History of Greece

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.

Nevertheless, significant advances have been achieved over recent years, and the archaeological record has been enriched with new material, collected mostly in the framework of regional surveys but also through systematic or rescue excavations.

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.

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.

The Classical period began during 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.

[22] Greece 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.

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 the Balkans and Eastern Europe proper as well.

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.

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.

Athens won 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.

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.

Although the establishment of Roman rule did not break the continuity of Hellenistic society and culture, which remained essentially unchanged until the advent of Christianity, it did mark the end of Greek political independence.

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.

Rome promptly lured the Achaean cities away from their nominal loyalty to Philip, and formed alliances with Rhodes and Pergamum, now the strongest power in Asia Minor.

Emperor Caracalla's decree in 212 AD, the Constitutio Antoniniana, extended citizenship outside Italy to all free adult men in the entire Roman Empire, effectively raising provincial populations to equal status with the city of Rome itself.

The early centuries of the Empire were marked by efforts to secure its borders and restore the Roman territories, as well as the formation and establishment of the Orthodox Church and several of religious schisms following it.

Additionally, the restoration of Orthodoxy after the iconoclast movements (726–787 and 814–842) allowed the successful resumption of missionary action among neighboring peoples and their placement within the sphere of Byzantine cultural influence.

Recent research has revealed that this period was a time of significant growth in the rural economy, with rising population levels and extensive tracts of new agricultural land being brought into production.

The Venetians and others were active traders in the ports of the Holy Land, and they made a living out of shipping goods between the Crusader Kingdoms of Outremer and the West while also trading extensively with Byzantium and Egypt.

Beautiful silks from the workshops of Constantinople portrayed animals in dazzling color, such as lions, elephants, eagles, and griffins confronting each other, or Emperors gorgeously arrayed on horseback or engaged in the chase.

Princes of Kiev, Venetian Doges, abbots of Monte Cassino, merchants of Amalfi, and the Norman kings of Sicily all drew from Byzantine culture in their art.

[31] The Greeks were given some privileges and freedom by the Empire, but they were exposed to tyranny deriving from malpractices of regional administrative personnel, over which the central government had only remote and incomplete control.

The first self-governed Hellenic state since the Middle Ages was established on the Ionian islands during the French Revolutionary Wars in 1800, 21 years before the outbreak of the Greek revolution in mainland Greece.

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 produced a split in Greek politics, with King Constantine I, an admirer of Germany, calling for neutrality while Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos pushed for Greece to join the Allies.

[35] However, Turkish nationalists, led by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, overthrew the Ottoman government and organised a military campaign against the Greek troops, resulting in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922).

On 20 May 1941, the Germans attempted to seize Crete with a large attack by paratroopers, with the aim of reducing the threat of a counter-offensive by Allied forces in Egypt, but faced heavy resistance.

The conflict resulted in a victory for the British — and later U.S.-supported government forces, which led to Greece receiving American funds through the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, as well as becoming a member of NATO, which helped to define the ideological balance of power in the Aegean for the entire Cold War.

In the second phase (December 1944), the ascendant communists, in military control of most of Greece, confronted the returning Greek government in exile, which had been formed under the auspices of the Western Allies in Cairo and originally included six KKE-affiliated ministers.

[54][55] This crisis of confidence was indicated by a widening of bond yield spreads and risk insurance on credit default swaps compared to other countries, most importantly Germany.

[60] Tsipras called snap elections in August 2015, resigning from his post, which led to a month-long caretaker administration headed by judge Vassiliki Thanou-Christophilou, Greece's first female prime minister.