Archaic Era

It was in the eighth century that Greek society underwent rapid changes and emerged from the Dark Age into the renaissance of the Archaic period. It was a period during which the Greek state changed rapidly in its constitution and character.

The key element of this renaissance is the formation of the community known as the ‘polis’. This was a community with its own political organisation and translates as ‘city-state’. The history of Greece between 700 and 400 BC was primarily the history of city-states for they were the main makers of Greek history. At the beginning of the Archaic period, the Greeks were still a relatively isolated and economically backward people, organised politically in low-level chiefdoms. By the late sixth century, they lived in a culturally advanced state-society that had spread across the entire Mediterranean zone, and they were major players in the complex international economy. The ‘polis’ had evolved from a narrow oligarchy to tyranny to a more broadly based polity in which the majority of male citizens participated in its governance. Civic pride was the cement of the city state and was largely responsible for the cultural flowering of the Archaic Period.