While later on this criteria would seem to be somewhat restrictive, it was actually a very wide group, being made up of peasant-farmers who owned at least some of their own land in most states, this included roughly at least the upper third of the free adult male population. Political honours were arranged according to the property men owned, and shared on some level by those who could afford to bare their own armament and panoply. The 6th century BC polis was commonly reorganised to produce vast bodies of trained military men, who would come to dominate politics. The military changes at the end of the 8th century BC in terms of weaponry, tactics and military personnel in turn brought further changes to social morality and politics. At the turn of the 7th century BC, in terms of supplies of raw materials and metal production skills and capacities, the Greek world’s economic base for weapons manufacturing was stable enough to allow for the breakthrough of a new form of warfare where before the Greek world had vast unorganised armies lead by champions, these new heavily armoured troops became the most effective military force in the Mediterranean, dominating the sea without much of a need to change their ways for centuries to come, and influencing other cultures around them in the process, until the rise of Macedon under Philip and Alexander, and eventually until the rise and conquests of Rome. In turn, this was crucial for the Greeks successful colonisation as they met tough and unfamiliar opponents across the Mediterranean.
Metal trading, and its importance to those involved in it, were the symptoms of the military’s expanding technology. A warrior’s status in Archaic Greece, and his parts to play in justifying and maintaining a collection of economic benefits, ethical values and political institutions, are already clear.
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