Encyclopedia of Society and Culture in the Ancient World

Age settlement of Százhalombatta Földvár in Hungary was

protected by both a ditch and an earthen rampart, construc-

tion of which was a huge earth-moving project that probably

required direction by a respected person of higher social sta-

tus than most people. Another manifestation of the existence

of a social elite was the use of distinctive burial practices.

In many areas the elite were buried in specially constructed

mounds (sometimes called tumuli). Th e Iron Age is the fi rst

time in European prehistory that something is known about

the group names people called themselves. Th e most famous

are the Celts, who were spread from southeastern Europe to

the British Isles. Th eir elite lived in hill forts (oft en called op-

pida). Th e settlement of Bibracte, now called Mont Beuvray,

in France was surrounded by a wall of timber, stone, and

earth, 3 miles long.

GREECE

BY MARK ANTHONY PHELPS

Two geographic factors are paramount in understanding

Greece from either a social or an economic context. First, this

is an extraordinarily hilly and mountainous land, as over 40

percent of the land is more than 1,600 feet in elevation. Th e

Pindus Mountains extend the length of the region until they

submerge into the Aegean Sea, creating most of the islands

found there as well as a jagged coast that provides a vast num-

ber of protected harbors. Settled life focuses on valleys and a

handful of plains scattered throughout the country. Second,

no point of the peninsula is more than 38 miles from the sea.

Th e soil of the region is rocky and oft en of marginal fer-

tility. Adding to the fragility of the soil is the climate, known

as dry summer subtropical. Summer dryness, wind, and heat

contribute to crop failure, while winter rains demand mod-

ifi cations of the farmland to enhance drainage and to stop

soil erosion. Natural springs and man-made cisterns, neces-

sities for rural life, infl uence where cities can grow. In ancient

times the marginal land that could not lend itself to intensive

agriculture was used for pastoralism. Aft er the collapse of the

Mycenaean civilization (ca. 1100 b.c.e.), the depopulation of

cities may refl ect a period of nomadic pastoralism. For the

rest of the ancient history of Greece, transhumant pastoral-

ism was the norm.

Th e hills and mountains of Greece contributed to the po-

litical fragmentation that characterizes Greek history. Isola-

tion fosters ethnocentrism, which contributes to the history

of independent city-states and continual rivalries. Th e major-

ity of ancient Greeks were farmers. Wheat was the dominant

crop in the plains and valley bottoms, while olives and grapes

were typically grown on terraced hillsides.

Th e model traditionally espoused for ancient farmers

is taken from the pattern of farming found in medieval and

modern Greece. Historians theorized that farmers lived in

villages, leaving in the morning to tend to scattered plots.

Th e distribution of plots was the product of equal devolution

of property among sons and the usage of land in dowries.

Th is dispersion was ultimately advantageous, as land in plots

that have some ecological diff erentiation serves as insurance

in the face of droughts, because one piece of land may fare

better than others. Further, the village provided protection

from raiders. Given the scarcity of water, it was assumed that

farmhouses in the countryside would have been impossible

to maintain.

However, this model has been successfully challenged by

the recent attention to rural archaeology and a closer reading

of certain classical texts. Th e rise of villages and the increase

in trade at the beginning of the Iron Age points to a rise in ag-

ricultural production. Th e need for land for intensive farming

was a contributing factor to the phenomenon of colonization

as Greeks established colonies throughout the Aegean coasts,

the Black Sea, Libya, and other scattered centers in Asia Mi-

nor and the rest of the eastern Mediterranean.

Th e image of Odysseus’s father Laertes in Homer’s Odys-

sey serves as antithetical evidence to the traditional model of

ancient Greek farming. In contrast to the notion of living in a

village, Laertes resides in a house on his farm with outbuild-

ings constructed on it for storage and drying. He works his

farm daily, which must be done if one is growing vines and

maintaining orchards. He has a fence and dogs for protec-

tion. He labors alongside his slaves, sharing equally in toil. He

rarely enters the town, where he owns a lavish house, and he

has a profound disdain for urban dwellers. He has a reputa-

tion as a warrior.

Archaeological evidence indicates that small-scale irri-

gation emerged at the time of Homer and Hesiod in the late

eighth century b.c.e., providing another argument for the

need to have farmers on farms for continual maintenance.

In his writings Aristotle (384–322 b.c.e.) asserts that in early

days the population of the polis was small, as most were work-

ing farms. Surveys in Attica, Boeotia, the Argolis, the Pelo-

ponnese, Aegean Islands, Magna Graecia, and the Crimea

all support these images where a number of rural structures

from these areas have been located.

Ancient Greek farmers would have needed to both pro-

tect their land from raiders and hide from invaders. Given

that most farms were small, neighbors were not terribly dis-

tant. Protection from farming neighbors seems to have been

a greater concern than raiders given the attention that Plato

assigns to legal codes regulating the relationship between

farming neighbors in his work Laws. Clearly, settlement in

rural areas was dense enough to cause troubles. Th e largest

estates were by no means enormous. Th e politician and gen-

eral Alcibiades (fi ft h century b.c.e.), nephew of Pericles, was

fabulously wealthy with an estate of some 80 acres.

Th e choice for urban settlement was based primarily on

access to water, generally springs or (less oft en) rivers. Sites

needed to have an agricultural hinterland to support the

urban population that did not farm. Th is hinterland would

have needed a population base to trade its surplus for certain

manufactured and imported goods. Th e two most power-

ful states during the bulk of the ancient Greek period were

970 settlement patterns: Greece

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