Larger governmental structures and the economy failed. Sev-
eral waves of barbarians raided at will throughout the area.
Every major Greek city was destroyed. Greece entered a dark
age lasting many centuries, with no social organization above
the level of the village and no contact with the outside world.
Th e ability to read and write was completely lost.
THE RELIGION OF THE GREEK CITIES
During the Archaic Period (600–480 b.c.e.), Greece recov-
ered politically and economically and once again had exten-
sive overseas contacts with the Near East, not only through
merchants but also through the many Greek mercenaries
who served foreign kings. Greeks reacquired literacy and
developed their own alphabet, modifi ed from Phoenician
writing, which was also the ultimate basis for the Latin, He-
brew, and Arabic alphabets still used today. Th ey borrowed
many religious ideas and forms from the Near East, such
as the idea of the temple as a house of a god, the ritual of
animal sacrifi ce, and myths that were incorporated into lit-
erary works like the poet Hesiod’s Th eogony (Generation of
the Gods). Th e Archaic Period established the conditions for
the fl ourishing of Greek culture and religion in the Classical
Age (480–323 b.c.e.), a period admired as an ideal by many
later cultures.
By the eighth century b.c.e. Greek cities (or city-states,
since each city in Greece was an independent country) be-
gan to be established or reestablished, oft en by bringing
together all the villages in a given locale under one govern-
ment and even relocating the population to a central point.
New religious institutions had to be created for the benefi t
of the cities. Each city established temples for its particular
gods—places where people gathered to pray and sacrifi ce to a
god and where property dedicated as off erings to the god was
stored. Th e temples were controlled by the city and adminis-
tered by priests chosen from among the aristocratic classes.
Th e city also fi xed a calendar of festivals and sacrifi ces for
the gods it honored. Th e offi cial religion, with all of its public
rituals carried out by the citizens all together in great public
ceremonies, was the most important factor in unifying the
city and providing it with a national identity. By the same
token the religion of the city was the chief form of religious
experience of the Greeks.Frieze of the gods Poseidon and Apollo and the goddess Artemis from the Parthenon (Alison Frantz Photographic Collection, American School of
Classical Studies at Athens)
854 religion and cosmology: Greece