Greece - Gr. Hellas or Ellas, republic (1995 est. pop. 10,648,000), 50,944 sq mi (131,945 sq km), SE Europe. It occupies the southernmost part of the Balkan Peninsula and borders on the Ionian Sea in the west, on the Mediterranean Sea in the south, on the Aegean Sea in the east, on Turkey and Bulgaria in the northeast, on Macedonia in the north, and on Albania in the northwest.
Athens is its capital and largest city.
Land and People About 75% of Greece is mountainous and only about 25% of the land is arable. The country falls into four main geographical regions. Northern Greece includes portions of historic
Epirus,
Macedonia, and
Thrace. It takes in part of the Pindus Mts. (which continue into central Greece); low-lying plains along the lower Nestos and Struma rivers; and the
Khalkidhikí peninsula, on which
Thessaloníki, Greece's second largest city, is located. Central Greece, situated N of the Gulf of Corinth, includes the low-lying plains of
Thessaly,
Attica, and
Boeotia; Mt. Olympus (Ólimbos; 9,570 ft/2,917 m), the highest point in Greece; and Athens. Southern Greece is made up of the
Peloponnesus. The fourth region of Greece comprises numerous islands (with a total area of c.9,600 sq mi/24,900 sq km), the most notable of which are
Crete, in the Mediterranean;
Kérkira,
Kefallinía,
Zákinthos,
Lefkás, and
Itháki, in the Ionian Sea; and the
Cyclades, the Northern
Sporades, the
Dodecanese (including
Rhodes,
Évvoia,
Lesbos,
Khíos,
Sámos,
Límnos,
Samothrace, and
Thásos, in the Aegean. Greece has few rivers, none of them navigable. The Greek people are only partly descended from the ancient Greeks, having mingled through the ages with the numerous invaders of the Balkans. Modern vernacular Greek is the official language. There is a small Turkish-speaking minority, and many Greeks also speak English and French. The Greek Orthodox Church is the established church of the country, and it includes the great majority of the population. The Greek primate is the archbishop of Athens, who recognizes the Ecumenical Patriarch of Istanbul. Universities in Greece are located at Athens, Ioánnina, Pátrai, and Thessaloníki. Economy Traditionally an agriculture-based economy, Greece has had limited success in diversifying its economic base. However, industry has replaced agriculture as the leading source of income; agriculture accounts for slightly over 15% of the gross national product, while manufacturing accounts for some 20%. Tourism, a part of the growing service sector, provides a vital source of revenue. The chief agricultural products are corn, wheat, barley, citrus fruits, olives and olive oil, tomatoes, sugar beets, grapes, currants, cotton, tobacco, and potatoes. Large numbers of sheep and goats are raised. The country's main industrial centers are Athens, Thessaloníki,
Piraiévs,
Pátrai, and
Iráklion. The principal manufactures are processed food and tobacco, textiles, chemicals, metal products, construction materials, and refined petroleum. The chief minerals produced are lignite, bauxite, high-grade iron ore, magnetite, zinc, and iron pyrites. Electricity is generated mainly by hydroelectric and thermal power stations. Greece has a large merchant fleet, and its chief ports are Piraiévs and Thessaloníki. There is a significant fishing industry in coastal areas. The main exports are food, clothing, textiles, petroleum products, and tobacco; the leading imports are machinery and transportation equipment, petroleum products, chemicals, meats, and manufactured consumer goods. The principal trade partners are Germany, Italy, France, and the United Kingdom. In 1981, Greece became a member of the European Community (now the
European Union). Government Greece has a presidential parliamentary system and is governed under the constitution of 1975. There is a 300-member unicameral parliament, which elects a president for a five-year term. The executive branch also includes a premier and a cabinet. The country is divided into 13 administrative regions, subdivided into 52 departments or nomoi, which are responsible for most local government. History Ancient Greece Important aspects of ancient Greek culture are covered in separate articles—
Greek architecture,
Greek art,
Greek language,
Greek literature,
Greek music, and
Greek religion. See also the articles on the cities, e.g., Athens,
Sparta,
Corinth, and
Thebes. At various times in its history Greece included all of Epirus, Macedonia, and Thrace, part of Asia Minor, and
Magna Graecia. Archaeological remains show that Greece had a long prehistory, dating from the Neolithic Age (c.4000 b.c.). By the Bronze Age (c.2800 b.c.) important cultures had developed. The
Aegean civilization had several phases, two of the most important being the
Minoan civilization and the
Mycenaean civilization. These cultures had disappeared by 1100 b.c. The Greek-speaking
Achaeans migrated into the Peloponnesus during the 14th and 13th cent. b.c. The Aeolians and the Ionians apparently preceded the Dorians, who migrated into Greece before 1000 b.c. The Ionians, moving forth, possibly as refugees, possibly as conquerors, settled in the Ionian Islands and on the shores of Asia Minor, which became a part of the Greek world. After the Dorian invasion, the peoples of Greece, under the influence of the divisive geography and the great variety of tribes, developed the
city-state—small settlements that grew into minor kingdoms. Homeric Greece (named for the great epic poet
Homer) was dependent on the agriculture of relatively unproductive fields but was already open to the sea. Although the Greeks never rivaled the Phoenicians or the later Carthaginians and Romans as mariners, the sea offered them an opportunity for expansion and commerce. In the 8th, 7th, and 6th cent. b.c., the Greeks established colonies, many of which became separate city-states, from the Black Sea and the Bosporus (where Byzantium was founded) to Sicily, S Italy (Magna Graecia), Mediterranean France, the northern shores of Africa, and Spain. These colonies had a great influence on the history of the Greek mainland, where the city-states were developing in quarrelsome freedom. Because of their independence, the cities developed separately. However, there was a general pattern of development, which varied somewhat in each particular instance. Monarchies yielded to aristocracies, which were in turn replaced by tyrants, who usually gained power by espousing the cause of the underprivileged and by using force. Although the tyrants usually tried to establish dynasties, the hold established by their families was short-lived. Pisistratus, Hipparchus, and Hippias in Athens and the later Gelon, Dionysius the Elder, and Dionysius the Younger in Sicily were typical tyrants. On the Greek mainland the tyrannies soon yielded to oligarchies or to democracies tempered by limited citizenship and by slaveholding; it was in Greece that the idea of political democracy came into being.
Solon established a democracy in Athens. Militaristic Sparta had a unique constitutional and social development. The warring city-states had a sense of unity; all their citizens considered themselves Hellenes, and religious unity gave rise to leagues known as amphictyonies, notably the great amphictyony centered at Delphi. The celebration of contests such as the Olympian Games also fostered unity. However, the Ionian cities in Asia Minor received little help from Greece when they revolted (499 b.c.) against Persia, which also threatened the Greek mainland, and the mainland cities were poorly united in the
Persian Wars that continued until 449 b.c. Out of these successful wars, however, came the powerful surge of Greek civilization. Athens, in particular, with the support of the
Delian League as the basis of an empire, grew dramatically, and in the age of
Pericles (c.495–429 b.c.) developed a culture that left its mark on the course of Western and Eastern civilization. Drama, poetry, sculpture, architecture, and philosophy flourished, and there was a vigorous intellectual life. The leading Greeks of the 5th and 4th cent. b.c. included
Aeschylus,
Sophocles,
Euripides,
Aristophanes,
Phidias,
Myron,
Polykleitos,
Heraclitus,
Socrates,
Plato,
Aristotle, and
Hippocrates. Although Athens succumbed in the
Peloponnesian War (431–404 b.c.) and Sparta triumphed briefly before continued fighting gave the hegemony of Greece to Corinth and Thebes, the civilization that had been created lived on. When
Philip II of Macedon attacked the warring city-states and conquered Greece by defeating the Athenians and the Thebans in the battle of
Chaeronea (338 b.c.), he paved the way for his son,
Alexander the Great, who spread Greek civilization over the known Western world and across Asia to India. After Alexander's death, his empire was torn apart by his warring generals (see
Diadochi;
Ptolemy I;
Seleucus I;
Antigonus I;
Demetrius I) in the period from 323 to 276 b.c. Some Greek cities formed the
Aetolian League to oppose Macedonian rule, but members of the
Achaean League took the Macedonian side. The Greek city-states continued their rivalries, and Macedonia under the Antigonids became thoroughly Hellenized. Incessant warfare made Greece increasingly weak, while Rome grew stronger. In 146 b.c., after the Fourth Macedonian War (see
Macedon), the remnants of the Greek states fell definitively into the hands of Rome. Under Roman rule, the cities long retained a measure of independence and intellectual life, but had little political or economic importance. Hellenism, however, had triumphed, and Greek intellectual supremacy continued for many centuries. The Byzantine Empire was thoroughly Greek in origin, and
Hellenistic civilization, centered at Alexandria, Pergamum |
