S7_Colonies and Early History of City States

• Hellenic history officially begins in 776, with the first Olympics (Olympiad). In the later 700s (eight century), the Greek city-states began to found colonies.
• When a colony was founded, the oecist, the leader of the colonists, usually an outcast noble, took fire from the hearth of the mother-city (metropolis) and used it to start a fire in the new city’s hearth. Mother-cities and their colonies usually maintained close ties, but the colony was an independent city-state.
• The first colony was (originally Pithecusae, but that did not last) Cumae (Cyme), in Italy. The most important colony on Sicily, later the largest city in the Greek world, was Syracuse, founded by Corinth in 734 (traditionally).
• In 707, the Spartans (a Dorian group) founded their only colony at Taras (Tarentum).
• According to legend, Lycurgus made the Spartan constitution in 885. Sparta was a city with a relatively small population in the Peloponnesus. It was also called Lacedaemon.
• Sometime during the late eighth century, the Spartans made war on the neighboring city of Messenia.
• A legendary Messenian hero, Aristodemus, is said to have sacrificed his daughter to save the city. Apparently his action failed as the Messenians, who outnumbered the Spartans about 10 to 1, were subjugated. The Messenians were forced to become helots, basically the same as medieval serfs. Fear of helot revolts led the Spartans to devote their entire culture to war.
• Sparta never had a tyrant. Their government was organized like this: 2 kings, with some power over each other, similar to Rome’s consuls. 5 ephors, who could exercise some control over the king, were chosen out of Gerousia. 2 ephors had to accompany kings on campaign. The Gerousia was a counsel of 30 noblemen including the kings, all (except possibly the kings) over the age of sixty.
• There was an assembly of all citizens called the Apella that had some power. A Spartan was not able to vote in the Apella until he was thirty and out of military service. A Spartan newborn was examined to see if it was fit. If not, it was killed.
• At the age of seven, Spartan boys were taken from their mothers and put in a group camp with other boys up to the age of 18. Conditions were harsh and many more died. The boys would organize into packs, ruled by older boys.
• Women were given more rights in Sparta than in other Greek city-states. They participated in athletics. They could hold property and manage their husbands’ lands and testify in court. They had all the rights of men except the right to vote or hold office
• Sparta meanwhile conquered Tegea, after receiving advice from the oracle and hearing about the bones of Orestes being in Tegea. Sparta then defeated Argos and became the dominant city in the Peloponnesus. Sparta also formed the Peloponnesian League, which it headed.
• Around Greece, the aristocratic governments oppressed the common people. This led to discontent and in many Greek city-states, tyrants overthrew the governments. Tyranny in the ancient Greek sense means rule without democratic representation. Many times, tyrants were popular.
• Corinth, a Dorian city just outside the Peloponnesus, was ruled after the fall of its monarchy by an aristocratic family, the Bacchiads.
• Around 650, Cypselus, whose name means “chest” (according to legend he was hidden in a chest or a jar as a child to escape the Bacchiads who had heard a prophecy that Cypselus would overthrow them), overthrew them and became tyrant. Cypselus promoted colonization and trade in Corinth. He was succeeded as Corinthian ruler by his son Periander circa 620.
• During Periander’s rule, Corinth reached its greatest prosperity and power. It was the dominant naval power in Greece and the dominant commercial power as well.
• Athens, later the second largest-city in the Greek world, was in a region called Attica. Early on, Synoecism, a process of combining political entities into one, gave Athenian citizenship and rights to all the inhabitants of Attica.
• In 632, Cylon attempted to establish tyranny. He was besieged on the Acropolis, the hill in the middle of Athens, and killed by Megacles. The Athenians felt that this was unjust and Megacles’ family, the Alcmaeonids, was stigmatized by his action for generations.
• In 621, Draco laid out Athens’ law code. It is from his name that we get the term “Draconian” (harsh)
• Solon: Athenian statesman and poet. Archon from 594-593. After his archonship, he went into voluntary exile.
• Early reforms before Solon: Athens began to be turned from an aristocracy into a timocracy, where classes are determined by wealth instead of birth. Solon continued this process.
• Solon’s Reforms: Solon’s first act, and perhaps his most important, was the seisachtheia, which canceled enslavement for debt. Solon changed Athenian currency. Solon changed the selection of public officers to lot and election, instead of just election.
• After Solon’s reforms, two political parties formed: the Plains, which opposed the democratic institutions of Solon, and the Coast, which liked them.
• In 561, Athens finally got a tyrant, Pisistratus. He formed a new political party, the Hill. He was thrown-out and restored several times. He paved the way for the end of the Hektemoroi class, the laborers, by giving them land.
• Athens began to grow in power and expanded its territory during Pisistratus’ rule. Athens added Salamis and fought a war with Megara. Pisistratus also purified the sacred island of Delos and instituted the Panatheniac feast.
• Pisistratus died in 528/527. His sons Hippias and Hipparchus succeeded him.
• In 514, Harmodius and Aristogiton assassinated Hipparchus, because Hipparchus had slighted Harmodius’ sister by not allowing her to carry a basket in the Panatheniac procession.
• In 510, the Spartan king Cleomenes invaded Athens at the invitation of the exiled Alcmaeonids, to whom Hippias and Pisistratus were only loosely connected. Hippias was forced out of power and exiled to Persia.
• Cleomenes dominated Sparta and to a lesser extent, all of Greece from 510 to his death in 490.
• In Athens, with Hippias gone, a man named Cleisthenes set down reforms that made Athens a true democracy. He was an Alcmaeonid.
• Cleisthenes re-organized the Athenian people into 3 regions, 30 trittyes, and 10 tribes. He created a new council, the Boule, which contained 500 members, fifty from each tribe. The members were determined by lot.
• Cleisthenes increased the powers of the Ecclesia and the ten generals (one from each tribe), called strategoi, elected by the assembly each year became more important than the polemarch.
• The archons and Areopagus became basically empty of power. Athens over the 500s began to replace Corinth as the dominant commercial power in Greece. Democracy in Athens = 508.