History of Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece can be considered to be the birthplace of Western civilization. Over several centuries, the Greeks pioneered intellectual and political advances like democracy and philosophy, thanks to great thinkers and statesmen like Socrates, Plato, Cleisthenes, and Pericles.
The Greeks also created some of the most iconic monuments and works of art in the Ancient World, such as the Parthenon and Homer's Iliad. The warriors of Ancient Greece fought in some of history's most pivotal battles, with Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis springing immediately to mind.
So how did this collection of small city-states engineer the development of an entire hemisphere? In this piece, we'll journey through the history of Ancient Greece; from humble neolithic beginnings to the Golden Age of the city-states to the dominion of Alexander the Great and his successors.
Neolithic Greece – 7000 BC to 3200 BC
Human presence in Greece dates as far back as 13000 BC, but it wasn't until the emergence of farming communities and cultures in the Neolithic Age that Greek civilization began to take shape. This period marked mankind's transition from hunter-gatherers to established static cultures build around agriculture.
The first settlements in famous areas such as Athens in mainland Greece and Knossos on the island of Crete were created during this period, and technologies such as pottery began to develop into beautifully artistic objects.
Bronze Age Greece – 3200 BC to 1100 BC
Bronze Age Greece saw four distinct cultures emerge at different times in various parts of Greece; the Cycladics, the Helladics, the Minoans, and the Mycenaeans.
Cycladic civilization emerged sometime around 3200 BC across the Greek islands scattered throughout the Aegean Sea. This culture has become famous for its beautiful female figurines carved out of white marble. The Cycladic cultures were relatively small and largely confined to their respective islands.
Helladic communities began to spread across mainland Greece in approximately 3200 BC, eventually creating a series of small competing states across the country. These cultures, located in well-known sites like Athens and Thebes, built the foundation for the Mycenaeans to emerge during the Late Bronze Age.
One of the most famous cultures in ancient history, the Minoan civilization was born on the island of Crete sometime around 3200 BC, evolving from the agricultural societies that had gradually built up on the island during the Neolithic Period. From a few Bronze Age settlements, the Minoans grew to become perhaps Europe's first major civilization.
The Minoans were accomplished merchants, establishing trade links with other cultures in the ancient Aegean such as the Cycladic islands and even as far afield as Egypt and the Middle East. They also appeared to be adept at naval warfare. Minoan art was colorful and vibrant, with lavish frescoes decorating the Minoan palaces at Knossos and other cities.
Towards the end of the Minoan period, a new civilization emerged on mainland Greece that may have been both a rival and trading partner – the Mycenaeans. There may even be evidence that the Mycenaean Greeks invaded Crete sometime around 1450 BC.
Mycenaean civilization, idolized in the later works of the poet Homer, began to appear in Greece in around 1600 BC. Mycenaean Greece was a collection of early city-states, which controlled their surrounding lands. These states often engaged each other in conflict but may have also been united under a single ruler at some point.
The Mycenaeans were a more military-minded civilization, invading Crete and potentially subjugating the Minoans and also fighting wars against the Hittite civilization in Asia Minor. They were also skilled traders and craftsmen, exchanging pottery, weapons, and other goods with surrounding civilizations. But perhaps one of the Mycenaeans' greatest developments was their writing system, which built upon an alphabet used by the Minoans to create an early form of Greek.
Mycenaean civilization endured several periods of destruction and unrest, with the first coming in around 1250 BC. The city of Thebes was razed to the ground and several other settlements were destroyed, but historians aren't sure who or what caused these incidents. After a brief period of reemergence, a more devastating event struck the Mycenaeans in around 1190 BC.
This cataclysm coincided with several other disasters that swept across the Mediterranean at the time, destroying or crippling several major cultures in a period known as the Late Bronze Age Collapse.
The Dark Age of Greece – 1100 BC to 800 BC
No one knows for sure what caused the cataclysmic collapse of most of the Mediterranean, but it seems to coincide with the emergence of iron as the dominant metal material. Some historians have speculated that invaders armed with iron armor and weaponry, possibly the mysterious “Sea Peoples”, overcame the bronze-armed Mycenaeans. Whatever the cause, the centuries after the Collapse are known as the Greek Dark Ages.
Greek civilization stagnated but didn't simply shut itself off from the rest of the world. Some Greek city-states and communities remained fairly stable and continued trading with foreign cultures. Other areas suffered immense economic damage, and very few new palaces or monuments were built during this chaotic period. Mycenaean Greek also seemed to diminish as a practical language, causing culture to grind to a halt.
Whether driven out of their lands by invading armies or simply by the need for new economic opportunities, some Greeks managed to found settlements on the island of Cyprus and even Syria in the Middle East. Eventually, the fractured regions of Greece recovered and began to develop once again.
Archaic Greece – 800 BC to 510 BC
For almost three centuries, Greek civilization experienced a renaissance as the population suddenly seemed to skyrocket and cities began to expand. Many of the cultural and political foundations that would define the legacy of ancient Greece were laid during the Archaic age.
The Greek city-state began to properly emerge during this time to become the main political concept of Greek culture. Initially, these were likely ruled by kings or tyrants. But in Athens in 508 BC, a government official called Cleisthenes led a campaign to overthrow the ruling tyrant. He instituted the world's first democracy, consisting of all of the freemen of Athens, presided over by a cabinet of elected officials.
Rivalries that would define the history of Greece for several centuries also emerged during the Archaic period, with many prominent city-states such as Athens and Sparta competing for dominance. Sparta was a more war-like city-state than Athens, conquering its neighboring tribes and creating a slave caste known as helots. Sparta was a monarchy, with two kings who were separately in charge of military and domestic affairs.
During this period, Greek colonies began to spread across the Mediterranean. Settlements sprang up along the coast of Italy, Spain, North Africa, Asia Minor, and even up to the Balkans. Colonies were also established on islands such as Sardinia and Sicily. This led to several Greek city-states, such as Syracuse, battling with the powerful Carthaginian Empire from 580 to 265 BC for control of the islands.
This expansion brought Greece back into contact with other Mediterranean cultures, such as the Neo-Assyrian Empire and the Phoenicians. As Greek art and architecture began to develop again, influences were drawn from the Assyrians. A new alphabet also emerged, based on the Phoenician writing system. It was this system that would form the basis for our modern alphabet.
Other cultural developments began to emerge in Greece, such as philosophy. Early thinkers such as Thales of Miletus began to form theories about what the universe was made from. During this time, philosophy was the precursor to natural science and several other disciplines.
Military advances weren't forgotten either, driven by the development of iron. The early forms of the famous Greek hoplites date back to the Archaic period – citizen soldiers drawn from the ranks of city-states like Athens, or full-time professional soldiers like those of Sparta. The trireme vessel, one of the most recognizable shapes of the Ancient World, was also developed during the Archaic period.
Classical Greece – 510 BC to 323 BC
Arguably the most famous period of Greek history, the Classical period saw Greece fend off several invasions before spreading across the Mediterranean world like never before. During this era, Greece became the dominant civilization in Europe, coming into conflict with the powerful Achaemenid Persian empire.
In the Classical age, Greek culture continued to lay the foundations that would influence Western thought to this day. Several of history's most famous thinkers, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, emerged to define Greek philosophy. These scholars discussed disciplines from politics and morality to logic and knowledge.
History, too, began to emerge as we know it in Classical Greece. Herodotus, generally considered to be the father of history, set out to record the history of the Persian empire and the civilizations that had come before it, such as the Assyrians and Babylonians. Playwrights such as Aeschylus and Sophocles influenced the development of drama, while mathematicians like Pythagoras made great advancements.
Persian Wars
Greece's colonies in Asia Minor were essentially subjects of the Persian Empire, which controlled virtually all of the Middle East and modern-day Turkey. But in 499 BC, these colonies rose in revolt against the Persian king Darius the Great and were supported by Athens and Eretria, another Greek city-state. It took ten years, but the Persians reasserted control.
Furious, Darius launched two invasions of Greece and began the Persian Wars. His first assault, which claimed Macedonia in the Balkans as Persian territory, was defeated by a storm. But in 490 BC, a massive Persian fleet surged towards Greece, rapidly overwhelming Eretria and razing it to the ground before targeting Athens. When calls for help fell short, a force of Athenian hoplites marched to the fields of Marathon to confront the Persian landing force.
Despite overwhelming numbers, the solid defense of the more heavily armored Greeks and some daring tactics won the day, casting Darius' forces out of Greece. Enraged, Darius vowed to get revenge on the troublesome city-states but died before he could rebuild his army. A decade after the defeat at Marathon, Xerxes I, the son of Darius, began a second invasion.
Xerxes' massive army crossed into Greece through Macedonia, while his navy hugged the Greek coast. With all Greeks facing the same threat, old divisions had to be put aside. The Spartan king Leonidas led a small force to stall the Persians, resulting in one of history's most famous battles at Thermopylae. Despite a valiant effort, Leonidas and his men were slaughtered after being caught out by treachery. At the same time, the Persian and Greek navies fought to a stalemate at Artemisium.
The Persians advanced, capturing much of mainland Greece north of the Peloponnese and sacking Athens. The Greek navy, led by Themistocles, managed to ensnare the Persian fleet at Salamis, just off the coast of Athens, crippling their enemies. Without naval support, Xerxes withdrew the majority of his army back to Persia. His remaining forces were defeated in 479 BC at Plataea by a combined force of Sparta, Athens, and other city-states, and Greece emerged triumphant.
Greece expands
Following their victory at Plataea, the Greek alliance chased the Persians through the Balkans and back into Asia Minor, liberating Ionian cities such as Byzantium. As Persian power was pushed back, various city-states gained influence, and Athens formed a coalition of allied states known as the Delian League. Given Athens' prominence in the arrangement, this coalition is also referred to as the Athenian empire.
Opposing the interests of the Delian League was Sparta and its allies, which formed a coalition of their own – the Peloponnesian League. Despite still fighting the Persians, the two leagues clashed with each other as they sought to capitalize on the power vacuum across Asia Minor. With neither side gaining the upper hand, peace was declared in 447 BC. Hostilities with the Persians ended in 449 BC, and a decade of calm settled across the Mediterranean.
Peloponnesian Wars
Under the great statesman Pericles, Athens flourished. The Acropolis was expanded and the Parthenon was built, and democracy continued to evolve. But tension remained between Athens and her rivals Sparta and Corinth, which came to a head in 460 BC.
After various perceived insults and political disagreements, a series of conflicts broke out between states of the Delian League and those of the Peloponnesian League. Initially, Athens engaged aggressively, causing several other city-states to side with Sparta. Athens, meanwhile, arranged an agreement with Argos, one of Sparta's main rivals.
Athens also tried to support a revolt in Egypt against the Persians, but after this was quelled by an Achaemenid army in 454 BC, Athens' strength was depleted. Stretched thin, a truce with Sparta was agreed in 451 BC to end the First Peloponnesian War. Athens continued to see her power in mainland Greece diminish, and a few decades later, Sparta saw a chance to attack.
In 431 BC, the Second Peloponnesian War began. Sparta attacked Attica, the province surrounding Athens, while the Athenian navy raided the Peloponnesian coastline. Athens also began a campaign in Sicily against the city-state of Syracuse, which failed spectacularly in 413 BC due to intervention by Sparta.
With Athens' fleet destroyed, Sparta was eager to press the advantage. Athens was virtually bankrupt and reeling, but somehow stayed on its feet and spent years rebuilding both its strength and its empire. But Sparta had done the unthinkable and allied with the Persians.
In 405 BC, the rebuilt Athenian navy was decimated by a Spartan fleet. One year later, Athens couldn't hold on anymore and surrendered to Sparta, who became the dominant force in Greece.
Corinthian War
Just ten years after the end of the Peloponnesian Wars, Sparta's dominance faced a challenge from a coalition of other city-states, led by Argos, Corinth, Thebes, and a recovering Athens. This alliance also had support from the Persians, who profited from pitting the Greek states against each other.
Sparta claimed several early victories and held the edge during land battles, but struggled to win victories at sea. The Persians raided and routed Sparta's colonies in Asia Minor before teaming up with the Athenian navy to attack the Peloponnesian coast.
Corinth suffered greatly during the conflict, repeatedly attacked by Sparta before being absorbed into the territory of Argos. The Spartan fleet controlled the seas around Corinth, and Persia then switched its support to Sparta. The Achaemenids brokered a peace that let Sparta remain as the main city-state in Greece, so long as Asia Minor was returned to Persian control.
The rise of Macedon and Alexander the Great
After the Corinthian War, Sparta was challenged and defeated in 371 BC by Thebes, who became the dominant power in Greece for decades. But during a war with a rival city-state in 346 BC, Thebes requested support from Macedonia and its king, Phillip II.
During the conflict, Phillip took control of Thebes' coalition of allies and began to claim territory in northern Greece. Eventually, he took over the Greek city-states one by one, including Athens and Thebes after defeating them in 338 BC at Chaeronea. But Phillip had grander plans than simply conquering Greece – he planned to destroy the mighty Persian empire.
But in 336 BC, Phillip was murdered at a wedding, and his son Alexander claimed the throne. The young conqueror was eager to realize his father's ambitions in the East but had to ensure the support of Greece first. After razing Thebes to the ground for resisting his rule, Alexander had command of the Greek armies, and in 334 BC, he began his campaign against Persia.
Alexander's wars were the stuff of legend. He crossed into Asia Minor and defeated a Persian army at the Battle of Granicus. He campaigned in Syria before defeating the Persian king Darius III at the Battle of Issus, but Darius escaped. Alexander then roamed over the empire, conquering and liberating territories such as Egypt and razing cities that dared to defy him, like Tyre.
For a final time, Alexander beat Darius at the Battle of Gaugamela. After fleeing once again, Darius was murdered by his own supporters and Alexander swept away the last pockets of Persian resistance. Claiming revenge for the sacking of Athens at the hands of Xerxes, Alexander had defeated the powerful Persian empire and transformed Greece into the world's dominant power.
But Alexander wouldn't stop, continuing into India and winning more territory. But in 323 BC, Alexander was taken ill and died in the ancient city of Babylon. With his death, Alexander concluded the age of Classical Greece and ushered in the Hellenistic Age.
Hellenistic Greece – 323 BC to 146 BC
With Alexander's death, a power vacuum swept through the ancient world. His trusted generals began to claim various territories as their own and fought amongst themselves in the Wars of the Diadochi, which lasted from 322 to 281 BC. A Greek coalition led by Athens launched a rebellion against the Macedonians but was quickly subjugated.
Alexander's campaigns had spread Greek culture across much of the Middle East, and these ideas continued to flourish within the domains of his successors. Antigonus and his descendants eventually claimed control of Greece and the Balkan territories. Ptolemy took control of Egypt, while Seleucus founded the Seleucid empire in the Middle East.
The cultural traditions established in Classical Greece evolved even further during the Hellenistic period. Several new philosophical schools emerged, with new ideas such as Cynicism, Epicureanism, and Stoicism beginning to change the focus of philosophy from knowledge and logic towards morality and lifestyle. Figures like Archimedes and Euclid made groundbreaking discoveries in science and mathematics.
Greece's political landscape became fractured, even under Macedonian control. Sparta continued to be independent of any control. The mainland city-states like Athens largely steered their own destiny, continuing to form various leagues and alliances and rebelling against Macedon several times.
But by 222 BC, even Sparta had been conquered by the Macedonians, who controlled most of Greece except for Athens and a couple of other states. The king, Phillip V, had unified much of the country under his rule. However, a new power was rising in Europe – Rome. To check the advance of this new pretender, Phillip made a pact with Carthage, Rome's sworn enemy.
In response, Rome began to increase its activity in Greece, encouraging various city-states to side with them against Phillip. From 212 to 197 BC, conflicts between Rome and Macedon broke out as part of the Macedonian Wars. After suffering a major defeat, Phillip capitulated and became a vassal of Rome, but was stripped of his naval forces.
The Roman Conquest
But Rome did not stop there. With Macedon weakened and Greece fading, the Romans gradually conquered the country completely. Macedonia had fallen by 168 BC and became a Roman province in 146 BC. In the same year, the Romans made a brutal statement by burning the city of Corinth to ashes.
The rest of the city-states bowed to Rome, but essentially retained a lot of their freedom. Greek culture began to influence the Roman elite, affecting everything from architecture to fashion and philosophy. Stoicism, one of the main Hellenistic schools of philosophy, proved so popular among Roman senators and statesmen that it became the dominant philosophy of both the Republic and the Empire.
Even so, the age of Greece was over, and the country remained under Roman control until the division of the Empire into East and West in 395 AD. As part of the eastern territory, Greece came under the rule of the Byzantines until the Middle Ages.