91-603: Dictyoptera (from Greek δίκτυον diktyon "net" and πτερόν pteron "wing") is an insect superorder that includes two extant orders of polyneopterous insects: the order Blattodea ( termites and cockroaches together) and the order Mantodea (mantises). All modern Dictyoptera have short ovipositors and typically lay oothecae . The oldest fossils of Dictyoptera from the Late Carboniferous , referred to as " roachoids " have long ovipositors and did not lay oothecae. The oldest modern oothecae-laying dictyopterans date to
182-537: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in
273-593: A climatic shift that took place between 850 and 750, which made the region cooler and wetter. This led to the expansion of population into uncultivated areas of Greece and was probably also a driver for colonisation abroad. Ancient sources give us little information on mortality rates in archaic Greece, but it is likely that not many more than half of the population survived to the age of 18: perinatal and infant mortality are likely to have been very high. The population of archaic Greece would have consequently been very young – somewhere between two-fifths and two-thirds of
364-524: A consequence of in-fighting between rival oligarchs, rather than between the oligarchs and the people. Recently historians have begun to question the existence of a seventh century "age of tyrants". In the archaic period, the Greek word tyrannos , according to Victor Parker, did not have the negative connotations it had gained by the time Aristotle wrote his Constitution of the Athenians . When Archilochus used
455-472: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and
546-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in
637-495: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment
728-671: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek , and Koine may be classified as Ancient Greek in a wider sense. There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek
819-501: A series of others in the mid-seventh century BC, such as Orthagoras in Sicyon and Theagenes in Megara. Various explanations have been provided for the rise of tyranny in the seventh century BC. The most popular of these explanations dates back to Aristotle , who argued that tyrants were set up by the people in response to the nobility becoming less tolerable. As there is no evidence from
910-510: A sign of exceptional wealth. A team of oxen could increase agricultural output significantly but were expensive to maintain. As they had in the Dark Ages, the wealthiest members of Greek society could own large herds of cattle. This pattern had probably developed before the beginning of the period and remained relatively consistent throughout it. The idea that it was preceded by a period of pastoralism and that agriculture only became dominant in
1001-486: A single image or set of images. Some of these were the symbol or image of an important deity in the city or visual puns on the city's name, but in many cases their meaning is obscure and may not have been chosen for any special reason. The reasons for the rapid and widespread adoption of coinage by the Greeks are not entirely clear and several possibilities, which are not mutually exclusive, have been suggested. One possibility
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#17328550147861092-485: A single urban centre – took place in much of Greece in the eighth century BC. Both Athens and Argos , for instance, began to coalesce into single settlements around the end of that century. In some settlements, this physical unification was marked by the construction of defensive city walls, as was the case in Smyrna by the middle of the eighth century BC, and Corinth by the middle of the seventh century BC. It seems that
1183-609: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c. 300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as
1274-484: A superorder. Regardless, in all classifications the constituent groups are the same, just treated at different rank. Termites and cockroaches are very closely related, with ecological and molecular data pointing to a relationship with the cockroach genus Cryptocercus . According to genetic evidence, the closest living relatives of the Dictyoptera are the orders Phasmatodea , Mantophasmatodea , and Grylloblattodea . If
1365-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and
1456-556: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of
1547-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected
1638-644: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to
1729-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in
1820-697: Is in the quantity for which it survives from the classical period. What is lacking in written evidence is made up for in the rich archaeological evidence from the archaic Greek world. Indeed, although much knowledge of Classical Greek art comes from later Roman copies, all surviving archaic Greek art is original. Other sources for the archaic period are the traditions recorded by later Greek writers such as Herodotus . However, those traditions are not part of any form of history that would be recognised today. Those transmitted by Herodotus were recorded whether or not he believed them to be accurate. Indeed, Herodotus did not even record any dates before 480 BC. Politically,
1911-403: Is that coinage was adopted specifically to enable communities to make payments to their citizens, mercenaries and artisans in a transparent, fair and efficient way. Similarly, when wealthy members of the community were required to contribute wealth to the community for festivals and the equipment of navies, coinage made the process more efficient and transparent. A third possibility, that coinage
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#17328550147862002-403: Is the increased ease of commerce which coinage allowed. Coins were of standardised weights, which meant that their value could be determined without weighing them. Furthermore, it was not necessary for users of coinage to spend time determining whether the silver was pure silver; the fact that the coin had been issued by the community was a promise that it was worth a set value. Another possibility
2093-571: The Colossus of the Naxians from around 600 BC, are known to represent Apollo , while the Phrasikleia Kore was meant to represent a young woman whose tomb it originally marked. Over the course of the sixth century, kouroi from Attica become more lifelike and naturalistic. However, this trend does not appear elsewhere in the Greek world. The genre began to become less common over the last part of
2184-524: The Cycladic Islands in the 540s BC, Southern Italy and Sicily before 525 BC, and Thrace before 514 BC. Most of these coinages were very small and were mostly only used within the community that issued them, but the "turtles" of Aegina (from 530 or 520 BC) and the "owls" of Athens (from 515 BC) were issued in great quantity and exported throughout the Greek world. The images on coins initially changed rapidly, but increasingly each community settled on
2275-618: The Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical period . In the archaic period, Greeks settled across the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea : by the end of the period, they were part of a trade network that spanned the entire Mediterranean. The archaic period began with a massive increase in the Greek population and of significant changes that rendered the Greek world at the end of
2366-745: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect
2457-538: The Mediterranean , the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea . This was not simply for trade, but also to found settlements. These Greek colonies were not, as Roman colonies were, dependent on their mother-city, but were independent city-states in their own right. Greeks settled outside of Greece in two distinct ways. The first was in permanent settlements founded by Greeks, which formed as independent poleis. The second form
2548-678: The Peloponnesian League : by 550, cities such as Elis , Corinth, and Megara were part of the alliance. This series of alliances had the dual purpose of preventing the cities of the League from supporting the Helot population of Messenia, and of helping Sparta in its conflict with Argos , which in the archaic period was along with Sparta one of the major powers in the Peloponnese. In the eighth and seventh centuries BC, Greeks began to spread across
2639-463: The archonship had replaced it as the most important executive office in the state, though the archonship could only be held by members of the Eupatridae , the families which made up Athens' aristocracy. The earliest laws of Athens were established by Draco , in 621/0; his law on homicide was the only one to have survived to the Classical period. Draco's law code aimed to replace private revenge as
2730-568: The kouros and kore , near life-size frontal statues of a young man or woman, which were developed around the middle of the seventh century BC in the Cyclades . Probably the earliest kore produced was the Dedication of Nikandre , which was dedicated to Artemis at her temple on Delos between 660 and 650 BC, while kouroi began to be created shortly after this. Kouroi and korai were used to represent both humans and divinities. Some kouroi, such as
2821-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)
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2912-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):
3003-516: The 8th century entirely unrecognizable from its beginning. According to Anthony Snodgrass , the archaic period was bounded by two revolutions in the Greek world. It began with a "structural revolution" that "drew the political map of the Greek world" and established the poleis , the distinctively Greek city-states, and it ended with the intellectual revolution of the Classical period. The archaic period saw developments in Greek politics, economics, international relations, warfare and culture. It laid
3094-490: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from
3185-615: The Assembly and the law courts, while the richest class – the pentacosiomedimni – were the only people eligible to become treasurer, and possibly archon. He set up the Council of the Four Hundred , responsible for discussing motions which were to come before the Assembly . Finally, Solon substantially reduced the powers of the archon by giving citizens the right of appeal; their case was judged by
3276-568: The Assembly. A second wave of constitutional reform in Athens was instituted by Cleisthenes towards the end of the sixth century. Cleisthenes apparently redivided the Athenian population, which had previously been grouped into four tribes, into ten new tribes . A new Council of 500 was instituted, with members from each deme represented. Demes were also given the power to determine their own members (which, in turn, provided them with influence over
3367-471: The Athenian and Spartan constitutions seem to have developed into their classical forms. The archaic period saw significant urbanisation and the development of the concept of the polis as it was used in Classical Greece. By Solon 's time, if not before, the word polis had acquired its classical meaning, and though the emergence of the polis as a political community was still in progress at this point,
3458-486: The Classical period the city of Athens was both culturally and politically dominant, it was not until the late sixth century BC that it became a leading power in Greece. The attempted coup by Cylon of Athens ( who became tyrant of Athens ) may be the earliest event in Athenian history which is clearly attested by ancient sources, dating to around 636 BCE. At this time, it seems that Athens' monarchy had already ended and
3549-463: The Classical period during the eighth century BC. By the classical period, Spartan tradition attributed this constitution to Lycurgus of Sparta , who according to Thucydides lived a little over four centuries before the end of the Peloponnesian War , around the end of the ninth century. The First Messenian War , probably taking place from approximately 740 to 720 BC, saw the strengthening of
3640-578: The Classical period of ancient Greek. (The second line is the IPA , the third is transliterated into the Latin alphabet using a modern version of the Erasmian scheme .) Ὅτι [hóti Hóti μὲν men mèn ὑμεῖς, hyːmêːs hūmeîs, Archaic Greece Archaic Greece was the period in Greek history lasting from c. 800 BC to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, following
3731-452: The Dictyoptera are considered a superorder these other orders might be included in it. Evolutionary relationships based on Eggleton, Beccaloni & Inward 2007 and modified by Evangelista et al. 2019, are shown in the cladogram : The cockroach families Anaplectidae , Lamproblattidae , and Tryonicidae are not shown but are placed within the superfamily Blattoidea. The cockroach families Corydiidae and Ectobiidae were previously known as
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3822-548: The Greek word archaios , meaning 'old', and refers to the period in ancient Greek history before the classical period. The archaic period is generally considered to have lasted from the beginning of the 8th century BC until the beginning of the 5th century BC, with the foundation of the Olympic Games in 776 BC and the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC forming notional starting and ending dates. The archaic period
3913-508: The Late Triassic . The use of the term Dictyoptera has changed over the years, and while largely out of use for much of the last century, it is becoming more widely used. It has usually been considered a superorder, with Isoptera, Blattodea and Mantodea being its three orders. In some classifications, however, Dictyoptera is shifted to order status and in others the order Isoptera has been subsumed under Blattodea while retaining Dictyoptera as
4004-604: The Mycenaean period. Life-size human sculpture in hard stone began in Greece in the archaic period. This was inspired in part by ancient Egyptian stone sculpture : the proportions of the New York Kouros exactly correspond to Egyptian rules about the proportion of human figures. In Greece, these sculptures best survive as religious dedications and grave markers, but the same techniques would have also been used to make cult images. The best-known types of archaic sculpture are
4095-971: The Polyphagidae and Blattellidae. The cladogram also shows the family Alienopteridae (originally assigned to its own order "Alienoptera") as sister to Mantodea, but it was subsequently reassigned to the extinct Blattodea superfamily Umenocoleoidea by Vršanský et al. . Mantodea (Mantises) † Alienopteridae Ectobiidae Pseudophyllodromiinae Blattellinae Blaberidae (Giant cockroaches) Corydiidae (Sand cockroaches, etc) Nocticolidae (Cave cockroaches, etc) Tryonicidae Blattidae (Oriental, American and other cockroaches) Lamproblattidae Cryptocercidae (brown-hooded cockroaches) Mastotermitidae Archotermopsidae Hodotermitidae Stolotermitidae Kalotermitidae Stylotermitidae Rhinotermitidae Serritermitidae Termitidae Ancient Greek Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes
4186-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has
4277-421: The archaic period saw the development of the polis (or city-state) as the predominant unit of political organisation. Many cities throughout Greece came under the rule of autocratic leaders, called " tyrants ". It also saw the development of law and systems of communal decision-making, with the earliest evidence for law codes and constitutional structures dating to the period. By the end of the archaic period, both
4368-418: The archaic period. Farms appear to have been small, cohesive units, concentrated near settlements. They were highly diversified, growing a wide variety of crops simultaneously, in order to make consistent use of human resources throughout the year and to ensure that the failure of any one crop was not too much of a disaster. Crop rotation was practiced, with fields left fallow every other year. Though wheat
4459-509: The area. By the end of the eighth century BC, Greek settlements in southern Italy were also well established. In the seventh century, Greek colonists expanded the areas that they settled. In the west, colonies were founded as far afield as Marseilles . In the east, the north Aegean, the Sea of Marmara, and the Black Sea all saw colonies founded. The dominant coloniser in these parts was Miletus . At
4550-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in
4641-426: The average house size remained constant around 45–50 m , but the number of very large and very small houses increased, indicating increasing economic inequality. From the end of the seventh century, this trend reversed, with houses clustering closely around a growing average, and by the end of the archaic period the average house size had risen to about 125 m . Not all arable land in Greece was yet under cultivation in
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#17328550147864732-495: The beginning of the archaic period, coinage had not yet been invented. The Greeks measured the value of objects or fines using certain valuable objects, such as oxen, tripods, and metal spits, as units of account . As in the Near East, precious metal bullion was used as a medium of exchange , principally gold at first, but mainly silver by the beginning of the sixth century. The weight of this bullion (often known as hacksilber )
4823-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West
4914-417: The course of the archaic period is not supported by the archaeological or literary evidence. No technological innovations in agriculture appear to have occurred, except possibly the increased use of iron tools and more intensive use of manure . The main source for the practice of agriculture in the period is Hesiod 's Works and Days , which gives the impression of very small subsistence holdings in which
5005-611: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of
5096-401: The earliest red-figure vases . The early part of the archaic period saw distinctive orientalizing influences, both in pottery and in sculpture. At the beginning of the archaic period, Greek sculpture mostly consisted of small bronze works, particularly of horses. Bronze human figures were also produced, and both horse and human figures are primarily found in religious sanctuaries. Towards
5187-427: The early part of the ninth century BC, but did not become common on mainland Greek pottery until the middle of the eighth century BC. The eighth century saw the development of the orientalizing style , which signalled a shift away from the earlier geometric style and the accumulation of influences derived from Phoenicia and Syria . This orientalizing influence seems to have come from goods imported to Greece from
5278-458: The east as early as the first half of the eighth century, and the earliest pottery from the Greek islands found at Al Mina in modern Syria is from Euboea. By the sixth century, Greece was part of a trade network spanning the entire Mediterranean. Sixth century Laconian pottery has been found as far afield as Marseilles and Carthage to the west, Crete to the south and Sardis to the East. At
5369-467: The eighth century as the growth of the population increased the number of workers available, and intensified in the seventh century with the development of legally enforced debts and the status of the labourers increasingly becoming a source of social strife. By the late eighth century BC, the archaic Greek world had become involved in an active trade network around the Aegean. It was this trade network that
5460-425: The end of the archaic period brought in Athenian democracy as it was during the Classical period. In Sparta , many of the institutions credited to the reforms of Lycurgus were introduced during the archaic period, the region of Messenia was brought under Spartan control, helotage was introduced and the Peloponnesian League was founded and made Sparta a dominant power in Greece. The word archaic derives from
5551-403: The end of the eighth century, horse figurines became much less common, disappearing "almost completely" by 700 BC. In the seventh century, Greek sculpture saw a strong Eastern influence, with mythical creatures such as griffins and sirens becoming much more popular. Also in the seventh century BC, Greek sculpture began to directly represent gods, a practice which had disappeared after the end of
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#17328550147865642-412: The evolution of the polis as a socio-political structure, rather than a simply geographical one, can be attributed to this urbanisation, as well as a significant population increase in the eighth century. These two factors created a need for a new form of political organisation, as the political systems in place at the beginning of the archaic period quickly became unworkable. Though in the early part of
5733-491: The exact meaning of horoi is unknown; their removal seems to have been part of the problem of hektemoroi – another word whose meaning is obscure. Solon was also credited with abolishing slavery for debtors, and establishing limits on who could be granted Athenian citizenship. Solon instituted radical constitutional reform, replacing noble birth as a qualification for office with income. The poorest – called thetes – could hold no offices, although they could attend
5824-403: The first and only response of an individual to an offence committed against them. The law code of Draco, however, failed to prevent the tensions between the rich and poor which were the impetus to Solon's reforms. In 594/3 BC, Solon was appointed " archon and mediator". Exactly what his reforms consisted of is uncertain. He claimed to have taken up the horoi to set the land free, but
5915-612: The forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c. 1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c. 1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c. 800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c. 500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been
6006-426: The groundwork for the Classical period, both politically and culturally. It was in the archaic period that the Greek alphabet developed, the earliest surviving Greek literature was composed, monumental sculpture and red-figure pottery began in Greece and the hoplite became the core of Greek armies. In Athens , the earliest institutions of democracy were implemented under Solon , and the reforms of Cleisthenes at
6097-556: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from
6188-472: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to
6279-399: The membership of the citizen body more generally) and to somewhat determine their own judicial arrangements. These reforms gave the citizen body a sense of responsibility for what happened in the community for the first time. Between the reforms of Solon and Cleisthenes, the Athenian constitution had become identifiably democratic . Sparta's constitution took on the form it would have in
6370-553: The mid-fifth century BC. Archaic Greece from the mid-seventh century BC has sometimes been called an "Age of Tyrants". The word τύραννος ( tyrannos , whence the English 'tyrant') first appeared in Greek literature in a poem of Archilochus , to describe the Lydian ruler Gyges . The earliest Greek tyrant was Cypselus , who seized power in Corinth in a coup in 655 BC. He was followed by
6461-499: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which
6552-441: The owner performed most of the labour personally; close reading reveals that much of the produce is to be sold for profit, much of the work to be performed by slaves ( douloi or dmoes ), and much of the owner's time to be spent away from the farm. Slaves' labour was supplemented by labourers who worked for a wage, as sharecroppers (called hektemoroi at Athens), or to pay off debts; this practice seems to have increased in
6643-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c. 1450 BC ) are in
6734-424: The polis as an urban centre was a product of the eighth century. However, the polis did not become the dominant form of socio-political organisation throughout Greece in the archaic period, and in the north and west of the country it did not become dominant until some way into the Classical period. The urbanisation process in archaic Greece known as " synoecism " – the amalgamation of several small settlements into
6825-413: The population might have been under 18. By contrast, probably less than one in four people were over 40, and only one in 20 over the age of 60. Evidence from human remains shows that the average age at death increased over the archaic period, but there is no clear trend for other measures of health. The size of houses gives some evidence for prosperity within society; in the eighth and seventh centuries,
6916-529: The powers of the Gerousia against the assembly , and the enslavement of the Messenian population as Helots . Around the same time, the ephors gained the power to restrict the actions of the kings of Sparta. Thus by the late seventh century, Sparta's constitution had recognisably taken on its classical form. From around 560 BC, Sparta began to build a series of alliances with other Greek states, which became
7007-477: The same period. The Greek population doubled during the eighth century, resulting in more and larger settlements than previously. The largest settlements, such as Athens and Knossos, might have had populations of 1,500 in 1000 BC; by 700 they might have held as many as 5,000 people. This was part of a wider phenomenon of population growth across the Mediterranean region at this time, which may have been caused by
7098-644: The same time, early colonies such as Syracuse and Megara Hyblaea began to themselves establish colonies. In the west, Sicily and southern Italy were some of the largest recipients of Greek colonisers. So many Greek settlements were founded in southern Italy that it was known in antiquity as Magna Graecia – "Great Greece". In the last quarter of the eighth century, new Greek settlements were founded in Sicily and southern Italy at an average rate of one every other year, and Greek colonists continued to found cities in Italy until
7189-552: The sixth century as the elites who commissioned kouroi declined in influence, and by around 480 kouroi were no longer made. The period saw a shift in the decoration of Greek pottery from abstract to figurative styles. During the Greek Dark Ages , following the fall of the Mycenaean civilisation , Greek pottery decoration had been based around increasingly elaborate geometrical patterns. Human figures first appeared on Greek pots in Crete in
7280-467: The sixth century due to the trade with Asia and Egypt. Of the mainland cities, those on the coast were the biggest recipients of trade from the east, especially Corinth. In the early part of the archaic period, Athens does not seem to have been particularly actively involved in this eastern trade, and very few examples of eastern imports have been found in Athens from the eighth or early seventh centuries. By contrast, nearby Euboea had trade-links with
7371-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies
7462-602: The term is still in use. Much evidence about the Classical period of ancient Greece comes from written histories, such as Thucydides 's History of the Peloponnesian War . By contrast, no such evidence survives from the archaic period. Surviving contemporary written accounts of life in the period are in the form of poetry. Other written sources from the archaic period include epigraphical evidence, including parts of law codes, inscriptions on votive offerings and epigrams inscribed on tombs. However, none of that evidence
7553-436: The time that the nobility were becoming increasingly arrogant during the period, modern explanations of seventh century tyranny have tried to find other reasons for unrest among the people. For example, Robert Drews argues that tyrannies were set up by individuals who controlled private armies and that early tyrants did not need the support of the people at all, whilst N.G.L. Hammond suggests that tyrannies were established as
7644-543: The word tyrant, it was synonymous with anax (an archaic Greek word meaning 'king'). Parker dates the first use of the word tyrannos in a negative context to the first half of the sixth century, at least fifty years after Cypselus took power in Corinth. It was not until the time of Thucydides that tyrannos and basileus ('king') were consistently distinguished. Similarly, Greg Anderson has argued that archaic Greek tyrants were not considered illegitimate rulers, and cannot be distinguished from any other rulers of
7735-475: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,
7826-420: Was adopted as an expression of a community's independence and identity, seems to be anachronistic. In the visual arts, the archaic period is characterised by a shift towards representational and naturalistic styles. It was the period in which monumental sculpture was introduced to Greece, and in which Greek pottery styles went through great changes , from the repeating patterns of the late geometric period to
7917-495: Was in what historians refer to as emporia ; trading posts which were occupied by both Greeks and non-Greeks and which were primarily concerned with the manufacture and sale of goods. Examples of this latter type of settlement are found at Al Mina in the east and Pithekoussai in the west. The earliest Greek colonies were on Sicily . Many of these were founded by people from Chalcis , but other Greek states, such as Corinth and Megara were also responsible for early colonies in
8008-511: Was long considered to have been less important and historically interesting than the classical period and was studied primarily as a precursor to it. More recently, archaic Greece has come to be studied for its own achievements. With this reassessment of the significance of the archaic period, some scholars have objected to the term archaic because of its connotations in English of being primitive and outdated. No term which has been suggested to replace it has gained widespread currency, however, and
8099-574: Was measured using standard units, named for their value in terms of metal spits ( obeloi ) and handfuls ( drachmai ) of metal spits; these terms would later be used as names for Greek coin denominations. Coinage was invented in Lydia around 650 BC. It was quickly adopted by Greek communities in western Asia Minor, although the older system of bullion remained in use as well. The island of Aegina began to issue its distinctive "turtle" coins before 550 BC, and from there coinage spread to Athens, Corinth and
8190-602: Was preferred, in some parts of Greece barley was the staple grain; where wheat was grown it was durum rather than bread wheat. Alongside these, farmers cultivated pulses, vines, olives, fruit, and vegetables. Olives and grapes, which could be turned into oil and wine respectively, served as cash crops ; farmers who cultivated land near population centres could also sell soft fruits and leafy vegetables at market. Livestock were of secondary importance. Sheep and goats, in particular, were kept for meat, milk, wool, and fertiliser, but they were difficult to sustain and large herds were
8281-492: Was the source of the orientalizing influence on Greek art in the early part of the archaic period. Meanwhile, to the west, trade between Corinth and Magna Graecia in Southern Italy and Sicily was booming. The eastern trade mainly involved the Greek islands, with Aegina , for instance, acting as an intermediary between the east and the Greek mainland. East Greek states would go on to become extremely prosperous through
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