The Hello and welcome back to the history of ancient Greece.

Episode 11 from Oikos to Polis.

On episode 8, we discussed the society that was described in Homer,

but we only gave attention to the Basilets, as that was what Homer's accounts were based on.

But now we must circle back and discuss the community, household and economy in the late dark

age.

At the beginning of the 8th century BC,

most Greek settlements were still quite small,

containing only a few dozen families.

A handful of major settlements such as Argos, Athens, Corinth, and Sparta,

probably held several hundred or more families. All of the important sites and most of the

smaller ones had been continuously occupied since the Bronze Age for the obvious

reason that they were good places for people to live.

With their surrounding fields and pastures, they were mostly economically self-sufficient.

But their life still centered on the village. An isolated family living out in the countryside was rare, even in early Greece.

Farmers lived in the villages and walked out each morning to their plots, as they still do today

in rural areas of Greece. As such, Greek villages were enduring, close-knit communities, as the various families lived side by side for generations,

intermarrying with other families in the village and in other villages of the Demos. The small village can be likened to an extended family,

with the village Bassalayas as a sort of patriarch.

As we saw a few episodes ago, law was based upon tradition. On the whole, public disapproval

deterred most bad behavior. Difficult disputes were resolved by the Bassace and the simple court of the village elders.

Survival of the village depended upon cooperation amongst the families

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