Homeric Questions
Part VIII: Homeric Geography
by N.S. Gill, Ancient/Classical History Guide
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By geography we mean both the lay of the land and the political boundaries. It is particularly in the political boundaries that the geography of Greece has changed significantly over the millennia. Where Persia and Turkey have taken away land on the Eastern shore of the Aegean, the conquering army of the Macedonians and the migrations following the Trojan War have added to it.
At times Macedonia has been the hinterland; at others, the center of the world. The geography of Greece is confusing and has been since the mysterious Dark Age out of which Greece emerged, dominating both sides of the Aegean.
The Early Settlers
According to vislab-www.nps.navy.mil/~fapapoul/history/greece.html, beginning in the third millennium B.C., 3 invading tribes settled in Greece:- Achaeans settled in southern Greece and the Peloponnesus,
- Ionians settled in Attica, east-central Greece and the Cyclades, possibly around 1600
- Aeolians settled in Thessaly.
"[when] meager, relatively isolated agrarian settlements [were] dominated by local landed aristocracies, with a relatively low level of material culture: no urban centers, relatively little trade or manufacturing, a population sustained principally by what crops it could manage to foster in the arid, rocky soil...."
- Porter
The Dark Age Migrations
In a simplified version of events, a Dark Age invasion of Dorians from the North (settling first in the Corinthian Gulf and the northwest Peloponnese; then the south and east, and the islands of Crete, Rhodes, and Kos) pushed the native Greeks out of their homelands. Eventually some mainland Greeks migrated to Ionia.Next:
Ancient Version
of the Dark Age Migrations
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Homeric Geography
