II.

The Lands and Settlement of Ancient Greece

The heartland of ancient Greece consisted of the mountainous Balkan Peninsula and southern Italian Peninsula, as well as dozens of rugged islands in the northern Mediterranean region. Important settlements were located on the southern Balkan Peninsula; on the Pelopónnisos (Peloponnesus), a large peninsula connected to the southern end of the Balkan Peninsula by the Isthmus of Corinth; and on the large islands of Crete (Kríti), south of the Pelopónnisos, and Sicily, south of the Italian Peninsula.

Mountains acted like walls separating communities. The Pindus Mountains, which run down the middle of the Balkan Peninsula, were the dominant range, with an average elevation of 2,650 m (8,700 ft). The mountains were once heavily wooded, but early Greeks steadily deforested the slopes for fuel, housing, and ships. Most fields level enough for farming and raising animals were small, supporting communities of only a few hundred inhabitants. Some locations, such as Sicily and Thessaly, had broader plains that supported larger communities. A few cities, such as Athens, Corinth, and Syracuse, grew to have 100,000 or more inhabitants because they had more farmland, deposits of valuable natural resources, and excellent ports. Both the Italian and Balkan peninsulas have jagged coastlines.

The Mediterranean Sea, which connected Greeks with each other and with the rest of the world, encompasses the Aegean Sea, an arm that extends between the Balkan Peninsula and Asia Minor, and the Ionian Sea, which lies between the Balkan and Italian peninsulas. In the world of the ancient Greeks, the seas were more efficient travel routes than roads, which were no more than dirt trails. Ships could go much faster and carry much more cargo than wagons bumping over rough terrain. Access to the sea was so important that most Greek communities were within 60 km (40 mi) of the coast. Cities that controlled good harbors grew prosperous from the trade that flowed to them and from the fees they could charge shipowners and merchants. Eventually, ancient Greeks inhabited about 700 communities clustered around the Mediterranean Sea. The settlements reached from the Iberian Peninsula (now occupied mostly by Spain) in the west to the Mediterranean coast of the Middle East in the east, extending southward to the northern coast of Africa.