bce and was re-founded as a Roman city; its inhabitants were Latin-speaking Romans. Within two generations, however, the dominant language had become Greek. In fact, the eastern portion of the once-unified empire was spared the collapse of the western half, surviving after 476 ce to become a new empire centered on the city of Constantinople, which had been founded a millennium earlier as a Greek colonial polis. Changes in institutions, beliefs, and values were numerous, certainly. However, the official imperial language reverted to Greek and treasures from the past – both physical and intellectual – were deliberately preserved.

Constantinople could not withstand either the Crusaders from the west or the Ottoman Turks from the east; the Byzantine Empire officially disappeared in 1453 ce. Nonetheless, Ottoman rule left much of the governance of its Greek appendage to local authority. Consequently, Orthodox Christianity, the Greek language, and basic patterns of daily existence persisted through the more than 350 years of Ottoman control. In the last decades of that control, support for Greek freedom was fueled by a philhellenism that was grounded as much in the glory of the Greek past as in the present-day nature of the land and its people.

Knowledge of the link between the past and the present increased with the recognition of the new, independent Greek state. It is valuable to note the concurrence of three events in the year 1834: a king of Greece (Otho) made his official entry into the new capital, Athens; restoration of the Parthenon was begun; and the Governmental Archaeological department was established. The success of the Modern Greek state was an incentive to learn more about the past history of the country as it emerged from subject status to become a fledging independent state under the tutelage of major powers and, finally, became an active partner in international affairs.

Thus, evidence to connect Greek-language speakers with the eastern-most peninsula of Europe exists but, even if the story is connected, how can the wealth of information of 9,000 years be packed into a short history? The father of history, Herodotus, crafted an account of the war between the Greeks and the Persians which dates to roughly a decade from 492 to 479 bce. His history covers 400 pages in the Oxford Greek edition!

Two helpful aids exist. First, life in Greece has produced clear divisions between major periods of time. At some points an existing way of life was almost completely destroyed. The Age of Heroes, identified now with the Bronze Age, is a powerful example: some, but not many, people were spared from events yet unknown and they managed to reconstruct a stable life from the existing elements over five centuries. At other points in its long history, Greece was taken captive by non-Greeks – the Romans and later the Ottoman Turks. Greece survived the fall of Rome and recreated the Greek Byzantine Age. With the initial defeat of the Ottomans in 1821, Greeks began to reshape their Modern Greek culture. These changes create manageable periods of the nature of Greek life over time.

The existence of neatly defined periods is extremely useful but there are nine of them. How is it possible that the complete story of each of them be told in a short history? The standards of Herodotus would require about 3,600 pages of printed text! A second tool of archaeologists and anthropologists offers a solution. It is termed Systems Theory and focuses on the two elements in a “system” – people and the natural environment in which they live. The interplay of humans with the environment produces the six basic features of a culture:

means of subsistence: how the environment can maintain human life;

material goods and technology: how the environment can provide tools;

social structure and intrapersonal relations;

political organization;

communication and trade beyond the immediate community;

symbolic attributes: ways of expressing knowledge, beliefs, and feelings about the world.

As is often the case with theoretical analysis, the Systems Theory approach is not universally admired or employed although appreciation of its value has increased from the time of its introduction in the mid-twentieth century. It is extremely useful in providing a picture of the six aspects of a given culture and, when joined with the pattern of life in the several periods of the long story, it offers a tool for comparison. Has the life of inhabitants of Greece over 9,000 years demonstrated a persistent similarity in the interaction between people and their environment or rather does that way of life reveal fundamental differences?

The use of this approach has the additional merit of allowing us to consider both positive and negative change in the larger picture of the culture as the result of specific developments in one or more of the aspects of interaction between people and their environment. The six basic features of this interaction are liable to damage or even collapse the existing structure if changed conditions cannot be absorbed. As mentioned above, the story of Greece has fragile as well as strong ages. An important question, consequently, is whether a rebuilding after collapse will retain earlier features or whether the new structure will be entirely different.

These tools, then, facilitate a coherent short history of the long story of Greece: a focus on the phases of that narrative will concentrate on the six aspects of culture produced by the interaction of people with their environment. However, a history of a way of life based on features created between people and their environment may be boring as well as incomplete since history is the story of people, many of whom shaped the events and products of their own times. For each chapter, specific individuals will personalize the nature of Greece during that period of time. The choices reflect that variety of participants in the long story: women and men; the common members of society as well as the elite; farmers, philosophers, and political leaders, and even non-Greeks, are all excellent windows to a culture.

The first chapter examines the location in which it originated and which has remained essentially the same to the present. This location fashioned a way of life that suited the often unfriendly conditions of the Aegean region. The emergence of the first complex civilization in that location is the subject of the second chapter – “The Age of Heroes” – which examines Bronze Age Greece. After the collapse of this civilization, the struggle to survive the difficult Dark Age over more than four centuries produced a reconstruction of Greek society that would become the Classical civilization of Greece. This process is the subject of the third chapter while the “second age of heroes,” from the late eighth century to the fourth bce, is the story of the fourth chapter.

Chapter 5 surveys the history of Greece as an appendage to Macedonian power. After the successful expansion of Philip II into the Greek world followed by Alexander's campaigns reaching to India, Greece was subservient to the new kingdoms of the Hellenistic monarchs of the east into the first century bce. Subsequently, the Hellenistic kingdoms fell to the empire forged by the Roman legions, the subject of Chapter 6. When the Roman emperors were superceded by Germanic kings in the west, the Byzantine Empire took root in the east. Its history is the subject of Chapter 7. Ottoman rule from 1453 to 1821, treated in Chapter 8, ended with the creation of a modern nation state of Greece. The final two chapters continue the story from the early nineteenth century into the present century. A brief conclusion draws together the major forces of these 9,000 years.

Four major themes intertwine from the start of the story to its end: environment, location, outreach, and the impact of other cultures. Geography is essential to a proper understanding of any people's history but it is a critical factor in Greek development. Nearly 80 percent of the mainland and islands that constitute the land is mountainous; navigable rivers are virtually absent and annual rainfall is limited. Consequently, obtaining even bare subsistence is often extremely difficult. Inasmuch as such difficult conditions have remained largely unchanged from the Neolithic Age to the present, efforts to maintain life consume much of the collective energy of the inhabitants of Greece.

These same conditions have fostered regionalism throughout Greek history from the time of the first small villages to the late twentieth century. Evidence from the Neolithic Age indicates that villages were independent of one another. As recently as 1980, Greece could count approximately 2,000 separate villages but only three urban centers. This physical division will encourage particularism and it has worked against centralization until just recently. On its entrance into the European Union, the Hellenic Marine Consortium recognized the need to consolidate the efforts of Greek ship owners but a founding member of that Consortium rued, “For 20 Greeks to agree is difficult. For 1,000, it would be impossible.” Greeks of the Classical Age living in more than 1,000 independent polis communities would surely agree.

The significance of the location of the Greek world is another abiding influence in the story. It stands at the crossroads of three continents: Asia is eastward across the Aegean, Africa on the southern coast of the Mediterranean, and Europe northward in the Balkans. Communication is not difficult once sea travel has been mastered. And since the sea offered the easiest means of travel, Greeks became skilled in navigation from very early times. Greeks would constantly learn from and teach others in the Mediterranean region. And others would be attracted to Greece for various reasons, some cordial, others militantly unfriendly. The direction and nature of these contacts will explain much in the history of Greece.

Figure 0.1 The Mediterranean Sea.

Source: Jason Shattuck

Such interaction is the root of another theme, namely the balance between indigenous and external features of culture in Greece. Many newcomers have been drawn to Greece to become permanent inhabitants since 7,000 bce. Also, for more than 1,150 years of its story, Greece was controlled by outside powers – Hellenistic kings, Romans, and Ottoman Turks. How much of the Hellenic way of life survived these long periods of dependence? Is Modern Greek culture a true descendant of its earlier manifestations? The question of continuity and discontinuity should be asked not only of the newest phase of the story of Greece but throughout its long history.

The long history of Greece has produced tensions linked with the question of how Greeks of one age identify with Greeks living in an earlier age. What is their identity and how is that identity defined by language, culture, and political form? The Ancient Greek language – both spoken and written – is not identical with Modern Greek language. Culture has obviously changed significantly, as a comparison between Modern Greek Orthodox religion and faith in the Olympian deities clearly demonstrates. Greece is now an independent nation-state rather than a bevy of individual city-states.

The issue of Greek identity is very important. Could it be another theme? In the construction of this study, it serves better to illustrate the interplay of these five themes rather than to treat identity as an independent thread.

In a survey with such a wide scope, it is necessary to emphasize those basic features that exist in any and every culture: first, what are the linked elements of population and environment and, second, what form of life does their interaction produce?

The twentieth-century poet Constantine Cavafy is among those who understand the force of Greek history over time. His poem “Ithaka” describes the journey brilliantly. For the course of Greek history, we could substitute Greece for Ithaka.

When you start on the way to Ithaca,wish that the way be long,full of adventure, full of knowledge.The Laistrygones and the Cyclopes,and angry Poseidon, do not fear:such, on your way, you shall never meetif your thoughts are lofty, if a nobleemotion touch your mind, your body.The Laistrygones and the Cyclopes,and angry Poseidon – you shall not meetif you carry them not in your soul,if your soul sets them not up before you.

Wish that the way be long,That on many summer mornings,with great pleasure, great delight,you enter harbours for the first time seen;that you stop at Phoenician marts,and procure the goodly merchandise,mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,and sensual perfume of all kinds,plenty of sensual perfumes especially;to wend your way to many Egyptian cities,to learn and yet to learn from the wise.

Ever keep Ithaca in your mind.Your return thither is your goal.But do not hasten at all your voyage,better that it last for many years;and full of year at length you anchor at your isle,rich with all that you gained on the way;do not expect Ithaca to give you riches.Ithaca gave you your fair voyage.Without her you would not have ventured on the way.But she has no more to give you.

And if you find Ithaca a poor placeshe has not mocked you.You have become so wise, so full of experience,that you should understand already whatthese Ithacas mean.3

Notes

1

The dates range over the two major phases of the human story. In this book, they are denoted by

bce

and

ce,

namely before the common era and the common era.

2

Horace,

Epistles

II, 1, 156–157.

3

Constantine P. Cavafy, “Ithaca,” translated by George Valassopoulo,

The Criterion

2/8, July 1924.

Acknowledgments

This short history of the long story of Greece has a long history of its own and represents the contributions of many people over numerous years. My own sphere of teaching and scholarship focusing on Ancient Greece expanded as I realized that the on-going history of Greece demanded attention. The Hellenic Studies Program at the University of Washington (which I directed for eight years) was designed to include the longue durée. With essential aid from my colleagues, I developed a gradually expanding course that culminated in Greek History from the Neolithic Age to the present. I am deeply indebted to those colleagues who were my “mentors” and to the students who took that course and were willing to offer their advice for additions and improvements.

Several years ago, a book seemed a possibility. The award of the Vidalakis Professorship in Hellenic Studies provided funds for me to secure the necessary resources and the aid of assistants. The professorship was endowed by Drs Nick and Nancy Vidalakis whose support of Hellenic studies is widespread and generous. To hold the professorship that they established at the University of Washington is a great honor.

The efforts of several graduate students in the department of history have been critical in the later stages of creating the book. Amy Absher helped to organize a first draft, vetted chapters, created illustrations, and carefully organized the results. These tasks were assumed by Arna Elezovic (currently a graduate student) when Dr Absher took an appointment at Case Western University. Arna has continued all of the above tasks as well as writing essays on some of the individuals who illustrate the nature of life in each period. Her technological capabilities are akin to those of Jason Shattuck (now Dr Shattuck) who created the maps and many of the illustrations. Another former graduate student and co-author of two books (Craig Conant) has compiled the index. Anne Lou Robkin (PhD, friend, scholar, and artist) produced two of the images. In a word, students have been essential partners in mutually interactive scholarship.

Publishing with Wiley Blackwell has been a joy on several occasions. In fact, it was a goal since I first visited the Blackwell store in Oxford as a recent PhD: “Perhaps one day,” I thought, “I might be a Blackwell author.” The editors with whom I have worked are extraordinary. For this book I thank Haze Humbert and Allison Kostka and, at an earlier stage, Ben Thatcher. Included in the process have been the comments of readers who are anonymous to me but I am thankful for their helpful, encouraging comments. The assistance of Joanna Pyke in the final copy-editing was flawless.

Such support was supplemented by the engagement of numerous Greek friends. I am especially beholden to Dr Theo Antikas and Laura Wynn-Antikas in Greece; Dr George Stamatoyannopoulos at the University of Washington; and the Rakus family of Seattle.

The most crucial role was that of Richard Rigby Johnson, my English-American husband and Professor of Early American History. I have a photo on my desk showing him as an Oxford University student standing by the wall at Tiryns. We have travelled often to Greece together; those visits, his advice, and his steadfast importance to my life are embedded in these pages.