HISTORYARTISTIC & CULTURAL LEGACIES800–650 BC
Independent city-
states begin to emerge
in the Archaic Age as
the Dorians develop.
Aristocrats rule these
ministates while tyrants
occasionally take power
by force. The Greek
alphabet emerges from
Phoenician script.
700–500 BC
Having originated
around 1000 BC in
the Peloponnese, the
Spartans come to play
a decisive role in Greek
history. Politically and
militarily, the Spartans
dominate for around
200 years.594 BC
Solon, a ruling
aristocrat in Athens,
introduces rules of fair
play to his citizenry. His
radical rule-changing –
in eff ect creating
human and political
rights – is credited as
being the fi rst step to
real democracy.490 BC
Athens invokes the
ire of the Persians by
supporting insurgencies
within Persian territorial
domains. Seeking
revenge, the Persian
king Darius sends an
army to teach Greece a
lesson but is defeated
at Marathon.Democracy
The seafaring city-state of Athens was still in the hands of aristocrats when
Athens’ greatest reformist, Solon, was appointed chief magistrate in 594
BC. His mandate was to defuse the mounting tensions between the haves
and have-nots. In a high-risk strategy Solon cancelled all debts, liberating
those who’d become enslaved because of them. Declaring all free Atheni-
ans equal by law, Solon abolished inherited privileges and restructured
political power, establishing four classes based on wealth. Although only
the fi rst two classes were eligible for offi ce, all four could elect magistrates
and vote on legislation. Solon’s reforms have become regarded as a blue-
print of the ideological democratic system aspired to in most of today’s
Western societies.
THE SPARTANSMaybe you saw the gory but brilliant fi lm 300 , imaginatively based on the battle of
Thermopylae in 480 BC; one of the most talked about battles in history. Three hundred
elite Spartan soldiers held an entire Persian army (whose force numbered several thou-
sand) at bay at the pass (‘hot gates’) of Thermopylae (near today’s Lamia). For three
days, wave upon wave of Persian soldiers fell upon their deadly spears and unbridgeable
tortoise-shell formation. What kind of soldiers could display such bravery? Ones raised
in the war-mongering/honour-based regime of Sparta.
The Spartans were held in mythic awe by their fellow Greeks for their ferocious,
self-sacrifi cing martial supremacy, marching into battle in a disciplined, lock-stepped
phalanx, living (and very often dying) by the motto ‘return with your shield or on it’. The
product of harsh ideology, every male Spartan was by defi nition a soldier (hoplite), who
began his training almost from birth. Poor recruits were weeded out early – a citizens’
committee decided which newborn babies did not pass muster (they would then be left
on the Taÿgetos Mountains to die). The surviving children, from the age of seven, en-
dured 13 years of training to foster supreme physical fi tness, and suff ered institutional-
ised beating ‘competitions’ to toughen them up. Sparta, fearing no one, was without city
walls or fortifi cation. Gold and silver coins, in an antimercenary measure to throttle any
sign of material greed, were corrupted with lead to render them useless for trade with
passing merchants. The same could be said about interactions with outsiders: inter-
marriage with other tribes was equally forbidden, particularly the Athenians, who the
Spartans considered morally corrupt and too lavish. Spartan women on the other hand,
were accorded with more equality and respect than anywhere else in Greece at the time.
But it was Sparta’s inward, xenophobic character – along with the exhausting Pelopon-
nesian Wars – that ultimately led to the decline and genetic weakening of this master
race. The Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC was the fi rst major defeat of the Spartans in open
battle and marked the beginning of the collapse of their power.