Archaic Greece

Culture

Homer was very important for all subsequent ancient Greek culture
- Memorizing Homer was part of the education of any reasonably well brought up young Greek man
Hesiod is a major source for greek mythology
Heroism
- Not some kind of moral accomplishment, but a status
- Criterions
  - Genealogy is the first criteria, i.e., you were the son of a hero
  - Hereos tended to be tall and good-looking
  - They had military courage and a group of retainers that would follow them with unquestionable loyalty
- It was a remarkably fragile status (zero-sum game, it was constanly being tested)
- Arete
  - = Constantly displayed virtue excellence
- Aristeia
  - = Being at one’s best (especially in combat)
- Xenia
  - = Guest-friendship, hospitality towards foreigners and guests
Olympic games
- First games took place in 776 BC
- Such competitions were important for establishing civil identity
Poetry
- The lyric poetry is associated with gods, especially with Apollo
- Poetry was a public performance accompanied by music (lyric from lyra)
- There was a pervasive sense of anxiety in poetry in this time (as things were changing fast)
- Important poets

= “city-state”
- A settled community with internal unity and independence from other communities
Defined by politea_ (“constitution”, “citizen body”, “citizenship) much more than place
- Astu
  - = The urban center of a polis
  - Polis always atsu and the land around it
- Polites (pl. politai)
  - = Citizens
  - A citizen was only a native-born, adult, free, male
  - Citizens were equal in rights
  - Foreigners (metoikos_), women and slaves were not guaranteed these citizen rights
Every city had a “castle” (akropolis) and a central public space (agora)
Autonomy was important for even the smallest of city states
- War was often the default relationship between them

Probably because of land shortages
- Greece has little arable land
Key terms
- Metropolis
  - = “Mother city”
  - Colonies were independent of the mother city
- Apoikia
  - = “Colony”
- Oikistes
  - = “Founder”
People from all over the Greek world would come to Delphi to get approval to send out a community
The earliest colonies were in Italy

The greeks rediscovered literacy
- They used alphabet borrowed from the Phoenicians
Nomos
- = “law sanctioned by long usage”, “customs”
Eunomia
- = “having good laws well obeyed”, “lawfulness”
Agathoi
- = “good people” as they called themselves
- A wealthy class that emerged in the dark ages
- These people controlled the dispensation of justice, law-givers
  - They simply wrote down nomos (customs)
    - The purpose of the laws was not to elevate the character of the community, but to simply codify the customs
  - Story of every law-giver ends with either his death or departure, so that there wouldn’t be a possibility of him changing the code
- For example Solon and Cleisthenes were famous Athenian law-givers

A mercantile class arose in the first half of the 7th century BC
- Coinage was introduced in about 680 BC
  - Coins became a part of civic identity
- Aristocratic regimes of city states were often threatened by wealthy merchants ambitious for power