Greece was the first among the European countries to become civilized. It came at a time that there was little or no religious influence. The Greeks were politically and economically driven. There were several Greek civilizations like Minoa which was the first and very peaceful and also characterized by art and architecture. Due to Greece’s nature of peacefulness, it had no military fortification and less weaponry. Then, the Mycenaean civilization was introduced. It was an illiterate civilization marked by constant fights. It is in these that the classifiable Greek ages began which set standards and styles. Citizenship was restricted and privileged to the wealthy and mighty. They excluded various groups of people from the community. Women had no rights; they were under the authority of their husbands, fathers, or other male relatives. If they left their houses, they were always escorted and in the most affluent homes, they had their rooms. The women were viewed as housewives and as property of the men. They were restricted and highly supervised. Their place was in the homesteads more specifically in the kitchen. The only public better job was to be a priest’s assistant. Plenty a great philosopher was quoted saying “serving as generals, public officials and statesmen are appropriate for men” but, “keeping the house, remaining within and taking care of husbands belongs to women.”(Spielvogel, 2009) in the most well of families the women supervised the slaves. They were always under the authority of men but the men’s word did not deter the strong-willed from pursuing their goals even though not economically but education-wise; they became great poets. This kind of treatment was more common to Athens and not the Spartans.
In Sparta, the men lived in barracks and the women outside. Therefore, the women were let loose and owned lands. After prolonged wars, the men died leaving the women to take care of their property. This period was also marked by rampant slavery which was viewed as a normal part of life. The slaves were; the poor people who owed money to the wealthy and could not afford to buy weapons for self-defense, children sold by their parents or abandoned, and captives from wars. Greece was subdivided into Sparta and Athens which were among the main cities. The Sparta group of archaic Greece was very notorious for slavery and the subjection of women to warfare. They took the young boys from homes and women to be trained in the military. The Athens groups were diverse in their economical activities and included farmers, philosophers, and scientists. The wealthy and the richest were directly involved with the governments. This was the period of the commencement of the Persian wars as they wanted to take over the Greek peninsula. Then, the Athens and Greeks later defeated the Persians to recover the peninsula and became the superpowers. After this, there came the Peloponnesian war which was between the Spartans and Athens they conflicted by taking sides when Corinth and one of the colonies were fighting. The Spartans collaborated with the Persians to fight Athens. Athens was hit by a plague outbreak that killed over one-fourth of the population. One of the influential politicians in Athens betrayed the army to the advantage of the Spartans who worn that year and was less concerned with the economic growth and this led to the decline of the Greek civilization.
References
- Spielvogel, Jackson, J. Western civilization: 1715, Belmont, Australia, Thomson Wadsworth, 2009
- Middleton, Haydn, Ancient Greek Women, Chicago, Illinois Reed Educational & Professional Publishing, 2003.