Ancient Greece: Notable Concepts (inc. Political, Economic, Social, Legal, and Militaristic Concepts; and Types of Persons)

Cretan Economy (All Facts)

• Comprised on the sale and trade of

  • olive oil and wine

  • wool, from the rearing of large flocks of sheep in its country houses

Cretan / Minoan Writing (All Facts)

• Developed around 1700 / 1600 BCE to keep track of more complex arrangements of trade

• Its earliest models that formed its local script were based on Egyptian models

Mycenean Writing (All Facts)

• Developed around 1450 BCE

• Form in which the Greek language is written down for the first time

• Form based on ideograms representing men, animals, objects, products and numerical signs

• Form in which painted inscriptions in this style were made on oil jars exported from Crete to other parts of the Aegean

• Based on an 88 character syllabic system

• Eventually became unwieldly and ill-adapted to modern needs, it evolved into a newer script used by the Greeks after the period known as the Greek Dark Age

  • This was because, like a number of similar systems developed around that time such as Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Mesopotamian Cuneiform, it had too many signs for clarity and ease of use

Greek Writing: Greek Alphabet (All Facts)

• Developed around 775 BCE, it replaced Mycenean writing with a simpler system derived from the Phoenician system of the time, in which the namesake system was used instead

• System that was discovered whilst trading with Phoenicia

  • Over time, Phoenicians settled in Greece and offered the namesake discovery to native Greeks

  • Native Greeks went on to modify the namesake system for their own uses, although its origins were never forgotten

• Different from its Phoenician model / derivation in that the namesake system and its parts

  • look different: its different sounds produce differently shaped letters

  • has vowels, five total; which were ignored by the Phoenicians and other Semitic groups in their languages

Eunomia (All Facts)

• Legal concept adopted, developed, and constitutionalized by the Spartans around 900 BCE - 700 BCE and attributed to the (their) famous lawgiver Lycurgus

• Characterized by two main principles:

  • Equality

  • Strict discipline, organized along military lines

Spartan Government / Constitution (All Facts)

• Government consisting of

  • an odd mixture of monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy

  • two kings, who seem to have more military than governmental power

  • five annually-elected magistrates

  • council of elders whose members are elected for life but must be at least 60 years old

  • an assembly of “Equals” or 9,000 citizens who have the final say in legislation

    • However, most of its inhabitants are not citizens and are excluded from government including the freemen and serfs who grow food for everyone else

Greek Democracy: Origins (All Facts)

• Political system which began to develop around 700 BCE

  • During this early period, the marketplaces of city-states throughout Greece rang with the cries of protesting peasants who demanded more civil rights

    • They were primarily angry about being continually unsettled by continually feuding landowners over boundaries

    • Such turmoil in the countryside gave them the opportunity to challenge their city-state governments

  • Prior to this time, only male property owners who worshipped the local patron god or goddess were allowed to attend political meetings and elect officials

    • Now, however, by this time, free public meetings began in city squares where slaves, peasants, artisans, traders, and even aristocrats gathered and all had a chance to speak

  • The ruling assemblies were made up of aristocrats who had taken over the power of the king and one government officer still had to be called king in order to continue ancient religious rites with the gods while others were made generals, civil heads, law directors, state cult supervisors, etc.

• Political system which began to develop around 600 BCE

  • Around this time, turmoil was brewing throughout Greece, especially in the countryside

  • The poor had look for protection to the ever-quarreling aristocrats and those powerful nobles exacted a heavy price for their uncertain help

  • The nobles demanded ever greater shares of the poor man’s harvest as the poor man slid deeper into debt to the point where he mortgaged himself until he could not pay any more and forfeited to the great estates and became a serf

  • In the Athenian countryside in particular, there was a growing reluctance by former soldiers-turned-farmers to pay the customary 1/6 tribute demanded by landowners; in which these independent-minded men regarded the tribute at this point as degrading

  • The discontent of the country eventually spilled into the cities and led to political instability with the rupture of the civic community; a situation only made worse by the prevalent rivalries between the various aristocratic fashions

  • The people began to demand political equality and fairer distribution of the land

  • The old certainties began to be questioned

  • The people began to challenge the powers of the old ruling factions

Polis (All Facts)

• System of municipal organization of Ancient Greece also known as “city-states” which replaced the monarchy of earlier periods of Greek history

• Centers of territorial government which were built around groups of villages, ideally on a hill, for purposes of defense

• These polities had their own citizen-based armies

  • In these polities, military service was compulsory and everyone was required to take part in the defense of his variant of the namesake

  • Were organized so as to produce as large an army as possible

  • Usually, all men who owned a moderate amount of land had to equip themselves as hoplites

Hoplites (All Facts)

• Term used to refer to the foot soldiers that comprised the armies of the various Greek city-states

• Consisted of men who owned a moderate amount of land who were required throughout Ancient Greece to equip themselves as heavily-armed foot soldiers

• Wore bronze helmets, breastplates, and graves (leg-armor) and were armed with long lances for stabbing (rather than throwing) and short swords

• Carried stout circular shields of wood on their left arms

• The key to their success in battle was their formation into phalanxes

• They fought by shoving and pushing with the shields, accompanied by stabbing with the spear or sword

• Because of their shields, most of the wounds they incurred were either in the neck or genitals

Phalanxes (All Facts)

• Classic, compact and highly-disciplined formation of the Greek hoplites in battle

• Typically, they are deeper than they are wider

• Consist of each of the foot soldiers sticking very close together, each protecting himself and the man on his left with his shield

• Made for fighting consisting of shoving and pushing with the shield and stabbing with the spear or sword

• Its design made it so that if the front rank fell and was trampled underfoot, the next rank replaced it, and so on, until one side gave way

• In this battle formation, death was distinctively nasty because of the hoplites’ shields’ position in this formation, in which the majority of hoplites died or were injured in the neck or genitals

Olympics (All Facts)

• Held every four years to honor the glory of Zeus

  • Promoted the development of the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia

• Brought together athletes from all the different Greek cities

• Old animosities were put aside when heralds proclaimed the sacred truce for the games

  • Thus, for a time, the Greeks, often divided, were reconciled by the accomplishments of the athletes

• Visitors from all over the known world came to see the athletes compete

  • However, women were barred from the arena

• Strictly controlled by the people of Elis who run the festival

• Last 5-7 days

  • The first is given over to ceremonies with blasts on the trump, sacrifices, and banquets

• Events originally consisted of foot races, with young men running bare naked; but also boxing and wrestling (pankration), the pentathlon, the race in armor, and various horse and chariot races

  • Adolescents competed in running and wrestling contests

Pankration (All Facts)

• Ancient Greek sport which combined boxing and all-in wrestling

• These athletes were not confined to rings or rounds like they are today

Himantes (All Facts)

• Name for the boxing gloves the Ancient Greeks wore in pankration

• Made of ox-hide bindings, they were laced around the hands

Greek Colonies (All Facts)

• Needed to be established due to the social pressures and quarrels over distribution of land and fear of starvation occurring in mainland Greece around 650 BCE

• Established upon Greek expeditions setting sail to all parts of the known world at the time, with each of the namesake having been founded by a particular city-state

  • Some city-states founded one or more of them

• Were founded in Sicily and southern Italy, North Africa, and on the shores of the Black Sea as well as the Sea of Marmara and Bosporus Strait

• Were settled by young men of fighting age who set out in bands of up to 200 and were led by an individual called an “Oikistes”

  • The settlers who founded them retain close links with their old homes, taking with them their traditional institutions and gods in the form of wooden statuettes when they arrive

• Sometimes, the original inhabitants of the namesake lands welcomed the Greeks, who would give them grants of land

  • Other times, however, the Greeks had to fight their way ashore

    • If successful, they used the conquered natives as slave laborers in the fields

• Once established, they became completely independent of the mother city that founded it

• Were essentially agrarian, the land having been allotted equally among the settlers

Emporia / Emporium (All Facts)

• Commercial and/or agricultural settlements centered on trade established via Greek colonization who owed their existence not to a mother city, but to groups of businessmen who sought an opportunity for profitable trade

Olympians (All Facts)

• Athletes in the Olympics

• Required to

  • Be Greek

  • Be a free man

  • Train for 10 months

  • Spend the 30 days (resting) before the sports in Elis

  • Swear by the gods that they have not broken their training

Olympianicae (All Facts)

• Winning athletes in the Olympics

• Rewarded on the last day of the Olympics with simple olive wreaths but return home as heroes, equals of warriors, and are awarded valuable gifts and privileges in their hometowns

Oikistes (All Facts)

• Individual leaders chosen by the elders of a city-state to found a new colony

• Colony settlers are young men of fighting age who set out in bands of up to 200 and were led by this figure

Tyrant (All Facts)

• Type of ruler of the Greek city-states

• First appeared in 657 BCE

• Usually an aristocrat, they seize power in a period of crisis

• They all seemed to follow the same pattern:

  • Anarchy was their breeding ground; nurtured on discontent

  • Seized power with the support of either

    • a faction of the quarreling aristocracy

    • the poor and dispossessed

    • the sword-power of a band of foreign mercenaries

• Their immediate task upon seizing power was to solve the particular crisis which brought them to power

  • Has to first eliminate their immediate opposition

  • Thus, they would then have the people’s support while he solves the crisis

• As they strove to re-establish order and stability, they instituted radical measures involving

  • the redistribution of land

  • the setting of economic and social measures in motion with large-scale building projects

  • looking abroad to increase his city’s international prestige

  • promoting the arts

  • promoting popular religious cults

• Were often a popular figure

• Some passed their rule to their sons, but their rule rarely extended beyond one generation because the Greeks were a freedom-loving people and they grew burdensome to them once their task was completed

• Thus, they were typically overthrown after a certain time

Helots (All Facts)

• Lower class of Sparta

• Sometimes were treated as quarry by young Spartan warriors who ambushed them at night and killed them to prove their manhood

Hectemores (All Facts)

• Lower class of Athens

Serfs (All Facts)

• Lower class of Greeks

• Greeks who lost their status

Greek Scribes (All Facts)

• Type of figure / profession that developed by the 600’s BCE throughout Greece’s city-states, especially in Athens

• Regularly engraved new laws of their day on stone pillars or columns in public places

• Some of them were

  • already occupied as craftsmen

  • hired to travel from place to place

  • resident officials

• Were skilled in alphabetic writing

• Were responsible for publishing

  • official decrees

  • lists of magistrates

  • religious instructions

  • commemorative notices (affecting the daily lives of citizens)

• Their texts, picked out in red and blue letting to attract attention to them, were placed

  • In the busiest parts of the cities

  • In front of public buildings

  • In the city forums

• Thus, the occupation, a form of art in its own right, was

  • used to tell the people of laws that were the same for all

  • not held as a privilege of the royal archivists any longer and was an occupation which extended down the class hierarchy of Greek society at the time

Agora (All Facts)

• Term used to refer to the city forum of the Greek city-states

Archon (All Facts)

• Political office held by the ancient Greek rulers of city-states that developed in the early 600’s BCE (682 BCE) and marked a transition from monarchy to constitutional government

• Was the chief magistrate of a Greek city-state

• Word for “ruler” in Greek, it evolved to become a more generically applied term to any Greek ruler

Eiren (All Facts)

• Title given to young Spartan boys after they experience many painful ordeals and which put them in charge of younger boys

• These boys were encouraged to steal food, yet if they were caught they were flogged

Greek Entertainment (All Facts)

• By the 600’s BCE, this consisted of poetry, dance, and music

• Was also used for religious and political purposes

Boar-Hunting (All Facts)

• Considered a vital part of the training of young Greek men

• Consists of a chase of the namesake animal on foot or on horseback

• Tests their courage and endurance

• Teaches them how to

  • judge the lie of the land

  • use their weapons against live quarry / game

• Training which was essential to a man’s survival given that Greek men were expected to take to the field in defense of his city at a moment’s notice

• Training which was so important that it was decreed that the men may even ride through standing crops in order that the sportsmen’s game is preserved

• Considered to have a beneficial effect on a young Greek man’s character, making him confident and just

• Was an initiation rite, through with the virtues of the young were recognized

• Even the namesake animal being slaughtered had a place in this developing philosophy of the namesake practice, for the slaughtered animal gained from the practice when possessed served as a

  • Sign of social prestige

  • Most acceptable form of a gift for a lover

• Done in the open with javelins in Athens

• Skills associated with the practice are taught to very young Spartans

Symposium (All Facts)

• Greek social institution in which there was a social gathering of men and women after banquets in which the men gathered together to eat, drink, sing, discuss the affairs of the day, and be entertained by beautiful young boys and girls

• This institution involved a strict order in which

  • First, the host will invite his friends to an “andron” or men’s room, where they lie, propped on their left arms, on couches piled high with cushions

    • slaves served the men with delicacies and light snacks were laid out on low tables

  • Second, a toast to the god Dionysus was made and a “king” was elected for the evening to mix the wine and water in a large “krater” or mixing bowl

  • Third, when he had done his work, young boy and girl slaves poured the wine into fine pottery or metal goblets

• The drinking that took place followed well-establish rituals common to many all-male gatherings

• They had their own song books

• No free women were allowed to attend them, but some men took their “hired women” with them

• As the wine circulated in one, the gaiety increased

  • There were games

    • Like flicking wine at a target

  • There was music and jesters

• Also had a serious aspect

  • Often served as intellectual gatherings in which poets and authors read out their latest work

  • Sometimes attended by the great philosophers to dispute their theories in which conversation reached a very high level

Andron (All Facts)

• Men’s room in the Symposiums, where men would lie, propped on their left arms, on couches piled high with cushions

• Slaves served the men with delicacies and light snacks were laid out on low tables in this room

Krater (All Facts)

• Mixing bowl in which the wine and water was mixed by the “kings” during a Greek Symposium

Seisachtheia (All Fact)

• Term used to refer to Solon’s law which abolished the system by which a man and his family could fall into slavery if they failed to pay off their debts and/or mortgages