Page 42 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol III

greece, ancient 861

The Acropolis with the Parthenon on its top is perhaps the best-known symbol
of ancient Greece.

Athens, the other city whose internal history mattered spect seemed a golden age of creativity, concentrated
most in later times, never attained internal stability to especially in Athens.
compare with Sparta’s under the Lycourgan constitution. At the time, however, uncertainty and divided councils
In 594 BCE, for example, Solon, after being elected chief prevailed and ceaseless warfare continued to disturb civil
magistrate with extraordinary powers, set out to check society.Those who lived through that tumult would surely
the decay of the Athenian phalanx by canceling debts be surprised to know how reverently later generations
and prohibiting debt slavery. But Solon’s efforts to invoke looked up to their accomplishments. For in Athens, self-
justice and “good law” did not make friction between rich government by elected magistrates and an assembly in
and poor disappear. Half a century later a noble usurper, which all citizens could vote provoked perpetual dispute,
Peisistratus, seized power by force of arms and with pop- and war mobilization required ever increasing effort.
ular support, then exiled his rivals so that his sons New thoughts and new dilemmas distracted people in
retained control until 510 BCE. Two years after their private and public life, while sculpture, architecture,
forcible overthrow, another nobleman, Cleisthenes, insti- drama, history and philosophy all attained what later
tuted a more democratic regime in Athens. Rivalry generations recognized as classical expression.
between democratic Athens and Sparta’s mix of radical This remarkable efflorescence of Greek, and especially
equality among a citizen elite and harsh repression of dis- of Athenian, civilization was sustained by an expanding
franchised helots became overt only after the Persian market economy. Greek cities began to mint silver, cop-
invasion (490–489 BCE), when a precarious alliance of per, and even iron coins in small denominations, so
about twenty Greek cities, led by Sparta, managed to everyone could buy and sell items of common con-
defeat the imperial army of perhaps sixty thousand men sumption. Expanding markets, in turn, allowed special-
that Xerxes I, king of Persia and ruler of the largest ized producers to achieve new levels of efficiency, thus
empire Asia had yet seen, led against them. This sur- enriching society at large. The most significant of these
prising victory proved to the historian Herodotus (d. c. was specialized farming of olives (for oil) and of grapes
425 BCE) that free men, obedient to law, fought willingly (for wine). Beginning not long before 600 BCE, produc-
and therefore better than unfree Persians subjected to a tion of wine and oil for sale spread ever more widely
king. More generally, the victory gave an enormous fillip through southern and central Greece, wherever climate
to Greek self-confidence and inaugurated what in retro- and soil allowed. That was because olive oil and wine