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When we think of ancient Greece
and the ancient Greeks, it is usually the 5th century which
commands our undivided attention. This is the age of the great historians
Herodotus and Thucydides, great dramatists like Sophocles, Euripides and
Aeschylus, and the brilliant philosopher Socrates. The 5th century
is also regarded as the age when the Greeks embraced their brilliant
experiment in direct democracy. Amazing monuments to human achievement were
constructed in Athens and other
Hellenic city-states. It is an age of human discovery and achievement an
age which proudly bears the name classical.
The Persian Invasion of Greece
However, the 5th century was also an age of war and conflict.
Between 490 and 479 B.C., Greece
was invaded by the army and naval fleet of the Persian Empire.
By about 500 B.C. the Greek city states had lost their kings (with the
exception of Sparta) and had
embraced a new form of government through councils of citizens. Almost
immediately, however, these states were confronted by an invasion of the Persian
Empire.
King Darius (548-486 B.C.) managed to build up the Persian
Empire and now controlled Asia Minor,
including Greek poleis on the west coast. In 499 B.C., some of the these poleis rebelled from the Persians (an episode
called the Ionian Revolt). The Athenians lent their support but the revolt
ultimately collapsed in 493 B.C. Darius proposed now to invade mainland Greece
his prime target was Athens.
Darius sent his fleet across the Aegean in 490 and
awaited news of victory.
The Persians landed at Marathon,
a village just north of Athens.
Commanded by Militiades, the Greek forces totaled
only 10,000 men the Persian force was perhaps 20-25,000 strong. The Greek
forces charged and trapped the Persians and won the battle. The remainder of
the Persians attempted to attack Athens
but the Greek army rushed back and the Persians were forced to return to Asia
Minor. The victory at MARATHON was won by superior timing and
discipline.
Darius prepared a second invasion but died (486 B.C.) before his plans
could be carried out. The task was taken up by Xerxes (c.519-465 B.C.) who
prepared a huge force that would attack by land and sea. In 483 B.C., the
Athenian statesman Themistocles (c.523-c.458 B.C.) persuaded his fellow
Athenians to build a navy of one hundred triremes.
He also oversaw the fortification of the harbor at Piraeus.
Fearing destruction at the hands of the Persians, in 480 B.C. thirty poleis
formed an alliance. Athens, Sparta
and Corinth were the most
powerful members.
In 480 B.C., Xerxes sent a force of 60,000 men and 600 ships to Greece.
The Greeks made their stand at Thermopylae.
Five thousand men took up their positions to defend the pass at Thermopylae.
The Greeks held the pass but eventually a traitorous Greek led a Persian
force through the hills to the rear of the Greek forces, who were
subsequently massacred. Meanwhile, the Greek navy tried to hold off the
Persian ships at Artemisium. The Athenians
eventually abandoned Athens ahead
of the Persian army. The Persians marched across the Attic peninsula and
burned Athens. Themistocles then sent a false message to Xerxes, telling
him to strike at once. The Persians were taken in and sent their navy into
the narrow strait between Athens
and the island of Salamis.
More than three hundred Greek ships rammed the Persians and heavily armed
Greek soldiers boarded the ships. The Greek victory at Salamis
was a decisive one. However, Persian forces remained in Greece.
Their final expulsion came in 479 B.C. at the village
of Plataea.
By 479 B.C., the Greek forces had all conquered the Persian army and navy.
After the Persian Wars, Athens
emerged as the most dominant political and economic force in the Greek world.
The Athenian polis, buttressed by the strength of its Council of Five Hundred
and Assembly of citizens, managed to gain control of a confederation of
city-states which gradually became the Athenian Empire.
The Athenians not only had a political leadership based on the principles
of direct democracy as set in motion by Cleisthenes,
they also had wide trading and commercial interests in the Mediterranean
world. These trading interests spread throughout the area of the Aegean
Sea including Asia Minor, an area known
as the Aegean Basin.
Greek victories against the Persians secured mainland Greece
from further invasion. There was a great sense of relief on the part of all
Greeks that they had now conquered the conquerors. But, there were some
citizens who argued in the Assembly that a true Greek victory would only
follow from total defeat of the Persians, and this meant taking the war to Persia
itself. And this is precisely what would happen in the 5th
century.
Meanwhile, dozens of Greek city-states joined together
to form a permanent union for the war. Delegates met on the island
of Delos in 478 B.C. The allies
swore oaths of alliance which were to last until lumps of iron, thrown into
the sea, rose again. The Delian League policy was
to be established by an assembly of representatives but was to be
administered by an admiral and ten treasurers appointed by Athens.
It fell upon the Athenian leader, Aristides the
Just, to assign an assessment of 460 talents per year, which member states
paid in cash or in the form of manned ships. Right from the start, the Delian League was dominated by Athenian authority and
leadership. The Delian League had its precedents:
the Spartan League, the Ionian League of 499-494 B.C. and the League of
481-478 B.C. Eventually, the Greeks liberated the cities of Asia
Minor and by 450 B.C., the war with the
Persians came to an end.
It was at this time that the power of Athens
was being felt throughout the Greek world. And as the power of Athens
reached new limits, its political influence began to be extended as well. The
Athenians forced city-states to join the Delian
league against their will. They refused to allow city-states to withdraw from
the League. And other city-states they simply refused entry into the League. Athens
stationed garrisons in other city-states to keep the peace and to make sure
that Athens would receive their
support, both politically and in terms of paying tribute to the League. By
454 B.C., Athenian domination of the Delian League
was clear the proof is that the League's treasury was moved from the temple
of Apollo on the island
of Delos to the temple
of Athena at Athens.
Payments to the Delian League now became payments
to the treasury of Athens.
The Age of Pericles
It was around this time, 450-430 B.C., that Athens
enjoyed its greatest period of success. The period itself was dominated by
the figure of Pericles and so the era has often
been called the Age of Pericles. The Athenian
statesman, Pericles (c.490-429 B.C.), was born of a
distinguished family, was carefully educated, and rapidly rose to the highest
power as leader of the Athenian democracy. Although a member of the aristoi, Pericles
offered many benefits to the common people of Athens
and as a result, he earned their total support. Oddly enough, the benefits he
conferred upon the common people had the result of weakening the aristocracy,
the social class from which he came. As the historian Thucydides pointed out,
"he controlled the masses, rather than letting them control him."
 Pericles was a man of forceful character. He was an
outstanding orator, something which, as we have already seen, was absolutely
necessary in the political world of the Athenian Assembly. He was also honest
in his control of Athenian financial affairs. Pericles
first rose to political prominence in the 450s. At this time, the Athenian
leadership was convinced of two things: (1) the continuation of the war with
the Persians and (2) maintaining cordial relationships with Sparta.
The strategy of Pericles was the exact opposite. In
the Assembly he argued convincingly that the affair with Persia
was in the past. He decided to concentrate instead on Sparta,
which he saw as a direct threat to the vitality of the Athenian Empire. As
would be evident by the end of the century, Sparta
was a major threat. The reason for this is quite simple. On the one hand, Sparta
chose to isolate itself from the affairs of other Greek city-states. On the
other hand, Spartan isolationism appeared as a direct threat to Athens.
Whether or not the threat was real, the bottom line is that Sparta
and Athens were destined to
become enemies.
From the 450s onward, Pericles rebuilt the city
of Athens, a city ravaged by
years of wars with the Persians. He used the public money from the Delian League to build several masterpieces of 5th
century Greek architecture,
the Parthenon and
the Propylaea.. This, of course,
outraged many of his fellow citizens who attacked him in the Assembly on more
than one occasion. The common people, however, were quick to support Pericles for the simple matter that he gave them jobs and an income. Under Pericles,
Athens became the city of Aeschylus,
Socrates and Phidias, the man in charge of all
public buildings and statues.
At this time Pericles also embarked on the path
of aggressive imperialism.
He put down rebellions and sent his Athenian armies to colonize other areas
of Asia Minor. And while he was doing this, he was
also trying to foster the intellectual improvement of the Athenian citizen by
encouraged music and drama. Industry and commerce flourished. In 452/1 B.C., Pericles introduced pay for jurors and magistrates so
that no one could be barred by poverty from service to the polis. Indeed,
under Pericles, Athens
was rebuilt and the population greeted him as their hero. But, there were
problems on the not-too-distant horizon.
The Peloponnesian War
These problems came to a head during the Peloponnesian Wars
of 431-404 B.C. As we've already seen, Sparta
feared Athenian power they believed that Athens
had grown too quickly both in terms of population and military power. And Athens,
of course, feared the Spartans because of their isolationist position. What
we have then, is a cold war turned hot. The Peloponnesian War was a
catastrophe for Athens. The chief
result of the War was that the Athenian Empire was divided, the subject
states of the Delian league were liberated, direct
democracy failed and Pericles was ostracized.
The Athenians also suffered a loss of nerve as their democracy gave way to
the Reign
of the Thirty Tyrants. The major result, however, was that the
destruction of Athenian power made it possible for the Macedonian conquest of
Greece.
By mid-century there had been several clashes between Athens
and Sparta and their respective
allies. In 446 B.C. a treaty of non-aggression was signed that would be valid
for thirty years (a form of dιtente, if you will). The peace did not last. In
435 B.C., a quarrel developed between Corinth,
an ally of Sparta, and Corcyra. In 433, Corcyra appealed to Athens
to form an alliance. The Corinthians knew that such an alliance would make
war inevitable. The combined naval power of Athens
and Corcyra was the largest
in Greece,
and Sparta viewed such an
alliance as a direct threat. The same year, the Athenians demanded that the
town of Potidaea
should dismantle its defensive walls and banish its magistrates, a demand
which further infuriated the Corinthians. Athens
besieged the town. An assembly of the Peloponnesian league
met and the Corinthians managed to convince the Spartans that war with
Athens was the only solution.
Fighting began in 431 B.C. Sparta
wanted to break Athenian morale by attacking Attica
annually, but the Athenians merely retreated behind their fortifications
until the Spartan forces retired. Pericles refused
to send the Athenian infantry to the field. Instead he relied on raids on the
Peloponnesus by sea. More damaging than any
offensive by the Spartans was a PLAGUE that raged in Athens
in 430. And the following year, Pericles died.
Over the next few years Athens
and Sparta suffered so many
losses that both sides were prepared to end the conflict. The Peace
of Nicias was signed in 421 B.C. Hostilities
were renewed in 415 when the people of Segesta (a city in Sicily)
appealed to Athens for help. It
was Alcibiades (c.450-404 B.C.) who persuaded the
Athenian Assembly to raise a large fleet and sail to Sicily.
But it was the Athenian campaign against Syracuse
that eventually brought disaster. In 413 the Athenian navy lost a crucial
battle. As they retreated they were cut off and destroyed. Thucydides
reported that "few out of many returned home."
The war dragged on for another eight years. Sparta
sought decisive help by gaining the assistance of Persia.
In 405 a Spartan admiral captured the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami, on the shores of the Hellespont.
The following year, beaten into submission, Athens
gave up control of its empire and had to demolish its defensive walls. By 404
B.C., Sparta had "liberated"
Greece and
imposed on oligarchic regime (the Thirty
Tyrants), that lasted until the following year.
After the death of Pericles and the disorder of
a century of warfare, the Greek city-states and direct democracy went into
decline. The reason is that first one polis, then another, rose up, withdrew
from the Delian League and began to assume control
of their own affairs, without falling under the sphere of Athenian influence.
Sparta assumed leadership of the
city-states. Then it was the turn of Thebes,
then Corcyra, then Corinth,
the Sparta again. This
fragmentation and political disorder left the door open for political power
to come from an entirely different area of Greece
Macedonia.
Under Philip
II, Macedonia
flourished through diplomacy and military aggression. Philip took advantage
of the general disorder on the Attic peninsula, and extended his control into
central Greece.
His armies defeated a weakened Athens.
In fact, Philip gained control of all the important Greek city-states with
the exception of Sparta. Philip
was murdered in 336 B.C. and was succeeded by his son, Alexander III. Under Alexander,
the Macedonian Empire grew to become the largest empire in the ancient world
larger even than the Roman Empire at its height.
Alexander the Great invaded what remained of the Persian Empire
and gained control of Asia Minor. Most of Egypt
fell under his armies. His armies marched as far east as the Indus
River on the western border of India
before he died of fever in 323 B.C. at the age of thirty-three.
Greek Culture in the Classical Age
The period from 500-323 B.C. is the Classical or Hellenic age of Greek
civilization. The brilliance of the Classical Greek world rested on a blend
of the old and the new. From the past came a profound religious belief in the
just action of the gods and the attainment of virtue in the polis. Such a
history helped develop a specific Greek "mind" in which the
importance of the individual and a rationalistic spirit were paramount. The
Classical Greek world was, in essence, a skillful combination of these
qualities.
Athens never united all Greece.
However, its culture was unchallenged. The trade routes from the Aegean
brought men and their ideas from everywhere to the great cultural center of Athens.
Thanks to its economic initiative, the Athenian polis was quite wealthy, and Pericles generously distributed that wealth to the
Athenian citizen in a variety of forms.
For instance, the Athenian polis sponsored the production of dramas and
required that wealthy citizens pay the expenses of production. At the
beginning of every year, dramatists submitted their plays to the archon, or
chief magistrate. Each comedian presented one play for review; those who
wrote tragedy had to submit a set of three plays, plus an afterpiece called a
satyr play. It was the archon who chose those dramas he considered best. The
archon allotted to each tragedian his actors, paid at state expense, and a
producer (choregus). On the appointed day the
Athenian public would gather at the theatre of Dionysus on the south slope of
the Acropolis, paid their admission of two obols,
and witnessed a series of plays. Judges drawn by lot awarded prizes to the
poet (crown of ivy), the actor (an inscription on a state list in the agora)
and to the choregus (a triumphal tablet).
The Athenian dramatists were the first artists in Western society to
examine such basic questions as the rights of the individual, the demands of
society upon the individual and the nature of good and evil. Conflict, the
basic stuff of life, is the constant element in Athenian drama.
 Aeschyus
(525-456 B.C.), the first of the great Athenian dramatists, was also the
first to express the agony of the individual caught in conflict. In his
trilogy of plays, The Oresteia, he deals
with the themes of betrayal, murder and reconciliation. The first play, The Agamemnon,
depicts Agamemnon's return from the Trojan War and his murder by his wife,
Clytemnestra, and her lover. In the second play, The
Libation Bearers, Orestes, the son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra,
avenges his father's death by killing his mother and her lover. The last
play, The Eumenides, works out the atonement of Orestes.
The Furies, goddesses who avenged murder, demand Orestes' death. When the
jury at Orestes' trial casts six votes to condemn and six to acquit, Athena
cast the deciding vote in favor of mercy. Aeschylus used The Eumenides to urge reason and justice to reconcile
fundamental human conflicts. Like Solon, Aeschylus believed that the world
was governed by divine justice which could not be violated with impunity.
When men exhibited hubris (pride or arrogance), which led them to go
beyond moderation, they must be punished. Another common theme was that through
suffering came knowledge. To act in accordance with the divine order meant
caution and moderation.
 Sophocles
(496-406 B.C.), the premier playwright of the second generation, also dealt
with personal and political matters. In his Antigone
he examined the relationship between the individual and the state by
exploring conflict between the ties of kinship and the demands of the polis.
Almost all of the plays of Sophocles stand for the precedence of divine law
over human defects. In other words, human beings should do the will of the
gods, even without fully understanding it, for the gods stand for justice and
order.
However, whereas Aeschylus concentrated on religious matters, Sophocles
dealt with the perennial problem of well-meaning men struggling, unwisely and
vainly, against their own fate. The characters in the tragedies of Sophocles
resist all warnings and inescapably meet with disaster. In Oedipus Rex,
Oedipus is warned not to pursue the mystery of his birth but he insists on
searching for the truth about himself (that he unwittingly killed his father
and married his mother). Events do not turn out as Oedipus had planned -- the
individual is incapable of affecting the universal laws of human
existence.
 Euripides (c.480-406 B.C.), the last of the three great
Greek tragic dramatists, also explored the theme of personal conflict within
the polis and the depths of the individual. With Euripides drama enters a
new, more personal phase the gods were far less important than human beings.
Euripides viewed the human soul as a place where opposing forces struggle,
where strong passions such as hatred and jealousy conflict with reason. The
essence of Euripides' tragedy is the flawed character men and women who
bring disaster on themselves and their loved ones because their passions
overwhelm their reason.
It is the rationalist spirit of 5th century Greek philosophic thought that
permeates the tragedies of Euripides. He subjected the problems of human life
to critical analysis and challenged Athenian conventions. Aristophanes would
criticize Euripides for introducing the art of reasoning into drama
 The Greeks
of the classical age not only perfected the art of drama, but of comedy as
well. ARISTOPHANES (c.448-c.380 B.C.) was an ardent lover of the city and a
ruthless critic of cranks and quacks. He lampooned eminent generals, at times
depicting them as little more than morons. He commented snidely on Pericles, and poked fun at Socrates and Euripides. Even
at the height of the Peloponnesian War, Aristophanes proclaimed that peace
was preferable to war. Like Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, Aristophanes
used his art to dramatize his ideas on the right conduct of the citizen and
the value of the polis.
The experience of the Persian and Peloponnesian wars
also helped develop the beginnings of historical writing. It is in the
classical age then, that we meet the father of history, HERODOTUS (c.485-425
B.C.). Born at Halicarnassus
in Asia Minor, Herodotus traveled widely before
settling in the Athens, the
intellectual center of the Greek world. In his book, The History,
Herodotus chronicled the rise of the Persian Empire,
the origins of both Athens and Sparta,
and then described the laws and customs of the Egyptians. The scope of The
History is awesome. Lacking newspapers, any sort of communications, or
ease of travel, Herodotus wrote a history that covered all the major events
of the Ancient Near East, Egypt
and Greece.
 The outbreak of the Peloponnesian War prompted THUCYDIDES
(c.460-c.400 B.C.) to write a history of its course in the belief that it
would be the greatest war in Greek history. An Athenian politician and
general, Thucydides saw action in the war until he was exiled for a defeat.
Exile gave him the time and opportunity to question eye-witnesses about the
details of events and to visit the actual battlefields. Since he was an
aristocrat an aristoi he had access to
the inner circles, the men who made the decisions. Thucydides saw the
Peloponnesian War as highly destructive to Greek character. He noted that the
old, the noble, and the simple fell before ambition and lust for power. He
firmly rejected any notion that the gods intervened in human affairs. In his
view, the fate of men and women was entirely in their own hands.
It has been said that the Greeks are the first ancient society with which
modern western society (since the Renaissance, that
is) feels some sort of affinity. The ancient Greeks were clearly a people who
warred and enslaved people. They often did not live up to their own ideals.
However, their achievements in the areas of art, architecture, poetry,
tragedy, science, mathematics, history, philosophy and government were of the
highest order and worthy of emulation by the Romans and others. Western
thought begins with the Greeks, who first defined man as an individual with
the capacity to use his reason. Rising above magic and superstition, by the end
of the fifth century, the Greeks had discovered the means to give rational
order to nature and to human society.
The Greeks also created the concept (if not quite the reality) of
political freedom. The state was conceived as a community of free citizens who
made laws in their own interest. As a direct democracy, for example, the
Athenian citizen discussed, debated and voted on issues that affected him
directly. The Greek discovery that man (the citizen) is capable of governing
himself was a profound one.
Underlying the Greek achievement was humanism. The Greeks expressed a
belief in the worth, significance, and dignity of the individual. Man should
develop his personality fully in the city-state, a development which would,
in turn, create a sound city-state as well. The pursuit of excellence -- arete -- was paramount. Such an aspiration
required effort, discipline and intelligence. Man was master of himself.
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