Great Colonization In Ancient Greece

Currently we are living in a time with fast connections, global exchange and the possibility of worldwide communication. We are able to ship products from one side of the world to the other, within an extremely short amount time. It almost seems unthinkable that these kinds of global trading connections existed before the first century, but nonetheless they were already present the ancient Greek civilization. When looking at how ancient Greece was influenced by the trade with other civilizations, it is shown that commercial trade had an immense effect on the social structure and the politics of the Greek society.

After the conclusion of the Persian Wars (492-479BC) with Athens being the true victor, and before the Peloponnesian War, a period of prosperity covered Athens, and they needed to devise new ways to protect themselves and expand their wealth, and how this would affect their relations with allies.

In ancient Greece there were two major polises which allowed the Greek culture to achieve greatness during the 400-500 B.C.E. era. These two polises were Athens and Sparta; both city states differed in many ways before the start of the Persian War. There were low rugged mountains that separated these two city states so communication and travel were difficult. The government of these two city states can be seen as a primary difference between the two. Draco, Solon, Pisistratus, and Cleithenes were four leaders that greatly influenced the political development of Athens. Athens and Sparta differed primarily in their political, social, and economical aspects. But there were other difference that Athens and Sparta share which I will examine in this essay.

• 2 preeminent Greek city-sates of late Archaic and Classical periods were Athens and Sparta.

Greece is one of the four multicultural empires that occurred around 600 BCE to 600 CE. Ancient Greece had so many different geographical features that helped brand the outcomes of the empire. One of the key features was Greece’s rugged mountains with deep valleys. With the mountains and valleys being rugged, it produced poor rocky soils (Acrobatiq, 2014). Also, there were narrow coastal areas as well. With this being a living environment for the Greeks, the production of food crops was unfortunate because of those factors. The Greeks had to find other ways to gather foods to their city-states because of the low production of food crops. With this being a bittersweet situation, Greeks recognized more about trades. They eventually became more knowledgeable and respectable at it. Greeks would find other places that would trade with them for food crops and other resources. Greeks built colonies that were decent areas for finding foods and resources. Through this time, Greeks expanded with trading and traveling to enhance their empire.

Many colonies were developed in the Greek and mediterranean area. Most of these colonies were started on the abundant islands that populated this area. This led to increased maritime travel, and new ways to spread ideas and items. The regional and interregional importance of Greek colonies can be analyzed from economical, cultural, and political data. The economics from this time period shows a lot about the early Greek colonies.

The distance between city-states, clothing, trade, and democracy were amongst some of the things that were influenced by the geography of Ancient Greece. A positive that came from the mountainous terrain is that it contributed to the preservation of the Greek culture. Because of the mountains, the people of ancient Greece were isolated to their area resulting to rare interactions with other cultures. Unfortunately, it also obstructed the development of a unified, centralized system of

Trade and contact with other Mediterranean people lead to an exchange of goods but also ideas and knowledge. Mountains divided the land into regions. This lead to the development of separate, independent city-states. As city-states became more powerful they gained colonies to grow products not grown in Greece such as grains. Athens developed a democracy of rich men but most other city-states were dictatorships such as Sparta.

"The rapid growth of cities had both political and eco-nomic causes. Greek rulers imported Greek officials and especially Greek soldiers to maintain their control over non-Greek populations, making many new Greek settlements necessary. Alexander himself had founded some 70 cities as outposts of imperial domination; in the next two centuries, his successors founded about 200 more." This conquest played a huge role in the downfall of the Greeks due to how swiftly they took over these populations. These populations had structures set up previously and had completely different beliefs and lifestyles than the Greeks.

At the end of the Persian wars, Athens materialized along with Sparta as the two leading powers in the Greek world. As Athens grew in confidence, their promotion of ‘Athenianism’, was a bid to place Athens as leader of its empire. This growing confidence is demonstrated in the building programme during the 440’s and 430’s B.C.E, such as the Parthenon. As Robson

?Corinth being at the center of all this trading activity, it is no surprise that the city was consistently a great commercial and cultural center.? A description of Corinth by the ancient author Strabo states, ?Corinth is called wealthy because of its commerce, since it is situated on the Isthmus and is master of two harbors, of which the one leads straight to Asia, and the other to Italy; and it makes it easy the exchange of merchandise from both countries that are so far distant from each other? (Strabo).? In his book Roman Corinth, Donald Engels describes Corinth in similar terms, ?From a small beginning, Corinth grew to become the largest city in Greece by the Second century A.D.? It was both an intellectual and cultural center, as well as a vital link in the commercial network of the eastern Mediterranean? (Engels 8).? It was the Vanity Fair of Greece, having objects of exoticism and luxury finding open markets which were visited by every nation in the civilized world;

The Archaic Age is one of the five periods that Greek history can be divided into the Dark Ages followed by the Classical period. In the Archaic Period, there were vast changes in the Greek language, society, art, architecture, and politics, which isolated farming communities were evolving into the polis “a small city-state” (Lloyd, 2012). At least two hundred poleis laid scattered over the Greek mainland and abroad bring diverse people together into real communities (Matthews et al., 2014). The Archaic period saw advancements in political theory, especially the beginnings of democracy, as well as in culture and art. Therefore, the knowledge and use of written language which was lost in the Dark Ages was re-established.

Shortly, economic, political, and social cooperation between the Greeks and those around them became compulsory and similar. As shown in the Greek Colonization Map (chapter3) the procedure of Greek settlement became stronger on the coasts of Anatolia lastingly changing the cultural geography of the Mediterranean world and the swap of cultures from the Greek to others and vice versa, as a fast result of trade. The western shores of Anatolia held the Greek culture strongly for the following thousands of years. A large amount of Greeks settled in southern parts of Italy which the Romans called Magna Graecia “Greater Greece.” The hunt for bazaars, possessions, and trade paths indorsed more understanding between cultures. Trade involving long distance was significant for a new arising economy but also the pipeline for concepts, and technical growth. Egyptians admired Greek’s pottery and wool while, the Greek’s revered the Egyptians Canaanite glass, and amulets. As seen in Egypt And Its Neighbors Map (Chapter 2) this led to a greater mutual

The last Olympic swimmer just touched the wall and the race has ended. Cameras are replaying every single movement from the race and a winner has been clearly decided. Just as these Olympic swimmers will gain a medal for placing, ancient Athens had numerous accomplishments of its own. Athens “prosperity … was due in large part to its stable and effective government” (SOURCE 1). When analyzing the history of ancient Athens, is easy to see how the accomplishments of a democracy, Greek philosophy, and Greek literature all shape Athens.

Very few civilizations have had as profound an influence on the world as those of ancient Greece. The Greeks laid the foundations for fields varying from philosophy to political theory to war tactics. However, this influence was not just due to their intelligence or success, but their widespread presence in the Mediterranean. Greek culture was spread throughout their known world in two distinct manners, the foundation of apoikia in the Archaic Age (8th century to 500 B.C. ) and imperialists by poleis, primarily Athens of the Classical Age (490 - 323 B.C ). Though the culture of a mother city (mētropolis) may have spread through two very different manners of “colonization.” The word is not used in the literal sense, but rather hereafter used to mean “spreading of culture”, as the former can hardly be described using the contemporary definition of colonization and the latter was through Athenian empire-building. These developments had a significant impact on ancient Greece and our modern perception thereof. Like most of the ancient world, we can best analyze these methods of colonialism through extant artifacts. I will analyze an inscription of the foundation oath of Cyrene, which recounts the decision and manner in which the island of Thera sent its citizens to the form a new polis, and the fragments of the Lapis Primus, a marble monolith that documented tributes to Athens when the city was at the peak of its imperial age, evidencing the magnitude of their power and influence in the Greek region.