The Iron Age
The era of iron metallurgy from c. 1200 BCE — the technological substrate of Classical Civilization
Also known as: Iron-Age period, Iron-age invasions
The Iron Age is the technological-civilizational era that begins with the iron-using invasions of c. 1200 BCE — the great pulse of population movement that 'ended Cretan civilization forever' (EoC 191) and ushered in Classical Civilization and several of its contemporaries. Quigley reads the Iron Age 'Dark Age that lasted for several centuries' as the Dark Age performing 'a double role as the period of invasion' for the dying Bronze Age civilizations and the period of mixture and gestation for their iron-using successors (EoC 191).
Threshold: the Iron Age invasions
The Iron Age opens, in Quigley's chronology, with the migrations of c. 1200 BCE — the Dorians into Greece, the Sea Peoples into the eastern Mediterranean, the Phrygians and Carians into Anatolia, the Celtic speakers into central Europe. 'In the Aegean and Balkans these Iron Age invaders ended Cretan civilization forever and established a Dark Age that lasted for several centuries. This Dark Age, centering on the period 1000 B.C., marks the transition between Cretan civilization and its descendant Classical Mediterranean civilization, performing a double role as the period of invasion' for the older order and of mixture for the new (EoC 191). The same pulse of population movement destroyed the Hittite empire — 'a few generations' after its widest extent around 1300 BCE it 'perished... from the onslaughts of invading Iron Age intruders, cousins of the Dorians who were simultaneously destroying Cretan civilization' (EoC 69) — and dramatically reshaped the political map of the Levant and the Aegean.
Iron Age weapons systems and political form
In Weapons Systems and Political Stability Quigley argues that the Iron Age represents one of the great inflection points of his weapons-systems theory. After the Iron Age invasions, defensive power reaches a 'second phase of great defensive dominance just after the Iron Age invasions in Europe (say, about 1000 B.C.)' (WSPS 70). A 'third offensive phase is associated with iron weapons, the rise of cavalry, and the growth of the Iron Age empires of the last five centuries before Christ' (WSPS 71). Cheap and mass-producible, iron tools and weapons democratize equipment relative to the Bronze Age and make possible the citizen-soldier infantries of the Greek polis and Republican Rome. The aristocratic charioteer of the Bronze Age is replaced by the heavily armored hoplite or legionary; political forms shift accordingly from sacred kingship toward oligarchy, republic, and citizen empire. Quigley uses this transition as one of his clearest illustrations of the principle that weapons systems shape political stability.
Civilizations of the Iron Age
Quigley reads several major civilizations as Iron Age formations. Classical Civilization — the Greco-Roman world — is the paradigmatic Iron Age civilization in The Evolution of Civilizations, and its full life cycle (Mixture in the Iron Age dark age c. 1100–800 BCE; Gestation in the archaic Greek period; Expansion through Athens and the Hellenistic world; Conflict from the Roman civil wars; Universal Empire under Augustus; Decay from the third century CE) unfolds entirely within the Iron Age technological envelope. Persian civilization, the late Mesopotamian formations, and the Sinic maturation of the Warring States and Han periods are likewise Iron Age. Quigley emphasizes that the Iron Age permits much larger and more durable political formations than the Bronze Age — universal empires of the scale of Persia, Rome, Han China, or Mauryan India — because iron-equipped armies can be raised cheaply and at scale and because iron tools support the agricultural surpluses such empires require.
The Iron Age in Quigley's larger theory
The Iron Age is, in Quigley's analytical use, a technological horizon rather than a civilizational unit: like the Bronze Age it spans many parallel civilizations at different points in their cycles. Its analytical value for Quigley is twofold. First, it isolates the variable of weapons technology — iron weapons appear across very different cultures and produce comparable political effects, supplying a kind of natural experiment for the theory. Second, it supplies the technological substrate against which the seven-stage civilizational model can be tested in its 'classical' case: Quigley regards Classical Civilization as the best-documented and most fully traced example of the cycle, and the Iron Age supplies the entire envelope of that case. After Classical Civilization decays, the Iron Age technological substrate persists through the Dark Ages and the Middle Ages until the gradual rise of gunpowder weapons begins to change the rules again at the end of the Western medieval period.
Cited in
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 4 Quigley
Iron Age Invasions, 1200-1000 B.C. ............................................ 205
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 69 Quigley
Known as the Hittite civilization, this had its beginnings after 2000 B.C., reached its widest imperial extent about 1300, and perished a few generations later from the onslaughts of invading Iron Age intruders, cousins of the Dorians who were simultaneously destroying Cretan civilization.
- evolution-of-civilizations · p. 191 Quigley
In the Aegean and Balkans these Iron Age invaders ended Cretan civilization forever and established a Dark Age that lasted for several centuries.
- weapons-systems-political-stability · p. 70 Quigley
Defensive power was very strong in the prehistoric period before 4000 B.C., reached a second phase of great defensive dominance just after the Iron Age invasions in Europe (say, about 1000 B.C.).
- weapons-systems-political-stability · p. 71 Quigley
The third offensive phase is associated with iron weapons, the rise of cavalry, and the growth of the Iron Age empires of the last five centuries before Christ.