Pottery of Neolithic settlements in Greece has been found
from
as early as the 7th millennium BC.
Gradually they went from herding
sheep and goats
to cattle and pigs and then to agriculture.
Cutting
tools made out of obsidian from the
island of Melos were traded
widely.
The first metals used were copper and silver.
In the early
third millennium BC tin or arsenic was added
to copper to make
bronze, which revolutionized farming
and fighting in Greece, the
Cycladic islands, and on Crete.
The civilization that developed and reached its climax about
1400 BC on the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea was named
Minoan
by Arthur Evans after their legendary god-king Minos.
The islands
of the Cyclades and the southern Greek mainland
were influenced
by this culture, but the largest cities were
Knossos, Phaistos,
Mallia, and Gournia on the central
and eastern portions of Crete.
Their graves were in caves, rock shelters, and large buildings.
Pottery was hand-made, and seals were used
from the middle of
the third millennium.
The fast potter's wheel quickly improved
that industry,
and vessels of gold and silver were used in their
palaces,
which were built from the beginning about 2000
BC.
The palaces indicate increased wealth and more
concentrated
political and religious authority.
Trade went on not only with
the mainland and the islands
but with Syria and Egypt
as well.
Letters found in Mari on the Euphrates refer to
the products
of Cretan metalworkers.
Inscriptions of Linear A have not yet
been deciphered,
but Linear B inscriptions dated after 1400 BC
may be
an early form of Greek also used on the mainland.
About 1700 BC the palaces at Knossos and Mallia were
damaged,
and the one at Phaistos was destroyed by fire.
This could have
been an invasion by Greeks
or earthquakes or local turmoil.
Evidence
from this time indicates that there was
at least one victim of
human sacrifice.
The rebuilding began the greatest period
of Minoan
architecture and art.
The tremendous explosion of the volcano
on the island
of Thera, once thought to have occurred around 1500
BC,
has recently been dated by tree rings as 1628 BC;
so much
ash fell from the sky that
the annual tree ring was marked.
Some
have speculated that this caused the downfall of the
Minoans and
that this explains the
legend of the destruction of Atlantis.
Yet according to Plato's story from the Egyptians,
that was 9,000
years before Solon, not 900,
and it was in the Atlantic Ocean
not in the Aegean.
However, it certainly must have reminded people
of the story of Atlantis, and psychics have indicated that
Egyptian
and Minoan cultures were
influenced by the legacies of Atlantis.
Minos was renowned for controlling the Aegean Sea
with his
navy, and he was credited with reducing piracy.
According to the
research of Herodotus the Carians served in
the navy of Minos
and invented crested helmets and shields
with devices and handles,
while Thucydides wrote that
Minos expelled the Carians from the
islands
when he was putting down piracy to secure revenues.
The
Minoans, whose palaces were not fortified, did not seem
to be
as violent as most cultures of the time, though they did
have
to defend themselves in this warlike age
to maintain their extensive
trade.
However, they were probably overcome
by the more aggressive
Myceneans about 1400 BC.
Based on their art and architecture the Minoans seemed to
love
nature, art, music, dancing, sports, and games.
One marble depicts
a musician sitting with a stringed instrument.
The women wore
flounce dresses, aprons,
and shoulder ribbons, but left the breasts
exposed.
Femininity was respected, and priestesses
may have been
quite powerful.
Household statuettes of snake goddesses
indicate a more feminine religion.
The bull was also a main feature of
their religion and culture,
as they played sports or did acrobatics
with bulls
as well as sacrificing them on altars.
Large central
courts must have been used for dancing,
and they played some kind
of a board game.
They wore their hair long, but the men usually
shaved.
The sea creatures on their pottery in the sixteenth century
may have been stimulated by the species washed ashore
with the
tidal waves from the Thera disaster.
The fresco paintings on the
walls of the palaces and homes
reveal a society that loved art.
Their jewelry was elegant, and women wore makeup.
Unfortunately without much writing, we know little of their
real history; but Greek myths indicate that Minos met with
the gods every ninth year, and his brother Rhadamanthus
was so famous
for justice that these two were considered
the main judges of
the dead in the next world.
The ninth year or 99-month cycle may
have been a ritual
way of renewing the kingship so that the old
king would
not have
to be replaced, as the Zeus they worshipped
died and was reborn.
The complex palace at Knossos was called
the labyrinth,
but the word originally meant "hall of the
double ax,"
a sacred object used in ritual sacrifices.
Like
Mohenjo-daro the palaces were equipped
with plumbing and closed
drain pipes.
The city of Gournia indicates that the
standard of
living had increased for many people.
Minoan civilization declined in the two or three
centuries after the destruction about 1400 BC.
Iron was manufactured in
Asia Minor.
New weapons and military gear found during
this period indicate increased militarization
probably under Mycenaean domination.
The story of Theseus volunteering to join the tribute paid
by
Athens every nine years and his slaying the Minotaur
with the
help of Ariadne, the daughter of Minos,
seems to be the Greek
version of this conflict.
According to Herodotus Minos was killed
in Sicily, where
he was trying to retrieve the legendary architect
Daedalus,
and the expedition to avenge his murder
was devastated
by a storm.
The main palace at Knossos seems to have been taken
over by the Mycenaeans, and it lasted about seventy years
longer than those at Phaistos, Mallia, and Zakro.
Settlements on Crete
moved more inland, as trade became
dangerous, and human figurines
during this period have their
hands up in a gesture of surrender
or prayer.
According to Homer, in the Trojan War Idomeneus led
the
Cretans from the island of ninety or a hundred cities.
Influenced
by the Minoan culture centered at Knossos,
the Mycenaeans built
similar palaces in southern Greece.
Numerous weapons and fortifications
indicate the warrior culture of the Mycenaeans.
According to Greek epics and legends, the wealthy city
Thebes was cursed and devastated by a struggle
for power between the
two sons of Oedipus.
Eteocles refused to share the throne; so
Polyneices with his
Theban emblem of a lion and Tydeus, whose
emblem of
Calydon was a boar, married the daughters of Adrastus,
king of Argos, and got his help for an attack on Thebes.
Amphiaraus,
who tried to talk them out of it,
was persuaded to go along when
his wife was bribed.
Polyneices and Tydeus asked the Mycenaeans
to join their
alliance, but divine warnings led the Mycenaeans
to refuse.
Seven Argive heroes led attacks on the seven gates
of Thebes,
and after a bloody battle the two brothers
fought a
single combat, but each killed the other.
About to be killed,
legend had Amphiaraus taken alive
into the underworld by Zeus
at a place
that became an oracle named after him.
After Menoeceus
sacrificed himself to the war god Aries,
the Argives were defeated,
and Adrastus retreated.
However, the next generation of Argives
came back with
the aid of Theseus and the Athenians to drive the
Thebans
out and destroy the city so thoroughly that Thebes did
not participate a generation later in the other famous war
of
this legendary age—the expedition against Troy.
Theseus, famous for liberating Athens from paying tribute
to
the Minoan empire, succeeded his father Aegeus
as king of Athens
and is credited by Thucydides with
uniting several self-governing
tribes of Attica into
one political unit in an early federalist
system.
Theseus was known for many legendary
exploits like those
of Heracles.
At age fifty he and his friend Pirithous carried
off the child
Helen, causing a Spartan alliance led by Castor
and Pollux
to attack Athens whose local leaders aroused by Menestheus
against Theseus told the Spartans where
they could find Helen
and then banished Theseus.
Since there was little copper and no tin in Greece, trade was
essential; Cypress was a main source of copper production.
Greek
swords were improved to cut as well as thrust;
spears and shields
were made smaller in the 13th century BC,
while the Hittite
and Egytpian empires
were contending
for power in Syria.
By the end of the century the mysterious "sea
peoples"
were devastating the Egyptian delta,
and the Hittite capital was destroyed too.
At this time Phrygians were gaining power around Troy,
and the
Mycenaean cities were preparing for sieges
by building connections
to water supplies.
This is also the estimated time of the Achaean
war with Troy,
which according to the ancient astronomer Eratosthenes
ended in 1183 BC, though many scholars date it a little earlier.
The abduction of the Spartan queen Helen
could have been a factor;
but more likely it was a raid for riches,
since Cyprus copper
may have been cut off.
Troy was devastated and never regained
the power it once had held.
The decline of Mycenaean power followed
soon after the fall
of Troy.
Thucydides explained that "the late return of the
Hellenes
from Ilium caused many revolutions,"
leading to
exiled citizens founding cities.
A defensive wall built across
the isthmus implies
they feared an attack from the north.
According
to tradition the Dorians, who came from the
northwest led by those
who claimed descent from Heracles,
returned a century after their
first attempt
by crossing the Gulf of Corinth.
Thucydides wrote
that the Dorians mastered the
Peloponnese eighty years after the
fall of Troy.
Athens and eastern Greece were not as affected by
the
Dorian invasions that destroyed the great Mycenaean
palaces in the 12th century, bringing on a dark iron age.
The wealth of
the Minoans and Mycenaeans
would not be matched again for half
a millennium.
Ionian refugees from the Dorian invaders fled to Attica,
to
islands, and to the west coast of Asia.
The Argolids were dominated
but gradually through
intermarriage with their conquerors became
citizens,
but the Laconian people were enslaved by Dorian masters.
Eventually trade and the use of an alphabetic language
was developed
by the Phoenicians.
Only in the eighth century BC did population
begin to
increase again with the development of better iron tools.
Kingship had declined and was replaced by
aristocratic nobles
and large assemblies in city states.
Stories, songs, and poems of the Bronze-age heroes and the
Trojan War must have been passed on orally, for the first and
greatest poet of ancient Greece, Homer, who probably lived
during
the 9th or 8th century BC in Ionian Asia Minor,
composed two epic
poems about Achilles during the
last year of the war in the Iliad
and the adventurous
homeward journey of Odysseus in the Odyssey.
Other poems were written about this great conflict;
but not being
as brilliant as the work of Homer,
most of them were lost.
The Iliad begins in the tenth year of the Achaeans'
attempt
to conquer Troy to get back Helen, the wife of King Menelaus
of Sparta, who had run off with Paris, a prince of Troy.
Captured
Trojan women had been given to the
Achaean leaders by their leader
Agamemnon.
The plot begins with the anger of the divine Apollo
when his Trojan priest Chryses had been dishonored,
because Agamemnon
had taken his daughter.
The priest asks that she be returned for
the ransom,
and the Achaeans shout their approval.
Agamemnon though
becomes angry
and refuses to give her back.
The old Chryses prays
to Apollo over and over
until the god brings a plague upon the
Achaeans.
At a council Achilles suggests that they return home,
since
Apollo is angry at them; but Calchas tells them that
Apollo is
angry, because Agamemnon is refusing
to give back the girl for
the ransom.
Agamemnon is willing to give her back if she can be
replaced.
Achilles calls their leader "greediest for gain
of all men,"1
indicating the likely motive for the war and
suggests he get a
future prize; but Agamemnon wants a new prize
right away
and threatens to take one from Achilles or Ajax or
Odysseus.
Achilles once again accuses Agamemnon of having a mind
forever on profit and declares that he personally has not
been offended by the Trojans and will therefore go home.
Yet to prove
that he is greater, Agamemnon announces his
intention to take
Briseis from Achilles, who is now angry
enough to draw his sword;
but Athena comes down to
transmute his anger from violence to
verbal abuse.
So Achilles withdraws from the war, hoping
that the Achaeans will lose without him.
Nestor tries to dissuade Agamemnon but
fails as the
powerful leader projects on Achilles the accusation
that he wishes to be above all others and lord it over all.
Achilles
gives up the girl assigned to him by Agamemnon
but refuses to
obey his orders and will give up nothing else.
Briseis is taken
to Agamemnon, and Achilles asks his
divine mother to intercede
with Zeus to help the Trojans
triumph during his absence from
the fighting.
Zeus sends an evil dream to Agamemnon, deceiving
him
into thinking they can now defeat the Trojans, because
Hera
has gotten Olympian support for their cause.
Agamemnon calls a council of the princes and
explains how Nestor
came to him in a dream.
The companies are aroused, and Zeus's
messenger
"Rumor walked blazingly among them."2
Then
Agamemnon speaks of the nine long years of war
that had accomplished
nothing even though they
outnumber the Trojans ten to one, and
he suggests
they run away with their ships.
But Hera speaks to
Athena and inspires Odysseus
to encourage the men to fight on
under one ruler.
Then the ugly Thersites scolds them for their
folly,
accusing Agamemnon of greed and of dishonoring Achilles;
they should go home.
Odysseus abusing the old man strikes him
on the back with a scepter.
Odysseus then reminds them of Calchas'
prophecy
that they would defeat Troy in the tenth year;
they should
stay until each man
has lain in bed with a Trojan wife.
Agamemnon
should order the men
by tribes to see which leaders are bad.
Then the Trojans attack the organized Achaeans,
and Paris challenges
the best of the Argives to
a single combat, which is accepted
by Menelaus.
So the men, whose conflict over Helen caused the
war,
fight to decide who should have Helen and her possessions.
After lambs are sacrificed between the armies,
Menelaus wounds
Paris and is dragging him away
when Aphrodite intervenes and spirits
him away
to the bedroom he shares with Helen.
With the disappearance
of Paris, Agamemnon declares
that Menelaus won, and Helen should
be given back.
Hera and Athena arrange it so that the Trojans
are the first offenders against the oaths,
as Pandarus treacherously
wounds Menelaus with an arrow.
The brutal fighting goes on with many deaths on both sides.
Aries goes down to stir the ranks of the Trojans
when they need
help;
but Hera sends Athena to help the Achaeans and
stop "the
murderous work of manslaughtering Aries."3
The paradox of
this heroic fighting is described by Homer
when Hector and Ajax
fight in heart-consuming hate
and then join in friendship before
parting.
In a Trojan assembly Antenor tries to persuade
his companions in arms to give back Helen and
her possessions, but Paris would
only agree
to give back her possessions, not the woman.
However,
on the other side Diomedes, the son
of Tydeus who fought at Thebes,
proudly suggests
they refuse to accept the possessions of Paris.
Then Zeus commands that the gods no longer
interfere with the
fighting, though Athena plans
to continue giving advice to the
Argives.
The earthly conflict is also mirrored in the Olympian
quarreling
between Zeus and his consort Hera, whom he calls shameless.
As the advancing Trojans camp by fires outside their city walls,
Agamemnon suggests to the Achaeans once again
that they take their
ships home;
but Diomedes declares that he will fight on
and is
acclaimed by shouts.
Agamemnon, now worried, offers to give Briseis
back to Achilles along with seven women from Lesbos.
The old tutor
of Achilles, Phoenix, is sent along with
Odysseus, Ajax, and others
to persuade Achilles to
rejoin the battle; but Achilles declares
that he will not
until Hector has fought his way to their ships.
At night Odysseus and Diomedes venture forth and capture
a
Trojan spy, whom they question before cutting off his head.
Then
they capture Thracian horses
as Diomedes kills twelve sleeping
Thracians.
As Dawn rose, "Zeus sent down in speed to the
fast ships
of the Achaeans the wearisome goddess of Hate."4
In the battle when Agamemnon overcomes the two sons
of Antimachus,
they plead to live and offer him wealth;
but the Achaean leader
hates their father, who took the
gold of Paris to oppose the return
of Helen and had
even suggested that Menelaus be murdered
when
he came as an envoy;
so Agamemnon slays the two sons.
With the
Trojans winning, the god Poseidon goes to
help the Achaeans until
his brother Zeus forbids him;
but Hera distracts her divine husband
Zeus with lovemaking
and sleep so that Poseidon can aid the Danaans.
Hector with his fighting skill has led the Trojans to the
Achaean ships, but then he is wounded
by Ajax with a boulder.
Yet the
divine Apollo revives him
and encourages him to return to battle.
Finally Patroclus comes to plead with Achilles,
who describes
his friend in an example
of Homer's fine metaphors:
Why then are you crying like some poor little girl,
Patroclus, who runs after her mother and begs
to be picked up and carried, and clings to her dress,
and holds her back when she tries to hurry,
and gazes tearfully into her face,
until she is picked up?5
Achilles offers his armor to Patroclus and urges him to lead
the Myrmidons and defend the ships from the Trojan attack.
Achilles'
prayer to Zeus, that this be successful and that
Patroclus may
return safely, results in the first being granted
and the second
denied, as Patroclus is killed by Hector.
Hector manages to strip
the armor from the body of Patroclus,
and then a long fight ensues
between
the Trojans and Achaeans over the corpse.
Finally the
two Ajaxes fight off Hector and Aeneas
as the Achaeans carry it
off.
In assembly Poulydamas argues that the Trojans should retreat
to fight from behind their walls, but the bolder advice of Hector
to maintain the offensive in spite of Achilles' return is followed.
Since Achilles gave his armor to Patroclus,
his mother Thetis goes to the gods and returns
with Olympian armor made by Hephaestus.
After a sacrifice and feast, at which Agamemnon gives
back Briseis
to Achilles along with other gifts, Achilles,
who fasts till sunset
in mourning for his friend, is ready to fight.
Zeus now allows the gods and goddesses
to go down and help
either side.
Aeneas fights Achilles but is rescued from death
by Poseidon.
Achilles drives so many Trojans into a river that
the
spirit of the river almost drowns Achilles in revenge;
but
Poseidon and Athena rescue him.
Hephaestus burns the corpses but
is restrained
from injuring the divine river by Hera.
Yet in Homer
even the gods are not exempt from the
violent fighting as Athena
hits Aries in the neck with
a stone and Aphrodite on her breasts
with her hand.
Finally Achilles confronts Hector and chases him
around the walls of Troy three times before the
Trojan hero stands
to fight and is killed by Achilles.
Removing his armor, Achilles
drags the
corpse from the back of his chariot.
A pause in the fighting is filled by the funeral ceremonies
for Patroclus and numerous competitions sponsored
by Achilles, who awards prizes to the winners.
The gods send Thetis to ask
her son to allow Priam to
ransom the body of his dead son, and
Achilles allows the
Trojan king to come to his tent and retrieve
the body
of Hector during the night, concluding the great war
epic
that became the most respected literary work
of this competitive
and violent culture.
The Odyssey begins nearly ten years after the defeat
of Troy at Ithaca, where Penelope, the wife of Odysseus,
is besieged by numerous suitors,
who are taking advantage of her hospitality.
Athena in disguise visits Penelope's son by Odysseus,
Telemachus,
whom she advises to visit Nestor and Menelaus
in search of news
about his father and suggests also,
"Consider in your heart
and in your mind how
you may slaughter the suitors in your halls,
either by cunning or openly."6
This violent ambition Homer
called
putting strength and courage in him.
So young Telemachus
calls an assembly of the Achaeans
to complain that the suitors
are assailing his mother
against her will; but Antinous replies
that Penelope
has been putting the suitors off for nearly four
years
until she finishes weaving a robe, because every
night she
unravels what she did that day.
Telemachus tells the suitors to
leave and
find their dinners in each others' homes.
Then he visits
Sparta and Pylos to learn about his father.
After visiting Nestor, Telemachus is welcomed by Menelaus,
who is living comfortably once again with his wife Helen.
Menelaus
recounts his own adventures returning from Troy
and tells of an
old man from the sea, who informed him that
Odysseus is stranded
on an island with the divine nymph
Calypso without a ship or any
other companion.
Meanwhile Antinous asks for a ship and twenty
men
to ambush Telemachus between Samos and Ithaca.
Odysseus is
crying for a way to get home, and Calypso
finally suggests that
he build a raft and gives him supplies.
Poseidon, the great antagonist
of Odysseus,
causes a storm that destroys the raft.
Odysseus drifts
for three days until he is able
to swim into a friendly river
on an island.
The next day Odysseus meets the fair maiden Nausicaa
when she is doing her washing
and playing ball with her companions.
Naked and covering himself with a branch
he shyly speaks to her
from a distance.
She invites him to her father's home but recommends
that he pass him by and kneel at the knees of her
mother in his petition for help in getting home,
indicating the power of the
woman in this case.
Odysseus is welcomed into the great house of Alcinous
and Arete,
whom he tells how he spent seven years
on the island with Calypso,
because his ship
was crushed by a thunderbolt from Zeus.
As the
blind bard Demodocus recites stories of a quarrel
between Odysseus
and Achilles and the stratagem of the
wooden horse at Troy, Odysseus
tries to hide his tears.
They are also entertained by the story
of the love affair
between Aries and Aphrodite, the wife of Hephaestus.
Then after demonstrating his athletic prowess with the discus,
Odysseus tells them who he is and gives an account
of his adventures
since the Trojan War.
First he and his men sacked the city of
Ismaros,
killed its men, and took their wives and goods,
which
they divided equally.
The Cicones fought back and killed
six men
from each of his ships.
Then they visited the land of the lotus-eaters,
where his
men who ate the flowery food no longer wanted to leave.
On the island of the Cyclops, Odysseus and his men first
stole his lambs and cheese, but their leader wanted to go back
to meet
the one-eyed giant and receive the gifts of a guest.
However,
the Cyclops ate two of his men for each meal
after he had blocked
the door with a huge boulder until
Odysseus and four others made
a log into a pointed weapon
and put out the eye of the drunk Polyphemus.
When asked his name, Odysseus said that he is called
Nobody so
that when Polyphemus asked for help because
Nobody was murdering
him by craft, his friends ignored him.
Removing the boulder to
let out his lambs,
Odysseus and his men sneaked out tied
to the
fleeces of the furry creatures.
Odysseus proclaimed that the gods
had paid back
Polyphemus for eating his guests; but as they were
escaping,
the Cyclops prayed that his father Poseidon
would prevent
Odysseus from getting home.
After losing a wind that had been given him when his men
become
suspicious of their leader, only Odysseus and the
men on his ship
escaped from the Aeolian island.
Next half of the men were turned
into pigs
by the magic of Circe; but Hermes gave Odysseus another
drug which blocked her magic and told him to pull
his sword on
her and make her vow
not to injure them further before going to
bed with her;
Odysseus made sure that his men
had been transformed
back into humans.
Odysseus asked to go home; but the goddess told
him
that he would have to visit the soul of the prophet Teirisias
in the realm of the dead in the halls of Hades and Persephone.
As they were leaving, one of his men fell off a ladder
and broke
his neck; dying, his soul went down to Hades.
In the underworld of the afterlife Odysseus first met
the soul
of his companion, who had died in the fall.
Then he met his mother
and Teirisias, who warned him
to leave the sheep of the Sun unmolested.
Odysseus also saw many other souls
of the dead including the judge
Minos.
After returning, Odysseus was warned by Circe
how to meet
challenges he would face.
When passing the sirens he commanded
his men
to tie him to the mast of the ship and not release him
no matter how much he pleaded.
Then he put wax in their ears so
they would not
be influenced by the sounds of the sirens.
Carefully
he had to steer between Scylla and Charybdis.
However, Eurylochus
led the men to take sheep
from the Sun, and they were killed
when
Zeus threw a thunderbolt at their ship.
Only Odysseus survived,
and nine days later
he came upon the island of Calypso.
Having heard his story the Phaeacians generously
take Odysseus to Ithaca, and he finds his way
to the home of his old swineherd.
There Athena disguises him as an old man in rags.
The swineherd
Eumaeus is still loyal to Odysseus
but is skeptical of the old
man's story
that Odysseus is on his way home.
Next Telemachus
returns to Ithaca too by way of Pylos
and is guided to the swineherd's
dwelling.
The swineherd goes to tell Penelope to send the housekeeper.
Using a golden wand, Athena restores the youth of Odysseus,
and
he reveals himself to his son Telemachus.
They plot against the
suitors together, and he tells
Telemachus to put away the weapons
when he nods to him.
At the same time the suitors are considering
the
murder of Telemachus, but Anphinomus advises
them to consult
the gods first.
Penelope hears of the plot and tells the suitors
it is not holy to plot ills.
Once Odysseus had restrained them,
but she accuses them,
"Now you devour his home without payment
and woo his
wife and kill off his son, and you anger me very much."7
Before the swineherd returns, Athena uses the wand
again to turn
Odysseus back into the old man.
Odysseus enters the halls of his house as an old beggar.
Telemachus
and Eumaeus encourage him to beg for food,
because shame is not
good for a needy man.
Antinous refuses to share with the beggar
and after a quarrel hits him with a stool;
but he is reprimanded
by one of the other suitors.
Antinous, you did not do well to hit a hapless wanderer.
You are cursed, if perchance he is some heavenly god.
Yes, the gods in the semblance of alien strangers do
appear in all forms and go about among cities looking
upon the excess and the good order of men.8
Penelope tells Eumaeus she wants to ask the
beggar about news
of her husband Odysseus.
After dinner another beggar would not
allow the disguised
Odysseus to sit in the doorway, but he is
beaten by
Odysseus after the suitors encourage them to fight.
Penelope suggests to the suitors that she might
marry if she is
offered enough presents.
One of the maids, who has been sleeping
with the suitor Eurymachus, scolds Odysseus
after he tells the
maids to stay with Penelope;
Eurymachus throws a stool at Odysseus,
but he dodges it.
Odysseus tells Telemachus that they must put aside the
weapons
of war and beguile the suitors with deception,
and Telemachus
orders them put away.
Still in disguise Odysseus tells Penelope
a story
in which he claims he is a friend of Odysseus.
His nurse
Eurycleia, who is helping Odysseus to bathe,
notices a scar near
his knee and realizes
that he is Odysseus; but Athena distracts
Penelope,
and Odysseus keeps the nurse quiet.
She volunteers to
tell her master which serving women
have been faithful and which
have not;
but Odysseus declares that
he will be able to observe
them himself.
That night Odysseus plots in his heart
how to revenge
himself on the suitors.
The next day another suitor throws an ox's foot at the
begging Odysseus, but then Penelope inspired by Athena
promises marriage
to the one who can string the bow
of Odysseus and shoot an arrow
through twelve axes.
Odysseus asks his swineherd and oxherd who
they would fight, for if Odysseus returns,
and finding them loyal, he reveals himself to them.
After Telemachus and all the suitors
fail to string the bow,
Odysseus does so and shoots an arrow through
all the axes.
When there is no thought of slaughter in the heart
of
Antinous, Odysseus shoots an arrow through his neck.
Thinking
it was an accident, the other suitors say
he will not be allowed
to attend other contests
and that he will be destroyed for killing
the greatest young man in Ithaca.
Hearing that he is Odysseus returned, Eurymachus offers
to give him satisfaction in land and goods for all that the
suitors have taken, but Odysseus replies that no amount
of goods would
stop him from slaughtering them.
So Eurymachus attacks him with
a sword
and is killed by an arrow.
Telemachus goes to get weapons
for himself and the
two loyal servants while Odysseus slays more
suitors;
but the goatherd Melanthius gets some weapons for the
suitors.
The suitors continue to be slaughtered by Odysseus and
his son,
and only the singer Phemius and the herald Medon,
who
beg for mercy, are spared.
Then Odysseus asks his nurse Eurycleia
which of the
fifty maids dishonored him and which are innocent,
and she tells him that twelve were shameless.
After making these
women clear away the dead bodies
and clean up the mess,
Odysseus
hangs them in a painful death.
Admitting to Telemachus that they had killed the best youth
of Ithaca, Odysseus suggests they cover up the murders by
making
it seem like it was a wedding celebration.
Then he reveals himself
to Penelope and tells her his story.
Finally he goes to visit
his father Laertes; first he tests him,
but then he is recognized
by his father.
Odysseus is also reunited with his servant Dolius
and his family.
Meanwhile relatives of the dead suitors are plotting
revenge.
Zeus suggests that Odysseus be allowed to reign and that
oblivion for the murders occur so that they may
love one another
as before and live in wealth and peace.
But the families of Odysseus
and Dolius put on their
armor to fight the approaching adversaries.
Athena gives Laertes the strength to kill their leader Eupeithes.
Odysseus and Telemachus would have destroyed them all
according
to Homer had not Athena in the guise
of Mentor intervened and
called off the war
by getting both sides to take an oath.
This
abrupt ending by divine intervention of a situation
of dismal
human conflict will also be seen in Greek theater.
The Iliad and Odyssey by Homer are astonishing
works
of poetry and are not only the first great works of narrative
literature (with the exception of the Epic of Gilgamesh)
but are still among the greatest works ever written.
Yet the violence
of this early period and the glorification
of war and killing
leaves much to be desired ethically.
This primitive tendency to
make acts of killing other
human beings heroic and to build a
story with such killing
as the climax is still too present in
contemporary dramas.
The interaction between the gods and goddesses
and humans in Homer and the depiction of souls after death
both
indicate a spiritual awareness of souls,
but he also projected
human weaknesses on divine characters.
Unfortunately in Homer
the ethics of the gods and goddesses
is not much better than that
of the humans.
Not long after Homer in the 8th century BC
Hesiod lived as
a farmer; but inspired by the Muses
as he was tending sheep, he
became a poet
and won a tripod at funeral games in Euboea.
Legendary
accounts of his death tell how Delphi
warned him that death would
overtake him
in the fair grove of Nemean Zeus.
Hesiod avoided
Nemea near Corinth but retired in Locris,
which turns out to have
been sacred to Nemean Zeus.
There he was murdered by two men
who
accused him of seducing their sister.
His body was thrown into
the sea but was said
to have been returned to shore by dolphins.
In the Theogony Hesiod described
the birth of the gods
and goddesses.
Similar to cosmogonies of the near east and Egypt,
the universe was formed from Chaos as the foundation
of the Earth and the cosmic principle of Love (Eros).
From Night came the Ether
and Day, while the Earth
bore Heaven (Uranus) and from Heaven
the Ocean
and divine beings of assorted shapes and sizes,
some
of whom were hated and hidden by their father Heaven.
Not liking
this, Earth made a sickle that her son Cronos
used to cut off
the genitals of Uranus, which were thrown into
the sea and gave
birth to Aphrodite,
the goddess of sexual love.
She was accompanied
by Eros and desire.
From Night came doom, fate, and death,
from
whom came sleep and dreams.
Night also produced blame, woe, the
three destinies,
nemesis, deceit, friendship, age, and strife.
From strife came toil, forgetfulness, famine, sorrows,
fighting, battles, murders, manslaughters, quarrels,
lying, disputes, lawlessness
and ruin
(which are the same for Hesiod), and oath.
Having learned from Heaven and Earth that his son
would
overthrow
him, Cronos ate his children as they were born—
Hestia, Demeter,
Hera, Hades, and Poseidon;
but Zeus was saved by his mother Rhea
at Crete.
Given a stone in swaddling clothes, Cronos swallowed
it and then regurgitated all the others.
Zeus freed his bound
brothers and sisters, and these
Olympians then defeated the Titans
in a battle
of the gods that established Zeus as king.
These violent
stories seem to reflect more of a
projection of human conflict
than a
divine model for better human behavior.
In the Works and Days Hesiod criticized his brother
for taking more than his share of their inheritance and
exhorted him to a life of hard work, virtue, and justice.
Hesiod recognized
the will of Zeus as making some strong
and bringing the strong
low, humbling the proud,
raising the obscure, and straightening
the crooked.
He distinguished the beneficial striving of competition
from the violent strife of evil war and battle.
The former urges
people to work, plow, plant,
and put their houses in order to
obtain wealth.
Potters, craftsmen, minstrels,
and even beggars
compete with each other.
Thus he encouraged his brother Perses
to strive in this useful way.
Zeus hid fire from humans,
but Prometheus
stole it and gave it to them.
In revenge Zeus had Hephaestus fashion
a woman
endowed with everything (Pandora) and sent an urn
full
of plagues as a gift to Epimetheus, who thought
about things after they occurred in contrast
to his brother Prometheus, who thought
before.
Pandora opened the jar and out came
all the plagues and
finally hope.
These diseases demonstrate, according to Hesiod,
that there is no way to escape the will of Zeus.
Hesiod then told how humanity degenerated from a golden age,
when people lived on a fruitful earth under the rule of Cronos
to the silver age, when they began to accumulate wealth
and wrong
each other to the bronze age, when hard-hearted
men loved violence
and, using bronze implements
and weapons, destroyed each other.
Then Zeus created a fourth race of heroes and demi-gods,
and some
of them were destroyed
in the battles at Thebes and Troy.
Yet
others lived apart and flourished,
working the grain-giving earth.
The fifth generation is an age of iron when people never rest
from labor and sorrow by day and from perishing at night.
Hesiod
foresaw a dismal time when parents would not
agree with their
children, guests with their hosts
nor comrades with each other.
People will dishonor their parents and not repay them
for their
upbringing, for might shall be their right.
The honest, just and
good will not be favored,
but the evil-doers and violent will
be praised.
Strength will replace reverence,
and the wicked will
hurt and lie about the worthy.
Nevertheless Hesiod urged his brother not to foster violence
but rather justice, because justice defeats outrage
by the end
of the race.
The fool only learns this by suffering.
When people
give straight judgments to strangers,
their city flourishes, and
the people prosper, resulting in peace;
but those who practice
violence are punished by Zeus,
who sees and understands all.
Zeus
has ordained that fish and beasts and birds
devour one another,
not knowing right;
but humans are given right, which proves by
far the best.
Whoever knows right is given prosperity by Zeus;
but whoever deliberately lies
hurts justice and faces a dark future.
The road to vice is easy and shallow, but it takes hard work
to
climb the long and steep path to virtue,
which is rough at first;
but when one reaches the top, it becomes easy.
Wealth should not be seized by force nor stolen by deception;
for it will not last since the gods will bring that house down.
Similarly, wronging suppliants or guests, committing adultery,
offending fatherless children, abusing a father with harsh words
all make Zeus angry and will bring heavy requitals.
Hesiod suggested
calling one's friend to a feast
while leaving one's enemy alone,
giving to those who give but not to those who don't.
Giving is
good, but taking freezes the heart.
Add to what you have so that
you will always have enough,
but base gain is as bad as ruin.
He advised getting a witness to a wage agreement,
for trust and
mistrust can bring ruin.
Then Hesiod presented a long discourse
on the
best times of the year to do agricultural tasks.
Hesiod
also advised people to speak sparingly,
for people will speak
badly of those who speak evil.
Hesiod recommended integrity and
warned against
letting one's face put one's heart to shame.
He
concluded that happiness and fortune will come to
those who know
these things and do their work without
offending the immortal
gods by avoiding transgression.
The ethics of Hesiod is summarized
in a
saying of Rhadamanthus from his works,
"If one sows
evil, one will reap evil increase;
if they do to him as he has
done, it will be true justice."9
Hymns to Demeter, Apollo, Hermes,
Aphrodite, and other
gods and goddesses were called Homeric,
but
scholars believe they were written well after
the time of Homer
and Hesiod.
The hymn to Demeter gives the myth behind the mysteries
of Eleusis that were so important
in Greek religion.
When Persephone
is carried off into the underworld
by its god Hades, her mother Demeter
(which means "barley
mother") searches for her
while fasting, causing a famine
on the earth.
At Eleusis she takes
a job as a nurse to a child
she nearly makes immortal by putting
him
in the fire each night until his mother stops her.
Then the
Eleusinians build a temple to Demeter
and pray that she end the famine.
Finally Zeus sends for her,
and Demeter insists that her daughter
be released.
Persephone is filled
with joy; but before she leaves Hades,
she eats some pomegranate
seeds;
thus she has to return there a third part of every year
just as seeds are buried but return to life.
The land becomes
fertile and wealthy once more.
For centuries people came from
all over Greece to fast
and be initiated at Eleusis
into the mother-daughter
mysteries that explained to them the
secrets
of agriculture and spiritual rebirth.
Apollo is the son of Zeus by Leto,
and a temple is built for
the oracular god at Delos.
Resenting that Zeus gave birth to Athena
from his head,
his sister, and wife Hera leaves his bed for a year
and
gives birth to cruel Tryphaon to be a plague to humans.
However,
Apollo with his bow shoots and kills the snake-like
monster at
a place called Pythian, which became the famous
oracle used by
generations of Greeks to seek the divine will.
In the form of
a dolphin Apollo also guided
Cretans from Knossos to his temple,
where he urged them to follow justice in their hearts.
Hermes is born to Zeus by the reclusive Maia in a cave,
becomes
a thief by night, and plays the lyre in the day time;
for he made
a musical instrument out of a tortoise shell.
Hermes steals the
cattle of Apollo
and is scolded by his mother.
Apollo discovers
from an old man who witnessed
the theft that Hermes has taken
his cattle.
Hermes retreats into his cradle and responds
to Apollo's
accusations with crafty words.
Apollo carries Hermes off, and
they go to Mount Olympus,
where the gods are assembled.
Hermes
swears to their father that
he did not drive the cows to his house.
Zeus asks Hermes to lead them to the cattle, which he does.
Apollo
is about to bind up Hermes;
but the youngster begins to play the
lyre,
and Apollo is so enchanted that they become friends.
Hermes
gives him the lyre and offers to teach him music,
and in return
Apollo makes him keeper of the herd.
Hermes promises not to steal
from Apollo and is
commissioned by Zeus to establish barter among
people.
Only the goddesses Athena, Artemis, and Hestia
are not moved by the powers of Aphrodite.
Even Zeus is swayed by love and desire;
he causes Aphrodite to join in love
with the mortal man Anchises,
and she gives birth to the Trojan hero Aeneas.
The father Anchises
must never say that the boy's mother
is a goddess, or he will
be struck down by Zeus.
Formerly Aphrodite could mate the immortals
with mortal women; but now that she has conceived
a child with
a mortal man, she can no longer
have this power among the gods.
Phoenicians founded a colony at Carthage
in the late 9th century
BC, and the Greeks began colonizing
Italy and Sicily in the middle
of the eighth century.
Cumae was founded by its namesake Aeolians
and reconciled
pioneers from Chalcis and Eretria, who had fought
each other
with a convention that did not allow long-range weapons.
According to Livy, Eretrian colonization of the
island of Corfu
preceded movement to Cumae.
Named after bronze, Chalcis was active
in the metal trade
which stimulated these efforts.
With the increase
of wealth economic inequalities led many
land-hungry Greeks (now
first named that by the Latins)
to settle in the west.
According
to Thucydides,
Chalcidians led by Theocles founded Naxos.
The
next year Corinthians established Syracuse,
and five years after
that Theocles and the Chalcidians
drove out the Sicels by force
of arms
to found Leontini and later Catana.
When Corinthians drove
the Eretrians from Corfu,
they went back to Eretria but were not
allowed to land,
indicating the dire need for colonization.
For a long time after the Trojan War and the Dorian invasions
Thucydides heard of no wars except the usual border contests
between
rival neighbors until conflicts over colonization and
trade in
the late 8th century BC seem to have led to the
Lelantine war between Chalcis and Eretria in which
Chalcis was aided by Samos,
Thessaly, and Corinth,
while Eretria was helped by Miletus and
Megara.
The extensive use of cavalry and chariots by both sides
indicate
that this may have been the last of the aristocratic
wars,
for already the Chalcidians were probably using their bronze
technology for armor that was to revolutionize wars and society.
The first known use of the word tyrannis was applied
by the poet Archilochus to the Lydian king Gyges.
According to
Herodotus, Gyges was induced by
King Candaulesto see the queen
naked, who resenting it
made Gyges choose between death and regicide.
Another account has the Carian king Arselis killing
the Lydian king and taking home the spoils,
while his soldier Gyges seized
the throne.
Gyges became king of Lydia in 687 BC and ruled for
35 years,
contributing much treasure to the Delphic oracle for
confirming
his kingship, using the Greek alphabet, and attacking
Troy,
Smyrna, Colophon, Miletus and Magnesia.
When Cimmerians
from the north were invading,
Gyges got imperial assistance from
the Assyrians and
sent the captured Cimmerian chiefs to Nineveh.
Then Gyges revolted from Assyria by sending
Ionian and Carian mercenaries to help
liberate Egypt
from Assyrian domination.
But
the Cimmerians returned and without Assyrian
help,
Sardis was taken; Gyges was slain in battle,
Ashurbanipal
claiming it answered his prayer
he made
because Gyges had helped
his enemy Psamtik in Egypt.
The Cimmerians then attacked the Greek cities,
as the Ephesian
poet Callinus tried to inspire the citizens to fight.
The descendants
and successors of Gyges drove the
Cimmerians out of Anatolia by
the end of the 7th century
and expanded their sovereignty to the
Halys River.
Lydia as a center of commerce and wealth in the
middle of the seventh century BC
minted a mixture of gold and silver as the first coined money.
The practice soon spread to Miletus
and Samos
and then to Chalcis and Eretria.
Greek poetry became personal with Archilochus,
who faced discrimination
from aristocratic privilege
because his mother was a slave.
Most
of his poetry is lost,
but the fragments tell of his experiences.
He enjoyed drinking even while on watch aboard a ship.
He commemorated
a shipwreck in which one man
was saved by a dolphin, because he
previously
bought and released a dolphin caught by fishermen.
He went with his father to colonize Thasos
but found the
uncivilized country "like a donkey's back
crowned with wild woods."10
The land was not good, and he found nothing but trouble.
He fell
in love with Neoboule;
but when marriage was denied him, he broke
into obscenity,
said he knew how to repay wrongs with wrongs,
and abused them verbally so much that
she and her family reportedly
hanged themselves.
So Archilochus became a mercenary, like a Carian,
calling his spear his barley bread and wine;
he served Aries,
god of battles,
even though he knew well the lovely gift of the
Muses.
In fighting the Thracians,
he abandoned his shield to save
his life,
singing he could get another shield;
but this was so
much against the code of honor
that he was banned from Sparta.
His answer was:
That man, my friend, who cares what people say
Will not find many pleasures comes his way.11
Neither did Archilochus care for the gold of Gyges,
godlike
works, nor a great tyranny.
He wrote of the grim work of swords
and the spear-famed lords of Euboea.
He made fun of dandy soldiers
with their Asian horse-hair plumes.
He warned against rejoicing
or sorrowing too much and
sought to understand the tide that rules
human fortunes.
Finally he wrote of young men keeping their courage
and of victory being heaven's to give
before he was killed while
fighting.
Aristocratic Colophon had been the most powerful
Ionian city until Lydia's power increased.
Xenophanes later explained that
they learned luxuries
from Lydians while they were still free
of tyranny.
A thousand of them met dressed in purple
with perfumes
and proud hair.
Memnermus praised those who had driven
Lydian
horsemen from the plain of the Hermos.
He lamented the shortness
of youth and the
troubles and pain of age that make death a gain.
Memnermus wrote the first Greek love poetry,
asking what life
and joy could there be
without golden Aphrodite.
He wrote the
wonderful line I translate,
"Let truth be between you and
me;
of all things it is most just."
He encouraged you to
rejoice in your heart,
because pitiless citizens may speak better
or worse of you.
Thucydides explained that as Greek power grew,
revenues increased,
people sought to acquire more wealth,
and tyrannies replaced the
hereditary
monarchies and aristocratic prerogatives.
Pheidon of
Argos was described by Aristotl
as a king who ended up becoming
a tyrant.
Pheidon unified the Argolid area and defeated
the Spartans
at Hysiae in 669 BC.
The next year he took control of the games
at Olympia,
whose traditional founding date of 776 BC
is the main
reference point for Greek chronology.
Pheidon is also credited
with standardizing weights and
measures for the Peloponnesians,
indicating a significant
increase in the power of governmental
authority.
His military successes were likely the result of hoplite
or heavy infantry troops, who wore the new bronze
armor and carried
the Argive double-gripped shield.
Situated at the isthmus that connects the Peloponnesian
peninsula
to mainland Greece, Corinth became a
successful commercial center
in the 8th century BC,
and its pottery was traded widely.
Their
hereditary Dorian rulers called Bacchiadae were
so exclusive that
they only married within their clan.
A Bacchiad epic poet named
Eumelus wrote
an account of the kingship to justify their house.
Tolls at the isthmus amassed tremendous wealth,
and Corinthians
excelled in crafts.
Corinth was also famous for worshipping
Aphrodite
and enjoying sexual love.
Its colonies became so powerful that
the people of Corcyra
were able to defeat Corinth in what Thucydides
called the first Greek naval battle in about 664 BC.
Legend surrounds the birth and rise of Cypselus,
whose mother
as a lame Bacchiadae
was allowed to marry an outside aristocrat.
A few years after the humiliating battle with Corcyra,
Cypselus
overthrew and banished the Bacchiad clan
and took control of the
government by force as a tyrant.
His leadership was successful
enough that
it was said he needed no bodyguard.
Cypselus established
more colonies along the
northwest coast, and the Acarnanian peninsula
of Leucas was made an island separated by a canal.
Grateful for
the approval of the Delphic oracle,
Cypselus had a treasury built
there
that would soon hold Lydian gifts as well.
After ruling Corinth for about 30 years, Cypselus was
succeeded
by his son Periander, who ruled for more
than 40 years and had
stone pavement with grooves
built across the isthmus to improve
transport.
Periander's laws restricted the number of slaves, luxury,
sitting idly in the marketplace,
and living beyond one's means.
He was always devising work
for the citizens to keep them busy.
Periander is listed as one of the seven sages perhaps
because
his court supported the arts and poetry.
Yet he was also described
as a fighting man always involved
in war and building warships
that were active on both seas.
Although he said that good will
is a better bodyguard
than arms, his bodyguard had 300 men.
The
man who gave tyranny a bad name was even supposed
to have said
that popular rule is better than tyranny.
Yet his policy was to
punish not only those
who do wrong but those who are likely to.
Periander married the daughter of Procles,
the tyrant of Epidaurus,
but later put her to death
in a rage when she was slandered
by
some concubines, whom he then burned.
This alienated his most
intelligent son Lycophron to Corcyra,
where he (and possibly another
son) was killed by the citizens.
Periander reacted by killing
50 Corcyreans and
seizing 300 children to send to Lydia to be
eunuchs,
but at Samos people gave them sanctuary
in the temple
of Artemis and fed them.
After communicating with Thrasybulus,
the tyrant of Miletus,
with whom he made war on Sicyon,
Periander
killed and exiled outstanding citizens.
During his rule the Greek
colony of Naucratis was established
in Egypt,
and he named his son after the Egyptian Saite kings;
but Psammetichus
was killed about 581 BC
after ruling only three years.
An oligarchy
was set up and was to last for two centuries,
though some of the
colonies became independent.
Corinthians had improved naval ships
by adding
a second and then a third row of oars as a trireme.
After the tyranny ended,
Corinth elected a council from eight
tribes.
Tyranny in Sicyon began with Orthagoras, who rose up from
the
army in a war against Achaean Pellene and overthrew
a Dorian aristocracy
in the seventh century BC.
His descendant Cleisthenes became popular
in Sicyon
in the early sixth century BC by defending their independence
against attack from Miletus and Corinth;
he renamed his own tribe
"rulers of the people"
and the three Dorian tribes after
pigs, asses, and swine.
Cleisthenes supported the first Sacred
War that
ended the Cirrhan exploitation of pilgrims to Delphi
by destroying the city of Cirrha.
A league or Delphic Amphictiony
was
organized to protect the temple.
Gymnastics were added to
the musical and
athletic contests of the Pythian games.
Cleisthenes
won victories in chariot races there
and at Olympia and offered
his daughter
to the most outstanding suitor.
Tyranny in Sicyon
ended in 555 BC when Aeschines
was deposed by Spartan power, and
the Delphic oracle's
denunciation of tyranny was respected,
as
an oligarchy was established.
Megara, hemmed in between Corinth and Athens,
also sent out colonies and eventually was taken over in
the late 7th century
BC by the tyrant Theagenes, who got
the poor on his side by slaughtering
the cattle of the rich
and having a water-supply system built.
He was expelled by oligarchs of the woolen industry,
who in turn
were thrown out by the lower classes;
but their attempt to make
creditors give back their interest
to the debtors brought back
an oligarchy to power.
The poet Theognis regretted the loss of
nobility.
Theognis wrote poetry to his friend Cyrnus, warning
him
against anything dishonorable or unjust and advising him
to
consort only with the good; for the bad cannot save
one from trouble
and ruin nor do they share good things.
Those who do good to the
bad get little thanks.
Human action is usually vanity with results
often differing from the intention,
but the gods accomplish and
know everything.
It is better to have little wealth and be pious
than be rich with ill-gotten gain.
The following statement of Theognis
was inscribed on the temple at Delos:
"Most beautiful is the most just, and best is health,
but most pleasant is to get what one loves." (255-256)
Theognis
noted that many of the bad are rich
and many of the good poor,
but virtue endures more than possessions.
A good man has understanding
that remains;
but when God bestows wealth on the bad,
they are
unable to restrain their evil.
In poverty the baser kind and the
better
are shown for what they are.
He cautioned against being
too eager in any matter
lest one be drawn into something evil
that seems good.
Force no one by evil;
to the just nothing is
better than doing good.
Theognis asked that peace and wealth have
the city so that
he may celebrate with others; he did not love
evil war.
He warned against responding to the herald's cry,
because we may not be fighting for our own country;
he considered war
dishonorable.
Nothing is better than understanding,
and nothing
more bitter than lacking it.
Theognis expressed the pessimism of his time,
lamenting that
Hope was the only god left,
for honesty, temperance, and the graces
were gone
along with human trust and awe of the immortal gods.
The pious generation had passed;
laws were no longer recognized,
nor was there order (eunomia).
Theognis clung to friendship
especially
with boys and did not desire riches.
He told his friend
never to do or suffer anything
dishonorable and have the greatest
virtue.
Honor and fear the gods, for they give humans
the best
thing—understanding.
Theognis believed that there would be
no
punishment (nemesis) from the gods
for bringing down by
any means
a tyrant who oppressed the people.
The aristocrats' treatment of people became so bad that
at
Mytilene on Lesbos the Penthelids walked the streets
with clubs,
knocking down citizens they did not like,
causing Megacles and
later Smerdes to kill the Penthelids.
The tyrant Melanchrus arose
but was soon overthrown
and killed by nobles that included Pittacus
and the older brothers of the poet Alcaeus.
In fighting over the
control of the Hellespont,
Pittacus defeated the Olympic champion
and
Athenian general Phrynon in single combat
by concealing a
net in his shield to entangle him.
The people of Mytilene offered
Pittacus half the land
for which he had fought, but he declined
and
arranged for everyone to have an equal lot, saying,
"The
equal is greater than the greater," by which
he meant that the fairness of equality would lead
to renown and security, but
greed to disgrace and fear.
However, the Corinthian tyrant Periander
arbitrated the conflict in favor of Athens.
When the popular leader
Myrsilus arose in Mytilene,
Pittacus renounced the aristocratic
party of Alcaeus
and supported Myrsilus, whom the party of Alcaeus
plotted to murder; but being discovered they fled.
Myrsilus attacked
these exiles but was killed.
Nonetheless Pittacus was honored
and entrusted with
the government of Mytilene, ruled for ten years
with
moderation and restraint, and then retired,
refusing money
offered him by Croesus.
Considered one of the seven sages of this era,
Pittacus believed
that mercy is better than revenge
and was said to have pardoned
the murderer
of his son and to have released Alcaeus.
To discourage
drunkenness he doubled the penalty
for any offense committed while
intoxicated.
He said that it was hard to be good, and he noted
that even the gods don't fight against necessity
and that the
office can reveal the person.
He said the best thing is to do
well the work
in hand, and the best rule is by laws.
He urged
people to win victories without violence and said
that the prudent
provide against difficulties before they arise,
while the courageous
deal with them when they have arisen.
He advised against announcing
plans ahead
so that if they fail, one will not be laughed at.
He counseled against speaking ill of a friend or an enemy,
and
he exhorted people to practice piety, love moderation,
and cherish
truth, fidelity, skill, cleverness,
sociability, and carefulness.
In fighting for Mytilene over Sigeum the poet Alcaeus,
like
Archilochus, left his shield on the field.
Alcaeus criticized
Pittacus as low-born, vulgar, boastful,
arrogant, and envious
with many boorish qualities.
Exiled Alcaeus traveled to Egypt
and after many years
ended up in Lydia with his brother,
who had
been a mercenary for Babylon.
Their rebellion against Mytilene
was supported
by Croesus but failed, and this is when
Pittacus
may have pardoned Alcaeus.
The poetry of Alcaeus celebrated drinking.
He believed that money made the man,
that wealth is the best and
most desired of all the gods,
and that poverty was the worst evil.
A friend and contemporary of Alcaeus at Lesbos,
Sappho commented
that the exiles
found peace difficult to endure.
Sappho became
famous for her verses, devotion to Aphrodite,
and her love for
the women of her circle,
from which we get the modern meaning
of Lesbian.
Little is known of her life, but apparently Sappho
was
married and had a daughter more beautiful than her.
Women
came from other places
to celebrate and sing with her.
She wrote
that whoever is beautiful is seen,
but that whoever is good will
also be beautiful.
Different than Alcaeus, she found from experience
that neighbors find wealth without goodness harmful
but that both
together are the height of happiness.
Like the sages, she warned
against anger
and a babbling tongue.
Believing that love is more
powerful than armies,
she wrote to her friend Anactoria that she
moves her
more than the cavalry and armored soldiers of Lydia.
In Lydia King Alyattes ruled for more than half a century
and
was fooled into making an armistice with Miletus,
whose tyrant
Thrasybulus was advised by Delphi and
warned by Periander to pretend
they had ample food
after suffering the destruction of twelve
annual harvests,
though Alyattes did order a massacre at Colophon.
Lydia's kingdom came into conflict with the expanding
Assyrian empire but made peace with them
after an eclipse of the sun in
585 BC,
which was predicted by the Milesian philosopher Thales.
Alyattes also attacked and destroyed Magnesia and Smyrna,
as we
learn from the poet Theognis;
but the Lydian horses were defeated
by the men of Clazomenae using war-dogs.
Alyattes was succeeded by Croesus about 560 BC
with the help
of a loan from prosperous Ephesus;
but then Croesus laid siege
to Ephesus, and its young tyrant
Pindarus gave up his power so
that peace could be arranged.
Thus Croesus forced the Greek cities
in Asia to pay him tribute
and began to plan an attack on the
islands but was dissuaded
by Bias (some say Pittacus), who appeared
in Sardis saying
(falsely) that the islanders were preparing an
attack
against the Lydian capital of Sardis.
Bias explained to
Croesus that just as he might want to
defeat them on land, they
might want to defeat Lydian ships
at sea to revenge their brothers
on the mainland
who had been enslaved by Lydia.
So Croesus stopped
the ship-building
and made peace with the islands.
Encouraged
by a Delphic prophecy that
he would destroy a great empire,
Croesus
attacked the Persians about 544 BC,
but he was defeated and captured,
destroying his own empire.
Miletus retained some independence,
but after the fall of the
tyrants, a bitter conflict developed
between the wealthy and the
workers in which each side
murdered the children of their enemies.
Even the poets Phocylides and Demodicus exchanged
bitter words,
as the land was devastated.
Finally some Parians were delegated
to search throughout the
territory for lands not devastated and
summoned their owners
to an assembly, which led to peace and Miletus
becoming
the most prosperous Greek city in Asia.
Phocylides supported
this effort and encouraged people
to become wealthy by cultivating
their fields,
though he himself believed that moderation
and being
in the middle class was best.
He was among the first to make the
word for
excellence mean virtue when he wrote.
"In justice
all of virtue (areté) is summarized,"
though he recommended getting a living first
and then virtue after that.
On the Ionian island of Samos the
aristocratic landlords replaced
the king.
In the middle of the seventh century BC they got ships
from Corinth, traded with Sparta, and one of their
merchant ships went beyond the Mediterranean Sea
to the silver mines of Tartessus
in Iberia.
They sent the poet Semonides to found a colony
on the
island of Amorgas.
Semonides satirized women by comparing them
to various animals, the only positive one being the busy bee.
As with Hesiod's portrayal of Pandora bringing plagues
to humanity,
this reflects the patriarchy
and negative views of women in Greek
culture.
However, the Samian oligarchs were overthrown when
the generals they appointed returned with 600 captured
Megarians, whom they slyly unchained, armed with daggers,
and allowed to
murder the aristocratic council.
When Samos suffered under Persian
domination,
Polycrates rose to power as tyrant in 532 BC
with
the help of his two brothers;
but he soon killed one and exiled
the other (Syloson).
Polycrates borrowed mercenaries from Lygdamis
of Naxos,
recruited a thousand local archers, and mobilized a
fleet
to
engage in piracy and wars and to
trade with Egypt
at Naucratis.
However, Polycrates sent his oligarchic
political
rivals on forty ships to help the
Persian emperor Cambyses attack Egypt;
he was able to fight them off when they returned
even though they
got Sparta's help.
These Samian exiles then returned to piracy
and
settled in Cydonia on Crete until they were
attacked and defeated by an Aeginetan fleet in 519 BC.
Meanwhile Polycrates collected
the songs of Homer
and welcomed the erotic poets Ibycus and Anacreon,
though the philosopher Pythagoras left Samos for Italy.
However,
in 522 BC Oroites in Sardis offered him
half his treasure if Polycrates
would come to protect him
from Cambyses, whom he said wanted to
assassinate him.
When Polycrates went to Sardis, he was murdered
there;
the next year Darius, succeeding Cambyses,
had Oroites
executed by his own Persian guards.
Polycrates had appointed his ambassador Maeandrius
to succeed
him; Maeandrius resigned his power and
declared isonomia
or equal rights but started having
the aristocrats murdered secretly
one by one
before he was driven out by Syloson, the brother
of
Polycrates who was supported by the Persians.
Maeandrius left
his brother to attack the Persian noblemen
and fled to Cleomenes
of Sparta, who refused to help him.
In revenge the Persians were
said to have
massacred all the males on Samos.
Anacreon was from Ionian Teos;
but he left there about 540
BC after Sardis was taken
by the Persians, and his home was threatened.
The Teans sailed to Abdera in Thrace and
took over the colony
from the Clazomenians.
There he wrote an epitaph for a warrior
who
died fighting for Abdera;
for those who wished to fight he
said let them fight.
Most of his poetry, however,
was about love
and drinking.
He fell in love with a Thracian girl
and wanted
to ride her like a horse.
He was invited to Samos by Polycrates
to instruct his son in music and poetry.
He wrote of the political
party called
the "Mutterers" who held sway.
Anacreon
sang of the love for boys to make Polycrates
more gentle to the
Samians, according to Maximus of Tyre.
Anacreon was made welcome
in Athens by
Hipparchus and spent many years there.
His poetry
was so popular
that it was widely imitated for three centuries.
The southern part of the Peloponnesian peninsula was called
Laconia, and its capital city was the legendary Sparta
of Menelaus;
the area Sparta ruled was called Lacedaemon.
After the fall of
the Mycenaeans, the Dorians took over
this area of rare iron mines
and
established in Sparta a dual kingship,
commanding the army
and making war as they chose.
The laws of Sparta were said to
have been given by
the legendary Lycurgus shortly after the time
of Homer.
The two kings were joined by 28 men over the age of
60
elected for life by the assembly to the council of elders,
which was the supreme court for criminal cases.
Five ephors elected
annually by the assembly
administered and judged civil cases.
The assembly consisted of 9,000 men over the age of 30;
they were
treated all alike and each had his own
allotment of land, though Aristotle noted that
the number
of citizens dropped to 1,000.
The farm work was done by the Helots,
serfs
attached to the land who could not be freed nor sold.
Eventually
a secret police was instituted
to counter the threat of a Helot
revolution.
Every year the ephors declared war on the Helots
so
that young citizens could slay any Helot
without fear of being
tried for murder.
Those who lived in surrounding areas involved
in industry,
commerce, and navigation were not considered free
either.
The citizens lived their entire lives under strict discipline.
Weak and deformed infants were exposed or thrown off a cliff.
At the age of seven they joined a "herd" under the direction
of an older officer, and from 13 to 20 their class went
through a sequence of harsh discipline and training
while not even knowing
their own homes and relatives.
Their twenties were devoted to
military service,
and they did not become full citizens until
they were 30.
They continued to fight as reserves in war until
they were 60,
after which they only had to defend the homeland.
Plutarch in his Life of Lycurgus credited the lawgiver
with redistribution of the land into equal lots;
but Aristotle,
citing the poet Tyrtaeus, explained that
citizens ruined by the Messenian War
wanted the land redistributed.
Other reforms Plutarch
attributed to Lycurgus were
the calling in of all gold and silver
so that iron could be used as money,
outlawing superfluous arts,
and instituting common meals.
For Lycurgus children were not the
property
of their parents but of the whole community.
Plutarch
described the strict Spartan discipline
designed to perfect the
ready exercise of obedience.
Youngsters were not given enough
food
so that
they would learn how to steal; if they were caught,
they were whipped without mercy
for being incompetent.
They did sing but of virtue and discipline.
Terpander sang
that in them spear and song met,
and justice walked with them.
The lyric poet Alcman sang that he knew all the songs
of the birds
and that experiment is the beginning of learning.
Lycurgus was
said to have proved that education was more
important than heredity
by training one dog from a litter
to hunt while feeding another;
then tossing out food and
bones and releasing a hare;
one dog
chased the hare while the other ate the food.
Others say that
he trained a puppy from a hunting breed
to be lazy and an inferior
puppy to hunt,
concluding that
we must train ourselves and learn
what is good throughout our lives.
Their regular training and
exercise were
so strict that war seemed like a vacation.
To see
them marching to flutes in strict discipline
to the fatal fight
was described as a
magnificent and terrible sight.
Those who resisted
them they cut to pieces;
but those who fled and surrendered
they
treated magnanimously
so that others would do the same.
The entire city was like a camp with the men living in barracks.
Even on his wedding night, a Spartan visited his wife
only briefly
to perform his conjugal duty
before returning to the barracks
to sleep.
Women were made to exercise so that they would bear
healthier children; but according to Aristotle Lacedaemonian
women were lawless, and even Lycurgus
could not bring them under his
laws.
With equal poverty and little talk, lawsuits were rare.
Everyone was trained to support the public good
and to act with
public spirit.
Persians asking Spartan ambassadors if they came
in a public or private capacity were told by Polycratidas
that
if they succeeded, public; but if they failed, private.
However,
foreign travel was discouraged
to prevent corruption by other
customs,
and few foreigners were allowed to stay in Sparta.
Plutarch
believed that the customs established by Lycurgus
became more
cruel after the Helots had revolted
with the Messenians and destroyed
the country.
According to the legend after giving them laws,
Lycurgus made
them agree to follow them until he came back.
Then he consulted
the Delphic oracle and,
having gained its approval, starved himself
to death.
The Cretans claimed that they burned his body
and scattered
his ashes so that the Spartans
could never claim his body was
returned.
Spartan laws may have been brought
by the poet Thaletas
to Gortyna in Crete.
Plutarch concluded that Lacedaemon in strictly
observing
the laws of Lycurgus was the chief city
of all Greece
for five hundred years.
The Spartan citizens were educated to think and discuss,
since
they did no work in agriculture or industry or commerce,
but only
fought wars and discussed political issues;
they nevertheless
were taught to speak succinctly.
Laconic sayings were short and
often as sharp as their swords.
Their way of opposing invasion
was by continuing poor
and not coveting more than others.
When
an Athenian accused them of having no learning,
a Spartan replied
they had learned none of their bad qualities.
Spartan women were
as patriotic as the men,
often slaying or disowning sons
who returned
from war as cowards.
One Spartan woman handing her son his shield
said laconically,
"With it or on it," meaning he had
better not
return alive without his shield.
Aristotle found that though
sale of land was forbidden,
gifts were allowed; therefore much
land was in few hands,
and women by inheritance and large dowries
held nearly two-fifths of it.
Yet Lycurgus was supposed to have
banned dowries
and use of make-up so that girls
would be chosen
for their good character.
Aristotle
criticized the Spartan constitution for having the
ephors elected
by the assembly, because they were likely
to elect the poor, who
are subject to bribery.
He also criticized the elders for taking
bribes and,
in serving for life, getting too old.
Aristotle found
the common meals faulty,
because they were not provided at public
expense;
but each person had to contribute,
causing the poor to
be excluded.
Plato found that
the maturity of the elders moderated
the pride of the kings, and
the election of the
ephors provided a democratic check;
he
noted that the Spartans were able
to excel in war but knew nothing
of the arts of peace.
In the late eighth century BC Spartans invaded Messenia
and
took half their territory, reducing the
Messenians to the condition
of Helots.
Tyrtaeus described the conquered as asses worn by
intolerable loads and compelled by the stress of cruel force.
Reforms were
brought about by the two kings
Polydorus and Theopompus,
who went
along with his radical colleague.
Polydorus was respected and
popular, because
he never offended with language or violence
and
was just and compassionate in his judgments.
The poet Terpander
praised Sparta
for doing justice in the open-air assembly.
Polydorus
led the Spartans at Hysiae about 669 BC,
when they were defeated
by Argives led by Pheidon.
Polydorus was assassinated by a
Laconian
aristocrat named Polemarchus.
A few years later an aristocratic
Messenian named
Aristomenes led a revolt, which was successful
for a while
until the songs of Tyrtaeus inspired the Spartans,
and after many years the retreating Messenians
were finally defeated.
Then Tyrtaeus wrote a poem on law called Eunomia,
as the
Messenian land was divided into equal portions
and distributed
to Spartans and their allies.
Eventually the iron discipline and the limited iron money system
reduced the quality of Spartan life.
Helots were offered their
freedom
by the state if they fought bravely.
Early in the sixth
century BC Spartans asked at Delphi
if they could take Arcadia;
but the oracle said the Arcadians
would not allow it, though Spartans
would dance with noisy feet at Tegea.
So the Lacedaemonians decided
to limit their ambitions
to Tegea and took with them fetters to
enslave the inhabitants;
but after they lost the battle,
fettered
Spartan feet fulfilled the prophecy.
Next the oracle told them
to get the bones of Orestes.
So the Spartans dug up the bones
of a large man
they claimed had been Orestes to gain anti-Dorian
support.
A new policy of liberating states from tyrants
was supported
by the Delphic oracle.
Chilon, who was elected ephor in the middle
of the 6th century
BC, was considered
one of the seven sages of this era.
When he
asked Aesop what Zeus was doing, the fable-maker
replied that
he is humbling the proud and exalting the humble.
Chilon believed
that education provided hope,
but that it is hard to keep a secret,
to employ leisure well,
and to be able to bear an injury.
He recommended
controlling one's tongue,
not abusing neighbors,
not using threats which he considered womanish,
visiting friends in adversity more
than in prosperity,
honoring old age, considering safety,
preferring
loss to dishonest gain,
not laughing at another's misfortune,
being merciful when strong, controlling anger,
not aiming at the
impossible,
obeying the laws, and being restful.
Shortly after
his son won the Olympic boxing championship,
he died from joy
and old age.
About 547 BC Sparta befriended Lydian king Croesus
and gained
many allies in order to invade the Argolid.
There 300 champions
from each side
killed each other at Thyrea,
except for two Argives
who went back to Argos
and one Spartan who stripped the dead and
claimed victory,
which after a quarrel and a battle was confirmed
by the Spartan hoplites' defeat of the Argive army.
Lacedaemon
was now the largest centrally governed
territory and population
in Greece, and their gymnastic
training and military discipline
were far more advanced
than the other Greek cities.
Sparta attacked
Samos about 525 BC.
Spartan king Cleomenes was praised for saying
do good to friends
and harm to enemies,
but the other king Ariston asked if it wouldn't
be better
to do good to friends and make enemies into friends.
Cleomenes said that Homer was the poet of the Spartans,
because
he encouraged men to make war,
and that Hesiod was the poet of
the Helots,
because he encouraged farming.
Cleomenes went beyond
the Peloponnese to expel the
Athenian tyrant Hippias in 510 BC.
Two years later Cleomenes intervened again in Athens
on behalf
of Isagoras to expel the
Alcmaeonids the Spartans hated;
he dissolved
the Athenian council of 500
and set up an oligarchy.
When the
Athenian council refused to dissolve itself
and besieged the Spartan
king in the Acropolis,
Cleomenes and Isagoras gave up and were
allowed
to return to Sparta; but the oligarchs
were imprisoned,
condemned, and executed.
Next Cleomenes tried to impose his own regime in Athens
with
the help of Boeotians and Chalcidians of Euboea,
but the Corinthian
allies refused to fight at Eleusis,
and the other Spartan king
Demaratus
and allies followed that example.
Having discovered
in the Acropolis Delphic prophecies
that showed Alcmaeonid scheming
against them
and the previous Athenian tyrants,
Cleomenes called
a conference of their allies in Sparta,
asking them to support
the return of Hippias to power in Athens.
However, Sosicles the
Corinthian told how Corinth
had suffered under tyrants, objected
to Sparta's attempt to
overthrow a free government in order to
install a tyrant,
and won over the other allies to this view.
When Maeandrius, the tyrant of Samos, fled from the
Persians to
Sparta and offered Cleomenes
gold and silver goblets, Cleomenes
not only refused these
and would not aid him, but he got the ephors
to banish Maeandrius so that he would not corrupt Spartans.
Athens, having been united by the legendary Theseus
before
the Trojan War, managed to fend off the Dorian invasions.
A military
chief was added to the kingship, and in the
eleventh century BC
Acastus of the aristocratic Medontids
allowed the first ruler
(archon) to be elected for life.
In the middle of the eighth
century BC this office
was reduced to ten years, and in 682 BC
to annual election.
Birth and wealth were the main considerations
for the election
of the king-archon, the first archon, and military
leader,
who were soon joined by six lawgivers to help judge cases.
These nine were advised by and, after their year in office,
joined
the council of nobles called the Areopagus
to serve for life,
protecting the laws
and inflicting punishments and fines.
The
assembly of citizens elected the nine archons.
Athens gained control
of all Attica
by taking over Eleusis about 675 BC.
The Olympic
victor Phrynon led an expedition
to the region of Troy to seize
the strategic town of Sigeum,
though they had to fight a prolonged
war with Mytilene,
whose ruler Pittacus killed Phrynon in a duel.
The conflict was settled by the tyrant
Periander of Corinth in
favor of Athens.
In 632 BC Cylon, who had previously won the Olympic games
and
had married the daughter of Megara's tyrant Theagenes,
used that
relationship and a Delphic pronouncement to seize
the Acropolis
of Athens during the grand festival of Zeus.
However, the Athenians
flocked around and laid siege
to the citadel until Cylon and his
brother escaped
and the rest surrendered from hunger; but Megacles
of the Alcmaeonid family, who was archon, went back
on his word and had them killed as they came out.
The Alcmaeonids were tried,
condemned to exile,
and their property was confiscated,
putting
the family under a curse or pollution.
Laws had been given by Zaleucus to the Lokroi in Italy,
by
Charondas to Catana in Sicily,
and by Androdamas of Rhegion.
So
Dracon was appointed in 621 BC to codify the laws
of Athens, and
he differentiated intentional murder from
unintentional killing,
which continued to be the law
even after Solon's reforms.
Dracon
instituted the jury (ephetai) of 51 nobles
and allowed the state to take over what
before had been settled by blood feuds.
However, Draconian laws were infamous for their severity
of using
capital punishment for even minor offenses
such as stealing a
cabbage or an apple.
Laws concerning debt were stringent and based
on
class since the poor debtor could become a slave,
though the
poor may have gained some protection
in having laws committed
to writing.
Small farmers were called "sixth-parters,"
probably because
they had to give that portion of their crop to
their landlords.
Aristotle noted that the harshest part of most
people's lives
was their subjection to the rich.
Since his father had ruined his estate by benefiting others,
Solon became a merchant and gained wealth,
though he said he would
not procure it by wrong,
because justice though slow is sure.
Tired of battling the Megarians over the island of Salamis,
the
Athenians made it a capital crime to suggest recovering it;
but
Solon was said to have feigned madness
while reciting his verses
on Salamis in the marketplace
until his kinsman Peisistratus led
the citizens
to repeal the law and retake Salamis.
Anacharsis
became Solon's friend and laughed at him
for believing that the
dishonest and covetous would be
restrained by written laws, which
are like spider webs
in that they would catch the poor
but be
easily broken by the rich and powerful.
Solon replied that he
would design his laws so that
it would be more beneficial to be
just than to break them.
Solon exhorted the rich not to be so
grasping,
warning them that they would not always have their way,
because they would not always be obeyed.
In Athens the disparity between the rich and poor
had become
very great, and most people had to pay one-sixth
of their crop
to the landlord or had fallen into slavery from debt.
Solon, who
had not joined the oppressive methods of the rich
but did not
suffer the needs of the poor,
was elected archon in 594 BC and
chosen to give laws,
the rich agreeing because he was wealthy,
the poor because he was honest.
When he said he would make things
even, the rich thought
he meant a fair proportion,
but others
that everyone would be equal.
Not submitting to the powerful nor
pleasing the others,
Solon refrained from the violence and usurpation
of a tyrant
to make new laws for Athens
that would combine force
and justice.
When asked if they were the best laws that could
be given,
he replied that they were the best the Athenians could
receive.
The archons or magistrates had to swear to observe the
laws
or dedicate a golden statue to the gods if they failed to
do so,
and the assembly of the citizens
could hear such cases
to check them.
First Solon canceled debts to relieve the poor
and did not
allow a person to be security for a debt.
The mortgage stones
that had been placed
on most people's land were removed, and slaves
were freed.
However, some of his friends, knowing he was going
to
cancel debts, borrowed money to buy land,
which brought suspicion
and enmity upon Solon,
but he at least released his debtors of
five talents.
The moderate Solon was criticized by the rich
for
their loss of money and by the poor because
he did not redistribute
the land, as Sparta had.
He repealed Dracon's laws for being too
severe
except for those on homicide.
He allowed the lowest class
of workers to come into the
assembly as jurors; farmers having
more than 200 measures
could serve in the new council;
the knights
having more than 300 and the fourth class
of rich with more than
500 measures
could be elected to high offices.
Birth was no longer
a prerequisite.
He allowed and encouraged any citizen to prosecute
a
wrong-doer, not just the victims, saying that the best city
is where those who are not injured
punish the unjust as much as
those who are.
He founded a council of 400 from the four tribes
to inspect matters before they went to the assembly.
Solon limited dowries to three suits of clothes and a few
household
items so that wives
would be selected for love and children.
Realizing
that Athenian agriculture was becoming inadequate
to their needs,
he encouraged trades
and ordered the Areopagus to punish the idle.
Food, except for olive oil, was not to be exported.
He banned
farming steep slopes to prevent soil erosion.
Any man who neglected
to provide for his parents
was disenfranchised unless he had not
been taught a trade.
He reduced the money paid to athletic champions
while
providing for the sons of those killed in battle.
His laws
protected boys from sexual assaults
and required every citizen
to teach his sons to read and write.
Having given them laws, Solon traveled
for ten years to let
them work.
Solon suggested learning something new every day.
He
learned of Atlantis from Egyptian priests and
declined to consider
the rich Lydian king Croesus happy,
because his life was not over
yet.
Aesop told Solon to make his conversations
with kings short
or seasonable,
to which Solon replied that short or reasonable
was better.
The moderate Solon is credited with the famous
Greek
motto of nothing excessive.
According to Aristotle there were
four years of peace
after Solon's departure, but then in two of
the next five years
the citizens were not able to elect an archon
because of dissension, resulting in anarchia.
Then an archon
named Damasias stayed in office
for 26 months until he was removed
by force.
Solon returned to Athens to find that Peisistratus had become
a popular leader, finding the poor gratifying
Peisistratus and
the rich afraid of him.
In 561 BC Peisistratus wounded himself
and his mules;
then he drove into the marketplace, saying that
he had just
escaped from his enemies that had attacked him on
the road.
Reminding them of his victory over the Megarians and
the
taking of Nisaea, he requested a bodyguard for protection;
the assembly voted him a guard of men carrying clubs.
Peisistratus
and his followers then seized
the Acropolis and began ruling Athens.
So Solon went to the marketplace and exhorted the Athenians
not
to lose their liberty, saying that although it was easier
to stop
tyranny before,
now it would be more glorious to destroy it.
Though
he failed, Solon considered himself wiser than those
who did not
see that Peisistratus wanted to be a tyrant
and braver than those
who saw it but kept silent.
He wrote in a poem that if they suffer,
they should not blame
higher powers which are good,
because it
was their fault
that they had put the strongholds into his hands.
However, Peisistratus remained his friend, honored him,
listened
to his advice, and retained most of his laws.
The other parties, the moderate shore party led by Megacles
and the oligarchic party of the plain led by Lycurgus,
united
and drove Peisistratus out of Athens;
but later Megacles offered
Peisistratus his daughter in marriage.
So Peisistratus used another
dramatic means
to establish himself as ruler in Athens.
This time
he clothed a tall and beautiful woman in armor,
put her on a chariot,
and drove her into the city
as though she were Athena herself
bringing back her favorite.
Peisistratus was also the one who
supported the first actor
Thespis and promoted the festival of
Dionysus
which developed tragedies and comedies;
but Solon commented
when Peisistratus took power that
this is what comes of having
tragedies performed.
Since Peisistratus was reluctant to have
children
by the daughter of Megacles
because of the curse on the
Alcmaeonids
Megacles turned against Peisistratus,
who once again
fled to Eretria and Mount Pangaeus,
which had rich mines where
he raised money and gained
allies including Thebans and the Naxian
Lygdamis.
In 546 BC Peisistratus, supported by the hill people,
landed at Marathon and defeated the Athenians
defending their
laws in the battle at Pallene.
Peisistratus managed to get at least one person from his family
elected into high office each year and controlled the government.
He kept a small standing army for protection and sent young
hostages
from opposing families to Lygdamis in Naxos.
Nevertheless many
of his policies were beneficial.
Peisistratus divided vacant land
into lots and gave them
and loans to the poor, who only had to
pay one-tenth
of their produce as tax; later this tax was cut
in half.
He instituted local judges, and he was known for
respecting the laws without giving himself privileges
and for being kind
to the people.
Industry and trade continued to improve,
and he
assured trade with the Black Sea area
by retaking Sigeum and sent
Miltiades, a political opponent,
to develop a colony in the Thracian
Chersonese.
When Peisistratus died in 527 BC, his sons
Hippias and Hipparchus
succeeded him in power.
The oldest, Hippias, controlled the government,
while Hipparchus promoted festivals and literature,
inviting Anacreon,
Simonides, and other poets to Athens.
In 519 BC Athens won a war
over Thebes to take Plataea.
However, the jealousy of another
son led two assassins
in 514 BC to kill Hipparchus, but Hippias
escaped.
One of the assassins was killed, and the other was tortured
and gave the names of many nobles.
After this incident the tyranny
became much harsher
as many people were executed or banished.
The exiles led by the Alcmaeonids rebuilt the Delphic temple
after
the fire, and resulting prophecies often encouraged the
Lacedaemonians
to free Athens, leading Spartan king
Cleomenes to expel Hippias
in 510 BC.
Two years later Isagoras, a partisan of the tyrants,
was elected archon, while the Alcmaeonid Cleisthenes
opposed them.
Aristotle described what happened next.
Cleisthenes, being beaten in the political clubs,
called in the people by giving
the franchise to the masses.
Thereupon Isagoras, finding himself left inferior
in power, invited Cleomenes, who was united to him
by ties of hospitality, to return to Athens,
and persuaded him to "drive out the pollution,"
a plea derived from the fact that the Alcmaeonids
were supposed to be under the curse of pollution.
On this Cleisthenes retired from the country,
and Cleomenes, entering Attica with a small force,
expelled, as polluted,
seven hundred Athenian families.
Having affected this, he next attempted
to dissolve the Council, and to set up
Isagoras and three hundred of his partisans
as the supreme power in the state.
The Council, however, resisted, the populace
flocked together, and Cleomenes and Isagoras,
with their adherents, took refuge in the Acropolis.
Here the people sat down and besieged them
for two days; and on the third they agreed to let
Cleomenes and all his followers depart,
while they summoned Cleisthenes
and the other exiles back to Athens.12
Cleisthenes then reorganized the entire population into
ten
tribes with thirty groups of demes, each tribe having
one
group in the city, the coast area, and the interior.
The council
was enlarged to 500
with fifty chosen by lot from each tribe.
In 501 BC they took their first oath
and ten generals were elected,
one from each tribe.
Citizens could only serve on the council
for a year
and after an interval only one more year,
but members
of the assembly could be re-elected.
The council was responsible
for placing business before
the assembly and essentially replaced
the aristocratic Areopagus council.
To prevent a tyrant from taking
over, a way of voting to
ostracize one man for ten years was designed,
but it was not used for twenty years.
Athens was strengthened
by greater participation
that now included foreigners and ex-slaves.
The Corinthians and Spartans changed their minds at Eleusis
about attacking Athens, and then the Athenians defeated the
Chalcidean
and Boeotian armies on the same day in 506 BC.
Herodotus described
how the Athenians ransomed the
captured Chalcidean aristocrats,
and he credited
their victory to their newly found freedom.
When
the Spartan league met, Sparta, Thebes, and Aegina
wanted to reinstate
Hippias in Athens;
but the Corinthians, who hated tyranny,
talked
them out of it.
The animal fables associated with the name Aesop are based
on folklore that is very ancient, going back to early Sumerian
stories, Old Babylonian tales written in Akkadian, followed by
texts in Assyrian and Aramaic, including the Book of Achiqar.
Some of them have been found on Egyptian papyri a
millennium before
Aesop, and many are similar to the animal
folktales later written
down in the Panchatantra
of India.
Aesop came from Thrace and was a slave of Iadmon
on
the island of Samos about 620 BC.
According to Herodotus Iadmon's
grandson turned him in
for the Delphian reward because he was
thought to have
embezzled money from Croesus
intended for the
Delphic temple,
though some scholars doubt these charges are true.
Some of Aesop's fables were taken
from the poetry of Archilochus.
Plato's Phaedo has Socrates
putting Aesop's fables
into verse during his last days in prison.
The fabulous stories of animals interacting like people
and yet
concerned with basic instincts like eating
and fear of being eaten
are each summed up by Aesop
with a concise moral point; these
became so proverbial
that many of them are still quite familiar
today.
The stories are delightful and enlightening
for adults as well
as children.
The short and simple tales make
complex moral points
quite clear.
Here are some of those moral conclusions:
Some begrudge
others what they cannot enjoy themselves.
Appearances often are
deceiving.
Honesty is the best policy.
Flatterers are not to be
trusted.
Don't bite the hand that feeds you.
Beware of promises
from the desperate.
Do not count your chickens before they hatch.
Prepare today for the needs of tomorrow.
Proposing is one thing;
implementation another,
which was learned by the council of mice
who wanted to put a bell on the cat.
Calling the grapes one cannot
reach sour
is despising what one cannot get.
Don't trust those
in difficulties.
An old trick may be played once too often.
The
smaller the mind the greater the conceit.
Having many friends
can mean having no friends.
Lean freedom is better than fat slavery.
The greedy who want more may lose all.
Revenge is not worth giving
up liberty.
United we stand; divided we fall.
By neglecting old
friends for new ones, one may lose both.
One good turn deserves
another.
Trouble may come from where it is least expected.
Those
discontented in one place are not likely
to find happiness in
another.
One person's meat may be another's poison.
Those who choose to be under a tyrant deserve what they get.
As in the body, so in the state,
each member must work for the
common good.
Let well enough alone (or if it isn't broken, don't
fix it).
Once deceived is twice as cautious.
Try to please all,
and you may end by pleasing none.
False confidence precedes misfortune.
Beware of an insincere friend.
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Necessity
is the mother of invention.
Whoever does something well does not
need to boast.
Whoever laughs last laughs best.
Being satisfied
with what one has is
better than desiring what one cannot have.
Praying against one's neighbor can bring a curse upon oneself.
People often mistake notoriety for fame.
There is always someone
worse off.
Do to others what you would have them do to you.
Liars
often get caught in their own lies.
A bad temper carries with
it its own punishment.
The ignorant despise what is precious
because
they cannot understand it.
Money is valuable not for its possession
but for its use.
It's safer to know your guest before offering
hospitality.
Do something good yourself before criticizing others.
Even the wildest can be tamed by love.
Misery loves company.
A change of scenery does not change one's character.
The gods
help those who help themselves.
If you want something done well,
do it yourself.
Half a loaf is better than none.
We learn by the
misfortunes of others.
Self-conceit leads to self-destruction.
One good plan that works is better than
a hundred doubtful ones.
Clothes may disguise a fool, but words will give one away.
Choose
allies for their power
as well as for their will to help you.
Hypocrisy cloaks villainy.
Quality is more important than quantity.
One seeking a compliment may discover the truth.
In union is strength.
Often what is most useful is despised.
Any excuse will serve a
tyrant.
Those who exploit their neighbors' difficulties
may live
to regret it.
Persuasion is better than force.
The shepherd boy
who cried "Wolf!" too often proved that
liars are not
believed even when they tell the truth.
Beware of a friend with
an ulterior motive.
No act of kindness is ever wasted.
Those who live on expectation
will be disappointed.
A crust eaten in peace is better than a
banquet in anxiety.
You are judged by the company you keep.
Don't
believe everything you hear.
Those who plot the destruction of
their neighbors
are often caught in their own snares.
It is better
to bend than to break.
Example is the best precept.
Too much cunning
overreaches.
Fools give their enemy the means of destroying them.
To the selfish all are selfish.
Pride goes before a fall.
A bribe
in hand betrays mischief at heart.
Whoever incites to strife is
worse
than those who take part in it.
The origin of western philosophy is often identified with the
first
natural philosophers of Ionia and in particular Thales of
Miletus.
Thales visited Egypt, but it was probably the Babylonian
astronomical records that enabled him to predict an
eclipse of
the sun for the year 585 BC.
As the most powerful Greek city in
Asia, he advised Miletus
not to form an alliance with Croesus
of Lydia,
though it was said that he enabled the Lydian army to
cross
the Halys River by diverting part of it into another channel.
According to Herodotus, after Croesus was defeated by the
Medes
and before the Persian empire took over Greek Ionia,
Thales suggested
that the Ionians establish a central
seat of government in Teos,
which would still allow the other cities to enjoy their own laws.
Aristotle reported that
to prove he could make his knowledge
practical, Thales used his
astrological wisdom to predict an
abundant olive crop and hired
all the oil presses in Miletus
and Chios when they were cheap
and then leased them later
at a great profit, showing that philosophers
could become rich;
but that is not what they pursue.
He learned
how to calculate the height
of something by measuring its shadow.
Thales speculated that everything was like water,
though he maintained
that all things are full of the
gods or soul and spirits and that
the intelligence of the universe is divine.
One account of how
there came to be seven recognized sages
in Greece has it that
some fishermen presented a tripod to
Delphi, and the oracle told
them to give it to the wisest.
So they gave it to Thales, who
passed it on to another,
who did the same until it came to Solon,
who declared
that God is the wisest and sent it to Delphi.
Thales said that most ancient is God, being uncreated;
most
beautiful: the universe, being God's craft;
the greatest: space,
which holds everything; the swiftest:
the mind which speeds everywhere;
the strongest:
necessity which masters all; and the wisest:
time,
which brings everything to light.
Probably believing in the immortality
of the soul,
Thales held that there is no difference between life
and death.
When someone asked then why he did not die, he replied,
"Because there is no difference."
When asked what is
difficult, he replied,
"To know yourself;" what is easy:
"To give advice to another;" what is most pleasant:
"Success;" what is divine:
"That which has neither
beginning nor end;"
and what is the strangest thing he ever
saw:
"An aged tyrant."13
When asked how to lead the
best and most just life, he said,
"By refraining from doing
what we blame in others."
When asked who is happy, he said,
"The one with a healthy body, a resourceful mind,
and a docile
nature."14
He advised people to remember their friends present
or absent,
to shun ill-gotten gains, not to pride themselves on
outward
appearance, but to study to be beautiful in character.
Thales was followed in Miletus by Anaximander,
who instead of speculating there is a single element
held that everything
is indefinite and infinite.
He wrote a book on physics, which
is the Greek word
for nature, and he astonished people by publishing
a geographical map of the known world.
In speculating on the laws
of the universe Anaximander
touched on ethics when he posited
the cosmic principle that
everyone pays a penalty of retribution
to others
for any injustice according to the assessment of Time.
In speculating about the infinite he conceived of innumerable
worlds being born, dissolved, and born again
according to the
age to which they can survive.
He thought motion was eternal and
wondered
if humans had been at some time like fish.
Anaximenes
in turn studied with Anaximander
and later Parmenides.
He speculated
that air or moisture is the infinite element,
though it can be
as hot and fine as fire or
condense into water, earth, and stone.
By the early 6th century BC the Greek colonies in Italy had
become large and prosperous;
Sybaris with about 100,000 people
was perhaps
the largest Greek city state then.
Often in conflict
with Crotona, the two cities together
destroyed the town of Siris
about 530 BC.
The philosopher Pythagoras left Samos shortly after
Polycrates
became tyrant there and came to Crotona about 531 BC
when he was about forty years old.
His father Mnesarchus may have
been a Phoenician
or at least went to Tyre to trade, although
later Pythagoreans
believed that their teacher was the
son of
the god Apollo and Pythais.
Pythagoras traveled much and was initiated
in various
mysteries, perhaps studying with Egyptian priests
for
as long as twenty years.
Iamblichus in his Life of Pythagoras
wrote that he studied
with the Syrian Pherecydes as well as Anaximander
and Thales.
Later he attended Pherecydes when he was dying.
At Crotona in Italy Pythagoras found people
most receptive
to his mystical teachings.
There he founded a school and religious
community,
which shared all things in common;
many others came
to listen to him but lived independently.
When someone left the
community after having given them
their worldly goods, twice as
much was returned.
Managers took care of the material things.
Though he never wrote anything himself and many of his
teachings
were secret, they were passed on
by his disciples for generations.
Based on these accounts, later biographers wrote that
he could
remember his past lives
and even proved that he had fought in
the Trojan War.
Xenophanes told how Pythagoras stopped the whipping
of a puppy, because he recognized the soul of a friend.
He taught
the immortality of the soul, which goes through
many lives by
reincarnating (metempsychosis).
Many miracles and clairvoyant
abilities were attributed to him,
including having been at two
distant places on the same day.
It was said he never over-indulged
his appetites nor did he punish anyone in anger.
Later accounts claimed that his teachings helped to liberate
many cities in southern Italy and Sicily.
He taught the young
to respect their elders
and the adults to honor the gods.
As he
encouraged the control of desires, his main method
was educational
in developing the mind through learning.
Instead of calling himself
wise, he pursued wisdom
through friendship and therefore called
himself a philosopher,
possibly the first to do so.
Philia
means friendship, and sophia means wisdom.
Life, he
said, is like the great games in which the best role
is spectator;
most people hunt for gain or fame,
but philosophers search for
the truth.
Pythagoras urged the Crotonians to build a temple to the Muses,
and he emphasized justice based on equality.
He married Theano,
and they both taught that intercourse
within marriage did not
make anyone impure so that
they could enter a temple even on the
same day.
He advised women to love their husbands as much as
they
wanted and asked them not to consider that they had
subjected
their husbands whenever
they yielded anything to them.
Pythagoras
especially urged the young to learn.
He had about three hundred
followers,
and more than that came to his lectures.
Music was
very important in his school and was used
for healing; the advanced
students also studied mathematics.
Diet was also important for
health, and those initiated
abstained from animal foods, alcohol,
and beans.
To be initiated, candidates had to be tested by the
master's assessment of their characters;
a long period of silence
was required.
Dressed in white for purity, each day they took
solitary walks
in the morning and in small groups in the afternoon.
Calmness and gentleness were encouraged.
They did not hunt nor
associate with hunters or butchers.
Pythagoras suggested reviewing
the previous day
upon awaking and before going to sleep at night.
Pythagoras taught that all life is akin, and so he believed
in universal friendship; he did not worship at altars
where animals
were sacrificed.
Pythagoreans became known for their
close friendships
and devotion to each other.
He often taught through symbolism
so that the
deeper teachings were not given to the profane;
scholars
are still often baffled by many of his sayings.
For example, "pass
not over a balance"
could mean not being avaricious or unfair.
"Poke not the fire with a sword" was a warning
not to
provoke someone full of anger with sharp language.
"Pluck
not a crown" meant do not take away the laws
of a city which
are its crown.
"Eat not the heart" warned against
afflicting
oneself with sorrows.
"Do not walk on the public road"
meant
to avoid the opinions of the crowd.
The meaning of "Do
not speak about Pythagorean
things without light" is clear
enough though.
Often someone might play the lyre while others sang,
and poetry
might be recited.
Pythagoras discovered the mathematical relationships of the
notes on the scale as well as the theorem for right triangles
named after him (although the Babylonians knew it long before).
Pythagoras taught harmony in all things which meant
concord in
friendship and justice in politics.
He and his disciples often
helped to settle disputes
by arbitration or mediation.
Pythagoras
did not believe in chance or luck
but that divine providence guided
all things.
Thus he warned against being attached to personal
wishes
but instead recommended asking for the will of the gods.
He taught the immortality of the soul and found nothing
strange
about one of his students having had a dream
in which he conversed
with his deceased father.
Pythagoras carried on the teachings
of the Orphic mysteries
as well as those of the Egyptian priests.
Yet more than anyone before him, Pythagoras combined the
spiritual
teachings with the pursuit of knowledge and science.
The soul is immortal, because its source is immortal.
He taught
that living creatures are reproduced from one
another by germination
and that there is no
spontaneous generation from earth.
Upon returning
home Pythagoras suggested asking,
"Where did I trespass?
What did I achieve?
And what duties did I leave unfulfilled?"15
He suggested behaving so as not to make friends
into enemies but
to turn enemies into friends.
Pythagoras may have been the first
to use the term cosmos
to imply that the entire universe
has order,
which he taught could be understood by mathematics.
Plato credited Pythagoras with
teaching a way of life,
and many of Plato's ideas can be traced
back to Pythagoras.
The analysis of the psyche by its three components
of the
appetites, emotions, and the mind whose respective
virtues
are temperance, courage, and wisdom as well as
the justice and
friendship that harmonize all of them
was probably first formally
taught by Pythagoras.
Crotona destroyed Sybaris in 510 BC after Telys took power
as king and got the Sybarites to confiscate the estates and
exile
five hundred of the wealthiest citizens,
who took refuge in Crotona.
Telys sent ambassadors demanding Crotona
give the exiles up or
face war.
According to Diodorus of Sicily, Pythagoras persuaded
the
Crotonians to grant safety to the suppliants,
and a war ensued
in which Crotona, with the help of the
greatest athlete in Greece
Milon and perhaps the
Spartan prince Dorieus, defeated the far
larger Sybarite forces,
killed many, and destroyed Sybaris
by
flooding it with the Krathis River.
Eventually the aristocratic and esoteric ways of the
Pythagoreans
aroused animosity.
According to Iamblichus, after Sybaris was
captured,
the multitudes grew resentful that
the land was not
divided by lot.
Ninon accused the Pythagoreans of opposing democracy
and led an attack against them, expelling them from Crotona.
Another
version is that a prominent Crotonian named Cylon
was refused
admission into the community,
because he was violent and tyrannical.
Frustrated Cylon and his followers set fire to their residence,
and many Pythagoreans may have died in the fire
or were killed
afterward.
According to Porphyry, Pythagoras escape
and fled
to Metapontum, where he starved himself to death.
Xenophanes was another philosopher who left Ionia
(Colophon)
and lived in the west.
His poetry criticized Homer and Hesiod
for attributing
to the gods shameful things like
stealing, adultery,
and deceiving each other.
He satirized humans for making gods
in their own images
with clothes, speech, and bodies like their
own.
He noted that the gods of the Ethiopians were snub-nosed
and black, while those of the Thracians
had blue eyes and red
hair.
He wrote that if cattle and horses could draw their gods,
they would have bodies like themselves too.
Xenophanes believed
there is one God,
who is in no way like mortals in body or thought.
This one being is always in one place and has no need
to move
or go anywhere, but can do all things
by the thought of its mind,
seeing, thinking, and hearing all.
Mortals are brought down from
their high expectations,
but this God uses no force nor toil;
everything is accomplished through thought
from its resting place.
Xenophanes was skeptical that humans could ever know
the truth
about the gods; even if one said it,
one would not know it for
sure,
although some beliefs do resemble the truth.
Even though
the gods have not revealed all from the
beginning, humans by seeking
can find out more in time.
Xenophanes' idea of one being was taken
up
by the Eleatic philosopher Parmenides.
Heraclitus lived in Ephesus and was said to have given up
the
kingship to his brother.
He found that learning many things
does
not necessarily teach intelligence.
He refused to make laws for
the Ephesians but chose instead
to play games with the children
at the temple of Artemis,
where it was said he deposited his book.
He believed that wisdom is to understand the thought
that guides
everything everywhere.
He called conceit the falling sickness.
He found that people had difficulty understanding his
meaning and believed that people were
as unaware awake as they were asleep.
Heraclitus also taught that all things are one.
Though humans
do not have true judgment, the divine does.
To God everything
is beautiful, good, and just;
but humans suppose that some things
are unjust.
He claimed that he searched out himself,
and he said
that reality tends to hide itself.
He saw war and strife and the
interplay
of opposites in all things.
He said everything flows
like a river, which is always
changing, though these continual
changes
escape our perception.
The wise is one thing having true
judgment of
how all things are steered through all.
Heraclitus
saw fire and heat as the essence of energy and life.
He said the
dry soul is wisest and best
and warned against the moisture caused
by drinking.
Insolence must be extinguished more than a conflagration.
He said it is hard to fight with anger, for it buys
what it wants at the price of the soul.
Yet the boundaries of the soul cannot
be found,
so deep is its measure.
Heraclitus believed that trying
to purify oneself through
bloody sacrifices is like trying to
wash in mud,
and praying to a statue is like conversing with a
house.
The character of a person is one's spirit.
Significantly
at the end of the 6th century BC
he believed that people must
fight for the law
as though for the city wall.
People must rely
on what is common to all,
as a city depends on its laws;
for all
human laws are nourished by the one divine law,
which always has
enough power.
1. Homer, The Iliad tr. Richmond Lattimore, 1:121.
2. Ibid., 2:93.
3. Ibid., 5:909.
4. Ibid., 11:2-4.
5. Ibid., 16:6-10.
6. Homer, The Odyssey tr. Albert Cook, 1:294-296.
7. Ibid., 16:431-432.
8. Ibid., 17:483-487.
9. Hesiod, The Great Works tr. Hugh G. Evelyn-White, 1.
10. Burn, Andrew Robert, The Lyric Age of Greece, p. 164.
11. Ibid., p. 166.
12. Aristotle, The Athenian Constitution tr. Frederic G.
Kenyon, 20.
13. Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers, tr.
R. D. Hicks, 1:36.
14. Ibid., 1:37.
15. Ibid., 8:22.
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