Greece 5 The Great Wars

ANCIENT GREECEv-The Great Wars, 490-404

πέντε ε´

Τὀ Πέµπτον Μάθηµα

PRINCIPAL TOPICS

I. Persian Wars, 490-479

II. Struggle for Hegemony

III. Peloponnesian War, 431-404

IV.Archidamian War, 431-421

V. Sicilian Expedition, 415-413

VI. Athens’ Final Agony, 412-404

ΠΟΛΕΜΟΣ ΜΕΝ ΠΑΝΤΩΝ

ΠΑΤΗΡ ΕΣΤΙ

(Polemos men pantōn

pater esti)

War is the father of all things--Heraclitus

ΠΟΛΕΜΟΣ ΜΕΝ ΠΑΝΤΩΝ

ΠΑΤΗΡ ΕΣΤΙ

(Polemos men pantōn

pater esti)

War is the father of all things--Heraclitus

Heraclitus

Hendrick ter Brugghen, 1628

The complete text of this fragment by Heraclitus is: πόλεμος πάντων μὲν πατήρ ἐστι, πάντων δὲ βασιλεύς, καὶ τοὺς μὲν θεοὺς ἔδειξε τοὺς δὲ ἀνθρώπους, τοὺς μὲν δούλους ἐποίησε τοὺς δὲ ἐλευθέρους (War is the father of all and the king of all; and some he has made gods and some men, some bond [slave] and some free).

Wikipedia, List of Greek phraseshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_phrases

This proverb is a wonderful example of the beauty of the Greek language.

It is a series of “men...de” phrases. “On the one hand...on the other hand”

War’s a father, he’s a king...he made some gods, some men; some slave,

some free.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_phrases

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Greek_phrases

PERSIAN WARS

PERSIAN WARSEGYPT

IRAQ

IRAN

PAKISTAN

AFGHANISTAN

FORMER SOVIET

CENTRAL ASIAARMENIA

TURKEY

BULGARIAMACEDONIA

LIBYA

THE GREATEST EMPIRE THE WORLDHAD EVER SEEN UP TO THAT TIME

GREEK STATES

area 40,000 sq. mi

pop c. 1,000,000

PERSIAN EMPIRE

area 2,900,000 sq. mi

pop c. 20,000,000

Achaemenid Persia--like Ottoman Turkey or Montezuma’s Aztecs--was a vast two-tiered society in which millions were ruled by autocrats, audited by theocrats, and coerced by generals.

Hanson. Carnage & Culture, p.39

A great god is Ahura Mazda, who created this earth, who created

man, who created peace for man, who made Xerxes king, one king of

many, one lord of many. I am Xerxes, the great king, king of kings,

king of lands containing many men, king in this great earth far and

wide, son of Darius the king, an Achaemenid, a Persian, so of a

Persian, an Aryan, of Aryan seed. (A. Olmstead, History of the

Persian Empire, 231)

quoted in Hanson, Carnage and Culture, p. 37

Most of this unprecedented expansion takes place during one man's lifetime, the lifetime of Cyrus. In the year 550 B.C. there were the Kingdom of Medea, the Kingdom of Babylonia, which is the most powerful one in the Tigris Euphrates Valley, what is now Iraq, the Kingdom of Lydia occupying the western portion of Asia Minor, excluding at first the coast, which was occupied by Greeks. But the Lydians conquered the Greeks in the 540s — that's the situation. Then there are the the Persians themselves who are not very powerful. Cyrus becomes king in 559. He is a member of the Achaemenid Dynasty. He conquers his fellow Aryans, the Medes in about 550, and very swiftly conquers Babylonia, Armenia, Syria, Cappadocia (another kingdom in central Asia Minor), and has already expanded this kingdom to something unparalleled up to that time.

Kagan

The Persians unified their empire.

“Communication was facilitated by constructing roads and creating a postal system staffed by royal messengers on horseback. Herodotus reported that ‘Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.’ “

Pomeroy & al. Ancient Greece, p.202

The Achaemenid king Darius I, who invaded Greece in 490, sits on his throne in this relief from Persepolis. The Greeks were fascinated with the absolute power of the Great King of Persia, especially when hoplites and sailors spied Xerxes at both Thermopylae and Salamis perched on his majestic throne in the hills above the battles. In fact, the Persian empire was a loosely knit conglomeration of often independent satrapies…. Nevertheless, the combined population, agricultural production, and minted capital [wealth in coinage] of all the city-states on the Greek mainland were probably less than those of a single satrapy.

Hanson, Wars of Ancient Greece, pp. 178-179

Herodotus sings an aria about the wonders of freedom, in which he says the Athenians were no better than any other Greeks at warfare before they became free. But once having liberated themselves from tyranny and establishing this new Cleisthenic regime, they were able to defeat all of their opponents.

As you read his history, you will realize that it is a paean to the wonders of freedom the greatness of freedom, and the centrality of freedom in the story of the Greeks. He praises not just freedom (eleutheria is the Greek word) but in the case of Athens he praises its isegoria (equality of speech).

He characterizes this new Cleisthenic regime not by the word democracy. Apparently it has not been coined yet. But rather by what characterizes it; that is, that all citizens are free, equally able to address the populace in the assembly, and thereby to take an active role in their own government.

Kagan lecture transcript, edited

Herodotus' first book begins with the story of King Croesus, and his decision to attack the Persian Empire which is now on his frontier. You all remember the story of how Croesus consults the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi to see how he's going to make out; the oracle gives a characteristically enigmatic answer, but he doesn't understand it.

He asks, "What will happen if I cross the Halys River?" [the boundary between Lydia and the Persian territory]

The oracle answers, "A great empire will be destroyed,"

Of course Croesus had in mind the destruction of the Persian Empire. Instead the Persians destroyed his empire! Well, Croesus attacks in 547; his capital of Sardis falls into the hands of the Persians in the next year. Now the Persians are in control of the Lydian Empire and on the frontiers of the Greek cities on the coast of Asia Minor. The conquest of those cities takes place in the years 546 to 539.

539 is a very big year for the Persians, because in that year they conquer the city of Babylon, and thereby gain control of all of Mesopotamia. Another of the major expansions of this vast empire.

Kagan

The successor to Cyrus is Cambyses. In the years 530-522, he conquers the Kingdom of Egypt, fantastically wealthy, and formerly a great empire itself. In 522, when Cambyses dies, the Persian Empire extends from the Aegean Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, all the way to the Indus River in what is now Pakistan. From the south really to what is now Sudan at the southern end of the Nile River, and up north to include the European coast of the Hellespont and the region and the waters of the straits, and the European coast of the Aegean Sea and comes right up as far as the Danube River, nor is that the end of what he would like to do.

Cambyses launches an invasion of the territory beyond the Danube, which was not a national kingdom yet, just a region filled with different tribes which the Greeks called Scythians, all the way north into Russia, all the way east to the Caucuses Mountains and perhaps beyond. These horse-riding, tribal people called the Scythians, didn't even engage in agriculture, but still lived off herds of animals. One of the generals of the Persian army is a certain Miltiades. Miltiades was originally an Athenian, but his family had been sent to govern the Gallipoli Peninsula. So, he lived there, and then when the Persians came and took that territory, he became a subject of the Great King and he became a general in the Great King's army.

Kagan

Miltiades became the tyrant of the Greek colonies on the Thracian Chersonese (modern Gallipoli)

Μιλτιάδης ὁ Νεώτερος

(Miltiadēs the Younger) c. 550 BCE – 489 BCE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BCE


Miltiades became the tyrant of the Greek colonies on the Thracian Chersonese (modern Gallipoli)

513 BC-as a vassal of Darius I, he joined the Persian expedition against the Scythians. The Great King learned that he planned to destroy the Danube bridges, leaving him to die in the Steppes

499 BC-as an enemy of the Persians, he sided with the Ionian Revolt

492 BC when the revolt collapsed, he fled to Athens

he became their resident general with expertise on Persian military policyΜιλτιάδης ὁ Νεώτερος

(Miltiadēs the Younger) c. 550 BCE – 489 BCE



So that is the situation at the beginning of the fifth century. The Persians have gained mastery of all the Greek states of Asia Minor. The relationship between those cities and the King of Persia was the same as all of his subjects. He insisted that the defeated states should give earth and water to him as a symbol of their subjection. There was no other relationship to the Great King, except of one of complete subjugation.

The Greeks considered this to be slavery. But the Persians were not unusually harsh rulers. All that the king required was for the subject peoples to pay tribute and to do military or naval service under his command. If you did that, you were left alone.

The characteristic regime was to have a tyrant appointed by the Great King in each Greek city. Called satraps, they represented the king in the region. They had absolute control. Still we don't hear about any specially harsh treatment of anybody. That's the situation at the beginning of conflict between the Greeks of the mainland and the Persian Empire---when the Ionian rebellion breaks out in Asia Minor.

Kagan

The Athenians vote to send a fleet and soldiers to assist Miletus and the other cities in their rebellion.

Herodotus has this wonderful phrase to describe the Athenian decision. “These ships were the beginning of evils to the Greeks and the barbarians.” What he's saying is, here we have the beginning of the Persian Wars, my subject.

The Ionian rebellion is one thing. Theoretically, if the Athenians had minded their own business and not assisted the rebels, there need not have been a Persian War. But Herodotus is saying once the Athenians decided to participate---assist the rebellion of their relatives in Ionia---this was the beginning of the Persian Wars for Athens.

Kagan

Ionian Revolt, 499-98 BC

In the year 493-2 Themistocles is elected the eponymous archon. He will play a very large role in the great Persian invasion of 480. He will be a participant in the Battle of Marathon too. Themistocles is a great champion of the navy. He has concluded for varieties of reasons, that Athens must have a much larger navy. Obviously,he is a member of that faction which thinks the Persians will attack. He wishes to be ready and is eager to fight them. Themistocles wants to move the naval base of Athens from Phaleron Bay, which is just an unfortified beach. The Athenian fleet, drawn up on the beach at Phaleron, should a Persian fleet come sailing up, they're stuck.

He begins to make Piraeus, about five miles up the coast, into the port of Athens, the naval base of Athens. It has three harbors, easily protected. If you fortify the Piraeus, then you have a secure port. Themistocles demonstrates what will be his policy for the rest of his life. The fact that he's chosen archon may be indicative of the mood in Athens, which is increasingly unwilling to accept the idea of a return of Hippeis and of Persian rule.

The Spartans and the Athenians are allies. That doesn't mean that the Athenians have joined the Peloponnesian League; they just established friendly relations after being at odds for such a period of time.

Kagan

The Persian invasion culminates in the battle of Marathon. The purpose is very simple, to punish those cities that have insulted and damaged the Great King, Athens and Eretria, to restore Hippeis to the tyranny in Athens from where he can serve as the king's satrap, and surely also, to gain a foothold in Greece on the way to conquering all of Greece. Why should he want to conquer all of Greece?

Herodotus tells the story about his relative, he tells him, for God's sake why do you want to go Greece? There's nothing there but a lot rocks. What is the point of conquering the place? It's one thing to conquer all of these rich places Egypt, Babylonia — that's fine, there's wealth there, there's huge populations, there's a lot of good stuff. It's just Greeks and rocks, why in the world do you want to go there? The answer is that conquest is good. It's good to be strong, it's good to be rich, it's good to be powerful. Therefore, it's good to be stronger, richer, and more powerful. If there's somebody on your frontier, take them over, and that by the way will make you still more glorious, because conquest is glory.

Now, we in the West — that's not our natural attitude; our natural attitude is shaped in considerable part, whatever your religious association may be, by Christianity, which has been the dominant force in shaping people's thinking in the West, as I say, whatever religion you belong to, and that aspect of Christianity that it violates is the one that's increasingly the one that's emphasized by Christians, and that is the Sermon on the Mount. The one that says the meek shall inherit the earth, not the strong, and the tough, and so on. The one that says if your enemy strikes you, turn the other cheek so he can strike you there too. Now, if the Greeks had heard that, they would have said these people are lunatics. Send them away. Greek morality said, be good to your friend, do good to your friend and harm to your enemies and the second part is just as important as the first part.

Kagan, unedited!

It's time for the invasion. The site of the battle, where did they go? Well, they picked Marathon. First, as Herodotus says, because it's a good place for cavalry; secondly, because it's the stronghold of Peisistratus, the place which would be natural for an army trying to establish Hippeis on the throne of Athens; and that's why they're there.

Their plan is to go to Marathon. If the Athenians come out and challenge them to a fight, they will crush the Athenians. But they didn't expect that. They thought the Athenians would be afraid, and that what would happen is they would stay there in Marathon, until they got the news that there was a revolution in Athens prepared to turn the city over to them. That's what Hippeis, led them to believe, and that's what they hoped for.

Some [in Athens]favored remaining there, defending the city.

But to defend Athens means to allow the Persians to run all around Attica doing anything they want, causing all the harm they could. Remember, something over seventy five percent, maybe as many as ninety percent of the Athenian citizens had farms out in the country, had houses out in the country that would have been exposed to the Persians.

That was good reason for them to think that was not a great idea.

Miltiades now emerges as the leading figure. Everybody knows Miltiades is the resident Persian expert. He has been a general in the Persian army. That gives him a reason to be listened to. His position was to go out and meet the Persians where they land.

You don't let your enemy ravage your countryside. This goes all the way back to Homer, the notion of arêtē, a man must have courage, you must stand up against an enemy who invades your country. After that, in the world of the hoplite, you're talking about defending your homestead. All of that argued for going out there.

So the Athenian strategy was to contain the beachhead, go confront the Persians.

They have landed at Marathon with about 25,000 infantry. Remember, their infantry are not hoplites. They do not have heavy armor. There are vases that show the Persian soldiers at Marathon, and they are wearing pants, they're not wearing any armor. Their shield is a kind of wicker shield, so that their armament is much inferior to the hoplites. Keep in mind too, that the Persian army has always been made up of a collection of subject peoples.

Kagan

Marathon, 490 BC

On a cup from Athens,

probably painted shortly

after the Persian defeat at

Marathon, a Greek hoplite

finishes off his Persian

adversary. Fabric and

leather protected Persian

warriors from head to toe,

but they offered little

safety from the spear and

sword attacks of the

armored Greek hoplite.Hanson,

The Wars, p. 82

Miltiades' plan is this, there are something like 10,000 Greeks, about 9,000 Athenians, about 1,000 Eretrians against let us say 25,000 Persians.

The Greeks have the high ground. If the Persians want to start a fight, then they will have to come running up the hill. Not a very attractive proposition. So the Greeks feel, let them come for us. It's our country. So, they're sitting here.

They've got to do something; we don't.

Meanwhile, the Persians are waiting for treason, so that the city will be surrendered to them. A week goes by with the two sides looking at each other and doing nothing.

Kagan

The Persians realize we can't sit here forever. For one thing we're going to run out of food and water. For another thing, the Great King will want to hear something. Well, what do we do?

So, here’s the plan the Persians made. They would take — let us say for the sake of argument-- 10,000 troops, put them on the ships, load up the cavalry onto the ships too and send those ships around Attica to come up to Phaleron Bay, then straight into Athens. Meanwhile take the 15,000 that are left, march them up as close as they could get to the Greeks and fix the Greeks there, so that they can't go back to defend Athens. So if we come sailing into the harbor, get off the ships, walk up to town, it's ours.

If the Athenians are crazy enough to come running down the hill to be outnumbered three to two by us, then let them do it! Anyway we're Persians we always beat Greeks, we've got nothing to worry about.

So they come.

Now, Miltiades has the problem that they have 5,000 more troops than he has. He's worried about being outflanked. So, what he decides to do is to weaken the depth of his line because he must cover the length of the Persian line.

The Persians send a force by sea toattack Athens, leaving Datis to holdthe Athenian forces on the plain of Marathon.

MARATHON PHASE I

The Persians send a force by sea toattack Athens, leaving Datis to holdthe Athenian forces on the plain of Marathon.

MARATHON PHASE IMiltiades, the Athenian Commander, guessing the Persians’plan, urged an immediate attack.The Athenian force advance andtake position on the plain.

The Plataeans on the left and the Athenians on the rightflank drive back the Persians and wheel inward,beginning to encircle the Persian force.

The Persians succeed in pushingback the Athenian center.

Sensing impending defeatthe Persians begin to fleeand embark on the transportsjust offshore.

It has been suggested that Datis organized

a rear guard, allowing his defeated force to

escape. However, he still lost almost 7,000

men whilst the Greeks lost a mere 192.

MARATHON PHASE II

...the old Athenian hoplite veterans of the running [unique for that battle] charge at Marathon. Much later, to remind a younger audience of that legendary shared battle experience, they needed to say simply, “We ran.” (Aristophanes, Acharnanians, 700)

Hanson, The Western Way of War, p. 125

The battle was seen throughout the rest of Greek history, first of all, as a great victory for hoplites as opposed to their opponents. In later Greek history, when the navy becomes a big thing, it is the old fashioned and more conservative party that thinks about Marathon as the great victory, the day that those hoplite farmers saved Greece. The navy guys, the poor, like to point to Salamis, the naval battle in 480. It was seen as a victory for democracy; the Athenian democrat rowers. It was the first Greek defeat of the Persians. As Herodotus says, up until then even the name Persians was a fearful thing to the Greeks.

It was a source of tremendous national pride and glory for Athens, and scholars have compared the impact of the Battle of Marathon on the Athenian image of themselves with the defeat of the Spanish Armada by Elizabeth's English fleet, the beginning of the glory of the Elizabethan Era. It was seen as a victory for freedom, because the price of defeat would have been slavery in every sense, as they understood it. Greek civilization, could have been strangled in its infancy; it is in its infancy!

Still, we ought to pay attention to those people who suggest that people like me are over-embellishing the significance of all this.

Kagan

The Athenians won the battle, very large casualties for the Persians. Only 192 Greeks killed in the battle and allowed the extraordinary honor of being buried on the field where they fought.

Next day 2,000 Spartans come marching into Attica [too late for the battle]. They ask permission — can we go to the battlefield and look at it?

There they saw all these dead Persians. No one had ever seen anything like that. No Greeks had ever beaten Persians before. Great was the glory of the Athenians.

So what?

What is the significance of this silly little battle 10,000 Greeks against 15,000 Persians back a billion years ago? What does it matter? Lots of folks will say that, especially these days.

But I remember in 1936 there was a wonderful conference of pacifists, who met in England, at which the dominant theme of the speakers was, no war ever made any difference. What I like about that was that the place of the meeting was Hastings. [What happened there in 1066?--jbp]

Kagan

One English statesman said war wins nothing, cures nothing, settles nothing; the speaker was Neville Chamberlain. In 1936 Bertrand Russell would declare, disarmament and complete pacifism is indisputably the wisest policy, and he urged the gradual disbanding of the British Army, Navy and Air Force, as Hitler was moving into the Rhineland. Does victory in war make a difference?

I would say ask the losers, the victims, and the survivors of the Holocaust. Ask the descendants of the slaves in the American south. Remember this, if the Athenians had lost at Marathon — Aeschylus had just begun his career as a playwright, Sophocles hadn't written a play, Euripides of course hadn't either, nor had Aristophanes. Socrates wasn't born yet, much less Plato, Aristotle, Phidias. There was no Parthenon, none of those glorious buildings that make us think about the greatness that was Greece had been constructed.

There would be no democracy, because this was the only place where it had any existence. The scientific revolution would have been wiped out.

There would be no memory; there would be no record of any of this. Therefore, no Western civilization, no political freedom, for none of these have occurred in any other culture in all the years since that time. That's why I wanted you to know a little bit about the battle of Marathon. I think all of us alive today here owe a very great debt to the 10,000 marathonomachoi, the fighters of Marathon who fought for Greek freedom and for ours too. Thank you.

Kagan

Xerxes, Mardonius (480 BC)

Sea of Marmara

Aegean Sea

DardanellesorHellespont

Black Sea

As the population of Athens grew in the 7th and 6th centuries, the Athenians becamemore and more dependent on this narrow waterway connecting them with the Black or Euxine Sea. Here were the wheat and metal exports so vital to their economy, their very survival.

Bosphorus

According to Herodotus, Xerxes' first attempt to bridge the Hellespont ended in failure when a storm destroyed the flax and papyrus cables of the bridges; Xerxes ordered the Hellespont (the strait itself) whipped three hundred times and had fetters thrown into the water. Xerxes' second attempt to bridge the H e l l e s p o n t w a s successful.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetters

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetters

Xerxes’ crossing of the Hellespont in the summer of 480, with a pontoon bridge formed by

connected boats, was famous in antiquity. Seen as a symbol of the vast resources of the Persian

empire and its ability to conquer natural obstacles. This horde subsequently descended through

northern Greece to Thermopylae--a variegated force of Persians, Phoenicians, Lydians, Medes,

Egyptians, and dozens more contingents of the Persian empire, joined by Ionian and mainland

Greeks. After Xerxes’ defeat at Salamis (September 480), a great part of the army rushed home in

paranoid fear that the Greeks would destroy the bridge and trap them in Europe.

Leonidas marched into Thermopylae with about seven thousand men….He

dismissed the bulk of his forces….perhaps he knew his position was hopeless

and wished to save as many soldiers as he could for future battles while still

inflicting damage and delay on the enemy. Only a small force of four hundred

men sent by the Thebans, the Thespians, and three hundred Spartans

remained. Leonidas and his men defended the pass heroically and fell

fighting, having slain many “immortals” including two brothers of Xerxes. On

Xerxes’ orders the body of Leonidas was decapitated and displayed on a cross.

The holding operation at Thermopylae not only bought time but went down in

history as an extraordinary act of heroism.

Pomeroy et.al., p 219

the terrain of Greece favored the defenders

passes in northern Thessaly, and at Thermopylae, together with narrow entries into Boeotia and along the Attic border could be garrisoned or blocked by hoplites

the seacoast was irregular

and the mountains of western Greece made that region nearly impassable

the terrain of Greece favored the defenders

passes in northern Thessaly, and at Thermopylae, together with narrow entries into Boeotia and along the Attic border could be garrisoned or blocked by hoplites

the seacoast was irregular

and the mountains of western Greece made that region nearly impassable

MOLON LABE

COME, TAKE THEM!

Some have suggested that [the 2007 film] 300 is juvenile in its black-and-

white plot and character depiction---and glorification---of free Greeks versus

imperious Persians. Yet that good-bad contrast comes not entirely from

Snyder or Miller, but again is based on accounts from the Greeks themselves,

who saw their own society as antithetical to the monarchy of imperial Persia

Hanson, The Father of Us All, p. 54

300 was released in both conventional and IMAX theaters in the United States on March 9, 2007, and on DVD, Blu-ray, and HD DVD on July 31, 2007. The film's opening was the 24th largest in box office history…

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_office

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box_office

παπαί, Μαρδόνιε, κοίους ἐπ' ἄνδρας ἤγαγες µαχησοµένους ἡµέας, οἳ οὐ περὶ χρηµάτων τὸν ἀγῶνα ποιεῦνται ἀλλὰ περὶ ἀρετῆς.

Papaí, Mardónie, koíous ep' ándras ēgages makhēsoménous hēméas, hoì ou perì khrēmátōn tòn agôna poieûntai allà perì aretês.

"Good heavens! Mardonius, what kind of men have you brought us to fight against? Men who do not compete for possessions, but for honour."

Spontaneous response of Tigranes, a Persian general while Xerxes was interrogating some Arcadians after the Battle of Thermopylae. Xerxes asked why there were so few Greek men defending the Thermopylae. The answer was "All the other men are participating in the Olympic Games". And when asked "What is the prize for the winner?", "An olive-wreath" came the answer. —

Herodotus, The Histories, quoted in Wikipedia, “List of Greek Phrases”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mardonius

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mardonius

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigranes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigranes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerxes_I_of_Persia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerxes_I_of_Persia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arcadian

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Olympic_Games

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Olympic_Games

Not long before the Persian invasion, in the year 482, the silver mines in the south of Attica [at Laurion] had yielded an unusual strike. A vein of silver had been discovered,much more than normal. So much so that something had to be decided by the Athenian assembly. What should we do with the silver? It's a wonderful insight into the way Greeks thought about their polis. The first thought, the one that was most popular, was well, let's take the silver and divide it up equally among ourselves. That in some sense the polis was a kind of joint stock company and when there was a nice dividend you just dole it out to the investors.

Themistocles thought otherwise. Themistocles was — it's evident — constantly aware of the threat from Persia and of the importance of getting ready to fight the Persians, and he understood before most other Greeks that the navy was going to be really critical in this operation. So, he made the suggestion that the silver strike be used to build a whole fleet of new ships for the Athenians, and they end up with two hundred triremes (the trireme is the battleship of the ancient Greeks). So, that is the core of the fleet which is the one that defeats the Persians at Salamis and defeats them again at Mycale.

The Spartans were given command of the war against Persia, both on land and sea, but the Spartans didn't have any great skill or experience in naval matters, and the Athenians had more than they, and it was the Athenian portion of the fleet, which was the largest and the most effective in fighting those naval battles. And, of course, the battle of Salamis was fought in Athenian waters and Themistocles, with his clever devices, had come up with the way of winning victory. First of all, compelling the Greeks to fight at Salamis and then winning the victory at Salamis.

Kagan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7da52cJLwW8



The last hope of Hellenic civilization to defeat an empire twenty times larger than

its own was to force a battle at Salamis….

The Athenian refugees were huddled in makeshift quarters on the nearby islands of

Salamis and Aegina and on the coast of the Argolid, their very culture [and Western

Civilization] on the verge of extinction. We must remember that when Salamis was

fought, the Athenians had already lost their homeland. The battle was an effort not

to save, but to reclaim, their ancestral ground.

Hanson, Carnage, p. 43

“When Xerxes’ remaining 800 ships entered the Bay of Phalerum, the Peloponnesians were for withdrawing

“Themistocles used all his powers of persuasion, arguing to stand and fight there

“the shores of Salamis and the mainland nullified the Persian numerical advantage

“When Xerxes’ remaining 800 ships entered the Bay of Phalerum, the Peloponnesians were for withdrawing

“Themistocles used all his powers of persuasion, arguing to stand and fight there

“the shores of Salamis and the mainland nullified the Persian numerical advantage

“Moreover, there were no unwilling levies among the Greeks but men fighting for their lives and homes, whereas the Persians were mostly conscripts and mercenaries

“Lastly, the Greeks wore metal breastplates and the Persians did not.”

Potter, ed. Sea Power, p. 9

A king sate on the rocky browWhich looks o'er sea-born Salamis

And ships, by thousands, lay below,And men in nations;—all were his!He counted them at break of day—

And when the sun set where were they?

the philhellene Lord Byron Don Juan, Canto iii, 1819

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philhellene

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philhellene

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron

the battle of Plataea, 479 BC

Plataea, fought in a small valley about ten miles south of Thebes almost a year after

the Greeks’ mastery at Salamis, was a magnificent Greek triumph, resulting in the

destruction of the remaining Persian infantry in the field and marking the final

expulsion of the king’s infantry forces from Greece. Yet that landmark battle--

where the Persian general Mardonius was killed and most of the remaining

Persians slaughtered or scattered--is understood only in the context of the tactical,

strategic and spiritual success of Salamis the September before, which energized

the Greeks to press on with the war.

Hanson, op. cit., p. 40

Two great battles decided the outcome of the war finally.

On land, the battle of Plataea in southern Boeotia, in which a great Greek army, which included the [31] major cities including especially Sparta and Athens, took on a powerful Persian army and defeated them.

Herodotus says on the very same day a sea battle was fought off the coast of Asia Minor at Mycale. Again, the Greek fleet destroyed the Persian fleet. At that point the Persians had no choice but simply to flee, to try to escape the Greeks, who were pursuing them, doing their best to kill as many of them as they could.

Kagan

Although Greek historical sources tend to depict Persian history as the gradual

degeneration of the mighty empire established by Cyrus the Great...the Persians

were not decisively defeated by European forces until their conquest by Alexander

the Great (334-323 BC). They continued to play an influential in Greek politics,

both in civic disputes and in rivalries between Greek states, favoring now one side,

now another, providing refuge for exiles and soldiers of fortune including the

Athenians Hippias, Themistocles, Alcibiades, and Xenophon and the Spartans

Demaratus and Pausanias. The Spartan victory in the Peloponnesian War of the

late fifth century would have been impossible without Persian backing….

Pomeroy & al., op. cit., p. 223

STRUGGLE FOR HEGEMONY

TheAthenianEmpire

Hegemony (UK: /hɨˈɡɛməni/; US: /ˈhɛdʒɨmoʊni/, /hɨˈdʒɛməni/; Greek: ἡγεµονία hēgemonía, leadership, rule) is an indirect form of imperial dominance in which the hegemon (leader state) rules sub-ordinate states by the implied means of power rather than direct military force.[1] In Ancient Greece (8th c. BC – AD 6th c.), hegemony denoted the politico–military dominance of a city-state over other city-states.[2]__________

1. Ross Hassig, Mexico and the Spanish Conquest (1994), pp. 23–24.2. The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition (1994) p. 1215.

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:IPA_for_English






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_hierarchy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominance_hierarchy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(philosophy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(philosophy)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greece

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City-state

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City-state

CHRONOLOGY OF THE πεντηκονταετία (FIFTY YEARS)

481-the second Persian invasion

459-so-called “First Peloponnesian War” begins

winter 445/46-the “Thirty Years Peace”

431-the Peloponnesian War begins (only 13 years later!)

One thing we need to understand or we won't comprehend the situation at all.

We know that the Persian wars are over. We know that the Persians just ran away and weren't going to come back and challenge this Greek victory for the longest time, but the Greeks didn't know it.

The Persian Empire was still intact; it was still an extraordinarily extensive, rich, and powerful empire. There was no reason why the Greeks should not believe that the Persians would be coming again.

If we don't grasp that, then all of what they do now makes no sense.

Kagan

Now, after Mycale, a very important event took place... There was a conference held on the island of Samos, ... one of the most important of the Ionian islands ... The Greek council that had been conducting the war [met there.] The island states of Chios, Lesbos, and Samos...the three largest, most important islands off the coast of Asia Minor. All of them had taken advantage of the presence of the Greek forces in that region to rebel against the Persians. Now they wanted to be admitted to the league that the Greeks had formed in 481 to resist the Persian invasion.

Now, this might seem like a simple thing to do. Why not accept these three Greek states, all of them potentially powerful and important, who want join the Greek League.

Kagan

Chios, Samos, and Lesbos wanted to be sure that they would be protected by this Greek League

basically the Spartans said no. There wasn't much danger that the Persians would present a threat to the Spartan predominance in the Peloponnesus

the Athenians held the opposite view, their situation was quite different. They were accustomed to the sea. Moreover they had very important supply lines. In order to feed themselves they needed to have freedom of the seas

for those reasons alone, the Athenians would have had to take seriously this request by the islanders. But it's also true that the islanders, Samos particularly, were Ionians, kinsmen of the Athenians. The Athenians were recognized as the leader of the Ionian people

Kagan

But most strikingly, the Athenians understood the Persians have to be kept away from the Aegean Sea and the Athenians also wanted very much to liberate the Greeks of Asia Minor from the Persian rule. So, the Athenians won the argument; it was agreed to take these three island states into the Greek League and that meant that the Greeks would be committed to protect them.

In accordance with these decisions, the commander of the Spartan fleet, King Leotychidas sailed home and took his Spartans, and his Peloponnesians with him. On the other hand, the commander of the Athenian fleet, Xanthippus stayed, and carried on the war against the Persians in the area. Xanthippus has a son in the year 479 whose name is Pericles, and we will be hearing a lot about him later on. The Persians have fled but there are a few places in Europe that, along the route of their escape, where the Persians still had control of a town or a city here and there, and one of the most important was the town of Sestos, located on the European side of the Dardanelles. So Xanthippus took the city by siege.

Kagan

The point of all this is that there is something new in the Greek world, a big Athenian navy, an extraordinarily capable navy. The whole idea of naval power being decisive in Greek affairs is a new idea. We're really at another level after the Athenians have built this fleet and had the success that they had.

Another consequence of the war was the tremendous boost to Greek self-confidence. What an incredible upset this victory was! No one would have imagined that, if the Great King got really serious and sent over an army of a hundred or two hundred thousand (?)—it is widely agreed Herodotus' numbers are exaggerated-- but it's a very big army, a very big navy. Certainly both outnumbered the Greeks. Anybody would have thought it was going to be an easy victory for the Persians.

To defeat them was enormous. The Greeks came away feeling that their belief in their own superiority over everybody else had been justified. The Athenians, especially, because of the central role which they had played.

Kagan

PANHELLENISM

previously there had been some sense of Greek unity and identity at the Panhellenic games and religious festivals

but this couldn’t match the tremendous boost which this victory imparted to these thirty-one states that had banded together to defeat the Persians

“I don't mean to say that the Greeks are formed now into a single people, have retreated from their localism and their love for their polis; nothing could be further from the truth. But alongside of their love of autonomy and love of their polis, there was the idea that Panhellenism was a good thing

Kagan’s analogies of the League and the UN, post-war idealism

Venizelos’ Μεγάλη Ιδέα

Another consequence of the war was a division within the Greek world that was in part based upon the fact that Athens had become a great power and had played one of the leading roles in the victory. Now, the Spartans had too; the Spartans were the official leaders, and their regent [Pausanias] had been the commander at the great land battle at Plataea and their general was in charge of the navy, but Athens had become so important, so big, so successful that there was now a question — was Sparta really the leader of the Greeks? Was the future going to be one in which the Spartans would maintain the unique leadership of the Greeks or would the Athenians challenge them?

Kagan

It soon became clear that the Athenians would indeed challenge them. The major theme in Hellenic relations for the next fifty years [481-431, the πεντηκονταετία--Thucydides] will be the conflict between Athens and Sparta. A cold war, because there is no fighting between them from 479 until 457. And when that war ends there is a another period of peace until the great Peloponnesian War which dominates the last third of the century. What's clear now is that there must be some new alignment to reflect the change in power.

Behind it all stood the question was Persia going to be a threat once again. The Spartans and the Peloponnesians were more likely to take the view that the threat was over. The Athenians, the islanders, and the Asiatic Greeks, would take the view that there is an imminent danger from the Persians.

Now, let me describe the way in which a new plan for dealing with the Persians arose. [Kagan goes back in time!] It’s 481, the year when Xerxes starts his march from the Persian empire against the Greeks. Aware that this was happening, the Greeks met at Corinth where thirty-one cities swore that they would fight together to defeat the Persians. They appointed Sparta officially as the hegemon, the leader of that league. This meant the Spartans would be in command on land and sea once the battles commenced. But, prior to that, the decisions as to what to do, where to go to fight, when to fight and so on, were made by the council of the Greeks.

Kagan

THE LEAGUE OF 481 BC

a league of equals, but with both Sparta and Athens being “more equal”

still, as hegemon, Sparta was not the dominant partner as she was in the Peloponnesian League. The membership of the two leagues is different as are their ground rules

they swear this common oath; the members will fight for the common freedom, to free the Greeks in the islands, in Asia Minor

it is to be perpetual. They agree to put aside the quarrels which they may have had, to have the same friends and enemies, the famous clause that means a common foreign policy

a symmachia (lit. “fight alongside”), a defensive-offensive alliance. Each state would fund its own forces. No scheduled meetings--”when necessary”

the first Pan-Hellenic expedition since the Trojan War!

TENSIONS OVER ATHENIAN DEFENSE PLANS

478-Athens began to rebuild her walls which the Persians had destroyed in 480. Sparta is concerned. Themistocles says that it’s none of their business

477-representatives from Athens and dozens of other Greek states met at Delos to form an anti-Persian league [soon called the Delian League]

ultimately some 150 states, small and large will join

Sparta proves uninterested in this largely maritime enterprise, but jealous of the prestige Athens gains as its leader

members contributed either ships or money which Athens administered

Miltiades’ son Kimon (Κίµων — Kimōn) commanded the Greek force which fought the Persians and their satellite states on both sea and land for the next quarter century

480-479--after fighting at Salamis he was made strategos (general, here admiral)

Κίµων — Kimōn510, Athens – 450 BC, Citium, Cyprus

Bust of Kimon in Larnaca, Cyprus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athens


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citium


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyprus


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larnaca





466-his greatest exploit was the destruction of a Persian fleet and army at the battle of the Eurymedon (200 Phoenician triremes were captured)





465-463-he conducted the difficult campaign against Thasos, a rebelling island member of the Delian League

462-he led an unsuccessful expedition to support Sparta during a helot uprising





465-463-he conducted the difficult campaign against Thasos, a rebelling island member of the Delian League

462-he led an unsuccessful expedition to support Sparta during a helot uprising

461-ostracism-the “democratic party” under Ephialtes and Pericles were critical of his aristocratic, pro-Spartan policy













...this [joint military policy] shows that the league was working, as it was supposed to. Then (if the dates are right) in the next year 469 [Wikipedia gives 466], comes a very important turning point in the history of the league.

The Persians had a fleet in the in the eastern Mediterranean on the southern coast of Asia Minor, the Eurymedon river flows out there. They had a fleet and an army inland. The league forces went there under the command of Kimon, crushed the Persian fleet at sea, landed and defeated the Persian army on land. A terrible blow to the Persian position. Apparently the Persians had to pull back from that entire area.

Now, it would not have been at all unreasonable for people to think: well, the Persian threat really is over. This went far beyond what happened in 479. It's not just that we've driven them out of Europe. We've driven them away from the Mediterranean. You could imagine that that's the end of the Persian threat.

Kagan

That was not the view taken by the Athenians, or by most of the allies, but we can imagine that there were some of the allies, who were restless about the need to continue to contribute to the league when they didn't feel that there was any purpose to the league anymore.

General Grunther, a commander of NATO, obviously a West Point man, educated, he knew all about Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War. He made the analogy between NATO and the Delian League. At a period when he felt that the American allies in Europe were more and more reluctant to make the kinds of contributions that he thought they should make, he bewailed his situation. Every time the Russians looked like they were going to behave, then the allies decided they didn't want to make any contributions, and then when the Russians looked scary, everybody came running and said, sure we'll contribute. He suggested that's the way it was in the Delian League too.

[After 466] there are real questions as to whether the league should persist.

Kagan

KAGAN’S ANALOGY OF THE THREE LEAGUES

Greek League of 481=United Nations Organization

Delian League of 478=NATO

Peloponnesian League=Warsaw Pact

Notice how he goes beyond General Grunther’s analogy. Now the hostile

Spartans (USSR) and their allies (Warsaw Pact, ”brotherly socialist

countries”) have become Athens’ enemies. Not the Persians!

The Athenians certainly had no plan of abandoning the league, of abandoning their leadership, of giving up their assaults on the Persians. [If league members should attempt to break] away, the Athenians would [respond].

A very important turning point in the character of the league occurred in 465 when the Island of Thasos in the northern Aegean Sea rebelled.

Kagan

Thasos did not object to doing the duty which the members of the league had to do. It was not about not wanting to take part in campaigns, not wanting to make payments. No nothing like that. There was a quarrel between the Athenians and the Thasians about some mines that were worked on the mainland north of Thasos. Gold and silver, very rich precious metal sources for the ancient Greek world, of which there were not many, located on Mount Pangaean. Both states claimed those mines. It was a quarrel that was really just about money.

There was also a trading post up there which both sides claimed.The Athenians had established a colony at a place on the Strymon River in that region called ennea-hodoi, the nine roads, which would later, when the Athenians established it as the colony would be called Amphipolis.

Pangaean



StrymonRiver

Pangaean



Thasos did not object to doing the duty which the members of the league had to do. It was not about not wanting to take part in campaigns, not wanting to make payments. No nothing like that. There was a quarrel between the Athenians and the Thasians about some mines that were worked on the mainland north of Thasos. Gold and silver, very rich precious metal sources for the ancient Greek world, of which there were not many, located on Mount Pangaean. Both states claimed those mines and it was a quarrel that was really just about money.


These were all issues which the Thasians didn't like. The Athenians were moving into their sphere of influence and giving them trouble. So Thasos, as a consequence of all of these quarrels, rebelled. It was a very difficult siege for the Athenians. Thasos is a relatively big island. The Thasians were a pretty tough group to put down, and the siege, actually the war, between Athens and Thasos took two years, which is quite a long stretch for any Greek combat and certainly had not been typical of what the Athenians had been able to do against other rebellions. When the Thasians were finally forced to surrender, the Athenians gave them the usual treatment to rebellious states.

Kagan

THEY MADE THEM TAKE DOWN THEIR WALLS

THEY TOOK THEIR SHIPS

OF COURSE THE ATHENIANS TOOK OVER THE MINES

THE THASIANS HAD TO PAY AN INDEMNITY, THE COST TO ATHENS OF THE WAR

THEN, THE ANNUAL TRIBUTE WHICH MEMBERS OF THE LEAGUE WERE REQUIRED TO PAY

That wasn't the first time such a thing had happened to one of the members of the league. What made it different was that the quarrel was not over anything that had to do with the league.

It could easily be seen that the Athenians used the forces and the funds of the league to achieve strictly Athenian advantages. After all, there was no way that the league [had a stake in whether] Athens or Thasos exploited those mines. It was not an issue for the league at all, and yet the Athenians had used their position as leaders of the league to gain an economic advantage.

The Thasian rebellion is a critical moment. That is a good place for us to look at the evaluation that the ancient writers made of this transition.

Kagan

“In general, Athenians were making great gains in power and no longer treated their allies with decency as they had done before. Instead, they ruled with arrogance and violence. For this reason, most of their allies could not bear their harshness and spoke to one another of rebellion. Some of them even disdained the league council and acted according to their own wishes.”

Diodorus Siculis [of Sicily], quoted by Kagan

ONE ANCIENT OPINION

“Now, while there were other causes of revolts, the principal ones were the failures in bringing in the tribute or their quota of ships, and in some cases, refusal of military service. For the Athenians exacted the tribute strictly and gave offense by applying coercive measures to any who were accustomed or unwilling to bear the hardships of service. In some other respects too, the Athenians were no longer equally agreeable as leaders. They would not take part in expeditions on terms of equality and they found it easy to reduce those who had revolted."

[Now, here's where Thucydides differs from Diodorus,]

"For all this, the allies themselves were responsible for most of them on account of their aversion to military service, in order to avoid being away from home got themselves rated in sums of money instead of ships, which they should pay in as their proportion of contribution. Consequently, the fleet of the Athenians was increased by the funds which they contributed, while they themselves, whenever they revolted entered on the war without preparation and without experience."

Thucydides, quoted by Kagan

BUT, ON THE OTHER HAND

So, Thucydides certainly agrees with what Diodorus says about the high handed manner in which the Athenians had become accustomed to behave and the offense they gave to their allies.

[But] he points out that the allies had gotten themselves into that fix, because many of them — and this is an element Diodorus doesn't mention --- voluntarily said, okay, we're not going to do this service anymore. Instead of supplying ships, manning them, doing the service ourselves, we'll pay the equivalent sum into the league treasury. When they did so, the Athenians took that money and used it to pay for Athenian ships with Athenian rowers. As the league forces grew smaller, the Athenian navy grew bigger.

Kagan

KIMON AND THE HELOT REVOLT OF 465

he was Sparta’s proxenos (ambassador, of sorts) at Athens. He strongly supported close ties with Sparta

465-Sparta called on all her allies (League of 481) to help her subjugate the helots

463-Kimon commands the Athenian detachment of 4,000 hoplites to Mt. Ithome

Sparta became concerned about “revolutionary tendencies” from this democratic presence and dismissed the Athenians in a humiliating fashion

461-this blow to Kimon’s pro-Spartan policy led his democratic opponents (including Pericles) in Athens to bring about his ostracism

DOMESTIC POLITICS SPILLS INTO THE ATHENS-SPARTA RIVALRY

early 470s-Themistocles, the leader of the anti-Sparta faction, is ostracised by Kimon’s pro-Sparta faction

after 463-the democratic faction brings an unsuccessful bribery trial against Kimon. It is alleged that the reason it took two years to conquer Thasos was because Kimon was bribed by the king of Macedon. Pericles is the unsuccessful prosecutor

Thucydides reports that Sparta had been on the verge of invading Attica during the Thasian revolt. They only stopped because of the helot revolt

461-after Kimon’s ostracism Athens seeks allies against Sparta: Thessaly, Argos, Megara

“FIRST PELOPONNESIAN WAR”459-445 BC

459 BC- Athens took advantage of a war between its neighbors Megara and Corinth, both Spartan allies, to conclude an alliance with Megara, giving the Athenians a critical foothold on the Isthmus of Corinth

457-conflict ensued, in which Athens fought intermittently against Sparta, Corinth, Aegina, and a number of other states

For a time Athens controlled not only Megara but also Boeotia; at its end, however, in the face of a massive Spartan invasion of Attica, the Athenians ceded the lands they had won on the Greek mainland, and Athens and Sparta recognized each other's right to control their respective alliance systems

winter of 446/5 BC-the war was officially ended by the Thirty Years' Peace

THE LONG WALLSTHESE WERE BUILT DURING THE 450S

Kagan believes that Pericles is responsible f o r t h i s b r i l l i a n t strategy. The polis is connected to her n a v a l b a s e . N o w Athens can function as an “island,” getting h e r f o o d a n d commercial wealth from overseas. Sparta can ravage Attica, but Athens is now like Britain, an island sea power.

THE LONG WALLSTHESE WERE BUILT DURING THE 450S

Kagan believes that Pericles is responsible f o r t h i s b r i l l i a n t strategy. The polis is connected to her n a v a l b a s e . N o w Athens can function as an “island,” getting h e r f o o d a n d commercial wealth from overseas. Sparta can ravage Attica, but Athens is now like Britain, an island sea power.

a vast circuit of > 17 miles

PELOPONNESIAN WAR

PELOPONNESIAN WAR

Thucydides,

History of

the

Peloponnesian

War

Thucydides,

History of

the

Peloponnesian

War

In the late fifth century before Christ, ancient Greece was rent by a series of

terrible wars. For ten years (431-421 BC), the Athenians and Spartans, and their

respective allies, strove against each other. After these hostilities were ended by a

covenant, Sparta’s old rival Argos tried to seize from her weakened enemy the

lordship of the peninsula that they shared, the Peloponnese (421-418 BC). The

Spartans prevailed in the resulting war. Then in 415 BC, Athens launched a great

expedition against Syracuse in Sicily, an expedition that ended in a cataclysm in

413. Even as those distant battles unfolded, a second ten year war broke out

between Athens and Sparta (414-404 BC), which ended in a starving Athens

prostrate and at Sparta’s mercy. To our eyes, this is a disquieting result, for Athens

was a cheerful democracy, and Sparta, a grim totalitarian state. But, ultimately,

Sparta was stronger.

Lendon, Song of Wrath, p. 13

These wars between 431 and 404 BC were given their unity by the man who first

narrated them, a high-born Athenian by the name of Thucydides, son of Olorus. It

was he who decided that the entire twenty-seven year span, comprising four major

wars and any number of petty ones, should be regarded as a single great war---

what he called the “war of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians,” and what we,

following the lead of later Greeks, call the Peloponnesian War….

Lendon, Ibid.

Eternal Challenge and Response

...During most of the early fifth century B.C., the Hellenic city-states preferred to

settle their border disputes by means of conventional collisions between

phalanxes of hoplites.

But during the almost-three-decades-long cauldron of the Peloponnesian War

(431-404), such traditional warfare fell by the wayside. Both conservative,

landlocked Sparta and imperial, maritime Athens turned to other avenues and

methods---triremes rowed by mercenary and slave oarsmen, innovative

techniques in siege-craft, the use of light cavalry, even terrorism. This set off a

cycle of challenge and response like nothing seen before in Greek history.

Hanson, The Father of Us All, p. 132

Eternal Challenge and Response (cont.)

By the time of Athens’s defeat in 404 B.C., this early RMA [Revolution in Military

Affairs] had changed Western warfare seemingly for good. Just as states could no

longer envision armed conflict as a series of pitched battles among ranks of

hoplites, so the old social classifications of the battlefield---with the wealthy on

ponies, small property-owners in the phalanx, and the landless poor as

skirmishers and rowers---no longer prescribed how and where men would fight.

Moral philosophers and conservative generals decried these changes. These

reactionaries complained that the rabble, war machines, and money were now the

decisive factors in war---but to no avail.

Hanson, The Father of Us All, pp. 132-133

Behind the contradictions of politics and philosophy, and the hypocrisies of the

Hellenic world’s greatest generation, remain the thousands of ordinary Greeks…

who were slaughtered for nearly three decades for the designs of fickle men,

shifting alliances, and contradictory causes. No war of the ancient world---not

Xerxes’ earlier invasion of Greece, the later grandiose invasions of Alexander the

Great, or Hannibal’s romp into Italy---is more riveting and yet contradictory than

the three decades of intramural fighting between Athens and Sparta.

Hanson, A War Like No Other, p.18

“I am not one of the gods to tell of all these things.”

Homer, Iliad, bk. xii

LONG RANGE CAUSES

Lendon’s schema: timē (honor), hybris, anger, revenge

Thucydides’ (according to Hanson): “[Spartans] feared the Athenians lest they might grow still more powerful, seeing most of Greece was already subject to them”

Thucydides’ (according to Kagan): fear, honor, [economic] interest

compare Thucydides’ trinity to that of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) in his famous book Leviathan (1651). He wrote that men, in a state of nature, had three “causes of quarrels”: competition (economic rivalry), diffidence (lack of trust-->fear), and glory

IMMEDIATE CAUSES(TRIGGERING EVENTS)

434/3--Corcyra vs. Corinth

433--revolt at Potidea

433/2--the Megaran decree

Corinth

ΚόρκυραCorcyra

Corinth

• 730 BC Corcyra was founded by Corinth as a way station to Magna Graecia

MagnaGraecia

Corinth


• 665 BC hostility with the mētērpolis led to the first naval battle in Greek history

• Corinthian tyrant Periander defeated the Corcyrans and compelled their cooperation in founding Apollonia and Anactorion

• the Corcyrians founded their own apoikia at Epidamnus “among the barbarians” sometime thereafterMagna

Graecia

Corinth


• 665 BC hostility with the mētērpolis led to the first naval battle in Greek history

• Corinthian tyrant Periander defeated the Corcyrans and compelled their cooperation in founding Apollonia and Anactorion

• the Corcyrians founded their own apoikia at Epidamnus “among the barbarians” sometime thereafter

• 434 BC a civil war breaks out between the oligarchic and democratic factions in Epidamnus

• the exiled losers get help from the local barbarians and begin a civil war which flames out of control

MagnaGraecia

ATHENS BECOMES INVOLVED

434-after suffering a defeat at the hands of their colony of Corcyra, a sea power that was not allied to either Sparta or Athens, Corinth began to build an allied naval force

alarmed, Corcyra sought an alliance with Athens, which after debate and input from both Corcyra and Corinth, decided to swear to a defensive alliance with Corcyra

433-at the Battle of Sybota, a small contingent of Athenian ships played a critical role in preventing a Corinthian fleet from capturing Corcyra. In order to uphold the Thirty Years' Peace, however, the Athenians were instructed not to intervene in the battle unless it was clear that Corinth was going to press onward to invade Corcyra

the presence of Athenian warships standing off from the engagement was enough to dissuade the Corinthians from exploiting their victory, thus sparing much of the routed Corcyraean fleet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corcyra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corcyra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sybota

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sybota

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trireme

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trireme

REVOLT AT POTIDEA

[As relations between Athens and Corinth worsened] Athens instructed Potidaea, a tributary ally of Athens but a colony of Corinth, to tear down its walls, send hostages to Athens, dismiss the Corinthian magistrates from office, and refuse the magistrates that the city would send in the future. The Corinthians, outraged by these actions, encouraged Potidaea to revolt and assured them that they would ally with them should they revolt from Athens. Meanwhile, the Corinthians were unofficially aiding Potidaea by sneaking contingents of men into the besieged city to help defend it. This was a direct violation of the Thirty Years' Peace, which had (among other things) stipulated that the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League would respect each other's autonomy and internal affairs.

Wikipedia

REVOLT AT POTIDEA

REVOLT AT POTIDEA“...THE MOST EXPENSIVE SIEGE IN CLASSICAL GREEK HISTORY”-

HANSON

432-in a complicated three-way battle, Athens fought the forces of Corinth and Macedonia

Athens prevailed and their defeated opponents retreated to the walled seaport of Potidea

Admiral/General Phormio brought an additional 1,600 hoplites and began the siege and naval blockade

430/29-the city would not fall until after war began between Athens and the Peloponnesian League in 431

Socrates was one of the Athenian soldiers. He had the opportunity to save the life of one of his students, Alcibiades (about whom much more later)

THE MEGARIAN DECREE

A further source of provocation was an Athenian decree, issued in 433/2 BC, imposing stringent trade sanctions on Megarian citizens (once more a Spartan ally after the conclusion of the First Peloponnesian War). These sanctions, known as the Megarian decree, were largely ignored by Thucydides, but some modern economic historians have noted that forbidding Megara to trade with the prosperous Athenian empire would have been disastrous for the Megarans, and have accordingly considered the decree to be a contributing factor in bringing about the war. Historians that attribute responsibility for the war to Athens cite this event as the main cause for blame.

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megarian_decree




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thucydides

The transcendent cause of the Peloponnesian War was the culture of Greek

foreign relations, which was deeply embedded in Greek competitiveness and the

ethics of a heroic past. The principle that created the Olympic Games, the

principle that inspired potter to outdo potter and poet to surpass poet, the

competitive principle that drove so much of what is memorable of Greek

civilization---that same principle drove Athens and Sparta to war.


ARCHIDAMIAN WAR431-421

AVAILABLE BATTLE-READY HOPLITES

ATHENS/ATTICA 13,000

ATHENIAN ALLIES 10,000

TOTAL 23,000

THEBES/BOEOTIAN CONFEDERACY 10-12,000

SPARTA/LACONIA 8-10,000

PELOPONNESIAN ALLIES 20,000

TOTAL 40,000

NUMBER OF TRIREMES

ATHENS/ATTICA 300

ATHENIAN ALLIES 100

TOTAL 400

THEBES/BOEOTIAN CONFEDERACY 0

SPARTA/LACONIA 0

PELOPONNESIAN ALLIES 100

TOTAL 100

CITIZEN POPULATION (ADULT MALES, FREE WOMEN & CHILDREN)


THEBES/BOEOTIAN CONFEDERACY 100,000

SPARTA/LACONIA 40,000

SIZE OF TERRITORY

ATHENS/ATTICA c. 1,000 mi2

THEBES/BOEOTIA c. 1,000 mi2

SPARTA/LACONIA c. 2,000 mi2

NUMBER OF SLAVES


THEBES/BOEOTIA 10,000

SPARTA/LACONIA (HELOTS IN MESSENIA AND LACONIA) 250,000

Hanson, Wars of the Ancient Greeks, p. 218

approximate =

Athens=1/3rd

Athens=<1/2

Pericles, Thucydides says, had told the Athenians that “they would win through if

they would keep quiet, take care of their fleet, make no attempts to expand their

empire during the war, and not place the city at risk.” In detail this meant “that

they should prepare for the war, and bring their property in from the country.

They should not go out to battle, but come into the city and protect it. They should

make ready their fleet, in which their strength lay, and keep control of their allies

… because the strength of Athens depended on the revenue of money that came

from the allies.”


A WAR OF RANK“TIT FOR TAT”

(τιµη)

431-430-Sparta and Boetia ravage Attica while Athens and her allies raid the Peloponnesus with a 100-120 trireme fleet

429-after a 2 ½ year siege Athens enters Sparta’s ally Potidea. strategos Phormio twice defeats a superior Peloponnesian fleet off Naupactus

428-Sparta encourages Athenian ally Mytilene to rebel, promises aid

427-Athens crushes Mytilene; Sparta and Boeotia capture Athens’ ally Plataea

426-in Acarnania, Sparta and her allies first destroy an Athenian force, then suffer two worse defeats

delivered shortly before the plague’s outbreak, 430 BC

Thucydides would make an astounding summation of conditions in Greece as

a whole during the three decades of the war: “What caused the greatest

suffering and killed a considerable part of the population was the terrible

plague (νοσος ).”

Thucydides, 1.23.3, quoted in Hanson, A War Like No Other, p. 65

DISEASETHE RAVAGES OF THE PLAGUE AT ATHENS (430-426)

...the Athenians... knew that their city had been irreparably damaged. They

certainly saw their army and naval strength in terms of “before” and “after”

the epidemic…. Pericles concluded of the first year of outbreak that it had

done more than any other calamity to ruin the spirit of Athens….

For Thucydides, who survived the disease, the ripples of the plague were to

be felt everywhere, decreased military capability, political unrest, imperial

revolt, changed strategy, and worst of all, the death of the only Athenian

leader who seemed to be able to keep the factious citizenry together during

the dark hours of war.

Hanson, A War Like No Other, p. 82

Perhaps a quarter to a third of the Athenian population alive at the start

of the war was dead seven years later, but mostly because of the ravages of

the plague rather than Spartan spears.

op. cit., p. 123

SPHACTERIA 425 BCTHE GAME CHANGER

Sphacteria

SPHACTERIA 425 BCTHE GAME CHANGER

Demosthenes and Cleon established a fort at Pylos to be a base for raiding the Peloponnesus and encouraging a helot revolt

Sparta responded vigorously bringing a larger force to besiege the fort and occupy the island of Sphacteria as well as a large naval fleet in support

Athens brought even more ships from Naupactus and Piraeus

Sparta asked for a truce and offered peace, which Athens rejected

a force of several hundred Spartiates was trapped on the island. They asked their commanders for instructions

The final edict of the Spartan authorities was laconic: “The Lacedaemonians

command you to do as you will, but nothing disgraceful.” Since anything but death

was disgraceful, the authorities were telling their comrades on the island to die. But

the message did the men in the fort great honor, for it allowed them to die of their

own free will: to make, like Achilles in the Iliad, the heroic choice of an heroic

death….The Spartans did their soldiers on Sphacteria the honor of letting them

choose the noble way, as well as the manner of their death: they might die fighting,

then, or, as the Lacedaemonians so often did to save their honor, by their own

hands.

...The hoplites assembled, they deliberated, they decided, and they sent their

answer to the waiting Athenians. Their resolution sent a shockwave of surprise

rolling through Greece. “Of all the events of the war,” writes Thucydides, “ this

came as the greatest surprise to the Hellenic World.” The Spartans surrendered.

Lendon, pp. 274-275

Now, with Spartiate hostages in their hands, the Athenians issued an ultimatum; any invasion of Attica would lead to the execution of their prisoners. For the first time since the beginning of the war, the Athenians could farm their crops securely. At Pylos, a Messenian garrison was installed, and these men, launching raids into country that had once been their home, did significant damage to the Spartans and instigated the desertion of numerous Helots. At Athens, Cleon, his seemingly mad promise fulfilled, was the man of the hour; he was granted meals at the state's expense in the prytaneum (the same reward granted to Olympic champions), and most scholars see his hand in the legislation of the following months, the most prominent item of which was an increased levy of tribute on the empire. Sphacteria had changed the nature of the war. The next few years would see a newly aggressive Athens, and it would take a string of Athenian reverses to diffuse the impetus that the surrenders had given and bring the two sides to the table to negotiate the Peace of Nicias in 421 BC.

Wikipedia

δελιονDelium

424 B.C.

Demosthenes urges an attack on Sparta’s ally Boeotia

the Boeotian right has a depth of 25 men as opposed to the customary 8

the right wing of both sides is originally victorious, but the Athenians commit history’s first recorded fratricide

Pagondas uses his cavalry to rout the victorious Athenian right

with Hippocrates’ death, the Athenians collapse

V.D. Hanson, Ripples of Battle, p. 170

op. cit., p. 173

A 46-year-old Athenian survivor named Socrates didn’t turn his back to the enemy. Rather , he made a fighting withdrawal and avoided the fate of most of the defeated. He was a i d e d b y o n e o f h i s ar is tocrat ic disc iples named Alcibiades.

Plato has Alcibiades report:

"Furthermore, men, it was worthwhile to behold Socrates when the army retreated in flight from Delium; for I happened to be there on horseback and he was a hoplite. The soldiers were then in rout, and while he and Laches were retreating together, I came upon them by chance. And as soon as I saw them, I at once urged the two of them to take heart, and I said I would not leave them behind. I had an even finer opportunity to observe Socrates there than I had had at Potidaea [in 429], for I was less in fear because I was on horseback. First of all, how much more sensible he was than Laches; and secondly, it was my opinion, Aristophanes (and this point is yours); that walking there just as he does here in Athens, 'stalking like a pelican, his eyes darting from side to side,' quietly on the lookout for friends and foes, he made it plain to everyone even at a great distance that if one touches this real man, he will defend himself vigorously. Consequently, he went away safely, both he and his comrade; for when you behave in war as he did, then they just about do not even touch you; instead they pursue those who turn in headlong flight."

Plato, Symposium, 220d–221c

AMPHIPOLIS, 424-22 ( Μάχη της Αµφίπολης )

424-Spartan general Brasidas captured the Athenian colony. Thucydides arrived with six ships too late to save the city. He was tried and exiled

423-in response to the fall of the city, Athens and Sparta signed an armistice for one year. Athens hoped they could fortify more towns in preparation for future attacks from Brasidas, and the Spartans hoped Athens would finally return the prisoners taken at the Battle of Sphacteria earlier in 425

422-when the armistice expired, battle was joined. The Spartans won, but both Cleon and Brasidas died. As the two most hawkish leaders on their respective sides this led eventually to the Peace of Nicias, a treaty which would be broken eventually

when Athens lost Thucydides as a strategos, history gained its ablest historian of the ancient world

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armistice

Of all the characters in Thucydides’ history Brasidas is the most intriguing,

an ancient romantic version of Fidel Castro or Che Guevara who combined

ostensible idealism and brutal guerrilla warfare in such a dazzling fashion

that most formerly enslaved soldiers forgot the nature of the harsh master

they worked for. In the last analysis, Brasidas’ efforts counterbalanced

Pylos [Sphacteria] and achieved a rough stalemate, as he proved that the

Athenians had just as much to lose to their own rear as did the Spartans.

His ragtag mercenaries and few hundred freed helots did more damage to

Athens than had King Archidamus’ enormous grand army of 60,000,

which eight years earlier had trudged into Attica, convinced by its sheer

size that it might bring the empire to its knees.


After the Spartan failure of annual ravaging (431-425), after the Athenian

toll from the plague (430-426), after the Spartans had lost at Sphacteria

(425), and some of their best warriors--among them high-ranking

officers--had shamefully surrendered and been taken hostage (425-421),

after the Spartans became terrified that their helots might revolt en masse,

after the defeat of the Athenians in Boeotia (424), and after Cleon and

Brasidas both perished at Amphipolis (422), both sides acknowledged that

the war had degenerated into a messy calamity that neither could win

outright.

A breather was welcomed. After some failed brief truces, the conservative

Athenian statesman Nicias negotiated with the Spartans the peace that

bears his name and would prove to last about six years (421-415).


SICILIAN EXPEDITION

415-413

...rarely do peace agreements last when the original conditions

for hostilities have not ended.

Ibid.

While the Athenians took care to maintain their truculent peace with

Sparta, they also began to look around for some mighty deed they could

perform that would raise their rank in the eyes of the Greeks without

breaking the treaty. Their eyes fell upon the third great power in the Greek

world, Syracuse in Sicily.

Lendon, p. 374

June 415--the largest expeditionary force of the war sailed

“...in a moment of zeal...134 ships (100 of them Athenian) including over 90 triremes

5,100 Athenian and imperial hoplites

480 archers, 700 slingers, 30 horsemen and mounts

30 cargo ships”--Hanson, p.205

begun as another punitive raid, it was now refined as an attempt at conquest and annexation

What was stunning about the Athenian expeditionary force was its initial

luck....in this first wave the Athenians had probably transported over

25,000 combatants across the open seas without any real losses and

arrived in good shape to the utter astonishment and terror of their

enemies. Yet almost immediately tragedy inexplicably began to unfold

Hanson, p. 206

ALCIBIADES, Ἀλκιβιάδης Κλεινίου Σκαµβωνίδης Alkibiádēs Kleiníou Skambōnidēs; c. 450 – 404

“Aristocratic Ideal or Anti-social Personality Disorder?”--Kathleen Evans, 2006

450-born to an aristocratic Athenian family, on his mother’s side an Alcmaeonidae, nephew to Pericles

447-when his father died in the battle of Coronea, Pericles became his guardian

well educated, but notably unruly

“feared and reverenced Socrates alone, but despised the rest of his lovers”--Plutarch

430-at Potidea, age 20, saved by his teacher, Socrates

424-at Delium, age 26, returns the favor

his rakish reputation

after 421-his political career begins with plans for an anti-Spartan league in the Peloponnesos headed by Argos

418-the battle of Mantinea, a Spartan victory, wrecks this strategy

416-he narrowly avoids an ostracism by his political enemies, instead gets one of them ostracized!

415-on the eve of the departure for Sicily a group of youths mutilate Athenian religious figures called herms. Later Alcibiades is tried for this sacrilege in absentia by his enemies and condemned to death

his reaction? He deserts the Athenians and offers his services to Sparta if they will give him sanctuary!

415-in an initial battle, Athens and her allies drove the Syracusans back into their city

during the winter both sides appealed for more allies, started building walls

Alcibiades convinced Sparta to join the Syracusans

spring 414-Sparta and Corinth join the fight. Athens sends reinforcements

August 414-in the second battle of Syracuse the Athenians suffered major losses

413-Nicias tries to defend what remains of his forces. His ships are penned in. No escape is possible

the Epipolae is a raised plateau north ofthe polis of Syracuse

Nicias personally surrendered to Gylippus, hoping the Spartan would remember his role in the peace treaty of 421. The few who escaped found refuge in [the Sicilian polis of] Catana.

The prisoners, now numbering only 7,000, were held in the stone quarries near Syracuse, as there was no other room for them. Demosthenes and Nicias were executed, against the orders of Gylippus. The rest spent ten weeks in horrible conditions in their makeshift prison, until all but the Athenians, Italians, and Sicilians were sold as slaves. The remaining Athenians were left to die slowly of disease and starvation in the quarry. In the end some of the very last survivors managed to escape and eventually trickled to Athens, bringing first-hand news of the disaster.

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery

...the Athenians and their allies...lost nearly 45,000---many of them

considered the best of the Athenian empire---in a vain effort to storm

Syracuse. In fact, the greatest disasters of the Athenian empire were due to

two colossal failures at Memphis, Egypt, before the war (454) and on Sicily,

both failed sieges that may have together cost over 90,000 Athenian

imperial soldiers. Add in the plague, and in a mere forty years the empire

lost nearly 200,000 of its resident population as a direct result of warring

apart from the traditional [hoplite] battlefield.

Hanson, pp. 176-177

ATHENS’ FINAL AGONY412-404

414-413--Alcibiades convinces several Ionian cities to revolt against Athens and the Persian Tissaphernes to aid the Spartan cause

412-despite Alcibiades’ good offices during the last three years, the Spartan King Agis II believes the rumor that the Athenian had fathered a child with his queen. He dispatches an admiral with orders to capture and kill him

411-warned in time, Alcibiades defects to the Persians and secretly intrigues with the Athenian oligarchs to bring the Persians to their side. But he concludes that the oligarchs are doomed to fail

in yet another amazing turn, he helps restore Athenian democracy. He also persuades the Athenian fleet to attack the Spartans at the battle of Cyzicus

The Athenians managed to survive for several reasons. First, their foes were lacking in initiative. Corinth and Syracuse were slow to bring their fleets into the Aegean, and Sparta's other allies were also slow to furnish troops or ships. The Ionian states that rebelled expected protection, and many rejoined the Athenian side. The Persians were slow to furnish promised funds and ships, frustrating battle plans. Perhaps most importantly, Spartan officers were not trained to be diplomats, and were insensitive and politically inept.At the start of the war [in 431], the Athenians had prudently put aside some money and 100 ships that were to be used only as a last resort.These ships were then released, and served as the core of the Athenians' fleet throughout the rest of the war.

Wikipedia

ATHENIAN NAVAL VICTORY AT CYZICUS, 410 BC

Cyzicus was a harbor in Mysia.

In the battle, an Athenian f l e e t c o m m a n d e d b y Alcibiades, Thrasybulus, and Theramenes routed and complete ly destroyed a Spartan fleet commanded by Mindarus.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcibiades

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcibiades

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrasybulus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrasybulus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theramenes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theramenes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparta

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindarus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindarus

The Athenian strategy at Cyzicus. Left: Alcibiades' decoy force (blue) lures the Spartan fleet (black) out to sea. Right: Thrasybulus and Theramenes bring their squadrons in behind the Spartans to cut off their retreat towards Cyzicus, while Alcibiades turns to face the pursuing force.

The victory allowed Athens to recover control over a number of cities in the Hellespont over the next year. In the wake of their defeat, the Spartans made a peace offer, which the Athenians rejected.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellespont

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hellespont

to finish off the amazing career of Alcibiades

Wikipedia

Led!

Led!

new material begins here!

at the age of 46!

“...OF HECTOR AND LYSANDER AND SUCH GREAT NAMES AS THESE,”

on his father’s side, “descended from Hercules,” but his mother, a helot. Therefore he was a mothax. He could fight, but not as a Spartiate, a homoiai

407-by sheer talent he rose to be a navarch (admiral) based at Ephesus. He defeated Alcibiades at Notium (406) Spartan law required his retirement and replacement

October 405-following an Athenian victory at Argusinae, Lysander was re-appointed and won the decisive victory at Aegospotami (Goat River) in the Hellespont

404-with her vital Black Sea grain supply cut off, Athens faced starvation as Sparta enclosed her with a land and sea blockade

Λύσανδρος, Lýsandros

d. 395 BC

Spartan men of all ages competed in their famous “Laconic” speaking, the

technique of saying only what needed to be said, in as few words as

possible. “Athens taken” would be the whole of the message sent by

Spartan admiral Lysander after the final surrender of of Athens [in March

404] at the close of the Peloponnesian War. Whereupon the authorities

back at Sparta (the story is told) frowned at his un-Spartan verbosity.

“Taken” would have been sufficient.

Lendon, p. 29

After more than a half-century of rivalry

for the hegemony of Hellas, Sparta

triumphantly forced Athens to tear

down the Long Walls to the sound of

flute and lyre. Would her position of

hegemon endure?

But that’s another story...

Greece 5 The Great Wars

Education

Transcript of Greece 5 The Great Wars