The Age of Colonization (750-600 BC)
(An age of aristocratic oligarchies)

I.                    Reason for Colonization

1.      “Since in every polis good farming land was in short supply and the population was increasing, unrest was bound to grow.  One solution to it for the aristocratic governments was to encourage emigration.  Just as the end of the Mycenaean Age had seen large numbers of Greeks moving across the Aegean, so the first great change in the Greek world after the Dark Ages was a huge geographical expansion” (Amos & Lang 39).  Ultimately, there seem to have been three major reasons for colonization:  1) the land hunger of the aristocrats; 2) overpopulation; 3) trade (colonies were begun where raw materials, like metals, were available) (Spiel. 4^th Ed. 63).

2.      These “colonies” were not colonies in the sense of the colonies of the British Empire.  They were actually independent, self-governing, self-sufficient city-states.

3.      The first colony seems to be Cumae in Italy founded by settlers from Kyme in Aeolis and Chalkis and Eretria in Euboea.  They spread westward, then east and northeast, northeast Greece, Sicily, southern Italy, then south France and Spain.  In other words, just as the migrations in the Dark Age had turned the Aegean into a Greek lake, this later wave of colonization spread the Greeks and their culture throughout the Mediterranean.  (NOTE:  S. Italy and Sicily are so influenced by the Greeks that the area is called Magna Graecia or “greater Greece.”)

4.      “…colonization on this scale had a profound impact on the course of Western civilization.  It meant that the prevailing culture of the Mediterranean basin would be Greek, the heritage to which Rome would later fall heir” (McKay 73).

II.                 Reappearance of Writing:  By 750 BC writing occurs with a new alphabet borrowed from the Phoenicians.

III.               Two important city-states that will develop in very different ways:  Sparta and Athens

Sparta 600-480 BC

1.Until about 600 BC Sparta was a major cultural center in Greece as well as a major power; poets, musicians and craftsmen all went to Sparta.  The political structure included 2 kings, the Gerousia, Apella (assembly of about 8,000 men over 30--the army--who voted on matters proposed by the Gerousia).  The social structure consisted of the Spartiates and the Perioikoi.  The Spartiates were the genuine Spartans who were determined to remain a select group, not inter-marrying with the rest of the population, nor sharing privileges with them.  The Perioikoi, or “neighbors,” were communities within the territory of Sparta who lived in their own villages and had local government but only civil rights, no political rights. 

2. A third class of people will develop in Spartan society:  the helots.  The Spartans’ development deviated from other Greek city-states during the Age of Colonization.  The surplus population of other states went off to found colonies in the north (Thrace and Black Sea area) and west (southern Italy and Sicily), also in Egypt, France, and Spain.  Sparta, on the other hand, just passed over the fertile mountains to the west and reduced the Messenians to serfs.  In the First Messenian War, 725-705 BC, they conquered the land and distributed it in lots to their own citizens—the Messenian people (called helots) went with the land.

3. Things went well for the Spartans until they were defeated by Argos in 668 BC.  The Messenians took courage and revolted; it would take the Spartans another 20 years to re-conquer them (cf. Tyrtaios’ poetry).  “It took the full might of the Spartan people, aristocrat and commoner alike, to win the Second Messenian War [c.650 BC].  After the victory the non-nobles who had done much of the fighting, demanded rights equal to those of the nobility” (McKay 76).

4. During the 600s and 590s Sparta under went a major constitutional reform.  It was no longer a cultural center of musical contests, athletic contests and prospering craftsmen.  It became a closed society.  One had to have a permit just to visit it! Spartans were forbidden to travel or engage in trade lest they be corrupted by foreigners.  The Spartans were so concerned about the helot threat [they were outnumbered 10 to 1 by the helots (Greaves 58)] that, “A secret police force lived among them and was permitted to kill any helot considered dangerous.  To legalize this murder, the state officially declared war on the helots at the beginning of each year” (Spiel. 4^th Ed. 65).  At the height of her power only 9,000 Spartans ruled over 100,000 helots!

5. The reform of Spartan society was associated with the lawgiver Lycurgus (who was most certainly a mythological figure).  The aristocracy was abolished and Sparta became an oligarchy.  The reform included the addition of a board of 5 Ephors elected by the peers in the Apella for a 1-year term.  These most powerful men in Sparta would supervise the civil law, prosecute criminal cases before the Gerousia (2 kings and 28 elders), supervise the conduct of the helots and very importantly, supervise the education of the Spartan youth.  Family life would be sacrificed to the polis!

Age 1-6:  The Ephors inspected every newly born child; if deformed it was destroyed; if healthy, it would be given back to the mother.

Age 7 –11:  The child was sent to one of the state dorms and joined a group of boys.  They learned to read, sing (for unison), dance (for a supple body), and participate in military games or fights.

Age 12-15:  Boys would participate in hunting and more military training.  Their hair would be cut short and they would be made to go barefoot with little clothing for protection from the cold.  In addition, although they had to learn to steal to survive (since they were not fed enough to eat), they would be whipped if caught!

NOTE:  “There is a story about a Spartan boy who in order to conceal a fox which he had stolen, hid it beneath his cloak and allowed the fox to gnaw him rather than let the theft be revealed.  He died of the wounds.  If he had been discovered, the disgrace would not have been in the stealing, but in allowing it to be detected.  The boy’s action illustrates the main purpose of the Spartan educational system, which was to produce men capable of showing such bravery as soldiers.  Military strength was felt to be essential to Sparta for her very survival” (Amos and Land 49).

            “An anecdote about one Spartan mother sums up Spartan military values.  As her son was setting off to battle, his mother handed him his shield and advised him to come back either victorious carrying the shield, or dead, being carried on it” (McKay 76).

                                    Age 16-19:  More camping and military training.

Age 20-29:  At 20, Spartan males went into concealment--the krypteia...--with nothing but a dagger.  Only at night could they leave their hiding places to secure provisions and to kill any helots who were out after curfew" (Carl J. Richard Greeks and Romans Bearing Gifts 26).  The object of every boy was to reach the age of 21 and win a place in a syssition of 15 men in the standing army of Sparta--not to do so meant social death..  It is with this group “he would dine and normally sleep, even after marrying, which he was expected to do at thirty (if he hadn't done so by 45 he would be fined and humiliated).  Election had to be unanimous; and not to get elected somewhere was social death.  The terror of this must have kept every boy desperately resolved not to show the white feather under any trial” (Bury 116).  This was a time of strict military training.

Age 30:  At 30 they became full citizens and joined the popular assembly.  They also were to get married and have children (the army needed a constant supply of soldiers).  They had to eat and live in the barracks but they could sleep at home with their wives.

Age 60:  Though at age 45 they could live with their families, it was at age sixty they could finally get out of the army.

NOTE:  Spartan women also underwent state training to become healthy mothers of warriors.  "at seven, Spartan girls began athletic training, scandalizing most Greeks by running about in revealing skirts.  The girl's training, which included running, wrestling, and hurling the discus and javelin, was considered unusually rigorous.  The Spartans hoped to make their women physically fit so that they might better endure childbirth and produce healthier babies.  First and foremost, girls were trained to be the mothers of warriors.  On special occasions, standing nude before dignitaries, they sang songs in praise or ridicule of specific boys (also nude), as a powerful incentive to their good conduct" (Carl J. Richard Greeks and Romans Bearing Gifts 26).  If her husband was impotent, he could find a healthy guy to impregnate her!  They were prohibited from wearing jewelry or ornate clothes.  Interestingly enough, they were not as oppressed as women in other Greek city-states.  They enjoyed a more active and open public life than most other Greek women, even though they could neither vote nor hold office.  They had a reputation for independent spirit and self-assertion.  This position stemmed from their genuine patriotism but also from their title to much Spartan land.

After 500 BC, as a result of Athenian imperialism and turning of the Delian League into an Athenian empire, Spartan formed alliances with other Greek city-states to found the Peloponnesian League.  War between these two leagues will be a characteristic of the 5^th Century BC.

ATHENS 600-500 BC

1.      “Athens had a long history going back to Achaean times.  Its location, its control of extensive territory (the second greatest landholdings of any city-state), and its proximity to harbors that could be developed, all made Athens’ potential as a commercial center great.  Nonetheless, it remained primarily agrarian and economically backward, lagging behind other important cities such as Thebes, Sparta, Corinth, and Argos” (Kebrick 1989).  “The reasons were several.  Athens was not situated on the most favored trade routes of the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.E., its large area (about 1,000 square miles) allowed population growth without great pressure, and the unification of the many villages and districts within this territory into a single polis was not completed until the seventh century B.C.E.” (Kagan 51)

2.      “Athens had escaped the Dorian invasion, and somehow—the legend said that Theseus was responsible—in the Dark Ages [8^th BC] she had peacefully brought all Attica under her control.  The result was that like Sparta she had a quite unusually large area of land, but unlike Sparta all the original inhabitants became Athenians, having equal rights with those who lived in the city itself.  Her political development was at first much the same as that of other Greek city-states:  first, after kings had disappeared, rule by an aristocratic oligarchy [Areopagus who elected 9 archons that joined the Areopagus after their term in office], a Greek word meaning “rule of the few”; second, an attempt at a tyranny in 632 BC [by Cleon] which failed; thirdly, the writing down of laws, said to have been done by Draco” (Amos & Land 46), who in 621 BC was appointed by aristocrats to draw up a code of law for the peasants to curb arbitrary decisions of aristocrats (though mainly to prevent blood-feuds between clans).  This is Athens first law code!
|
3.      Solon (640-549 BC)  “…by the beginning of the sixth century, we are told that the aristocrats had gained control of most of the land and were forcing the dispossessed to work as sharecroppers.  Worse still, many Athenians had pledged their own persons as surety for their debts and when unable to pay had been sold into slavery.
    “When it seemed that the rage of the oppressed might erupt into violence, both rich and poor agreed to put matters into the hands of a man named Solon, who, although young, had already acquired a reputation for both wisdom and honesty.  A child of the Lyric Age, Solon took the unusual step of explaining and promoting his political and economic reforms in a series of poems, some of which have survived” (Frost 54).  At any rate, in 594 BC Solon was made the sole archon.  He seemed to have some sympathy for the masses, but he was NOT a democrat.  Solon’s reforms will remove justice from the province of religion and give it a secular foundation:  he attributed the city’s problems to the behavior of individuals.  His reforms:

1)      he canceled the debts owed by peasants to aristocrats and outlawed the slavery of free Athenians (the seisachthia “shaking off of the burden”)

2)      he refused to redistribute the land as the peasants wanted and instead encouraged economic development [required fathers to teach sons a trade; encouraged the olive oil and wine industries; granted citizenship to foreign artisans; changed the Athenian standards of weights and measures to conform with those of Corinth and Euboea]

3)      reformed the code of Draco to make it less severe

4)      divided society into 4 legal groups on the basis of income rather than birth [created the Council of 400 from the first three classes and opened the Assembly to all four classes]
            When Solon refused to carry out the redistribution of the land, he failed to deal with the basic cause of the economic crisis. 

4.      Pisistratus

 Though the crisis was forestalled for a while by his other economic reforms, “within forty years it looked as though Solon’s work had failed:  for the unrest he had tried to stop continued, there was rivalry between different parties in Athens, and finally, after sever attempts [560 & 556 BC], a noble named Peisistratos became tyrant.  But he was a restrained and successful ruler, and became so popular that his reign was later looked back to as a Golden Age” (Amos & Lang, 46).  Courting the aid of the rural districts against the entrenched great houses in the city of Athens he seized control of the state from the annually elected magistrates (replaced the oligarchy), and…he and his sons ruled Athens as tyrants until 510.

His reforms:

1)      he did redistribute the land by banishing many nobles and confiscating their land

2)      he promoted commerce and industry [established treaties with many states from Macedonia to Lacadaemonia, including Sparta, Argos, and Thessaly]

3)      he spent money on public works [good roads in Attica, conduits for the water supply]

4)      he was a patron of the arts [Cicero says Homer was written down under him, the Panathenaea was expanded, the Greater Dionysia was instituted; temples were built] 

More than any other single individual, Pisistratus was responsible for bringing Athens out of the backwoods and making it for the first time one of the major centers of Greece.  Being a millionaire from silver mines on the Thracian frontier, he gave loans to anyone that needed one.  By weakening the landed aristocracy, Pisistratus made the establishment of democracy under Cleisthenses possible.
            Unfortunately, his sons, Hippias and Hipparchus were not a chip off the old block.  Hipparchus was assassinated in 514 BC over a personal grudge and Hippias became an oppressive tyrant whom the Athenian aristocrats with the help of the Spartans drove off into exile to the Persian court in 510 BC. 

5.      Cleisthenes “the father of Athenian democracy”

Though Isagoras, a friend of the Spartan king Cleomenes, was in control for a while, Cleisthenes with popular support was able to take over Athens by 508 BC.  “His aim was a unified state, democratically run.  He achieved this in two main ways:  he broke down local groupings so that antagonism between city and countryside ended; and he increased the size of the Council to five hundred, annually elected [by lot].  This meant that, since no one could be on it more than twice in his lifetime, a large number of citizens had practical experience of politics and administration” (Amos and Lang 48).

            His reforms:

1)      he created 10 new artificial tribes, each consisting of citizens from nobles and peasants alike (to eliminate antagonism between city and countryside which had caused so much divisiveness in Athens

2)      he created a new Council of 500 selected by lot (50 from each tribe) to replace the Solonian Council of 400

3)      his instituted the custom of ostracism to protect the democracy from dangerous men

4)      each of the 10 tribes would elect a man to serve on the only elective office left, the Board of Ten Generals [these popular officials will be very important in the history of the democracy]

In 462 with the reforms of Ephialtes, the Areopagus would be stripped of its political powers and Athens would become a direct democracy ruled by the Assembly which Solon had opened up to all male citizens.

SUMMARY COMPARISON OF SPARTA & ATHENS

Send comments and questions to Dr. Richard Baldwin, Gulf Coast State College.
This page last updated 3/17/12