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137-515: The peninsula is divided among three administrative regions : most belongs to the Peloponnese region, with smaller parts belonging to the West Greece and Attica regions. The Peloponnese is a peninsula located at the southern tip of the mainland, 21,549.6 square kilometres (8,320.3 sq mi) in area, and constitutes the southernmost part of mainland Greece. It is connected to the mainland by

274-497: A brief time by a Catalan corsair. When the population drove him out, they obtained the consent of Thomas to submit to the Pope's protection before the end of 1460. The Mani Peninsula at the south end of the Morea resisted under a loose coalition of the local clans, and that area then came under Venice 's rule. The last holdout was Salmeniko , in the Morea's northwest. Graitzas Palaiologos was

411-537: A commission at Andravida consisted of Latin bishops, two bannerets and five Greek magnates and chaired by himself, to assess the land and divide it, according to Latin practice, in fiefs . The result was divide the country into twelve baronies , mostly centred around a newly constructed castle—a testament to the fact that the Franks were a military elite amidst a potentially hostile Greek population. The twelve temporal barons were joined by seven ecclesiastic lords, headed by

548-496: A few cases, do not overlap with the traditional definitions: for instance, the region of Western Greece , which had no previous analogue, comprises territory belonging to the Peloponnese peninsula and the traditional region of Central Greece . As part of a decentralization process inspired by Interior Minister Alekos Papadopoulos , they were accorded more powers in the 1997 Kapodistrias reform of local and regional government. They were transformed into fully separate entities by

685-518: A fleet) across the Hellespont , re-subjugating Thrace and adding Macedonia as a fully-subjugated client kingdom. However, before he could reach Greece proper, his fleet was destroyed in a storm near Mount Athos . In 490 BC, Darius sent another fleet directly across the Aegean Sea (rather than following the land route as Mardonius had done) to subdue Athens. After destroying the city of Eretria ,

822-564: A personal fief of the Villehardouins. The barons retained considerable powers and privileges, so that the Prince was not an absolute sovereign but rather a "first among equals" among them. Thus they had the right to construct a castle without the Prince's permission, or to decree capital punishment . Since Salic Law was not adopted in Achaea, women could also inherit the fiefs. Frankish supremacy in

959-699: A potential ally of the Seleucid Empire , the greatest power in the East. Philip's allies in Greece deserted him, and in 197 BC he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Cynoscephalae by the Roman proconsul Titus Quinctius Flaminius . Luckily for the Greeks, Flaminius was a moderate man and an admirer of Greek culture. Philip had to surrender his fleet and become a Roman ally, but he

1096-659: A prisoner of the Ottomans and his younger brother Thomas fled. By the end of the summer the Ottomans had achieved the submission of virtually all cities possessed by the Greeks . Ottoman incursions into the Morea resumed under Turahan Bey after 1423. Despite the reconstruction of the Hexamilion wall at the Isthmus of Corinth, the Ottomans under Murad II breached it in 1446, forcing the Despots of

1233-472: A sitting position, and some of the nobility underwent mummification . Around 1100–1050 BC, the Mycenaean civilization collapsed. Numerous cities were sacked, and the region entered what historians see as a " dark age ". During this period, Greece experienced a decline in population and literacy . The Greeks themselves have traditionally blamed this decline on an invasion by another wave of Greek people,

1370-504: A turning point. Rivalries among the insurgents eventually erupted into civil war in 1824, which enabled the Ottoman Egyptian vassal Ibrahim Pasha to land in the peninsula in 1825. The Peloponnese peninsula was the scene of fierce fighting and extensive devastation following the arrival of Ibrahim's Egyptian troops. Partly as a result of the atrocities committed by Ibrahim, the UK, France, and

1507-565: A white wine made from Moschofilero , the Nemea wine region makes renowned red wines from the Agiorgitiko grape, and fortified red wine is made in the region around the city of Patras from Mavrodafni grapes. 37°20′59″N 22°21′08″E  /  37.34972°N 22.35222°E  / 37.34972; 22.35222 Administrative regions of Greece The regions of Greece ( Greek : περιφέρειες , romanized :  periféreies ) are

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1644-435: Is called Linear B , which was deciphered in 1952 by Michael Ventris . The Mycenaeans buried their nobles in beehive tombs ( tholoi ), large circular burial chambers with a high-vaulted roof and straight entry passage lined with stone. They often buried daggers or some other form of military equipment with the deceased. Nobility was also often buried with gold masks, tiaras, armor, and jeweled weapons. Mycenaeans were buried in

1781-502: Is controversial. The earliest undisputed traces of human habitation in present-day Greece, however, were discovered in Arcadia , Peloponnesus and date back 700,000 years. The Apidima Cave in Mani , southern Greece, contains the oldest known remains of anatomically modern humans outside of Africa , dated to 210,000 years ago. Currently known anthropological and archaeological finds allow

1918-547: Is headed by a city. The largest city is Patras (pop. 170,000) in Achaia, followed by Kalamata (pop. 55,000) in Messenia. Peloponnese for the most part enjoys a hot-summer Mediterranean climate ( Köppen climate classification : Csa ), while the Gulf of Corinth has a hot semi-arid climate ( Köppen climate classification : BSh ). Rainfall is higher in the west coasts, while the east of

2055-543: Is known about the Minoans, including their written system, which was recorded with the undeciphered Linear A script and Cretan hieroglyphs . Even the name Minoans is a modern appellation, derived from Minos , the legendary king of Crete. They were primarily a mercantile people engaged in extensive overseas trade throughout the Mediterranean region. Minoan civilization was affected by a number of natural cataclysms, such as

2192-554: Is located on the easternmost of the three large peninsulas jutting into the Aegean from the Chalkidiki peninsula. Prehistoric Greece The history of Greece encompasses the history of the territory of the modern nation-state of Greece as well as that of the Greek people and the areas they inhabited and ruled historically. The scope of Greek habitation and rule has varied throughout

2329-613: The Chronicle of Monemvasia , in 805 the Byzantine governor of Corinth went to war with the Slavs, exterminated them, and allowed the original inhabitants to claim their lands. They regained control of the city of Patras and the region was re-settled with Greeks. Many Slavs were transported to Asia Minor , and many Asian, Sicilian and Calabrian Greeks were resettled in the Peloponnese. By the turn of

2466-598: The Aetolian League as a means of defending it and restoring democracy in their states, as they saw Macedon as a tyrannical kingdom. The Achaean League , while nominally subject to the Ptolemies , was in effect independent, and controlled most of southern Greece. Sparta also remained independent, but generally refused to join any league. In 267 BC, Ptolemy II persuaded the Greek cities to revolt against Macedon in what became

2603-619: The Archaic period , which began c.  800 BC and lasted until the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC. It was during this period that the Greek alphabet and early Greek literature developed, as well as the poleis ("city-states") of Ancient Greece. With the end of the Dark Ages, Greeks spread to the shores of the Black Sea , Southern Italy (the so-called " Magna Graecia ") and Asia Minor . The Classical period began during

2740-541: The Balkans and Eastern Europe proper as well. In 499 BC, the Greek cities of Ionia , led by Miletus , revolted against the Persian Empire and were supported by some mainland cities, including Athens and Eretria . After the uprising had been quelled, Darius I launched the first Persian invasion of Greece to exact revenge on the mainland Greeks. In 492 BC, Persian general Mardonius led an army (supported by

2877-673: The Battle of Arginusae in 406 BC but was prevented by bad weather from rescuing many of its sailors, leading the city to execute or exile eight of its top naval commanders. Lysander followed with a crushing blow at the Battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC which almost destroyed the Athenian fleet. Athens surrendered one year later, ending the Peloponnesian War and beginning a brief of period of Spartan hegemony in Greece. The war left devastation in its wake. Discontent with Spartan hegemony from both Athenian and former Spartan allies led to

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3014-600: The Battle of Pylos , a significant fraction of the Spartan fighting force which it could not afford to lose. Meanwhile, Athens suffered humiliating defeats at Delium in 424 BC and Amphipolis in 422. The Peace of Nicias in 421 concluded the first stage of the war, with Sparta recovering its hoplites and Athens recovering the city of Amphipolis . Those who signed the Peace of Nicias in 421 BC swore to uphold it for fifty years, but peace lasted only seven years. The second stage of

3151-565: The Chremonidean War , named after the Athenian leader Chremonides . The cities were defeated and Athens lost her independence and democratic institutions. This marked the end of Athens as a political actor, although it remained the largest, wealthiest, and most cultivated city in Greece. In 225 BC, Macedon defeated the Egyptian fleet at Cos and brought the Aegean islands, except Rhodes, under its rule as well. Sparta remained hostile to

3288-587: The Corinthian War of 395–387 BC. Backed by the Achaemenid Persian Empire , Athens, Thebes , Corinth, and Argos significantly weakened Spartan military power, though unsuccessful in ending Spartan dominance. The war concluded with the Treaty of Antalcidas in 387 BC, in which Sparta was forced to cede Ionia and Cyprus to the Persian Empire . The Corinthian War and its aftermath further sowed

3425-582: The Dorians , although there is scant archaeological evidence for this view. Ancient Greece refers to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Greek Dark Ages ( c.  1050  – c.  750 BC ) to the end of antiquity ( c.  AD 600 ). In common usage, it can refer to all Greek history before—or including—the Roman Empire , but historians tend use the term more precisely. Some include

3562-624: The Greco-Persian wars in the 5th century BC and was marked by increased autonomy from the Persian Empire , as well as the flourishing of Ancient Greek democracy , art , theater , literature , and philosophy . The traditional date for the end of the Classical Greek period is the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC, and the period that follows is termed the Hellenistic , ending with the rise of

3699-543: The Hittite and the Egyptian . The cause is still somewhat mysterious, but has often been attributed to the invasion of hypothesized Sea Peoples wielding iron weapons. A hypothesized Dorian invasion may have also contributed, as asserted by ancient Greek legend but unsubstantiated by the archaeological record. Legend asserts that Dorians migrated down into Greece equipped with superior iron weapons, colonizing and easily dispersing

3836-582: The Isthmus of Corinth , where the Corinth Canal was constructed in 1893. However, it is also connected to the mainland by several bridges across the canal, including two submersible bridges at the north and the south end. Near the northern tip of the peninsula, there is another bridge, the Rio–Antirrio bridge (completed 2004). The peninsula has a mountainous interior, although extensive lowlands are also found in

3973-481: The Isthmus of Corinth . His attack opened the peninsula to invasion, though Murad died before he could exploit this. His successor Mehmed II "the Conqueror" captured the Byzantine capital Constantinople in 1453. The despots, Demetrios Palaiologos and Thomas Palaiologos , brothers of the last emperor, failed to send him any aid, as Morea was recovering from a recent Ottoman attack. Their own incompetence resulted in

4110-622: The Latin Archbishop of Patras . Each of the latter was granted a number of estates as knightly fiefs, with the Archbishop receiving eight, the other bishops four each, and likewise four granted to each of the military orders : the Templars , Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights . Shortly after 1260, a thirteenth barony, that of Arcadia (modern Kyparissia ) was established, which was also

4247-621: The League of Corinth in 338–337 BC. In 336 BC, power was transferred to Philip's son, Alexander the Great , who spent the next ten years conquering the Persian Empire and much of Western Asia and Egypt. By the age of 30, Alexander had created one of the largest empires in history, stretching from Greece to northwestern India . He was undefeated in battle and is widely considered to be one of history's greatest and most successful military commanders. After Alexander's death in 323 BC,

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4384-576: The Macedonian Empire disintegrated under widespread civil wars , beginning the Hellenistic Age of Greek history. The Hellenistic period of Greek history begins with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and ends with the conquest of the Greek peninsula and islands by Rome in 146 BC. Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until

4521-572: The Megarian decree . There was disagreement among the Greeks as to which party violated the treaty between the Delian and Peloponnesian Leagues, as Athens was technically defending a new ally. The Corinthians turned to Sparta for aid. Fearing the growing might of Athens and witnessing Athens' willingness to use it against the Megarians (the embargo would have ruined them), Sparta declared the treaty violated, and

4658-625: The Morea revolt of 1453–1454 led by Manuel Kantakouzenos against them, during which they invited in Ottoman troops to help them put down the revolt. At this time, the Greek archons made peace with Mehmed. After more years of incompetent rule by the despots, their failure to pay their annual tribute to the Sultan, and finally their own revolt against Ottoman rule, Mehmed came into the Morea in May 1460. Demetrios ended up

4795-593: The Ottoman Turks on 31 May 1460, Mystras was the residence of a Despot who ruled over the Byzantine Morea, known as the " Despotate of the Morea ". For the larger portion of his reign, Manuel maintained peaceful relations with his Latin neighbors and secured a long period of prosperity for the area. Greco-Latin cooperation included an alliance to contain the raids of the Ottoman Sultan Murad I into Morea in

4932-597: The Persian Empire ), it took the form of an alliance going to war. It also gave ample opportunity for wars within Greece between different poleis . Two major wars shaped the Classical Greek world. The first was the Persian Wars (499–449 BC), recounted in the Greek historian Herodotus 's Histories . By the late 6th century BC, the Achaemenid Persian Empire ruled over all Greek city-states in Ionia (the western coast of modern-day Turkey ) and had made territorial gains in

5069-571: The Phoenicians , eventually spreading north into Italy and the Gauls . In the 8th century BC, Greece began to emerge from the Dark Ages which followed the fall of the Mycenaean civilization. Literacy had been lost and Mycenaean script forgotten, but the Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet , modifying it to create the Greek alphabet. From about the 9th century BC, written records begin to appear. Greece

5206-472: The Roman Empire at the end of the first millennium BC. Not everyone treats the Classical Greek and Hellenic periods as distinct—some writers treat the Ancient Greek civilization as a continuum running until the proliferation of Christianity in the 3rd century. Ancient Greece is considered by many historians to be the foundational culture of Western civilization . Greek culture was a powerful influence in

5343-627: The Roman period , the peninsula remained prosperous but became a provincial backwater, relatively cut off from the affairs of the wider Roman world . After the partition of the Empire in 395, the Peloponnese became a part of the East Roman or Byzantine Empire . The devastation of Alaric 's raid in 396–397 led to the construction of the Hexamilion wall across the Isthmus of Corinth. Through most of late antiquity ,

5480-814: The Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic . Mesolithic sites in Greece were limited, and the majority are located near the coast. Franchthi Cave , the Kalamakia Cave in Mani ( Peloponnese ), the Asprochaliko Cave in Epirus (where the first excavation took place in 1960) and the Theopetra Cave are among the most important Mesolithic sites in Greece and Southeast Europe , and were inhabited almost continuously throughout

5617-414: The helots , a subjugated population of Sparta, revolt. This strategy required that Athens endure regular sieges , and in 430 BC it was visited with an awful plague that killed about a quarter of its people , including Pericles. With Pericles gone, less conservative elements gained power in the city and Athens went on the offensive. In 425 BC, it captured 300–400 Spartan hoplites (soldiers) at

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5754-411: The klephts ' activities. With the outbreak of the " Great Turkish War " in 1683, the Venetians under Francesco Morosini occupied the entire peninsula by 1687, and received recognition by the Ottomans in the Treaty of Karlowitz (1699). The Venetians established their province as the " Kingdom of the Morea " (It. Regno di Morea ), but their rule proved unpopular, and when the Ottomans invaded

5891-400: The prefectures (Law 1622/1986). Before 1986, there was a traditional division into broad historical–geographical regions (γεωγραφικά διαμερίσματα), which, however, was often arbitrary; not all of the pre-1986 traditional historical-geographic regions had official administrative bodies. Although the post-1986 regions were mostly based on the earlier divisions, they are usually smaller and, in

6028-425: The 1360s. The rival Palaiologos dynasty seized the Morea after Manuel's death in 1380, with Theodore I Palaiologos becoming despot in 1383. Theodore I ruled until 1407, consolidating Byzantine rule and coming to terms with his more powerful neighbours—particularly the expansionist Ottoman Empire , whose suzerainty he recognised. Subsequent despots were the sons of the Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos , brother of

6165-430: The 2010 Kallikratis Plan (Law 3852/2010), which entered into effect on 1 January 2011. In the 2011 changes, the government-appointed general secretary (γενικός γραμματέας) was replaced with a popularly elected regional governor (περιφερειάρχης) and a regional council (περιφερειακό συμβούλιο) with five-year terms. Many powers of the prefectures, which were also abolished or reformed into regional units , were transferred to

6302-418: The 9th century, the entire Peloponnese was formed into the new thema of Peloponnesos , with its capital at Corinth. The imposition of Byzantine rule over the Slavic enclaves may have largely been a process of Christianization and accommodation of Slavic chieftains into the Imperial fold, as literary, epigraphic and sigillographic evidence testify to Slavic archontes participating in Imperial affairs. By

6439-454: The Achaean cities away from their nominal loyalty to Philip, and formed alliances with Rhodes and Pergamum, now the strongest power in Asia Minor . The First Macedonian War broke out in 212 BC and ended inconclusively in 205 BC, but Macedon was now marked as an enemy of Rome. In 202 BC, Rome defeated Carthage and was free to turn her attention eastwards. In 198 BC, the Second Macedonian War broke out because Rome saw Macedon as

6576-402: The Achaeans, and in 227 BC it invaded Achaea and seized control of the League. The remaining Achaeans preferred distant Macedon to nearby Sparta and allied with the former. In 222 BC, the Macedonian army defeated the Spartans and annexed their city—the first time Sparta had ever been occupied by a different state. Philip V of Macedon was the last Greek ruler with both the talent and

6713-430: The Diadochi . Ptolemy was left with Egypt , and Seleucus with the Levant , Mesopotamia , and points east. Control of Greece, Thrace , and Anatolia was contested, but by 298 BC the Antigonid dynasty had supplanted the Antipatrid . Macedonian control of the city-states was intermittent, with a number of revolts. Athens, Rhodes , Pergamum , and other Greek states retained substantial independence and joined

6850-469: The Greek island of Crete , which may suggest hominin evolution outside of Africa , contrary to current hypotheses. The Paleolithic period is generally understudied in Greece because research has traditionally focused on the later parts of prehistory (Neolithic, Bronze Age) and the Classical times. Nevertheless, significant advances have been achieved over recent years, and the archaeological record has been enriched with new material, collected mostly in

6987-471: The Hellenization campaign also shows that the Slavs had settled among many Greeks, in contrast to areas further north in what is now Bulgaria and the former Yugoslavia, as those areas could not be Hellenized when they were recovered by the Byzantines in the early 11th century. A human genetics study in 2017 showed that the Peloponnesians have little admixture with populations of the Slavic homeland and are much closer to Sicilians and southern Italians. Apart from

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7124-402: The Morea to re-acknowledge Ottoman suzerainty, and again under Turahan in 1452 and 1456. Following the occupation of the Duchy of Athens in 1456, the Ottomans occupied a third of the Peloponnese in 1458, and Sultan Mehmed II extinguished the remnants of the Despotate in 1460. A few holdouts remained for a time. The rocky peninsula of Monemvasia refused to surrender, and it was first ruled for

7261-402: The Orient, in art as well as in religion and mythology. Archaeologically, Archaic Greece is marked by Geometric pottery . The basic unit of politics in Ancient Greece was the polis ( Ancient Greek : πόλις ), sometimes translated as " city-state ". The term lends itself to the modern English word "politics", which literally means "the things of the polis ". At least in theory, each polis

7398-425: The Paleolithic and the Mesolithic Period. The Neolithic Revolution reached Europe beginning in 7000–6500 BC when agriculturalists from the Near East entered the Greek peninsula from Anatolia by island-hopping through the Aegean Sea . The earliest known Neolithic sites with developed agricultural economies in Europe, dated 8500–9000 BP, were found in Greece. The first Greek-speaking tribes , speaking

7535-474: The Peloponnese rose against the Ottomans with Russian aid during the so-called " Orlov Revolt " of 1770, but it was swiftly and brutally suppressed by bands of Muslim Albanian mercenaries hired by the Ottomans. Referred to by the local Greek populace as " Turk-Albanians ", those forces had also destroyed many cities and towns in Epirus during the 1769–70 revolt there. The Peloponnese suffered more than any other Greek inhabited area by irregular Albanian gangs during

7672-493: The Peloponnese to continue their military service under the Republic of Venice or the Kingdom of Naples . At the end of the Ottoman–Venetian wars, a large number of Albanians had fled from the Peloponnese to Sicily. A demographic census by Alfred Philippson , based on fieldwork between 1887 and 1889, found that out of the approximately 730,000 inhabitants of the Peloponnese, and the three neighboring islands of Poros , Hydra and Spetses , Arvanites numbered 90,253, or 12.3% of

7809-407: The Peloponnese was at the heart of the affairs of ancient Greece , possessed some of its most powerful city-states, and was the location of some of its bloodiest battles. The major cities of Sparta , Corinth , Argos and Megalopolis were all located on the Peloponnese, and it was the homeland of the Peloponnesian League . Soldiers from the peninsula fought in the Persian Wars , and it was also

7946-436: The Peloponnesian Greek population. This is especially true in Mani and Tsakonia , where Slavic incursions were minimal, or non-existent. Being agriculturalists, the Slavs probably traded with the Greeks, who remained in the towns, while Greek villages continued to exist in the interior, governing themselves, possibly paying tribute to the Slavs. The first attempt by the Byzantine imperial government to re-assert its control over

8083-470: The Peloponnesian War began in 415 BC when Athens embarked on the Sicilian Expedition in Magna Graecia to support its ally Segesta in Sicily against an attack by Syracuse (a Spartan ally also in Sicily) and conquer the island. Initially, Sparta was reluctant to help Syracuse, but Alcibiades , the Athenian general who had argued for the Sicilian Expedition, defected to the Spartan cause after being accused of grossly impious acts. Alcibiades convinced

8220-522: The Peloponnesian War began in earnest. The first stage of the war (known as the Archidamian War for the Spartan king Archidamus II ) lasted until 421 BC with the signing of the Peace of Nicias . It began with the Athenian general Pericles recommending that his city fight a defensive war, avoiding battle against the superior land forces led by Sparta, and importing everything needful by maintaining its powerful navy. Athens would simply outlast Sparta, whose citizens feared leave their city for long lest

8357-405: The Persians, the treasury was moved from Delos to Athens, further strengthening the latter's control over the League. The Delian League was eventually referred to pejoratively as the Athenian Empire. In 458 BC, while the Persian Wars were still ongoing, war broke out between the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League , comprising Sparta and its allies. After some inconclusive fighting,

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8494-404: The Principality of Achaea were beaten back in the battles of Prinitsa and Makryplagi , but the Byzantines were firmly ensconced in Laconia. Warfare became endemic, and the Byzantines slowly pushed the Franks back. The insecurity engendered by the raids and counter-raids caused the inhabitants of Lacedaemon to abandon their exposed city and settle at Mystras, in a new town built under the shadow of

8631-474: The Roman Empire, which carried a version of it to many parts of Europe. Ancient Greek civilization has been immensely influential on the language, politics, educational systems, philosophy, art, and architecture of the modern world, particularly during the Renaissance in Western Europe and again during various neo-classical revivals in 18th- and 19th-century Europe and the Americas. The Greek Dark Ages ( c.  1100  – c.  800  BC) refers to

8768-404: The Russian Empire decided to intervene in favor of the Greeks. The decisive naval Battle of Navarino was fought in 1827 off Pylos on the west coast of the Peloponnese, where a combined British, French and Russian fleet decisively defeated the Turko-Egyptian fleet. Subsequently, a French expeditionary corps cleared the last Turko-Egyptian forces from the peninsula in 1828. The city of Nafplion, on

8905-415: The Spartans that they could not allow Athens to subjugate Syracuse. The campaign ended in disaster for the Athenians. After the Athenian defeat in Sicily, Athens' Ionian possessions rebelled with the support of Sparta, as advised by Alcibiades. In 411 BC, an oligarchical revolt in Athens held out the chance for peace, but the Athenian navy, which remained committed to the democracy, refused to accept

9042-417: The advent of Christianity , it did mark the end of Greek political independence. During the Hellenistic period, the importance of "Greece proper" (that is, the territory of modern Greece) within the Greek-speaking world declined sharply. The great centres of Hellenistic culture were Alexandria and Antioch , capitals of Ptolemaic Egypt and Seleucid Syria , respectively. (See Hellenistic civilization for

9179-530: The ages and as a result, the history of Greece is similarly elastic in what it includes. Generally, the history of Greece is divided into the following periods: At its cultural and geographical peak, Greek civilization spread from Egypt all the way to the Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan . Since then, Greek minorities have continued to inhabit former Greek territories (e.g. Turkey , Albania , Italy , Libya , Levant , Armenia , Georgia ), and Greek emigrants have assimilated into differing societies across

9316-464: The already weakened Mycenaeans. The period that follows these events is collectively known as the Greek Dark Ages. Kings ruled throughout this period until eventually they were replaced with an aristocracy , then still later, in some areas, an aristocracy within an aristocracy—an elite of the elite. Warfare shifted from a focus on the cavalry to a great emphasis on infantry. Due to its cheapness of production and local availability, iron replaced bronze as

9453-405: The arrival of Slavs to southern Greece to the late 6th century, according to Florin Curta there is no evidence for a Slavic presence in the Peloponnese until after c.  700 AD , when Slavs may have been allowed to settle in specific areas that had been depopulated. Relations between the Slavs and Greeks were probably peaceful apart from intermittent uprisings. There was also a continuity of

9590-496: The base of the future Mycenean civilization were developed. Early Bronze Age settlements saw further development during Helladic III, exemplified by the Tiryns culture ( c.  2200  – c.  2000 BC ), and the Middle Helladic period before the Mycenean period discussed below. Mycenaean civilization originated and evolved from the society and culture of the Early and Middle Helladic periods in mainland Greece. It emerged c.  1600 BC , when Helladic culture

9727-529: The change and continued fighting in Athens' name. The navy recalled Alcibiades, who had been forced to abandon the Spartan cause after reputedly seducing the wife of Agis II , a Spartan king, and made him its head. The oligarchy in Athens collapsed and Alcibiades reconquered what had been lost for Athens. In 407 BC, Alcibiades was replaced following a minor naval defeat at the Battle of Notium . The Spartan general Lysander , having fortified his city's naval power, began winning victory after victory. Athens won

9864-464: The coast such as Navarino and Coron , which they retained into the 15th century. The Franks popularized the name Morea for the peninsula, which first appears as the name of a small bishopric in Elis during the 10th century. Its etymology is disputed, but it is most commonly held to be derived from the mulberry tree ( morea ), whose leaves are similar in shape to the peninsula. In 1208, William I founded

10001-498: The country's thirteen second-level administrative entities, counting decentralized administrations of Greece as first-level. Regions are divided into regional units , known as prefectures until 2011. The current regions were established in July 1986 (the presidential decree officially establishing them was signed in 1987), by decision of the interior minister, Menios Koutsogiorgas , as second-level administrative entities, complementing

10138-696: The decades following. In Patras nearly no one was left alive after the Turkish-Albanian invasion. The city of Mystras was left in ruins and the metropolitan bishop Ananias was executed despite having saved the life of several Turks during the uprising. A great number of local Greeks were killed by the Albanian groups, while children were sold to slavery. It is estimated that 20,000 local Greeks were captured during those nine years of devastation by those Albanian mercenaries and sold to slave markets. Also an additional of 50,000 Greeks left Peloponesse: around one-sixth of

10275-534: The despot Theodore: Theodore II, Constantine, Demetrios, and Thomas. As Latin power in the Peloponnese waned during the 15th century, the Despotate of the Morea expanded to incorporate the entire peninsula in 1430 with territory being acquired by dowry settlements, and the conquest of Patras by Constantine. However, in 1446 the Ottoman Sultan Murad II destroyed the Byzantine defences—the Hexamilion wall at

10412-767: The destruction of the Byzantine Empire by the forces of the Fourth Crusade , the Crusaders under William of Champlitte and Geoffrey of Villehardouin marched south through mainland Greece and conquered the Peloponnese against sporadic local Greek resistance . The Franks then founded the Principality of Achaea , nominally a vassal of the Latin Empire , while the Venetians occupied several strategically important ports around

10549-674: The division of the Paleolithic in the Greek area into Lower (700,000–100,000 BP), Middle (100,000–35,000 BP) and Upper Palaeolithic (35,000–11,000 BP). There are, to date, few sites of the Lower Paleolithic, whereas there are more of the Middle and Upper. This is partly due to the intense tectonic activity in the Greek area and the rise and fall of the Aegean Sea which destroyed every trace of habitation from some geographical regions. Paleolithic finds from Greece were first reported in 1867, but

10686-405: The east coast of the peninsula, became the first capital of the independent Greek state . By the conclusion of the war, the entire Muslim population of the newly independent Greek state, including the Peloponnese, had been exterminated or had fled. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the region became relatively poor and economically isolated. A significant part of its population emigrated to

10823-745: The east, and the Ionian to the west. The island of Kythira , off the Epidaurus Limeira peninsula to the south of the Peloponnese, is considered to be part of the Ionian Islands. The island of Elafonisos used to be part of the peninsula but was separated following the major quake of 365 AD . Since antiquity, and continuing to the present day, the Peloponnese has been divided into seven major regions: Achaea (north), Corinthia (northeast), Argolis (east), Arcadia (center), Laconia (southeast), Messenia (southwest), and Elis (west). Each of these regions

10960-448: The end of the 2nd millennium BC. Archeological research has found that many of its cities and palaces show signs of destruction. The subsequent period, known as the Greek Dark Ages , is marked by an absence of written records. In 776 BC, the first Olympic Games were held at Olympia , in the western Peloponnese and this date is sometimes used to denote the beginning of the classical period of Greek antiquity. During classical antiquity ,

11097-524: The end of the 9th century, the Peloponnese was culturally and administratively Greek again, except for a few small Slavic tribes in the mountains such as the Melingoi and Ezeritai . Although they were to remain relatively autonomous until Ottoman times, such tribes were the exception rather than the rule. Even the Melingoi and Ezeritai, however, could speak Greek and appear to have been Christian. The success of

11234-418: The energetic Evrenos Bey took control. Exploiting the quarrels between Byzantines and Franks, he plundered across the peninsula and forced both the Byzantine despots and the remaining Frankish rulers to acknowledge Ottoman suzerainty and pay tribute. This situation lasted until the Ottoman defeat at the Battle of Ankara in 1402, after which Ottoman power was for a time checked. From 1349 until its surrender to

11371-469: The fertile lands, Muslims remained a distinct minority. Christian communities retained a large measure of self-government, but the entire Ottoman period was marked by a flight of the Christian population from the plains to the mountains. This occasioned the rise of the klepht s, armed brigands and rebels, in the mountains, as well as the corresponding institution of the government-funded armatoloi to check

11508-701: The first organized research on the sites was conducted many years later, between 1927 and 1931, by the Austrian archaeologist Adalbert Markovits. The first excavation of a Paleolithic site took place in 1942 at Seidi Cave in Boeotia by the German archaeologist Rudolf Stampfuss. More systematic research, however, was conducted during the 1960s in Epirus , Macedonia , Thessaly and the Peloponnese by English, American and German research groups. The Mesolithic in Greece occurred between

11645-573: The fleet landed and faced the Athenian army at Marathon , which ended in a decisive Athenian victory. Darius's successor, Xerxes I , launched the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC. Despite Greek defeat at Thermopylae , after which the Persians briefly overran northern and central Greece, the Greek city-states once again managed to comprehensively defeat the invaders with naval victory at Salamis and victory on land at Plataea . To prosecute

11782-524: The fortress. While Mystras served as the provincial capital from this time, it became a royal capital in 1349, when the first despot was appointed to rule over the Morea. The Byzantine Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos , reorganized the territory in 1349 to establish it as an appanage for his son, the Despot Manuel Kantakouzenos . Around that time, the Ottoman Turks began raiding the Peloponnese, but their raids intensified only after 1387 when

11919-506: The fortresses. The Greek insurgents made rapid progress and the entire peninsula was under Greek control within a few months, except for a few coastal forts and the main Turkish garrison at Tripolitsa . The fighting was fierce and marked by atrocities on both sides; eventually the entire Muslim population was either massacred or fled to the forts. The capture of Tripolitsa in September 1821 marked

12056-488: The framework of regional surveys but also through systematic or rescue excavations . New caves and rock shelters , as well as recently discovered and important open-air sites are now being excavated. Notably, an apparent elephant butchering site in the Western Macedonia region of Northern Greece may be the oldest known hominin settlement outside of Africa dating back to at least 2.5 million years BP, but this claim

12193-472: The globe (e.g., North America, Australia, Northern Europe, South Africa ). At present, most Greeks live in the modern states of Greece (independent since 1821) and Cyprus . Fossils of one of the earliest pre-humans ( Ouranopithecus macedoniensis , 9.6–8.7 million years ago), and of quite possibly the oldest direct ancestor of all humans ( Graecopithecus , 7.2 million years ago) were found in Greece. In addition, 5.7 million year old footprints were found on

12330-471: The groundwork for the Greek War of Independence . The Peloponnesians played a major role in the Greek War of Independence – the war began in the Peloponnese, when rebels took control of Kalamata on March 23, 1821. After the arrival of Ypsilantis's emissaries, local people rose under the leadership of Mavromichalis . Greek and Albanian insurgents organised in units of armed civilians took control of most of

12467-508: The history of Greek culture outside Greece in this period.) Athens and her allies revolted against Macedon upon hearing that Alexander the Great had died in 323 BC, but were defeated within a year in the Lamian War . Meanwhile, a struggle for power broke out among Alexander's generals, which resulted in the break-up of his empire and the establishment of a number of new kingdoms in the Wars of

12604-473: The independent Slavic tribes of the Peloponnese occurred in 783, with the logothete Staurakios ' overland campaign from Constantinople into Greece and the Peloponnese, which according to Theophanes the Confessor made many prisoners and forced the Slavs to pay tribute. From the mid-9th century, following a Slavic revolt and attack on Patras , a determined Hellenization process was carried out. According to

12741-478: The invasion by those mercenary groups the local population had to found refuge in the mountains of Peloponnese to avoid persecution. The total population decreased during this time, while the Muslim element in it increased. As such Greek resistance in the peninsula was reinforced and powerful groups of klephts were formed under the clans of Zacharias, Melios, Petmezas and Kolokotronis. Klephtic songs of that era describe

12878-573: The larger cities of Greece, especially Athens , and other countries such as the United States and Australia. It was badly affected by the Second World War and Greek Civil War , experiencing some of the worst atrocities committed in Greece during those conflicts. Living standards improved dramatically throughout Greece after the country accedes to the European Union in 1981. The Corinth Canal

13015-526: The larger groups of Albanian settlers, amounting to 10,000, settled the Peloponnese during the reign of Theodore I Palaiologos , first in Arcadia and subsequently in other regions around Messenia , Argolis , Elis and Achaia . Around 1418, a second large group arrived, possibly fleeing Aetolia , Acarnania and Arta , where Albanian political power had been defeated. The settling Albanians lived in tribes spread out into small villages, practicing nomadic lifestyles based on pastoralism and animal husbandry. By

13152-555: The last Venetian possessions on the Greek mainland were lost. Following the Ottoman conquest, the peninsula was made into a province ( sanjak ), with 109 ziamets and 342 timars . During the first period of Ottoman rule (1460–1687), the capital was first in Corinth (Turk. Gördes ), later in Leontari ( Londari ), Mystras ( Misistire ) and finally in Nauplion (Tr. Anaboli ). Sometime in

13289-489: The legend of the hero Pelops , who was said to have conquered the entire region. The name Peloponnesos means Island or Peninsula (archaic meaning of the word nesos ) of Pelops. The Mycenaean civilization , mainland Greece's (and Europe's) first major civilization, dominated the Peloponnese in the Bronze Age from the palaces of Mycenae , Pylos and Tiryns ; among others. The Mycenaean civilization collapsed suddenly at

13426-411: The metal of choice in the manufacturing of tools and weapons. Slowly, however, equality grew among the different sects of people, leading to the dethronement of the various kings and the rise of the family. At the end of this period of stagnation, the Greek civilization was engulfed in a renaissance that spread throughout the Greek world as far as the Black Sea and Spain . Writing was relearned from

13563-490: The mid-15th century, they formed a substantial part of the population of the Peloponnesus. Military sources of the era (1425) report about 30,000 Albanian men who could carry arms in the Peloponnese. The Greeks tended to live in large villages and cities, while Albanians in small villages. Following Ottoman conquest, many Albanians fled to Italy, settling primarily in nowadays Arbereshe villages of Calabria and Sicily . On

13700-557: The mid-17th century, the Morea became the centre of a separate eyalet , with Patras ( Ballibadra ) as its capital. Until the death of Suleiman the Magnificent in 1570, the Christian population (counted at some 42,000 families c. 1550) managed to retain some privileges and Islamization was slow, mostly among the Albanians or the estate owners who were integrated into the Ottoman feudal system. Although they quickly came to control most of

13837-527: The migration and settlement of Christian Albanians to parts of Central Greece and the Peloponnese, a group that eventually became known as the Arvanites The Albanians settled in successive waves, often invited by the local rulers. They start appearing more frequently in the historical record from during the second part of the 14th century, when they were being offered arable land, pasture and favorable taxation in exchange for military service. One of

13974-454: The military commander there, stationed at Salmeniko Castle . While the town eventually surrendered, Graitzas and his garrison and some town residents held out in the castle until July 1461, when they escaped and reached Venetian territory. Only the Venetian fortresses of Modon , Coron , Navarino , Monemvasia , Argos and Nauplion escaped Ottoman control. The same period was also marked by

14111-754: The modern era by Sir Arthur Evans in 1900, when he purchased and began excavating the site at Knossos . Pre-Mycenean Helladic period Following the end of the Neolithic , the last Stone Age period, the Early and Middle Helladic periods were established on the Greek mainland. The slow transition from the Final Neolithic period took place with the Eutresis culture ( c.  3200  – c.  2650 BC ). Over hundreds of years, agricultural communities transitioned from stone tools to metal ones. Following such materialistic developments, more powerful micro-states and

14248-412: The northeast (2,376 m or 7,795 ft), Aroania in the north (2,355 m or 7,726 ft), Erymanthos (2,224 m or 7,297 ft) and Panachaikon in the northwest (1,926 m or 6,319 ft), Mainalon in the center (1,981 m or 6,499 ft), and Parnon in the southeast (1,935 m or 6,348 ft). The entire peninsula is earthquake-prone and has been the site of many earthquakes in

14385-642: The northeastern Argolid , in the Peloponnesos of southern Greece. Athens , Pylos , Thebes , and Tiryns also have important Mycenaean sites. Mycenaean civilization was dominated by a warrior aristocracy . Around 1400 BC, the Mycenaeans extended their control to Crete , the center of the Minoan civilization , and adopted a form of the Minoan script Linear A to write an early form of Greek . The Mycenaean-era script

14522-412: The opportunity to unite Greece and preserve its independence against the ever-increasing power of Rome. Under his auspices, the Peace of Naupactus (217 BC) brought conflict between Macedon and the Greek leagues to an end, and at this time he controlled all of Greece except Athens, Rhodes, and Pergamum. In 215 BC, however, Philip formed an alliance with Rome's enemy Carthage . Rome promptly lured

14659-653: The other hand, in an effort to control the remaining Albanians, during the second half of the 15th century, the Ottomans adopted favorable tax policies towards them, likely in continuation of similar Byzantine practices. This policy had been discontinued by the early 16th century. Throughout the Ottoman–Venetian wars , many Albanians died or were captured in service to the Venetians; at Nafpaktos , Nafplio , Argos , Methoni , Koroni and Pylos . Furthermore, 8,000 Albanian stratioti , most of them along with their families, left

14796-691: The past. The longest river is the Alfeios in the west (110 km or 68 mi), followed by the Evrotas in the south (82 km or 51 mi), and also the Pineios , also in the west (70 km or 43 mi). The Peloponnese, with its indented coasts, is home to numerous spectacular beaches, which are a major tourist draw. Two groups of islands lie off the Peloponnesian coast: the Argo-Saronic Islands to

14933-517: The peninsula in 1715, most local Greeks welcomed them. The Ottoman reconquest was easy and swift, and was recognized by Venice in the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718. The Peloponnese now became the core of the Morea Eyalet , headed by the Mora valesi , who until 1780 was a pasha of the first rank (with three horsetails ) and held the title of vizier . After 1780 and until the Greek War of Independence ,

15070-632: The peninsula is significantly drier. Average annual temperatures can reach up to 20.3 °C (68.5 °F) while summer highs reach over 36.0 °C (96.8 °F) in Sparta , within the Evrotas Valley . On 27 June 2007, Monemvasia registered a staggering minimum temperature of 35.9°C, which is the highest minimum temperature ever recorded in mainland Greece and Continental Europe . The peninsula has been inhabited since prehistoric times . Its modern name derives from ancient Greek mythology , specifically

15207-505: The peninsula retained its urbanized character: in the 6th century, Hierocles counted 26 cities in his Synecdemus . By the latter part of that century, however, building activity seems to have stopped virtually everywhere except in Constantinople, Thessalonica, Corinth, and Athens. This has traditionally been attributed to calamities such as plague, earthquakes and Slavic invasions. However, more recent analysis suggests that urban decline

15344-502: The peninsula, as evidenced by the abundance of Slavic toponyms , but these toponyms accumulated over centuries rather than as a result of an initial "flood" of Slavic invasions, and many appear to have been mediated by speakers of Greek, or in mixed Slavic-Greek compounds. Fewer Slavic toponyms appear on the eastern coast, which remained in Byzantine hands and was included in the thema of Hellas , established by Justinian II c.  690 . While traditional historiography has dated

15481-460: The peninsula, however, received a critical blow after the Battle of Pelagonia , when William II of Villehardouin was forced to cede the newly constructed fortress and palace at Mystras near ancient Sparta to a resurgent Byzantium. At this point, the emperor concluded an agreement with the captive prince: William and his men would be set free in exchange for an oath of fealty, and for the cession of Monemvasia, Grand Magne, and Mystras. The handover

15618-418: The period of Greek history from the presumed Dorian invasion and end of the Mycenaean civilization in the 11th century BC to the rise of the first Greek city-states in the 9th century BC and the epics of Homer and earliest writings in the Greek alphabet in the 8th century BC. The collapse of the Mycenaean civilization coincided with the fall of several other large empires in the near east, most notably

15755-515: The periods of the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations, while others argue that these civilizations were so different from later Greek cultures that they should be classed separately. Traditionally, the Ancient Greek period was taken to begin with the date of the first Olympic Games in 776 BC, but most historians now extend the term back to about 1000 BC, toward the beginning of the Greek Dark Ages. The Greek Dark Ages are succeeded by

15892-404: The population. Nevertheless, attacks by Muslim Albanian mercenaries in the region continued not only against the Greek population but also against Turks. The extensive destruction and lack of control in the Peloponnese forced the central Ottoman government to send a regular Turkish military force to suppress those Albanian troops in 1779, and eventually drive them out from Peloponnese. As a result of

16029-489: The pre-1770 population. The Ottoman government was unable to pay the wages the Albanian mercenaries demanded for their service, causing the latter to ravage the region even after revolt had been put down. 1770-1779 was a prolonged period of devastation and atrocities committed by Albanian irregulars in the Peloponnese. In 1774 the Russo-Turkish War ended with the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca which granted general amnesty to

16166-724: The predecessor of the Mycenaean language , arrived in the Greek mainland sometime in the Neolithic period or the Early Bronze Age ( c. 3200 BC). The Cycladic culture is a significant Late Neolithic and Early Bronze Age material culture from the Cyclades , best known for its schematic flat female idols carved out of the islands' pure white marble. The Middle Bronze Age Minoan civilization in Crete lasted from c.  3000  – c.  1400 BC . Little specific information

16303-403: The province was headed by a muhassil . The pasha of the Morea was aided by several subordinate officials, including a Christian translator ( dragoman ), who was the senior Christian official of the province. As during the first Ottoman period, the Morea was divided into 22 districts or beyliks . The capital was first at Nauplion, but after 1786 at Tripolitza (Tr. Trabliçe ). The Greeks of

16440-620: The region are still unknown. It is thought to be one of the largest environmental disasters in modern Greek history. The principal modern cities of the Peloponnese are (2011 census): The Peloponnese possesses many important archaeological sites dating from the Bronze Age through to the Middle Ages. Among the most notable are: ‡ UNESCO World Heritage Site Specialities of the region: Several notable Peloponnese wines have Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status. The Mantineia region makes

16577-423: The region level. The regional organs of the central government were in turn replaced by seven decentralized administrations , which group from one to three regions under a government-appointed general secretary. [REDACTED] Bordering the region of Central Macedonia there is one autonomous region, Mount Athos ( Agion Oros , or "Holy Mountain"), an autonomous monastic community under Greek sovereignty. It

16714-567: The resistance activities. Nevertheless, through the privileges granted with the Treaty of Kuchuk-Kainarji , especially the right for the Christians to trade under the Russian flag, led to a considerable economic flowering of the local Greeks, which, coupled with the increased cultural contacts with Western Europe ( Modern Greek Enlightenment ) and the inspiring ideals of the French Revolution , laid

16851-549: The scene of the Peloponnesian War of 431–404 BC. The entire Peloponnese with the notable exception of Sparta joined Alexander's expedition against the Persian Empire. Along with the rest of Greece, the Peloponnese fell to the expanding Roman Republic in 146 BC, when the Romans razed the city of Corinth and massacred its inhabitants. The Romans created the province of Achaea comprising the Peloponnese and central Greece. During

16988-535: The seeds of discontent in Spartan Greece, inducing the Thebans to attack once more. Their general, Epaminondas , crushed Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC, inaugurating a period of Theban dominance in Greece. In 346 BC, unable to prevail in its ten-year war with Phocis , Thebes called upon Philip II of Macedon for aid. Macedon quickly unified the Greek city-states under Macedonian hegemony into

17125-486: The total population. The Venetian fortresses were conquered in a series of Ottoman-Venetian Wars : the first war , lasting from 1463 to 1479, saw much fighting in the Peloponnese, resulting in the loss of Argos , while Modon and Coron fell in 1500 during the second war . Coron and Patras were captured in a crusading expedition in 1532, led by the Genoese admiral Andrea Doria , but this provoked another war in which

17262-460: The troubled relations with the Slavs, the coastal regions of the Peloponnese suffered greatly from repeated Arab raids following the Arab capture of Crete in the 820s and the establishment of a corsair emirate there. After the island was recovered by Byzantium in 961 however, the region entered a period of renewed prosperity, where agriculture, commerce, and urban industry flourished. In 1205, following

17399-403: The two sides signed a peace treaty in 447 BC. That peace was stipulated to last thirty years: instead, it held only until 431 BC, with the onset of the Peloponnesian War . The main sources concerning the Peloponnesian war (431–404 BC) are Thucydides 's History of the Peloponnesian War and Xenophon 's Hellenica . Both historians were also Athenian generals who lived through

17536-457: The volcanic eruption at Thera ( c.  1628-1627 BC ) and earthquakes ( c.  1600 BC ). In 1425 BC, all the Minoan palaces except Knossos were devastated by fire, which allowed the Mycenaean Greeks , influenced by the Minoans' culture, to expand into Crete. Remains of the Minoan civilization which preceded the Mycenaean civilization on Crete were first discovered in

17673-521: The war and then to defend Greece from further Persian attack, Athens founded the Delian League in 477 BC. Initially, each city in the League would contribute ships and soldiers to a common army, but in time Athens allowed (and then compelled) the smaller cities to contribute funds so that it could supply their quota of ships. Secession from the League could be punished. Following military reversals against

17810-649: The war. The war began in 431 BC over a dispute between the cities of Corcyra and Epidamnus . Corinth , an ally of Sparta in the Peloponnesian League , intervened on the Epidamnian side. Fearful lest Corinth capture the Corcyran navy (second only to the Athenian in size), Athens intervened. They prevented Corinth from landing on Corcyra at the Battle of Sybota , laid siege to Potidaea , and forbade all commerce with Corinth's closely situated ally, Megara , with

17947-658: The west, in the Evrotas Valley in the south, and in the Argolid Peninsula in the northeast. The Peloponnese possesses four south-pointing peninsulas, the Messenian , the Mani , the Cape Malea (also known as Epidaurus Limera), and the Argolid in the far northeast of the Peloponnese. Mount Taygetus in the south is the highest mountain in the Peloponnese, at 2,407 metres (7,897 ft). Οther important mountains include Cyllene in

18084-558: Was closely linked with the collapse of long-distance and regional commercial networks that underpinned and supported late antique urbanism in Greece, as well as with the generalized withdrawal of imperial troops and administration from the Balkans. The scale of the Slavic invasion and settlement in the 7th and 8th centuries remains a matter of dispute, although it is nowadays considered much smaller than previously thought. The Slavs did occupy most of

18221-624: Was completed in the late 19th century, linking the Aegean Sea with the Gulf of Corinth and the Ionian. In 2001, the Rio-Antirio Bridge was completed, linking the western Peloponnese to western Greece. In late August 2007, large parts of Peloponnese suffered from wildfires , which caused severe damage in villages and forests and the death of 77 people. The impact of the fires to the environment and economy of

18358-426: Was divided into many small self-governing communities, a pattern largely dictated by Greek geography, where every island, valley, and plain is cut off from its neighbors by the sea or mountain ranges. The Archaic period can be understood as the Orientalizing period , when Greece was at the fringe, but not under the sway, of the budding Neo-Assyrian Empire . Greece adopted significant amounts of cultural elements from

18495-439: Was effected in 1262, and henceforth Mystras was the seat of the governor of the Byzantine territories in the Morea. Initially this governor ( kephale ) was changed every year, but after 1308 they started being appointed for longer terms. Almost immediately on his return to the Morea, William of Villehardouin renounced his oath to the emperor, and warfare broke out between Byzantines and Franks. The first Byzantine attempts to subdue

18632-424: Was politically independent. However, some poleis were subordinate to others (e.g., a colony traditionally deferred to its mother city, and some had governments wholly dependent upon others (e.g., the Thirty Tyrants in Athens was imposed by Sparta following the Peloponnesian War ), but the titularly supreme power in each polis was located within that city. This meant that when Greece went to war (e.g., against

18769-405: Was transformed under influences from Minoan Crete , and it lasted until the collapse of the Mycenaean palaces c.  1100 BC . Mycenaean Greece is the Late Helladic Bronze Age civilization of Ancient Greece , and it formed the historical setting of the epics of Homer and most of Greek mythology and religion . The Mycenaean period takes its name from the archaeological site Mycenae in

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