Agricultural Production

2018 ◽  
pp. 118-141
Author(s):  
Alain Bresson
Keyword(s):  
Iron Age ◽  
Agricultural Production ◽  
Animal Husbandry ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Rangeland Ecology ◽  
City States ◽  
Age Constraints ◽  
Regional Types ◽  
Greek World

This chapter examines the growth of agricultural production in the Greek city-states. It traces the evolutions and mutations of agriculture in the ancient Greek world as well as the consequences of these changes, first by discussing the so-called Mediterranean trilogy that comprised ancient Greek agriculture: grain, olives, and grapes. While cereals, grapes, and olives constituted the heart of agricultural production in ancient Greece, the role played by other products such as fig, vegetables, roses and other flowers, and honey is also considered. The chapter goes on to explore animal husbandry in the Greek city-states, focusing on the debate on “pastoralism” in the Early Iron Age, constraints in livestock raising, and the three main regional types of stock raising that extended from the southern Aegean to Thessaly, the Peloponnese, and the vast migratory areas of western Greece. Finally, it analyzes rangeland ecology and management during the period.

The Logic of Growth

2018 ◽  
pp. 199-222
Author(s):  
Alain Bresson
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Supply And Demand ◽  
Western World ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Greek Economy ◽  
City States

This chapter examines the logic of growth in the Greek city-states. It first considers the relationship between self-consumption and economic growth, focusing on the roles played by self-consumption and the market in agriculture and in the ancient Greek economy more generally. It then explains how the Greek cities managed to become the dominant culture in the Mediterranean between about 700 BCE and 300 BCE after experiencing negative growth at the end of the Bronze Age and probably very slow growth during the Early Iron Age. It also explores the notion that the ancient Greek economy did not manage to achieve “capitalist revolution” or “industrial revolution”; the economic impact of technological innovation; and how innovation is associated with supply and demand. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the transition to modernity, arguing that such transition makes ancient Greece's economic history part of the long history of the western world.

CONSTRUCTING THE ‘URBAN PROFILE’ OF AN ANCIENT GREEK CITY: EVIDENCE FROM THE OLYNTHOS PROJECT

2020 ◽  
Vol 115 ◽  
pp. 329-378
Author(s):  
Lisa C. Nevett ◽  
E. Bettina Tsigarida ◽  
Zosia H. Archibald ◽  
David L. Stone ◽  
Bradley A. Ault ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Urban Infrastructure ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Classical Greece ◽  
Relevant Evidence ◽  
Classical Studies ◽  
Legacy Data ◽  
Greek World

This article argues that a holistic approach to documenting and understanding the physical evidence for individual cities would enhance our ability to address major questions about urbanisation, urbanism, cultural identities and economic processes. At the same time we suggest that providing more comprehensive data-sets concerning Greek cities would represent an important contribution to cross-cultural studies of urban development and urbanism, which have often overlooked relevant evidence from Classical Greece. As an example of the approach we are advocating, we offer detailed discussion of data from the Archaic and Classical city of Olynthos, in the Halkidiki. Six seasons of fieldwork here by the Olynthos Project, together with legacy data from earlier projects by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens and by the Greek Archaeological Service, combine to make this one of the best-documented urban centres surviving from the Greek world. We suggest that the material from the site offers the potential to build up a detailed ‘urban profile’, consisting of an overview of the early development of the community as well as an in-depth picture of the organisation of the Classical settlement. Some aspects of the urban infrastructure can also be quantified, allowing a new assessment of (for example) its demography. This article offers a sample of the kinds of data available and the sorts of questions that can be addressed in constructing such a profile, based on a brief summary of the interim results of fieldwork and data analysis carried out by the Olynthos Project, with a focus on research undertaken during the 2017, 2018 and 2019 seasons.

The Athenian Reconciliation Agreement of 403 bce and its Legacy for Greek City-States in the Classical and Hellenistic Ages

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Joyce
Keyword(s):  
Civil Conflict ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Political Forgiveness ◽  
The Law ◽  
City States ◽  
Robust Procedures ◽  
Greek World

This chapter surveys amnesty agreements throughout the Greek world in the Classical and Hellenistic ages and argues that in many the principle of political forgiveness was both important and necessary when reconciling communities in the aftermath of civil conflict. The most successful amnesties were those which made use of the law and prohibited the revisiting of old grievances which led to or stemmed from a period of internal strife. Where and when exceptions were made to this rule they normally had to be spelled out in the terms of a treaty. The methods by which individual cities put this principle into effect varied widely, but the most famous and enduring example, the Athenian amnesty of 403 BCE, illustrates that a community could only successfully reconcile if its citizens were willing to forgo vindictive instincts which otherwise would have destabilised it. Robust procedures were put in place to restrain vengeance and protect the rights of individuals.

Topography of Athens

Classics ◽  
2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey M. Hurwit ◽  
Ioannis Mitsios
Keyword(s):  
Coastal Plain ◽  
Aegean Sea ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Urban Core ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
History Of ◽  
City States ◽  
City State ◽  
The City

The ancient city-state (or polis) of Athens was contiguous with the region known as Attica, a large, triangular peninsula extending southeastward from the Greek mainland into the Aegean Sea. In the western angle of Attica, on a coastal plain surrounded by four mountains (Hymettos, Pentelikon, Parnes, and Aigaleos), lay the city itself. Although the modern city has thickly spread up the slopes of the mountains as well as to the sea, the study of Athenian topography concentrates on the monuments, buildings, and spaces of the ancient urban core, an area roughly 3 square kilometers surrounding the Acropolis and defended in the Classical period by a wall some 6.5 kilometers in length. Athens is the ancient Greek city that we know best, and it is unquestionably the Greek city whose art, architecture, literature, philosophy, and political history have had the greatest impact on the Western tradition and imagination. As a result, “Athenian” is sometimes considered synonymous with “Greek.” It is not. In many respects, Athens was exceptional among Greek city-states, not typical: it was a very different place from, say, Thebes or Sparta. Still, the study of Athens, its monuments, and its culture needs no defense, and the charge of “Athenocentrism” is a hollow indictment when one stands before the Parthenon or holds a copy of Sophocles’ Antigone. This article will refer to the following periods in the history of Athens and Greece (the dates are conventional): late Bronze, or Mycenaean, Age (1550–1100 bce); Dark Age (1100–760 bce); Archaic (760–480 bce); Classical (480–323 bce); Hellenistic (323 –31 bce); and Roman (31 BCE–c. 475 ce).

Exploring Intercommunity Political Activity in Fourth-Century Greece

2018 ◽  
pp. 405-432
Author(s):  
Peter Liddel
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Fourth Century ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Political Behaviour ◽  
City States ◽  
Cultural Structure ◽  
Inter State

It might seem reasonable to take the view that the study of ancient Greek political behaviour could plausibly focus upon exchanges that went on inside the polis: after all, the word ‘politics’ derives from the Greek politika (‘polis affairs’). However, the concerns of ancient Greek polis-communities were not merely introspective: communities (regardless of size or military clout) were obliged to face the consequences of the decisions and activity of other communities. Human representatives of city-states performed necessary interactions with outsiders: they fought as soldiers, and staked political or ideological claims as ambassadors and politicians. On their return to their home communities, these individuals proclaimed to their audiences the significance of their activity away from home. Furthermore, the overlaps in social and cultural structure of different Greek city-states, as well as the existence of shared modes of decision-making, might lead us to anticipate the value of trans-community forms of political activity. At the heart of this question, therefore, is an overall debate about the degree of ‘unity’ of Greek political institutions and behaviour, a debate explored in this chapter with particular reference to the contested transferability of the decree (psephisma) in Greek inter-state politics of the fourth century.

Greek Warfare beyond the Polis

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
David A. Blome
Keyword(s):  
Political Institutions ◽  
Military History ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Federal States ◽  
Defensive Strategies ◽  
Wide Scale ◽  
City State ◽  
The Military ◽  
Greek World

This book assesses the nature and broader significance of warfare in the mountains of classical Greece. Based on detailed reconstructions of four unconventional military encounters, the book argues that the upland Greeks of the classical mainland developed defensive strategies to guard against external aggression. These strategies enabled wide-scale, sophisticated actions in response to invasions, but they did not require the direction of a central, federal government. The book brings these strategies to the forefront by driving ancient Greek military history and ancient Greek scholarship “beyond the polis” into dialogue with each other. As it contends, beyond-the-polis scholarship has done much to expand and refine our understanding of the ancient Greek world, but it has overemphasized the importance of political institutions in emergent federal states and has yet to treat warfare involving upland Greeks systematically or in depth. In contrast, the book scrutinizes the sociopolitical roots of warfare from beyond the polis, which are often neglected in military histories of the Greek city-state. By focusing on the significance of warfare vis-à-vis the sociopolitical development of upland polities, the book shows that although the more powerful states of the classical Greek world were dismissive or ignorant of the military capabilities of upland Greeks, the reverse was not the case. The Phocians, Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Arcadians in circa 490–362 BCE were well aware of the arrogant attitudes of their aggressive neighbors, and as highly efficient political entities, they exploited these attitudes to great effect.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Tonio Hölscher
Keyword(s):  
Social Interaction ◽  
Political Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Visual World ◽  
Greek City ◽  
Primary Condition ◽  
The World ◽  
City States

The societies of ancient Greek city-states can be defined as communities of “immediate acting” in which all social interaction is brought about in the presence of its members. In this context, seeing and being seen becomes a primary condition of social and political life. The basic thesis of the book is that the world human beings live in, the “Lebenswelt,” is characterized by its visuality, like images, and that the visual world, together with images, constitute the “conceptual reality” the Greeks and Romans lived in.

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