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1 results

  • 7b - The development of ideas, 750 to 500 B.C.

  • from 7 - Archaic Greek society
  • Edited by John Boardman, N. G. L. Hammond, D. M. Lewis, M. Ostwald
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    24 November 1988, pp 389-413

  • Summary

    The development of thought and ideas during the period, 750 to 500 BC, in which the city state came into being have been heavily affected by three factors: the continuing influence of the epic tradition, the spread of literacy, and the social, political and economic changes associated with the polis itself. Individuals like Hesiod and Archilochus as well as self-declared sages played their part like the earlier Presocratics. The period was one of major changes in the whole literary and intellectual sphere, beginning as it did with Homer and ending with the rise of philosophy and drama. In tracing the development of ideas, one is at least entitled to assume that the mental capacities implied in Homer were the equal possession of many of his contemporaries. Finally the development of law and order that had been an essential part of social and political evolution depended heavily on the control of vendetta and the rationalizing of archaic ideas about pollution.