Paul R. Waibel - Western Civilization

Source: Photo courtesy of Brent Kooi, private collection.

Some have chosen to see the political history of Athens as a cycle of government from monarchy, to oligarchy, to tyranny, and finally democracy. But the so‐called democracy had little, if anything, in common with modern representative democracy. The latter evolved out of medieval feudalism rather than the demmokratia of classical Athens. Classical Greek political theory always subordinated the individual to the city‐state. There was no concept of individual rights. Peter Stearns (b. 1936) puts it well when he observes that, “If there was a Geek political heritage, among the chaos of city‐states, it was on the whole absolutist, even totalitarian” (Stearns 1977, p. 30).

Cleisthenes passed from the scene around 508 BC, less than one decade before Athens and the rest of the Greek city‐states entered upon their most momentous century. It was during the fifth century BC that classical Greek civilization experienced both its golden age and rapid decline. Its moment of greatness was inspired in part by the Persian Wars (499–479 BC). The defeat of Persia was seen by the Greeks as the victory of a free people over a slave empire, and thus inspired greatness in the Greeks, especially the Athenians.

The Greek city‐states along the coast of Asia Minor (Ionia) fell under Persian control in 546 BC, when Cyrus the Great (d. 530 BC) conquered the Kingdom of Lydia. In 499 BC, the Ionian Greeks rebelled, led by the city of Miletus. Athens and Eretria sent aid. After a long struggle, the Ionian Greeks were defeated in 494 BC and, once again, were under Persian rule. Darius I, the Great (550–486 BC) decided on a punitive expedition to punish Athens and Eretria.

A Persian expeditionary force crossed the Aegean Sea in 490 BC. Eretria fell after a six‐day siege. Shortly after, on the plain of Marathon northeast of Athens, an Athenian army, with some support from Plataea under the command of Miltiades (550–489 BC), met and defeated a Persian force estimated to have been twice as large. The Greek victory brought only a temporary reprieve. Darius I's son, Xerxes I, the Great 2 (519–466 BC) determined to conquer Greece.

Xerxes began his campaign in 480 BC. A Persian army believed to have been between 100 000 and 150 000, crossed the Hellespont and proceeded through Thrace and Macedonia to Greece. At the narrow mountain pass of Thermopylae, a small band of 300 Spartans and 5000 other Greek soldiers died slowing the Persian advance. The decisive battle, however, was fought at sea.

After the Persian defeat in 490 BC, the Athenians heeded the advice of Themistocles (c. 524–459 BC) and built a fleet of 200 triremes, a type of warship with three banks of oars. Themistocles was a veteran of the Battle of Marathon and a populist politician elected archon in 493 BC. The Athenians consulted the Delphic Oracle and were told to “trust in wooden walls.” Themistocles argued before the Popular Assembly that “trust in wooden walls” meant build a navy.

In 480 BC after the Battle of Thermopylae, Themistocles once again was able to persuade the Popular Assembly to follow his advice. The Athenians evacuated their beloved city and took refuge on the island of Salamis. The Persians burned Athens. Again, heeding the advice of Themistocles, the Greeks lured the much larger Persian fleet into the narrow Straits of Salamis. An allied fleet led by Athens, attacked the Persian fleet. The Persian ships were large and difficult to maneuver in the narrow straits. The smaller Greek triremes destroyed the Persian fleet, while Xerxes observed the battle from the slopes of Mount Aegaleo.

The final battle took place in the summer of 479 BC near Plataea in southeastern Boeotia. The Persian army was decisively defeated by a Greek army made up of Spartans and soldiers from other Greek city‐states. On the same afternoon as the Greek victory in the Battle of Plataea, what was left of the Persian fleet was captured in the Battle of Mycale on the Ionian coast of Asia Minor, opposite the island of Samos. The Greek victories in the two battles ended the Persian threat. The Greeks then went on the offensive.

There were two major results of the Greek victory in the wars with Persia. First, it infused the Greeks with a victorious spirit. The Greeks saw their victory as one of a free people over an empire of slaves. Nothing seemed impossible for them. The result was the golden age of classical civilization, a cultural flowering seldom matched in history (see below). The second outcome was the emergence of Athens as a great power among the Greek city‐states. Athenian imperialism would lead to a Greek civil war between Athens and Sparta that would end the golden age and put Greece on a downward slide from which it would never recover.

Athens was rebuilt along with its port, Piraeus, following the Persian defeat. The triumphant Athenian fleet was enlarged. Athens became leader of the Delian League of Greek city‐states intended to guard against any revived Persian threat. Once the Persian threat no longer existed, the other members of the Delian League wanted to disband the league. Athens refused. Those city‐states who attempted to leave the league were destroyed by Athens. The transformation of the Delian League into an Athenian Empire was complete in 454 BC, when the league's treasury was moved to Athens. Athenian imperialism threatened the traditional Greek lifestyle centered on the independent city‐state.

Imperialism brought with it war rather than peace. Athens' attempt to gain hegemony over the Greek city‐states led the Athenians into the sin of hubris, that exaggerated pride the Greeks believed led to retribution. Athens' dominance was brief. The end came through the Peloponnesian War (433–404 BC).

Thucydides (460–395 BC), who recorded the Peloponnesian War in his History of the Peloponnesian War , said that what caused the war was fear of Athenian imperialism and its threat to the independence of the Greek city‐states. Sparta assumed leadership of the Peloponnesian League formed to oppose Athens and defend the liberty of the city‐states threatened by Athens' imperialistic goals. The war broke out in 431 BC, when Thebes, an ally of Sparta, attacked Plataea, an ally of Athens.

The war eventually became a contest between Sparta and Athens, while city‐states allied with either side would be captured and, at times, their populations massacred. Sparta and Athens, the two most powerful city‐states at the time, were not equally matched. Sparta was a land power and Athens was a sea power. Each invaded and lay waste to the opponent's territory on an annual basis, but neither was strong enough to actually capture the enemy city. The Athenians, for example, could retreat behind the city walls to wait out the Spartans. Access to Piraeus, Athens' harbor, was protected by two Long Walls. Their fleet was able to supply Athens. Without a navy, Sparta was not able to blockade Piraeus.

Athens suffered a fatal blow in 429 BC, when the city was struck with a devastating plague. Thucydides recorded the plague in his History . From one third to as many as two thirds of the city's population died. The Spartans broke off their siege fearing the plague more than combat. It was the death of Pericles (495–429 BC), architect of the Athenian Empire, that sealed the city's fate. With the loss of Pericles' able leadership, Athenian policy fell victim to the whim of the mob as expressed through the Popular Assembly.

In 415 BC, the Athenians heeded the advice of the youthful and reckless Alcibiades (451/450–404 BC) to launch a campaign against Syracuse on the island of Sicily. The largest force ever assembled by a Greek city‐state set sail for Syracuse. The result was a disastrous defeat for Athens in the harbor of Syracuse in 413 BC. With most of its navy gone, Athenian political life deteriorated. No one leader could control the Popular Assembly long enough to implement a strategy. Sparta sought and received financial assistance from Persia to build a fleet.