History
Overview
Greece has been inhabited since Palaeolithic times, and its prehistoric civilisation culminated in the remarkable Minoan culture of Crete (3400-1100BC). The Dorians invaded from the north in the 12th century BC, and Greek colonies were established along the north and south Mediterranean coasts and on the shores of the Black Sea. The Greeks settled throughout the eastern Mediterranean throughout the 8-6th century BC, establishing colonies along the shores of Asia Minor and the adjoining islands. There were many city states on the mainland, notably Athens and Sparta. In the 5th century BC, Persian invasions were repelled at Marathon, Salamis, Plataea and Mycale. Conflict between Sparta and Athens weakened the country, which was overwhelmed by the Macedonians (4th century BC) under Philip II of Macedon, who unified the Greek city states under their hegemony.Macedonian power was broken by the Romans in 197 BC, and Crete and Greece formed part of the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire which stretched deep into Asia Minor and the Middle East.
The Byzantine Age (330-1204) was a period of cultural and political hegemony for the Greeks in the Balkans and eastern Mediterranean. After the Sack of Constantinople in 1204, the Balkan Greeks fell prey to the ambitions of the Venetians and Franks, and finally to the Turks who occupied Greece from 1460 to 1830. Becoming free from Ottoman rule after the Greek War of Independence (1821-8) against the Turks, the Kingdom of Greece was finally joined by Crete in 1913.
The Greek Republic was established in 1924 and the monarchy restored in 1935. During World War II, Greece and Crete were occupied by the Germans, and Greece was afterwards ravaged by the bloody Greek Civil War (1944-9). A military coup in 1967 led to the right-wing dictatorship of the Greek Colonels, but democracy was restored in 1974, and the monarchy was formally abolished. Greece joined the European Community in 1981. The drachma was replaced by the Euro in Jan 2002.
Prehistoric Greece
2700-1450BC: Aegean Civilisation
The earliest civilisation to ever appear around Greece was the Minoan civilisation in Crete, which lasted approximately from 2700 (Early Minoan) BC to 1450 BC, and the Early Helladic period on the Greek mainland from about 2800 BC to 2100 BC.
Little specific information is known about the Minoans (even the name is a modern appellation, from Minos, the legendary king of Crete). They have been characterised as a pre-Indo-European people, apparently the linguistic ancestors of the Eteo-Cretan speakers of Classical Antiquity, their language being encoded in the undeciphered Linear A script. They were primarily a mercantile people engaged in overseas trade, taking advantage of their land's rich natural resources. Timber, at that time was an abundant natural resource that was commercially exploited and exported to nearby lands such as Cyprus, Egypt and the Aegean Islands.
Although the causes of their demise are uncertain, they were eventually invaded by the Mycenaeans from mainland Greece. This invasion took place around 1400 BC, and in conjunction with the Thera eruption, it presents a likely scenario for the final end of the Minoan civilisation. According to this theory, the Minoan fleet and ports were irrevocably destroyed by colossal seismic and tidal waves. Possible climatic changes affected crops for many years, which in turn could have led to famine and social breakdown. The Mycenaean invaders wrote the final chapter of a civilisation that flourished for some 1600 years.
1600-1100 BC: Mycenaean Greece (Bronze Age)
Mycenaean Greece, also known as Bronze Age Greece, is the Late Helladic Bronze Age civilisation of Ancient Greece. It lasted from the arrival of the Greeks in the Aegean around 1600 BC to the collapse of their Bronze Age civilisation around 1100 BC. It is the historical setting of the epics of Homer and much other Greek mythology. The Mycenaean period takes its name from the archaeological site Mycenae in the northeastern Argolid, in the Peloponnesos of southern Greece. Athens, Pylos, Thebes and Tiryns are also important Mycenaean sites.
Mycenaean civilisation was dominated by a warrior aristocracy. Around 1400 BC, the Mycenaeans extended their control to Crete, centre of the Minoan civilisation, and adopted a form of the Minoan script called Linear A to write their early form of Greek. The Mycenaean era script is called Linear B.
The Mycenaeans buried their nobles in beehive tombs (tholoi), large circular burial chambers with a high vaulted roof and straight entry passage lined with stone. They often buried daggers or some other form of military equipment with the deceased. The nobility were frequently buried with gold masks, tiaras, armour, and jewelled weapons. Mycenaeans were buried in a sitting position, and some of the nobility underwent mummification.
Around 1100 BC the Mycenaean civilisation collapsed. Numerous cities were sacked and the region entered what historians see as a dark age. During this period Greece experienced a decline in population and literacy. The Greeks themselves have traditionally blamed this decline on an invasion by another wave of Greek people, the Dorians, although there is scant archaeological evidence for this view.
1100-750 BC: Greek Dark Ages
The Greek Dark Ages refers to the period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean civilisation in the 11th century BC to the rise of the first Greek city-states in the 9th century BC and the epics of Homer and earliest writings in alphabetic Greek in the 8th century BC.
The collapse of the Mycenaean coincided with the fall of several other large empires in the near east, most notably the Hittite and the Egyptian. The cause may be attributed to an invasion of the sea people wielding iron weapons. When the Dorians came down into Greece they also were equipped with superior iron weapons, easily dispersing the already weakened Mycenaeans. The period that follows these events is collectively known as the Greek Dark Ages.
Archaeology shows a collapse of civilisation in the Greek world in this period. The great palaces and cities of the Mycenaeans were destroyed or abandoned. The Greek language ceased to be written. Greek dark age pottery has simple geometric designs and lacks the figurative decoration of Mycenaean ware. The Greeks of the Dark Age lived in fewer and smaller settlements, suggesting famine and depopulation, and foreign goods have not been found at archaeological sites, suggesting minimum international trade. Contact was also lost between foreign powers during this period, yielding little cultural progress or growth of any sort.
Kings ruled throughout this period until eventually they were replaced with an aristocracy, then still later, in some areas, an aristocracy within an aristocracy-an elite of the elite. Warfare shifted from a focus on cavalry to a great emphasis on infantry. Due to its cheapness of production and local availability, iron replaced bronze as the metal of choice in the manufacturing of tools and weapons. Slowly equality grew among the different sects of people, leading to the dethronement of the various Kings and the rise of the family.
It is thought that the epics by Homer contain a certain amount of tradition preserved orally during the Dark Ages period. The historical validity of Homer's writings is vigorously disputed.
At the end of this period of stagnation, the Greek civilisation was engulfed in a renaissance that spread the Greek world as far as the Black Sea and Spain. Writing was relearned from the Phoenicians, eventually spreading north into Italy and the Gauls.
750 BC - 330 AD: Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is considered by most historians to be the foundational culture of Western Civilisation. Greek culture was a powerful influence in the Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts of Europe. Ancient Greek civilisation has been immensely influential on the language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, art and architecture of the modern world, particularly during the Renaissance in Western Europe and again during various neo-Classical revivals in 18th and 19th century Europe and The Americas.
Most of the Greek names known to modern readers flourished in this age. Among the poets, Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes and Sappho were active. Famous politicians include Themistocles, Pericles, Lysander, Epaminondas, Alcibiades, Philip II of Macedon, and his son Alexander the Great. Plato wrote, as did Aristotle, Heraclitus of Ephesus, Parmenides, Democritus, Herodotus, Thucydides and Xenophon. Almost all of the mathematical knowledge formalized in Euclid's Elements at the beginning of the Hellenistic period was developed in this era.
750-480 BC: Archaic Period
The Archaic period followed the Greek Dark Ages, and saw significant advancements in political theory, and the rise of democracy, philosophy, theatre, poetry, as well as the revitalisation of the written language (which had been lost during the Dark Ages).
During the Archaic Period, new political structures started to be formed. As the Greek population grew, the "oikos" or households of Kings, which dominated the political structure of the Dark Ages, started to transform into what is referred to as the "polis" or city-state.
The basic unit of politics in Ancient Greece was the polis, sometimes translated as city-state. "Politics" literally means "the things of the polis". Each city was independent, at least in theory. Some cities might be subordinate to others (a colony traditionally deferred to its mother city), some might have had governments wholly dependent upon others (the Thirty Tyrants in Athens was imposed by Sparta following the Peloponnesian War), but the titularly supreme power in each city was located within that city. This meant that when Greece went to war (e.g., against the Persian Empire), it took the form of an alliance going to war. It also gave ample opportunity for wars within Greece between different cities.
510-323 BC: Classical Greece
Two major wars shaped the Ancient Greek world: The Persian Wars and the Peloponnesian War.
492-448 BC: The Persian Wars
In Ionia (the modern Aegean coast of Turkey) the Greek cities, which included great centres such as Miletus and Halicarnassus, were unable to maintain their independence and came under the rule of the Persian Empire in the mid 6th century BC. In 499 BC, the Greeks rose in the Ionian Revolt, and Athens and some other Greek cities went to their aid.
In 490 BC ,the Persian Great King, Darius I, having suppressed the Ionian cities, sent a fleet to punish the Greeks. The Persians landed in Attica, but were defeated at the Battle of Marathon by a Greek army led by the Athenian general Miltiades. The burial mound of the Athenian dead can still be seen at Marathon.
Ten years later, Darius' successor, Xerxes I, sent a much more powerful force by land. After being delayed by the Spartan King Leonidas I at Thermopylae, Xerxes advanced into Attica, where he captured and burned Athens. But the Athenians had evacuated the city by sea, and under Themistocles they defeated the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis. A year later, the Greeks, under the Spartan Pausanius, defeated the Persian army at Plataea.
The Athenian fleet then turned to chasing the Persians out of the Aegean Sea, and in 478 BC they captured Byzantium. In the course of doing so Athens enrolled all the island states and some mainland allies into an alliance, called the Delian League because its treasury was kept on the sacred island of Delos. The Spartans, although they had taken part in the war, withdrew into isolation after it, allowing Athens to establish unchallenged naval and commercial power.
431-404 BC: Peloponnesian War
In 431 BC, war broke out between Athens and Sparta and its allies. The war was thought to be a result of three causes: prior to the war, Corinth and one of its colonies, Corcyra (modern-day Corfu), became involved in a dispute in which Athens intervened. Soon after, Corinth and Athens argued over control of Potidaea (near modern-day Nea Potidaia), eventually leading to an Athenian siege of Potidaea. Finally, Athens issued a series of economic decrees known as the "Megarian Decrees" that placed economic sanctions on the Megarian people. Athens was accused by the Peloponnesian allies of violating the Thirty Years Peace through all of the aforementioned actions, and Sparta formally declared war on Athens.
It should be noted that many historians consider these simply to be the immediate causes of the war. They would argue that the underlying cause was the growing resentment of Sparta and its allies at the dominance of Athens over Greek affairs.
The first stage of the war (known as the Archidamian War for the Spartan king, Archidamus II) lasted until 421 BC with the signing of the Peace of Nicias. The Athenian general Pericles recommended that his city fight a defensive war, avoiding battle against the superior land forces led by Sparta, and importing everything needful by maintaining its powerful navy: Athens would simply outlast Sparta, whose citizens feared to be out of their city for long lest the helots revolt. This strategy required that Athens endure regular sieges, and in 430 BC it was visited with an awful plague which killed approximately a quarter of its people, including Pericles. With Pericles gone, less conservative elements gained power in the city and Athens went on the offensive. It captured 300-400 Spartan hoplites at the Battle of Pylos. This represented a significant fraction of the Spartan fighting force which the latter decided it could not afford to lose. Meanwhile, Athens had suffered humiliating defeats at Delium and Amphipolis. The Peace of Nicias concluded with Sparta recovering its hostages and Athens recovering the city of Amphipolis.
In 418 BC, however, hostility between Sparta and the Athenian ally Argos led to a resumption of fighting. At Mantinea, Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies. The resumption of fighting brought the war party, led by Alcibiades, back to power in Athens. In 415 BC, Alcibiades persuaded the Athenian Assembly to launch a major expedition against Syracuse, a Peloponnesian ally in Sicily. Initially, Sparta was not going to aid its ally, but Alcibiades, the Athenian general who had argued for the Sicilian Expedition, defected to the Spartan cause upon being accused of grossly impious acts and convinced them that they could not allow Athens to subjugate Syracuse. The campaign ended in disaster for the Athenians.
Athens' Ionian possessions rebelled with the support of Sparta. In 411 BC, an oligarchical revolt in Athens held out the chance for peace, but the Athenian navy, which remained committed to the democracy, refused to accept the change and continued fighting in Athens' name. The navy recalled Alcibiades (who had been forced to abandon the Spartan cause after reputedly seducing the wife of Agis II, a Spartan king) and made him its head. The oligarchy in Athens collapsed and Alcibiades proceeded to re-conquer what had been lost.
In 407 BC, Alcibiades was replaced following a minor naval defeat at the Battle of Notium. Sparta had now built a fleet (with the help of the Persians) to challenge Athenian naval supremacy, and had found a brilliant military leader in Lysander, who seized the strategic initiative by occupying the Hellespont, the source of Athens' grain imports. Threatened with starvation, Athens sent its last remaining fleet to confront Lysander, who decisively defeated them at Aegospotami (405 BC). The loss of her fleet threatened Athens with bankruptcy. In 404 BC, Athens sued for peace, and Sparta dictated a predictably stern settlement: Athens lost her city walls, her fleet and all of her overseas possessions. Lysander abolished the democracy and appointed a council of thirty to govern Athens in its place.
The Rise of Macedon
The war had left devastation in its wake. Discontent with the Spartan hegemony that followed (including the fact that it ceded Ionia and Cyprus to the Persian Empire at the conclusion of the Corinthian War (395-387 BC) induced the Thebans to attack. Their general, Epaminondas, crushed Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, inaugurating a period of Theban dominance in Greece. In 346 BC, unable to prevail in its ten year war with Phocis, Thebes called upon Philip II of Macedon for aid. Macedon quickly conquered the exhausted cites of Greece. He organised the cities into the League of Corinth, and announced that he would lead an invasion of Persia to liberate the Greek cities and avenge the Persian invasions of the previous century. But before he could do so he was assassinated in 336 BC.
Philip was succeeded by his 20-year-old son Alexander, who immediately set out to carry out his father's plans. He travelled to Corinth where the assembled Greek cities recognised him as leader of the Greeks, then set off north to assemble his forces. However, while Alexander was campaigning in Thrace, he heard that the Greek cities had rebelled. He swept south again, captured Thebes, and razed the city to the ground. He left only one building standing, the house of Pindar, a poet who had written in favour of Alexander's ancestor, Alexander the First.
In 334 BC, Alexander crossed into Asia, and defeated the Persians at the river Granicus. This gave him control of the Ionian coast, and he made a triumphal procession through the liberated Greek cities. After settling affairs in Anatolia, he advanced south through Cilicia into Syria, where he defeated Darius III at Issus (333 BC). He then advanced through Phoenicia to Egypt, which he captured with little resistance, the Egyptians welcoming him as a liberator from Persian oppression, and the prophesied son of Amun.
Darius was now ready to make peace and Alexander could have returned home in triumph, but Alexander was determined to conquer Persia and make himself the ruler of the world. He advanced north-east through Syria and Mesopotamia, and defeated Darius again at Gaugamela (331 BC). Darius fled and was killed by his own followers, and Alexander found himself the master of the Persian Empire, occupying Susa and Persepolis without resistance.
Meanwhile, the Greek cities were making renewed efforts to escape from Macedonian control. At Megalopolis in 331 BC, Alexander's regent Antipater defeated the Spartans, who had refused to join the Corinthian League or recognise Macedonian supremacy.
Alexander pressed on, advancing through what are now Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indus river valley, and by 326 BC he had reached Punjab and defeated Porus after a bruising battle. He reluctantly turned back after reaching the River Beas as his army, tired after many years of battle and worried about facing the much larger Nanda Empire, refused to go any further. Alexander died of a fever in Babylon in 323 BC.
Alexander's empire broke up soon after his death, but his conquests permanently changed the Greek world. Thousands of Greeks travelled with him or after him to settle in the new Greek cities he had founded as he advanced, the most important being Alexandria in Egypt. Greek-speaking kingdoms in Egypt, Syria, Persia and Bactria were established. The knowledge and cultures of east and west began to permeate and interact. The Hellenistic age had begun.
323-146 BC: Hellenistic Greece
The Hellenistic period of Greek history begins with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and ends with the annexation of the Greek peninsula and islands by Rome in 146 BC. Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until the advent of Christianity, it did mark the end of Greek political independence. During the Hellenistic period the importance of "Greece proper" (that is, the territory of modern Greece) within the Greek-speaking world declined sharply. The great centres of Hellenistic culture were Alexandria and Antioch, capitals of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria respectively.
Athens and her allies revolted against Macedon upon hearing that Alexander had died, but was defeated within a year in the Lamian War. Meanwhile, a struggle for power broke out among Alexander's generals, which resulted in the break-up of his empire and the establishment of a number of new kingdoms. Ptolemy was left with Egypt, Seleucus with the Levant, Mesopotamia, and points east. Control of Greece, Thrace, and Anatolia was contested, but by 298 BC the Antigonid dynasty had supplanted the Antipatrid.
Macedonian control of the Greek city-states was intermittent, with a number of revolts. Athens, Rhodes, Pergamum and other Greek states retained substantial independence, and joined the Aetolian League as a means of defending it. The Achaean League, while nominally subject to the Ptolemies was in effect independent, and controlled most of southern Greece. Sparta also remained independent, but generally refused to join any league.
In 267 BC, Ptolemy II persuaded the Greek cities to revolt against Macedon, in what became the Chremonidean War, after the Athenian leader Chremonides. The cities were defeated and Athens lost her independence and her democratic institutions. This marked the end of Athens as a political actor, although it remained the largest, wealthiest and most cultivated city in Greece. In 225, Macedon defeated the Egyptian fleet at Cos and brought the Aegean islands, except Rhodes, under its rule as well.
Sparta remained hostile to the Achaeans, and in 227 BC invaded Achaea and seized control of the League. The remaining Acheans preferred distant Macedon to nearby Sparta, and allied with the former. In 222 BC, the Macedonian army defeated the Spartans and annexed their city-the first time Sparta had ever been occupied by a foreign power.
221-179 BC: Philip V
Philip V of Macedon was the last Greek ruler with both the talent and the opportunity to unite Greece and preserve its independence against the ever-increasing power of Rome. Under his auspices the Peace of Naupactus (217 BC) brought conflict between Macedon and the Greek leagues to an end, and at this time he controlled all of Greece except Athens, Rhodes and Pergamum.
In 215 BC, however, Philip formed an alliance with Rome's enemy Carthage. Rome promptly lured the Achaean cities away from their nominal loyalty to Philip, and formed alliances with Rhodes and Pergamum, now the strongest power in Asia Minor. The First Macedonian War broke out in 212, and ended inconclusively in 205, but Macedon was now marked as an enemy of Rome.
In 202 BC Rome defeated Carthage, and was free to turn her attention eastwards. In 198 BC, the Second Macedonian War broke because Rome saw Macedon as a potential ally of the Seleucids, the greatest power in the east. Philip's allies in Greece deserted him and in 197 BC he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Cynoscephalae by the Roman proconsul Titus Quinctius Flaminius.
Luckily for the Greeks, Flaminius was a moderate man and an admirer of Greek culture. Philip had to surrender his fleet and become a Roman ally, but was otherwise spared. At the Isthmian Games in 196 BC, Flaminius declared all the Greek cities free, although Roman garrisons were placed at Corinth and Chalcis. But the freedom promised by Rome was an illusion. All the cities except Rhodes were enrolled in a new League which Rome ultimately controlled, and aristocratic constitutions were favoured and actively promoted.
The Rise of Rome
In 192 BC, war broke out between Rome and the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III. Some Greek cities now saw Antiochus as their saviour from Roman rule, but Macedon threw its lot in with Rome, and Antiochus was defeated at Thermopylae in 191 BC. During the course of this war, Roman troops crossed into Asia for the first time, where they defeated Antiochus again at Magnesia on the Sipylum (190 BC). Greece now lay across Rome's line of communications with the east, and Roman troops became a permanent presence. The Peace of Apamaea (188 BC) left Rome in a dominant position throughout Greece.
During the following years Rome was drawn deeper into Greek politics, since the defeated party in any dispute appealed to Rome for help. Macedon was still independent, though nominally a Roman ally. When Philip V died in 179 BC, he was succeeded by his son Perseus, who like all the Macedonian kings dreamed of uniting the Greeks under Macedonian rule. Macedon was now too weak to achieve this objective, but Rome's ally Eumenes II of Pergamum persuaded Rome that Perseus was a threat to Rome's position. As a result, Rome declared war on Macedon in 171 BC, bringing 100,000 troops into Greece. Macedon was no match for this army, and Perseus was unable to rally the other Greek states to his aid. Poor generalship by the Romans enabled him to hold out for three years, but in 168 BC, the Romans sent Lucius Aemilius Paullus to Greece, and at Pydna the Macedonians were crushingly defeated. Perseus was captured and taken to Rome, the Macedonian kingdom was broken up into four smaller states, and all the Greek cities who aided her were punished. Even Rome's allies Rhodes and Pergamum effectively lost their independence.
Under the leadership of an adventurer called Andriscus, Macedon rebelled against Roman rule in 149 BC; as a result, it was directly annexed the following year and became a Roman province, the first of the Greek states to suffer this fate. Rome now demanded that the Achaean League, the last stronghold of Greek independence, be dissolved. The Achaeans refused and, feeling that they might as well die fighting, declared war on Rome. Most of the Greek cities rallied to the Achaeans' side, even slaves were freed to fight for Greek independence. The Roman consul Lucius Mummius advanced from Macedonia and defeated the Greeks at Corinth, which was razed to the ground.
146 BC - 330 AD: Roman Greece
Roman Greece is the period of Greek history following the Roman victory over the Corinthians at the Battle of Corinth in 146 BC until the reestablishment of the city of Byzantium and the naming of the city by Emperor Constantine I as the capital of the Roman Empire (as Nova Roma, later Constantinople) in 330.
The Greek peninsula became a Roman protectorate in 146 BC, and the Aegean islands were added to this territory in 133 BC. Athens and other Greek cities revolted in 88 BC, and the peninsula was crushed by the Roman general Sulla. The Roman civil wars devastated the land even further, until Augustus organised the peninsula as the province of Achaea in 27.
Greece was the key eastern province of the Roman Empire, as the Roman culture had long been in fact Greco-Roman. The Greek language served as a lingua franca in the East and in Italy, and many Greek intellectuals such as Galen would perform most of their work in Rome.
Several emperors contributed new buildings to Greek cities, especially in the Agora of Athens, where the Agrippeia of Marcus Agrippa, the Library of Pantaenus, and the Tower of the Winds, among others, were built. Life in Greece continued under the Roman Empire much the same as it had previously. The epics of Homer inspired the Aeneid of Virgil, and authors such as Seneca the younger wrote using Greek styles.
At the same time, Greece and much of the rest of the Roman east came under the influence of Christianity. The apostle Paul had preached in Corinth and Athens, and Greece soon became one of the most highly Christianized areas of the empire.
During the second and third centuries, Greece was divided into provinces including Achaea, Macedonia, Epirus, Thrace and Moesia. During the reign of Diocletian in the late 3rd century, Moesia was organised as a diocese, and was ruled by Galerius. Under Constantine I Hellas was part of the prefectures of Macedonia and Thrace. Theodosius I divided the prefecture of Macedonia into the provinces of Creta, Achaea, Thessalia, Epirus Vetus, Epirus Nova, and Macedonia. The Aegean islands formed the province of Insulae in the prefecture of Asiana.
Greece faced invasions from the Heruli, Goths and Vandals during the reign of Theodosius. Stilicho, who acted as regent for Arcadius, evacuated Thessaly when the Visigoths invaded in the late 4th century. Arcadius' chamberlain Eutropius allowed Alaric to enter Greece, and he looted Athens, Corinth, and the Peloponnese. Stilicho eventually drove him out around 397 and Alaric was made magister militum in Illyricum. Eventually, Alaric and the Goths migrated to Italy, sacked Rome in 410, and built the Visigothic Empire in Iberia and southern France, which lasted until 711 with the advent of the Arabs.
Although Greece remained part of the relatively unified eastern half of the empire, the land had still never fully recovered from the Roman occupation almost 500 years earlier. It had become poor and underpopulated, and the focus of the Greek east had moved to Constantinople and Anatolia during Constantine's reign. Athens, Sparta, and other cities were ignored, and many of their statues and other art were removed and taken to Constantinople. Nevertheless, the area remained one of the strongest centres of Christianity in the late Roman and early Byzantine periods.
330-1453: Byzantine Greece
The Byzantine Empire (or Byzantium) is the term conventionally used to describe the Greek-speaking Roman Empire of the Middle Ages, centred around its capital of Constantinople. During much of its history it was known to many of its Western contemporaries as the Empire of the Greeks because of the dominance of Greek language, culture and population.
There is no consensus on exactly when the Byzantine period of Roman history began. Many consider Emperor Constantine I (reigned 306-337) to be the first "Byzantine Emperor". It was he who moved the imperial capital in 330 from Rome to Byzantium, refounded as Constantinople, or Nova Roma ("New Rome").
The figures of Constantine the Great and Justinian dominated during 324-610. Assimilating the Roman tradition, the emperors sought to provide the basis for subsequent developments and for the formation of the Byzantine Empire. Efforts to secure the borders of the Empire and to restore the Roman territories marked the early centuries. At the same time, the definitive formation and establishment of the Orthodox doctrine, but also a series of conflicts resulting from heresies that developed within the boundaries of the empire marked the early period of Byzantine history.
In the first period of the middle Byzantine era (610-867) the empire was attacked both by old enemies (Persians, Langobards, Avars and Slavs) as well as by new ones appearing for the first time in history (Arabs, Bulgarians). The main characteristic of this period was that the enemy attacks were not localised to the border areas of the state but they were extended deep beyond, even threatening the capital itself. At the same time, these attacks lost their periodical and temporary character and became permanent settlements that transformed into new states, hostile to Byzantium. Those states were referred by the Byzantines as Sclavinias. Changes were also observed in the internal structure of the empire which was dictated by both external and internal conditions. The predominance of the small free farmers, the expansion of the military estates and the development of the system of themes, brought to completion developments that had started in the previous period. Changes were noted also in the sector of administration: the administration and society had become immiscibly Greek, while the restoration of Orthodoxy after the iconoclast movement, allowed the successful resumption of missionary action among neighbouring peoples and their placement within the sphere of Byzantine cultural influence. During this period the state was geographically reduced and economically damaged, since it lost wealth-producing regions; however, it obtained greater lingual, dogmatic and cultural homogeneity.
From the late 8th century, the Empire began to recover from the devastating impact of successive invasions, and the re-conquest of Greece began. Greeks from Sicily and Asia Minor were brought in as settlers. The Slavs were either driven out or assimilated and the Sclavinias were eliminated. By the middle of the 9th century, Greece was Greek again, and the cities began to recover due to improved security and the restoration of effective central control.
Economic Prosperity
When the Byzantine Empire was rescued from a period of crisis by the resolute leadership of the three Komnenoi emperors Alexios, John and Manuel in the twelfth century, Greece prospered. Recent research has revealed that this period was a time of significant growth in the rural economy, with rising population levels and extensive tracts of new agricultural land being brought into production. The widespread construction of new rural churches is a strong indication that prosperity was being generated even in remote areas. A steady increase in population led to a higher population density, and there is good evidence that the demographic increase was accompanied by the revival of towns. Archaeological evidence tells us that many of the medieval towns, including Athens, Thessaloniki, Thebes and Corinth, experienced a period of rapid and sustained growth, starting in the eleventh century and continuing until the end of the twelfth century. The growth of the towns attracted the Venetians, and this interest in trade appears to have further increased economic prosperity in Greece. Certainly, the Venetians and others were active traders in the ports of the Holy Land, and they made a living out of shipping goods between the Crusader Kingdoms of Outremer and the West while also trading extensively with Byzantium and Egypt.
Artistic Revival
The 11th and 12th centuries are said to be the Golden Age of Byzantine art in Greece. Many of the most important Byzantine churches in around Athens, for example, were built during these two centuries, and this reflects the growth of urbanisation in Greece during this period. There was also a revival in the mosaic art with artists showing great interest in depicting natural landscapes with wild animals and scenes from the hunt. Mosaics became more realistic and vivid, with an increased emphasis on depicting three-dimensional forms. With its love of luxury and passion for colour, the art of this age delighted in the production of masterpieces that spread the fame of Byzantium throughout the whole of the Christian world.
Beautiful silks from the work-shops of Constantinople also portrayed in dazzling colour animals - lions, elephants, eagles, and griffins - confronting each other, or representing Emperors gorgeously arrayed on horseback or engaged in the chase. In the provinces, regional schools of Architecture began producing many distinctive styles that drew on a range of cultural influences. All this suggests that there was an increased demand for art, with more people having access to the necessary wealth to commission and pay for such work.
Yet the marvellous expansion of Byzantine art during this period, one of the most remarkable facts in the history of the empire, did not stop there. From the tenth to the twelfth century Byzantium was the main source of inspiration for the West. By their style, arrangement, and iconography the mosaics of St. Mark's at Venice and of the cathedral at Torcello clearly reveal their Byzantine origin. Similarly those of the Palatine Chapel, the Martorana at Palermo, and the cathedral of Cefalu, together with the vast decoration of the cathedral at Monreale, demonstrate the influence of Byzantium ?n the Norman Court of Sicily in the twelfth century. Hispano-Moorish art was unquestionably derived from the Byzantine. Romanesque art owes much to the East, from which it borrowed not only its decorative forms but the plan of some of its buildings, as is proved, for instance, by the domed churches of south-western France. Princes of Kiev, Venetian doges, abbots of Monte Cassino, merchants of Amalfi, and the Norman kings of Sicily all looked to Byzantium for artists or works of art. Such was the influence of Byzantine art in the twelfth century, that Russia, Venice, southern Italy and Sicily all virtually became provincial centres dedicated to its production.
1201-1204: The Fourth Crusade
The Fourth Crusade was originally designed to conquer Jerusalem through an invasion of Egypt. Instead, in April 1204, the Crusaders of the West invaded and conquered the Greek Orthodox city of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. It has been often described as one of the most profitable and disgraceful sacks of a city in history. The empire was replaced by a new Latin one, for 57 years. In addition, the period of Latin occupation decisively influenced the empire's internal development, as elements of feudality entered aspects of Byzantine life.
In 1261, the Greek empire was divided between the former Greek Byzantine Comnenos dynasty members (Epirus) and Palaiologos dynasty (the last dynasty until the fall of Constantinople). After the gradual weakening of the structures of the Greek Byzantine state and the reduction of its land from Turkish invasions, came the fall of the Greek Byzantine Empire, at the hands of the Ottomans.
1354-1821: Ottoman Greece
Most of Greece was part of the Ottoman Empire from the 14th century until its declaration of independence in 1821. The Ottoman Turks first crossed into Europe in 1354. The Byzantine Empire, which had ruled most of the Greek-speaking world for over 1,100 years, had been fatally weakened since the sacking of Constantinople by the Crusaders in 1204. Having defeated the Bulgarians in 1371 and the Serbs in 1389, the Ottomans advanced south into Greece proper, capturing Athens in 1458. The Greeks held out in the Peloponnese until 1460, and the Venetians and Genoese clung to some of the islands, but by 1500 most of the plains and islands of Greece were in Ottoman hands. The mountains of Greece were largely untouched, and were a refuge for Greeks to flee foreign rule. Cyprus fell in 1571, and the Venetians retained Crete until 1670. The Ionian Islands were only briefly ruled by the Ottomans (Kefalonia from 1479 to 1481 and from 1485 to 1500), and remained primarily under the rule of Venice.
When the Ottomans arrived, two Greek migrations occurred. The first migration entailed the Greek intelligentsia migrating to Western Europe and influencing the advent of the Renaissance. The second migration entailed Greeks leaving the plains of the Greek peninsula and resettling in the mountains. Greece being mostly mountainous, the Ottomans could not conquer the entire Greek peninsula since they created neither a military nor an administrative presence in the mountains. There existed many Greek mountain clans all across the peninsula and islands. The Sfakiots of Crete, the Souliots of Epirus, and the Maniots of the Peloponnese were the most resilient mountain clans throughout the Ottoman Empire. By the end of the 16th century up until the 17th century, many Greeks began to migrate from the mountains to the plains.
A secret Greek nationalist organisation called the "Friendly Society" or "Company of Friends" (Filiki Eteria) was formed in Odessa in 1814. The members of the organisation planned a rebellion with the support of wealthy Greek exile communities in Britain and the United States. They also gained support from sympathizers in Western Europe, as well as covert assistance from Russia. The organisation secured Capodistria, who became Russian Foreign Minister after leaving the Ionian Islands, as the leader of the planned revolt. On March 25 (now Greek Independence Day) 1821, the Orthodox Bishop Germanos of Patras proclaimed a national uprising. Simultaneous risings were planned across Greece, including in Macedonia, Crete, and Cyprus. With the initial advantage of surprise, and aided by Ottoman inefficiency, the Greeks succeeded in capturing the Peloponnese and some other areas. Some of the first Greek actions were taken against unarmed Ottoman settlements, with about 40% of Turkish and Albanian Muslim residents of the Peloponnese killed outright, and the rest fleeing the area.
The Ottomans soon recovered, and retaliated in turn with similar savagery, massacring the Greek population of Chios and other towns. This worked to their disadvantage by provoking further sympathy for the Greeks in Western Europe, although the British and French governments suspected that the uprising was a Russian plot to seize Greece and possibly Constantinople from the Ottomans. The Greeks were unable to establish a coherent government in the areas they controlled, and soon fell to fighting amongst themselves. Inconclusive fighting between Greeks and Ottomans continued until 1825 when the Sultan sent a powerful fleet and army from Egypt to ravage the Aegean Islands and the Peloponnese.
The atrocities that accompanied this expedition, together with sympathy aroused by the death of the poet and leading philhellene Lord Byron at Messolongi in 1824, eventually led the Western Powers to intervene. In October 1827, the British, French and Russian fleets, on the initiative of local commanders but with the tacit approval of their governments, attacked and destroyed the Ottoman fleet at the Battle of Navarino. This was the decisive moment in the war of independence. In October 1828, the French landed troops in the Peloponnese to stop the Ottoman atrocities. Under their protection, the Greeks were able to regroup and form a new government. They then advanced to seize as much territory as possible, including Athens and Thebes, before the Western Powers imposed a ceasefire.
A conference in London in March 1829 proposed an independent Greek state with a northern frontier running from Arta to Volos, and including only Euboia and the Cyclades among the islands. The Greeks were bitterly disappointed at these restricted frontiers, but were in no position to resist the will of Britain, France and Russia, who were largely responsible for Greek independence. By the Convention of May 11, 1832, Greece was finally recognised as a sovereign state. Capodistria, who had been Greece's unrecognised head of state since 1828, was assassinated in October 1831. To prevent further experiments in republican government, the Western Powers insisted that Greece be a monarchy, and the Bavarian Prince Otto, rather than someone with a Greek origin was chosen to be its first king.
1832 - Present: Modern Greece
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, in a series of wars with the Ottomans, Greece sought to enlarge its boundaries to include the ethnic Greek population of the Ottoman Empire. (The Ionian Islands were returned by England upon the arrival of the new king from Denmark in 1863, and Thessaly was ceded by the Ottomans without a fight). As a result of the Balkan Wars of 1912-13 Epirus, southern Macedonia, Crete and the Aegean Islands were annexed into Greece. Greece reached its present configuration in 1947.
In World War I, Greece sided with the entente powers against Turkey and the other Central Powers. In the war's aftermath, the Great Powers awarded parts of Asia Minor to Greece, including the city of Smyrna (known as Izmir today) which had a majority Greek population. At that time, however, the Turkish nationalists led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, overthrew the Ottoman government, organised a military assault on the Greek troops, and defeated them. Immediately afterwards, over one million native Greeks of Turkey had to leave for Greece as a population exchange with hundreds of thousands of Muslims living in the Greek state.
World War II
Despite the country's numerically small and ill-equipped armed forces, Greece made a decisive contribution to the Allied efforts in World War II. At the start of the war, Greece sided with the Allies and refused to give in to Italian demands. Italy invaded Greece on 28 October 1940, but Greek troops repelled the invaders after a bitter struggle. This marked the first Allied victory in the war. Hitler then reluctantly stepped in, primarily to secure his strategic southern flank: troops from Germany, Bulgaria and Italy successfully invaded Greece, overcoming Greek, British, Australian and New Zealand units.
However, when the Germans attempted to seize Crete in a massive attack by paratroops-with the aim of reducing the threat of a counter-offensive by Allied forces in Egypt- the Cretan civilians and Allied Forces, offered fierce resistance. The Greek campaign delayed German military plans against Russia and it is argued that German invasion of the Soviet Union started fatally close to winter.
During the years of Occupation of Greece by Nazi Germany, thousands of Greeks died in direct combat, in concentration camps or of starvation. The occupiers murdered the greater part of the Jewish community despite efforts by the Greek Orthodox Church and many Christian Greeks to shelter Jews. The economy was devastated. After liberation, Greece experienced an equally bitter civil war-between communist insurgents and government forces (that encompassed republicans, liberals, fascists, royalists and conservatives); it lasted until 1949.
Postwar Recovery
After the civil war, Greece sought to join the Western democracies and became a member of NATO in 1952. From 1952 to late 1963, Greece was governed by conservative parties: the Greek Rally of Marshal Alexander Papagos, and its successor, the National Radical Union (ERE) of Constantine Karamanlis. In 1964, the Center Union of George Papandreou was elected, and governed until July 1965, when King Constantine II dismissed him, causing a constitutional crisis. The term July apostates refers to the group of George Papandreou's dissidents, led by the politician Konstantinos Mitsotakis, then also member of the Center Union, who crossed the floor to bring about the fall of his elected government in favour of the King. It was followed by a succession of unstable coalition governments formed by conservatives and rebel liberals.
On April 21, 1967, just before scheduled elections, a group of right-wing colonels led by Colonel George Papadopoulos seized power in a coup d'état establishing the Regime of the Colonels. Civil liberties were suppressed, special military courts were established, and political parties were dissolved. Several thousand suspected communists and political opponents were imprisoned or exiled to remote Greek islands.
On November 25, 1973, following the bloody suppression of Athens Polytechnic uprising on the 17th of November, Captain Dimitrios Ioannides replaced Papadopoulos and tried to continue the dictatorship despite the popular unrest the uprising had triggered. Ioannides' attempt in July 1974 to overthrow Archbishop Makarios, the President of Cyprus, brought Greece to the brink of war with Turkey, which invaded Cyprus and occupied part of the island. Senior Greek military officers then withdrew their support from the junta, which toppled. Karamanlis returned from exile in France to establish a government of national unity until elections could be held. Karamanlis worked to defuse the risk of war with Turkey and also legalised the communist party which had been illegal since 1947. His newly organised party, New Democracy (ND), won elections held in November 1974, and he became prime minister.
Restoration of Democracy
Following the 1974 referendum which resulted in the abolition of the monarchy, a new constitution was approved by parliament on June 19, 1975. Parliament elected Constantine Tsatsos as President of the republic. In the parliamentary elections of 1977, New Democracy again won a majority of seats. In May 1980, Prime Minister Karamanlis was elected to succeed Tsatsos as President. George Rallis succeeded Karamanlis as Prime Minister.
On January 1, 1981, Greece became the 10th member of the European Community (now the European Union). In parliamentary elections held on October 18, 1981, Greece elected its first socialist government when the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), led by Andreas Papandreou, won 172 of 300 seats. On March 29, 1985, after Prime Minister Papandreou declined to support President Karamanlis for a second term, Supreme Court Justice Christos Sartzetakis was elected president by the Greek parliament.
Greece had two rounds of parliamentary elections in 1989; both produced weak coalition governments with limited mandates. Party leaders withdrew their support in February 1990, and elections were held on April 8. New Democracy, led by Constantine Mitsotakis, won 150 seats in that election and subsequently gained two others. After Mitsotakis dismissed his first Foreign Minister, Antonis Samaras, in 1992, Samaras formed his own political party, Political Spring. A split between Mitsotakis and Samaras led to the collapse of the ND government and new elections in September 1993 saw Papandreou return to power.
On January 17, 1996, following a protracted illness, Papandreou resigned and was replaced as Prime Minister by former Minister of Trade and Industry Costas Simitis. Simitis won elections in 1996 and 2000. In 2004, Simitis retired and George Andreas Papandreou succeeded him as PASOK leader. At the March 2004 elections, however, PASOK was defeated by New Democracy, led by Kostas Karamanlis, the nephew of the former President.
Greece adopted the Euro as its currency in 2001. New infrastructure, funds from the EU and growing revenues from tourism, shipping, services, light industry and the telecommunications industry have brought Greeks an unprecedented standard of living. Tensions continue to exist between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus and the delimitation of borders in the Aegean Sea but relations have considerably thawed following successive earthquakes-first in Turkey and then in Greece-and an outpouring of sympathy and generous assistance by ordinary Greeks and Turks.