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  • 8 - Early Iron Age Greece

  • from Part II - Early Mediterranean Economies and the Near East
  • Edited by Walter Scheidel, Stanford University, California, Ian Morris, Stanford University, California, Richard P. Saller, Stanford University, California
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Economic History of the Greco-Roman World
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    29 November 2007, pp 211-241

  • Summary

    This chapter reviews the economic history of Early Iron Age (EIA) Greece. First, it summarizes the evidence, and quantifies some aspects of EIA economic performance. Next, the chapter suggests that 1200-1000 BC saw economic collapse in Aegean Greece; 1000-800 BC saw stagnation; and that recovery began in the eighth century. However, it also argues that the most important economic take-off only came later, around 550-500 BC. The chapter discusses economic structures, before offering the conclusions. Through the 1960s and 1970s Homerists and archaeologists largely ignored each other's models of the EIA. In the 1980s a new synthesis formed, seeing the archaeological Dark Age model as valid before 800, but making Homer and Hesiod crucial to the eighth century. EIA life was more wretched than at any time between the rise of the Minoan palaces and the death of Justinian. Greeks died younger, lived in more squalid surroundings, and had fewer goods.