Hittites in Greece?

Could the Hittites conceivably attack and even settle in Greece? The Hittite Empire stretched from Syria to the Aegean. They were an Indo-European people, and judging by how similar their names sound, they don't seem to be all that distantly related to the Ancient Greeks (makes sense, they were both early Indo-European groups in the area, but that aside). The Hittites often got wrapped up in wars with Egypt over Canaan and Syria, as well as other local powers, but they had vassal states all along the Aegean, including the mythical Troy.

Historically the opposite of what I ask happened, with Ancient Greeks settling in Anatolia, and helped bring about the collapse of the Hittite Empire. I'm curious if the Hittites could possibly replace the Greeks in parts of the Balkans, or if that is too far?
 
I'm not familiar with the Hittittes beyond the whole Iron Weapons thing. Did they possess atleast a rudimentary fleet to get across the straits? Would it have been enough to prevent any greek ship from attacking and sinking it?
 
Only the coastal cities on modern Turkey I guess - that was Greece too...

At that time, they were not, they were either Hittite, Phyrgian, or some other Anatolian group. This was before Ionian Greeks started colonizing the Anatolian coastline in earnest.
 
I assume this means the Hittites, not the Hittites' ancestors... It would be too easy that way, I guess :p

I don't really believe that the Hittites could hold on to overseas territory with any sort of effectiveness at that early of a period. They had basically just developed iron weapons.

Perhaps the Neo-Hittites could more easily (not that it would be easy) control some Greek territory, though they're more inclined to fight each other. Then again, maybe not...

I think I may have just invalidated my own point. Congratulations, me.
 
To be clear, here is a map of the western world at that time

Hittites_1300bc.jpg
 
I was under the impression that the Hittites controlled a bit more Anatolian coastline, a bit further north. More like this map, though this is of their maximum territorial extent:

File:Hittite_Kingdom.png
 
If they lacked effective means of getting across The wider straits, The Hittites would need to secure the Northwestern Anatolia in order to have a chance of getting across.
 
While the Hittite language is Indo-European, as I recall it's not particularly closely related to the languages spoken in Greece at the time, having split off from the main Indo-European group at an earlier point.

The problem for the Hittites is that given their position in central Anatolia, they had opponents in pretty much every direction: Egypt, Mitanni, Assyria and Babylon to the south, Kaska tribes to the northeast, and the Greeks and other Anatolian groups to the west. If you read Hittite chronicles, it was basically like a game of Whack-a-mole that went on for several centuries: as soon as they got finished dealing with one of these, someone on the other side of the empire would be making trouble.

The best option for western-focused Hittites, and one I've played around with here and there is a Hittite alliance with Egypt--which may have come surprisingly close to happening at one point. This gives the Hittites some security in the south, and additional resources to work with. I think you could definitely see some of the Achaean cities subjected to some sort of vassalage, with a little luck. (How long it would last is probably another issue.)

Both demographically and geographically, I think it would be difficult for the Hittites to replace the Greeks in the Balkans; the Hittites don't seem to have been particularly interested in trying to set up colonies, and their heartland was along the Halys River, not the Anatolian coasts. They were a land power, for the most part; what navy the Hittites had was probably based out of Cyprus or some of the Syrian cities whenever those were under control.

I think at best you could see a relatively centralized Hittite Empire unifying most or all of Anatolia and vassalizing the Greeks. In time, there might be a certain amount of cultural influence--though this of course could go both ways. But if they absorb too much of the Balkans, I suspect you'd end up with an empire that was Hittite in name only--something more like Persia or the Ottomans than like Rome.
 
I was under the impression that the Hittites controlled a bit more Anatolian coastline, a bit further north. More like this map, though this is of their maximum territorial extent:

I think that is with their vassal states and allies added in. Regardless, now that there are 2 visuals for people to use about the extent of Hittite influence and control...
 
At that time, they were not, they were either Hittite, Phyrgian, or some other Anatolian group. This was before Ionian Greeks started colonizing the Anatolian coastline in earnest.

Actually, there's a pretty good case for Achaean Greeks in Anatolia at the time. Miletus had connections to Greece even in the Bronze Age.

There was a mysterious peoples called similarly no? Hatites or something?

The Hattic people are generally taken to be the pre-Indo-European inhabitants of Anatolia; they'd be pretty much out of the picture by this point.

Also, since I've seen a couple of people mention it: the whole "Hittites had iron weapons" thing is a little overblown. Sorry. :(
 
Didn't Tutankhamun's widow nearly get married off to a Hittite princeling, who died en route to Egypt?

Yep, that's the one I'm referring to. Now, the Egyptians might not have taken kindly to a foreign ruler, given the whole Hyksos business, but even if it only lasts for a little while it could give the Hittites some breathing room.

Also, for a variety of maps showing a number of periods in Hittite history, I suggest people look here.

This one could be particularly useful:

mapSuppiluliumaI.jpg
 
If the Hittites could take the Greek Anatolian cities (they were a bit rudimentary but they were there) then they would be able to steal Greek ships and sail off to the Hellenic peninsula. they wouldn't be able to hold them for long and they would propbably be defeated by the other West Asian powers but any colonisation that takes place and of course the invasion and conquest itself would seriously disrupt Greece's development and the rest of Western history forever.
 
Just to throw my two bob into the mix, the Hittites aren't generally called the Hittites in Near Eastern scholarship anymore; they tend to get called the Hatti, since that's what most contemporary sources call them. But that doesn't matter much, what is true is that the iron weapons thing is overblown, especially since these were not steel weapons and so they were not actually stronger than bronze. Iron is easier to mass produce with, and so is logistically capable of arming larger forces (since Bronze is more time consuming to make), but it doesn't actually make weapons/armour stronger than Bronze without more technological development.

Also, nobody has really had a go at saying what they think that the 'Greeks' in this period actually are like, and how they are organised. Or the bigger question, who actually were they? We don't know how they fit in to the Near East at the time politically, there are theories that they were simply the most Western expression of the Near Eastern political-cultural package in their earliest incarnation, but even that is simply supposition from the relative similarity of Mycenaean cultural expression to that of Babylon, Egypt, Hattusa, Cyprus et al.

Also, there is more than one kind of 'colony', by restricting ourselves to that English term we add connotations that give the wrong idea; from the 9th Century onwards there are known to have been two main types of Hellenic colony; the Emporia which was a trading settlement/compound, occasionally right next to a native city or town of some kind, and your actual Polis colony where a whole self sufficient city was constructed. All of the evidence I know of for Mycenaean settlement abroad indicates the former, trading settlements.

My point is that the difficulties are not only in imagining the capacity of the Hittites to invade Greece, it's in actually figuring out who they would actually be fighting. When you get down to it, not much is known about 'Mycenaean' Greek culture at all.
 
Was not the Hittite empire pretty much of the old sort, ie having a definite central land owned and ruled by themselves, but mainly consisting of dominance over other lesser kings, and then weaker alliances with those towards the fringes? Thus the "extent" of empire can be a misnomer, because this is an empire sustained by the appearance of military might and by constant diplomacy. The reach of this empire East and South depended upon frequent incursions, otherwise overlordship slips and Egypt steps in, or a local power rises for a while. This thus constantly keeps them having to focus in this direction.

I would imagine the main reason they did not go further West was that the sea was essentially a buffer. There was no great power trying to drag off its under-kings in that direction, so there was no logic to going to all the trouble of crossing the straits to force yet MORE petty kings to acknowledge them.

I don't think they would have had trouble making a fleet if they wanted one - ships of the time were pretty homogenous and if it came down to it they could just buy in the expertise from Phoenicia

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Grey Wolf, you've hit it on the head. The actual land they controlled was much smaller than those maps. Those maps represent the maximum sphere of Hittite influence, their effective area of control was much smaller.
 
My point is that the difficulties are not only in imagining the capacity of the Hittites to invade Greece, it's in actually figuring out who they would actually be fighting. When you get down to it, not much is known about 'Mycenaean' Greek culture at all.

Depends on what you mean by culture. Archeology has garnered support for some elements of the Iliad (though there are a great many anachronisms and latter additions mixed in) and of course Linear B was deciphered decades ago. It did not closely resemble the popular vision of Classical Greece; from what I understand there is a discontinuity--the Greek Dark Age. Technologically, they'd be basically on the same footing. Politically, it's harder to say. Hittite diplomacy seems to treat "Ahhiyawa" as one entity for some periods, but for others they are largely absent from the records. To me, at least, this suggests a number of small kingdoms, occasionally united, but I think this is one of the areas where scholarship is hazy.

I would imagine the main reason they did not go further West was that the sea was essentially a buffer. There was no great power trying to drag off its under-kings in that direction, so there was no logic to going to all the trouble of crossing the straits to force yet MORE petty kings to acknowledge them.

I don't think they would have had trouble making a fleet if they wanted one - ships of the time were pretty homogenous and if it came down to it they could just buy in the expertise from Phoenicia

As far as western rivals go, there was Arzawa, but like the Hittites they were on the Anatolian mainland. But as you point out, the Hittite imperial system did require pretty much constant maintenance, both diplomatically and militarily. Continued Greek assistance to rebels could draw the attention of Hatti. Take a look at the career of this guy, for example. Still, for the most part I think you are correct.

Grey Wolf, you've hit it on the head. The actual land they controlled was much smaller than those maps. Those maps represent the maximum sphere of Hittite influence, their effective area of control was much smaller.

Depends a lot on the era, and what you mean by "control." For instance, here's Hatti before the rise of Suppiluliuma:
mapTudhaliyaIIISmall.jpg


This territory is probably a decent depiction of the Hittite heartland; everything added later would have probably been part of the vassalage system, but I would personally tend to count that as "in control," though that control would have been looser than later empires'.
 
Depends on what you mean by culture. Archeology has garnered support for some elements of the Iliad (though there are a great many anachronisms and latter additions mixed in) and of course Linear B was deciphered decades ago. It did not closely resemble the popular vision of Classical Greece; from what I understand there is a discontinuity--the Greek Dark Age. Technologically, they'd be basically on the same footing. Politically, it's harder to say. Hittite diplomacy seems to treat "Ahhiyawa" as one entity for some periods, but for others they are largely absent from the records. To me, at least, this suggests a number of small kingdoms, occasionally united, but I think this is one of the areas where scholarship is hazy.

Some elements of the Iliad, yes, but just gonna point out that our oldest complete manuscripts of the Iliad are actually from post-Medieval times, which is based off a 6th Century Athenian 'standardised' version, which is a 'refinement' off the original 8th Century written version, based off the original oral epic (and originally it was in a cycle of epics of which we now only possess the Illiad and Odyssey) based off a distant recollection of a culture that had been destroyed 400 years or so before. Jussayin that the problem with using the Illiad is not just a lack of archaeological evidence or the fact that it has mythological elements or that it comes from a culture with no concept of objective writing.
Also, making archaeology fit textual evidence is something that Western Ancient Historians have only just grown out of. Sometimes the archaeology needs to speak for itself.

Having said that, I agree that it's likely that the 'Greeks' of the Illiad were not a united polity but rather several kingdoms. Also, Linear B is only found for some religious texts and mainly economic ones such as inventories. Even with the ability to read Linear B, it doesn't actually reveal much.

Also, the Greek Dark Age is more than just a discontinuity, it represents a collapse in organised statehood in Greece, and the loss of the ability to read or write in Linear B completely. How many cultures do we know that have had to actually reinvent writing? The collapse was total enough that Greeks themselves were not actually aware that they had experienced a Dark Age. A similar collapse in organised government occured throughout the Near East, the difference is that important cities with bureaucracies in Mesopotamia were able to weather the storm.

Urgh, sorry I feel like i've ranted a bit, and I do agree with your conclusions about what 'Ahhiyawa' was likely to have been like; I just feel like inserting a note of caution because we have so little information to go on about the Greeks in this period that we might find that one archaeological discovery is enough to reinvent our image of their society.
 
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