Ancient Greece is a civilization that has existed for more than 3 thousand years. Geographically, it was located on the Balkan Peninsula and adjacent islands. The Greeks themselves today call their country Hellas, and themselves Hellenes. A huge number of historians consider Greece not only as a country with a high culture, democracy and philosophy, but also as an advanced state of antiquity (although Ancient Greece was never a unitary state, except during the reign of Alexander the Great). It is worth noting that it was Greek culture that became the backbone of ancient Rome, which, in turn, conveyed it to most European and Eastern peoples. It should not be forgotten that Greece was called not only the original territory of the Hellenes, but also to other lands inhabited by the Greeks of that time, such as the Crimean Peninsula, the Caucasus, the nearby islands of the Mediterranean basin, Italy.

The natural conditions of Greece were varied. The mountain ranges turned into fertile valleys where crops were grown. Despite the rocky soil and dry climate, the flora and fauna were very diverse. In the old days, whole forests of the most valuable timber grew in Hellas, from which the best ships in the world were made, and they were inhabited by fallow deer, deer, wild boars and predators. Huge olive plantations brought mountains of gold and silver to their owners and entire policies. Do not forget that at that time olive oil (the end product of olive processing) was very rare and valued on a par with the spices of the Far East.

There are five main stages in the history of Greece:

1) Crete-Mycenaean period. It was characterized by the first beginnings of state administration, the development of navigation and the establishment of diplomatic and trade relations with the countries of the Far East.

2) Minoan civilization. It, in turn, was divided into three more periods: Early Minoan, Middle Minoan and Late Minoan. The early period is notable for the development and processing of metals, the emergence of writing and state formations. In the subsequent period, navigation, construction and crafts were developed. Finally, in the last stage, the Minoan civilization flourished. This is manifested in the unification of the entire island under one authority, stormy trade with all neighboring and distant peoples of that time, and monumental construction. Unfortunately, natural disasters created obstacles for the further development of the Minoan civilization. Soon it began to fade and was subsequently captured by the Achaeans.

3) Helladic civilization. During this period, the dominance of tribal relations between the different peoples of Greece. With the advent of the new people of the Achaeans, the beginnings of the state system, production and agriculture appear. The Mycenaean culture flourishes.

4) Polis period. There is a consolidation of the entire Greek population, the formation of a polis power structure, the penetration of iron into all sectors of the economy and the daily life of society. The rapid development of production and trade, the Great Greek colonization and the reflection of the Persian threat.

5) Hellenistic. Notable for the great campaigns of Alexander and the formation of his vast empire. After the death of the great commander, the empire disintegrated into separate Hellenistic states, which subsequently led to wars between the Diadochi (successors and commanders in the time of Alexander).

As you can see, the history of Ancient Greece experienced both a flourishing and a complete fall, but despite this, their cultural, scientific, commercial and educational contribution is undeniable and largely shaped the path for the development of other peoples. A vivid example of this is Ancient Rome, which at the dawn of its existence borrowed a lot from Greek culture.

Hellas and Hellenes. The country that we call ancient Greece was located in the south of the Balkan Peninsula. Although in ancient times it was never a single state, its inhabitants were aware of themselves as a single people and called their country Hellas, and themselves Hellenes. They called all foreigners barbarians, and at first this word did not have a contemptuous connotation, as the Greeks denoted all those who did not speak their language and muttered something, from their point of view, incomprehensible (from the onomatopoeic "bar-bar" and the Greek comes "barbara", i.e. barbarians).

Major parts of ancient Greece. Ancient Greece was divided into three parts: mainland, island and Asia Minor. Mainland Hellas consisted of Northern, Middle and Southern Greece. Northern Greece consists of two regions: Thessaly in the east and Epirus in the west. To the north of Thessaly were Macedonia and Thrace (their population, although related to the Greeks in language and culture, did not belong to the Hellenes). On the border of Macedonia and Thessaly is Olympus - the highest mountain in Greece, on top of which, as the Greeks believed, were the palaces of their gods, who were led by Zeus, "the father of gods and people." Illyrian tribes lived north of Epirus.

From Thessaly, through the narrow Thermopylae Gorge, the road led to Central Greece, which also consisted of several regions, the main of which were Attica (its center was Athens) and Boeotia, whose largest city was Thebes. To the west of Boeotia lay Phocis, in whose territory, at Delphi, was the temple of Apollo with the oracle of this god. Without the divinations given by the priestess of Apollo, Pythia, the Greeks did not start any important business. The rulers of the states neighboring Hellas also listened to the oracle of Apollo.

The narrow Isthmus of Corinth (Isthm) separated Central Greece from South or Peloponnese (Peloponnese - "Pelops Island" - was named after the mythical hero, the grandson of Zeus himself). The most significant areas of the Peloponnese: Laconia, the center of which was the famous Sparta, Argolis with Argos and Elis, where in Olympia there was a temple of Zeus with a statue of this god, which was considered one of the wonders of the world, and once every four years the Olympic Games were held in honor of the supreme god of the Hellenes .

Greek Islands and Asia Minor. The island part of Greece consisted of many large and small islands, almost all of them were located in the Aegean Sea. The largest of them is Crete, as if closing the Aegean Sea from the south. A kind of bridge connecting the two continents, Europe and Asia, is the Cyclades archipelago between the south of the Balkans and the west of Asia Minor. Scattered along the coast of Asia Minor are the islands of another archipelago called the Sporades.

The western coast of Asia Minor was colonized by the Greeks at the end of the 2nd millennium BC, and they lived there until 1922, when, after the Greco-Turkish war, they were forced to move out. Greek Asia Minor was divided into Ionia and Aeolia, located to the north of it. The largest of the Asia Minor Greek cities was Miletus.

periods of Greek history. The history of ancient Greece is usually divided into five periods:

• Cretan-Mycenaean (Aegean) - the end of the III-end of the II millennium BC;
• Homeric - XI-IX centuries. BC.;
• archaic - VIII-VI centuries. BC.;
• classical - 500-323 years. BC.;
• Hellenistic - 323-30 AD BC.

Achaean civilization. In the ancient Crete-Mycenaean period, the first civilizations in Europe dating back to the Bronze Age arose: the Minoan in Crete and, under its influence, somewhat later in the Peloponnese and Central Greece - Achaean or Mycenaean (by the name of its most famous center, the kingdom of the famous Agamemnon) . The Achaean civilization was the first created by the Greeks, whom Homer calls Achaeans or Danaans. She died at the end of the XII-beginning of the XI century. BC, and Greece was thrown back in its development for a whole millennium ago.

The Homeric period is so named because for a long time the main source for its study were Homer's poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey". Now the results of archaeological excavations carried out from the second half of the 19th century have acquired just as great importance. At this time, Greek society was slowly recovering from the catastrophe of the end of the 2nd millennium BC. and accumulated strength for a powerful leap forward - the creation of a civilization of a completely different type, unlike either Cretan or Mycenaean. In the Homeric period, the Iron Age of Hellas begins.

City-states of Greece. In the archaic period, the formation of a polis civilization in Greece took place. A new form of state appeared - the polis, which is usually called the city-state. In total, there were several hundred such states in Hellas, the area of ​​​​some of them was measured in tens of square kilometers, but, despite their small size, they were completely independent. The polis was a slave-owning state: as you know, the ancient world was a world devoid of machines and full of slaves, the lot of which turned out to be hard physical labor. At the expense of slaves, free citizens of the policy had free time for the development of physical and spiritual culture, military training, for holidays and entertainment.

The free population of the policy consisted of citizens and non-citizens, immigrants from other places and their descendants. Citizens, in turn, were divided into aristocracy (nobility), which traced its origin to gods and heroes, and demos (farmers, artisans, merchants).

Types of power among the Greeks. Depending on the characteristics of their structure, the Greek policies were divided into democratic, aristocratic and oligarchic. In democracies, power belonged to the demos, in aristocratic - to all the nobility, in oligarchic - to a narrow circle of people from among the same aristocracy. In any policy there was a people's assembly, a council and elected officials, but in a democratic one all important issues were decided by a people's assembly in which all citizens participated, while in an aristocratic or oligarchic one it existed only for show and rarely met, only for the approval of what already decided by those in power. An example of a democratic policy was Athens, an aristocratic, later reborn into an oligarchic one - Sparta.

Greek warriors. The armed forces of the policy consisted of a militia of all citizens. They bought weapons with their own money, so the richest served in the cavalry (maintenance of a horse was very expensive), the wealthy served in heavily armed infantry, the poor made up light infantry and ship crews (the ships themselves were built either at the expense of the state or on behalf of the rich, whom were appointed captains of the ships they built).

Aristocrats and oligarchs did not trust their own fellow citizens, so they preferred to rely not on them, but on mercenary warriors who offered their services to the highest bidder. But it also happened that one of the aristocrats, planning to seize power, bribed mercenaries, with their help destroyed or expelled his opponents and became a tyrant - as the Greeks called the one who established sole power illegally. There was a time when tyrants ruled in many Greek cities, but towards the end of the archaic period, tyranny is everywhere destroyed, only to be reborn in a different setting after many decades.

The fourth (classical) period begins with the collision of the Greek policies with the powerful Persian state (Greek-Persian wars), and ends with the conquests of Alexander the Great, who destroyed this power.

Persian kingdom. In it, from the time of its emergence to the death of the rule, the Achaemenid dynasty, and the state itself stretched from India to the Aegean Sea. King Darius divided it into regions - satrapies, each of which was headed by a satrap. The population of each satrapy had to pay taxes and, by order of the king, appear in the army. Thus, the Persian army was a huge number of warriors with different weapons, different ways of fighting, speaking different languages. It was very difficult to manage such an army. The Persians did not have their own fleet, the Phoenicians, Egyptians and Ionian Greeks supplied them with ships.

Elinistic period. The last period in the history of ancient Greece is called the Hellenistic, it lasted from the death of Alexander the Great to the conquest of Egypt by the Romans. At this time, both the Greek policies and the former power of the Achaemenids are part of the new states founded by the generals of Alexander, who, many years after his death, proclaimed themselves kings. One of the famous Hellenistic kings was Pyrrhus, whom the Romans had to meet on the battlefield.

How is it known about the wars and battles of the ancient Greeks. We know about the battles of the Greco-Persian wars mainly from the work of Herodotus "History". The information reported by Herodotus is supplemented and revived by Plutarch, who lived many centuries later. His "Comparative Lives" are several dozen biographies of famous Greeks and Romans and therefore are an important source on the history of not only ancient Greece, but also Rome.

Battles of the first half of the 4th c. BC. described by their contemporary, the Athenian writer and historian Xenophon and Plutarch already known to us. On the history of the campaigns of Alexander the Great, in addition to the biographies of the great Macedonian and his contemporaries, ancient historians who already lived in Roman times, Arrian and Quintus Curtius Rufus, created special works that have survived to our time and translated into Russian. Much interesting characterization of the struggle of the Greeks for freedom, against Macedonia, is contained in the speeches of Demosthenes.

Ancient Greece is part of the ancient world, whose culture developed in the Mediterranean basin, the Black Sea region and in neighboring countries in the period from the 3rd millennium BC. until the middle of the 5th century AD. e.

The history of ancient Greece is usually divided into five periods: the Aegean or Crete-Mycenaean period (III - II millennium BC), the Homeric period (XI-X centuries BC), the archaic period (VIII -VII centuries BC), the classical period (V-IV centuries BC), the Hellenistic period (the second half of the 4th - the middle of the 1st century BC). The first three eras are often grouped under the common name of the Preclassic period.

The artistic creativity of Hellas for the first time in the history of the world established realism as the absolute norm of art. But not realism in the exact copying of nature, but in the completion of what nature could not do. Art had to strive for that perfection, which she only hinted at, but which she herself did not achieve.

Periodization of the history and culture of Ancient Greece

Crete-Mycenaean period: 3 - 2 millennium BC. e.

In the second half of the 3rd millennium BC. e. there is a mass movement of South European tribes to the south, in the region of the Eastern Mediterranean. The first states of the Achaeans (Knoss, Festus, Mycenae, Tiryns, Pylos) were formed at the beginning. 2nd millennium, during the Bronze Age.

By the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. The Ionians established themselves on the western coast of Asia Minor, which was called Ionia.

The Aegean culture (the common name for the civilizations of the Bronze Age on the islands of the Aegean Sea, Crete, in mainland Greece and Asia Minor) developed unevenly, its centers experienced decline and prosperity at different times. Walled cities with towers and bastions, with public buildings and temples appeared in western Anatolia in the 3rd millennium BC. e.; fortified settlements in mainland Greece - at the end of the 3rd millennium; on Crete, fortresses are unknown from the 2nd millennium BC. e.

Aegean and Crete-Mycenaean culture is a link between the cultures of the East and Ancient Greece. It covered several areas with their original cultural couples and at the same time intertwined with each other. The most ancient of the centers of the Aegean culture was Troy, sung by Homer. In the Bronze Age, Crete became a significant cultural center. Here, for the first time in the history of Europe, a slave-owning society arose, flourishing cities formed: Knossos, Festus, Gournia.

In the XV century BC. as a result of a natural disaster, Crete loses its leading role, it is conquered by the Achaeans. At the beginning of the XII century BC. during the Trojan War, the early slave states of the Aegean world fall into decay. Soon after the Trojan War, a new wave of Greek tribes, the Dorians, began to move from the north, continuing throughout the 11th century BC. This wave destroyed the centers of the Aegean culture. The invasion of the Dorians led to the collapse of states and the revival of tribal relations.

The history of ancient Greece covers a huge period - from the end of the III millennium BC. e. until the end of the 1st c. BC e., i.e. over two millennia. During this period, on the territory of Ancient Greece, in the Aegean Sea basin, there was a transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.

In the Bronze Age, a civilization developed on the island of Crete and on the territory of Balkan Greece, which, according to its two main centers - in the Aegean Sea (Crete) and on the mainland (Mycenae) - was called the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization. According to archaeological excavations, there are three periods in the history of Crete and Balkan Greece.

For the history of Crete, they are called Minoan (after the name of its legendary king - Minos):

1. early Minoan period - XXX-XX centuries. BC. - the final stage of the existence of the tribal system, when conditions were created for the emergence of civilization;
2. Middle Minoan period - XX-XV centuries. BC. - the so-called period of "old palaces" - the emergence of civilization in Crete;
3. late Minoan period - XVII-XIV centuries. BC e. - the heyday of civilization in Crete until the grandiose catastrophe, after which Crete was conquered by the Achaeans, and the Minoan society was destroyed.

The periods of the history of Balkan Greece are called Helladic:

1. – XXX-XXG centuries. BC. - the existence of a late tribal community among the autochthonous population of the Balkan Peninsula;
2. - XX-XVII centuries. BC e. - the settlement of the Balkan Peninsula by the Achaean Greeks, who were at the stage of decomposition of primitive communal relations;
3. late Helladic period - XVI-XII centuries. BC e. - the emergence of the Mycenaean civilization of the Bronze Age among the Achaeans and its death as a result of the Dorian invasion.

After this, the Greek world again plunges into the primitive era, this happens with the beginning of the Iron Age. At this time, a new ancient civilization was born, the central element of which was the polis.

In the history of the ancient civilization of Ancient Greece, four periods are distinguished:

Homeric, or pre-polis, period - XG-X centuries. BC e. - the era of the existence of the tribal system;

• archaic period - VII-VI centuries. BC e. - the emergence of ancient civilization, the formation of the Greek policy; the spread of the polis structure of the state throughout the Mediterranean;
• classical period? - IV century. BC. - the heyday of ancient civilization and the Greek classical policy;
• Hellenistic period - the end of the IV-G centuries. BC e. - the conquest of the Persian state by Alexander the Great and the merging of the ancient world with the civilizations of the Ancient East in the vast expanses of the Eastern Mediterranean; the conquest of the Hellenistic states by Rome in the west and Parthia in the east.

After the fall of the last Hellenistic state - the Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt - Rome becomes the center of the historical development of the Mediterranean and the entire ancient civilization, and the history of ancient Greek society, which became an integral part of the ancient Roman world power, is already considered within the framework of history.

During the period of existence of Ancient Greece, the boundaries of the ancient world were continuously expanding. The cradle of the first European civilization at the turn of the III-II millennium BC. e. became the islands of the Aegean Sea and the south of the Balkan Peninsula. On the mainland, the first centers of civilization for many centuries remained only islands in the vast sea of ​​the primitive tribal world. At the end of the II millennium BC. e. Greek tribes mastered the entire basin of the Aegean Sea, densely populating the western coast of Asia Minor. In the archaic era, the Greeks created a number of settlements in northern Africa and firmly settled in the Black Sea basin. as a result of the victorious campaigns of Alexander the Great, ancient civilization spread over a vast territory from the Greek colonies on the coast of Spain to the Hellenistic kingdoms on the border with India and from the Northern Black Sea region to the southern borders of Egypt.

There are five main stages in the history of Greece:

1) Crete-Mycenaean period. It was characterized by the first beginnings of state administration, the development of navigation and the establishment of diplomatic and trade relations with the countries of the Far East.

2) Minoan civilization. It, in turn, was divided into three more periods: Early Minoan, Middle Minoan and Late Minoan. The early period is notable for the development and processing of metals, the emergence of writing and state formations. In the subsequent period, navigation, construction and crafts were developed. Finally, in the last stage, the Minoan civilization flourished. This is manifested in the unification of the entire island under one authority, stormy trade with all neighboring and distant peoples of that time, and monumental construction. Unfortunately, natural disasters created obstacles for the further development of the Minoan civilization. Soon it began to fade and was subsequently captured by the Achaeans.

3) Helladic civilization. During this period, the dominance of tribal relations between the different peoples of Greece. With the advent of the new people of the Achaeans, the beginnings of the state system, production and agriculture appear. The Mycenaean culture flourishes.

4) Polis period. There is a consolidation of the entire Greek population, the formation of a polis power structure, the penetration of iron into all sectors of the economy and the daily life of society. The rapid development of production and trade, the Great Greek colonization and the reflection of the Persian threat.

5) Hellenistic. Notable for the great campaigns of Alexander and the formation of his vast empire. After the death of the great commander, the empire disintegrated into separate Hellenistic states, which subsequently led to wars between the Diadochi (successors and commanders in the time of Alexander).

As you can see, the history of Ancient Greece experienced both a flourishing and a complete fall, but despite this, their cultural, scientific, commercial and educational contribution is undeniable and largely shaped the path for the development of other peoples. A vivid example of this is Ancient Rome, which at the dawn of its existence borrowed a lot from Greek culture.

Greek civilization, as well as early class society and the state in the countries of the Ancient East, grew up on the basis of the decomposition of tribal relations through property and social differentiation, the formation of social groups that differed in their role in production, through the creation of state authorities that expressed the interests of the ruling class.

However, the birth of an early class society and state in Greece took place in a different natural environment and on a different tribal basis.

At different stages of historical development in the II-I millennia BC. e. the Greeks entered into active contacts with the ancient Eastern states, the complex tribal world of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, which contributed to the mutual enrichment of both the ancient Greeks and other peoples. However, it should be noted the beneficial effect of the ancient Greek civilization, its stimulating influence on the historical destinies of the peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea region. This influence was especially strong during the great Greek colonization of the 8th-6th centuries. BC e. and the Hellenistic stage of ancient Greek history.

The ancient Greeks made a huge contribution to the development of the Mediterranean civilization. The greatest achievements of the Greeks were manifested in three main areas: the organization of urban life with its high level of improvement as one of the important conditions for a civilized existence; the establishment of a democratic republic (democracy) - the most progressive form of government; creating a wonderful culture.

Cities and city life appeared in the Ancient East as early as the 3rd millennium BC. e. and by the middle of the 1st millennium BC. e. reached a high level of development. However, the vast majority of the population lived in rural areas, in numerous village settlements, in which all their production (both agricultural and handicraft) activities, their leisure, their whole life took place. An ancient Eastern community member could live his whole life in the microcosm of his native settlement, the whole way of life, way of thinking and system of values ​​were inextricably linked with him.

The situation is different in Greece. Although in Greece there were a considerable number of policies that did not have cities (for example, Sparta), however, the Greek policy as such assumed the existence of a well-organized city as a natural center.

As the center of the entire polis district, the Greek city was the place of residence not only for artisans, merchants and other urban people, but also included the rural population, that is, it became the place of residence for the majority of the population of the policy, which, thus, could enjoy all the benefits of a well-organized urban life.

The city, as a place of residence for the main part of the citizens of the policy, through the efforts of Greek city planners, was landscaped and decorated, and in the classical period became a regular city, that is, a city built according to a plan, with a grid of streets intersecting at right angles, with the correct division into quarters, provided places for the main square, central sanctuaries, stadium, theater, public buildings. The construction of cities was carried out taking into account climatic and other environmental factors. In the city itself, not only comfortable dwellings for citizens were built, but also artistically decorated sanctuaries and places of public recreation. An indispensable part of the Greek city was the theater premises, which accommodated most of the civilian population, gymnasiums and stadiums, in which citizens spent a significant part of their time. The basic principles of regular planning, which appeared in the classical period, were improved in the Hellenistic period and subsequently had a great impact on European urban planning.

The great achievement of the ancient Greeks in the political field was the formation of such an organization of the state system as a democratic republic (a more perfect embodiment is Athenian democracy). Polis democracy was a developed political system that ensured the participation of the majority of citizens in state administration. The sovereignty of the civil collective as a whole was exercised through the vesting of real power in the People's Assembly. The organization of judicial and executive power excluded the possibility of its concentration in the hands of individuals, ensured the participation in the executive bodies of almost all citizens, regardless of their property status. The Athenian democracy pursued a targeted policy of material and political support for impoverished citizens, providing them with land plots in cleruchia, ensuring their participation in the management of a small fee (in the amount of the subsistence minimum). Of course, one cannot idealize the Athenian, as well as the polis as a whole, democracy and consider it the standard of democracy as such. As is clear from the above history of Greece, this was a democracy for citizens only, while women, the non-civilian free population (quite numerous in Athens) not to mention, of course, slaves, stood outside democratic institutions and did not take any part in government. Nevertheless, the structure of the democratic republic, the specific mechanism of its operation in the political life of Greece, was a huge step in the history of political institutions and state forms, ensuring the attraction of a much larger number of people than under any other state system. And it is no coincidence that Greek and especially Athenian democracy attracts great attention from all historians of state and law, who study the history of political institutions and political thought. One of the important achievements of the political thought of the ancient Greeks was the development of the concept of a citizen endowed with a set of inalienable legal rights: personal freedom as complete independence from any person or institution, the right to a land plot in one’s policy as the basis of welfare and normal life, the right to serve in militia and bearing weapons, the right to participate in the activities of the People's Assembly and government. Awareness of these rights, their use in everyday life made the citizen of the Greek polis, according to Aristotle, a political person, broadened his horizons, enriched self-awareness, and stimulated creative abilities.

The contribution of the ancient Greeks to the development of world culture turned out to be great. The high level of Greek culture, the diversity and depth, the development of its directions, the creation of masterpieces and the development of fruitful ideas, which later entered the treasury of world civilization, distinguish the phenomenon of ancient Greek culture from many other national cultural systems.

The successes of the Greek masters were amazingly great in all areas of cultural creativity: in philosophy, this was the development of developed systems of materialism (Democritus and Epicurus), idealism (Plato), the system of Aristotle and the Stoics; in architecture - the appearance of regular urban planning and the famous order system, which for many centuries determined the direction of Roman, Mediterranean, and then European architecture; in literature - the creation of many genres (tragedy, epic, lyrics, comedy, learned poetry), and in each genre - masterpieces of world significance; brilliant scientific discoveries (formulation of the principles of the heliocentric concept of the Universe, the doctrine of the evolution of organisms, the atomistic scheme of the structure of matter, the principles of formal logic and elementary mathematics, and much more). It should be noted that one of the features of the culture of the ancient Greeks is its humanistic character. At the center of the cultural creativity of the Greek masters was the citizen as the bearer of the best human qualities, moreover, in democratic policies, not an aristocrat - rich and who received a special education, but a citizen in general, regardless of his property status ... The perfection of Greek culture is also explained by the rich economic potential of Greek policies, created for due to the rational organization of slave labor, favorable opportunities for political activity for citizens and the development of the personality of the citizen himself, a connoisseur of cultural values, whose needs and interests inspired the masters to create these values.

The influence of the ancient Greeks on the subsequent development of the peoples of the Mediterranean during the period of the Roman Empire, European, and then the world civilization became very significant and fruitful. It not only nourished this development, but a number of achievements of the ancient Greeks (the principles of democracy as the power of the people, regular cities, stadiums, theaters, sculptural images, artistic types of Greek literature, scientific discoveries, etc.) entered the structure of modern civilization as its organic and an integral part of.