Chronicle 3. MYCENAE: FROM KNOSSOS TO TROY

Chronicle 3. MYCENAE: FROM KNOSSOS TO TROY

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 3. ΑΙΓΑΙΟΝ: ΚΝΩΣΟΣ, ΜΥΚΗΝΑΙ, ΙΛΙΟΝ

● Stonehenge ● Dorians and Sea Peoples ● Eleusinian, Cabeirian, and Orphic Mysteries ● The Trojan War and the Bronze Age Collapse

by Michales Loukovikas

 

The Atreid dynasty palace at Mycenae

AS HEIRS of the Minoans, the Mycenaeans assumed control of the “Tin Routes” – that is, the maritime trade network of metals from the Occident. Their acme lasted for about 250 years until the Bronze Age collapse. This extensive network sheds some light on the reason why Mycenaean artifacts have been found well outside the limits of the Mycenaean world: swords located as far away as Georgia in the Caucasus; an amber object inscribed with Linear B symbols in Bavaria, Germany; double axes and other objects from the 13th century BCE in Wessex and Cornwall, England, and in Ireland. There is convincing evidence that during the final phase of construction of Stonehenge in Wiltshire, around 1600 BCE, the builders were in commercial contact with “the great contemporary Mediterranean civilizations of Minoan Crete, Mycenaean Greece, Egypt, and the ancestors of the travelling-trading Phoenicians,” as Gerald Hawkins said.^(a) The grave of a Mediterranean teenage boy that died ca 1550 BCE and several items of Mediterranean origin have been found in the burial ground of Stonehenge.

Sunset at Stonehenge

• ^(a) Thus, according to Hawkins, the Mycenaeans were already included among the navigating merchants of long distance voyages even before the conquest of Minoan Crete, while the Phoenicians (their “ancestors”, as he put it) made their first steps. Hawkins was an English astronomer and author, most famous for his work in the field of archaeoastronomy. He published an analysis of Stonehenge in 1965 and was the first to propose its purpose as an ancient astronomical observatory used to predict movements of the sun and stars. Archaeoastronomy is the study of how people in the past “have understood, or used, phenomena in the sky, and what role the sky played in their cultures.”

Mycenae, Lion Gate

The Mycenaean period (ca 1600–ca 1100 BCE) is the historical setting of much Hellenic literature and myth, including the Epic Cycle and Greek tragedy. Historians have traditionally blamed the collapse on an uprising or an invasion by another Hellenic ethnic group, the Dorians, though at least one of the Mycenaean centres, Pylos, was most probably destroyed by the so-called Sea Peoples.^(b) There are also theories of natural disasters or large-scale drought, which could have contributed, as well. The movements of people from the Balkans and Anatolia to the Near East at that time were quite real. The internal factors theory has the Mycenaean civilization falling in the course of societal conflicts brought on by a rejection of the palatial system by the underprivileged strata of society, who were quite impoverished by the period’s finale. Another hypothesis mingles social with ethnic divisions. In this context it has to be stressed that the Iron Age made large numbers of comparatively cheap weapons accessible to all. War was no longer a privilege of the aristocracy. The iron weapons were not as good as the bronze ones, but they could still kill… (See the previous Chronicle 2).

Heracles

• ^(b) The Dorian invasion is a concept devised by ancient Greek historians to explain why pre-classical dialects and traditions in southern Hellas were replaced by the ones that prevailed in the classical era. Greek legend asserted that the Dorians took possession of the Peloponnese in the so-called ‘Return of the Heracleidae’. The meaning of the concept has changed several times, as historians, philologists, and archaeologists used it in attempts to explain the cultural discontinuities expressed in the data of their fields. The pattern of the arrival of Dorian culture on certain islands such as Crete is also not well elucidated. Despite 200 years of investigation, the historicity of the Dorian invasion has not been established.

Sea peoples depicted as prisoners in Egypt

• The Sea Peoples were a confederacy of seafaring raiders from Southern and Central Europe and the Mediterranean, especially the Aegean Sea area, who sailed (and then also marched) east invading Hatti, Cyprus, Syria, Canaan, and Egypt, and bringing about the Bronze Age collapse. Pharaoh Merneptah explicitly refers to them by the term “the foreign-countries (or ‘peoples’) of the sea”. Omitting Mycenaean Hellas from the list of the victims, some scholars believe that they can identify most of the Sea Peoples mentioned in Egyptian records: They were supposedly Achaeans (Ekwesh; if they were, why then should they destroy Pylos? – “Because they were Hellenes!”, is the sardonic answer…); Tyrrhenians (Teresh), ancestors of the Etruscans; Lycians (Lukka); Sardinians (Sherden); Sicilians (Shekelesh); Philistines, that is Palestinians (Peleset), possibly coming from Crete; and Teucrians (Tekrur), who could be either Trojans or Greeks! The Peleset and Tekrur were the only major tribes of the Sea Peoples that settled permanently in Canaan. Note that several of these peoples had been used as mercenaries or ‘allies’ by the Egyptian and Hittite Empires before they turned against them (see Chronicles 4 and 5).

A Mycenaean woman with her chest exposed but… in profile – not en face
as the Cretan fashion was…

Mycenaean settlements were not confined in southern Hellas, but also appeared in Epirus, Macedonia, islands of the Aegean, the Asia Minor coast, Cyprus, Canaan and Italy. The towns were well fortified, in contrast to Minoan Crete. The best Mycenaean palaces were excavated at Mycenae , Tiryns, and Pylos. They were the heirs of the Minoan palaces but inferior to them. The heart of the palace was the megaron, the throne hall. Staircases found in Pylos indicate that the palaces had two stories. Located on the top floor were probably the private quarters of the royal family. Supreme power appears to have been held by a king, identifiable in the Homeric ἄναξ (‘divine lord’, ‘sovereign’, ‘host’). His role was military, judicial, and religious. Occurrences of the word in texts having to do with offerings suggest that the sovereigns were worshiped. Apart from that, no priestly class has yet been identified. Furthermore, it remains problematic to pick out a place of worship with certainty. It seems that many gods and religious conceptions of the Minoans were fused in the Mycenaean religion, the mother of the classical Greek religion. The Eleusinian mysteries were established during the Mycenaean period on a pre-Hellenic vegetation cult with Minoan elements. Demeter and other gods appear in Arcadian myths as animal-headed. Representations of processions with animal masks, or of ‘daemons’, remind us of the Hellenic myth of the Minotaur. Dionysos, the only Greek god who died in order to be reborn as he often appeared in the religions of the Orient, was related to the Minoan myth of the ‘Divine Child’ who was abandoned by his mother and then brought up by the powers of nature.^(c) Mycenaean painting was very much influenced by Minoan art. Bull-jumping frescoes are found at Mycenae and Tiryns, as well. However, the Mycenaeans depicted the animals only in relation to man or as victims of the hunt, and thus displayed a different relation to nature compared to the Minoans.

A procession of lion-headed “daemons” offering libation jugs to the seated goddess who raises a ritual vessel. The sun wheel and the crescent moon are in the sky. Gold signet ring, the largest from the Mycenaean world, found in Tiryns, but made by a Minoan workshop (15th century BCE)

• ^(c) The stories of the ‘Divine Child’, or ‘Baby Moses’, or Habis, an Odysseus and Calypso’s son (we will meet him when we voyage to Iberia, see Chronicle 6), etc. are anything but unique, as they are found in many cultures, based on the same idea but without necessarily from the same origin. Similarly, the Deluge myths, in connection with a Megaflood due to the last deglaciation, are also widespread among many cultures all around the world. The Mesopotamian Atrahasis, Deucalion, Noah etc. are heroes with the same background. It is a pity that modern Greeks are more familiar with Noah than Deucalion. The reason is that these stories are related as myths, tales, except those in the Bible, which are considered ‘sacred’. But what else is the Bible if not Hebrew mythology?

Phryne at the Poseidonia in Eleusis, by Henryk Siemiradzki (1889)

• The Eleusinian mysteries (Ἐλευσίνια μυστήρια) were initiation ceremonies held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in Hellas. Of all the mysteries celebrated in ancient times, these were held to be the ones of greatest importance. It is acknowledged that their basis was an old agrarian cult which probably goes back to the Mycenaean or rather Minoan periods. The mysteries represented the myth of the abduction of the daughter (“kore”) from her mother by the king of the underworld Hades, in a cycle with three phases: the “descent”, the “search” and the “ascent”, when Persephone was reunited with Demeter. Her resurrection was symbolic of the rebirth of all life. The rites, ceremonies, and beliefs were kept secret. Since the rituals involved visions and conjuring of an “afterlife”, some scholars believe that their power and longevity came from psychedelic agents. The only requirements for membership were freedom from “blood guilt”, meaning never having committed murder, and not being a “barbarian” (unable to speak Greek). Nevertheless, the festival later spread to Rome. Women and even slaves were also allowed initiation. Comparative studies show parallels between these Hellenic rituals and similar systems in the Near East, such as the cults of Isis and Osiris in Egypt, the Syrian and Persian cults and, of course, the Thracian–Phrygian Cabeirian mysteries.

A Samothracian relief showing Agamemnon being initiated into the Cabeirian rites: it gives credit to the idea that the Eleusinian mysteries originated from the Cabeirian cult through Thracians
who settled at Eleusis.

• The Cabeiri (Κάβειροι) were enigmatic chthonic deities, protectors of sailors, who were imported into Hellenic ritual and may have also included Hittite and proto-Etruscan elements. They were worshiped in a mystery cult closely associated with that of Hephaestus, centered οn the north Aegean islands of Lemnos and Samothrace, and also at Thebes. Other places of worship included Imbros and Seuthopolis in Thrace, and various sites in Macedonia, Asia Minor and the rest of the Aegean. The Samothracian cult spread during the Hellenistic period, eventually initiating Romans. As the cult’s origin was non-Greek, the “barbarians” were also accepted: the initiation had no prerequisites for age, gender, status or nationality. Everyone, men and women, adults and children, the free or the enslaved, Hellenes and non-Hellenes, could participate. After all, both the Samothracians and Lemnians were originally non-Greek: the Lemnians were possibly related to the Etruscans; they were Hellenized after Athens conquered the island in the 6th century BCE; however, the cult of the Cabeiri survived the period of Hellenization. The Samothracians were associated with the Trojans and Pelasgians; in the Sanctuary of the Great Gods they used a so-called “barbarian” language even in Roman times. Thebes was connected to Samothrace, primarily through the wedding of Cadmus and the Samothracian Harmonia. The Cabeiri also bear many similarities to other fabulous races, such as the Telchines, Cyclops, Dactyls, Corybantes, and Curetes. These groups were often confused or identified with one another since many of them were also associated with metallurgy – just like Hephaestus.

The Myth of Orpheus, by Marc Chagall

• The Orphic mysteries (Ὀρφικά) may have also had their origins with the Cabeiri. They were religious beliefs and practices originating in the Hellenic and Thracian worlds, associated with literature ascribed to the mythical musician and poet Orpheus, who descended into Hades for his beloved Eurydice and returned. Orphics also revered Persephone and Dionysus for the same reason. As in the Eleusinian mysteries, initiation into Orphism was associated with an “afterlife”.

Behold Alaric, the “Messiah” of the Christian mob, entering Athens, having ravaged Attica! He invaded the Peloponnese, sold citizens of Corinth, Argos, Sparta, etc into slavery, crossed the Gulf of Corinth marching to Epirus…

• Emperor Theodosius I closed the sanctuaries by decree in 392 CE. Two years before, in 390, he had ordered his troops to commit one of the most horrific massacres in history, slaughtering at least 7,000 Thessalonians in the Hippodrome, because they had rebelled against the emperor’s Germanic garrison,⁽*⁾ and the imposition of Christianity with the abolition of the Edictum Mediolani (313 CE) on freedom of religion. As soon as the Christians were free of persecution, they started persecuting all the others, thanks to Theodosius the “Saint” (for the Christian Church), the “Great” (for the official History)… The last remnants of the Mysteries were wiped out in 396, when the Goth king Alaric invaded Eleusis accompanied by Christians “in their dark garments” – the “Blackshirts” and “Sturmabteilung” (SA) of the time – desecrating the old sacred sites and killing all the priests… Alaric halted slaughter and plunder only when he was appointed magister militum by the emperor. He surely deserved better: sanctification!
• ⁽*⁾ Most of the Theodosian dynasty emperors, as well as the last ones of the Western Empire, were puppets of Germanic kingmakers, the so-called magistri militum (military masters) or stratelates, such as Aspar in the East, and Ricimer in the West. (See Chronicle 7⁺ on the violent Christianization of the Empire).

The choral dancers frieze from the Temenos in Samothrace

A Mycenaean jar with an octopus and fish

Commerce remains curiously absent from the written sources in Linear B. However, it is known that the Minoans exported fine fabrics to Egypt; the Mycenaeans no doubt did the same. Most probably they borrowed knowledge of navigational matters from the Minoans, as is evidenced by the fact that their maritime commerce did not take off until after the collapse of the Minoan civilization. It seems that certain products, notably fabrics and oil, even metal objects, were meant to be sold outside the kingdom, because they were made in quantities too great to be consumed solely at home. Pottery was also produced in great quantities. Especially after the conquest of Minoan Crete, production increased considerably, notably in Argolis, the area of Mycenae, with great numbers exported outside Hellas. The products destined for export were more luxurious and featured heavily worked painted decorations incorporating mythic, warrior, or animal motifs. The Mycenaeans’ network extended as far as southern Spain, Britain, and central Europe, while their pottery has been found in Sardinia, Sicily, southern Italy, the Aegean, Asia Minor (amongst others at the old settlement of Miletus where high-quality Minoan and Mycenaean ceramics have been recovered), other parts of Anatolia, Cyprus, Canaan and Egypt. Minoan and Mycenaean foreign trade is one of the most important chapters of the Bronze Age history and an open challenge to every archaeologist and historian.

The Mycenaean maritime commerce did not take off until after the collapse of the Minoan civilization. Especially after the conquest of Crete, production of goods meant to be sold outside the kingdom increased considerably…

The gold funeral Mask of ‘Agamemnon’

The Mycenaeans, as conquerors of Crete, became heirs to the Minoan thalassocracy; but they did not last long. The Trojan War, that took place in 1194-1184 BCE according to Eratosthenes,^(d) the Sea Peoples’ raids, and the great instability of the epoch, led to their downfall during the Bronze Age collapse. Many historians believe the transition to the Iron Age was violent, sudden and culturally disruptive. The Aegean and Anatolian palatial civilizations were replaced, after a hiatus, by the isolated village cultures of the so-called Greek Dark Ages, which were dark, indeed, but not only Greek. In just 50 years, in the first half of the 12th century, the downfall of the Mycenaean world and the Hittite Empire, the catastrophe in Syria, Canaan, and Egypt, and the cultural collapse that followed, resulted in the interruption of trade routes and the severe reduction of literacy. The Mycenaean Linear B writing was forgotten. The Hellenes would need to re-invent writing in the late 9th or early 8th century BCE.^(e) In this period almost every city was violently destroyed and often left unoccupied thereafter, such as Hattusa, the Hittite capital, Mycenae, and Ugarit. Troy was destroyed at least twice, before being abandoned. Fewer and smaller settlements suggest famine and depopulation.

• ^(d) Eratosthenes (Ἐρατοσθένης, ca 276–ca 195 BCE), from Cyrene, was a geographer, astronomer, mathematician, poet and music theorist (characteristic of the ancient scholars’ global knowledge and eruditeness). He was the first person to calculate the circumference of the Earth and also the tilt of the Earth’s axis with remarkable accuracy. He may have also accurately calculated the distance from the Earth to the Sun. He was the first person to use the word ‘geography’, invented a system of latitude and longitude, and made the first world map incorporating parallels and meridians in his cartographic depictions based on the available geographical knowledge of the era. He invented the leap day, and was the founder of scientific chronology, trying to fix the dates of the chief political and literary events from the conquest of Troy.

The map of Eratosthenes

• Eratosthenes was a chief librarian of the Great Library of Alexandria in Ptolemaic Egypt. The library, a major centre of science and learning in the ancient world, was repeatedly destroyed by Romans (Julius Caesar in 48 BCE, Aurelian in the 3rd century CE), Christians (Theodosius and Patriarch Theophilus in 391) and Muslim Arabs (`Amr ibn al-`As in 642), resulting to an irretrievable loss of knowledge for mankind.

A Linear B tablet

• ^(e) The Greek alphabet, probably derived from the Phoenician ‘alphabet’, was in turn the ancestor of numerous other European and Middle Eastern scripts, including Latin and Cyrillic. However, a very important change was made in adapting the Phoenician system to Hellenic, namely the introduction of vowel letters. The Greeks were obliged to make the same innovation twice because the vowels are significant in their language. Adapting the Minoan Linear A script to their needs, the Mycenaeans borrowed 87 Cretan symbols; 82 corresponded to syllables and five to vowels. Linear A is still not deciphered and so we ignore if this brilliant idea of the vowel letters was Cretan or Hellenic. According to the definition used by modern authors, this feature makes Greek the first alphabet in the real sense, as distinguished from the purely consonantal Semitic ‘alphabets’, which are called “abjads” (derived from the Arabic word for ‘alphabet’). The Phoenician abjad belonged to the family of the closely related West Semitic scripts.

Achilles discovered by Ulysses (Odysseus), by Jan de Bray

The Trojan War was just an act of this tragedy on a big scale involving numerous ethnicities: the fighters in the alliance of Troy are depicted in the Iliad as speaking various languages and thus needing to have orders translated to them by their commanders. On the Greek side instead the Trojan campaign was anything but Pan-Hellenic: even the great hero, Achilles, tried to evade ‘conscription’ disguised as a girl in the palace of Skyros! Several areas, e.g. Macedonia, Epirus, and in part Thessaly, stayed away, probably because they were under the control of the Dorians, who would proceed to the Peloponnese some time later, filling the vacuum created by the demise of the Mycenaeans. None of the palaces survived and up to 90% of small sites were abandoned suggesting depopulation on a major scale. Athens and some other cities continued to be occupied but with a more local sphere of influence, limited trade and an impoverished culture, from which they took centuries to recover. The Dark Ages would last for more than 400 years. After ca 1100 BCE, the decoration on Hellenic pottery lacks the figurative adornment of Minoan or Mycenaean ware and is restricted to simpler, generally geometric styles (1000–700 BCE). It’s the reason why this age is also called Geometric, or Homeric, due to the composition of Homer’s epics, ca the 8th century, and the entire Epic Cycle. Those epics, a by-product of the new alphabet and inspired mainly by the Trojan War and its repercussions that would later feed the tragedians’ imagination, together with the emergence of the Greek poleis in the 9th century, were the first signs of recovery in Hellas.

The Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, Attica,
with its Doric order columns at sunset

The catastrophe was even worse in Anatolia. Every important site shows a layer of destruction. Here civilization possibly did not recover to the level of the Hittites for another thousand years. Cyprus witnessed two waves of destruction: by the Sea Peoples ca 1230, and by Aegean refugees ca 1190 BCE. In Syria, Ugarit was burned to the ground. In addition, the cities along the coast from Gaza northward were destroyed. However, strangely enough, the raids did not affect the Phoenician cities; they were confined in southern Canaan. Assyria, who was protected by the best army in the world, also remained intact; nevertheless, it withdrew to its borders for a long time. As for Egypt, although victorious against the invaders and surviving for a while, it succumbed some time later. Robert Drews describes the Bronze Age Collapse as “the worst disaster in ancient history, even more calamitous than the collapse of the Western Roman Empire”. A number of people referred to the cultural memories of the disaster as stories of a “lost golden age”. Hesiod e.g. spoke of Ages of Gold, Silver and Bronze, separated from the modern harsh cruel world of the Age of Iron by the Age of Heroes. It seems that the disruption of long distance trade, an aspect of the so-called ‘systems collapse’, cut easy supplies of tin, making bronze impossible to produce.

The celebrated Winged Nike (Victory) of Samothrace that stood at the island’s Temple complex dedicated to the Great Gods on a rostral pedestal representing the prow of a ship
(c. 200–190 BCE)

The disruption of long distance trade cut easy supplies of tin, making bronze impossible to produce.

• >> Chronicle 4. PHOENICIA’S STROKE OF FORTUNE
• << Chronicle 2. MINOAN CRETAN THALASSOCRACY

Chronicle 1. SAILING AROUND / PERIPLUS

II. ONCE UPON A… WAVE

.

Chronicle 1. SAILING AROUND / PERIPLUS

/ΕΛΛΗΝΙΚΑ/ Χρονικό 1. ΜΕΣΟΓΕΙΟΥ ΠΑΡΑΠΛΟΥΣ/ΠΕΡΙΠΛΟΥΣ

● Periplus ● Herodotus and Thucydides ● Peloponnesian War ● Nómoi (Sung Laws)

by Michales Loukovikas

WHAT WAS EXACTLY THE MOTIVE behind man’s decision to take his chances and go out to sea? As always, he had needs to satisfy: he initially searched for a better place to live. Navigation started long ago during migrations: the first humans e.g. arrived in Australia, presumably by boat, around 45,000 BCE. After settling down, man’s needs changed: there was much food in the sea and he could certainly fish far better with a canoe or a small boat. The more he familiarized himself with the sea, the further he went out there, and thus the vessel also became a means of transport. Men started exchanging goods and, as long as production increased, the boatmen were divided into fishermen and traders – and warriors, as well. Commerce developed further in parallel with navigation. A sea trader was obliged to start taking down notes and mapping out his routes. This notebook gradually developed into a

P E R I P L U S

Ancient Greek pottery (kylix) depicting
merchant ships and warships

“PERIPLUS” is the Latinization of the Hellenic word περίπλους, ‘a sailing-around’. The word was understood by the ancient Greek speaker in its literal sense; however, it also developed specialized meanings, one of which became a standard term in the navigation of Hellenes, Phoenicians, and many others.^(a) Such a periplus was a manuscript listing – in order and with approximate intervening distances – the ports and coastal landmarks that the captain of a vessel could expect to find along a shore. It served the same purpose as the Roman itinerarium of road stops. The navigators, however, added various notes, which, if they were skilled geographers (as many were), became part of their own additions to geography. In that sense the periplus was a type of log. The form of periplus is at least as old as the earliest Hellene historian, Hecataeus of Miletus. The works by Herodotus and Thucydides contain passages that appear to have been based on such peripli.

• ^(a) A periplus was also an ancient naval manoeuvre in which attacking triremes would outflank or encircle the defenders in order to strike them in the rear.

The map of Hecataeus

The Milesian Hecataeus (Ἑκαταῖος, c. 550–c. 476 BCE) flourished during the time of the Persian invasion. Having travelled extensively, he settled in his native city devoting his time to the composition of geographical and historical works. He is the first Greek historian and one of the first classical writers to mention the Celts. Some have credited him with a work entitled Γῆς περίοδος (World Survey, or Travels Round the Earth), written in two books. Each book is organized like a periplus, a point-to-point coastal survey. One, on Europe, is essentially a Mediterranean periplus, describing each region in turn, reaching as far north as Scythia. The other, on Asia, is arranged similarly to the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea. He described the countries and inhabitants of the world, the account of Egypt being particularly comprehensive. It was accompanied by a map, based upon Anaximander’s map of the Earth, which he corrected and enlarged. The work only survives in fragments, by far the majority being quoted in Ethnica, the geographical lexicon compiled by Stephanus of Byzantium (fl. 6th century CE). The other known work of Hecataeus was the Genealogiae, a rationally systematized account of the legends and myths of the Hellenes, a break with the epic myth-making tradition, which survives in fragments, just enough to show what we are missing.

The map of Anaximander

Anaximander (Ἀναξίμανδρος, c. 610–c. 546 BCE) was a pre-Socratic philosopher that succeeded his master, Thales, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, as head of the Milesian school where he counted Anaximenes and, arguably, Pythagoras among his pupils. According to available historical documents, he is the first philosopher known to have written down his studies, although only one fragment of his work remains. He was an early proponent of science trying to observe and explain different aspects of the universe, with a particular interest in its origins. In astronomy, he attempted to describe the mechanics of celestial bodies in relation to the Earth. In physics, his postulation that the ‘apeiron’ (ἄπειρον) was the source of all things led Hellenic philosophy to a new level of conceptual abstraction. He created a map of the world contributing greatly to the advancement of geography. According to Carl Sagan, he conducted the earliest recorded scientific experiment.

The world according to Herodotus

Herodotus (Ἡρόδοτος, c. 484–c. 425 BCE), born in Halicarnassus, is regarded as the “Father of History”. He was the first historian known to systematically collect his materials, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a well-constructed and vivid narrative. He is exclusively known for writing The Histories, a record of his ‘Inquiry’ into the origins of the Greco-Persian Wars that culminated in 490 and 480-479 BCE – especially since he includes a narrative account of that period, which would otherwise be poorly documented; and numerous long digressions concerning the various places and people he encountered during his wide-ranging travels around the Mediterranean, the Black Sea and beyond.

Fragment from the Herodotan Histories
(VIII, Urania) on Papyrus Oxyrhynchus,
early 2nd century CE

“Ἡροδότου Ἁλικαρνησσέος ἱστορίης ἀπόδεξις ἥδε, ὡς μήτε τὰ γενόμενα ἐξ ἀνθρώπων τῷ χρόνῳ ἐξίτηλα γένηται, μήτε ἔργα μεγάλα τε καὶ θωμαστά, τὰ μὲν Ἕλλησι, τὰ δὲ βαρβάροισι ἀποδεχθέντα, ἀκλεᾶ γένηται”…
(Herodotus of Halicarnassus’ “Researches” are here set down to preserve the memory of the past by putting on record the astonishing achievements both of our own and of other peoples…)

It was rather conventional at that time for authors to have their works ‘published’ by reciting them at popular festivals. Herodotus took his Histories to Olympia, in the Olympian Games, and presented his entire work to the assembled spectators in one sitting, receiving rapturous applause at the end. According to a different account, he refused to begin reading his work until some clouds offered him a bit of shade, by which time however the assembly had dispersed – thus the proverbial expression “Herodotus and his shade” to describe anyone who misses his opportunity through delay.

Thucydides: the historian of the Peloponnesian War

The Athenian Thucydides (Θουκυδίδης, c. 460–c. 395 BCE) is the notable author of the History of the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens (431-404 BCE) to the year 411. Its finale is recounted by Xenophon in his Hellenica. Thucydides is regarded as the father of “scientific history” because of his strict standards of evidence-gathering and analysis in terms of cause and effect without reference to intervention by the gods. He has also been called the father of the school of political realism, which views the relations between nations as based on might rather than right. His classical text is still studied at military colleges worldwide, and the Melian dialogue still remains a seminal work of international relations theory.^(b)

This Greek civil war, the Peloponnesian War, a few years after the glorious end of the Persian Wars, marked the dramatic end to the Golden Age of Hellenic civilization.

Venus de Milo, or rather: Aphrodite of Melos

• ^(b) The Melian dialogue is the account of a confrontation between Athens and Melos, a small, neutral island in the southern Aegean, east of the Peloponnese and Sparta, in 416-415 BCΕ, during the Peloponnesian War. Athens wanted to conquer the island to intimidate Sparta. The confrontation ended in tragedy for Melos: the Athenians executed all the men they took captive and enslaved women and children…
  Melos had been a very important source of obsidian, a volcanic material most valuable in the Neolithic era. The island, however, is famous all over the world because of a work of art of a later period that was found there: it is the celebrated statue of Aphrodite of Melos, better known as Venus de Milo.
• In the first phase of the war, Sparta launched invasions of Attica, while Athens raided the coast of the Peloponnese taking advantage of its naval supremacy. Later the Athenians sent a massive expeditionary force to attack Syracuse in Sicily failing disastrously. This ushered in the final phase of the war, when Sparta, already receiving support from Persia, incited rebellions in the Athenians’ subject states in the Aegean and Asia Minor, undermining their empire. The destruction of their fleet put an end to the war and Athens surrendered in the next year. This Greek civil war, a few years after the glorious end of the Median (Persian) Wars (499-449 BCΕ), reshaped the ancient Hellenic world. Athens, the strongest city-state in Greece prior to the war’s beginning, was reduced to almost complete subjection, while Sparta became established as the leading power. However, the economic costs of the war were felt all across Hellas; poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens found itself completely devastated, and it never recovered its pre-war prosperity. The war also wrought subtler changes to Greek society; the antagonism between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, each of which supported friendly political factions within other states, made civil war a common occurrence in Hellas. Greek warfare, meanwhile, originally on a limited scale, was transformed into an all-out struggle between city-states, complete with atrocities on a large scale. Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating whole cities and the countryside, this war marked the dramatic end to the 5th century BCΕ and the Golden Age of Hellenic civilization.

Euripides, by Sebastià Giralt

• The Peloponnesian War is the background of a didactic story on music and politics centered on Euripides, who is thought to have been perhaps the best of the Greek tragedians. He was musically very advanced and worked with the most progressive musicians, something that conservatives such as Aristophanes exploited in order to ridicule him. Nevertheless, it was Euripides’ music, and not that by Aristophanes, that saved many Athenians and Athens itself during the war. At that time, and for many centuries to come, the people used to sing the best ‘songs’ (in operatic terminology we would say ‘arias’) of a tragedy. Hence the modern Hellenic word for ‘song’ (‘τραγούδι’) comes from the word ‘tragedy’ (‘τραγῳδία’). After the disastrous Athenian expedition to Sicily, many Athenians held captives there saved their lives because they could sing songs by Euripides that were so much loved by all Greeks, even those in Sicily. At the end of the war, when Sparta conquered Athens, the victorious generals (Spartans and allies) had a meeting to decide the fate of Athens. They concluded that the city should be demolished and its citizens enslaved. Then a feast was held to celebrate victory. During this banquet someone sang a Euripidean ‘aria’ (from Electra). The generals were so much moved they changed their minds. “They felt it would be a barbarous act to annihilate a city that produced such men”… Needless to say these generals were cultured enough to appreciate the music of Euripides. The same song in the ears of present-day generals or politicians would have no effect whatsoever… (These stories are episodes from Plutarch‘s Parallel Lives, and in particular the Lives of Nicias and Lysander).

During celebrations for victory, someone sang a song of Euripides. The Spartans were so moved they changed their minds. “They felt that it would be a barbarous act to annihilate Athens that produced such men”…

Pytheas of Massalia: the greatest navigating explorer of the era with his periplus of Europe

Several examples of peripli have survived one way or another. The impression one gets, even with a first look at the list below, is that for a long time, from the 6th to the 4th centuries BCE, there was a Graeco-Phoenician “bras de fer” between Massalia and Carthage aimed at dominating the sea routes leading to regions rich mainly in gold, silver, tin and amber:

Trireme

• The Massaliote Periplus is a description of Tartessian and Phoenician trade routes along the coasts of Atlantic Europe, possibly dating to the 6th century, either early or late, around 500 BCE, depending on the writer. Preserved in Avienus’ Ora maritima (Sea Coasts), it is a voyage from Marseille to the British Isles, circumnavigating Iberia.
• The Periplus of Hanno the Navigator, a Punic explorer of the early 5th century BCE, describing the coast of Africa from Morocco deep into the Gulf of Guinea. It was undertaken probably after Carthage’s crushing defeat in Sicily in 480 BCE (when Hanno became a king with no powers). Excluded from the markets of the East, the Punics turned westwards.
• The exploration of another Punic, Himilco the Navigator, who sailed in the sea routes described in the Massaliote Periplus, from the Mediterranean to the north-western shores of Europe, during the 5th century, as well.
• The voyage of Euthymenes of Massalia (ca 450-390 or, less probable, in the early 6th century BCE). Following Hanno’s route, Euthymenes must have sailed south to the Senegal River. His Periplus in the Outer Sea (possibly around 400 BCE) was lost and what survived are some references such as those made by Plutarch or Seneca the Younger (and… doubtful).
• The epic exploration of the greatest Massaliote navigator, Pytheas, ca 325 BCE, who completed a periplus of Europe, sailing to Britain, Scandinavia, the Baltic and, via river routes, the Black Sea. Only excerpts remain from his testimony, On the Ocean and World Survey, quoted by later authors, some of whom, such as Strabo (mistrustful as usual) and Polybius, treat with skepticism.
• During Pytheas’ periplus of Europe, Nearchus, an admiral of Alexander the Great, performed his Paraplus (sailing by the coastline), leading the Macedonian fleet from India (the rivers Hydaspes and Indus) to the Persian Gulf and meeting the king at Susa in 324 BCE. His testimony is preserved in Arrian’s Indica.
• The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, written in the 1st century CE by some Alexandrian, gives the shoreline itinerary of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, starting each time at the port of Berenice. Beyond the Red Sea, the manuscript describes the coast of India as far as the Ganges River and the east coast of Africa (called Azania).
• The Periplus Ponti Euxini, describing the trade routes along the coasts of the Black Sea, was also written by Arrian in the early 2nd century CE.

Apollo slaying Python, by Eugène Delacroix (1850)

“Armchair” historians tend to minimize the importance of the navigators’ peripli, as we have seen. Such is the case of the Periplus Outside the Pillars of Heracles by Charon of Lampsacus (first half of the 5th century BCE), the Periplus of Pseudo-Scylax (4th or 3rd century BCE), the Periplus of Scymnus of Chios (around 110 BCE), or even the Periplus of the Outer Sea by Marcian of Heraclea (5th century CE), referring also to the British Isles. There are, however, significant losses, such as Democritus’ Periplus of the Ocean (5th-4th centuries BCE, see Chronicle 7), and a Periplus by Timosthenes of Rhodes in ten volumes (3rd century BCE). The latter was an admiral of the Ptolemaic fleet, navigator, geographer and cartographer, admired and cited by geographers like Strabo and Eratosthenes. Strabo revealed another talent of this truly versatile man: he composed a “Pythic nomos” (law), a “Pythian canon”, if you like, for aulos and kithara to be played at Delphi in the Pythian Games in celebration of the victory of Apollo over Python.^(c)

• ^(c) “A nomos [law or canon] was the most important form of composition and interpretation in ancient Greek music. It seems that it evolved from a very old tradition, according to which the laws were sung by the people to be easily memorized and followed [unlike what happens now that the legislators do their best for the laws to be incomprehensible by the people, though – or precisely because – ignorance of the law is not forgiven…] The composition and interpretation of nomoi were very demanding and set high professional standards in the four Hellenic games (Olympian, Pythian, Isthmian, Nemean), where the most distinguished musicians (composers-performers) of their time took part. The Pythian nomos, the most important nomos for aulos, was the first known type of program music and was meant to describe the contest between Apollo and the dragon Python, consisting of five parts…” (Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek Music, by Solon Michaelides).
• Timosthenes either innovated combining the aulos with the kithara (cithara) in his Pythian nomos, or such a combination was already established in his time. These instruments were those mostly played by professional musicians: aulos, a wind instrument, was connected with Dionysus; kithara, a string instrument, was identified with Apollo. The lyre, instead, was played only by amateurs. Its professional equivalent was the kithara (precursor of the guitar).

The music contest between the citharoedus Apollo and Marsyas, the Phrygian aulete satyr. In order to win, the god was also obliged to sing, something that the Muses, who were the judges, permitted, of course. Then Apollo flayed Marsyas alive for his “hubris to challenge a god… Thus Greek music prevailed over Phrygian and the Apollonian spirit subdued the Dionysian…

“Nómoi, the most important form of composition in ancient Greece, evolved from a very old tradition, according to which the laws were sung by the people to be easily memorized and followed.” Now legislators do their best for the laws to be incomprehensible, though (or because) ignorance of the law is not forgiven…

Such voyages, of course, together with the logbooks that gradually evolved into peripli, date back to much earlier times. At the same time, whatever we know about many important voyages come from other sources and not from the navigators’ peripli. Notable examples:

Penteconter

• The voyages of Cretans during the Minoan thalassocracy.
• The expedition of the Argonauts.
• The wanderings of Odysseus.
• The epic periplus of Libya (that is, Africa) by the Phoenicians in the late 6th century on behalf of an Egyptian Pharaoh, mentioned by Herodotus. Having the Red Sea as a starting point, it took almost three years to complete. Trying to save his life, a Persian convict made an attempt to repeat the feat following the reverse course but finally gave up – and lost his life.
• The voyage of the (real) Scylax of Caryanda, a Greek navigator from Caria. According to the “Father of History”, he explored the coasts of the Indian Ocean (as far as the mouth of the Indus River returning afterwards to Suez) on behalf of the Persians in the same period, late 6th century, circa 510 BCE.
• The voyages of Eudoxus of Cyzicus (ca 150–100 BCE) to explore the Arabian Sea on behalf of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. According to Poseidonius and Strabo, he was the first to sail the monsoon wind system in the Indian Ocean in 118–116 BCE. He later attempted the first periplus of Africa departing from the West, namely Gades (modern Cádiz), but the expedition was lost – although some writers, such as Pliny, argue that he achieved his goal.
• A navigator possibly associated with Eudoxus (he is sometimes referred to as his captain) was Hippalos (ca 1st century BCE). In the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea he is credited with discovering the direct route from the Red Sea to South India crossing the Indian Ocean.

The Periplus of Eurasia through the North Sea and the Suez Canal Routes

• >> Chronicle 2. MINOAN CRETAN THALASSOCRACY
• << Voyage 10. MUSIC MADE OF BODY AND SOUL

Before the Chronicles of ONCE UPON A… WAVE,
voyage with the Voyages of the MEDITERRANEAN PERIPLUS!

Periplus, by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld (1832-1901), a Finn arctic explorer, geologist and mineralogist most remembered for the expedition along the northern coast of Eurasia in 1878-79. This was the first complete crossing of the Northern Sea Route or Northeast Passage. He edited a monumental record of the expedition in five volumes, and wrote a popular summary in two volumes. As an explorer, he was interested in the history of Arctic exploration as evidenced in old maps. Except Periplus (1897), he published another monograph entitled
Early History of Cartography (1889).