A History of the Archaic Greek World, ca. 1200–479 BCE

A History of the Archaic Greek World provides theme–based coverage of the years 1200–479 BCE. By revisiting the evidence from the period with a critical and analytical eye, Jonathan M. Hall gives the reader the opportunity to investigate at first hand this crucial formative period of Greek history. In doing so, this book casts new light on traditional themes such as the rise of the city–state, colonization, citizen militias, the origins of egalitarianism, and the emergence of a self–conscious Greek identity. Taking into consideration feedback from the first edition, the author has updated the text and added further material, including two new sections entitled Archaeological Gaps: Attica and Crete and ‘ Greek’ Culture: Unity and Diversity ; he has increased illustrative material, and included a new guide to electronic resources. In addition, Hall has expanded the geographical coverage of all material considered within the book. The text continues to provide an exceptionally wide range of archaeological evidence across a number of different specialties. The author brings a willingness to question existing notions, which allows the reader to become involved in the practice of history by probing and reevaluating conventional beliefs.

List of Maps x List of Figures xi List of Documents xiii Preface xv Preface to the Second Edition xvii Timeline xix 1 The Practice of History 1 The Lelantine War 1 The Lelantine War Deconstructed 4 What Is History? 8 History as Literature 11 Method and Theory 12 2 Sources, Evidence, Dates 16 Evaluating Sources 16 Dating Archaic Poets 21 Non–Literary Evidence 26 Ancient Chronography 29 Archaeological Dating 33 3 The End of the Mycenaean World and Its Aftermath 41 Mycenaean Greece 41 Gauging the Historicity of the Dorian Migration 44 Alternative Explanations 51 The Loss and Recovery of Writing 56 Whose Dark Age? 59 4 Communities of Place 68 Defining the Polis 68 The Urban Aspect of the Polis: Houses, Graves, and Walls 72 Political and Economic Functions 81 Cultic Communities 85 Polis and Ethnos 90 5 New Homes Across the Seas 96 On the Move 99 The Credibility of Colonial Foundation Stories 105 Pots and Peoples 111 A Spartan Foundation? Taras, Phalanthos, and the Partheniai 116 Hunger or Greed? 120 6 The Changing Nature of Authority 126 Charting the Genesis of the State 126 Kings or “Big–Men”? 127 The Emergence of an Aristocracy 134 Laws and Institutions 138 The Return of the “Big–Man” 144 Excursus I. A Cautionary Tale: Pheidon of Argos 154 7 Fighting for the Fatherland 165 A Hoplite Revolution? 165 Some More Equal Than Others 174 Conquest, Territory, and Exploitation 181 Excursus II. Archaeological Gaps: Attica and Crete 190 8 Defining the Political Community 200 Looking to the End 200 The Role of the Dêmos and the Great Rhetra 205 Drawing Boundaries 211 Land, Labor, and the Crisis in Attica 214 The “Second Sex” 220 Excursus III. Evaluating the Spartan Mirage 227 9 The City of Theseus 235 The End of the Tyranny 235 The Birth of Democracy? 238 The Unification of Attica 243 Theseus: Democrat or Autocrat? 251 The (A)typicality of Athens 255 10 Making a Living 260 Conceptualizing Ancient Economic Activity 260 A Peasant Economy? 262 Plying the Seas 268 The Introduction of Coinage 275 Excursus IV. The Rise of Persia and the Invasions of Greece 282 11 Imagining Greece 290 “Greek” Culture: Unity and Diversity 290 Greeks and Others: The External Dimension 293 The Emergence of Panhellenism: The Internal Dimension 301 The Invention of the Barbarian 308 12 Writing the History of Archaic Greece 312 The First Sacred War: Fact or Fiction? 312 The Limits of Narrative History 317 Dividing up Time and Space 320 Abbreviations and Glossary of Literary Sources 326 Works Cited in the Further Reading 330 Guide to Electronic Resources 339 Index 342

Jonathan M. Hall is the Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities and Professor in the Departments of History and Classics and the College at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Ethnic Identity in Greek Antiquity (1997), Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture (2002), and Artifact and Artifice: Classical Archaeology and the Ancient Historian (2013).