JOURNEY TO NOSTOS

A Brief, Very Brief History of Hellas (Greece)

 

This story opened the same way that Hellas itself does - that is, not with an abrupt moment of creation but rather as an ongoing and enduring process where the land has long since been established as being part of all of history. To illustrate this point, imagine holding a shard of rock in your palm while standing barefoot on the soil - feeling the weight of it and hearing the chirping of the cicadas in an almost summer-like atmosphere, while at the same time stepping on the crumbling rubble beneath you, smelling the soil, seeing the sky blue above you and feeling memories of ancient Hellas swirling in every corner of the landscape around you. A land that is a living entity, one that is tied to every memory and story.

 

If you visit Central Hellas and walk through the hills, you will find remains of one building lying upon another, perhaps an ancient temple lying upon the foundation of a much older temple (from the Bronze Age), and then many, many layers of buildings constructed in the same manner as they had been constructed throughout history. When you're standing there, you will begin to see the pattern of reuse and how, at any given moment in time, there was not just one original source; many people reused things over and over again.

 

When you look at the history of Hellas, you see that there are no clear beginnings from which to trace back. This does not indicate that there is not enough evidence to support it, but it is an accurate representation of how this part of the world developed and evolved as time progressed. Archaeologists working at sites like Troy and Mycenae regularly find that when they excavate, the evidence shows layers built on top of one another. The excavations at Troy serve as an excellent example because they show evidence of many more than just one ancient Troy; rather, a succession of Troy's cities, each built upon the previous city. These layers illustrate that many generations build and reshape what exists around them, but none have entirely wiped out what the previous generation built.

 

Place and Constraint.

 

The physical geography of the Aegean world was not created for the sake of simplicity. Mountains cut through the mainland and create isolated basins; valleys open and close rapidly; coastlines allow movement and communication but also create danger through unexpected access to traders, raiders, refugees and ideas; islands provide security and rest, yet require risk to reach; and nothing can establish a sense of permanence without a significant investment of effort. Authority is never provided for the entirety of the Aegean world in terms of distance, weather, and terrain.

 

Long before there was anything we would recognise today as “Hellenic,” the people who lived in this area learned how to survive among forces that would not comply with their intentions. Earthquakes create uncertainty in minutes. The sea will allow for easy access, but will also take away life without hesitation. These are not simply metaphors; they were the conditions that every day were part of the definition of existence. It is from these conditions that the foundations of politics, religion, and moderation were developed. Throughout Hellenic society, history didn’t reveal one single prevailing identity; rather, it revealed an approach to managing the effects of ongoing upheaval and the inevitable return to chaos.

 

Power, Myth, Law.

 

The idea of power is present in the earliest records of Hellenic society; however, power was constantly shifting and never remained fixed for long. The cycle of formation and fragmentation of authority continued to return. Myth was not just a method of storytelling; it was also a tool used to capture the knowledge and understanding of loss, collective liability, overreaching, and the return home within the structures of myth and history. The multiplicity of the pantheon does not demonstrate wild imagination; it demonstrates that there is no single narrative that encapsulates the entirety of experience, fears, dreams, or struggles.

 

The function of law is to slow the rate at which conflicts escalate into forms of oppression; thus, the creation of laws does not achieve the ultimate goal of 'complete' justice, but it is the vehicle by which conflicts that often lead to oppression are slowed.

 

Trajectory and Lessons.

 

This experience represents a change in the trajectory of Hellenic civilisation, not an advancement. As communities developed and changed, they continued to challenge the construct of society from which they originated. Each solution to the concerns of a society continued to add to the strain placed upon it. Kings made promises of stability, yet brought new fears with them. The city offered an invitation for citizens to be involved; however, there have been instances when citizens have been exiled from participating as punishment by their own governments. Cities protected their citizenry and provided safe space, yet also served as breeding grounds for political violence. Ethical principles do not diminish power; ethical principles change how power and authority are distributed and exercised.

 

Ultimately, Hellas’s experience is more about the lessons learned through experience than it is about whether or not Hellas has achieved 'success.' The lesson is the result of Hellas’s awareness of the ever-present danger that exists due to inattention toward the importance of continually maintaining balance. The past does not exist only in monuments, but as the product of a habitual cycle through memory: walking paths laid out by earlier generations because the land did not provide other options; patterns of settlement remaining constant as long as rivers still flow; rituals acknowledging limitations rather than denying them; stories preserved because they remain practical rather than beautiful. The most vivid contemporary example of this practice is the Νεμέα Wine Festival, which retraces the footsteps of the ancient Games held at Nemea, including the ritual walk from the city of Nemea to the Temple of Nemean Zeus, the same route taken by ancient athletes who travelled there to honour their deities. The festival preserves the path and breathes life into it year after year, demonstrating how customs in the past influence customs today.

 

In writing this text, the author wishes to demonstrate that the tradition of Nemea has been kept alive by continuing to memorialise it over time. The intent is not to glorify Hellenic culture or extract a usable ideology from it, but to show the long process whereby people, through much trial and error, discovered how to coexist peacefully without relinquishing control or descending into chaos.

Hellas is not the starting point of the modern world; it is a place where the experiment of humankind was laid bare. Successes were temporary. Mistakes provided insights. The answers remain up for debate; they continue to be.

 

PART I

Prior to Hellenics: The Skill of Survival and How Geography Affected It (before 3,000 BC)

 

This dynamic and evolving nature of landforms and climates caused human social interaction to occur progressively. The land, divided into ridges, did not allow large unified plains; fertile areas developed in small pockets surrounded by steep hills. Rivers were small and seasonal, and rainfall was erratic. The sea bordered the land at nearly every point, providing a connection through risk rather than a safe boundary. Under such an environment, there is no easy way to develop a sense of scale, nor retain that scale once it is developed.

 

The first communities were not developed to dominate, but to survive by using the land for farming without exhausting their bodies too quickly. Ideal village locations supported agriculture without long distances, had access to water without the need for fighting, and allowed access to both inland and coastal areas over the seasons. These choices were not romantic decisions; they were calculated choices made under great duress.

 

The geographical constraints created limitations upon population growth and the establishment of supply chains. Large concentrations of people were expensive to maintain and less likely to remain stable. Long supply chains were easily disrupted due to weather events. Authorities requiring constant supervision faced difficulties where transportation was slow and weather-dependent. The problems of logistics and governance from the ancients are still present today. The geographic elements of the world profoundly affect how humans build systems.

 

At this point in time, identity is not abstract; it is a product of local relationships. To belong is derived from labour together, the hardships and risk associated with that labour, and the memory of having survived by working together. Kinship creates obligation, and tradition bestows an element of certainty. Creative thought and action were carefully considered before risk because failure could mean death or injury.

 

With time, the ocean presented a denser system of complexity than land. By facilitating short-distance trade routes, it allowed networks of exchange: goods moving, techniques carried, stories travelling the same routes. Yet with access came sudden exposure; communities learned early that openness to trade also exposed them to risks. Thus, the Hellenic consciousness of limits/boundaries begins not as philosophy but as practical application: distinctions between land and sea, home and stranger, local and global, as decision points where error could have consequences.

 

With time, the first surpluses appeared — not uniformly and only temporarily. With surplus came the first stable elements of power: how surplus is managed, labour organised, and access regulated. Geography did not eliminate hierarchy, but it created a more unstable base for hierarchy to be sustained. Attempts to centralise authority faced distance, seasonal factors, barriers, and the difficulty of moving people and goods across fragmented landscapes. Early systems evolved through negotiation between households, villages, and coastal/inland communities. Leaders existed in a state of contingent existence. Reputation held as much weight as force; memory held as much weight as force.

 

The early values of these worlds are not a stage to grow out of; they are refined methods created by societies living in harsh environments. Many things later celebrated as “progress” — discomfort with inherited power, valuing persuasion, attention to place — have roots here, before they were named. The Aegean teaches a recurring lesson: the key to survival is balance rather than control. However, this outcome is never guaranteed. Everything that follows — palaces, cities, empires, deities — represents attempts to master what geography first established. The land remains constant, yet humanity continues to strive for change.

 

PART TWO

Crete: The Palaces, Power and The Creation of Authority (2000–1450 B.C.)

 

At the start of the second millennium B.C., an event occurred that permanently altered the evolution of the Aegean world. The change was neither rapid nor consistent, but proved one of the most important milestones of Aegean history. Up until this time, authority is based on a continuum of renewal: it extends to those close by through kinship ties and depends on the personal ability of the one holding authority. Subsequently, authority becomes more robust through durability; it develops an ability to survive the individuals who exercise power. The shift from kinship to durability is most evident in Crete.

 

By about 2000 B.C., Crete was home to complex architectural sites referred to as “palaces” at Knossos, Phaistos, Malia, and Zakros. The term “palace” misrepresents the fact that these were not merely the centre of a kingdom. In addition to consolidating goods, the system of palaces, stores and pithoi became an administrative and economic organising machine through which the social and economic lives of communities were ordered.

 

Before palaces, production was largely household-based and subsistence-driven, with intermittent local exchange. Authority was transient, reliant on the success or failure of leaders and their capacity to provide protection; it dissipated quickly with decline or death. Palaces introduced centralised access and control of surplus: collection (physically or through records), distribution, retention and withholding. Magazines were not only storage; they were a constant reminder of the core values of the system: loyalty and dependability. Their spatial organisation directed movement, controlled visibility, and created access through scale.

 

Writing was an additional change. Linear A, though undeciphered, functioned as an administrative tool for goods, indebtedness, and movement. Through this evolution of memory and administration, the Cretans created an archive of power.

 

Crete’s palaces show little apparent evidence of fortification; the popular assumption of a lack of violence remains entrenched. It is not so much that violent acts do not occur, but that they do not necessarily represent themselves overtly. Coercion is subtle: control through access to redistributed goods. Punishment is felt through exclusion — loss of stored food, loss of ritual participation, loss of security when scarcity arrives. To survive, one remains close to redistributive authority. Violence exists as an underlying condition rather than a visible event.

 

Religious institutions stabilised redistribution and identity. Rituals were linked to the palace; processions, offerings and performances validated authority. God and political authority became partners in establishing order. This structural alignment inhibited resistance because power was experienced as ubiquitous and non-existent, occurring everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. The permanence was recognised, yet the system carried a caveat: palatial concentration is efficient in stability and fragile in instability.

 

Around 1450–1400 BCE, the aristocratic palatial system collapsed (the cause remains debated); the certainty is that the political and redistribution centre failed. The elite lost control of the infrastructure that stabilised their authority. Other Aegean societies were aware.

By circa 1600 BCE, mainland power assumed a different form: fortified complexes at Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos and Thebes. Cyclopean walls were strategic affirmations. Authority became explicitly hierarchical and coercive. Linear B adapted administrative practice into records of obligation: writing as enforcement. Tablets reveal scale — tens of thousands of litres of oil, large flocks for textiles, inventories integrating economy and military preparedness.

 

When the Mycenaean system collapsed around 1200 BCE, record-keeping fell dramatically, indicated by the steep drop in Linear B production, revealing the blackout of administrative control. Fear became part of pedagogy. Crete used exclusion; Mycenae taught through visibility — walls, thrones, armour — deterrence requiring constant reinforcement. Failure, when it came, was catastrophically complete.

 

Between 1200 and 1100 BCE, Mycenaean civilisation fell apart: palaces burned, writing disappeared, long-distance exchange contracted, populations were displaced, and the administrative supports of kingship dissolved. Yet the collapse did not leave emptiness; it left residue. People carried tools, behaviours, traditions and suspicions shaped by centuries of concentrated power: knowledge that kingship can assist and threaten; familiarity with walls that protect and imprison. The concepts of power survive, and so does education at the cost of power.

 

Part III: Dissolution and Reconstruction (1200-800 BCE)

 

The palatial structure of authority collapsed not through singular events but through multiple gradual collapses of the palace system across the various regions over an extended time frame.

 

By 1100 BCE, the structures that supported the authority of the Bronze Age civilisation of the Aegean Sea were no longer functioning. Centres of administration or power had been destroyed or abandoned. The records kept by writing (tablets) for administrative purposes ceased to exist. Long-distance trade drastically declined. Populations were on the move.

 

What had vanished was not culture, but scale. There were no longer tablets to keep track of obligations that had been previously enforced through long-distance relationships. And yet pottery was still being produced; tools were still being worked; people's hands were still working. The world had compressed, but had not been made empty.

 

With the disappearance of the palatal system, the loss of the means (central storage) for long-term maintenance and control of power over time was also destroyed. Because of the inability to centralise the long-term maintenance of power and the inability to keep records (archives) or establish a central site to enforce authority by means of distance, the system had disintegrated. Thus, authority reverted back to local proximity; thereby making it locally, likewise contingent and fragile.

For those individuals living within the new disaggregated civilisation at that time, this was not simply a loss of civilisation (a structural collapse), but it was an immediate dislodging of the civilised routes of travel, obligation, and proportionate protection. As a result of these changes, some communities were both experiencing fragmentation and consolidation; some moved towards the coast of the Aegean, while others retreated inland. Thus, the maps began to dissolve and disintegrate.

 

Linear B, therefore, has disappeared very quickly within this transition and left no immediate trace. Linear B is often described as a total loss; however, it is not a complete loss, because memory cannot simply vanish when there is no longer a writing system. Therefore, memory, when transcribed to one or multiple persons' memories, has been reorganised.

 

As a consequence of the absence of archive documents (i.e., tablets) to carry the memory of the past, the ability to carry the past has to be reinvented. Hence, experience or memory itself has become an interactive, mobile format for experiencing time. Lessons are conserved; houses crumble, leaders fall, and loyalty can survive tragedy or loss.

 

The long-term verbal horizon is not a decline in culture; it is an adaptation to the world in which we live, where permanence is not a reasonable assumption. Relevance is more meaningful than precision.

Genealogy is now a significant feature of the world. The concept of descent should not be seen as antiquity; rather, it is a record of duty or obligation with respect to each other. To have knowledge of one's descendants automatically places one in a position to extend shelter, avenge, assist and/or restrain.

 

The lines of genealogy will constantly change with evolving alliances; thus, they will redefine how you remember the past in order to adapt to the present.

 

Leadership is emphasised on a personal level. As there is no bureaucratic insulation from leaders, each leader's authority or legitimacy varies with every new relationship with their people. The leader's lack of ability to persuade, protect or provide will lead to a rapid loss of standing as a leader. The concept of kingship will continue to exist, but it will only be a local phenomenon and is unstable and a product of repeated challenges.

 

The nature of violence will change. It will exist as a series of episodic and personal acts rather than systemic acts; raids will replace campaigns; feuds will continue to erupt when there is no resolution through arbitration or protection; and rotationally, there will be sporadic protection from violence. The lesson from this reality is that power that does not have the structure to support it cannot be relied upon to last.

 

The memory of the palaces remains; people reflect on what the palaces offered and what they cost them. There is no romanticism in the memory of the palaces that burned down; rather, it is to remember what it was that ruled from there.

 

Myth serves as the vessel through which people will remember their own past.

 

There will be many oral stories concerning fallen houses, wandering heroes, broken oaths and unresolved succession. They will not serve as a place of refuge, but as a way to help make sense of or condense their individual experiences of uncertainty. Glory and ruin will become inseparable in the context of later heroic remembrance of their own past. Home is important to them only because it was there at one time. Non-linear time exists in these stories; past and present coexist, active ancestors, and unfinished tales of wrongs in the past leave unfinished business. Memory becomes a moral rather than chronological compass. All stories share this moral dimension of memory, even the earliest written narrative. The first portion of the poem created in this age, the Iliad and the Odyssey, fulfilled an important need by giving voice to what had already been learned rather than creating a new form of Hellenic culture. These poems did not glorify the golden age of sovereign rule; they portray the reality of what happens when the systems that grant power fall apart. What survives when systems fail, what kind of rulers command their people's loyalty, and is a return ever possible? These poems were not records of a bygone heroic age but documents of survival produced by a culture that had experienced collapse and was determined not to forget that; the palaces are long gone. The only thing remaining is people who have learned through experience how to distrust the permanence of their environment, to value persuasion over command, and to create memories that can travel in a world where no longer will built structures remain.

From that foundation, new experimental societies will emerge.

 

CHAPTER FOUR

Growth, Legal Authority, and the Beginning of the City State - 800-500 BCE

 

By the eighth century BC, the Aegean Sea was beginning to thicken again; population growth would continue, settlements would become stable, and trade would become broader. Where there had once been no space between communities, there will be the creation of NEW forms of power in the spaces left behind by the failures of previous systems.

 

Communities are also facing the same major constraints resulting from limited land/equity/capital; however, the delay in accumulation of wealth and/or property will now create an accumulation of wealth and/or property because communities are remaining in existence long enough for accumulated advantage on the part of some members of the community. Despite much suspicion surrounding everlasting power over society, daily interactions expand considerably beyond customs; with this expanding interaction, two interconnected results will develop:

 

First, outwardly — conquer and spread into the new world, then secondly, inwardly, establish order to help regulate yourself and other people.

 

As communities throughout Hellas from 800 BC onward expanded from their own countries across the Mediterranean basin and Black Sea region to establish new flavours, (Southern Italy and Sicily), (Along the coasts of Asia Minor), (Along both sides of the northern Aegean), (Journey to Cyrene/Africa and beyond). The movement and establishment of Hellenic-speaking colonies throughout the Mediterranean basin and Black Sea region was not a result of any imaginative or planned centralised authority; rather, it was an episodic, local, and often benchmarked dispute between competing communities, ultimately driving further outward.

 

The Hellenic drive toward colonisation was no longer driven by adventure; rather, it was driven by relieving the pressure of non-farming communities, or those under land pressure for agricultural expansion to support their ever-growing population. As a result of exporting part of themselves as a mechanism of reducing pressures created from land scarcity, factional grievances, and instability, it has allowed increased ritual connections with communities from where the colonisers originated, while creating new agricultural and commercial networking connections across the basin and Black Sea regions with new colonies.

 

The outward expansion of Helleness and their respective colonies further caused conflict due to located disputes were simply transferred but not resolved through distance; instead, increased inequality, interpersonal competition, and the reliance on others for mutual benefit continue across the expansion of agricultural development, through the establishing and perpetuating of religious habits and developing agricultural collectivism through developing multiple elements of social hierarchy (establishing and on-going hierarchical systems)..

 

The Mediterranean Sea connected Helleness and colonies through a variety of communication avenues; as a result, Hellenic settlers and colonies developed ways for developing and maintaining collective identity relative to one another and others, irrespective of their cultures, through creating productive trading and competing arrangements using cultural identifiers to define themselves through contrasting one another with the use of comparative measures.

 

To a growing population of Helleness within their respective communities, existing forms of creating law and maintaining the status of individuals based on their collective memory, lineage or common ancestry, and previously established order have all but exited as recognised methods of settling disputes because the demographic pressures produced from their ongoing growth have expanded beyond any fixed memories of the past. Wealthy families have continued to control land and religious establishments; however, they have begun experiencing challenges to that control.

 

In response to these challenges, rather than organising purely democratic systems, a process called "formalisation" has begun to take place.

 

Written legal codes emerged from 700 BCE to help hold ruling elite members accountable through written promises rather than oral ones (Remember that "draconian" laws were enacted because people were angry over their loss of social control). While those laws offered no guarantees of a fair outcome, they provided both parties with an understanding of what would occur should they act outside of their promises. With expectations understood by both parties, neither has reason to retaliate, as there will always be an opportunity for a new beginning.

 

Though the law does not end violent acts (its primary purpose), it does relocate them.

 

Punishments now follow defined procedures rather than being personal retaliations. Feuds will no longer continue indefinitely without resolving through punishment by a governmental authority. Laws now give the appearance of being fair and equitable; they can buffer individuals involved in disputes against collapsing into hopelessness due to conflict.

 

The use of written codes will lessen the chances of people continuing to hate each other over misfortunes that lead oppressors to create an unending state of poverty for individuals. Although written laws offer no promise that a citizen will continue in good favour and one day return, they do give citizens the benefit of being able to start again after making an error.

 

Listening to poets will shape the political landscape as much as the law will shape it.

The poets from the pre-classical era (Hesiod, Archilochus, Solon) did more than provide poetry; they participated in creating change within their societies. Their work engages with communities suffering from poverty, obligations, and moral confusion. They connect and communicate with many different social classes because the argument is in the hands of the entire community.

 

Political infrastructure exists in voice.

 

Public persuasion, shaming through public discourse, exhorting through public discourse, remembering publicly — all of these functions provide stability to a community's ability to manage violence.

 

Violence becomes regulated, contained by a form that examines, anticipates, and structures it.

The hoplite-style warfare produces a cohesive, citizen-based army where heroes are no longer celebrated for their singular deeds but rather as products of their city's and the hoplite formation's contributions.

 

The battlefield is a simulation of the ideal citizenry of a city-state.

 

The internal community discipline is achieved not through visual displays of punishment but rather through the use of affirmative sanctions: exile, fine, loss of status. The community is able to manage the memory of its violent past by creating a sense of responsibility among its citizens to restrain themselves from committing violent acts.

 

Different communities respond differently to the pressures of community management: some will reinforce their hierarchies, while others will gradually expand participation.

 

By the end of the 6th century B.C.E., the Hellenic world had created neither a stable, definable form of government nor a unique configuration of governance; rather, it had developed a set of tools for order: colonisation, codified law, public discourse, organised violence, and ritual exclusion. As time passes, these different elements will be continually combined and reshaped.

 

The Hellenic world has not discovered what it has created. However, it has developed the ability to argue with itself and survive that argument.

 

The next challenge will be determining whether these systems of defence against the scale and force of conflict can continue to exist in the face of even greater numbers, wealth, and fear.

 

Part 5

The Achaemenid Empire, founded by Cyrus II in 550 BC

 

This was the first example of the kind of power that the Hellenic states had never seen before. The Achaemenid Empire occupied a vast geographical area, governed by sophisticated administration systems; great tolerance of local customs and religions; and a mighty military.

 

The Hellenic cities of Asia Minor rebelled against Persian rule in the early 5th century BC, and when Persian armies invaded the West, they created a dilemma for the Helleness: How to provide mutual defence without losing their political autonomy.

 

The Persian Wars (499 - 449 BC) were significant moments of clarity and heroism for the Helleness (Battle of Marathon (490 BC), Battle of Salamis (480 BC), and Battle of Plataea (479 BC)). But for the Hellenic states involved, they were also unstable alliances that were created by the existential threat of Persian invasion, in which Athens, Sparta and the numerous smaller Hellenic cities cooperated, but maintained their individual priorities.

 

The Persian Wars did not resolve the questions of survival and autonomy; rather, they made them more pronounced in their respective contexts and future implications for Hellenic civilisation. Ultimately, the focus shifted from survival to the management of conflict among the members of the coalition.

 

The two most prominent and impactful responses to the challenge of how to respond to Persian aggression were Athens and Sparta.

 

Continuity is available in Athens.

 

Power, as a result of the reforms of Cleisthenes and subsequent actions, becomes entirely decentralised. There are no ties of kinship or regional loyalty, but the two are reconstructed and broken down into tribes and demes, preventing easy unification of groups. The political office is rotated among an individual’s fellow tribesmen. Random selection of individuals to fill a political office is expanded. The establishment of (&0s/;0') (an exclusion from society) is created to avoid the emergence of too much power or influence in one person or a group of individuals.

 

Democracy, Empire, and Transience

 

From about 480 to 430 BCE, Athens’ experiment in democracy flourished, with the establishment of a fleet and the expansion of its participation in a naval expedition(s) providing rewards for collectivism. The establishment of pay for public service opens up more opportunities for the provision of public service. The debating of issues becomes part of government.

 

The Delian League was originally conceived as a military alliance against the Persians, but it became the Athenian Empire. As a result, all revenues are attracted to Athens. All resources extracted from other regions make it possible to fund the civic activities of the Athenian people. All leisure activities are possible due to the existence of slavery.

 

The Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE) exposed the limits of the Athenian method. Prolonged conflict strains individual participation, while intensive decision-making breaks down when under pressure, and opportunistic demagogues exploit the range of available methods of doing things, including the emergency granting of broad authority, leading to erosion of trust and increasing use of coercive power.

 

The final end of the Athenian model occurred when the Spartans defeated the Athenians in 404 BCE, leading to the suspension of democracy in Athens, which would then be returned (but without an endpoint to that return).

 

Rather than achieve a fixed ending point for freedom, Athens achieved a method for maintaining that freedom through continual disruption - by continually working from a memory of what did not work, practising procedures that promote restraint and allowing for broad participation in government activities. Whenever any of those methods is abandoned, dominion returns rapidly.

Fear of loss establishes stabilisation of power, but does not create renewal.

 

Alexander and the End of the Polis Solutions

 

The fourth century sees another significant shift of balance to the use of force to unify the exposed realm of Macedon, headed by Philip II and later Alexander III. Although the polis remains functionally as a continuing form, it is no longer treated as an independent political actor.

With the unprecedented expansion of the Hellenic world as a result of Alexander's conquests between 336 and 323 BCE, Hellenic culture was preserved in many locations, expanded into an unprecedented historical setting and put into operation. The Hellenic language is being used to express many forms of knowledge, both as individuals and as groups (cities).

 

The sheer size of the relationship between the government entity and the governed individual is so large that only a small number of individuals can have much of a relationship with the city of Philadelphia, where they are governed. Therefore, there is no chance for a long-lasting commitment through the process of debate that defines the relationship between the various parts of the polis, and therefore, this was the final end to the polis solution.

 

At this point, the question is no longer about being the Governor of a City, but how one can live well as part of a system that is too big and cannot give you feedback.

 

PART 6:

After Athens: Knowledge and Philosophy without Citizenship (323-30 B.C.E.)

 

The Death of Alexander, 323 B.C.E, did not end the empire; it destroyed all certainty about who was in charge of it.

 

What happened was not a Collapse of the Bronze Age nor the Roman consolidation, but the dispersion of the authorities, culture and Hellenic way of life that created competing kingdoms from the territories that Alexander conquered. Land was passed down from Dynasties, and the power became mobile and unstable. Boundaries were unclear. Capitals moved. Armies determined the heir.

 

The city-state is still a city-state, but it is no longer a system with the same sovereign authority.

A city-state is still able to self-govern, maintain public institutions, and produce public life. However, the ultimate authority of law, taxation and war is now held by a distant court.

 

Philosophy is turning inward.

 

In the gardens of Athens, Epicurus taught his students how to find peace through friendship. He taught that happiness is obtainable even in a world that is governed by distant rulers and fickle fortunes. Epicureans seek peace by cultivating friendships, practising moderation, and pursuing discipline through pleasure among small, select groups. Tranquillity becomes a form of resistance to the unpredictable nature of the broader world.

 

According to Stoicism, freedom does not exist where judgment is not the ultimate authority. Although people can be forced into submission through external coercion, individuals cannot be forced to give their consent to any action or event. Ethics will be portable because ethics must be grounded on reason and the natural order rather than on laws passed by civil authorities.

 

These schools of thought are not intended to be "escapist" retreats. They are adaptive strategies that are intended to help individuals maintain their autonomy after they lose the ability to influence their citizenship.

 

Knowledge at Scale

 

The Hellenistic Empire created a significant increase in the expansion of knowledge. Knowledge was consolidated and classified at a central location, including the Library and Museum in Alexandria. This library contained extensive resources in mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and philology.

 

However, there was a cost associated with the intellectual accomplishment produced by these large volumes of knowledge; one of the costs was that knowledge was no longer connected with citizenship. Instead, expertise has replaced citizenship as the basis of social organisation. An educated individual becomes a subject instead of a co-creator of laws by the empire. Knowledge has expanded, but the individual's influence has contracted.

 

The nature of Hellenic has also changed; it was once a tool used at the local level, but has now morphed into an international device that can be used to communicate around the globe. People no longer identify by their location, but rather by culture.

 

The Changing Role of Religion in a World Without a Centre

 

Mystery religions offer initiation as opposed to membership; salvation instead of protection; and personal change instead of public stability. They traverse widely. They appeal to hope and despair, as well as to the individual's interest in providing purpose and direction at a time when leadership seems remote and impersonal.

 

Continuity Without Authority

 

The Hellenistic world retains Hellenic culture while removing all forms of political authority; art has prospered, science has advanced, and philosophy has matured. However, the concept of "self-government" has diminished.

 

Part VII: Rome, Christianity, and the End of Hellenic Political Time.

 

Rome does not conquer Hellas in one moment, just as it does not come as an obvious enemy. It conquers Hellas through treaties, the mediation of conflicts, and through the use of military force that – at least initially – seem to be nothing more than short-term solutions to problems that are primarily local in nature.

 

However, by the time that the last vestige of Hellenic autonomy is extinguished, Hellas has already been stripped of its very substance.

 

Hellenic politics were based upon cyclical time with respect to the seasons (e.g. harvests), the cities’ assembly/office cycle, the celebration of various festivals, and memories of catastrophic collapses. There was a clear expectation that powers would rise and fall throughout time. Conversely, Rome is based upon linear time and lays out its institutions as much for their ability to continue to function as they do for the ability of those institutions to rule.

 

Laws Have No Arguments to Make

 

Rome established a unified law, and they were able to impose it on many people throughout their empire. Some of the benefits of this included more legal stability, legal procedures that are more consistent, and a legal system that can be expected to protect individuals in a way that wasn't possible under the Hellenic law system.

 

Hellenic Thought After the End of Hellas's Power

 

Hellenic thought will not decline under the Roman Empire; it will expand.

Hellenic political time does not end with silence; it ends with memory.

The Hellenic world does not leave us with answers; it warns us.

 

Conclusion:

 

Although the land is unchanged, the way in which humans move through the land has definitely changed.

 

The inhabitants of the region taught themselves through trial and error that no arrangement is permanent. Power will rise and fall. The order will stabilise and exceed its limitations. Freedom will arise, require maintenance, and die when ignored. These experiences are not stored as instructional materials; they are communicated as narratives, gestures, and warnings.

What remains is not the political system or philosophical method, but the disposition of those who are prepared to question authority, to doubt complacency, and to keep a record of collapse even whilst experiencing prosperity.

 

Walking produces the knowledge that the people residing in Hellas acquired slowly and at significant cost: living together requires ongoing practice rather than an endpoint. Power requires vigilance rather than allegiance, and freedom exists only if you choose to continue to support it.

 

The land remains.

Questions remain.