kingdoms,^18 and for a time the network seems to have included Miletos (Milawata
or Milawanda) and Troy (Wilusa) on the Anatolian coast.^19
The creation of a Great Kingdom on the Greek mainland must by definition
have been preceded by the establishment of one or more small kingdoms or
chiefdoms. The earliest evidence for anything of the sort on the mainland comes
from shortly before 1600 BC: impressive burials in shaft graves, chamber tombs,
and tholos tombs include not only very rich grave goods but also an array of
weapons and evidence for chariots. The most likely explanation for the sudden
appearance of a ranked society and militarism is that shortly before 1600 BCthere
arrived in the harbors of the Greek mainland military forces and their leaders. The
linguistic argument about wheeled vehicles identifies the language of the intruders
as Indo-European.
What was militarized
On the Greek mainland were some of the same attractions that brought militarism,
and very likely new languages, to other parts of Europe. The primary attractions
on the Greek mainland were hardly the fertile plains of Thessaly and elsewhere,
as I naively supposed 30 years ago, but something more negotiable. The plains
would attract attention later, but the initial attractions were apparently copper
and silver from the Laurion mines, along with whatever else on the mainland
was enriching Knossos and the other palaces on Crete. We need not imagine
a single military force appropriating all the best parts of the Greek mainland.
Word of a first expedition’s success may—within a few years—have inspired a
second and then a third company of military men to go out into the world and
seek their fortune.
Because of the mines, the eastern coast of Attika was probably taken over
immediately. The principal sites in eastern Attika were Thorikos and Marathon
(Vrana), where impressive tholos and tumulus burials have been excavated.
Thorikos was immediately to the north of the Laurion mines. Although Marathon
was 50 km further to the north, it overlooked a fine harbor in Marathon bay. Other
sites that were occupied late in the MH or early in the LH period included
Brauron and—along the Boiotian and Lokrian coasts—Aulis, Dramesi and Mitrou.
For control of the road along Attika’s opposite coast, leading from the mines to
the acropolis of Athens and to the harbor of Eleusis, the new rulers built a strongly
fortified settlement on the lowest terrace of the elevated site often called Kiapha
Thiti (alternatively, Kontra Gkliate). An early settlement on this high hill had been
abandoned after the EH II period, and the hill had been uninhabited for half a
millennium until late in the MH III period. It was then that the fortification wall,
some 160 m long, was constructed.^20
Prime desiderata were harbors from which to market either raw materials or
products made from them. One of the best anchorages in eastern Greece was the
Nafplio harbor on the Argolic gulf, thanks to which Lerna had become the most
impressive town of Early Helladic Greece. The newcomers took possession of the
Nafplio and Asine harbors and then the interior of the Argolid. An important site
Militarism in Greece 179