Greece

Greece

Introduction

The term Ancient Greece refers to the period of the history of Greece, ranging from the Dark Ages of Greece and the Dorian invasion. The culture of Greece had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire, which spread through the many territories of Europe. Modern Greece has its roots in the civilization of ancient Greece, considered the cradle of Western civilization.

Greek civilization was essentially maritime, commercial and expansive. A historical reality, in which the geographic component played a crucial role to the extent that the physical characteristics of the southern Balkan Peninsula, on the rugged terrain, hindered agricultural activity and internal communications, and its long length coast, favored its expansion overseas.

Geography

The concept of "ancient Greece" includes, from a geographic perspective, a diverse set of territories united by the same historical process based on the strong ties maintained their peoples and the commonalities they shared. Its inhabitants are related to this set as Hellas, and it was the Romans who then assigned the name of Greece.

Hellas was based in three regions, two continental and, third, insular. Continental regions included the Balkan Peninsula and the coastal lands of Asia Minor (now Turkey), the island, meanwhile, included all the islands of the Aegean Sea (Crete, the islands of the Dodecanese, the islands of the Cyclades and the land near the coast of Asia) (Clogg 2007, 101).

The Aegean islands represented the contact points of the Greek world and acted as facilitators of communication and commerce. Euboea, separated by a narrow channel of the eastern coast of Boeotia and Attica (the Strait of Euripus), is made ??up of rolling hills with fertile soil suitable for agricultural crops, activities ranching and mining and copper work. Among the Cyclades, on the other hand, there are some other volcanic features of fertile soil suitable for growing citrus and grapes. Some, such as Paros, based their economy on the production of marble, Sifnos, meanwhile, was an important center of silver production in the archaic period. The Dodecanese archipelago, a group of islands in southwestern Anatolia, include Samos and Ikaria that plains alternating with hilly terrain, led to grain production in the latter, and olive and vine on the slopes.

Climate

The climate in Greece is divided into three classes:

The Mediterranean climate, which has winters and warm humid, and summers hot and dry. The temperature rarely goes to extremes, although some snowfall occurs occasionally in Athens, Crete and Cyclades in the ...