World History Volume Digital Library and Knowledge Share

Visitors to the Portuguese city of Lisbon, on a certain day in 1499, would have found the people in a holiday mood. Groups of townsmen who gathered here and there talked excitedly about the arrival of two ships and there was good reason. In the two years since these vessels had sailed down the river and slipped out of sight, they had completed the first trip from Europe around Africa to India and back. Such an event indeed deserved to be celebrated. Not only had the fearless captain of this expedition, Vasco da Gama, performed a great feat of navigation, but he had brought back spices and other goods worth 60 times the cost of his voyage. No wonder the people shouted. No wonder King John of Portugal rubbed his hands with glee and heaped honours on da Gama. For here, reasoned King John, lay the key to power and prosperity. Suppose each Portuguese ship returned laden with goods worth 60 times the cost of its voyage. Portugal quickly would become rich and powerful. How much better off he was, the king thought, than if he had listened to Columbus! That man had pestered him for years to provide the ships, money and men to sail westward across the Atlantic to India. To be sure, Columbus had finally obtained backing from the monarchs of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella. What had he accomplished? For the most part, all he had found was a tropical wilderness peopled with savages and he had brought back little to compare with the rich cargoes in the holds of da Gama’s vessels. Yes, in 1499 it looked as if little Portugal would get ahead of all other European countries in the race for wealth and power. Several years passed before other voyages across the Atlantic proved …

Henry Tudor was a patient young man, who waited and watched while civil war raged in England and quarreling lords fought to see who would be king. He waited safely in France, biding his time until his spies told him the hour had come to strike. Then from northern France he crossed the English Channel with 2000 soldiers. Ahead of Henry and his soldiers had gone his agents, who sought to weaken the position of England’s King, Richard III. Henry’s agents had plotted secretly with some of Richard’s supporters, lords who led small armies of their own. That was why when the battle was fought at Bosworth Field, England, in 1485, first one group and then another broke from King Richard’s ranks and joined Henry Tudor’s forces. Screaming “Treason, treason!” King Richard III hurled himself into the thick of the fray. He wanted to kill young Henry Tudor, but King Richard himself was struck down. As the King’s armour clad body crashed heavily to the ground, the light golden crown that fitted over his helmet rolled under a nearby hawthorn bush. When the battle was over, a soldier picked up the crown and placed it on Henry Tudor’s helmet. For over a hundred years, Henry Tudor (who became King Henry VII) and his descendants ruled England. There had been kings in England for centuries, but powerful feudal nobles had often refused to accept their authority. Moreover, for 30 years before Henry Tudor’s victory at Bosworth, England had been engaged in a disastrous war between two branches of the royal family. But though Henry Tudor and his descendants met with op position, they steadily increased their powers. As a result, England became a unified and prosperous country. We learn how strong monarchies, or kingdoms, developed in Europe during the later Middle …

Pierre watched the merchant caravan clatter down the narrow dirt road that led through the manor. Pack mules threaded their way to avoid the deep puddles, while the horses strained as they pulled the creaking two wheeled carts. Pierre envied the merchants as well as the sturdy bowmen who guarded the caravan. During his seventeen years Pierre had never been more than a few miles from the manor where he had been born a serf. He was not free to move around as were these merchants who were city folk. Was it true, as Pierre had heard, that a serf who escaped to a town or city and lived there for a year and a day was forever free? He wondered. The merchant caravan disappeared around the bend in the road. Should Pierre follow it? To stay on the manor meant a serf’s life — a life of back-breaking toil. That night after dark, his mind made up, Pierre slipped unseen across the fields and onto a narrow  path that led over the surrounding hills. For two nights he walked as rapidly as he could, sleeping fitfully in deep thickets during the daylight hours. Soon after sunrise on the second morning the forest trail led to a wider road, an hour’s journey out of the city of Lacourt. Pierre helped to free an oxcart bogged down in the mire of the roadside ditch and then trudged toward Lacourt in the company of the grateful driver. The young serf’s eyes grew wide with wonder at the unfamiliar sights as he approached the outskirts of the city. Completely encircling it was a wall of stone four times the height of a man. At one point the wall was pierced by a gateway, its great oaken doors swung back. Through the opening Pierre could …

One of the young Athenians who must have taken a good deal of interest in Draco’s writing down of the laws was Solon. He came of a good family. His father had been extravagant and this had prompted Solon to become a foreign trader in order to repair the family fortunes. There was no question of his considering himself one of the oppressed. He was a “have” not a “have-not”. Yet Solon was destined to repeal almost all of Draco’s laws and to set Athens on the road to democracy. We first meet Solon as a poet, patriot and soldier. The possession of the island of Salamis was in dispute between Megara and Athens. Athens, to Solon’s disgust, renounced her claim. Solon rushed into the market place and recited a poem in which he appealed to the Athenians to reverse their decision and conquer the island. The poem had the desired effect. Solon was chosen to lead the attack and eventually Salamis became part of Attica. A little over a century later the decisive sea-battle of the Persian wars was fought in the stretch of water which separated Salamis from the mainland.   Meanwhile discontent due to poverty and debt, had reached such a pitch, that the need for firm action was clear. Solon was liked and trusted. When he was elected archon in 594 B.C. he was able to begin a programme of reform. Solon’s first act was to free all those who had enslaved themselves on account of debt and make it illegal for any citizen to do so again in the future. Other measures were aimed at checking extravagance. For instance, not more than a certain sum might be spent on funerals or on the dowry of a bride. Last of what may be called Solon’s restrictive …

The legend of Theseus and the Minotaur suggests that Athens had dealings with Crete during the Minoan and Mycenaean Ages. We have no written history of that time, though the discoveries of archaeologists show that the Acropolis, a rocky mass 512 feet high, already had fortifications like those found at Tiryns and Mycenae. At the time of the first Olympiad (776 B.C.) there may still have been a King upon the throne, but at Athens, as in many other Greek states, government by Kings gave way about that time to government by the nobles. Monarchy, that is to say, gave way to aristocracy. Sparta with her two Kings was an exception. Whoever ruled Athens also ruled Attica. This was not a district of great natural riches. As can be seen from the map, much of it was mountainous and the corn grown on the plains was not enough when the population increased. However, olives and vines were plentiful and the mountains, as well as providing a home for goats and beet, contained silver mines, lead mines and marble quarries. In the river beds lay a reddish clay suitable for pottery. Finally, there were good harbours. Attica, therefore, though not rich, had considerable natural advantages and we shall see how well she used them — how the red clay was turned into pots and the marble into temples, while the harbours were crowded with merchantmen and ships of war. The most famous product of Attica was neither animal, vegetable nor mineral. It was the form of government known as democracy. We have now to see how democracy grew out of the aristocracy, or rule of nobles, which succeeded the period of the Kings. The Spartans had tried to prevent one man becoming much richer than another by using iron bars as …

A Spartan child was examined at birth. A healthy infant was allowed to live. Weaklings were not wanted. They were left in the mountains to die. (Exposure of unwanted children was not peculiar to Sparta. Even civilized 5th-century Athenians practised it.) At the age of seven a Spartan boy left home. His period of family life was finished. Thereafter he would be a member of a community. In modern terms, he would always be either at a boarding school or on military service. In the “pack”, as it was called, the seven-year-old newcomer quickly learned obedience. He had to act as a kind of servant to one of the older boys. He learned to be hardy, since even in winter he had to go barefoot and was only allowed a single garment. He learned to use initiative and was even encouraged to steal in order to increase his rations, which were purposely kept small. It was one of these thieving raids which gave rise to the story of the Spartan boy and the fox. The boy had stolen a fox and hid it under his cloak. It began to gnaw at his stomach, but to set it free would have meant discovery. The boy therefore let it go on gnawing and at last fell down dead, but with his honour preserved. The incidentals of this story are puzzling. If the fox was stolen, it must presumably have belonged to someone. Was it a pet? It seems an odd animal to steal if you are hungry. However, there is no doubt about the moral. Death to a Spartan, even in boyhood, was preferable to the taint of cowardice. The education of girls was milder; but compared with the education of Athenian girls it was tough and unrestricted. At Athens athletics were …

This striking difference in the way Athens and Sparta treated their victorious athletes reflects a striking difference between the states themselves. Neither was important as a coloniser. But during the 6th and 5th centuries they occupy the centre of the stage. At Sparta living was hard; hence the adjective “Spartan”. In the Mycenaean Age, when, according to legend, Menelaus was King of Sparta and Helen was his queen, the place had not yet gained this reputation for hardness, which was a result of the Dorian invasion. The invaders found the valley of Lacedaemon attractive. They settled there and made the district round Sparta the centre from which they governed. They did not mix with the previous inhabitants of the country. They enslaved them. These slaves, called Helots, were much more numerous than the Spartans themselves. As a result of two wars (c. 736 and 650 B.C.) against the pre-Dorian inhabitants of Messenia, the Spartans reduced them also to Helot status. In spite of their military strength the Spartans were at this time still a cultured people, honoured for their poets and musicians and it was to one of their wise men, Chilon, that the celebrated Greek maxims “Know thyself” and “Nothing in excess” were ascribed. Their craftsmen produced fine pottery and ivory carvings. It was probably not till after the second Messenian war that the Spartans, in order to keep control of their greatly increased Helot population, began that system of cheerless, iron discipline which made them famous. Tradition attributed its introduction to a certain Lycurgus. How much Lycurgus had to do with the moulding of the Spartan system, or whether he ever existed at all, we do not know. It is the system itself which is important, because it did not change very much throughout the next three centuries …

At Olympia every four years Olympic games were held in which any Greek was entitled to take part. It is not known when the first Olympic games were held, but they were said to have been revived in the year 776 B.C. and the Greeks used that year from which to reckon dates. The period of four years between each celebration of the olympic games was called an Olympiad. When therefore a Greek writer says something happened in the year of the . . . Olympiad we can calculate the year according to our system and put it down as . . . B.C. From now onwards Greek history becomes more exact. Like Delphi, Olympia became a place where men from any part of the Greek world might meet. For a month every four years the incessant quarrels of the city-states were stopped and during five days of this truce period the olympic games were held. There was running, long jump, boxing. wrestling, throwing the discus or javelin, chariot racing and horse racing (all individual events — no team games) and no Marathon. The only prize at Olympia was a crown of wild olive, but when victorious, competitors reached home they were given a variety of honours and rewards. At Athens they received a large sum of money and the right to free dinners for life (cf. p. 60). At Sparta they were assigned the post of honour in battle.

The Delphic oracle, the priestess of Apollo, was supposed to have the gift of prophecy. The Delphic Oracle was consulted before a colony was founded, before war was declared and on all sorts of other questions. When a request for advice was put to her through her priests she proceeded to put herself into a trance. She is said to have done this by chewing laurel leaves, drinking water from an underground stream and inhaling an evil-smelling gas which arose through a cleft in the rocks within her shrine (but no traces of this cleft have been found). Finally, seated on a tripod, she spoke. The priests claimed to be able to make sense of her utterances. After listening, they presented a reply, in verse, to the questioner. The priests acquired great power, but if they had abused it grossly, Delphi would not have maintained its importance for centuries, as it did. Replies to political questions obviously had to be ambiguous, but when consulted on private affairs the oracle tended to be on the side of what we would now consider right (e.g. in favour of mercy and against fraud). It was not, however, the formal reply alone which made a visit to Delphi worth while. As at international conferences nowadays, all sorts of informal meetings and conversations must have taken place. Nowhere else could one find out so much about the scattered communities of the Greek world.

The two hundred years after 800 B.C. saw a great expansion of the Greeks by colonisation. Colonisation is a more orderly kind of migration. The Greeks now lived in numerous small communities, often no more than towns with surrounding farmlands. They are therefore called “city-states”. Some of these city-states now sent out colonies to southern Italy, Sicily and also to the Black Sea. These colonies became independent but they kept in touch with their mother-city. Miletus in Ionia sent out many of the Black Sea colonies. Byzantium, now Istanbul, was founded by Megara a city near Athens. The most important of the western colonies, Syracuse, was founded by Corinth. Sparta founded Taras (Taranto) in Italy. Marseilles in the south of France was first colonised by Greeks from Asia Minor. One of the Aegean islands founded Cyrene in North Africa. A map of the Greek world about 600 B.C., when the period of colonisation was over, has therefore to cover most of the Mediterranean. When a people expands in this way it is usual to speak of their “empire” and a map of it shows somewhere a city in extra large print, which is the capital — Babylon, for example, or Egyptian Thebes, or Rome. At this time (c. 600 B.C.) the Greek city-states and their colonies, being independent of each other, did not constitute an empire and acknowledged no capital. There were however two places which all Greeks regarded with reverence. One was Delphi and the other was Olympia.