economy
The basis
of the economy was agriculture, founded on the cultivation of cereals, grapes,
olives, fruit, vegetables, flax textile fiber and, in some cases, irrigated
land. There was communal property, but not the only means of holding. The
private land could be inherited, sold and even alienated, not the common
property that should always remain in the hands of the community and should be
devoted to its own advantage. It appears, however, that there was some kind of
agrarian collectivism in which many farmers worked together in the same land,
but has not been given a satisfactory explanation to this model of tenure.
Despite the
preponderance of the agricultural world, wealth is counted by the number of
head of cattle owned. In computing cattle included women, slaves, and
various utensils.
The theft
was prosecuted and punished harshly. Not so piracy, which originally was used
only against foreign nationals could be that even some cops were funded and
safely by the aristocracy of many of them.
politics
The polis was
before anything else a community of citizens, this means that it was not
Athens, but the Athenians nor the Spartans Sparta but they made the decisions, his was the representative. Above the city, above all
else, was the community, it was expendable to the common good, even the city itself; Athens
could be destroyed, and it was, but the Athenians continue to uphold its spirit
and collective consciousness .
Politically,
the polis was a largely agrarian community, small in size, fully sovereign and
independent. All cops orbited on communal meeting place where decisions were
made and meetings were held.
Aristotle
tells us, the cops had their origin in the union of several clans and villages.
Geographically the cops were formed by the concentrated urban core where
religious and political functions, and the territory (chora) that could
accommodate different habitats. There was no dichotomy between town and
country, thanks mainly to the Greek idea of synoecism, ie the voluntary union of diverse peoples to form a state in which all citizens had
the same rights.
religion
The Greeks were polytheistic: several deities worshiped. Primarily honoring the gods (theoi) and heroes. Each of them could be invoked under different aspects depending on the place of worship and the role played. These gods endowed with supernatural powers, under the same name, could present a multiplicity of ways. The cultural epithets (the epiclesis), indicated its nature and scope of intervention. There was, for example, Keraunos Zeus (thunder), Polieo (guardian of political order, the polis), Horkios (guarantor of oaths and covenants), Ktésios (protector of property), Herkeios (guardian of the enclosure, the fold), Xenios (protector of guests and foreigners). The other figures in the Greek pantheon were also this scheme
culture
The myth, as a means of explaining contemporary events through assimilation with events that happened to legendary characters who lived in a different reality to that of the Greeks, and as a source of foggy memories of a past, was raised in Greece to a complex corpus, but very useful piecemeal, which eventually lead to what is known as Greek Mythology.
A mid-seventh century B.C. was a series of great lyric poets who composed works in which they knew perfectly describe the world around them and lyric poetry rose to the highest levels in society, so much so that many of them held important positions in the political and religious life of the polis. Some of these authors were Terpander, Arion, Aristóclides, Períclito, or Sappho Alcaeus of Mytilene.
The fundamental characteristic of archaic lyric was the combination of monody and choir on one side, and on the other monody and dance. Sappho, Alcaeus and Anacreon were the leading exponents of monodic lyric. Regarding the choral lyric, Alcman of Sparta and Stesichorus of Himera were perhaps the highest exponents.
Greek historiography was born on the coast of Ionia in the late sixth century BC, precisely because of the geographical situation that turned the region into a clearinghouse of ideas eastern, Greek and Anatolian, ideas that had to be collected in files as chronic.
The most famous of the Greek historians was archaic Hecataeus of Miletus who lived in the sixth century BC and V From his work only fragments have arrived, but the tradition has made him the author of a description or Periegesis Lands and a History or Genealogy. The first would be a geographical and historical works on Asia and Europe, while the second would refer to the gods and heroes
