Greece

Part of the Balkan peninsula, Greece borders on Albania, North Macedonia and Bulgaria and has not always had peaceful relations with its poorer northern neighbours. Since Greece joined the EU early on, it has in general had a prosperous economy, in spite of recent setbacks. Tourism is a most important part of its economy, accompanied by shipping. The decision to make Piraeus, the port of Athens, the terminal of the Chinese new silk road project means that Greece will retain its geo-strategic importance for many years to come.

History

Today’s visitors to Greece have the opportunity to trace the fingerprints of Greek history from the Paleolithic Era to the Roman Period in the hundreds of archaeological sites, as well as in archaeological museums.

The first traces of human habitation in Greece appeared during the Paleolithic, but during the Neolithic Age that followed, habitation spread throughout the country. Fromm the Bronze age, flourishing settlements are found on Crete, Mainland Greece, the Cyclades and the Northeastern Aegean, each with characteristic cultural patterns.

From the 2nd Millennium B.C., organized kingdoms appeared on Minoan Crete, with a communications network based on Knossos Palace influencing the Eastern Mediterranean region.

On mainland Greece, after the end of Cretan civilisation due to the eruption of Santorini (around 1500BC),  the Mycenean Greeks became the dominant force in the Aegean. Mycenean acropolises (citadels) in Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos, Thiva, Glas, Athens and Iolcus, became the centres of various kingdoms. These were destroyed in around 1200 BC, leading to migration to the coastal regions of Asia Minor and Cyprus, where they founded new cities.

But the dark ages followed, with little activity or progress.

The Greek renaissance started in the 9th C BC, when the city-states were formed, the Greek alphabet created and the Homeric epics were composed. Subsequently, the city-states established colonies as far as Spain to the west, the Black Sea to the north and North Africa to the south.

Athens came to dominate the other states, but faced the invasion of the huge Persian armies under Darius. Athens led the resistance by land and at sea. After the defeat of the Persians, with the city states under Sparta fighting Athens and its allies in the Peloponnesian Wars, power was fragmented.

The Macedonians, with Philip II and his son Alexander the Great, began to play a leading role in Greece. Alexander’s campaign to revenge the Persian invasion and wrest Asia Minor from Persian control radically changed the situation in the world. Persia was defeated and Alexander conquered massive territories as far as India.

After the death of Alexander, the vast empire he had created was then divided among his generals, creating the kingdoms of the Hellenistic Period (3rd – 1st Century B.C.). The Greek city-states remained more or less autonomous, but lost much of their old power. The Roman conquest of Greece in 146 B.C. forced the country to join the expanding Roman Empire. Most of the Roman emperors, who admired Greek culture, acted as benefactors to the Greek cities, especially Athens.

After the travels of Apostle Paul during the 1st Century A.D, Christianity gradually spread all over the Empire. The decision by Constantine the Great to move the capital from Rome to Constantinople (324 A.D.) marked the beginning of the Byzantine Empire, during which Orthodox Christianity spread throughout Greece.

After 1204, when Constantinople was taken by western crusaders, parts of Greece was apportioned out to western leaders, while the Venetians occupied strategic positions in the Aegean (islands or coastal cities), in order to control the trade routes. The reoccupation of Constantinople by the Byzantines in 1262 marked a short-lived revival.

From the 14th Century, the newly-formed Ottoman state gradually began to seize parts of the empire and captured Constantinople in 1453. Crete was the final area of Greece that was occupied by the Ottomans in 1669.

Around four centuries of Ottoman rule followed, up to the beginning of the Greek War of Independence in 1821. Numerous monuments from the Byzantine and the Ottoman periods have been preserved, such as Byzantine churches and monasteries, Ottoman fortifications and mosques, charming Byzantine and Frankish castles, quite a few of which retain their Ottoman or Byzantine structure.

In 1830, the Greek War of Independence resulted in the creation of an independent Greek kingdom of limited extent. Subsequently, more areas with Greek populations were gradually added to the Greek state. Greece’s sovereign land reached maximum extent after the Turkish war of Independence and exchange of populations after the end of Word War I. The Dodecanese Islands were added later.

The Axis occupation (1941–1944) of Greece took place during World War II (see Central Macedonia). The war resulted in a highly polarized struggle between left and right ideologies that started in 1943, targeting the power vacuum that started after the Nazis left. Τhe Greek Civil War took place between the Greek government army (supported by the United Kingdom and the United States) and the Democratic Army of Greece — the military branch of the Communist Party (supported by Yugoslavia, Albania and Bulgaria).

Despite some setbacks, the government forces eventually won, largely due to increased American aid, the failure of the Democrats to attract sufficient recruits, and the side-effects of the Tito–Stalin split of 1948. The final victory led to Greece’s membership in NATO (1952), thus affecting the entire Cold War. Greece was left with a strongly anti-communist security establishment, which would lead to the  military junta taking power between 1967–1974 and a legacy of political polarisation that persists to this day.

Websites and maps

The official site of the Via Egnatia Foundation is a good place to start: https://www.viaegnatiafoundation.eu/. This site and the books produced by its founders have information on routes, accommodation and local history and geography for the whole of the Via Egnatia route.

The Geographer Michele Fasolo has mapped the original Via Egnatia in his books and articles.  Yannis Lolos is the recognised authority on the history of the route.

Other informative website area:

http://www.fuorivia.org/en/fuorivia-egnatia/ is the website of a group who are walking and documenting states of the Via Egnatia.

https://www.thevintagenews.com/2017/12/25/via-egnatia/