The Historical Context: From Renaissance to Radical Change

During the ninth and eighth centuries BCE in Archaic Greece, progress and development were visible in a number of areas: demographic growth, improvement of living standards in general, better exploitation of the land and the development of agriculture and, consequently, the creation of conditions that allowed a portion of the population to specialize in a range of occupations. There was also the development of pottery and metalworking, resulting in a class of craftsmen and merchants that would lead to greater contact with other peoples. Greek culture spread in the Mediterranean region through colonization, particularly in Southern Italy and Sicily, with the development of architecture and the arts, the systemization of the twelve Olympian gods, the appearance of alphabetical writing, the recording and dissemination of the Homeric epics and, finally, the birth of city-states. The period witnessed an intensification of worship in sacred places and temples, the development of Panhellenic sanctuaries and the formation of a common national consciousness. Within Archaic Greece’s political context, epic and lyric poetry, drama and philosophy were developed and transcribed, which are used as written evidence of the genealogy of radical criminology.