home » europe » greece » history

a short history of Greece

Brief History of Greece

The history of Greece has varied significantly through the ages and each era is connected to a special sphere of interest and events. It is believed that the first tribes that were speaking Greek, the Minonians, have arrived on the Greek mainland during the 3rd millenium BC. That mainland was inhabited some centuries ago and the local tribes were practicing agriculture. Not much information is known about the Minoans except that they were Indo-European people, mainly merchants dealing with overseas trade of timber ad other natural resources. Due to a huge Thera eruption and invasion by the Mycenaeans tribes from the mainland Greece around 1400 BC, the Minoan civilization game to an end. During the Bronze Age, Greece was in the Mycenean civilization which lasted from 1600 BC till 1100 BC. This period in the Greek history is the historical setting of the Homer epics and a great part o fthe Greek mythology.

Important cities at that tome are Athens, Thebes, Tiryns and Pylos. The Mycenaen civilization was dominated by warrior aristocracy. The Mycenaeans extended their territories over Crete and adpoted the script of the Minians which is known as Linear A and later renamed to Linear B, and is an early form of todays Greek. An interesting fact about that period of Greek history would be that the Mycenaeans organized special burial chambers where some of the nobility members were mummified or buries with gold masks, armor or jewelry weapons. At somepoint during the 1100 BC, the Mycenaean civilization collapsed and the region entered a very dark era which was characterized with a decline of population and literacy and as a cause for these dark ages is considered the Dorian invasion. The period lasted till 800 BC when the first Greek city-states were formed and the alphabeltic Greek writings appeared. The Mycenaean collapse happened in the same period when the Egyptian and the Hittite empires collapsed and this is attributed to the sea people invasion that had superior iron weapons.

During the Dark Ages, the Greek tribes lived in small settlements, all their palaces were destroyed and no trade was made. Various kings ruled the territory until they were replaced by an aristocracy. When the iron was replaced by bronze for the production of weapons and tools, the equality slowly grew back to its place and the families began to reconsructed their past, making attempts to connect themselves with the heroes from the Troyan War. When this bad period for the Greek civilization ended, it went through a period of renaissance and spread from the Black Sea to Spain. The writing was again relearned from the Phoenicians. It is believed that the Ancient or the Classical period in Greece is the period the region was in with the start of the first Olympic Games in year 776 BC. The period ended with the death of Alexander the Great in year 323 BC. Most historians consider Ancient Greece as the foundational culture of the Western Civilization, starting with its influence over the Roman Empire which carried it throughout Europe. The Ancient Greek had a serious influence on the philosophy and art, politics and education, language and architecture.

Ancient Greece was divided into polises or city-states which were independent. During that era lived the poets Homer, Sophocles and Sappho, the politicians Themistocles and Pericles, Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great, the philosophers Aristotle and Herodotus, Plato and Democritus. During that period of the Greek history broke up two wars. The Persian Wars during the years 500 448 BC when the Greek cities revolved from the Persian Empire which resulted in the formation of a league between several of the mainland cities led by Athens named the Delian League. While the Persian Wars were still going, the Delian League entered into a war with the Peloponnesian League which comprised of Sparta and its allies. In 431 BC broke the Peloponnesian War over a dispute between Epidamnus and Corcyra cities. The war was fought on two stages, until year 421 BC and from year 415 BC till year 405 BC when the Atenian fleet was destroyed by the Spartan general Lysander. This long war left the area devastated and under the Spartan rule. The Spartans hegemony was not to the liking of the Thebans who attacked and crushed Sparta in year 371 BC.Some years later, in 346 BC, Thebes called upon Philip II of Macedon to help them in their war against Phocis but that resulted in Macedon conquering of the Greek exhausted cities.

Philip II of Macedon introduced a new form of rule, the empire, and from then on started the Hellenistic Age of Greece. The Hellenistic Greece started with the death of Alexander the Great in year 323 BC and ended when the Greek islands and the peninusla were annexated by Rome in year 146 BC. This period was the last one where Greek remained its political independence. When hearing that Alexander had died, Athens and its allies revolved against Macedon but were defeated in the Lamian War that followed. Soon a struggle broke out among Alexanders generals and several new kingdoms emerged. The Greek city states remained under Macedonian control, however Athens, Rhodes and Pergamum along withseveral other Greek states joined the Aetolian League which was subject to the Ptolemies. At the same time, Sparta remained independent. In year 267 BC with the help of Ptolemy II, the Greek cities revolved against Macedon but were defeated and Athens lost its independence and many of its democratic institutions. I year 222 BC Sparta was also defeated by the Macedonain army. It was Philip V of Macedon who was the lasy ruler of Greece who managed to unite the country and to preserve its independence from the power of Rome. He even formed an alliance with Carthage, one of Romes enemies. In year 202 BC, Carthage was defeated by Rome. In year 197 BC, Philip found himself desered by his allies and completely defeated at the Battle of Cynoscephalae. Greek surrended and Philip had to give up his fleet, as well as to become a Roman ally. The following year the Greek cities were declared free, but that freedom was an illusion was they were all enrolled in a new league which was under Romes control. During the Roman Period, Greece was divided into four smallerrepublics and in 146 BC Macedonia was officially declared a Roman province with capital Thessalonica. The local administration was left to the Greeks. As the Roman Empire divided into an East and a West parts, the position of the Greeks allowed them to identify with what was happening. Constantinopole became inportant as it was proclaimed that Byzantium is the new capital of the Roman Empire.

During the Byzantine Empire, life in Greece was characterized with efforts to restore the Roman territories and with several conflicts. The attacts were threatening the capital and became permanent in their hostility. That period is characterized with reduction of the geographical boundaries, and economic damages, but also with cultural, lingual and dogmatic influence and homogeneity. From the 8th century onwards, the Empire began to recover and in the middle of the 9th century, Greece was once again Greek with effective central control. In the next two centuries that followed, Greece enjoyed economic prosperity, growth in the rural sphere, rising population, prouction, and last but one of the most important aspects trade. The eleventh and twelveth centuries are considered the Golden Age of the Byzantine art in Greece and the period when most of the churches were built. The period is characterized with a revival of the mosaic art, the production of beautiful silks and the florishing of architecture. In year 1204 Constantinople was conquered by Latin crusaders. This led to the division of Greece into the former Greek Byzantine dynasty Comnenos and the Palaiologos dynasty, and reduction of and after the Turkish invasions.

Some years later the European powers tried to turn Greece into a monarchy and imposed two kings, Otto from Bavaria and George I from Denmark. When the Balkan Wars ended in 1912 1913, Crete, southern Macedonia and the Aegian Isands were annexed to Greece. The country as wel know it today, reached its present territory in year 1947. During the First World War, Greece entered into a coalition with the entente powers against the Central Powers and Turkey. When the war ended, Greece was awarded with parts of Asia Minor and the city of Smyrna. At that time Mustafa Kemal Ataturk who overthrew the Ottoman government organized a military assault on the Greek troops and then defeated them. Then one million Greeks who were native of Turkey had to leave towards Greece in exchange to hundreds of thousands of Muslims who were then livoing in Greece. When the Second World War broke out, Greece made a decisive contribution to the Allied forces. Due to that it was invaded by Italy but the Greek troops rebelled and were victorious. Greece was then successfully invaded by Germany, Bulgaria and Italy. During the Nazi occupation many Greek people died, along with a great cmmunity of Jews. In the period between the years 1944 1949, Greece underwent a cvil war between the Governmental forces that were supported by the United Kingdom and the USA and the Demogratic Army of Greece, which was part of the communist party in Greece. The victory of the US- and British-supported forces resulted in Greeces membership in NATO. During the next two decades, the 1950s and the 1960s, Greece developed in rapid steps, especially in the tourism sphere. In year 1974 Cyprus was invaded by the Turks which led to a bloody suppresion and a military regime.The next year a democratic republican constitution came into force and the once exiled polititian Andreas Papandreou returned and won the elections to dominat the Greek political scene for almost two decades. As the democracy was restored, Greece enjoyed economic stability and prosperity which led to its joining into the European Union in 1981 and the adoption of the common currency, the euro in 2001. As a member of the European Union, Greece received a lot of funds which were used for the tourism, shipping, services, light industry and telecommunications industry and increased the living standards of the Greeks.