A Society Forms

A Society Forms

*The mainland of Greece has never been a particularly good agricultural land. It has no navigable rivers, water is available primarily from springs and good crop land for grain is slim to none. There are mountains, stony ground, lots of rock and a rocky sea coast all the way around. The whole place is the opposite of the fertile Nile and Tigris and Euphrates river valleys where the weather is basically dependable and irrigation of crops is easy.

When the 100 years drought of 1200 BCE hits the eastern side of the mountains and the aggressive Dorians* start migrating down the western side of Greece, where the rains still fall,

a lot of the Ionians* pack up and move out. There are just too many people for the dwindling food supply. By 10 they have gone looking for a better life. They take to the sea over a period of years and spread out over the eastern islands of the Aegean and the coast of Asia Minor (now Turkey), in an area we now call Ionia*.

ARCHAIC PERIOD by 900 BCE DORIANS* centered in Sparta*, Corinth* and Argos* spread through southern Peloponnese*, islands of Crete* and Rhodes*, and Halicarnassus* on coast of Asia Minor*

c.800-c.500 - the Greeks begin to establish better relations with each other 800 BCE in Italy - height of Etruscan* power [see next chapter] c.800 - c.700 BCE Homer* [possibly in Ionia] composes the Iliad* and Odyssey*

* Things aren't much better in Ionia, but these people are a hardy, pioneering lot, hard-headed and practical. They find islands and coastlines with narrow strips of land, backed by mountains that block the way inland. So, they settle down to make the best of a bad bargain. In small, walled towns they grow olive trees and grape vines. They turn merchants and take to the sea for a living, peddling their olive oil and wine for other trade goods. These intrepid merchants turn their boats into floating supermarkets. They begin to travel all over their eastern part of the Mediterranean trading and selling as they go.

The Ionians* immediately discover two great empires in their neighborhood, the Babylonian and the Egyptian. The Ionians' view of things couldn't have been more different.

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DIFFERENCES IONIAN* BABYLONIAN* AND EGYPTIAN* small towns scattered over islands large cities and coast Theocratic No theocratic tradition,

loosely (king descended from god and possessed of organized with a wide range of magical powers) gods, demigods, supernatural a simple mythical explanation of Creation beings, all not related to leaders which, they felt, happened quite recently. not very interested in Creation Dependable physical environment with which happened long ago. abundant crops to feed a large city Undependable physical environment population. with poor land, little water and a Rigid social structure based on the need to need to find other ways to make a build and maintain vast irrigation systems, living besides farming. in which only the priests are permitted to Had rejected kings and royal read, write, study and descendents long ago and had

a practice mathematics and astronomy free wheeling social structure little need for scientific or technological where anyone could better experiments: themselves if they could only find a way. enough astronomy to meet immediate They went in for a sort of practical needs (like helping the priests republican city-state system where make magic predictions) a small number of wealthy men ruled by mutual consent. enough geometry to measure land and build Very interested in finding out pyramids everything possible about the real world, astronomy. geometry, mathematics to measure the volume of water mathematics, and biology, etc. reservoirs

* The Ionians* have a new view of the world which rejects the mumbo-jumbo of the gods being responsible for everything in the world. As they pick up all that foreign knowledge they make more practical use of it than the people they got it from. Rather than gods, the Ionians look for mechanisms to explain natural phenomena. Astronomy serves them as an aid to navigation and they use the north star for an accurate navigational fix. This idea comes from * The Ionians* have a new view of the world which rejects the mumbo-jumbo of the gods being responsible for everything in the world. As they pick up all that foreign knowledge they make more practical use of it than the people they got it from. Rather than gods, the Ionians look for mechanisms to explain natural phenomena. Astronomy serves them as an aid to navigation and they use the north star for an accurate navigational fix. This idea comes from

They put their observations and deductions about nature together with the notion of a world filled with opposites. They do not see the world as something mystical or magical and understood only by priests. They view the world as something you could observe, understand and make practical use of. This realistic view of nature combines with their ideas about political and economic structures. This combination produces a society that will provide the dominant intellectual structure in Western civilization.

One of the most useful and important things the Ionians do is to develop their own laws and legal codes. The older theocracies of Egypt and Babylonia, as well as even earlier civilizations, established their laws from the top down. [One of the most famous and influential earlier legal codes is that of Hammurabi* of Babylonia* (around 1700s BCE).] A good legal system is the only way a society can bring order out of chaos. To have successful commerce you have to be able to count on things people agree to, and have some legal remedy if you don't get what you thought you're due. So, they start building a legal system. The Ionians aren't about to let anyone tell them what their laws should be, so they discuss it, argue about it, and end up with a legal system that embodies all their compromises.

As the Ionians* develop their ideas they also extend their trading and expand it all over the Mediterranean. From about 750 to 550 they found colonies from the Black Sea to Sicily* and trade in everything from silk to salt, as far north as the Russian steppes, south to Nubia* and west to the Atlantic. Their geometry and astronomy enable them to produce the first maps to aid them in their voyages. Gradually all this knowledge and commerce is shared with the Ionians* in Greece and their city-states began to flourish there.