Athens and sparta 479 421 bc

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Archaic Classical Hellenistic

Greek HistoryAthens vs Sparta 479-421 – Good vs Evil?

Sea power vs. Land power?

Proto-capitalism vs. proto-communism?

Or, just a very long war between Greeks?

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Greek HistoryToday’s Subject in Context

499-479 Persian Wars479-460s Delian League against Persia460s-430s ‘Cold War’ between Sparta and

Athens431-422 Archidamian War421-415 Undeclared War415-413 Sicilian Expedition413-404 ‘Decelean’ War404-371 Spartan Hegemony

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Greek HistoryThe Delian League (477 BC)

• Lecture 5 looked at the Spartan-led Greek victory over the Persians.• But the Greeks quickly found Spartan leadership heavy handed and

turned to the Athenians for leadership. • The Spartans would remember this not too fondly!• In 477 the Aegean islands joined Athens in an alliance against the Persians

known to modern scholars as ‘the Delian League’.• According to Thucydides (1.96) (more to follow on him) the alliance’s aim

was “to avenge the wrongs they suffered by ravaging the territory of the king”.

• Members of this alliance had a choice: EITHER supply ships and men OR pay money into a joint treasury.

• The money was overseen by treasurers called hellenotamai and kept on the island of Delos.

• Delos made sense as a base for two reasons: it was not located too close to Persian territory, but more importantly and it was the birthplace of the god Apollo – the ancestor of all the Ionians.

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Greek History

• The Delian League was meant to be a permanent alliance.

• To symbolise this the Athenians and their new allies dropped lumps of iron into the sea, and swore an oath that they would be loyal until the iron floated to the surface again…

The oaths of the Delian League

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Greek HistoryThe Members of the Delian League

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Greek History

• We don’t know much about the first ten years of the League’s activities, but we gain an impression of steady, successful activity against the few remaining Persian strongholds in Thrace and the Aegean.• During these years the Athenian sailors reached a high pitch of training, but many

of the allies began to weary of personal service and increasingly contributed money rather than men and ships.• The result was that Athens became more and more powerful, and the allies

correspondingly weaker. • As Athens’ power grew some of the allies became resentful. • Naxos tried to leave the League in 471, but was compelled by the Athenians to

obey. The league’s resources were thus employed not against the Persians but Greeks – an outrage to the notion of autonomy. • Perhaps not coincidently soon after Naxos surrendered Cimon (c. 467 B.C.) led a

fleet of 300 ships (with only 100 from the allies) to the southern coast of Asia Minor. • After driving the Persians out of Greek towns in Lycia and Caria, he met and routed

the Persians on land and sea at the mouth of the Eurymedon River in Pamphylia.

The Activities of the Delian League

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Greek History

“These men beside the Eurymedon lost their splendid youth,Doing battle against the vanguard of the Persian archers,As spearmen, both on foot and in their swift ships,And, dying, left behind the finest memorial of their prowess”(Simonides, Epigram 46).

Battle of Eurymedon c. 467 BC

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Greek History"I am Eurymedon; I stand bent forward"

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Greek HistoryDelian League OR Athenian Empire

• After the victory at Eurymedon many of Athens’ allies felt they no longer needed the Delian League.

• But Athens had grown used to the taxes paid by her ‘allies’.

• When some tried to leave the alliance, the Athenians swiftly brought them into line, imposing higher taxes.

• In 454 they moved the treasury from Delos to Athens.

• Soon the Delian League was known as the Athenian empire…

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Greek HistoryThe Athenian Empire

• The Athenians continued to fight against the Persians, but after a disastrous defeat in Egypt in the 450s the Athenians may have made have made a formal peace with Persia.

• This is the so-called “Peace of Callias” of 449 BC.

• Eventually Athens’ growing power began to trouble the Spartans.• In the 430s BC the so-called Peloponnesian War between Athens

and her empire and the Spartans and their allies began. • That takes us from the world of Herodotus to that of Thucydides,

and the world of Athens vs. Sparta…

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Greek HistoryThe Athenians, the Spartans, and their allies

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Greek HistoryMain Source - Thucydides

• Athenian general (strategos) in 424 B.C.

• His Histories focuses on the Peloponnesian war (431-404 B.C.)

• But also covers (in brief) events between 479 and 431 B.C. (the so-called ‘Pentakontaetia’ i.e. the ‘fifty years’).

• Todd goes so far as to call Thucydides the ‘inventor’ of the Peloponnesian war!

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Greek HistoryThucydides’ purpose

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war, and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. This belief was not without its grounds. The preparations of both the combatants were in every department in the last state of perfection; and he could see the rest of the Greek race taking sides in the quarrel; those who delayed doing so at once having it in contemplation. Indeed this was the greatest movement yet known in history, not only of the Greeks, but of a large part of the barbarian world—I had almost said of mankind. (Thucydides 1.1)

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Greek History

• Modern accounts usually refer to the conflict as the ‘Peloponnesian War’.• But that really assumes an Athenian perspective i.e. the war against the Peloponnesians.• Some scholars such as Cartledge have tried to restore some balance by calling it ‘the Athenian war’. • But this is what the Spartans called the war. So that is just as bad as taking the Athenian perspective!• Thucydides actually called the war ‘the war of the Peloponnesians and the Athenians’, but I don’t think that is going to catch on!

What’s in a name?

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Greek History

• At the time the war broke out the Spartans accused the Athenians of starting the war, and the Athenians accused the Spartans of starting it!• Thucydides (1.23) later says the ‘truest but least publicised’

cause was that Sparta was afraid of Athens’ growing power.•Modern scholars don’t seem to be able to agree on this, e.g.• Kagan (1969) argues that Athens had stopped growing by the

430s, and that war was caused by mistakes and confusion like in 1914 – his line of thought is that no one really wanted the war in the first place!• Ste. Croix (1972) makes Sparta the aggressor.• Unfortunately both arguments require ignoring Thucydides!

So What Actually Caused the War?

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Greek History

• Athens has a large maritime empire• The Athenian empire generates a huge income for

Athens• That huge incomes finances Athens’ massive fleet

which can reach every corner of the Greek world• Athens has just compelled the Persians to make peace

after thrashing them in battle at Eurymedon River (c. 467 B.C.)

• Athenian power is beginning to threaten Sparta’s allies – particularly the wealthy and powerful city of Corinth.

So why would Sparta fear Athens?

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Greek HistoryAthens’ triremes

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Greek History

• But Sparta is still the supreme military force in the Greek world – everyone at the time ‘knows’ that if it comes to a showdown in a hoplite battle Sparta will win!

• Sparta is the head of an alliance system that dominates the Greek mainland. If they want to invade Attica they can do so at will!

• Sparta’s ally Corinth boasts a large fleet that can threaten Athenian dominance of the Aegean

• Athens’ increasingly disgruntled ‘allies’ might turn to Sparta for assistance

• Athens has already been at war with Sparta’s allies Corinth and Aegina! They even conquered Aegina and forced them to join the Delian League. Sparta was not happy!

• And there was more…

But Athens fears Sparta too

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Greek History

“When Archidamus, the son of Zeuxidamus, was in the fourth year of his reign at Sparta, a greater earthquake than any before reported rent the land of the Lacedaemonians into many chasms, shook Taygetus so that sundry peaks were torn away, and demolished the entire city with the exception of five houses. The rest were thrown down by the earthquake. It is said that while the young men and youths were exercising together in the interior of the colonnade, just a little before the earthquake, a hare made its appearance, and the youths, all anointed as they were, in sport dashed out and gave chase to it, but the young men remained behind, on whom the gymnasium fell, and all perished together. Their tomb, even down to the present day, they call Seismatias. Archidamus at once comprehended from the danger at hand that which was sure to follow, and as he saw the citizens trying to save the choicest valuables out of their houses, ordered the trumpet to give the signal of an enemy's attack, in order that they might flock to him at once under arms. This was all that saved Sparta at that crisis. For the Helots hurriedly gathered from all the country round about with intent to despatch the surviving Spartans. But finding them arrayed in arms, they withdrew to their cities and waged open war, persuading many perioeci also so to do. The Messenians besides joined in this attack upon the Spartans” (Plutarch, Cimon 16).

The Helot Revolt of 465 B.C.

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Greek HistoryMt. Ithome

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Greek HistorySparta fears the ‘radical’ Athenians

• Until the 460s Athenian politics was dominated by Cimon who was friendly to Sparta. Cimon was a formidable stumbling for those hostile to Sparta.

• All that changed when a massive earthquake struck Sparta around 465 B.C. the helots revolted. The Spartans called for help from all the Greeks, including Athens.

• Cimon persuaded the Athenians to send help. But the Spartans soon began to worry about the Athenians and their ‘radical’ thoughts.

• According to Plutarch, “their dashing boldness awakened fear, and they were singled out from all the allies and sent off as dangerous conspirators”.

• The Athenians went “back home in a rage”.

• Cimon was ostracised and Athens his opponents set about making Athens more democratic than it had been before.

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Greek History

“Pitted as he [Pericles] was against the reputation of Cimon, he tried to ingratiate himself with the people. And since he was the inferior in wealth and property, by means of which Cimon would win over the poor,—furnishing a dinner every day to any Athenian who wanted it, bestowing raiment on the elderly men, and removing the fences from his estates that whosoever wished might pluck the fruit,—Pericles, outdone in popular arts of this sort, had recourse to the distribution of the people's own wealth...And soon, what with festival-grants and jurors' wages and other fees and largesses, he bribed the multitude by the wholesale, and used them in opposition to the Council of the Areopagus. Of this body he himself was not a member, since the lot had not made him archon…[and] this office was in ancient times filled by lot, and through them those who properly acquitted themselves were promoted into the Areopagus. For this reason all the more did Pericles, strong in the affections of the people, lead a successful party against the Council of the Areopagus. Not only was the Council robbed of most of its jurisdiction by Ephialtes, but Cimon also, on the charge of being a lover of Sparta and a hater of the people, was ostracized,—a man who yielded to none in wealth and lineage, who had won most glorious victories over the Barbarians, and had filled the city full of money and spoils…Such was the power of Pericles among the people”. (Plutarch, Pericles 9).

Athens Becomes Even More Democratic

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Greek HistoryAthens Becomes Even More Imperial

• As already noted Athens’ allies were forced to contribute warships or pay ‘tribute’• According to Thucydides (1.96), Athens’ income from their allies was

460 talents of silver per year (equivalent to billions of pounds!!)• If they don’t like it, they don’t have much choice – Athens is too

powerful (and they are bound by those permanent oaths)• The cities which do rebel – e.g. Naxos, Thasos, Eretria, and others – are

ruthlessly punished.• Naturally, likely rebels begin to look to Sparta for help.• But in 446/5 the Spartans and the Athenians made a peace treaty for

thirty years. • To go to war with the gods on their side the Spartans must prove that

Athens broke the peace.• The Spartans got their excuse when Athens traded blows with Sparta’s

ally Corinth over the island of Corcyra…

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Greek HistoryThucydides summarises the ‘fifty years’

“All these actions of the Greeks against each other and the barbarian occurred in the fifty years' interval between the retreat of Xerxes and the beginning of the present war. During this interval the Athenians succeeded in placing their empire on a firmer basis, and advanced their own home power to a very great height. The Lacedaemonians, though fully aware of it, opposed it only for a little while, but remained inactive during most of the period, being of old slow to go to war except under the pressure of necessity, and in the present instance being hampered by wars at home; until the growth of the Athenian power could be no longer ignored, and their own confederacy became the object of its encroachments. They then felt that they could endure it no longer, but that the time had come for them to throw themselves heart and soul upon the hostile power, and break it, if they could, by commencing the present war” (Thucydides 1.118.2)

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Greek HistoryThe Archidamian War

433: Battle of Sybota between Athens, Corcyra, and Corinth432: Revolt of Potidaea from Athens431: Thebes attacks Plataea431: Sparta invades Attica430: Plague at Athens429: Peloponnesians besiege Plataea429: Death of Pericles 428: Revolt of Mytilene from Athens427: Fall of Mytilene, destruction of Plataea425: The Athenians (led by Demosthenes and Cleon) capture Pylos and two hundred and ninety Spartans424: Brasidas leads a Spartan army to attack Athens’ northern allies422: Battle of Amphipolis (death of Brasidas and Cleon)421: Peace of Nicias

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Greek History

• Sparta began by making threats.• Their blunt message to Athens was: ‘Lacedaemon wishes the peace to continue,

and there is no reason why it should not, if you would leave the Greeks independent.’ (Thucydides 1.139).

• When the Athenians rejected their demand war was inevitable…• Sparta’s strategy was based on hoplite warfare.• Athens’ strength was centred on its fleet. Athenian triremes were rowed by crews

of free men who could not afford hoplite armour.• As Todd puts it, ‘Everybody knew that those who could afford their armour were

superior to those who could not’.• So all the Spartans had to do was invade Attica just before the harvest, live off the

land for a few weeks, and destroy Athens’ food supply.• This would compel the Athenians to fight (and lose) a pitched battle.• It would require at most a couple of years.• There was only one problem – it didn’t work!

Sparta’s Strategy

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Greek History

• Pericles convinced the Athenians to evacuate the Athenian countryside

• The people crowded into the area between the long walls which linked Athens and the Piraeus

• Supplies were brought in by sea.

Athens’ strategy

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Greek History

“…the Peloponnesians and their allies…invaded Attica (the Spartan king Archidamus was in command), and they took up their positions and started devastating the country. And after they had been in Attica for only a few days the plague made its first appearance among the Athenians. It was said that it had previously broken out in a number of places such as Lemnos, but nowhere else was it recorded to have been so virulent or caused such numbers of deaths…The existing suffering had been made far worse by the removal of the people from the country to the city, and the incomers were affected the worst. There were no houses for them, and, living as they did in the summer season in stifling huts, they died without hindrance, bodies of the dying lay or corpses, and the half-dead staggered around the streets and around all the fountains in their desire for water” (Thucydides 2.47-52).

Plague at Athens

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Greek HistoryPericles succumbs to the plague

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Greek History

• Thus far the war had panned out partly as people had predicted – Sparta’s hoplite force was too strong for Athens.

• But (not foreseen) the Athenians were able to hold out and avoid a pitched battle.

• Pericles’ death looked like the end for Athens.• But Pericles’ successors had a plan – attack the

Spartans close to home. It worked too!• Despite what Thucydides tells us about the new

political leaders of Athens they were more than nouveau riches windbags!!

Athens has a new plan

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Greek HistoryThe Pylos Campaign (425 BC)

• The Athenians chose to attack the Spartans by occupying a part of Messenia near Pylos.

• The plan was to distract the Spartans and it worked.• According to Thucydides (4.5) “as soon as the Peloponnesians

in Attica heard of the occupation of Pylos, they hurried back home from their annual invasion of Attica”.

• They would not return to Attica for more than ten years!

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Greek HistoryLight troops vs. hoplites

“Meanwhile the main body of the troops in the island, that under Epitadas, seeing their outpost cut off and an army advancing against them, serried their ranks and pressed forward to close with the Athenian heavy infantry in front of them, the light troops being upon their flanks and rear. However, they were not able to engage or to profit by their superior skill, the light troops keeping them in check on either side with their missiles, and the heavy infantry remaining stationary instead of advancing to meet them; and although they routed the light troops wherever they ran up and approached too closely, yet they retreated fighting, being lightly equipped, and easily getting the start in their flight, from the difficult and rugged nature of the ground, in an island hitherto desert, over which the Lacedaemonians could not pursue them with their heavy armour.” (Thucydides 4.33)

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Greek HistoryThe Spartans surrender!

Nothing that happened in the war surprised the Greeks so much as this. It was the opinion that no force or famine could make the Spartans give up their arms, but that they would fight on as they could, and die with them in their hands: indeed people could scarcely believe that those who had surrendered were of the same stuff as the fallen; and an Athenian ally, who some time after insultingly asked one of the prisoners from the island if those that had fallen were men of honour, received for answer that the atraktos—that is, the arrow—would be worth a great deal if it could tell men of honour from the rest; in allusion to the fact that the killed were those whom the stones and the arrow happened to hit. (Thucydides 4.40)

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Greek HistoryA shield taken from a Spartan!

“The Athenians, from the Lacedaemonians at Pylos”

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Greek History

• The stunning success of Pylos put Athens on the front foot.

• With 290 precious hostages the annual Spartan invasions of Attica were ended.

• The Spartans were also forced to make do without those 290 hoplites – something that they were increasingly unable to do.

• The picture Thucydides gives us is of a clueless regime leading clueless robotic men.

• But then Brasidas steps forward and things change completely – because Brasidas has a plan…

Now Sparta wants peace!

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Greek HistoryThe Spartans march north to Chalcidice

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Greek HistoryThe Spartans march north

The Spartans now therefore gladly sent seven hundred as heavy infantry with Brasidas, who recruited the rest of his force by means of money in Peloponnese. Brasidas himself was sent out by the Lacedaemonians mainly at his own desire, although the Chalcidians also were eager to have a man so thorough as he had shown himself whenever there was anything to be done at Sparta, and whose after service abroad proved of the utmost use to his country. At the present moment his just and moderate conduct towards the towns generally succeeded in procuring their revolt, besides the places which he managed to take by treachery; and thus when the Lacedaemonians desired to treat, as they ultimately did, they had places to offer in exchange, and the burden of war meanwhile shifted from Peloponnese. Later on in the war, after the events in Sicily, the present valour and conduct of Brasidas, known by experience to some, by hearsay to others, was what mainly created in the allies of Athens a feeling for the Lacedaemonians. He was the first who went out and showed himself so good a man at all points as to leave behind him the conviction that the rest were like him. (Thucydides 4.81)

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Greek HistoryPeace of Nicias 422/1

• Brasidas was able to capture Athens’ colony Amphipolis (near gold mines!), and when Cleon attempted to dislodge Brasidas’ forces he was killed. Brasidas’ forces were victorious, but he was killed too.

• With both Cleon and Brasidas dead the major stumbling blocks to peace were gone. Nicias (Cleon’s greatest rival) was able to convince the Athenians that they wanted peace.

• The Spartans didn’t require much convincing, provided they got the Pylos captives back.

• But the peace would ultimately fail because Sparta’s allies refused to join it.

• Somewhat bizarrely some of Sparta’s allies displayed their unhappiness about making peace with Athens by making an alliance with Athens and going to war against Sparta!

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Greek History

• Our sources for the period between 479 and 433 are quite patchy which makes it difficult to pin down what really happened.

• Thucydides gives a loads of detail about the period from 433 to 421, but despite his reputation for reliability we have reason to be very cautious about what he tells us!

• Whatever happened we can be certain that the Athenians and the Spartans did not trust each other for much of the fifth century.

• The final years of the fifth century would be no different!

Some Conclusions

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Greek History

* Andrewes, A. ‘The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition’, in D. M. Lewis, John Boardman, J. K. Davies and M. Ostwald (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 5, Cambridge, 433-463. [available electronically]

Andrewes, A. 1992. ‘The Spartan Resurgence’, in D. M. Lewis, John Boardman, J. K. Davies and M. Ostwald (eds), The Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 5, Cambridge, 464-498. [available electronically] Cawkwell, G. L. 1983. ‘Decline of Sparta’, Classical Quarterly 33, 385-400. [available via JSTOR]

Kagan, D. 2003. The Peloponnesian War: Athens and Sparta in savage conflict, 431-404 BC. London.

Powell, A. 2006. ‘Why did Sparta not destroy Athens in 404, or 403 B.C.?’ in Stephen Hodkinson and Anton Powell (eds.), Sparta and War, Swansea, 287-304.

Next Week – Sparta Betrays Greece?

Athens and sparta 479 421 bc

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