Historical Context: The Eastern Greeks in the Sixth Century B.C.

A historical introduction to the Greek world of Asia Minor in the 6th century BCE presents a mixture of east and west: the blossoming city-states of the Eastern Aegean stand alongside the rise of the Lydian and Persian empires. The Aeolian, Ionian, and Dorian cities of modern-day Turkey and the nearby islands are well-known for their art, architecture, technology, science, and poetry, but equally famed for their multiple conquests by Lydian Croesus and Persian Cyrus, and their resistance that sparked the Ionian revolt in 499 B.C.

Despite the rise of the Lydian dynasty under Gyges in the seventh century B.C. and the continued aggression against the coast by his successors down to Croesus, the eastern Greek cities emerged as strong individual communities ready to expand politically and commercially. While the subjugation of virtually all of the cities on the mainland of Asia Minor except Miletus by the middle of the sixth century meant the payment of tribute to the Lydians, and later to the Persians, neither kingdom seems to have interfered excessively with the affairs of the coastal region, and the eastern Greeks developed overseas contacts through mercenary activity, colonization, and trade—to Syria, Egypt, the Greek mainland, the Black Sea, and the western Mediterranean.

The cultural advancements of the eastern Greeks include the development of urban centers and sanctuaries, such as those at Miletus, Ephesus, Clazomenae, Samos, Chios, Rhodes, Cnidus, and Halicarnassus. The archaic temples of Hera at Samos and the Artemisium at Ephesus highlight the eastern influence on the art and architecture of the Greek world. Decorated fineware pottery in the Wild Goat and Fikellura styles was made for local use and export throughout the coastal region. Coarseware transport amphoras carried agricultural products such as wine and olive oil throughout the Mediterranean region and especially into the Black Sea. The coastal cities of Asia Minor and the East Greek islands were renowned as the home of epic poetry, with Homer himself born on the island of Chios. Lyric poets, whose topics ranged from politics to love affairs, include Mimnermus, Terpander, Alcaeus, and Sappho. The science and philosophy of Thales, Hecataeus, and Anaximander placed the eastern Greeks at the forefront of the cultural advances of the sixth century.

At the same time as they were making progress in science, philosophy, art, architecture, and sculpture, the inhabitants of coastal Asia Minor introduced coinage to the larger Greek world, probably in the late seventh century B.C.. The historian Herodotus calls the Lydians (1.94) "first of men whom we know to strike and use currency of gold and silver;" the eastern Greeks adopted the system of coinage shortly afterwards. The effect of an early coinage on the economy and trade of the Archaic period is somewhat unclear, but the sixth century appears to usher in a shift away from Homeric mechanisms of gift exchange and the circulation of goods alongside political alliances. Less visible in the textual sources, but no less critical to the transport of goods in the archaic Mediterranean, are the trading ventures undertaken more obviously for profit on international and local levels. The lyric poet Theognis (fr. 179-80) urges men to "seek over land and the broad-backed sea alike … to find a release from grievous poverty," and Sappho's brother Charaxus makes his fortune as an early trader of wine at Naucratis, the Greek trading emporion in Egypt.

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