The History of Greece from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Hellenistic Age. John Bagnell Bury
consider the existence of the dividing gulf, the existence of the isthmus, and the fact that the isthmus was at the eastern and not at the western end. 1. The double effect of the gulf itself is clear at once. It let the sea in upon a number of folks who would otherwise have been inland mountaineers, and increased enormously the length of the seaboard of Greece. Further, the gulf constituted southern Greece a world by itself; so that it could be regarded as a separate land from northern Greece—an island practically, with its own insular interests. 2. But if the island of Pelops had been in very truth an island, if there had been no isthmus, there would have been from the earliest ages direct and constant intercourse between the coasts which are washed by the Aegean and those which are washed by the Ionian Sea. The eastern and western lands of Greece would have been brought nearer to one another, when the ships of trader or warrior, instead of tediously circumnavigating the Peloponnesus, could sail from the eastern to the western sea through the middle of Greece. The disappearance of the isthmus would have revolutionised the roads of traffic and changed the centres of commerce; and the wars of Grecian history would have been fought out on other lines. How important the isthmus was may perhaps be best illustrated by a modern instance on a far mightier scale. Remove the bridge which joins the southern to the northern continent of America, and contemplate the changes which ensue in the routes of trade and in the conditions of naval warfare in the great oceans of the globe. 3. Again, if the bridge which attached the Peloponnesus to the mainland had been at the western end of the gulf; the lands along either shore of the inlet would have been accessible easily, and sooner, to the commerce of the Aegean and the orient; the civilization of northwestern Greece might have been more rapid and intense; and the history of Boeotia and Attica, unhooked from the Peloponnesus, would have run a different course.
The character of the Aegean basin was another determining of the history of the Greeks. Strewn with countless islands it seems meant to promote the intercourse of folk with folk. The Cyclades, which, as we have seen, belong properly to the framework of the Greek continent, pass imperceptibly into the isles which the Asiatic coast throws out, and there is formed a sort of island bridge, inviting ships to pass from Greece to Asia. The western coast of Lesser Asia belongs, in truth, more naturally to Europe than to its own continent; it soon became part of the Greek world; and the Aegean might be considered then as the true centre of Greece.
The west side of Greece too was well furnished with good harbours, and though not as rich in bays and islands as the east, was a favorable scene for the development of trade and civilizations. It was no long voyage from Corcyra to the heel of Italy, and the inhabitants of western Greece had a whole world open to their enterprise. But that world was barbarous in early times and had no civilising gifts to offer; whereas the peoples of the eastern seaboard looked towards Asia and were drawn into contact with the immemorial civilisations of the Orient. The backward condition of western as contrasted with eastern Greece in early ages did not depend on the conformation of the coast, but on the fact that it faced away from Asia; and in later days we find the Ionian Sea a busy scene of commerce and lined with prosperous communities which are fully abreast of Greek civilisation.
The northern coast of Africa, confronting and challenging the three peninsulas of the Mediterranean, has played a remarkable part in the history of southern Europe. From the earliest times it has been historically associated with Europe, and the story of geology illustrates the fitness of this connexion. Western Europe and western Africa were once united by bridges of continuous land, in the days when Sahara was a sea; and this ancient continent, which we might call Europo-Libya, was perhaps inhabited by peoples of a homogeneous race, who were severed from one another when the ocean was let in and the Mediterranean assumed its present shape. Sicily, a remnant of the old land-bridge, has always been for Italy a step from Africa; while Spain needs no island to bridge her strait. It is uncertain whether there was also another bridge connecting the Greek peninsula and Crete with the Libyan coast, but Crete at all events seemed marked out to be a stepping-stone for Greece, as Sicily was for Italy. Now in prehistoric ages there was a lively intercourse between the Aegean and Libya, and Crete served this purpose; but in historic times the eastern peninsula was not drawn by the same necessity, as the two western, into contact with the opposite continent. It should be noticed that in the prehistoric intercourse of Crete and the Aegean with Libya, the African coast was fulfilling the same rôle which we see it play in the full light of history. It has always been a road by which peoples of Asia crept westward to confer their civilisation, or impose their yoke, upon peoples of Europe. There is no doubt that the historical Egyptians had entered Egypt from the Red Sea; it is possible that they came from Babylonia; and thus even in the fourth and the third millenniums, when ships plied between Egypt and Crete, northern Africa was already performing her office of bringing Asia to Europe.
Greece is a land of mountains and small valleys; it has few plains of even moderate size and no considerable rivers. It is therefore well adapted to be a country of separate communities, each protected against its neighbours by hilly barriers; and the history of the Greeks, a story of small independent states, could not have been wrought out in a land of dissimilar formation. The political history of all countries is in some measure under the influence of geography; but in Greece geography made itself pre-eminently felt, and fought along with other forces against the accomplishment of national unity. The islands formed states by themselves, but, as seas, while like mountains they sever, may also, unlike mountains, unite, it was less difficult to form a sea than a land empire. In the same way, the hills prevented the development of a brisk land traffic, while, as we have seen, the broken character of the coast and the multitude of islands facilitated intercourse by water.
There is no barrier to break the winds which sweep over the Euxine from the Asiatic continent towards the Greek shores and render Thrace a chilly land. Hence the Greek climate has a certain severity and bracing quality, which promoted the vigour and energy of the people. Again, Greece is by no means a rich and fruitful country. It has few well-watered plains of large size; the cultivated valleys do not yield the due crop to be expected from the area; the soil is good for barley but not rich enough for wheat to grow freely. Thus the tillers of the earth had hard work. And the nature of the land had consequences which tended to promote maritime enterprise. On one hand, richer lands beyond the seas attracted the adventurous, especially when the growth of the population began to press on the means of support. On the other hand, it ultimately became necessary to supplement home-grown corn by wheat imported from abroad. But if Demeter denied her highest favours, the vine and the olive grew abundantly in most parts of the country, and their cultivation was one of the chief features of ancient Greece.
The Heroic and the Greek Dark Ages
The Beginnings of Greece and the Heroic Age
It is in the lands of Thessaly and Epirus that we first dimly descry the Greeks busy at the task for which destiny had chosen them, of creating and shaping the thought and civilisation of Europe. The oakwood of Dodona in Epirus is the earliest sanctuary, whereof we have any knowledge, of their supreme god, Zeus, the dweller of the sky. Thessaly has associations which still appeal intimately to men of European birth. The first Greek settlers in Thessaly were the Achaeans; and in the plain of Argos, and in the mountains which gird it about, they fashioned legends which were to sink deeply into the imagination of Europe. Here they peopled Olympus, under whose shadow they dwelled, with divine inhabitants, so that it has become for ever the heavenly hill in the tongues of men. And here their bards must have sung hexameter lays; though that marvellous metre was not brought to perfection till folk and legends had passed eastward overseas to another land. The invention of the hexameter was one of the most brilliant strokes of Greek genius. Perhaps it was invented by the Achaeans; no other people at least has so good a claim. We may be sure that hexameter lays were sung in the halls of the lords of northern Argos, and it is from minstrels who sang at the banquets of their descendants in a new home that we gain our earliest picture of those ancient Aryan institutions which are common to the Greeks and ourselves.