THE GRAECO – ROMAN

MEDITERRANEAN
Second Week

 Introduction
 Like geography, cultural landscapes of
Mediterranean Basin are complex,
ancient and diverse.
 Like its name, it was the cultural center
of world civilizations.
 From the eighth millennium BC onwards,
it was the place of different cultures
with different origins, ethnicity and
social backgrounds.
 But the Mediterranean Sea was always
unifying core for people and cultures.
 Major Periods in the
Mediterranean History
 Greece from 8th centuy BC

 Hellenization (323 – 146 BC) the annexation of the

Greece by the Roman Republic

 Romanization

 Arab Conquests
 Prejudice
The author of this book accepts Arab
conquests as the major discontinuity
in the history of the Mediterranean in
the late seventh century AD by
Umayyad Dynasty.
On the other hand, he accepts

Hellenization and Romanization as

two important cultural developments
in the Mediterranean history.

 Ancient Greece
 The civilization of the ancient Greeks emerged
around the Aegean Sea and spread through
the Greek mainland.
 At its best times, it extended to Sicily and Italy
on the west, and through Asia Minor and the
Mediterranean Sea to the east and south.
 The Greek world (called Hellas by the Greeks)
was united culturally. It shared a common
language, culture, and religion.
 But it was divided politically. The Greek world
was divided into city-states.
 It was not brought under a single government
until it became part of the Roman Empire in
the second century B.C.

 How do we know Ancient
Greece?
 There were a few historians in the
time of Ancient Greece.
 They recorded their time of Ancient
Greek history.
 Herodotus, (the 5th century BC )
known as the 'Father of History' who
travelled to many ancient historic
sites at the time,
 Thucydides (the 5th century BC )
 Xenophon (the 4the Century BC)

 The Emergence of the Greek
Polis (Poleis)
 At the beginning of the 8th century BC, a
new form of social and spatial organization
emerged in the islands and peninsulas of
the Aegean Sea.
 This new socio-political structure was called
as polis, means city-state.
 Their total number was about 200 by 600 BC,
 Over 340 by 400 BC.
 The most important and famous city-states
were Athens and Sparta.
 The population of Athens, for example was
about 300,000 in 5th century BC.
 -

Gree
k
City-
State
s
Characteristics of city-states
 These city-states had an urban
central-place, but only Sparta was
not centered on a city but on a
group of villages.
 They had an urban civilized life.
 Most of them were fortified.
 All had a market, called agora, a place
of assembly and a seat of
government.
 Agora
 The agora was the central
marketplace in most Greek city-
states.
 Typically the agora was located in the
center of town.
 Governmental buildings, such as the
council building and courts,
surrounded the agora in Athens.

Thessaloniki (Greece) - The Ancient Agorà, at the north end of

Dikastirion Square.
Ruins_Ancient_Agora_Thessaloniki
 ***
 Polis was a community of citizens and
non-citizens (slaves and foreigners).
 It had an established constitution.
 Citizens acquired their rights by virtue of
birth.
 The main criterion of poverty was
whether or not one had to work for a
living or the basis of life.
 Land ownership was the most socially
prestigious form of wealth.
 Why and how the poleis
developed?
 The origin of the poleis is obscure.
 But we know that it became an
extremely efficient vehicle for the
transmission of Hellenistic culture.
 But before Hellenization, Greek world
was opened to the rest of the world by
the way of colonization.
 Formal Greek colonization reached its
peak between 750 – 550 BC.
 Greek Colonization
 The establishment of a colony was a
formal affair for Greek city-states.
 In the period from the 8th to the 6th
century B.C. a great number of new
city-states were founded along the
coasts of the Mediterranean and the
Black Seas.
 These new cities were part of a
colonization movement sponsored
by city-states in Greece and
Phoenicia.
Reasons for the colonization
 The lack of natural resources in
Greece, especially the lack of metals
(tin, copper), timber (kereste) and
food.
 While searching such materials, Greek
states gathered information about
favorable places for agriculture and
settlement around the
Mediterranean.
 In the long run, there were
demographic pressures in the cities
 Urbanism and Society in the
later Greek World (500 – 29 BC)
 There was a great competition between
the Greek cities themselves and
between the Greeks and others like
Phoenicians and Etruscans for the
control of the best sites.
 For example, the Peloponnesian War
between Athens and Sparta in 431 to
404 B.C.
 Also, there were relatively short-lived
city alliances to establish their own
independence or to be protected from
The Peloponnesian
War

The Peloponnesian War



reshaped the Ancient

Greek world.
On the level of


international relations,
Athens, the strongest city-
state in Greece prior to the
war's beginning, was
reduced to a state of near-
complete subjection,
while Sparta became


established as the leading

power of Greece.
 Urban Life
 Some of the Geek city-states were
organized according to the plan of
Hippadamos of Miletus.
 Hippadamos was an ancient Greek
Urban Planner, and is considered to be
the “father” of urban planning.
 The two great Classical orders, the Doric
and Ionic (A style of architectural
decoration), continued to be used but
less formal fashion than before.
 ***
 Temples proliferated.
 Greek cities remained as the centers
of consumption rather than
production.
 Land ownership was the essential
parameter of elite status.
 Social Life: Gymnasium
 The most innovative development
was the appearance of
gymnasium.
 It was used for both physical
recreation and artistic purposes.
 It was also a place for socializing and
engaging in intellectual recreations.

The gymnasium, Ancient Messini,
Greece
 Social Life: Theater
 The theatre of ancient Greece,
flourished in ancient Greece
between c. 550 and c. 220 BC.
 The city-state of Athens, which
became a significant cultural,
political and military power during
this period, was its centre, where it
was institutionalised as part of a
festival.
Panoramic view of the Hellenic theatre
at Epidaurus.
A blueprint of an Ancient Theatre. Terms are
in Greek language and Latin letters.
Houses in ancient
Athens

*

 New age began...
 Macedonian Kingdom in 338 gained the
control of many city-states.
 Under the rule of Alexander (336 – 323),
the Aegean resources were mobilized
in a campaign against the Persians.
 With the conquests of Alexander,
Macedonian authority and Greek
culture reached to Afghanistan and
many parts of Asia and Egypt.
 With the death of Alexander, his Empire
was fragmented.