Archaic Period (jan 1, 750 BC – jan 1, 497 BC)

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Just as transformative, but better known, is the subsequent Archaic Age, which spanned roughly from 800 BCE to the beginning of the Persian Wars in 490 BCE. The Archaic era saw the emergence of many features we associate with ancient Greece, such as the city-state (polis), columned temples, literature (including works by Homer, Hesiod, and Sappho), philosophy, politics, and, in 776 BCE, the Olympic Games.

Specific names and events have come down to us from contemporary and later accounts, though some of these remain semi-mythical. After the Mycenaean script of Linear B was lost with the collapse of the palaces, a new Greek script emerged in the Archaic period, based on an alphabet derived from Phoenician characters. This allowed the growth of a literary culture. Homer, one of those figures of uncertain date and origin, recorded the epic poems of the Trojan War. Hesiod tells us about the gods and life in 7th-century Boeotia, while Sappho’s poetry continues to be read today. Literacy also meant written law and the debates over who had the authority to write it.

The most important development was the polis. While Greece retained a great variety of communities, such as tribes and kingdoms, the independent city-states shaped much of Greek society. This meant there would never be one single ancient Greece. Instead, what developed was a network of interlinked but competitive cities. On the mainland, Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, and Argos became the most prominent cities.

A wave of colonization saw Greek cities spring up around the Mediterranean and Black Sea from Sicily to the Crimea and southern France. As the polis was its own community, hundreds of political experiments were underway, which generated monarchies, tyrannies, aristocracies, and, by the end of the Archaic period, democracy. This often made Greek politics unstable but encouraged ideas and philosophy to flourish

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