The Dark Ages of Greece dramatically illustrate the historical principal that cultures can decline and the future may not be as prosperous as the past. The period from 1100 to 800 B.C. is known as the Dark Age of Greece. As described in the Ancient Greek Thesaursus: Throughout the area there are signs of a sharp cultural decline. Some sites, formerly inhabited, were now abandoned. Pottery was much less elegant; burials were made without expensive ornaments; and the construction of massive buildings came to a halt. Even the art of writing in Linear B vanished. The palace-centered bureaucracies no longer existed, but of the political machinery that replaced them we know almost nothing.
Still, the cultural decline was not quite a cultural break. Farming, weaving, and other technological skills survived; pottery, though it was for a while much less gracious, revived and developed the so-called Geometric style. Nor was the Greek language submerged. Many Greeks, displaced from their homes, found safety by settling in other parts of Greece.
In a larger sense, the shattering of the monarchic pattern in the Mycenaean Age can be viewed as a liberating and constructive event. We cannot show that the kings and dynasties in Greece were dependent on or were imitating kings in the ancient Near East, but the two systems of monarchy resembled each other. If the Mycenaean kings had survived, mainland Greece might have developed as Anatolia did, with strong monarchies and priests who interpreted and refined religious thought in ways that would justify the divine right of kings. Self-government within Greek states might not have emerged for centuries if it appeared at all. But the invasions of the twelfth century, in which the Dorians at least played a part, ended forever the domination of the palace-centered kings.
The civilizations that flourished during the Bronze Age ended in an abrupt way during the 12th century B.C. when a Greek speaking civilization, the Dorians, came from the North of Greece.
They scattered the Mycenaean population and decentralized the Mycenaean established control system. Agriculture, industry and trade activities were divided in some hundred of villages.
The disruption that followed was of great importance. The economy, the politics and the culture declined and all the trade networks with the Near East collapsed. The art of writing also disappeared and the only literary work of that period is the amazing Trojan War epic poem, the Iliad, written by the famous Homer.
This period was characterized as the "Dark Ages" following the decline and fall of the Mycenean kingdoms after the middle of the 12th century, partially because the facts for this period were very poor. It is also sometimes referred to as the Geometric period from the geometric shapes at the decoration of the vases made during that time. There was a significant migration of peoples during this period both to the Greek mainland as well as Greek islands in the Aegean Sea. Greek peoples that previously inhabited mountainous and barren areas in the periphery migrated toward fertile areas and population centers. This transformation was a precursor to the formation of the Greek city-states that would shine so brightly in the Classical period which would soon follow.
This age was also referred to as the Homeric Age which existed roughly from 1200 – 800 BC. The Greece that we know today was roughly formulated during this period and it was the first period of Greece’s history. During this era, not only was the Greek nation formed, but the foundations were put in place for many of the social and political developments throughout the ages. The era was also forever etched in history with the creation of the two greatest epic novels in world history – Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
The Ancient Greek Thesaursus describes the Homeric period as:
By 1200 BC the Greeks had occupied most of the northern sections of the peninsula and a few scattered locations along the coast. At first they filtered in slowly, bringing their herds and flocks with them and settling in the more sparsely populated areas. Many of these early immigrants seem to have belonged to the group which later came to be known as Ionians. Another division the Achaeans pushed further south, conquered Mycenae and Troy, and ultimately gained dominion over Crete. Soon after 1200 the great Dorian invasions began and reached their climax about two centuries later. Some of the Dorians settled in central Greece, but most of them took to the sea, conquering the eastern sections of the Peloponnesus and the southern islands of the Aegean. About 1000 BC they captured Knossos, the chief center of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete.
Whether Achaeans, Ionians, or Dorians, all of the Greeks in the Homeric Age had essentially the same culture, which was comparatively primitive. Not until the very last century of the period was there any general knowledge of writing. We must therefore envisage the Homeric Greeks as a preliterate people during the greater part of their history, with intellectual accomplishments that extended no farther than development of folk songs, ballads, and short epics sung and embellished by bards as they wandered from one village to another. A large part of this material was finally woven into a great epic cycle by one or more poets and put into written form in the ninth century BC. Though not all of the poems of this cycle have come down to us, the two most important, the Iliad and the Odyssey, provide us with our richest store of information about the ideals and customs of the Homeric Age.
The political institutions of the Homeric Greeks were also exceedingly primitive. Each little community of villages was independent of external control, but political authority was so tenuous that it would not be too much to say that the state scarcely existed at all. The king could not make or enforce laws or administer justice. He received no remuneration of any kind, but had to cultivate his farm for a living the same as any other citizen. Practically his only functions were military and priestly. He commanded the army in time of war and offered sacrifices to keep the gods on the good side of the community. Although each little group of villages had its council of nobles and assembly of warriors, neither of these bodies had any definite membership or status as an organ of government. The duties of the former were to advise and assist the king and prevent him from usurping despotic powers. The functions of the latter were to ratify declarations of war and assent to the conclusion of peace. Almost without exception custom took the place of law, and the administration of justice was private. Even willful murder was punishable only by the family of the victim. While it is true that disputes were sometimes submitted to the king for settlement, he acted in such cases merely as an arbitrator, not as a judge. As a matter of fact, the political consciousness of the Greeks of this time was so poorly developed that they had no conception of government as an indispensable agency for the preservation of social order. When Odysseus, king of Ithaca, was absent for twenty years, no regent was appointed in his place, and no session of the council or assembly was held. No one seemed to think that the complete suspension of government, even for so long a time, was a matter of any critical importance.
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