How Geography & Climate Shaped Early Greek Life

Greece is composed of an archipelago and peninsula located in the eastern Mediterranean between Italy and Turkey and is itself the southernmost tip of the Balkan Peninsula. Given its unique location, it's not surprising that Greece has served as a crossroads for the Mediterranean world since the earliest days of its settlement. Since it's located roughly in the middle of the eastern Mediterranean world, influences from foreign powers and cultures have long been part of the experience. As a result, the Greeks were forced to create a culture that itself was more powerful, to the point of greatly influencing most of the western world. However, it wasn't just ideas being traded, as Greece was a natural point for trading vessels traversing the seas. Additionally, the Greeks were forced to interact with the sea from their earliest period, meaning that they were soon comfortable enough to sail outside of the sheltered waters This reliance on the sea was reinforced by the nature of the land in Greece. In short, Greece is extraordinarily mountainous, meaning that any large society that were to exist here would have to be based, at least in part, on either trade or fishing for a food supply. Luckily for the first Greeks, the seas off of their respective islands and inlets were among the richest fishing grounds in the ancient world, meaning that Greece would have enough not only to feed itself, but to trade the excess. While Greece was hilly, those hills were surprisingly fertile for certain cash crops, lending themselves to the cultivation of both olive orchards and vineyards for making wine. In fact, the very hilliness that made the terrain horrible to drag a plow through, or to realistically harvest with a sieve for grains, allowed for the greater drainage and selective sunlight necessary to produce truly superb olives and grapes. The resultant olive oil and wine were both easily exported throughout the known world and meant that Greek farmers could concentrate on growing crops that would actually succeed in Greece, rather than just scratching out what wheat and other cereal crops could grow on hillsides. The mountains also created consequences for geopolitics in ancient Greece. As communication on the Greek mainland was difficult, a number of city-states would come to rule the area independent of each other. However, these city-states would often find themselves in alliance with certain states against others, most notably with the differences between the two most famous city-states, Athens and Sparta. Conversely, the ease with which the seas could be navigated meant that the city-states that could establish control of the seas could have control of those regions on islands in the Aegean Sea, as the Athenians were able to do with the Delian League. Further, many of the largest battles of the Greeks would be sea battles, while land battles would be almost exclusively fought by foot soldiers, as the area required to raise horses was simply a luxury few ancient Greeks could afford. The climate of Greece also played an impressive role in making the civilization that emerged there possible. As Greece had no major river systems, it instead would have to rely on rainfall in order to keep its orchards and vineyards fertile, which in turn would keep Greek treasuries flush with cash. Additionally, given the mountainous nature of Greece, the Greeks relied on the warm sea breezes to make life in their city-states tolerable. Those regions within the Greek sphere that ultimately would settle away from a coast were thought of as particularly hardy, if not somewhat gluttons for punishment, such as the Spartans. Or worse, they were thought of as not Greeks, or even subhuman, such as the Macedonians. In fact, this love for the coast, evidenced not only through trade, but also through love for a particular climate, helped determine where many of Greece's colonies would go throughout their Mediterranean. A favorite spot was Sicily and southern Italy, which most heavily mirrored the climatic and geographic features to be found in the Greek homeland. This lesson examined the role that the geography and climate of Greece had on the development of the Greek people. Greece is a mountainous area, full of islands in the Aegean Sea off the coast of the peninsula that forms the southern tip of the Balkan Peninsula. This difficult geography has affected not only what the Greeks chose to farm, but also their relationship with the sea, and how the Greeks would ultimately split into city-states, rather than have one leader for much of their history. Finally, the role of climate was examined, especially the different climates of shorelines versus inland mountains, and how later Greek colonists tried to find new territories that reminded them of their homelands.