Greece
Around 1200 BC the leading states in the Eastern Mediterranean collapsed,
and the most advanced area of the world entered a ‘Dark Age’.
The Minoans and the Myceneans came to an end, Egypt entered into an
‘intermediate’ period of chaos and uncertainty. It is difficult
to know why - but such systemic collapses do happen - compare the collapse
of the Maya empire around AD 900. When complex societies eventually
re-emerge 500 years later, there was one society which soon became very
different to all the others: Greece.
The difference can perhaps be demonstrated by giving two short extracts
from the literature of the different societies. (Excursus to be inserted
here). The first comes from the Bible - the book of Chronicles, with
its list of kings and their conquests. Then compare this with the opening
chapter of the history of Herodotus who summarises the origin of the
Persian wars - but with his tongue in his cheek throughout - gently
ridiculing the traditional Greek stories, and taking care always to
give the alternative ‘Persian version’ - something that would
have been unthinkable in any society that had gone before. What is this
change, and how did it happen?
I believe the reason is the advent of money and the market economy,
which took place in the 6th and 5th centuries - the highpoint of the
Athenian civilisation. But the changeover - revolution is perhaps not
too radical a word - took place in a society that was already highly
successful.
The emergence of Greece from the ‘Dark Age’ was in full force
in the 8th century onwards. The key figure of this early period is Homer,
the great epic poet: his date, and indeed his identity is disputed,
but it is probable that he was indeed a single figure who lived in the
8th century, but who formed the culmination of a long tradition of bards
who had declaimed epic poetry throughout the Dark Ages. The two great
poems - the Iliad and the Odyssey - both hark back to the Trojan war,
which traditionally ended in 1184 BC. The wars are fought using weapons
of bronze, and reflect the geography of the Mycenean world, but the
poems have a unity and a force and a cohesiveness that marks the advent
of a new age.
From 8th century onwards Greece really gets going, and establishes
itself as leading economic centre of the eastern Mediterranean. Society
changes; instead of living in the countryside, Greeks start to come
together in cities. Greek pottery is exported all over the eastern Mediterranean.
At first the pots come in a very distinctive geometric style with the
occasional stiff figure. Then Corinth becomes the leading city and pots
in the Corinthian style with animals - including exotic lions - are
found everywhere. But then towards the end of the 6th century, Corinth
loses its leading position, and Athens, suddenly emerges as the dominant
pottery producer, with a new vigorous pottery style with black figures
on a red background. There is also an explosion of new ideas in sculpture,
the theatre and the arts generally. What has happened?
The solution, I believe, comes with the advent of a new economy, based
on money, and bringing with it not only economic success, but also a
new form of society - democracy. (Excursus to be inserted here).
To investigate this new phenomenon, we must first study the origins
of coins. The first coins are found, not in mainland Greece itself,
but in Asia Minor, that is modern day Turkey. The key site is Ephesus,
where the great temple was destroyed by Persians in 550 BC. Coins had
been buried in the foundations as offerings, and could thus be precisely
dated. But the use  of coins was soon taken up in mainland Greece: at
first, they did know quite what to put on the coins, and there is a
coin of
Thasos showing a satyr carrying off a girl who appears to be making
gestures which may or may not be of protest - the only example of rape
depicted in coinage.
By 525 or soon after, coinage crossed the Aegean sea to Athens. From
the start, Athenian coins feature an owl, which soon became the symbol
of Athens, and the ‘owls’ became the most famous of all Greek
coins. The owl coins are very old fashioned right from the beginning
- Athena  on
the reverse has oval eyes of a type that even in the late 6th century
were becoming old-fashioned. However once, established, the owls remained
very standard - even the late gold staters issued in the emergency of
296 BC show the same archaic owl, by now rather bedraggled.
The changes took effect very rapidly. Athens was helped in that there
were silver mines on Mount Laurion, producing very pure silver, so the
Athenians had every incentive to promote the new-fangled ways of doing
business. Previously Corinth had been leading city but Athens soon went
right ahead, and its pottery - for archaeologists the easiest way to
determine economic progress - is soon found all over the Eastern Mediterranean.
But no sooner than the market economy was established in Athens than
its concomitant - democracy - followed. At the end of the 6th century,
Athens was ruled by tyrants, the sons of Peisistratus. However in 510
the tyrants were driven out, and Cleisthenes introduced democracy. The
Athenians were organised into 10 tribes, and from each tribe, 50 were
elected by lot to form the council of 500 which arranged and conducted
all business.
Note the importance of the use of the lottery. Although everyone had
a vote in the Assembly, many of the important decisions were taken by
the council - and the council was chosen by lot. Indeed the use of the
lot was considered to be more ‘democratic’ than the vulgar
use of elections, for elections could all too often be swayed by a clever
orator - that is the way tyrants arose. Only one official was elected,
and that was the Polemarch, the general - and the position of general
was too important to be chosen by lot.
There was also outburst of art. The theatre suddenly came into existence,
with dramatists such as Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, and the
comedian Aristophanes; philosophers arose like Socrates and Plato; there
were historians - Herodotos of Halicarnassus, and Thucidides; orators
like Demosthenes and Aeschinus; there were the great sculptors - to
say nothing of the red-figure vase painting that surely gives us some
idea of the lost paintings. Once the bounds of the old clan-based society
were removed a whole new world lay open to the talents. And it was Athens,
with its market economy, and its democracy that produced all the art,
all the writers - and the commercial success.
True, in the military sphere, Athens was less predominant. The early
part of the period is dominated by the Persian Wars, brilliantly described
by Herodotos. From 600 BC onwards, the Persian empire was steadily expanding.
By the 550s, many of the Greek cities in Asia Minor (Turkey) had fallen
to Persian rule, and the islands in the Aegean mostly succumbed soon
after, but in 490, their initial foray into Greece was repulsed by the
Athenians at the battle of Marathon, Ten years later they returned in
mass, forced the pass of Thermopylae despite valiant opposition by the
Spartans, but were defeated by the Athenian navy at the battle of Salamis,
and by then by the combined Greek Armies - led by the Spartans - at
the battle of Plataea. In the following years, most of the Greek islands
were freed, mostly under the leadership of Athens, which was soon to
be accused of building up its own empire. Then from 432 to 404 Athens
and Sparta fought a prolonged and draining war, minutely chronicled
by the historian Thucydides, and eventually won by the Spartans. The
Athenians were forced to demolish their long walls, and politically
they were never again the undisputed leaders of Greece. But economically
- and even more artistically - the Athenian success continued unabated.
As always, politics - and success or failure in wars - is in the long
run less important and less interesting than economics.
But the really interesting aspect of the market revolution at Athens
is what happened to the other leading state that rejected money.
This was Sparta.
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