Ancient Greece exerted an enormous influence on Europe and particularly the Mediterranean in providing the basis for many aspects of life still extant in the Western world.
Greek ideas about art, sculpture, architecture, theatre, mathematics, astronomy, medicine and law remain significant today. Democracy and the principle that everyone is equal before the law were Ancient Greek concepts, originating in the city state of Athens more than 2,600 years ago.
The Olympic Games - from Ancient Greece to the 21st Century
The Olympic Games, now regarded as a model for international co operation, were traditionally founded by the Greeks 776BC. Wars were suspended during the Games, which were held once every four years on Mount Olympus in northeastern Greece. Participants who had to travel through what might otherwise be enemy territory were given safe-conduct passes to allow them to reach their destination in safety.
The Games were suspended in 393AD after the Roman Emperor Theodosius I, who made Nicene Christianity the official religion of the Empire, judged them to be a pagan and therefore undesirable festival.
They were not revived until 1896 when Pierre de Coubertin, a French historian, sought to use them as a means of re-uniting the world in an age of dangerous disputes and rivalries.
Prominent men, like the military genius Alexander the Great or the philosophers Plato and Socrates, the great Athenian statesman Pericles or the mathematicians Euclid and Pythagoras are still known and admired in the 21st century.
The City-States of Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece was not a single country. mainly because its geography militated against the unity necessary for such a development. It was sliced into a series of valleys by ranges of high mountains, making communications difficult and the growth of cohesive communities virtually impossible.
Instead, after around 850BC, Greece comprised a group of independent city-states sited in the valleys, an arrangement that inevitably bred rivalries and, with that, frequent wars.
Ultimately, there were about thirty Greek city-states, the most important being Athens, a centre of intellectual, artistic and cultural excellence, and Sparta, a military state where every adult male was subject to military duties. There was no room in Sparta for weaklings and infants who were handicapped or not perfectly healthy were left on a mountainside to die.
Slavery in Ancient Greece
Despite its great achievements, the sinister history of Ancient Greece went far beyond Spartan heartlessness. For a start, the city-states were slave societies. Slaves, who did all the hard, backbreaking work, comprised a third of the population.
Most were entirely in the power of their owners. They could not even get married and have children unless they had their owners’ permission.
Among the most exploited slaves were those who rowed trading ships. They were confined to the lower decks of ships and were rarely, if ever, allowed onto the upper decks where they could see the Sun.
The only food they were given was bread and water and they were often beaten for not pulling harder on the oars. Even worse off were the slaves who worked in the silver mines. They usually survived for only three or four years, for the silver was mixed with lead which poisoned them.
Repression and Ruthlessness
In its early years, Ancient Greece produced its quota of tyrants and hardliners. An early example was Draco, who gave his name to the adjective ‘draconian’, because of the extreme severity of the laws he favoured.
Draco, whose legal code was published in around 621BC, was the first lawgiver in Athens. It was said, though, that his code was written in blood, since, no matter what the crime, the most frequent punishment was the death penalty.
Draco lived in what has been called the Age of Tyrants who controlled Athenian politics in the 7th and 6th centuries BC. In Ancient Greece, a tyrant was not necessarily a despot, but was more like a usurper, a man who overthrew an existing government and seized power for himself.
Dirty Politics in the Age of Tyrants
Some tyrants used their powers for the public good. For example, in Athens, the Age of Tyrants cleared the way for the introduction of democracy. Nevertheless, the same Age saw cynical betrayal in around 635BC when an Athenian named Cylon made himself Tyrant after seizing the Acropolis, the temple of the goddess Athena in Athens.
The Athenians laid siege to the temple but Cylon and his followers refused to surrender unless they were guaranteed a fair trial. The Athenians agreed to this condition, but almost at once they broke their word.
Instead of receiving a fair - or any - trial, Cylon and his companions were killed. This betrayal was considered to lay a curse on Athens and Epimenides, a diviner and prophet from Crete, had to be called into the remove the stain on the city’s honour.
Sources
Pomeroy, Sarah B., Burstein, Stanley M., Donlan, Walter, Roberts, Jennifer Tolbert; Ancient Greece: A Political, Social and Cultural History(New York, Oxford University Press, 2007) ISBN-10: 019530800X/ISBN-13: 978-0195308006
van Wees, Hans: War and Violence in Ancient Greece. (Swansea, Wales, UK: Classical Press of Wales, 2009) ISBN-10: 1905125348/ISBN-13: 978-1905125340
Ancient Greece - History, mythology, art, war, culture, society ...
Brenda Ralph Lewis - My interest in history dates from childhood. I am presently the author of 120 books and hundreds of articles, all on historical ...
