The 8th century revival and the birth of the polis Flashcards
1
Q
What is the Law of Dreros?
A
- A stone inscription found at Dreros, Crete
- Earliest surviving Greek law written on stone
2
Q
Greek Renaissance (re-birth)
Provide a brief overview of the important events in 8th century Greece
A
- A period of population growth, technological innovation, and increasing political centralization
- Dubbed as the “Greek Renaissance” because it appears to have been a revival of the glories of the Mycenaean Age
- Trade links multiplied, communication with the East intensified, writing was reintroduced into Greece, and prosperous new communities were established in the West
- Mediterraanen became interlinked: more isolated areas of Greece were drawn into networks of cultural exchange and people of neighbouring areas began to meet together more regularly to celebrate religious rituals
- Communities also vied with each one another in the production of luxury items, such as finely decorated pottery and bronze tripods, and in building monumental temples
3
Q
How would you decribe the rise of landowning aristocracy in the 8th century?
A
- Population growth put pressure on the land
- Elite families took best parts of pastoral lands for themselves, converted this fertile soil to growing grain and other crops
- By early 7th century, elite minorities had transformed itself into an aristocracy of large landowners, while the majority continued to live off small to medium farm plots and a few animals
- Problem: most productive land was concentrated in the hands of a minority of the families (some people had to relocate)
4
Q
What did settlement abroad and the growth of trade look like in the 8th century?
A
- Many Greeks left home to establish new farming communities in southern Italy and Sicily
- Greeks sailed west with Phoencians to trade
- Greeks from Euboea joined the international trading post of Al Mina in northern Syria
- Euboeans and Phonecians worked together to establish a trading circuit that stretched between Al Mina in the east and Pithecusae in the west
- New Greek opportunities sprang up in the West that offered settlers a good-sized kleros on good soil and opportunities to trade their own products and those of old Greece for raw materials, especially metal
- New Greeks homes abroad and the expansion of trade and commerce had broad economic effects throughout the towns and villages of the Greek world (more craftsmen, sailors, shipbuilders and outfitters, and haulers)
Al Mina
4
Q
What was the importance of temples in 8th century Greece?
A
- Growing wealth and a sense of communal pride
- Monumental temple (signature of Greek architectural form) emerged in the 8th century
- Appearance of large temples shows that people wanted and were able to expand their wealth, time, and labor on projects that brought honor to the whole community
- Community’s temple began to replace the chief’s house as the focal point of the settlement
5
Q
How did the alphabet and writing change 8th century Greece?
A
- Increased contact with East led to most significant cultural achievement of Early Iron Age II, the Greek alphabet
- Greeks borrowed letters from Phonecian alphabet, a Semitic script that consisted primarily of signs for consonants
- Generally believed that this occurred in the early 8th century
- We don’t know exactly why Greeks took up writing again, but some propose that the alphabet was adopted for writing down epic poetry (outlet for expression) or it may have been used for commercial and other utilitarian purposes
- Earliest known examples of connected Greek words are bits of epic-like verse scratched on vases (not proof to say that the alphabet was used to save orally composed poems in writing)
- Earliest sample of a civic use of writing is a stone inscription of laws from Dreros on Crete, carved around 650
- Although writing spread quickly in Greece during 8th and most of 7th centuries, it was still almost completely oral and aural like in the Early Iron Age I
- Even in Classical and Hellenistic periods, when literacy was most widespread, most information passed from mouth to ear
6
Q
How was modernity translated through art and architecture in the 8th century?
A
- A new direction in artistic representation becomes apparent in the pottery of the Late Geometric period (c. 750-700 BC)
- Midcentury, artists began to paint action scenes such as battles, shipwrecks, funerals, and chariot processions
- Pictorial narratives
- 720 BC, Greek art featured many ornamental motifs such as rosettes, griffins, and sirens
→ Greeks deliberately used elements of Near Eastern and Egyptian art, sculpture, and architecture
7
Q
Describe the rise of religious sanctuaries in the 8th century
A
- Famous early sanctuaries of Zeus and Hera at Olympia, Apollo and Artemis at Delos, and oracles (places of divine prophecy) of Zeus at Dodona and of Apollo at Delphi
- 8th century saw new interest in Bronze Age “ancestors”
→ all of a sudden, around 750, Greeks everywhere began to express their connection to the heroic past in new and dramatic ways - Many ancient tombs (mostly Mycenaean) that were mostly ignored throughout the Early Iron Age began to receive votive offerings, and their anonymous inhabitants were now worshipped as “heroes”
- (New behaviour) wealthy Greeks of 8th century began to bury their dead as warriors
→ burials resemble those of Patroclus in the Iliad and of the warrior in Lefkandi: corpse was cremated and its bines put in a bronze urn, weapons placed in grave, and occasionally the bodies of sacred horses were added as well - All this suggests that the leading families were proclaiming descent from the heroes of old
8
Q
Describe the origin and the importance of Panhellenic festivals in 8th century Greece
A
- Panhellenic festivals fostered a sense of Greek identity, reinforcing a feeling that Greeks everywhere shared a common heritage, language, and religion
- 776 BC, athletic contests became part of the festival of Zeus at Olympia
→ held every 4 years, Olympian games attracted spectators from all over Greece by the end of the century
9
Q
Define Panhellenic
A
- of, concerning, or representing all people of Greek origin or ancestry
10
Q
What did Aristotle say about humans and polis?
A
- A human being (anthropos) “is by nature a political animal,” by this he means that a human, espcially a Greek on, belongs in the polis
- polis, seen by Ari as the natural social formation for humans to live in, began to develop in the Archaic period
11
Q
Give a brief descrption of the Archaic period
A
- Formative era of the cultural, political, and intellectual achievements of Greece’s Golden Age
- 8th century came with the city-state form of government along with demographic and economic changes
- In Greek city-states, new ideas began to form: a rational view of the universe and the concept of demographic government (all freeborn males equal under laws and laws were made by male citizens)
12
Q
How did politcial instability in the 8th century impact Greece?
A
- As Greeks moved into new parts of the Mediterranean, more families became separated
- Rise of citizen armies, manned by farmer-soldiers
- Wars between demos, one polis against another became more frequent, and warfare itself was much more dangerous
- Economic inequality caused a lot of misery and serious tensions between and poor, which would sometimes turn into actual class warfare
- Political instability gave rise to a new type of leader, the tyrant
- City-state replaced old chieftain system
13
Q
Describe the formation of the city-state
A
- In all city-states, that capital city was the focal point of the state
- All male inhabitants of a city’s territory were called politai (members of the polis)
- Basileus didn’t completely disappear, it continued for a bit in the Archaic period, but with severe limits on his power
- Powerful families divided up aspects of authority - administrative military, religious, and judicial - among themselves, creating magistracies and boards
14
Q
Define Synoecism
A
Theprocess of political unification of that states (sunoikismos) (unifiying the oikoi)
