Page 39 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

858 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

The unexamined life is not worth living. • Socrates (469–399 bce)

from the necessity of protecting their flocks and herds
Greece, Ancient from raiders and from attacking neighbors in retaliation.

Moreover, these warrior tribesmen had a superior diet,
he civilization of ancient Greece twice effected im- thanks to the milk and milk products they consumed,
Tportant changes in world cultural balances, first making them bigger and stronger than the grain farmers
when Alexander of Macedon (356–323 BCE) conquered they displaced.
a vast empire in western Asia, Egypt, and northwest Dry summers prevail in most of Greece and are bad
India, spreading Greek ideas and customs far and wide, for grass, so the invaders had to depend more on grain
and a second time, beginning about l400 CE, when well- farming and to cut back on herding by sending flocks
to-do citizens first in Italy and then also in northwestern to high mountain pastures in summer. This brought
Europe found that ancient Greek literature provided a Greek society into line with the contemporary scene in
useful guide and enrichment for their own lives. western Asia, where steppe invaders had overrun some-
What made Greek patterns of civilization so attractive what larger populations of farmers and the urban cen-
was that for a few generations a handful of Greek cities ters they supported. Accordingly, by about 1600 BCE,
mobilized intense and widespread popular participation closer encounters with centers of civilization in Crete,
in politics and war, while also combining monumental Egypt, and western Asia brought familiarity with royal
public art with market economics. They called this government, bronze weapons and armor, chariots, writ-
unusual mix “freedom,” and the literary expressions of ing, and monumental stone construction to Greece.
Greek freedom in poetry, history, and philosophy Mycenae became the principal seat of wealth and
appealed to intellectually restless citizens in other times power, where a massive lion gate and large beehive
and places as both admirable and practical. Freedom tombs attest to the greatness of the kings for whom they
continues to figure in contemporary politics, so the were built. Rural taxpayers, sometimes conscripted for
Greek example still echoes in our public affairs, though work on such buildings, together with booty from sea
less strongly than it did before 1914, when the study of raids along the shores of the Aegean and eastern
Greek (and Latin) literature dominated the schooling of Mediterranean sustained the kings of Mycenae and
Europe’s political leaders and many of those who sup- rulers of a handful of similar fortress-palaces in other
ported them. Revival of the Olympic Games in 1896 parts of Greece. But chariots as well as bronze weapons
was a late example of how ancient Greece continued to and armor were scarce and expensive, so fully equipped
offer a model for Europeans to emulate, and by now warriors remained very few. Hence, about 1200 BCE,
Olympic competition has become worldwide. when a second wave of Greek-speaking invaders,
known as Dorians, armed with comparatively cheap
The Rise of Ancient Greece and abundant iron weapons, advanced from the north,
How did ancient Greece achieve its distinctive character? the superior number of their fighting men overwhelmed
For more than a thousand years after 2000 BCE, when the old order of society. The newcomers promptly
Greek-speaking invaders began to filter in from the destroyed and abandoned Mycenae and the other
north, changes in Greece closely paralleled what was palace-fortresses of Greece.
happening elsewhere.The initial invasions, for example,
were part of a general expansion of herdsmen from the The Homeric Ideal of
grassy steppes of Eurasia that brought Aryans to India, Individual Heroism
Persians to Iran, Hittites to Anatolia, and Slavs, Ger- With these invasions, a ruder, more egalitarian age
mans, Latins, and Celts to other parts of Europe. The dawned.Writing disappeared, so did monumental build-
newcomers had the advantage of warlike habits arising ing. But bards who recited their poems to the sound of