Historical Ramblings of an Ancient Greek Historian

I found out last week while doing research about ancient Sicily that there was a powerful tribe called the Omphake that had control of the Greek colony of Gela. This tribe was so powerful and controlled most of the grain supply in Western Sicily that they forced the Geloans to build them one of the largest palaces on Sicily with both Greek and native art inside. This shows that is important to remember Greeks are sometimes not as powerful as you think.

Although, I have not read it in a textbook, I have seen in Minoan Greek palace frescoes that the ancient Minoans used to bull leap for sport. They used to get in a corral, run alongside the bull, jump on it's back, and jump off in a multitude of ways. It is an awesome thing to imagine to say the least but the Minoans thought nothing of it because it was a ritual to them. They bull leaped on occasion to show their dedication to the gods, especially Poseidon, during a festival they had a couple times a year (I believe). So next time you watch a rodeo show remember that the Minoan Greeks were messing with bulls 4,000 years ago for fun.

In the ancient world, eastern Mediterranean trade was done in one of the first great economic cities, the island of Tyre, in a building called the Eurychoros, which just means the big place in ancient Phoenician. The ancients were so clever with their names.

So while researching for my master's thesis, I came across this bit of knowledge about what the Phoenician workshops made when reading Maria Aubet's The Phoenicians and the West. It is said by Aubet on page 79 that "the Phoenician workshops became famous for the production of sumptuous articles of carved ivory of gold, silver and bronze receptacles and of gold jewellry with filgree and granular decoration, which we find mainly outside of Phoenicia in royal and princely tombs and in the palaces of the East" in Mesopotamia and Egypt. This shows that the Phoenicians were the craftsmen making a lot of the cool objects that are found in ancient world tombs. So just remember it was the Phoenicians "the people of purpler dye" that were really good at making gold, silver, bronze, and ivory objects in the ancient world. 

In the Classical age, the women of Sparta actually had more power than more people would expect, according to Spartan historians. This is because they gained power in Spartan society from owning 2/5 of Sparta's land by about 300 B.C. They got this much land in the time of King Agis II when the Spartans competed for Greek hegemony because most of the sons of families died in war. So when the sons died, the daughters of Spartan families ended up getting half of each son's share of land, while the father got the other half. But then when the father passed away, the daughter would get all of the land put onto her dowry for when she got married. So for a short time in the Classic Period, there were times when Spartan woman owned a significant of Spartan land and had extreme influence. And once there was even less men around 250 B.C. and when Sparta's population decreased substantially, women ended up having way more power than they ever had. Solely because in the classical period they decided how land was distributed among the Spartan male population, especially if their father or brother could not control who they married. So Spartan women ended up controlling a significant amount of the land in Classical Sparta.

So this makes it clear that in the late Iron Age around 900 B.C. that the Phoenicians were very active players in maritime trade and commercial services in the Levant. So I figured I should tell you this fact because not only because are the Phoenicians are given their due but also because it is always good to know more about the Great Temple built by Solomon. 

These twelve individual first-place finishes (the last of which he achieved at age 36) narrowly surpasses the 11 golds of Michael Phelps. It should be noted that while Phelps did technically win more golds overall, some of those were in relays… and none while wearing battle armour.