THE GREEKS

Who were the Greeks? Well, like many societies, Greece was not a
homogeneous unit. It developed in layers, acheologically speaking. And
there were migrations, not only within the Greek world, but from elsewhere
into it. And it expanded outwards into territories containing other
languages and customs.
Perhaps the first thing to learn about the ancient Greeks is that
their world was not composed exclusively of the Greek peninsula. Rather,
the Greek world also encompassed the Aegean Sea, its shores and its
islands. It included the western shores of Asia Minor.
Greek colonization also reached shores all across the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and beyond.
We tend to think of countries and peoples in terms of land masses.
But the Greeks were seafaring people. The Aegean is honeycombed with
islands. The Greek world developed on those islands as well as on the mainland.
The first high civilization on European soil was, in fact, on the island
of Crete. There the first Western writing developed. Elaborate palaces were
built. Etc.
The ocean-centric nature of the ancient Greek world also sets a
pattern that is worth noting and comparing in all subsequent phases of
Western Civilization. The Roman Empire was not a land-based entity,
either, much as we like to think of the Romans as builders of roads and of
armies. They did those things, but the fact is that their empire was not a
European nor an exclusively Western phenomenon at all. It was a
Mediterranean phonomenon; it completely encirled the Mediterranean Sea, and
with a few exceptions, did not go far into the land masses beyond. It
included both eastern and western societies and cultures.
In the Middle Ages, when Western Civilization was in its deepest
slump (by most accounts), it was indeed a land-centric culture. But again,
with the Rennaisance and the beginning of modern times, the seas again
became important. The Europeans began planting colonies abroad. The first
of these were in the New World--the Americas. And as the European
presence in the New World grew, the old ocean-centric pattern began to
emerge anew. The new focus of Western Civilization shifted into the
Atlantic, and the entity known as the Western World came to encompass three
Continents: Europe and North and South America.
Now, since all the oceans of the world have been controlled by
Western powers for almost three centuries, and Western societies exist not
only in Europe and the Americas, but also in Australia, Hawaii, South
Africa and others, we can see that the pattern that first showed itself in
the ancient Greek world still holds true. Though we live on the land, we
expand by sea.
But to return to the question, who were the Greeks: There are some
other things to consider.
The semi-barbaric culture described in Homer's poems may not have
been the culture of earliest centers of civilization in the Aegean area.
We do not know enough about the civilization on Crete to say what the
culture was like. We have not yet deciphered the earliest writing that
developed there. But since Crete is the European land mass closest to
Egypt, it may be a good guess that it was heavily influenced by the
civilization on the Nile. Archeological evidence indicates at least a
trading relationship between the two.
Where the Greeks of Homer came from is an interesting question. So
much has been lost from that time period that we really do not know the
answer. There appears to have been another collapse of civilization
between the time of the earliest Greek civilization on the Greek mainland
and the era we are well acquainted with, the age of Athens and Sparta.
What happened during that collapse is glimpsed only through archeology, and
not well even in that.
It does appear that at some point some people came down from
northern regions of the Greek peninsula, or beyond, and mixed with the
Aegean peoples. We do not know what kind of culture they brought with
them. We do not know if they influenced the culture of the region greatly,
minorly or not at all.
Three characters in The Illiad may represent various ethnic heritages of the Greeks. The poet very frequently mentions the color of the hair and beard when discussing:
a) Menelaus, the large, red-haired, red-bearded chieftain and brother of Agamemnon, may have represented a Celtic strain.
b) Achilles, the fair-haired super-warrior, may have represented Germanic, or perhaps Aryan influence.
c) Ulyses, the smaller (but still heroic) and more intelligent leader with black hair and beard, may have represented the indigenous Aegean peoples.

There are some observations that can be made about the
Greek culture and civilization that eventually evolved and how it compared
with other cultures.
First of all, the Greek civilization can be discerned to be
distinctly Western in character as compared with civilizations with which
it came into contact to its east. In that distinctly western character, it
had more in common with other Western and European peoples--even those
still in barbaric stages--than it did with the eastern cultures with which
it had direct contact.
Some of the characteristics of Western Civilization that have been
pointed to by historians are:

. Separation of spiritual and temporal authority
. Rule of law
. Representative bodies
. Individualism

Although the separation of church and state was not as distinct then as
it is today, the Greek way was definitely different, on these matters, from
the Persian and Egyptian ways.
Early in their literature and in their historical annals, the
Greeks drew a distinction between themselves and the civilizations to the
east. In the East the ruler was literally thought to be a god.
Though the Greeks in their early history were often ruled by kings,
they generally did not suppose those kings to be divine. And though oracles and
divinations were often thought to be matters of state, rulers were always
thought to be men. Furthermore, priests were separate from the temporal
rulers--and not infrequently in conflict with them. The rudiments of the
separation of the spiritual and temporal domains were there in Greece,
whereas in the East the two were one and the same.
On the next two points, even when the Greeks were ruled by
kings, they held the king to be subject to the law and junior to the will
of the people. There is an interesting dialogue in one of the earliest
Greek dramas--"The Suppliant Maidens," by Aeschylus. The maidens, who have
just arrived from Egypt, argue at length with the king of Argos (once
foremost amongst the Greek city-states) that he, being the king, had the
power to alone decide whether to grant asylum to the maidens. Thus they
represent the standard Egyptian viewpoint. The king repeatedly rebuffs
their arguments, saying that he is bound by law and custom, as well as by
practical necessity, to refer the question to an assembly of the people.
In the end, it is "the sovereign people" who make the decision.
This may be a political argument advanced by the playwright, but it
is revealing of the Greek viewpoint.
The Greek city-states were often ruled by democratically elected
leaders and by representative bodies. And though they were sometimes ruled
by dictators or by kings, they were [almost] never ruled by "divine"
god-kings in the style of Egypt and Persia.
And why was that? That leads us to the final point: individualism.
Because to the Greeks, to be subject to a ruler who claimed to be divine
was the equivilent of being a slave. It was abhorent to their sense of
freedom and liberty, and they said as much many times and in many ways.
This is a quintessentially Western
viewpoint--one which is at the heart of much of our thinking on matters of
political science. It is an emotional viewpoint--one which comes from our
gut as much as it does from our opinion that our system is more practical
than others.

But beyond these matters, the real triumph of the ancient Greeks is
in the awesome level of culture, art, literature and other acutrements of the civilization they achieved. It could easily be argued that in literature and philosophy, we have not equaled
them yet. Whenever Greek classics are revived, civilization is revived. The measure
of our present darkness may be the extent to which we have forgotten Greek
and the great things written in it.
We should also keep in mind that even the passing of the Golden Age
did not spell the end of the influence of the Greeks, or of their power.
Though Alexander was the son of a barbarian who
conquered Greece, he was educated as a Greek. One wonders what he would
have amounted to without that education, and without the stirring of the
imagination that went with it.
The Romans, too, were heavily influenced by the Greeks. Some
writers have said the Romans were in awe of everything Greek. Greek mythology
overshadowed and eclipsed the less imaginative Roman pantheon and became,
for a time, the state religion of the Empire.
But the Greek influence did not stop there. The Greek language
spread throughout the eastern half of the Roman Empire and replaced Latin
as the official language of that region. And as the western half of the
empire crumbled and was overrun by barbarians, the Greek half held on for
another thousand years. It was not until the 16th century A.D. that
Constantinople finally fell to the Turks. By that time it could be said
that Greek power had reigned upon the earth for--how long? Depending on
where the beginning is placed, it would be at least two thousand years, or
perhaps as many as three thousand (?).
But their influence did not stop there. With the Renaisance they
demonstrated their ability to revive civilization from, as it were, beyond
the grave.
And their philosophy did not die with Aristotle. Nor did it cease
to develop. It progressed in many directions, one of which saw it become
theology, in the development of Christianity. This is a development which
we will examine more closely in a later chapter. It is enough to note here
that the magnitude of that occurence was such that it affected the daily
lives of billions of people and shaped the course of Western history for
the next two thousand years, and continues to be powerful today.