Early Greece

by Oswyn Murray

  THUCYDIDES (450s–about 400 BC) of Athens, historian of the Peloponnesian War; for this early period he is chiefly interesting as a critic of Herodotus. There is an outstanding translation by R. Crawley (Everyman).

  XENOPHON (about 428-about 354 BC) of Athens, amateur historian and philosopher, professional soldier. His Constitution of the Spartans is a highly idealized picture of the society where he spent almost thirty years in exile. Translation in Loeb.

  INSCRIPTIONS are cited from R. Meiggs and D. M. Lewis, A Selection of Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford U.P. 1969). Many of these are available in translation in Translated Documents of Greece and Rome vol. i; Archaic Times to the end of the Peloponnesian War by C. W. Fornara (Johns Hopkins U.P. 1977); I have given the Fornara numbers in brackets, distinguished by ‘F’. In the printing of inscriptions, words missing or uncertain on the stone are given in square brackets, my own comments or explanations in round brackets.

  FRAGMENTS Much of the literary evidence for this period comes from works which survive only in ‘fragments’, either quoted or referred to in later authors, or surviving partially on papyrus copies from the Graeco-Roman settlements in Egypt. These are the standard collections:

  HISTORIANS F. Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (F.G.H.; 14 volumes, 1923–58, Brill of Leiden), the most important modern work in Greek history. There is no translation.

  LYRIC POETS The continual discovery of new papyrus fragments has meant the continual re-editing of various parts of early Greek poetry; unfortunately for the historian the accepted divisions are metrical rather than convenient. Where possible I number the fragments according to the following standard modern editions. E. Lobel and D. L. Page Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta (Oxford U.P. 1955): for Sappho and Alkaios

  D. L. Page Poetae Melici Graeci (Oxford U.P. 1962): for Alkman, Anakreon, Simonides

  The most important fragments from these two volumes are collected with the same numbering in D. L. Page Lyrica Graeca Selecta (Oxford Classical Texts 1968). See also the same author’s Epigrammata Graeca (same series 1975) for the epigrams of Simonides.

  M. L. West Iambi et Elegi Graeci (Oxford U.P. 1971–2): for Archilochos, Theognis, Kallinos, Mimnermos, Solon, Tyrtaios, and some of Xenophanes. West has also published a selection in the Oxford Classical Texts series, Delectus ex Iambis et Elegis Graecis (1980).

  In important cases I give also the numbers (distinguished by D) assigned in the previous standard edition, which is the last relatively complete one: E. Diehl, Anthologia Lyrica Graeca.

  The lyric poets are now translated in the new Loeb Greek Lyric by D. A. Campbell (three out of four volumes published).

  PHILOSOPHERS H. Diels, W. Kranz Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker (3 volumes, 5th and later editions from 1934 onwards). These are translated in K. Freeman Ancilla to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers (Blackwell 1948).

  EASTERN SOURCES These are quoted from the following translated collections:

  The New English Bible

  J. B. Pritchard Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (3rd edn, Princeton U.P. 1969).

  G. G. Cameron Persepolis Treasury Tablets (Chicago U.P. 1948).

  R. T. Hallock Persepolis Fortification Tablets (Chicago U.P. 1969).

  R. G. Kent Old Persian (2nd edn, American Oriental Society, Connecticut 1953).

  Further Reading

  THE FOLLOWING general works can be recommended:

  A. Andrewes Greek Society (Penguin 1971: for social institutions);

  J. B. Bury and R. Meiggs A History of Greece (4th edn Macmillan

  1975: a good narrative history);

  L. H. Jeffery Archaic Greece (Methuen 1976: a regional survey);

  Alan Johnston The Emergence of Greece (Elsevier Phaidon 1976: outstanding illustrations);

  Jeffrey M. Hurwitt The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100–480 B.C. (Cornell 1985: an excellent attempt to relate art and literature to the history of the period).

  For a fuller narrative see the two books by A. R. Burn, The Lyric Age of Greece (Arnold 1960) and Persia and the Greeks (second edn Duckworth 1984). Otherwise most of the books cited in detail below also offer the best general accounts of their particular areas of interest. In the Further Reading I have tried where possible to refer to English language publications, and have marked with an asterisk those contributions which can only be understood with a knowledge of Greek: I have used the device sparingly in the belief that only the most technical writing offers nothing to the non-linguist who is prepared to think a little. The second edition of the Cambridge Ancient History is arranged on rather conventional and old-fashioned narrative lines, but individual chapters are good; and it is especially useful for its chapters on the Near East. I refer to it as CAH, mentioning the edition only if the old edition is meant.

  I MYTH HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY

  For the relations between myth and history, the classic statement of the first great modern historian of Greece, George Grote (1794–1871) is still worth reading: History of Greece i (1884 edition) ch. xvi.

  The best accounts of Mycenean culture, by an archaeologist and a philologist respectively, are Emily Vermeule Greece in the Bronze Age (Chicago U.P. 1964), and John Chadwick The Mycenean World (Cambridge U.P. 1976). The exploits of Schliemann and Evans should be read in their own words: Glyn Daniel The Origins and Growth of Archaeology (Pelican 1967) pp. 150–77 gives extracts. For Ventris and Linear B, see John Chadwick The Decipherment of Linear B (2nd edn, Cambridge U.P. 1967). Any discussion of the myths of the heroic age must start from M. P.Nilsson The Mycenean Origin of Greek Mythology (California U.P. 1932, reissued with a new introduction and bibliography 1972), where he established the Mycenean basis of the myths.

  For the Dark Ages there is the sober guide of V. R. d’A. Desborough The Greek Dark Ages (Benn 1972); but the most stimulating book is A. M. Snodgrass The Dark Age of Greece (Edinburgh U.P. 1971), which argues for the theory that the change was due to internal factors, not a Dorian invasion. For a varied collection of recent views on this question see D. Musti (ed.) Le origini dei Greci: Dori e mondo egeo (Laterza, Rome 1985, in Italian). There are useful chapters in the CAH II 2, notably J. M. Cook on the Ionian migration (ch. xxxviii) and Chadwick’s account of the Greek dialects (ch. xxxixa); other chapters place too much confidence in the detailed evidence of the legends.

  For the tomb building at Lefkandi, see M. Popham, E. Touloupa and L. H. Sackett ‘The Hero of Lefkandi’, Antiquity 56 (1982) 169–74.

  A recent attempt to rewrite the chronology of this period and remove the Dark Age, by P. James and others Centuries of Darkness (Cape 1991), has been rejected by Near Eastern experts as incompatible with their written records, and by archaeologists, not least on the grounds that it is refuted by the scientific evidence of radiocarbon dating; a new technique in archaeology, dendrochronology (the determination of the date of timber remains through tree-rings in the wood) now offers a complete series of evidence for the period from 2200 to 530 BC: see P. I. Kulihan and C. L. Striker Journal of Field Archaeology 14 (1987) 385–98, updated by later newsletters to December 1991.

  II SOURCES

  For comparative studies of oral tradition, see the pioneering work of Jan Vansina Oral Tradition (Eng. tr. Penguin 1973), and his subsequent book, Oral Tradition as History (James Currey, London 1985); also the two surveys of Ruth Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa (Oxford U.P. 1970) and Oral Poetry (Cambridge U.P. 1977). These show that M. I. Finley is unnecessarily sceptical in his essay ‘Myth, memory and history’, The Use and Abuse of History (Chatto 1975) ch. 1. On the problems of the Homeric tradition see especially G. S. Kirk The Songs of Homer (Cambridge U.P. 1962) and the essays in The Language and Background of Homer (Heffer 1964) ed. Kirk. Milman Parry’s papers are collected in The Making of Homeric Verse (Oxford U.P. 1971) ed. Adam Parry. For Hesiod see F.R. 4 and 6. The best discussion of archaic literature in general is H. Fränkel Early Greek Poetry and Philosophy (Eng. tr. Blackwell 1975); for the social contex
t of early poetry see Bruno Gentili Poetry and its Public in Ancient Greece: from Homer to the Fifth Century (Johns Hopkins U.P. 1989).

  On Herodotus the best general books are J. A. S. Evans, Herodotus (Twayne, Boston 1982); John Gould Herodotus (Weidenfeld 1989). D. Fehling Herodotus and his ‘Sources’ (Francis Cairns, Leeds 1989 – a revised translation of a book of 1971) argues that Herodotus’ references to his sources and researches are systematically misleading, and that he invented most of his account of foreign peoples; though I do not accept his general theory, he makes many salutary sceptical points, and reveals much about Herodotus’ literary techniques. My own views are set out in ‘Herodotus and oral history’, Achaemenid History Workshop II The Greek Sources ed. H. Sancisi-Weerden-burg and A. Kuhrt (Leiden 1987) 93–115. Important articles on the influence of Herodotus are A. Momigliano ‘The place of Herodotus in the history of historiography’, Studies in Historiography (Weidenfeld 1966); O. Murray ‘Herodotus and Hellenistic culture’ Classical Quarterly 22 (1972) 200–13.

  On digressions in Thucydides see H. D. Westlake ‘Irrelevant notes in Thucydides’ Essays on the Greek Historians and Greek History (Manchester U.P. 1969). The fragmentary historians are discussed in L. Pearson Early Ionian Historians (Oxford U.P. 1939) and R. Drews The Greek Accounts of Eastern History (Harvard U.P. 1973: perverse). The historians of Attica are studied by F. Jacoby, the greatest Greek historian of this century, in his book *Atthis (Oxford U.P. 1949), and in the English introductions to this section of his monumental collection of the fragments of the Greek historians, *Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker III b Supplement (E. J. Brill 1954). For Aristotle’s Constitution of the Athenians see the introduction to the translation of Peter Rhodes Aristotle The Athenian Constitution (Penguin Classics 1984) and to his major work, A Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (Oxford U.P. 1981).

  For inscriptions see A. G. Woodhead The Study of Greek Inscriptions (Cambridge U.P. 1959). The best introduction to archaic Greek archaeology is John Boardman The Greeks Overseas (third edn Thames and Hudson 1980). For survey archaeology and the countryside, see A. M. Snodgrass in ch 5 of The Greek City (below F,R. 3–4), and An Archaeology of Greece (California U.P. 1987); T. H. van Andel and C. Runnels Beyond the Acropolis: a Rural Greek Past (Stanford U.P. 1987). For pottery styles and chronology see R. M. Cook Greek Painted Pottery (2nd edn, Methuen 1972); for problems related to their study see Looking at Greek Vases ed. T. Rasmussen and N. Spivey (Cambridge 1991). For Attic vase-painting there are two well illustrated handbooks by John Boardman Athenian Black Figure Vases (Thames and Hudson 1974), and Athenian Red Figures Vases: the Archaic Period (Thames and Hudson 1975)

  III and IV THE END OF THE DARK AGE

  The starting point for a study of the reality of Homeric society was M. I. Finley The World of Odysseus (1954, Penguin 1962). He regarded it as belonging to the tenth and ninth centuries (which, using an older terminology, he called ‘the early Dark Age’ rather than the mid or late Dark Age); in my view this is at least a century too high. Recent work has tended to emphasise the importance of elements contemporary to Homer; see already A. M. Snodgrass in chapter 7 of The Dark Age of Greece. Earlier literature emphasized too much the question of Mycenean survivals.

  There is an excellent archaeological survey of the period 900–700 in J. N. Coldstream Geometric Greece (Benn 1977); chapter 14 is especially important on the revival of interest in the heroic past under the influence of Homer; the Homeric burials at Salamis on Cyprus are described by V. Karageorghis Salamis in Cyprus (Thames & Hudson 1969). For the settlement at Emporio see J. Boardman Excavations in Chios 1952–1955, Greek Emporio (British School at Athens Suppl. 6, 1967). For Koukounaries on Paros see D. U. Schilardi ‘The Decline of the Geometric settlement of Koukounaries at Paros’ The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century B.C.: Tradition and Innovation ed. R. Hägg (Stockholm 1983) 173–83; for Andros see A. Cambitoglou Zagora 1 (Sydney U.P. 1971). The excavations at Old Smyrna are reported by J. M. Cook and others in the Annual of the British School at Athens 53–4 (1958–9). On the various words discussed see E. Benveniste Indo-European Language and Society (Eng. tr. Faber 1973) 318ff (basileus), 172f (phratria), 203 (einater).

  For the political organisation of early Greece, there is an interesting discussion in terms of the ‘big-man’ of other primitive societies, by B. Quiller, ‘The Dynamics of the Homeric society’, Symbolae Osloenses 56 (1981) 109–55; R. Drews, Basileus: the Evidence for Kingship in Geometric Greece (Yale 1983) surveys the evidence for ‘monarchy’, and comes to the same conclusion as myself about its non-existence. For the development of justice in early Greece see M. Gagarin, Early Greek Law (California U.P. 1986).

  The role of the gift in primitive societies is analysed by Marcel Mauss The Gift (Eng. paperback edn, Routledge 1970); Homeric social and moral values are discussed in three important books, E. R. Dodds The Greeks and the Irrational (California U.P. 1951) ch. 1; A. W. H. Adkins Merit and Responsibility (Oxford U.P. 1960) chs. 2–3; H. Lloyd-Jones The Justice of Zeus (California U.P. 1971) chs. 1–2. The evidence for chariots, cavalry and mounted infantry in early Greece is discussed by P. A. L. Greenhalgh Early Greek Warfare (Cambridge U.P. 1973); more generally A. M. Snodgrass Arms and Armour of the Greeks (Thames & Hudson 1967) is a useful introduction.

  On craftsmen and manual labour in early Greece see A. Aymard ‘Hiérarchie du travail et autarcie individuelle dans la Grèce archaique’ Etudes d’Histoire Ancienne (Presses Universitaires de France 1967) 316–33; J.-P. Vernant My the et Pensée chez les Grecs (Maspéro 1965) part 4; there is an excellent collection of material in Italian in F. Coarelli (ed.) Artisti e artigiani in Grecia (Laterza Rome 1980). On the relationship between craftsmanship and the origins of Greek art see my article, ‘The Social Function of Art in Early Greece’ in New Perspectives in Early Greek Art ed. D. Buitron-Oliver (National Gallery of Art, Washington 1991) 23–30.

  On justice in Hesiod see H. T. Wade-Gery Essays in Greek History (Blackwell 1958) 1–16; P. Millett ‘Hesiod and his World’ Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 30 (1984) 84–115. The significance of personification is discussed by T. B. L. Webster ‘Personification as a mode of Greek thought’ Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 17 (1954) 10–21. For all aspects of Greek religion, see W. Burkert Greek Religion (Blackwell 1985).

  On urbanization and the growth of population in the eighth century see Coldstream Geometric Greece ch. 12. The suggestions of A. M. Snodgrass on the measurement of population growth in relation to the Attic tomb evidence, in Archaeology and the Rise of the Greek State (Inaugural Lecture, Cambridge U.P. 1977), have given rise to much discussion: for the theory of drought and disease, see J. M. Camp ‘A drought in the late eighth century B.C.’ Hesperia 48 (1979) 397–411; for the theory of absence of social classes from the archaeological record see Ian Morris Burial and Ancient Society: the Rise of the Greek City-State (Cambridge U.P. 1987). See also the essays of Snodgrass, Morris, T. E. Rihll and A. G.Wilson in City and Country in the Ancient World ed. J. Rich and A. Wallace-Hadrill (Routledge 1991).

  I have attempted to define the concept of the polis in ‘Cities of Reason’, The Greek City ed. O. Murray and S. Price (Oxford U.P. 1990) ch. 1. For the question of its origins see Runciman ‘Origins of states: the case of archaic Greece’ Comparative Studies in Society and History 24 (1982) 350–77; Chester G. Starr Individual and Community: the Rise of the Polis, 800–500 B.C. (Oxford U.P. 1986) chs. 2–3; papers by Renfrew and Snodgrass in Peer Polity Interaction and Socio-political Change ed. C. Renfrew and J.F. Cherry (Cambridge U.P. 1986).

  The Waigal Valley communities are described by Schuyler Jones Men of Influence in Nuristan (Seminar Press, London 1974). For the ‘Big-Man’ see M. D. Sahlins, ‘Poor Man, Rich Man, Big-man, Chief: Political Types in Melanesia and Polynesia’ Comparative Studies in Society and History 5 (1963) 285–303.

  V EUBOEAN SOCIETY AND TRADE

  For questions of trade in early Greece see the Further
Reading to chapter 13. On the Phoenicians the best introduction is the exhibition catalogue of the magnificent exhibition held in Venice in 1988: The Phoenicians ed. S. Moscati (Bompiani Milan 1988); there are also good surveys by D. Harden The Phoenicians (Penguin 1971) and S. Moscati The World of the Phoenicians (Cardinal 1973); for their trading and colonizing activities see also J. D. Muhly ‘Homer and the Phoenicians’ Berytus 19 (1970) 19–64; C. R. Whittaker ‘The western Phoenicians: colonization and assimilation’ Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 200 (1974) 58–79. The Al Mina excavations are described by Sir Leonard Woolley A Forgotten Kingdom (Penguin 1953) ch. 10, and Boardman The Greeks Overseas ch. 3. At Tell Sukas, a Phoenician settlement on the coast some eighty miles south of Al Mina, there is Greek pottery from the eighth century and evidence for a strong Greek presence from the early seventh century onwards: P. J. Riis Sukas 1 (Copenhagen 1970) ch. 7 usefully surveys the evidence for Greeks in the Levant area in general.

  The last generation has seen major advances in the study of Etruscan civilization. M. Pallotino The Etruscans (revised English edition, Penguin 1978) is a classic study; see also D. Ridgway in CAH IV ch. 13. Pithecusae was excavated by Giorgio Buchner who has known the site since childhood; the excavations have been waiting for publication with the Accademia dei Lincei since 1979; the fullest available account is by his collaborator David Ridgway L’Alba della Magna Grecia (Longanesi 1984); the best account in English is Ridgway ‘The first western Greeks: Campanian coasts and southern Etruria’ in Greeks, Celts and Romans edited by C. and S. Hawkes (Dent 1973).

  The excavations at Lefkandi are published by M. Popham, L. H. Sackett and P. G. Themelis, Lefkandi 1 (British School at Athens, 1980) esp. section 14 ‘Historical Conclusions’. The best discussions of the Lelantine War are by Boardman ‘Early Euboean pottery and history’ Annual of the British School at Athens 52 (1957) 1–29, and W. G. Forrest ‘Colonisation and the rise of Delphi’ Historia 6 (1957) 160–75; Boardman was responsible for the original identification of Euboean pottery on which the conclusions of this chapter are based; his hypothesis has been confirmed by the Lefkandi and Eretria excavations. The burials at Eretria are placed in their historical context by J. N. Coldstream ‘Hero-cults in the age of Homer’ Journal of Hellenic Studies 96 (1976) 8–17.