The epoch after the decline of the Mycenaean Greeks known as the Greek Dark Age gave way to renewed prosperity and flourishing of Greek culture. Part of that social awakening involved the first Olympic Games, which were held in 776 BC. Also in the 8th century BC the Greeks did something that would have a more profound effect on world history when they adopted the Phoenician alphabet, replacing their own Linear B script.
Two of the more popular symbols of the end of the Greek Dark Age are the epic poems the Iliad and Odyssey attributed to the father of Greek literature, Homer. Those great literary works were reported to be based in part on actual events, but whether they were is a matter of debate. Debate notwithstanding however, as stories believed to represent an era of virtue, personal devotion and triumph, they served to inspire and somewhat model future generations of Greeks.
As the earliest surviving Greek literature, little is known about the origins of both poems, and it’s been speculated that they were oral traditions that had been passed down through generations before ever being written down, and some have also suggested that numerous authors contributed to the work. While there’s no compelling evidence to lead to such conclusions, there is reason to note widespread social interaction and cultural diffusion, as Odyssey bears a number of parallels to the Mesopotamian adventures of Gilgamesh who also visited the land of the dead on his journey to the end of the Earth.
As it was for almost all ancient peoples, life was often a violent struggle for the Greeks. Sometime around 740 BC the Greek city-state of Sparta invaded Messeni, taking control of the land and forcing the locals to work the land as serfs, allowed to keep only a portion of their harvest. Land was becoming increasingly more valuable on the small Greek peninsula due to overcrowding of a growing population. Accordingly, many Greeks began to move to trading posts and colonies, much as the Phoenicians had done before them.
As a consequence, Greek expansion resulted in the founding of many new cities around the Mediterranean. Some notable Greek settlements include Byzantium at the mouth of the Black Sea, Syracuse on the island of Sicily, Naples in Italy, Marseilles in France, and other cities in locations including modern Spain and Africa. Founding of the Greek colony of Cumae in Italy may have pre-dated the founding of Rome. In later times central Italians referred to southern Italy as Magna Graecia, or Great Greece.
Trade wealth and slave labor helped allow for the employment of some Greeks in increasingly specialized vocations. Military service became the chosen vocation of war-obsessed Sparta. There, civilization revolved around military training, with boys leaving home to live in military schools at the age of seven and enrolling in the military at the age of twenty. Spartan men lived in military camps until the age of thirty when they were allowed to live in their own homes, though they continued to serve in the military until the age of 60. It seems a shameful waste of life to be engaged in military pursuits from the age of seven to 60, but that was the culture for people that lacked the good sense to live in peace.
Athens also became a powerful city, but it was much more involved in leisurely and scholarly pursuits. In its golden age, Athens came to be the world center of arts and science. Freedom of thought and expression fostered personal growth far beyond the usual mind-numbing supplication of gods and kings. Wisdom and enlightenment made modest gains as people moved away from blind obedience. Painting, sculpture, literature, and theater all flourished in Athens. So too did philosophy and science. It was in Greece that a distinction was made between philosophy and science, with science beginning to be bolstered by proof of theory through reproducible experiments. And it was probably in Greece where critical peer review became widespread through published findings and institutes of learning.
One of the more famous philosopher/scientists was Pythagoras who was born on the island of Samos in the 6th century BC and later moved to Croton in southern Italy. Though he did believe that the order and action of the universe was derived from mathematical truths, he may or may not have contributed to the invention of the Pythagorean Theorem, a mathematical formula for length relationships among sides of right triangles that was named in his honor. Knowledge of the three-four-five length ratio of right triangles was known to early Indian, Chinese, Mesopotamian and Egyptian mathematicians, in many instances well before Pythagoras’ time.
Pythagoras is an interesting historical figure because he represents some of the diverse character of the ancient world. His temperament was one of harmony. At his monastic style school he taught peace and respect for others. While philosophers were seeking the origin and meaning of life, the ways of the universe and man’s place in the world, Pythagoras also contemplated the cost of another life. And he realized the cost was everything to the dying. At the Pythagorean school all of the full-time students were vegetarian. Pythagoras also admitted females into his school and viewed men and women as equals. He wasn’t the first to be considerate and recognize the equality of life, but his views were definitely contrary to popular opinion in the chaotic world of violence where right was determined on the basis of fighting might.
Another important Greek is perhaps the most famous name in medicine, a very important figure in the development of early medicine, the venerable Hippocrates II of Kos (c.460 – 370 BC). He was in many ways a primitive physician, as he based much of his medicine on the false theory that health or sickness was determined by the balance of four fluids; yellow bile, black bile, blood and phlegm; within the body.
And though he didn’t have the anatomical and physiological knowledge of modern medicine, he did further the scientific study of medicine and was insightful and courageous enough to proclaim that illness and disease were not the punishment of gods, but rather the result of natural causes. Concerning the true cause of disease he wrote, “…Men regard its nature and cause as divine from ignorance and wonder...” Hippocrates helped direct effort to finding the true physical cause and effective treatment of disease and away from further investment in fantasy. To that end he set an example that’s still followed to this day. In everyday work he advanced professional standards of care and conduct, and even pioneered certain types of surgery. But perhaps his greatest professional contribution was a commitment of thorough monitoring and documentation in studying every case so that future patients would benefit from the experience and lessons learned.
Of course, 2,500 years ago the well-being of others wasn’t a high consideration for most people. But they did want better treatment for themselves. And in 509 BC the last of the Seven Kings of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, was overthrown, and Romans established a republican form of government. That almost coincides with the beginning of the period some call Classical Greece, about 508 BC when the tyrant Hippias was expelled and a republican government was also formed in Athens. Shortly thereafter Athens was involved with the Ionian rebellion, in which Athens gave some assistance to Ionia against Persia in 499 BC. By 494 BC the Persians had suppressed the rebellion and brought Ionia back under Persian control.
Had Darius and the Persians stopped with suppressing the rebellion, history may have been very different. But, in 492 BC the Persians set off under General Mardonius to put the Greeks in their place. However, while the Persian army had some success in Thrace, the navy sustained heavy damage from a storm and the expedition turned back. Displeased with his son-in-law Mardonius over the setback, Darius had him replaced, and an amphibious assault was launched under the combined command of Datis and Artaphernes in 490 BC. Despite a long history of military success, favorable numbers, and a previous victory at the Greek city of Eritrea, the Persian expedition was defeated by the Greeks at Marathon, source of many inspirational stories, including the mythical run of Pheidippides.
Darius was disappointed, to say the least, that the mightiest empire the world had ever known was defeated by a few Greek cities. He prepared for a third expedition to settle the matter, but before that could be accomplished a revolt broke out in Egypt, and Darius died in 486 BC. The Persians were unsure what to do next. Many among them thought it wasn’t worth the risk to invade Greece again, and of course, there were others who thought that Greece should be eliminated as a threat to Persia’s western border, and there were also those who desired to conquer the territory of Greece as they had Thrace and Macedonia.
King Darius was succeeded by Xerxes, who, Greek historian Herodotus tells, was convinced by Mardonius to prepare a massive expeditionary force and move against Greece in 480 BC. At about the same time, the Greeks were busy fighting the Etruscans of Italy, who they defeated in a naval battle near Cumae. After losing control of Rome in 509 BC and then being defeated by the Greeks in 480 BC, the Etruscans continued to decline in influence. During the next hundred years however, Rome grew in power through battles with neighboring cities in Italy, until the Gauls moved down from northern Italy and sacked the city in 387 BC.
Back in Greece, the Persians were met in 480 BC at Thermopylae by a small Greek force led by king Leonidas: portrayed in the movie 300. The Greeks made an inspiring stand at the pass of Thermopylae where the flanks of their tiny force were protected from the overwhelming odds of the Persian force. Site selection was the first Greek advantage, superior weaponry was the second. Heavily armed hoplites were the core of the Greek infantry. The hoplites joined in tightly packed formations called phalanxes with their bronze shields overlapping and long spears projecting forward.
Success of the phalanx formation and of battles in general depended on the third Greek advantage at Thermopylae, discipline. The outnumbered Greeks maintained their discipline and battled bravely at Thermopylae. The wicker shields of the Persians were no match for the heavy Greek weaponry, and wave after Persian wave fell at the blades of the Greeks. But at Thermopylae, the numbers were too unbalanced for the Greeks to hold out and those that didn’t retreat were cut down to the last man. However their bravery is credited with buying enough time for the Athenian navy to prepare for engagement. The Greeks were victorious at the naval battle of Salamis, but not before the Persians sacked Athens.
With his navy defeated Xerxes returned home with some of his army, leaving the rest to carry on in Greece without him. In hindsight, it appears to have been unwise to leave part of the army behind. The following year the Greeks; encouraged by Alexander of Macedon, who claimed Greek heritage; gathered their forces and killed Mardonius, defeating his forces at Plataea. And after the Greeks defeated the Persian navy at Mycale they went on the offensive, aided by Alexander’s Macedonian forces, through Thrace, the Hellespont, Asia Minor and even into Egypt. But old rivals Sparta and Athens couldn’t get past their animosity for each other. With Sparta’s Peloponnesian League and Athens’ Delian League fighting each other, Persia defeated Athens in Egypt resulting in the two antagonists signing a peace treaty.
Sparta and Athens, along with their respective allies, continued to war with each other off and on through the rest of the 5th century BC. By that time another lethal weapon may have been added to the Greek arsenal, the crossbow, or at least large variants of the crossbow. The Peloponnesian Wars finally ended with the defeat of Athens in 404 BC. It’s a pity to think what they may have achieved had they been able to live in peace. Would they have constructed more marvels like the Parthenon at the Acropolis, or produced more magnificent statues like the chariot team at Delphi commemorated for a victory in the Pythian Games? Or would they have made greater strides in the other arts and sciences?
Today, ancient Greek sporting competitions are remembered by the Olympic games. But the games at Olympia were only one of four ancient games, also held on a rotating basis at the cities of Nemea, Corinth and Delphi. The city of Olympia wasn’t to be confused with Mt. Olympus however, the home of gods like Zeus, Poseidon, Athena, Apollo and Aphrodite and other examples of the rich religious lore of the time. And like the democratic and republican governments at times implemented by the Greek city-states, Greek religion was inclusive, meant to be practiced by the masses, not just elite priests shrouded in mystery.
Still though, the gods couldn’t quell the differences between the city-states, or poleis, and while Sparta, Athens, Thebes and other poleis warred among themselves, Macedon, to the north, was beginning to come into its own. There was often bad blood between the Macedonians and Greeks, considering that some Greek poleis had previously imported a lot of slaves from Macedonia, and Macedonia had at times attacked Greek settlements and sided with the Persians in Greco-Persian wars. But, also in-fighting among the Greeks involved Macedonia in Greek affairs when Greek cities requested Macedonian assistance on numerous occasions.
Macedonia was largely populated by Dorians who were related to the Dorians that are believed to have moved south into Greece about the time of the decline of the Mycenaean period. The Macedonian leader Philip II came to power in 359 BC and extended the borders of Macedonia by defeating the neighboring Illyrians and Thracians. But he also spent three years as a prisoner in Thebes.
In 338 BC Philip gathered his army and marched south into Greece. Athens, Thebes and some smaller poleis confronted the advancing Macedonians at Chaeronea near Thebes, but Philip’s powerful, well-disciplined army overran the Greeks and laid waste to Thebes, perhaps as payback for his imprisonment. With his success, Philip then organized Macedonia and Greek poleis into the Corinthian League. The Greek poleis were allowed to remain self-governing, but Philip took charge of their foreign affairs. Having united Greece, Philip readied to invade Persia. But before he could set forth on his grand expedition, Philip was assassinated.
Philip’s son Alexander III was only twenty years old. But he had been well trained by his father, having already held administrative and military positions. Whatever his qualifications, certainly Alexander possessed an ambition for conquest equal to that of his father. In 334 BC he led approximately 37,000 men into the Persian territory of Asia Minor where the aggressive and disciplined Macedonian army defeated the Persians at the Granicus River. At that time Persia was ruled by Darius III who called up more troops and met the advancing Macedonians at Issus. But besides lacking state-of-the-art weaponry, the Persians were fielding a multicultural army manned by subjects from the breadth of the vast and diverse empire that may not have been possessed of an earnest desire to sacrifice life and limb to maintain the status quo. Whatever the reason, whether it be superior armament, strategy, or resolve, the Greeks again defeated the superior numbers of the Persian army at Issus.
Alexander then turned south and took control of the Mediterranean coast of Syria and Palestine to neutralize the Persian navy. By the time Alexander arrived in Egypt, the Egyptians weren’t resistant to the change of authority, and submitted to his forces without a fight. Meanwhile, reeling from successive defeats, Darius III sought peace by offering all Persian territory west of the Euphrates to Alexander. But Alexander wanted more. He wanted to rule the world, and that included all of Persia, so he continued his quest of world domination. In 331 BC the two armies met for a final decisive battle at Gaugamela. Again the Persian army was said to outnumber the Macedonians, and again the Persians were soundly defeated. And Darius, long willing to sacrifice thousands upon thousands of men for the sake of empire, fled the battlefield.
Alexander and his Macedonian army then marched on the major Persian cities of Babylon, Susa and Persepolis, laying claim to the spoils of war. But, out of animosity, or to set an example, or to eliminate a possible threat, Alexander continued to pursue Darius until Darius was killed by one of his own men and delivered to Alexander, who was then declared king of the largest empire on Earth. Still not content, Alexander kept pushing; pushing for more territory, more wealth, more fear, and more glory. By 327 BC he was waging war in India as commander of a weary army under difficult conditions. He pressed on past the Indus River, determined to conquer all, determined to be king of the world. But resolve enough to power an army he couldn’t muster when his men finally refused to carry on. The army of mighty Alexander that swept through Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and Iran had enough; calling it quits after seven long years of attrition.
Finding himself heading an army without fight, Alexander decided to return to Babylon. Like his father before him, before he could replenish his army for another conquest, he died, at the age of thirty-three in 323 BC. One wonders how satisfying a life centered around war can be. What’s gained by all the suffering and death, when even the victor dies not having experienced the beauty of peace and warmth of friendship, or even decadence of luxury? Right or wrong, Alexander was an able military leader. He led an army shaped by his father, and those who shaped his father, to conquer an enemy that the Greeks had previously defeated, assume the titles of his defeated enemy, and rule roughly the same territory as the Persian Empire he succeeded. For that, Alexander is considered one of the greatest leaders of all time. Alexander’s true legacy, however, was the Hellenizing, or spreading of Greek culture, through the Near East. Though it may be disputed whether Greek culture was an improvement over Persian culture, the success of the Greek army shaped history by replacing Persian influence with that of Greece.
In the wake of Alexander’s army, cities were established for the administration of empire. Greeks migrated to cities all over the empire, especially near the Mediterranean, to manage important affairs of business and government. Those cities were cultural melting pots that welcomed diverse habits and opinions and built on the rich culture that flourished in Classical Greece. There were many cities, old and new that brought great minds and traditions together, where good ideas and advancement of the arts and sciences could flourish.
Men that contributed significantly to arts and science hailed from Greece and all around the Mediterranean. Aristarchus of Samos (310 – 230 BC) placed the planets in order orbiting the central sun and calculated the ratio of Earth’s circumference and the distance to the moon, almost two thousand years before the rest of the world would share his opinion. Archimedes of Syracuse (287 – 212 BC), killed by a Roman soldier during the Siege of Syracuse on the island of Sicily, is famous for mechanical invention. He introduced numerous inventive designs, including the Archimedes screw, though similar screw-type pumps may have been used for irrigation in Babylonia a millennium before Archimedes' time. His greater contribution was probably in the field of mathematics where he defined many area and volumetric relationships between different shapes, introduced infinitesimal mathematics, and defined relationships in mechanics and hydrostatics.
The second century BC astronomer, geographer and mathematician, Hipparchus is believed to have been born in Asia Minor and later moved to the island of Rhodes, playing an important role in helping to preserve significant Babylonian contributions to astronomy and math, incorporating information from a long tradition of Babylonian celestial observation into his work, and introducing their custom of dividing circles into 360 parts called degrees. Among his accomplishments, Hipparchus made a celestial globe, discovered the precession of the equinoxes, developed models of the motion of the sun and moon, compiled a trigonometric table, and invented the very important astrolabe, used for predicting celestial positions, and determining such things as the observer’s location or time of day, which would be crucial to open ocean travel.
A man named Geminus was another clever inventor that inhabited Rhodes. In 1902 a historic scientific archeological discovery was made when the Antikythera Mechanism was found in the remains of a shipwreck near the island of Antikythera. It’s believed to have been a complex machine in which thirty or more gears drove the sun and moon and perhaps planets in differential motions relative to each other so that they created a predictive calendar showing celestial positions for past or future dates. It’s believed to have been made on the island of Rhodes, which was famous for mechanical engineering, in the first or second century BC. The complexity and precise interaction of small parts of the mechanism wouldn’t be equaled until the 18th century when European clockmakers began applying similar techniques. Geminus is thought by some to have created the masterpiece, but no evidence has thus far been found to determine the maker’s identity with any certainty.
As knowledge continued to grow, the new city of Alexandria in Egypt emerged as perhaps the most prolific and dynamic city of the Hellenized world, rivaling Athens as a center of learning and discovery. Medicine was but one of many fields of leading study pursued in Alexandria, where doctors would finally routinely dissect dead people to gain insight into human anatomy. Some even went so far as to cut open living prisoners to get a better understanding of organ function. Alexandria was also home to the world renowned Musaeum, or Temple of the Muses, which included the Library of Alexandria, that grew to be the largest of the ancient world, where scientists and thinkers were drawn from all over to learn and exchange ideas, while developing their own identities and theories. And other such temples of knowledge were erected throughout the Hellenized Mediterranean.
Hero, who lived from 10 to 70 CE, was just one of Alexandria’s famous inventors, and though he was an accomplished mechanical engineer, much of his practical work was for production of the theater. His works and designs included the first known wind powered device, a wind driven organ; and a crude early version of a vending machine that would dispense holy water when a coin was deposited. But his most famous invention also represented a lost opportunity. That invention was the steam engine. As designed by Hero it was merely a novelty invention. With more effort it could have ushered in the steam age a millennium and a half ahead of its time.
The 2nd librarian of Alexandria was Eratosthenes of Cyrene (276 – 194 BC), who calculated the circumference of the Earth using the angle of inclination of the sun at two points of approximate distance on the face of the planet. Measuring the difference in inclination of the sun as 1/50th of a circle, he was able to multiply the approximate distance between the Egyptian towns of Syene and Alexandria by fifty to approximate the polar circumference of Earth. He also measured the inclination of the ecliptic, that is the angular distance between the tilt of the planet and the plane of its orbit around the sun. The enterprising Eratosthenes also invented an armillary sphere that positioned the celestial bodies in a model of the sky around the Earth, and he’s credited with inventing an algorithm for the systematic identification of prime numbers, in addition to his work in cartography and other fields.
But even the insightful work of Eratosthenes didn’t influence the perceptions and work of future generations like that of the previous mainland Greek Aristotle (384 – 322 BC). Aristotle was the most famous student of Plato’s Academy in Athens. And Plato was the most famous student of Socrates. The three men may well be the most influential academics of western civilization, and the world. Aristotle’s most famous student was no academian however, that would have to be Alexander the Great, whom Aristotle tutored at the request of Alexander’s father Philip II. Some time after returning to Athens from Macedon, Aristotle established his own school, the Lyceum.
Aristotle’s encyclopedic collection of works is considered unsurpassed in depth and breadth of coverage. His works were so varied and his influence, and that of his school, was so great that his positions were accepted almost without question. Exposure to a broad range of studies, coupled with efforts to set all of that knowledge in his own words, earned his product a legacy of being “the” reference source for the next two thousand years. It didn’t matter that many of his ascertains were incorrect, Aristotle’s reputation overshadowed the shortcomings of his specific contributions. After all, truth doesn’t triumph of its own accord, it’s motive and circumstance that give cause to act; and a lot of people through the ages found knowledge affirming their existing notions in Aristotle's work.
Nonetheless, Aristotle provided new insight in some areas and showed people different ways of looking at things. He’s credited with describing a system of philosophy concerned with relationships of cause, act, and effect. But, he also contradicted many important discoveries and furthered some errors and superstitious methods. He denied the claim of Democritus that the visible Milky Way was comprised of stars, and denied that stars were similar to the sun. He held that the Earth was the center of the universe and that Earth, water, air, fire and aether comprised all the elements that constituted different forms of matter. Additionally, he asserted that reason and perception were products of the heart, not the brain.
But, perhaps worst of all, was his premise that everything happened for a reason, that every action was the result of a master plan, and that every being had a predetermined role and reason for being. In his hierarchical view of substance and species, slaves were meant to serve masters, that’s what they were born for. Though his discourse on the causes and results of action was an exercise in astute observations, Aristotle far surpassed observation and objective reason by interjecting fantasy into his teachings. Like his primitive ancestors that were questioning the cause of life and death, and fortune and tragedy, he was still seeing spirits in every object and as causing every action.
Others held alternate views, of course; standing out like beacons of re