Hard Times in Archaic Greece

A History of Mankind (55)

(This post is a sequel to this earlier post. The previous post on the history of Europe is here. To see all older posts in a list arranged by subject, click here)

For millennia, tribal peoples split when their leaders became too bossy or aggressive. The dissidents just packed and left, and found empty land somewhere, which they settled or/and exploited.

That option, however, became less and less available in Europe during the late 2^nd millennium BC, as the population movements that contributed to the “Sea Peoples” invasions displayed a marked preference for warmer climates around the Mediterranean Sea basin, at least for those tribes who could make it. 

Those population movements led to a clear decline in social and technological development in most of peninsular Greece, which was much impoverished by the collapse of Mycenaean civilization. However, the impact wasn't all that big on the traditionally more backward regions such as Epirus, where life went on much as before, with a more direct connection with older traditions.

Dodona in Epirus became a popular Greek oracle around the turn of the millennium, from which the cult of Zeus spread all over the peninsula, which explains why Aristotle later wrote that the region of Dodona was the homeland of all Hellenes. In fact, the distant Boeoti sent envoys with tripods wrapped in garments every year to Dodona, to sing the traditional “tripod-song”[1] and oracles issued by Dodona were said to have helped Aletes, the Dorian founder of Corinth, and Codrus, king of Athens in the 11^th century BC.

Why the ancient Greeks liked tripods as much as the contemporary ancient Chinese, despite the absence of any contact between them, is anyone’s guess.

All this happened despite the difficult communications between Epirus and Aetolia and other regions of Greece.