Greek Influence on the Mediterranean World: A Historical Overview

Introduction: Hellenization and Greek Influence

Understanding the Mediterranean world requires careful attention to the social and cultural influence of both Greek and Roman civilization on the peoples of that era and region. Like interwoven threads in a great tapestry, the Mediterranean world was shaped simultaneously by Roman rule and Greek culture. This paper examines the impact of Greek civilization on the Mediterranean world, touching on its language, colonization, art, economy, and social structure.

The Greek impact on the Mediterranean world began during the reign of Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE. The spread of the Greek language, culture, and political dominance over the peoples of the East became significant, and this process was known as Hellenization. The significance of this Greek inheritance of language and culture was all-encompassing and massive. Greek art and architecture had broadened their reach as far as Britain to the west, and all points in between, by the 1st century. Romans and Jews alike had been shaped by Greek modes of thought. To be precise, it was not Palestinian Judaism but rather Hellenized Judaism — with its use of the Greek language and the Greek version of what Christians now call the Old Testament — that drove the wider spread of these ideas.

The prevalence of Greek culture over Roman culture was evident from their earliest encounters. In day-to-day life during the 1st century, Greek became the language of educated persons and was regarded as the international medium of communication throughout Rome and to the borders of Asia, unlike Latin. The impact of Hellenistic culture during the period of Roman rule was evident in numerous aspects of life, including trade, religion, industry, education, literature, and festival games. Among all these cultural contributions, the most notable was the Greek language known as Koine. This became clear when the early Christian writers, without exception, composed their works in Koine Greek. Koine also became the universal language of commerce, business, and administration. Consequently, the language became a significant unifying force in the Mediterranean world of the 1st century.

Greek Colonization of the Mediterranean

It is worth noting that although Greek culture dominated Roman culture in many respects, Roman governmental administration and civilian rule carved out an extraordinary and unmatched place in history. While Koine Greek united the Mediterranean world in commerce and discourse, Roman rule brought this same world — and many additional territories — under a single authority: the Roman Empire.

According to Sarah B. Pomeroy (2004), the large-scale emigration of Greeks from their homeland in the Aegean began in the middle of the 8th century BCE and continued for more than two centuries. This expansion was driven by two main purposes: providing settlers with enough fertile land and meeting the growing demand for imported goods. Additional colonies were founded by Greeks fleeing foreign armies or by overcrowded cities seeking to avoid internal conflict.

The process of establishing a colony required careful preparation and often had implications for the entire community. The metropolis — the founding city — was responsible for allocating the new settlement, obtaining divine authorization for construction, laying out the colony's plan, and designating its official founder, known as the oikistes, from among men of respectable standing (Baeck, 1994). The colonies maintained connections to their metropolis through kinship and religious cult, as symbolized by the sacred fire carried from the motherland to the new polis by the founding official. The most important person in the newly formed colony was the oikist, who was responsible for leading the colony, naming it, securing it, allocating land to colonists, and establishing sanctuaries for the gods. Those oikists who succeeded in founding and managing their colonies were venerated as guardian heroes of the polis after their deaths (Rousseau, 1755).

In the 8th century BCE, the Euboeans played a pioneering role in the colonization of Italy by founding a trading colony on the island of Pithecusae, known today as Ischia. Both the Greeks and the Phoenicians were drawn by the success of this colony, which was well positioned for exploiting the iron deposits on the island of Elba. The Greeks also established new colonies to the east, focusing on the Black Sea throughout the Archaic period. Several of the Greek colonies founded in this region became powerful and prosperous; most notably, Byzantium, which thousands of years later became the capital of the Roman Empire under the new name Constantinople (Boardman, 1999).

Greek Art, Democracy, and Cultural Exports

The Greeks had a complex relationship with the peoples already occupying the lands where they established colonies. Through the arrival of the Greeks, the colonies became conduits through which diverse peoples of southern Europe and the Black Sea region gained access to Greek culture, which was widely embraced. Among the most influential of these cultural exports were Greek art, the Greek alphabet, and Greek religious cults.

The Greek philosopher Protagoras wrote that "man is the measure of all things." This principle expresses the Greek belief that, beyond recognizing the importance of human beings in nature, human understanding and knowledge are relative to each individual. It was from this belief that the Greeks built the world's first democracy. Ancient Greek art portrayed a civilization in search of balance and stability in both human and architectural form. Greek artists held themselves to very high standards of excellence and, unlike their Egyptian counterparts, continually refined and improved upon their previous creations. Rome's conquest of Greece helped to preserve, sustain, and spread Greek art and literature throughout Rome's vast empire.

The Olympic Games and other Pan-Hellenic festivals were dedicated to the gods, and warfare was prohibited during the period of competition. Both enemies and friends competed for prizes such as jars of oil, victory wreaths, and — above all — glory. As numerous foreign goods entered Greek markets, Greek artists developed a rich repertoire of vessel forms and decorative imagery. Exposure to luxury goods from diverse cultures, such as Persia (modern-day Iran), provided Greek artisans with striking new iconographic influences.

Conclusion

The rapid rise of civilization in Greece between 800 and 600 BCE was based on the formation of strong city-states rather than a single unified political entity. Each city-state governed itself, typically under either a single ruler or a noble council. Sparta and Athens emerged as the leading powers. Between 500 and 449 BCE, these two states collaborated with smaller allies to defeat a massive Persian invasion, a turning point that shaped the subsequent trajectory of the Greek world and its influence across the Mediterranean.