Ancient Greece is the name given to the civilization that was constituted in the area that encompasses the south of the Balkan Peninsula, the islands of the Aegean Sea and the coast of Asia Minor. The importance of Ancient Greece to the Western world is great due, mainly, to the aspects cultural, scientific, philosophical and political of this civilization that were bequeathed to civilization contemporary.
The first process of population in the region that can be considered as originating from the Greek civilization was the one that took place on the island of Crete, between 2000 and 1400 BC. Ç. Little is known about the form of organization of Cretan (or Minoan) society, although there is a great archaeological work being carried out in the ruins of the island's palaces, the most famous of which is the one of Ours. However, it is known that the Cretans controlled the trade in the Mediterranean Sea until the extinction of civilization around 1400 BC. Ç.
In addition to this period considered as initial, historians further divide the existence of ancient Greek civilization into four more periods:
Pre-Homeric – from the 20th to the 12th century a. Ç.; Homeric – from the 12th to the 8th century a. Ç.; Archaic – from the 8th to the 6th century a. Ç.; Classic – from century V to century IV a. Ç.; Hellenistic – from century IV to century I a. Ç.O pre-homeric period it approached the period of Cretan civilization and its main characteristic is the occupation of Mainland Greece by the peoples of Indo-European origin, the first of which were the Achaeans who arrived in the region, being succeeded by the Aeolians and Ionians. Finally, we have the Dorians, essentially warrior peoples who were possibly responsible for the dispersion of various human groups across the islands of the Aegean Sea and along the coast of Asia Minor, a process called the first diaspora.
O Homeric period received this name as a result of the works Iliad and Odyssey, the main sources of study of the period, are attributed to the poet Homer. This situation also indicates a period of return to the field of these peoples and the abandonment of writing.
During this period, the gentile communities were strengthened, and the social nucleus orbited over the genos – collective families constituted by a large number of people under the leadership of a monarch.
At first, the lands of the gentile communities were communal, but the development verified between the 12th and 8th centuries a. Ç. led to land privatization, population growth and the occurrence of a second diaspora, carried out as a result of the crisis of the gentile society. The second diaspora gave rise to Magna Grecia, the name by which the process of colonization of regions in the western Mediterranean became known, especially in the south of the Italian Peninsula.
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O archaic period its main characteristic was the strengthening of the Greek city-states or polis. The most prominent city-states were Sparta and Athens. The first because of its aristocratic and warrior structure, whose social organization was rigidly hierarchical. The second is due to the development of trade in several regions of the Mediterranean Sea, mainly with the colonization areas of Magna Grecia, and also due to the political institutions created.
In Athens, political struggles between different social classes led to the creation of political democracy, in which they could participate in decisions about the direction of the polis the citizens, a group formed by men over 21, children of fathers and mothers Athenians. Women, foreigners and slaves were excluded from citizenship rights.
O classic period it was marked by the apogee of the Greek civilization, mainly by the economic and cultural development verified in Athens. The Medical Wars placed on the battlefield two great civilizations, the Greek and the Persian, providing a unity among the various Greek city-states to face an enemy that threatened to conquer their territories.
The Greek victory made possible the further growth of Athenian-controlled trade in the Mediterranean, marking the period known as Athenian imperialism. On the other hand, the city experienced the period of its cultural heyday with the stimulus to various artistic practices, as theater, architecture and philosophy, highlighting the construction of the Parthenon and the philosophical production of Plato and Aristotle.
Disputes within the Greek city-states, marked mainly by the Peloponnesian War, indicated the decline of the Greeks. After this war, the Hellenistic period, with the Greek civilization being dominated by the Macedonians, mainly by Alexander the Great. Alexander took the Macedonian Empire to the greatest extent of its borders, conquering Egypt, Persia and reaching India. With this imperial expansion and the Greek cultural legacy, Alexander intended to merge Greek and Eastern cultures in a process known as Hellenism. However, with his early death, at the age of 33, his successors could not maintain the unity of the empire, also characterizing the end of Ancient Greece.
Despite the loss of political and economic influence, Greek culture would be assimilated by the Romans, people who would give continuity to the cultural legacy of Ancient Greece and which would contribute to the characteristics of the Greek world reaching the current days.
By Me. Tales Pinto