Time Periods
The history of Greece can be traced back to Stone Age hunters. It has been stated that according to historians and archeological findings, the Neolithic Age in Greece lasted from 6800 to 3200 BC. The most domesticated settlements were in Near East of Greece. They traveled mainly due to overpopulation. These people introduced pottery and animal husbandry in Greece. They may as well have traveled via the route of Black sea into Thrace, which then further leads to Macedonia, Thessaly, Boeotia and etc. The second way of traveling into Greece is from one island to another and such type of colonies has been found in Knossos and Kythnos.
Later came early farmers and the civilizations of the Minoan and Mycenaean kings. The period of high cultural achievement, forming the backdrop and basis for subsequent myths of the heroes. It was named for the kingdom of Mycenae and the archaeological site where fabulous works in gold were unearthed. The Mycenaean Age was cut short by widespread destruction ushering in the Greek Dark Age.
The Dark Ages Follows by a period of wars and invasions. This was a period between the fall of the Mycenean civilizations and the read option of writing in the eighth or seventh century BC. After the Trojan Wars the Mycenaeans went through a period of civil war, the country was weak and a tribe called the Dorians took over.
The people who came with iron weapons laid waste the Mycenaean culture. Others look to internal dissent, uprising and rebellion, or perhaps some combination. The Dorians one of the three main groups of people of ancient Greece, the others being the Aeolians and the Ionians, who invaded from the north and spread down the west coast in the 12th and 11th centuries BC.
In the period from 500-336 BC Greece was divided into small city states, each of which consisted of a city and its surrounding countryside.
The Archaic Period in Greece refers to the years between 750 and 480 B.C., more particularly from 620 to 480 B.C. The age was defined through the development of art at this time, specifically through the style of pottery and sculpture, showing the specific characteristics that would later be developed into the more naturalistic style of the Classical period. The Archaic is one of five periods that Ancient Greek history can be divided into; it was preceded by the Dark Ages and followed by the Classical period. The Archaic period saw advancements in political theory, especially the beginnings of democracy, as well as in culture and art. The knowledge and use of written language which was lost in the Dark Ages was re-established
Classical period of ancient Greek history, was fixed between about 500 B. C., when the Greeks began to come into conflict with the kingdom of Persia to the east, and the death of the Macedonian king and conqueror Alexander the Great in 323 BC. In this period Athens reached its greatest political and cultural heights: the full development of the democratic system of government under the Athenian statesman Pericles; the building of the Parthenon on the Acropolis; the creation of the tragedies of Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides; and the founding of the philosophical schools of Socrates and Plato.
Hellenistic Period (336-146 BC) – It was the period between the conquest of the Persian Empire by Alexander the Great and the establishment of Roman supremacy, in which Greek culture and learning were pre-eminent in the Mediterranean and Asia Minor.
Economy and Means of production
The economy of ancient Greece was characterized by the extreme importance of importing goods, all this was because of the relative poverty of Greece's soil. Beginning in the 6th century BC, craftsmanship and commerce developed and became increasingly more important in the classical period.
Agriculture: Gresoil's "stinginess" or "tightness" explains Greek colonialism and the importance of the cleruchies of Asia Minor was in controlling to the supply of wheat. The olive tree and grapevine were complemented by the cultivation of herbs, vegetables, and oil-producing plants. Husbandry was badly developed due to a lack of available land. Sheep and goats were the most common types of livestock. Woods were heavily exploited, first for domestic use and eventually to build triremes. Bees were kept to produce honey, the only source of sugar known to the ancient Greeks.
Since it was so labor-intensive, agriculture employed up to 80% of the Greek population. Agricultural work followed the rhythm of the seasons: harvesting olives and trimming grapevines at the beginning of autumn and the end of winter, setting aside fallow land in the spring, harvesting cereals in the summer, cutting wood, sowing seeds, and harvesting grapes in autumn.
Craft: Much of the craftsmanship of ancient Greece was part of the domestic sphere. However, the situation gradually changed between the 8th and 4th centuries BCE, with the increased commercialization of the Greek economy. Thus, weaving and baking, activities, so important to the Western late medieval economy, were done only by women before the 6th century BC. After the growth of commerce, slaves started to be widely used in workshops. Only fine dyed tissues, like those made with Tyrian purple, were created in workshops. On the other hand, working with metal, leather, wood, or clay, was a specialized activity, and looked down upon by most Greeks. The basic workshop was often family-operated. Lysias' shield manufactory employed 120 slaves; Demosthenes' father, a maker of swords, used 32. After the death of Pericles in 429 BC, a new class emerged: that of the wealthy owners and managers of workshops. Examples include Cleon and Anytos, noted tannery owners, and Kleophon, whose factory produced lyres.
Free workers were paid by assignment, since the workshops could not guarantee regular work. In Athens, those who worked on state projects were paid one drachma per day, no matter what craft they practiced. The workday generally began at sunrise and ended in the afternoon.
Currency: Coinage probably began in Lydia around 600 BC, and circulated in the cities of Asia Minor under its control, early electrum coins have been found at the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. The technique of minting coins arrived in mainland Greece around 550 BC, beginning with coastal trading cities like Aegina and Athens. Their use spread, and the city-states quickly secured a monopoly on their creation. The very first coins were made from electrum (an alloy of gold and silver), followed by pure silver, the most commonly found valuable metal in the region. The mines of the Pangaeon hills allowed the cities of Thrace and Macedon to mint a large quantity of coins. Laurium's silver mines provided the raw materials for the "Athenian owls", the most famous coins of the ancient Greek world. Less-valuable bronze coins appeared at the end of the 5th century.
Coins played several roles in the Greek world. They provided a medium of exchange, mostly used by city-states to hire mercenaries and compensate citizens. They were a source of revenue: foreigners had to change their money into the local currency at an exchange rate favorable to the State. They served as a mobile form of metal resources, which explains discoveries of Athenian coins with high levels of silver at great distances from their home city. Finally, the minting of coins lent an air of undeniable prestige to any Greek city or city state.
The idea of an "economy" as it is understood today is relatively anachronistic when used to refer to ancient Greece. Although the Greeks had no precise term to designate the processes of production and exchange.
Relationships between People (others)
Pederasty in ancient Greece was a socially acknowledged relationship between an adult and a younger male usually in his teens. It was characteristic of the Archaic and Classical periods. Some scholars locate its origin in initiation ritual, particularly rites of passage on Crete, where it was associated with entrance into military life and the religion of Zeus. The social custom called paiderastia by the Greeks was both idealized and criticized in ancient literature and philosophy; it has no formal existence in the Homeric epics, and seems to have developed in the late 7th century BC as an aspect of Greek homosocial culture, which was characterized also by athletic and artistic nudity, delayed marriage for aristocrats, symposia, and the social seclusion of women. The influence of pederasty was so pervasive that it has been called "the principal cultural model for free relationships between citizens." Scholars have debated the role or extent of sexual activity, which is likely to have varied according to local custom and individual inclination. The English word "pederasty" in present-day usage implies the abuse of minors, but Athenian law, for instance, did not recognize consent and age as factors in regulating sexual behavior. As stated by a classical historian Robin Osborne, historical discussion of paiderastia was complicated by 21st-century and many literary sources show it as being established custom in many cities by the fifth century BC.
