The later Archaic periods

Question 1

The later Archaic periods

Answer 1

• Coinage did not arrive in Greece proper until well into the 6th century. There were, however, other ways of accumulating precious metals besides collecting it in coined form.
• Aristotle, in the 4th century, was to say that tyrannies arise when oligarchies disagree internally, and that analysis makes good sense in the Corinthian context.
• Aristocratic warfare, as described in the Homeric epics, puts much emphasis on individual prowess. The winner gained absolute power over the person and possessions of the vanquished, including the right to carry out ritual acts of corpse mutilation.
• Other tyrannies are equally resistant to general explanations, except by circularity of reasoning. The Corinthian tyranny has been treated first in the present section because its dates are secure.
• Two other tyrannies date securely from the 7th century and perhaps happened in imitation of Cypselus; both arose in states immediately adjoining Corinth.

Question 2

note

Answer 2

• Prominent among the states that never experienced tyranny was Sparta, a fact remarked on even in antiquity. It was unfortified and never fully synoecized in the physical sense. And it succeeded, exceptionally among Greek states, in subduing a comparably sized neighbour by force and holding it down for centuries.
• Sparta had two kings, or basileis. If it is right that this title merely denotes hereditary nobles with stated prerogatives, this was originally one of its less remarkable aspects.
• Athens was also highly untypical in many respects, though perhaps what is most untypical about it is the relatively large amount of evidence available both about Athens as a city and imperial centre and about Attica, the territory surrounding and controlled by Athens
• First, it is safe to say that Attica’s huge size and favourable configuration made it unusual by any standards among Greek poleis
• Second, Attica has a very long coastline jutting into the Aegean, a feature that invited it to become a maritime power
• Third, although Attica was rich in certain natural resources, such as precious metal for coinage—the silver of the Laurium mines in the east of Attica—and marble for building, its soil, suitable though it is for olive growing, is thin by comparison with that of Thessaly or Boeotia.
• Athens claimed to be “autochthonous”—that is, its inhabitants had occupied the same land forever

Question 3

note 2

Answer 3

• The archetypal event of the Archaic age, however, was the 6th-century entertainment by Cleisthenes of Sicyon of the suitors for the hand of his daughter Agariste.
• eastern Greek influences on thinking in the mainland imply a general Ionian intellectual primacy, which is most obvious in the sphere of speculative thinking.
• One way in which Persia influenced Greek thought was via individual refugees and refugee communities.
• The greatest literary stimulus provided by neighbouring cultures like the Persian was in the field of ethnography and history.