page_title: Archaic Greece
section_title: Literature
hierarchical_section_title: Archaic Greece / Culture / Literature
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Alphabet grec peint sur la panse d'une coupe attique à figures noires. Español: Alfabeto griego arcaico, variante occidental. Deutsch: Frühform des griechischen Alphabets auf einer attischen Schwarzfigurenschale. English: Early Greek alphabet painted on the body of an Attic black-figure cup.
context_page_description: Archaic Greece was the period in Greek history lasting from the eighth century BC to the second Persian invasion of Greece in 480 BC, following the Greek Dark Ages and succeeded by the Classical period. In the archaic period, Greeks settled across the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, as far as Marseille in the west and Trapezus in the east; and by the end of the archaic period, they were part of a trade network that spanned the entire Mediterranean.
  The archaic period began with a massive increase in the Greek population and a series of significant changes that rendered the Greek world at the end of the 8th century entirely unrecognisable from its beginning. According to Anthony Snodgrass, the archaic period was bounded by two revolutions in the Greek world. It began with a "structural revolution" that "drew the political map of the Greek world" and established the poleis, the distinctively Greek city-states, and it ended with the intellectual revolution of the Classical period.
  The archaic period saw developments in Greek politics, economics, international relations, warfare and culture. It laid the groundwork for the Classical period, both politically and culturally.
context_section_description: The earliest extant Greek literature comes from the archaic period.  Poetry was the predominant form of literature in the period.  Alongside the dominant lyric and epic traditions, tragedy began to develop in the archaic period, borrowing elements from the pre-existing genres of archaic Greek poetry.  By the sixth century BC the first written prose in Greek literature appeared.
caption: Attic black-figure vessel with double alphabet inscription, showing new letters ΥΧ[Φ]Ψ, and ΥΧΦΨΩ. Probably early 6th c. BC
exif: {"Image Model": "C8080WZ", "Image ImageDescription": "OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image DateTime": "2019:06:22 06:55:56", "Image ImageWidth": "1600", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image ImageLength": "1398", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 20, 0, 1, 0, 20, 0, ... ]", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Macintosh", "Image ExifOffset": "567", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image Make": "OLYMPUS CORPORATION", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2005:12:20 12:58:36", "EXIF FNumber": "16/5", "EXIF FocalLength": "213/10", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1398", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "31/10", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2005:12:20 12:58:36", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF GainControl": "Low gain up", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "125", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/15"}