The first Greek-speaking peoples are thought to have migrated into the Balkan peninsula shortly before 2200 BC, during the Aegean Bronze Age. Their arrival is attested by signs of violent destruction in the vicinity of Argos, most notably at Lerna. By 1500 their descendants in mainland Greece had established a civilization that reached as far as \TRhodes\t and was in contact with Near Eastern kingdoms. The Mycenaeans, as these people are known, were much influenced by the Minoan Cretans, whose importance was remembered in such myths as stories about King \TMinos\t and \TTheseus\t of Athens. By the middle of the 15th century, \TKnossos\t, Crete's greatest city, had fallen into Mycenaean hands, as is known from the discovery in the palace of Knossos of clay tablets inscribed in \TLinear B\t, an early Greek script. Knossos was destroyed about 1400; other Cretan cities had been destroyed about a century before. (See also \TAegean civilization\t.) MYCENAEAN CIVILIZATION Mycenaean civilization is best known from the remains of \TMycenae\t, although many other sites exist in the Peloponnesus as well as in south central Greece, on the islands of the Aegean, and on the coast of Anatolia. The graves at Mycenae have yielded many precious objects of great beauty. Golden crowns, diadems, and cups, some in raised relief, were found with vessels of silver and alabaster and numerous bronze weapons. Some tombs, called beehive tombs because of their shape, show developed architectural skill. The most monumental tomb is the so-called Treasury of Atreus. Like Mycenae's Lion Gate and the palace remains, this tomb reflects the Mycenaeans' ability to organize their resources on a large scale. The great palaces of the mainland were built in the 14th century. They were enclosed in fortified citadels defended by strong walls. Major palaces have been excavated at \TTiryns\t and \TPylos\t as well as at Mycenae. The Linear B tablets found at Knossos and Pylos attest the existence of an elaborate palace bureaucracy headed by a king. Matters of cult were overseen by a priest or priestess, and the work force was highly specialized and regimented. The workers lived beyond the walls of the palaces, the king and nobles within. Archaeological evidence indicates that the Mycenaeans enjoyed their greatest prosperity during the 14th and early 13th centuries BC. They pursued trade with east and west, establishing footholds in both areas of the Aegean. As their fortifications suggest, the Mycenaeans were a warlike people. Battle scenes are prominent in their art, and they took their weapons with them to their graves. \THomer\t made one of their military expeditions famous when he sang about the \TTrojan War\t. \TTroy\t, in northwest Anatolia, was in fact violently destroyed shortly after 1300, apparently after a siege, and there is no reason to doubt that this destruction was brought by the Mycenaeans. It is unknown, however, whether the town of Mycenae ever acquired the leadership of Greece, as Homer supposed, or whether each palace was autonomous. The homogeneity of the civilization is not conclusive evidence that there was a dominant imperial city. ARCHAIC PERIOD In the 13th century a dark age set in, although the precise cause of Mycenaean decline is unknown. There may have been some intercity warfare; wandering peoples certainly brought war by sea into both the Near East and Greece. The main Mycenaean cities were destroyed by the end of the century. The \TDorians\t, themselves a Greek people, took possession of much of the Peloponnesus, and though some Mycenaean sites lingered on for a considerable period, civilization was swept away and population decreased. The art of writing was lost, not to be regained until the Greeks adapted it from the Phoenician script about 400 years later. Many Mycenaeans fled from Greece to the coast of Anatolia, which came to be called \TIonia\t. Athens, which was immune from Dorian conquest, was the embarkation point. These refugees took with them a recollection of their traditions, which crystallized into the oral and epic poetry best known from Homer. A new aristocratic social structure, less rigid than the Mycenaean, began to take root--in Ionia, as well as in Greece itself. The Dorians--some of whom passed from the Peloponnesus to Crete, other islands in the Aegean, southwest Anatolia, and Rhodes--lived in tribal communities led by a hereditary king who commanded in war and served as chief priest. The king heeded the advice of a council of elders, and the warrior class ratified major decisions about war and peace. Hunting and war were the main business of life. The non-Dorian Greeks of \TBoeotia\t and elsewhere led a similar existence. Establishment of City-States In Ionia, where kingship was also the early rule, the refugees remained on the seacoast and quickly organized themselves into cities, probably in order to defend themselves better from the adjacent Near Eastern population, though there must have been considerable cultural interchange between the two peoples. The walled cities, which served as the focus of the surrounding population, began to evolve into the \Tcity-state\t (the polis). The defensible city, with its citadel, central shrine, hearth and sacred fire, and marketplace (agora), became the center of government for town and country. One's city, not one's village or race, determined one's political identity. A similar process occurred in Greece itself, though in some areas, such as Arcadia in the center of the Peloponnesus, village life continued; in other areas exceptional or fortunate cities assimilated a relatively large surrounding area. Thus \TAthens\t and \TSparta\t absorbed Attica and Laconia, respectively. The Greeks on both sides of the Aegean early frequented common shrines. \TApollo\t was worshipped at \TDelphi\t, \TZeus\t at \TOlympia\t, Apollo and \TArtemis\t at \TDelos\t. The Greeks celebrated festivals at these shrines with dance, song, and athletics. These meetings reinforced their common identity and prompted them to formulate some basic rules of interstate behavior concerning warfare, religious truces, and the sanctity of heralds or messengers. Delphi became the center of a league that initially comprised only the surrounding peoples but eventually came to include both Athens and Sparta. The oracle at Delphi was much consulted throughout ancient times. In the archaic period it was very influential, fixing the site of prospective colonies and helping to formulate major policies for cities as well as individuals. Colonization Increasing stability and prosperity caused a growth of population; a great wave of colonization ensued between 750 and 500 BC. Greek culture spread throughout the Mediterranean and even into the southern Ukraine. Markets were opened for Greek oil, wine, and other wares in return for precious metals, timber, grain, and other goods. One major center of colonization was Sicily and southern Italy. \TCorinth\t founded \TSyracuse\t, the greatest Greek city in the west; Chalcis (modern Khalkis), in \TEuboea\t, settled many other cities in the area. The region of the Black Sea was settled from Ionia, \TMiletus\t being the chief colonizer. The small island of \TThera\t founded the great kingdom of \TCyrene\t in northeast Libya. Further expansion in Africa was blocked by \TCarthage\t; \TPhoenicia\t proved impermeable; in Egypt the Greeks were able to establish a commercial emporium, Naucratis, on the Nile delta. Neither Sparta nor Athens were colonial powers. Aristocracy and Tyranny This was also a time of great social upheaval. The landholding aristocracy, which had already wrested power from the kings, found their own supremacy challenged by those beneath them. People of less-distinguished birth became increasingly dissatisfied with the prevailing aristocratic order and were acquiring power in their own right. The rise of literacy, the increased concentration of economic power in the hands of traders and artisans, and the introduction of the phalanx--a mass of men fighting in unison in heavy armor, which made discipline and manpower the key element of success in war--shifted the balance of power to the general citizenry. By the 7th century BC, ambitious or sympathetic individuals from the circle of the aristocracy were capitalizing on the general discontent, especially in prosperous cities, and establishing tyrannies. Cypselus (d. 625) seized control of Corinth and built a colonial empire, founding cities on the west coast of Greece and modern Albania. Tyrants also arose in Megara, \TEpidaurus\t, and \TSicyon\t, just northwest of Corinth. In the Aegean, Polycrates (d. c.522), tyrant of \TSamos\t, made his island a major naval power. Early Athenian and Spartan Development Athens's tyranny developed after a long series of troubles. Cylon's early attempt to establish a tyranny, probably in 632, ended in failure. The social discontent reflected in his attempt, and perhaps also the sacrilegious murder of his partisans, which brought a curse on the murders and led to a vendetta, apparently prompted \TDraco\t to draw up and publish a code of laws in 621. Even that proved ineffective, however; the oppression of the poor, some of whom suffered debt-slavery, the exclusion of the middle class from political office, and other factors combined to precipitate a crisis. In 594, \TSolon\t was given unique powers as diallaktes, or mediator; he cancelled debts, abolished debt-slavery, and made wealth the criterion of public office. But his reforms were only temporarily successful; civil strife soon broke out again. \TPeisistratus\t seized the tyranny in 561 by defeating his aristocratic rivals. Though exiled twice, he ended his days as tyrant of Athens in 527, after a continuous rule of 19 years. He was succeeded by his sons Hippias and Hipparchus; the assassination of the latter in 514 ended the benign character of the tyranny. In 510, Hippias was expelled from Athens with Spartan assistance. Three years later \TCleisthenes\t established the Athenian democracy, which in many respects fulfilled the tendencies begun by Solon and enforced by Peisistratus. Despite the modern connotation of the word, tyranny was generally a beneficial stage in the evolution of government. Though the tyrant seized power illegally and ruled extraconstitutionally, his power ultimately derived from popular support. The first tyrants centralized the city-state, repressed the aristocracy, fostered commerce and the arts, and brought civic pride to the citizenry. Their heirs, however, ruled despotically and brought about their own destruction. Most tyrants were removed from power by the end of the 6th century, except in Sicily and other areas on the periphery of Greece, where they became monarchs rather than true tyrants. Tyranny failed to develop at \TSparta\t in archaic times, undoubtedly because of that city's unique social order. Discontent seems to have arisen by the middle of the 7th century, when Sparta was engaged in the Second Messenian War. While suppressing this rebellion in \TMessenia\t, which Sparta had conquered c.735-15, the Spartans effected changes in their constitution. They abolished the right of the people to contradict their leaders, the two kings and the 28-member council of elders. At some point thereafter the power of the five \Tephors\t, overseers, was increased at the expense of the power of the kings. The Spartans also instituted a sweeping social reform, which they attributed to \TLycurgus\t, facilitating the virtually total subordination of the citizenry to the military demands of the state. HELOTS, or serfs, supplied the Spartans with their material needs, and the use of money was forbidden. By the middle of the 6th century, after taking the southeast portion of the Peloponnesus from Argos, Sparta began to form a series of alliances with other city-states and localities, which it turned into a league under its leadership. Sparta's policy from c.550 was to oppose and overthrow the tyrannies. This policy was generally successful. THE 5TH CENTURY Persian Wars A threat to Greek liberty arose in the last half of the 6th century when \TCyrus the Great\t, king of Persia, defeated \TCroesus\t in 546 and conquered his kingdom of \TLydia\t, in Anatolia. The subjugation of Ionia, already begun by Croesus, entered its final phase. The Ionians, who became tributary to Cyrus and his successors, \TCambyses II\t and \TDarius I\t, rebelled in 499. They were granted token aid, which was swiftly withdrawn, by Athens and Eretria, but nevertheless struggled for six years until the Persians sacked Miletus and gained command of the sea. Darius, alleging Athenian participation in the revolt, dispatched an army across the Aegean to conquer Athens. After Athens won a splendid victory in the Battle of \Tmarathon\t in 490, a new expedition, on a grander scale, was readied by Darius' son, \TXerxes I\t. It too was defeated, in the Great \TPersian War\t of 480-79. Though a small band of Spartans led by King \TLeonidas\t was destroyed at the narrow pass of \TThermopylae\t, a sea battle fought simultaneously off Artemesium, the northern tip of Euboea, resulted in the destruction of a considerable portion of Xerxes' fleet. The Greeks withdrew to the isthmus of Corinth while the Persians sacked Athens. Later in the same year, the Greeks annihilated Xerxes' fleet at \TSalamis\t; in 479, they destroyed his land army at \TPlataea\t in Boeotia. The battle of Mycale, on the southern coast of Anatolia, opened up Ionia to the Greeks. Athens continued the Ionian war, liberated the Greeks, and, in 478-77, organized the \TDelian League\t. The Greeks always remembered the defeat of Xerxes as their finest achievement. Athenian-Spartan Rivalry The 5th century also saw a great conflict between Athens and Sparta, the strongest powers in Greece and the proponents of two different systems of government and society--progressively radical democracy and oligarchy, respectively. By the middle of the century Athens had used its mighty naval force to transform the Delian League into an empire. Athens's new prosperity and pride in its achievements, particularly under the leadership of \TPericles\t, led to an outpouring of creativity, especially in drama, and allowed the city to adorn itself with public buildings of unsurpassable beauty such as the \TParthenon\t, begun in 447. In the 450s, while Athens was attempting to deprive Persia of Egypt, it entered into a sporadically fought and inconclusive war with the Peloponnesians for the possession of Megara and \TAegina\t. Sparta was largely inactive in this war, though it fought and defeated the Athenians in the Battle of Tanagra (c.457). Sparta was probably distracted (or left weakened) by the great helot revolt that had erupted in 464 and lasted for ten (or possibly only four) years. The war ended in the winter of 446-45 with the so-called Thirty Years' Peace. However, the peace was broken in 431, when the \TPeloponnesian War\t began; it was to last until 404. This destructive conflict, which is chronicled by \TThucydides\t, brought revolution to many cities and resulted in increasingly brutal acts perpetrated by both sides. After the Spartans invaded Attica and sought to incite Athens's subjects to rebellion, Athens retaliated by raiding the Peloponnesian coast. The Athenians sought to retain control of the sea and attacked Corinthian settlements in northwestern Greece. After Athens's disastrous defeat in Sicily in 413, Sparta itself became a naval power and gradually drove Athens from the sea. Under siege, Athens capitulated in 404. It consented to the destruction of its fortifications and gave up its navy and empire. Meanwhile, Persia had succeeded in reasserting its presence in Ionia by financing the Spartan fleet. THE 4TH CENTURY Spartan and Theban Ascendancy The Spartans, now leaders of the Greeks, soon aroused widespread enmity by their high-handed rule. In 395, Thebes and Corinth, which had been fierce enemies of Athens in the Peloponnesian War, formed a coalition with Argos to wage war against Sparta. To maintain its predominance, Sparta had to bargain with Persia. In 386 the Persians dictated the so-called King's Peace, which asserted Persia's ancestral claim to Ionia and acknowledged, in exchange, Spartan supremacy in Greece. Nevertheless, \TThebes\t defeated Sparta at Leuctra in 371. The Theban army under \TEpaminondas\t then drove into the Peloponnesus and liberated Messenia from Sparta in 369--a devastating blow to the Spartans. Meanwhile, the Athenians partially regained their naval leadership by forming the Second Athenian Confederacy in 377. The confederacy was too decentralized to permit Athens to regain its earlier dominance, however; within 20 years it virtually disintegrated. Rise of Macedonia A monarchy in the north soon arose to dictate the fortunes of the Greeks. The brilliant statesman and warrior \TPhilip II\t became regent of \TMacedonia\t in 359 and its king in 356. Under his leadership this newly centralized kingdom gradually overwhelmed the disunited land. By easy stages Philip advanced into central Greece, winning control of Delphi as a result of the Third Sacred War (355-47) against \TPhocis\t. In 338 he destroyed a Theban and Athenian army on the field of \TChaeronea\t. He imposed a short-lived federal union on the Greeks and made himself their commander in chief in anticipation of a war against Persia. He was assassinated in 336, however, before the war could be fought. The defeat of the Greek city-states at Chaeronea ended an era of Greek history. Neither Sparta, Athens, nor any other city-state had proved capable of uniting Greece under its leadership. Intense mutual jealousies, sharpened by the egoistic abuse each polis dealt the others whenever circumstances permitted, made unity a hopeless dream. HELLENISTIC AND ROMAN PERIODS \TAlexander the Great\t, Philip's son and successor, continued his father's plans. Aided by a battle-hardened Macedonian army that possessed the cavalry necessary for a campaign against the Persians, Alexander conquered the entire Persian Empire in ten years (334-25). He created an empire stretching from Macedonia to the Indus River, a magnificent achievement that had even more important, far-reaching effects. Alexander initiated the systematic Hellenization of the East. Greek and non-Greek culture fused together over the centuries, promoting new concepts of ethics and new religions, including Christianity. Hellenistic Kingdoms Alexander's huge empire broke apart at his death in 323 BC. His generals, known as the Diadochi (successors), claimed his legacy. By 275 three Macedonian dynasties had established themselves in the natural units of the empire. The successors of \TAntigonus I\t (the Antigonids) ruled Macedonia; those of \TSeleucus I\t (the Seleucids), the Asian provinces; and those of \TPtolemy I\t (the Ptolemies), Egypt. Meanwhile, in Greece itself, two leagues developed as important political entities. It is notable that neither was created by a former major city-state. The Achaean League comprised the cities of \TAchaea\t and most of the rest of the Peloponnesus except for Corinth, which remained a Macedonian possession, and Sparta, which remained independent. Founded in 280, the league was headed at first by two generals, later by one, who were elected annually. Voting was by cities, with representation proportionate to population. In \TAetolia\t, north of the Bay of Corinth, the cities had joined together in a federal state in the 4th century; in the 3d century they acquired control over Delphi. The structure of the Aetolian League was similar to that of the Achaean. Both leagues conferred equal citizenship upon members of participating cities. This experiment in federalism was new to the Greeks. In the struggles among the Hellenistic monarchs of Macedonia, Asia, and Egypt between 275 and 200, the Seleucids were the chief losers. In addition to an inconclusive contest waged with the Ptolemies for the possession of Syria, the Seleucids were beset by rebellions in the eastern provinces of Asia, leaving them with only southern Anatolia, northern Syria, and Mesopotamia. In western Anatolia the rival Attalid dynasty established the kingdom of \TPergamum\t. In Greece the Antigonids enjoyed greater success. The defeat of Sparta by \TAntigonus III\t at Sellasia in 222 not only overthrew \TCleomenes III\t but placed the Achaean League under Antigonus' control. Roman Intervention Rome became the decisive factor in Greek affairs after 200. It conquered \TPhilip V\t of Macedonia in 200-196, charging that Philip had supported Rome's Carthaginian enemy, Hannibal, and was mistreating Pergamum and \TRhodes\t, powers friendly with Rome. The liberty of the Greeks was proclaimed by the Roman general Titus Quinctius \TFlamininus\t at the Isthmian Games of 196, but it was not long before Rome intruded again in both Macedonia and Asia. Macedonia became a Roman province in 148, and the Achaean and Aetolian leagues were dissolved in 146. Meanwhile, the Seleucid ruler \TAntiochus III\t had been defeated by the Romans in 189, and the diminution of his authority led many of his subjects to rebel. By 100 BC, the Jews had established a state in Palestine and the Parthians had acquired Mesopotamia. Pergamum was bequeathed to the Romans by Attalus III in 133. By the end of the 1st century BC, \TPompey the Great\t, Julius \Tcaesar\t, and \TAugustus\t had settled the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire into their final form. The old Greek city-states, though subject to Rome, enjoyed local autonomy. The propertied classes controlled the local governments and Greek was retained as the official language. For a time there was much prosperity. Many cities were patronized by the Roman emperors, and Athens, especially, flourished as a university town. However, Greece suffered terribly when Rome entered its period of great crisis in the 3d century AD. Weakness on the frontiers allowed \TGoths\t to invade the Balkans in the middle of the century and pirates ravaged the Aegean. Simultaneously, the \TSassanians\t of Persia overran Syria, and their capture of the Roman emperor \TValerian\t in 259 opened Anatolia to Persian invasion. The Goths were defeated in 269, and the emperor \TDiocletian\t (r. 284-305) restored order in the Roman provinces. His administrative division of the empire into East and West was completed by \TConstantine I\t, who made \TByzantium\t (renamed Constantinople) his capital in 324. Even so, later in the 4th century, the Greeks were once more subjected to Gothic invasion. Afterward, the Greeks, increasingly divorced from the West, entered a new social order in which their attenuated prosperity depended on the strength or the weakness of the \TByzantine Empire\t. Charles W. Fornara Bibliography: Andrews, Anthony, Greek Society (1967); Baker, Ernest, Greek Political Theory, rev. ed. (1960); Bury, J. B., The History of Greece, ed. by Russell Meiggs, 4th ed. (1975); Ehrenberg, Victor, The Greek State (1961); Forrest, W. G., The Emergence of Greek Democracy, 800-400 B.C. (1967); Grant, Michael, The Rise of the Greeks (1988); Grote, George, The History of Greece, 12 vols., rev. ed. (1906-38); Hopper, R. J.,The Early Greeks (1976); Kitto, Humphrey D., The Greeks (1958); Leveque, Pierre, The Greek Adventure, trans. by Miriam Kochan (1968); Rostovtseff, M. I., History of the Ancient World, 2 vols., 2d ed. (1930-33; repr. 1971); Seeley, Raphael, A History of the Greek City States, 800-338 B.C. (1976); Tarn, William, and Griffith, Guy, Hellenistic Civilization, 3d ed. (1966). See also: \TPersia, ancient\t; \TRome, ancient\t.