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Archaic Greece

Archaic Greece. 700-480bc. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc. major points that typify the Archaic Age: . Archaic Greece: 700-480bc. major points that typify the Archaic Age: The formation of the city-state ( polis ). Archaic Greece: 700-480bc. major points that typify the Archaic Age:

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Archaic Greece

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  1. Archaic Greece 700-480bc

  2. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • major points that typify the Archaic Age:

  3. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • major points that typify the Archaic Age: • The formation of the city-state (polis)

  4. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • major points that typify the Archaic Age: • The formation of the city-state (polis) • Colonization

  5. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • major points that typify the Archaic Age: • The formation of the city-state (polis) • Colonization • Evolution of warfare

  6. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • major points that typify the Archaic Age: • The formation of the city-state (polis) • Colonization • Evolution of warfare • Panhellenism

  7. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • major points that typify the Archaic Age: • The formation of the city-state (polis) • Colonization • Evolution of warfare • Panhellenism • And also some notes on citizenship and the art and literature of the period

  8. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • 1. The growth of the city-state (polis) • =central city and its surrounding territory • Remember that “DEMOS” is the land and the people, the territorial community of the Dark Age • Two bodies of government already formed in that period: the assembly (men of fighting age) and the council of “elders” • But formal political unification of the demos did not yet exist • Central government had not come into power

  9. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • 1. The growth of the city-state (polis) • Political unification (Synoecism) • Unites the households of the central town and those of the territory around it in a formal, identifying statehood • SYN + OIKOS + ISMOS • Government • Aristocratic: basileis • Variations on a common theme: • Eliminate the dominant basileus • Distribute power among other aristocrats • Increase power of aristocratic council of elders (over against assembly of people)

  10. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • 1. The growth of the city-state (polis) • Government • Aristocratic: basileis • Variations on a common theme: • Eliminate the dominant basileus • Distribute power among other aristocrats • Increase power of aristocratic council of elders (over against assembly of people) • The opposite of this trend, again from within, is the periodic shift to TYRANNY in Archaic poleis • Usually moves toward a democracy one strongman at a time

  11. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • 1. The growth of the city-state (polis) • Government (cont.) • Necessary due to changing conditions (population, war) • Not the same everywhere (cf. Sparta) • Magistracies created (define oligarchy) • Various functions, various titles: archon, basileus, polemarch, prytanis, etc. • Boule (council) has the power in Archaic Greece • Ecclesia (assembly) is handicapped by the weight of aristocratic elders in boule • Political history in many parts of Greece will see the struggle for increased power won by the assembly

  12. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • 2. Colonization • Spain to Colchis, 800-500 • Two major needs fed by colonization: • 1. import goods (especially metals) • 2. territory for increased population, to find and found good land for new poleis • Apoikia: colonies and metropolis

  13. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc

  14. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • 2. Colonization • Spain to Colchis, 800-500 • Two major needs fed by colonization: • 1. import goods (especially metals) • 2. territory for increased population, to find and found good land for new poleis • Apoikia: colonies and metropolis • Addresses distribution of space and wealth – but only partly

  15. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • A note on classes and citizenship • Basically three classes in Archaic Greece: • The 20% at the top: aristocrats on inherited land, many in the cash crop business (wine and olives) • The 30% at the very bottom: poorest of the citizen farmers, many of whom end up sharecropping or mortgaging their kleros (ancestral lot) and paying for it with crops from the land (rank as thetes) • The 50% in the middle – the “middling man” – survive, not wealthy, but not dependent on the rich • Gradations throughout • Division defined as AGATHOI and KAKOI (cf. hoi polloi)

  16. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • A note on classes and citizenship • Poverty is difficult • Working for someone else = loss of freedom • Slaves at least have protection of oikos; what does a poor farmer have? • Various epithets denote the landless class, the poorest farmers: • Argos: “naked ones” • Corinth: “wearers of dog-skin helmets” • Sicyon: “wearers of sheep-skins” • Epidaurus: “dusty feet”

  17. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • A note on classes and citizenship • Poverty is difficult • Worse case were “between free person and slave” – Cf. helots • Worst case (measured by freedom and ability to be socially mobile) were slaves: no freedom, simply property

  18. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • A note on classes and citizenship • Citizenship does not denote equality • Women do not have any political power • Men (18 and older) had rights, but based on money and social standing • Property requirements kept most but the rich out of office, even some out of the assembly • Again, history will unfold as struggle in many poleis for democracy, but will not be achieved in other places

  19. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • A note on classes and citizenship • Women are still important • Share priesthoods with men • Stability of household • What did 50% of the ENTIRE population do all day?

  20. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc

  21. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • A note on classes and citizenship • Women are still important • Share priesthoods with men • Stability of household • What did 50% of the ENTIRE population do all day? • A picture of anxieties about the rise of the polis and the incumbent discussion of citizenship: HESIOD

  22. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • 3. Warfare • The hoplite army • Heavily armored: social and economic reality? • The phalanx • A picture of equality

  23. Archaic Greece: 700-480bc • 4. Panhellenism • Oracle at Delphi • Zeus’ sanctuary at Olympia • Games and other religious festivals • Trade • Instruments of war and peace • Oikos – demos – polis – amphictyony – ethne – all one Greek thing, but still 100’s of little city-states • By the end of the Archaic period, the two most powerful ones were SPARTA and ATHENS

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