Early Greece

You tell me to obey the long winged birds; but I do not care whether they fly on the right to the dawn and the sun, or on the left to shadowy darkness. I put my trust in the counsel of mighty Zeus, who rules all things mortal and immortal: one bird is best, to fight for the fatherland.

(Iliad 12.237ff)

The evidence of heroic epic is fragmentary and potentially misleading; but it can be related to the subsequent development of Greek society. It can also be supported from comparative material: all the institutions of the Homeric world outside those of the polis find many parallels in other societies. But the usefulness of comparative material is not only in the way that it reveals the presuppositions behind isolated phenomena and suggests interpretations of them. It is also the interrelations between the institutions which can best be understood through comparing societies with similar structures. For instance, the Waigal valley area of Nuristan (eastern Afghanistan) possesses a ‘society in which leaders have influence rather than authority and where an uncomplicated technology is used to meet the demands of a highly competitive ethos’. In this pastoral community, rank is sought and achieved through competitive feasts of merit, bridewealth and dowry are exchanged, disputes are settled by mediation through the elders. The objects of status are made by a separate and inferior class of craftsmen, and are even tripods, bowls and cups. The original warrior aims of killing Muslims in raids have had to be suspended; but the society exhibits the structural interrelation of many of the central aspects of early Greek society, and an ethic which is remarkably similar.

Similarly the process of state formation has been studied in a number of traditional societies in Africa and Polynesia. The Homeric society fits well this picture of the development of more complex political structures from a low basis of material culture through the emergence of the ‘big-man’, whose power rests initially on his ability to persuade the community to follow him as leader, but who succeeds in institutionalising his status in warfare, the judgment of disputes, and through ritual hospitality. Such personalised leadership, being fluid and without stable support structures, can often lead forward into more complex forms of social organisation.

The slow evolution of the Dark Age resulted in a world which might seem static and fixed in its aristocratic ideas. But the differences between nobility and people were not great in economic terms; the distinction rested on birth and consequent style of life. As the organs of the polis gained more signifìcance, the tension between the noble’s world of honour and the people’s world of justice became increasingly apparent; and the structural dissonance already present reacted with new factors to produce a century of change as swift and as fundamental as any in history.

V

Euboean Society and Trade

AS CONSERVATIVE philosophers like Plato and Aristotle saw, one of the most powerful elements leading to change in early Greece was a natural one – the sea, offering a constant invitation to contact and to trade with other peoples. The Greek world created by the migrations of the Dark Age was already not so much a land as a sea unit, centred on the Aegean; local trade on a small scale existed from the eleventh century onwards, and a certain number of eastern artefacts or skills found their way into the area, by stages from Cyprus to Crete or Rhodes and on, or as a result of sea-raiding.

Short-haul trading was never an activity of high social status; in a land famed for its seamanship, Odysseus is insulted by a Phaeacian nobleman: ‘you seem like one who travels with a well-benched ship, a master of sailors that are merchantmen, a man mindful of his cargo, watching his route and the gains he has snatched: you look no athlete’ (Odyssey 8.159ff). Hesiod’s instructions on seafaring (Works and Days 617–94) are mainly concerned with when and why not to go to sea: his gloomy view of trade is based on his father’s experience, and reflects the small profits and comparatively high risks involved in such Aegean trading.

But this was not the only form of trade. Most attempts to assess the role of trade in the earliest period misunderstand it because they fail to distinguish between local and long distance trade; they assume a model of trade which is in fact only appropriate in the more developed economic conditions of the late archaic and classical periods, when bulk trade in commodities had developed. Because this was increasingly carried on by professional merchants, and because the quantity of trade earlier (and hence its strictly economic effect) must have been slight, there is a tendency to underestimate the importance of trade in early Greece both as a political factor and as a catalyst of social and cultural change.

It was the aristocracy who must have given the initial impetus to wider exploration beyond the Aegean, by creating a demand for two commodities. The first was metals, and especially crude iron from which to manufacture their increasingly complex weapons and armour; the goddess Athene, visiting Ithaca in disguise, claims to be an aristocrat, ruler of the oar-loving Taphians, on a voyage carrying shining iron to Temesa in exchange for copper (Odyssey 1.180ff). The second requirement of an increasingly prosperous aristocracy was for the finished luxury goods which their competitive life style demanded and which were often beyond the skills of Greek craftsmen. It was in these two spheres that the high risks of long distance trade were offset by high profits; and one area which could clearly supply both needs was the near east.

The earliest Greek contacts were with the Canaanites of the Levantine coast, a people known to the Greeks as Phaenicians, probably because of their monopoly of the only colour-fast dye in antiquity, the purple (phoinix) extract from the murex shellfish. The coastal cities of Phoenicia controlled the great pine and cedar forests of the Lebanon, the chief source of timber for Egypt, as for King Solomon; they had long owed their prosperity to this and to their position as middlemen between Mesopotamia and Egypt. The collapse of Hittite and Egyptian power in the early Dark Age left them independent; and even after Assyrian expansion began in the ninth century, their position was little affected: the navies of Sidon, Tyre and Byblos controlled the south and eastern Mediterranean seaways for themselves or as Persian vassals until the conquests of Alexander the Great.

Phoenician culture was urban: the cities were usually independent of each other, and built on heavily fortified coastal islands or headlands. Their art shows the typical characteristics of a trading civilization: eclecticism in forms and motifs from Mesopotamia and especially Egypt, mass production, and a concentration of craftsmanship on small easily transported objects in precious materials such as metal and ivory ; the textiles for which they were famous have not survived. Their prosperity is denounced by the Old Testament prophets; Ezekiel for instance in the sixth century describes the trade of Tyre in detail:

Tarshish (in Spain) was a source of your commerce, from its abundant resources offering silver and iron, tin and lead, as your staple wares. Javan (Ionia, the Greeks), Tubal (in Cappadocia) and Meshech (Phrygia) dealt with you, offering slaves and vessels of bronze as your imports … Rhodians dealt with you, great islands were a source of your commerce, paying what was due to you in ivory and ebony… Dealers from Sheba (Aden) and Raamah (S. Arabia) dealt with you, offering the choicest spices, every kind of precious stone and gold, as your staple wares. Harran, Kanneh and Eden (in Mesopotamia), dealers from Asshur (Assyria) and all Media, dealt with you; they were your dealers in gorgeous stuffs, violet cloths and brocades, in stores of coloured fabric rolled up and tied with cords; your dealings with them were in these.

(Ezekiel 27.12–24)

The Greeks themselves believed that there had been earlier Phoenician settlements both in mainland Greece and the islands, and at the sites of many of their western colonies; the most famous of these stories is that of Kadmos (p. 93). But there is no archaeological evidence for such settlements, and the picture given in the Odyssey seems more plausible. Here the Phoenicians are traders, welcomed if mistrusted by the Greeks; such casual trade can be supported by eastern finds on Greek sites, and can be dated between the tenth and eighth centuries. More permanent contact began in the ninth century when the Phoenicians moved into eastern Cyprus, and founded Kition.

Many aspects of the culture and development of the Phoenician and Greek cities in this period are so similar that it is not always easy to see which was the innovator; for both were city-state cultures in a stage of rapid expansion, with a similar pattern of settlement in walled coastal sites, and perhaps even similar forms of government. Initially at least contact was friendly. Phoenician culture was technically more advanced, and literate: Phoenician craftsmen may have worked in Greek cities, on Rhodes, Crete and at Athens; and in the north Syrian trading posts Phoenicians and Greeks lived together from the early eighth century. The cultural consequences of this period of collaboration are discussed in the next chapter. The Phoenicians may have been the pioneers in opening up the western Mediterranean to trade, and perhaps in the foundation of colonies there: the traditional foundation date of their greatest colony, Carthage (814/3), is some two or three generations before any Greek venture; though the earliest archaeological evidence is late eighth century. At least it seems that the Phoenicians were responsible for the main technical innovations in naval architecture from the pentekonter to the trireme, and for showing the Greeks the importance and potential both of trade and seapower. But the ultimate result of such interchange was increasing conflict in Cyprus and rivalry for control of the west, which meant the gradual establishment of exclusive spheres of interest in the eastern Mediterranean, and in north Africa, Sicily and Spain, from the seventh century onwards.

The second phase of Greek contact with the east carne with the establishment of permanent Greek trading posts. It has long been obvious that the great changes in Greek art and culture which took place in the late eighth century were connected with the near east, and that this ‘orientalizing’ movement was only partly due to Phoenician trading or foreign craftsmen; but it used to be thought that the influences carne first to Ionia, whether through trade or overland across Asia Minor. More refined analysis of local pottery styles has shown that Ionian orientalizing is late and derivative; the earliest appearance of the style was in mainland Greece, at Corinth about 725. With recent excavations the routes of diffusion have become clear.

The excavations of Sir Leonard Woolley from 1936 to 1949 area classic example of the use of archaeology to solve a particular historical problem. He argued that the line of communication between Greece and the east in both the Mycenean and the archaic period must have passed between the Hittite and Egyptian spheres of influence, and therefore up the valley of the Orontes on the borders of Turkey and Syria; in a series of planned excavations he established the detailed history of this trade.

The Orontes valley was well known to the Myceneans; but there is no sign of Greek presence during the Dark Age, until the establishment shortly before 800 of what rapidly became a major trading post, at Al Mina on the mouth of the river. Unfortunately the town centre and residential quarters were not discovered, so that little can be said of the organization of the settlement: these areas had either been swept away when the river changed course, or had been built separately on higher ground. The excavations revealed the commercial quarter of a large port, with a succession of levels containing warehouses, offices and shops: the later warehouses were substantial single storey buildings of mud brick on stone foundations; they were arranged in blocks of fairly uniform size with a rectangular Street plan, and in some cases there was evidence of specialized trade – particular types of pottery container, a silversmith’s shop, and ivory tusks. There is little doubt that this was the main port for Greek trade with the east from about 800 until at least 600; and it remained important for a further 300 years.

The pottery shows that the site was occupied from the start by Phoenicians, Cypriots and Greeks. The early Greek pottery can be divided into two periods: the first lasts from 800 to 700, when there is a definite though short break in the occupation of the site. Sargon of Assyria conquered the area around 720; and under his successor Sennacherib, Cilicia and Syria revolted: the break in occupation probably coincides with the crushing of the revolt and the sack of Tarsus in 696. The shapes and decoration of the Greek pottery in this early period are distinctive; more recent excavations have shown that they derive from Euboea.

The place where these Euboeans (led perhaps by Greeks from Cyprus) established their settlement shows the typical signs of a trading post: it is on the fringes of an area of advanced civilization, where political control was weak, and where they could gain access to the luxury goods of Mesopotamia, Phoenicia and (through the Phoenicians) Egypt. The metals of south-east Anatolia were also exploited, for in the same period Greek geometric pottery similar to that at Al Mina is found at Tarsus; but whereas in Tarsus the Greeks seem to have lived in a native town, Al Mina was an established emporion or trading post, whose mixed community must have been reflected in its political and religious organization. The Greeks received iron, worked metal objects, fabrics, ivories and other semi-precious ornaments; it is far less easy to determine what they offered in exchange. Silver is relatively common in the Aegean area; and the later interest of Euboean towns in backward regions such as the west and the Chalcidice in north Greece, suggests that they may have engaged in slave-raiding to finance their eastern trade; Ezekiel at least mentions slaves as a typical Greek commodity.

The same pattern has been revealed in the west. The earliest western colony of the Greeks was also for some time the most distant – on the bay of Naples. The original settlement was a joint venture from the two main towns in Euboea, Chalcis and Eretria, on the island of Pithecusae (Ischia); the site is a steep-sided peninsula previously uninhabited, with two good harbours but little cultivable land nearby. Later, whether from political troubles or because the desire for security lessened, most of the settlers moved to the mainland where they founded Cumae. Excavations from 1952 at the original island settlement show that the Greeks arrived around 775; by 750 their numbers were substantial. The earliest pottery is mainly Euboean and Corinthian; one of the chief occupations of the community was iron smelting: a group of buildings used for metal-working and a number of clay mouthpieces for bellows have been found, together with iron slag which appears from analysis to come from Elba. Although no military or aristocratic tombs have yet been found, the early graves of the settlers show a high degree of sophistication; in particular they contain a large number of eastern objects – from the eighth century alone over a hundred Egyptian scarabs, and almost as many seals from north Syria and Cilicia, together with near eastern pottery; these objects must have come as a result of trade through Al Mina.

The history of Greek settlement on the bay of Naples is parallel to the history of Al Mina, though with important differences. The settlement may or may not have been an official colony of Chalcis and Eretria, rather than a trading post; the presence of Corinthian pottery is explained by the fact that Corinth was an essential staging point on the journey to the west, for Greeks tended to avoid the voyage round the Peloponnese by taking ship from Corinth. Once again the settlement was founded on the edge of the sphere of influence of a major power; for there is an obvious connection between its position and the Etruscans to the north, who were able to control the sources of metal in their area and also the tin and amber routes from Britain and the north. But whereas Phoenicia and Mesopotamia were more advanced than the Greeks, Etruscan culture was only just entering its urban phase.

The Etruscans are absent from Homer; they appear first in Hesiod (Theogony 1016), and in one of the archaic Homeric hymns to Dionysos (7), which describes how the god was carried off when ‘there carne swiftly over the wine-dark sea Tyrsenian (Etruscan) pirates on a well-decked ship’. The urbanization of Etruscan settlements from the eighth century onwards may be a natural development; but in most respects contact with Greeks transformed Etruscan culture. The Phoenicians do not seem to have penetrated as far north as this before the early seventh century; so it must have been on the basis of Greek seafaring that an area of hill towns so devoid of natural harbours took to the sea, and won its reputation for piracy. The beginnings of Etruscan culture are marked by an ‘orientalizing phase’; the first signs of eastern imports begin around 750, and the phase is at its height from 700 to 600. The exact significance of this phenomenon is linked to the controversial question of the origins of the Etruscans, since it has been used to support the ancient theory that they were immigrants from Lydia. But the objects themselves are not Lydian: they are no different from those found in contemporary Greek sites. It seems likely therefore that this trade was not in the hands of Etruscans or Phoenicians (at least initially), but rather of Greeks; even before 750 Euboean pottery is found at Veii and elsewhere in south Etruria, and a distinctive form of dress pin is known from both Etruria and Pithecusae. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the orientalizing phase is followed from 600 by a period in which Etruscan culture is dominated by Greek imports and Greek artistic techniques; and the adaptation of Greek writing and Greek infantry tactics (below pp. 95, 124) are further signs of the importance of Greek influence on Etruria. As with the Phoenicians, the later evidence of piracy, rivalry and open warfare between Greeks and Etruscans is a product of close contact which initially was friendly. So began the process of the Hellenization of Italy, which was to culminate in the culture of Rome, whose early culture was deeply influenced by contact with the Greeks.

The trade route which can be traced from the near east to Etruria through Al Mina and Pithecusae was in the first instance the product of a search for metals and luxury goods on the part of the aristocracy of Euboea: at its centre lay a society whose life style was influenced as much by the wanderings of Odysseus as by the warrior virtues of the Iliad. Of the two chief cities on Euboea, Chalcis probably lies under the modern town and has not been excavated; but Swiss and Greek excavations at Eretria show that it emerged suddenly as a prosperous community some time after 825. The period 750–700 was one of major temple building, and in the next century there were considerable public works in fortification and to control the river course. The absence of earlier remains is perhaps explained by a site half way between Chalcis and Eretria on the edge of the Lelantine Plain at Lefkandi: here British excavations have revealed a large settlement, with remarkable continuity and increasing prosperity throughout the Dark Age, until a sharp decline after 825; the site was finally abandoned around 700. It has reasonably been suggested that this was the original Eretrian settlement, which moved to the later Eretria in the late ninth century. The importance of the community at Lefkandi is shown by the continutuity and size of the settlement throughout the Dark Ages, and by the comparatively large amount of gold ornaments and eastern imports found in the tombs; the working of metal is attested by a ninth century bronze foundry.

A pale reflection of the last age of this society survives in the literary sources, with memories of a great war fought between Chalcis and Eretria for possession of the Lelantine Plain. In a brief sentence Thucydides contrasts it with other early border wars: ‘it was particularly in the old war between the Chalcidians and the Eretrians that the rest of the Greek world also divided in alliance with one side or the other’ (Thucydides 1.15). Scattered references to early friendships between cities can be used to establish a tentative list of those on each side:

Chalcis Eretria Samos Miletus (Herodotus 5.99) Erythrae Chios (Herodotus 1.18) Thessalians (Plutarch, Moralia 760) Corinth Megara Sparta Messenia?

Other cities may be added with less certainty, but these names are already impressive enough to justify Thucydides’ claim that the conflict split Greece into two rival camps, and that in this respect it differed from earlier border wars; he does not however suggest that the war was comparable in its organization to the Trojan or Persian Wars, with which it is implicitly contrasted. The evidence suggests not so much joint expeditions or grand alliances, as a series of limited border wars with their epicentre in the Lelantine Plain: Thessalians helped Chalcis on the battlefield, but in most cases the conflict was more indirect; it is noticeable that pairs of neighbours, traditionally hostile to each other, tend to be found in opposite camps. The earlier co-operation between Chalcis and Eretria ended abruptly; political troubles between the settlers may be behind the move from Pithecusae to Cyme; Corinthians drove out Eretrian settlers from Corcyra in 733, Chalcidians in Sicily expelled their fellow Megarian settlers from Leontinl; Corinth and Samos helped Sparta against the Messenians. The various episodes seem to belong to the last thirty years of the eighth century. The consequences of this series of conflicts was a set of alignments which remained remarkably stable in the subsequent century, and had great influence on the political and economic geography of Greek expansion. The Eretrians and their friends were frozen out of the west by Chalcis and Corinth, to the ultimate advantage of Corinthian trade; the oracle at Delphi became closely linked with western colonization and the friends of Corinth. On the other side the position of Eretria and Miletus with their allies (especially Megara) was stronger in the area of the Black Sea and its approaches.

But these long term consequences need bear little relation to the origins of the conflict, which seem to have been in the struggle for territory between two neighbouring aristocratic communities. Two factors transformed this border war into a larger conflict. The first was that the two states involved were the centre of a nexus of trade carried on by or on behalf of the aristocracy; this trade will have resulted in a series of guest-friendships between individual aristocrats like those described in the Homeric poems; in the new world of the polis the increasing institutionalization of the position of these aristocrats meant that as magistrates they could speak for their respective communities, and so involve them in international political relations for the first time. The transition from aristocratic household to city-state had been made in the field of international relations, though vestiges of an older style of diplomacy always remained. In classical Greece a state would appoint as its representative abroad a native of the foreign state, who would belong to a prominent family in his city, as hereditary proxenos or guest-friend: the old concept of aristocratic guest-friendship lies behind this system.