The Peloponnesian War

      Corinth was a rich trading city like Athens, but it belonged to Sparta's Peloponnesian League and so remained quite independent. Athens kept Corinth's merchants away from the profitable trade of the Aegean area and provoked Megara, another state, by likewise excluding her from ports of the Athenian Empire. When Athens began to interfere with Corinth's colonies, it was accused of breaking its peace treaty with Sparta and provoked the so-called Peloponneisan War. This was the longest, most bitter and costly war the Greeks ever fought. Almost every city-state aligned itself with one side or the other. At the outset, Athens seemed the strongest of the combatants and the best prepared for war.
      Pericles knew that Attica (greater Athens) could be invaded yearly by the more powerful land army of the Spartans. He therefore arranged for food to be imported and for the people to take refuge behind the Long Walls connecting the seaport of Piraeus with Athens whenever Attica was attacked. The Athenian fleet was strong and could raid the coast of the Peloponnese at will, and there was a big surplus in Athen's treasury. Prospects for victory looked good.
      What Pericles could not have foreseen was the plague that struck Athens in 430 BCE, the second year of the Peloponnesian War. Athenians had sought refuge between the Long Walls when Sparta invaded that year, and in the cramped, unsanitary conditions, a horrible disease struck. Thucydides, who wrote a history of this war, caught the plague himself but survived. He left a detailed description of its terrible symptoms. In two years, perhaps a third of the Athenians died, including their great leader Pericles. With Pericles out of the picture, the two opponents were now on more equal ground.
     The conflict lasted for 27 years. First one side gained a strategic victory, then the other. After 300 Spartiates were trapped and captured alive off the coast of the Peloponnese, Sparta wanted peace. Then Sparta successfully attacked Athens's allies in the North Aegean, and Athens wanted peace. Finally, King Brasidas of Sparta, and Cleon, the leader of the radical democrats in Athens, were killed in battle at Amphipolis in the North Aegean. This provoked a brief peace in 421 BCE.
      Athens found a new leader who pushed for further hostilities. He was Alcibiades, the nephew and ward of Pericles. In 418 BCE, Athens put together an alliance to fight Sparta on land; the attack was not very successful. In 416 BCE, Athens attacked Melos, killing or enslaving its population and bringing this island into the Athenian Empire. Sparta was on the point of attacking Athens again.
      At this critical point, Athens foolishly decided to try to conquer Syracuse, the most powerful city on the distant island of Sicily. this two-year campaign (415-413 BCE) required huge quantities of ships, manpower, and money to undertake. It was a total disaster. Alcibiades strongly supported the expedition and could have saved it, but having been charged with a school boy prank at a drinking party, he was forced to flee to Sparta for several years. When he finally returned to Athens to help its sinking cause in 411 BCE, he was able to turn the war effort around for a short time. When he went into exile again for losing a small naval engagement, Athens could find no other general to take his place.
      By 408 BCE, the Persians had begun supporting the Spartans, providing ships to fight the Athenians. the Spartan general, Lysander, developed more effective ways to combat the Athenian fleet. Athens became desperate as its money for new ships dwindled and losses at sea continued. After one Athenian victory at sea in 406 BCE, a storm suddenly blew up and prevented the Athenians from picking up 2000 men drifting away from their wrecked triremes. Athens recalled its ten commanders to stand trial for this added loss. Only six of them dared to return for the trial, including Pericles, the son of the great Athenian leader of the same name. All six were found guilty and executed.
      The decisive, final battle occurred in 405 BCE at Aegospotami in the Hellespont area. Athens put one last fleet on the water, depending on it for victory. After days of maneuvering against the Peloponnesian fleet without a battle, the Athenian sailors beached their ships to collect food for their lunch as they had on previous days. The Pelopponnesians caught them off guard, burned or captured their ships, and rounded up the sailors. The end had come. Just as the Athenians had killed all the men of Melos in 416 BCE and enslaved their women and children, now they could expect the same treatment.
      Sparta's allies, Thebes and Corinth, forcefully encouraged Sparta to do exactly as Athens had done to Melos. What a tragic loss it would have been for Greece. In the end, Sparta spared Athens. As punishment, Athens was required to tear down its Long Walls, surrender all but 12 ships of its fleet, take back its political exiles, and acknowledge Spartan leadership in matters of peace and war.
      The loss of freedom was just the beginning of dark days for the Athenians. Thirty men, backed by a Spartan garrison, were granted the authority to rule in Athens. These men, who came to be  known as the 30 Tyrants, unleashed a reign of terror during which many people were declared outlaws and killed. Over the course of eight months, 1500 men died. Finally, the city was retaken by exiles favouring democracy. The blood bath came to an end in 403 BCE, after which Athens then began a remarkably swift recovery, but it was never again a great power.

Thucydides

      Thucydides, writer of the remarkable history of the Peloponesian War, was old enough to recall and record the war's events right from the outbreak of the hostilities; he also fought in the war as an Athenian commander. His refusal to help the Athenians near Amphipolis in 424 BCE proved to be a disaster for his military career, but a blessing for future generations. Rather than fight, he chose to go into exile instead, and from that neutral vantage point he had a better perspective on all the events of the war. Though he lived to see the end of the Peloponnesian War, his book ends in mid-sentence in the year 411 BCE, seven years from the war's end. It is possible that another Greek historian edited and prepared his account for publication.
      The introduction to The Peloponnesian War tells us much about Thucydides and his goals.

I lived through the whole of it, being of an age to understand what was happening, and I put my mind to the subject so as to get an accurate view of it. It happened, too, that I was banished from my country fro twenty years after my command at Amphipolis; I was what was being done on both sides, particularly on the Peloponnesian side, because of my exile, and this leisure gave me rather exceptional facilities for looking into things.

Thucydides The Peloponnesian War 1.1; V.26

Writing: ECHOES from the Past published by McGraw-Hill Ryderson Ltd.

Athens Builds an Empire

      The Greeks repulsed the mighty Persian invasion of 480-479 BCE and took a small piece of land along the coast of Asia Minor from Persia's huge empire. As the Persians were expected to attack again, at least to recover their lost territory, the Greeks discussed a permanent alliance to continue fighting them. Sparta refused to participate in affairs outside the Peloponnese, and so Athens needed a strong fleet and leaders with vision. Aristeides, acting for Athens, helped organize the Dalian League to defend the Greek states should Persia attack again. Each state signed a defense treaty with Athens and agreed to pay an annual tribute toward maintaining a common fleet. Aristeides was the first to calculate how much tribute each member of the League should pay, and his fairness earned him the name, "Aristeides the Just." Athens provided all the officials and commanders of the League, and swore not to interfere in the internal affairs of its allies. The treasury and meetings were held at the great sanctuary of Apollo on the island of Delos, hence the name Delian League.
      This League was originally a voluntary association but soon became a forced union. some states that did not want to join were compelled to enter the alliance while others that wanted to drop out when the Persian threat receded were forced to remain and pay their share. Kimon, the son of Miltiades, who won the  Battle of Marathon, moulded the League into an effective force to fight the Persians. As the fleet's commander, Kimon beat the Persians decisively in 467 BCE to keep them from any further attacks in the Aegean Sea. After this success, the League, led by young Pericles of Athens, felt strong enough to try to free te Greeks on the island of Cyprus and help in a new revolt against the Persians in Egypt. The Egyptian expedition ca. 450 BCE turned into a catastrophe when a Persian force trapped the Greek fleet in one branch of the Nile River and wiped it out. Fearing a Persian reprisal by sea, in 454 BCE, Pericles moved the League's treasury from the island of Delos back to Athens. This was taken as final proof that the League had now become an empire controlled by Athens.

Pericles and Democracy

      The city of Athens, just one of more than 300 Greek city-states, enjoyed its greatest period of wealthy and power -- 30 years -- under the guidance of Pericles. To us today, the term democracy means an opportunity to elect politicians who share our views and to voice opinions through the media and public meetings. in the Athens of Pericles's day, democracy meant far more. Every citizen could speak and vote on every piece of legislation in the Assembly. Every citizen had an equal chance to hold public office, with the exception of offices such as army general, which were elected positions. All law cases were decided by majority vote of citizen juries of between 201 and 1501 people. The law and the government were firmly in the hands of the citizens. Pericles proclaimed, "We judge the man who takes no part at all [in public affairs] a useless, not just a quiet person."
      Pericles himself was elected annually to the Board of Generals in Athens and so maintained his leading position in the city. Te other civic offices, even the archonships, were only one-year positions and candidates were selected by lottery from a list proposed by the tribes. The introduction of pay for serving on the Council of 500, on juries, and in the various civic offices, allowed even the poorest citizen to take time away from his work. Paid civil service was a radical departure from the earlier system for government.
      In his funeral oration for the Athenian dead at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War, Pericles declared:

Our constitution is called a democracy, because power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people. When it is a question of settling private disputes, everyone is equal before the law; when it is a question of putting one person before another in positions of public responsibility, what counts is not membership of a particular class, but the actual ability which a man possesses. No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty.  

Thucydides The Peloponnesian War 11.37

      There were far more opportunities for citizens to participate in political affairs in ancient Athens than in our modern democracies. There was no pay for attending the Assembly until the fourth century BCE, s at this time many poor people could not afford to attend. Women, slaves, and foreign residents could still not hold citizenship, and Pericles himself introduced a law that limited citizenship to only those men whose parents had been born of citizen fathers.

Rivalry between Sparta and Athens

      While he held office as general, Kimon had acted to defuse the long-standing rivalry between Sparta and Athens, the two main powers in Greece. Things had changed when Sparta asked Athens for help during a dangerous Helot revolt in 462 BCE, Kimon convinced  the Athenians to send soldiers to help Sparta, but when they arrived, Sparta refused their help and sent the Athenians home. This insult led to Kimon's ostracism the following  year, and the quick rise of Pericles to political prominence.
      During the 450s BCE, under the leadership of Pericles, Athens tried to build a land empire in central Greece that truly was a threat to Sparta's traditional power base, although it did not last long, the attempt by Athens increased tensions between the two states. To try to ease the increasingly bitter rivalry, Athens and Sparta signed a 30-year peace treaty in 445 BCE, agreeing to stay out of each other's internal affairs. Sparta still led the Peloponnesian League, which included some members or allies in central Greece, while Athens held tight rein on the many coastal and island states of her empire in the Aegean. Despite the peace treaty, the rivalry between Athens and Sparta continued, leading them into all-out war.
      There were basic differences between Sparta and Athens. Sparta was a land power, with a conservative oligarchic government, backward in terms of trade, wealthy, and recent advances in Greek culture such as rhetoric, philosophy, and literature. it sought leadership among Greek states simply in order to protect itself and its narrow interests, rather than out of a desire for wealthy, power, or expansion. Athens was the opposite. A sea power governed by a radical democracy, Athens was at the forefront of advances in culture. It was a progressive, wealthy, trading nation. Athens maintained and tried to expand its empire for the sake of the power and income it provided. These differences lone caused suspicion and dislike between the two states, but it was the other states, especially Corinth, that finally pushed the two toward war.
   

Writing: ECHOES from the past published by McGraw-Hill Ryderson Ltd.

Early Greek Art: Cross-Cultural Influences

      The great wars against Persia highlight the differences between the civilization developing in Greece and the older civilizations of the East. The Greeks beat back the Eastern threat to their freedom and won the opportunity to develop their own culture, accepting outside influences only if they appealed to Greek taste. This paid great dividends in the coming centuries, as the greatest Greek artists, writers, philosophers, and scientists began to explore their world in new ways and to new heights. But the Greeks were not ready to move forward until after they had absorbed many important ideas and influences from the East, Egypt, and other regions during the eighth and seventh centuries BCE. At this earlier time, Greek representational an (art that attempts to depict the world as it appears), for example, was so far behind that of the East that it was easily influenced by forms of Eastern art -- scenes of people, animals, and mythical creatures like griffins and sphinxes. This period in Greek art is actually called Orientalizing because of the strong Eastern influence.
      For Greek art, the opening up of Egypt to Greek merchants and travellers was very important. In Egypt, the Greeks observed monumental statues carved in fine, hard stone and soon imitated these in the finest white marble of their homeland. Greek architects learned how to build great temples in stone after viewing the marvels of Karnak, Luxor, and Memphis. Greek artists began to appreciate the fine skills of drawing and the use of colour after seeing wall painting adoring buildings and tombs all along the Nile. Likewise, metal-working skills, glass making, and other important crafts were picked up very quickly and brought back to Greece. In every case, the Greeks were not simply imitators. They did not merely acquire skills, they also adapted them and applied them to their own needs and tastes. This is one of the keys to the greatness of Greek art and civilization.
     We can see some of the great strides made in Greek art from the Dark Ages to the Persian Wars by looking at temple architecture. Temples changed from modest wood and clay "houses" for cult statues to grand marble showcases from Greek treasures, such as the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. This sanctuary was one of the largest in all the Greek world -- the temple alone occupied an area almost the size of a football field -- and was home to hundreds of marble sculptures of people, gods, and animals.
     Sculpture was transformed from rather abstract figurines in bronze or clay to natural-looking, life-size statues in marble, bronze, or even a combination of gold and ivory. Vase painting also shows a similar transformation, changing from little black stickfigures to wonderfully fluid, idealized characters against a black, red, or white background.
      Greek philosophy and science also took their first tentative steps during the Archaic Period. Thinkers from Miletus, like the astronomer Thales, were the first to ask, "How did the world originate?" and not be satisfied with the answer, "The gods created it." They wanted to know exactly how the Earth was formed and from what. They proposed theories about the world's origin, suggesting that all things had been formed from basic elements such as moisture or air or fire, through various fundamental processes, like condensation and vaporization. These ideas are no longer accepted, but it is significant that the development of philosophy (from the Greek phileo, "to love," and sophia, "wisdom") and a type of systematic science began in Greece.
      Greek literature passed from the age of epic poems like the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer to an age of lyric poetry in dozens of forms. Drinking songs, war songs, poems such by choruses or by a single person love poems, and poems in praise of athletic victories are just a few of the new themes that appeared.
      One of the lyric poets was a woman named Sappho of Lesbos, who was admired by some Greeks as much as Homer. This is remarkable, given women's generally lowly status in Greek society. Even those belonging to wealthier citizen families enjoyed few freedoms; they were married to men chosen for them, had no right to vote or possess property, and could not go to public places unaccompanied.
      Besides lyric poetry, the very first dramatic plays were written in Athens just before th Persian Wars. They were performed in honour of the god Dionysos, god of wine and fertility.

History Continues to Unfold

      By the end of the fifth century BCE, the Greeks were poised to enter their greatest adventure yet. The Persian threat had been beaten back and the way was clear for the Athenians to build their empire and created unprecedented heights of cultural and political achievement. The level of civilization to come in the Classical Period of Greek history would be looked back on by people and empires to come as a golden age.

Writing: ECHOES from the past published by McGraw-Hill Ryderson Ltd. 

The Persian Wars: Greece Unites In Conflict

      The Greeks took longer to recover from the serious political and economic turmoil at the end of the second millennium than their Near Eastern neighbours the Assyrians, Phoenicians, Babylonians, and Egyptians, all of whom quickly began accumulating wealthy and territory. After centuries of great wars, it was the Persians, along with their close neighbours, the Medes, who emerged as the most powerful empire. By the sixth century BCE, the Persians threatened the Greek homeland itself. Somehow,the fiercely independent Greek city-states need to find a way to cooperate to beat back the menace from the est.
      Compared with the huge empires of the Near East, particularly Persia, Greek city-states were tiny. Even a coalition that included every Greek town would only equal a fraction of this eastern power. The fact that the Greek states were weekended by fighting among themselves and rarely agreed on anything long enough to act together, made defense against a mighty empire appear impossible. On the positive side, Greek soldiers were tough, their battle tactics and weapons inferior to none, and when they were finally ready to cooperate, they found good leaders.
      The empire of the Persians and Medes had expanded northward toward the eastern Greek (or Ionian) cities in the early sixth century BCE, but was stopped by the wealthy power of the Lydians in west-central Asia Minor. While the Lydians acted as a buffer, keeping the Medes and Persians away from the Aegean for another 40 years, eventually the  Lydians themselves took over the eastern Greek cities, which were unable to unite even to resist a foreign invader. King Croesus of Lydia, fro example, was famed for his generosity to Greek sanctuaries:

      Croesus now attempted to win the favour of the Delphian Apollo by a magnificent sacrifice, ,,, he melted down an enormous quantity of gold into one hundred and seventeen ingots about eighteen inches long, nin inches wide, and three inches think; four of the ingots were of refined gold weighing approximately a hundred and forth-two pounds each: the rest were alloyed and weighed about a hundred and fourteen pounds. He also caused the image of a line to be made of refined gold, in weight some five hundred and seventy pounds.

Herodotus Histories 1.50-51

      In 559 BCE, a great king and general rose to the throne of Persia -- Cyrus the Great.  Cyrus gained power over the Medes as well, and continued to expand the Persian Empire, which already stretched across Asia in the east to the shores of the Mediterranean in the west. A chance to expand further occurred when Croesus of Lydia decided to attack Cyrus across the old boundary between their eepires bou 546 BCE. We are told that the oracle at Delphi proclaimed that if Croesus crossed the Halys river, he would destroy a might empire. Little did Croesus know that it would be his own!
      The fall of Sardis, capital of Lydia, brought the Ionian Greek states face to face with the "barbarian" Persians. Unable to secure favourable peace terms, the Greeks tried to fight, but again enough to achieve any  success. The Ionian states then surrendered to the Persians and accepted service in the Persian army. When the Greek a revolt among the Ionians in 499 BCE, a cal for only 20 warships from Athens and five from Eretria in 494 BCE ended the revolt. The Persians destroyed the city, killed many of the men, and sent the rest of the population into exile.

The Battle of Marathon

      In 490 BCE, Darius, now King of Persia, sent a fleet with about 20 000 soldiers to punish Athens and Eretria for helping in the Ionian Revolt. After first burning and plundering Eretria, the Persian fleet sailed south to the eastern coast of Attica where a sheltered beach and small plain provided a perfect base for the Persian army. The plain was called Marathon.
      The Athenians sent a professional messenger ("all-day runner") to Sparta, 250 km away, pleading for help. He returned about four days later saying that the Spartans would only come after the full moon, still a week or more away. So the Athenian citizen army of 9000 warriors went alone to Marathon to meet the Persians. Eventually, the only help to arrive was less than a thousand soldiers from Plataea, a close neighbor to the north.
      After much debate, Miltiades, one of the Athenian generals, convinced his fellow commanders to attack, and thus won the Athenians everlasting glory. The Greeks in their heavy armour charged the Persians on the run and cut them down as they fled to their ships. Herodotus says 6400 Persians were killed but only 192 Athenians. Archaeological excavation of the burial mound of the Plataean dead has yielded less than a dozen bodies, including a young boy, perhaps their piper. The Persian threat had been beaten back, but its empire was far from destroyed.

Thermopylae: Greek Cooperation Defeats Persia

      The victory at Marathon provided the mainland Greeks with ten-year break from further Persian attacks. Then in 480 BCE, Xerxes, the Persian king who succeeded Darius, crossed the Hellespont (the narrow strait between the Greek mainland and Asia Minor). Xerxes did this by having win bridges constructed of boats held together by cables made of linen and papyrus as thick as a human torso! Herodotus says that the Persian infantry alone numbered 1.7 million soldiers, and that with the fleet, cavalry, and other contingents and attendants, over common with ancient writers, these figures are no doubt vastly exaggerated -- Xerxes's army probably consisted of about 200 000 soldiers, still an immense force for the time.
      The Greeks had done little to prepare themselves for this latest Persian attack, and many of them intended simply to accept Persian domination without resistance. Athens, at least, had used the money from a rich new strike of silver at its mines near Laurion to build a strong fleet of 200 ships, and gathered with Sparta fro a congress at Corinth to plan the strategic decision was made to defend a narrow pass in central Greece called Thermopylae (the Hot Gates) through which the Persians had to pass.
      A small force of 4000 soldiers led by King Leonidas of Sparta and his bodyguard of 300 was sent to hold the pass until the full Greek army arrives. This small force was backed by the Greek fleet waiting just offshore. The Spartan stand was heroic but a local Greek shepherd betrayed them by showing Xerxes a mountain path around Thermopylae. Leonidas and about a thousand soldiers who refused to escape the Persian trap died fighting bravely. The epitaph at the site where the Spartans died read, "Go tell at Sparta, thou that passest by, that here obedient to her word, we lie." The Persian army poured southward through Boeotia to Athens and took revenge on the city for its defeat at Marathon.

Salamis and Plataea

      The combined Greek fleet of over 300 triremes (fast Greek ships with three levels of rowers) remained at Salamis, a large island just off the coast of Attica to the west of Athens. After much delay, about 600 Perisan ships were enticed into the straits where they were attacked by the swift, well-crewed Greek ships. Xerxes could only watch in despair from his throne set high on a hill above the action. Aeschylus, a Greek playwright who probably fought at Salamis, puts these words into the mouth of a Persian messenger in one of his plays:

First, then, the torrent of our Persian fleet bore up; but when the press of shipping jammed there in the strait, then none could help another, but our ships fouled each other with their rams, and sheared away each other's banks of oars. But the Greek ships, skillfully handled, kept the outer station, and struck in; till hulls rolled over, and the sea itself was hidden, strewn with their wreckage, dyed with blood of men. The dead lay thick on all the reefs and beaches, and flight broke out, all order lost; and all our eastern ships rowed hard to get away. 

Aeschylus The Persians 412-423

      The battle was a severe loss for the Persians. Xerxes himself escaped from Greece but he left behind his army under the general Mardonius. 

      In the new year (479 BCE), Mardonius took up a position on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain near the town of Plataea. Here, the united army of the Greek city-states, led by the Spartans, met the barbarians in all-out battle. The Greeks were victorious. Mardonius was killed, a vast amount of Persian wealthy and luxury goods was captured, and the remnants of the great invasion force hastily retreated from Greece. After Plataea, the Greek navy attacked the Persians again in Asia Minor and freed the Ionian Greeks. 

Writing: ECHOES from the past published by McGraw-Hill Ryderson Ltd. 

Foundations of Democratic Rule

Solon and Peisistratus

     Athens avoided tyranny for many years, first, by giving in to demands for a written code of law, and second, by appointing a special magistrate called an archon to try to solve continuing problems between aristocrats and common citizens. The law code, written by Draco in 620 BCE was significant because it recognized that once laws were written down, they could be criticized and changed. The archon appointed in 594 BCE was Solon, who brought in a number of economic and social reforms. These included changes in the law code that helped relieve the debt and land problems of the poor. Solon also abolished the practice of selling debtors into slavery.
      Solon's political reforms were an important step on the road to democracy. The most significant reform allowed all wealthy men, aristocrat or not, to run for the highest government offices. Solon also created a new institution called the Council of 400. One hundred citizens from each of the four traditional tribes of Athens were elected annually and met regularly to prepare legislation to be voted on by the entire Citizen Assembly. The Council probably also acted as a court of appeal for judgments of the archons.
      Many adults living in Athens, or in any Greek polis for that matter, still had no political power at all. This included women, since citizenship ultimately derived from the ability to fight in the army; the large slave population, which had no personal rights whatsoever; and foreigners, who rarely acquired citizenship cause normally it was only bestowed by birth.
      One man who eventually did become tyrant of Athens was Peisistratus, a noble famous for his generalship, and very ambitious. He actually made three tries for tyrant's rule, interspersed with periods of exile. On the second try (ca. 555 BCE), he boldly decided to have a handsome women named Phye dress up like the goddess Athena, with armour and spear, and ride through the streets of Athens in a chariot proclaiming that she, the goddess herself, had come to restore Peisistratus to power! On his third attempt (ca. 546 BCE), Peisistratus defeated his opponents in battle and took the city. He ruled until his death in 527 BCE, when power was handed over to his son, Hippias.

Cleisthenes Establishes Democracy

      Hippias continued the tyranny in Athens after his father's death, but eventually lost support. In 510 BCE, the army of Sparta, Athens's most powerful adversary, besieged Athens and forced an end to the tyranny of Hippias. He and his family surrendered and were forced into exile and the tyranny ended. Athens again had to find new political solutions to her problems of government.
      The solution this time was proposed by Cleisthenes, a member of another noble family, in 508-507 BCE, Cleisthenes's novel approach set aside the ancient division of Athenian citizens into four tribes based on clan relationships and created an equitable division of citizens into ten new tribes, each with members from all parts of the city-state. Cleisthenes also replaced the old Council of 400 with a new Council of 500, with 50 members elected from each tribe. Not only did these 50 members take part in meetings of the full Council, for one tenth of the year, they also acted as the executive committee of the Council. Each tribe also elected a general (strategos) who would lead the city in all its military affairs. By 487 BCE, it was recognized that only the generals had to be highly qualified elected officials. In truly democratic fashion, the other offices came to be filled by drawing lots every year. Any fit citizen could now hold these high offices.
      Another novel measure was introduced in these democratic reforms -- the practice called ostracism. This measure was meant to rid Athens of any citizen who might want to become a tyrant. Ostracism allowed the city to send any citizen and his family into exile for a period of ten years. Every year around January (the middle of the Athenian calendar year), the Assembly voted on whether an ostracism was needed that year. For the ostracism procedure, a minimum of 6000 votes needed to be cast, and the person whose name appeared most often on the ostraka (pieces of broken pottery used as ballots) was send into exile. The first ostracism occurred in 487 BCE and the last was held 70 years later.

Slaves in Greek Society

      For those who had once been free, slavery was generally regarded as a wretched, degrading state. Conditions varied greatly -- household slaves of the wealthy were the best off, while leased slaves working in state mines were probably the worst. In any case, slavery was common and totally accepted throughout the Greek world. Legally, slaves were simply property; they might be treated humanely or cruelly, depending on their owners. At the master's discretion, they were allowed to marry, have a home, and keep their children. Slaves were certainly an important part of the economy, filing virtually every occupation except government and military positions.
      Athens was a major slave-owning state, obtaining new slaves in markets where foreign war captives or Greeks captured by pirates were for sale. Educated guesses suggest no more than one third (60 000 to 80 000) of the total population of Attica (greater Athens) in the fifth century BCE were slaves, of which the majority worked in manufacturing. For example, we learn from the fourth-century BCE orator Demosthenes that his father left him an estate that included a knife- and sword-making workshop with 32 skilled slaves, and a couch-frame-making workshop with 20 slaves. According to Thucydidies, more than 20 000 slaves, of whom the majority were crafts workers, deserted Athens during the darkest part of the Peloponnesian War (412-404 BCE).
       In 414 BCE, Cephisodorus, a metic (foreign resident) from Piraeus, had his 16 confiscated slaves sold for prices ranging from 72 drachmas for a boy, to 301 drachmas for a skilled man (1 drachma was a day's wage for a skilled worker at this time). These slaves included five Thracians, three Carians, two Syrians, two Illyrians, and one each from Colchis, Scythia, Lydia, and Malta.
      Inscriptions in Athens dating between 349 and 320 BCE list 135 slaves (79 males, 56 females) who received their freedom (manumissions). The men, where known, paid an average of 178 drachmas to be freed, while the women paid 180 drachmas on average.
      Among the men in crafts, there was a bronzesmith, an ironworker, three goldsmiths, nine leather cutters, a pail maker, a glue boiler, and a sofa maker. Of the 48 women in crafts, 40 were wool workers. Retail workers included sellers of bread, pickled meats, incense, sesame seeds, fish, wool, rope, and cooked foods. Slaves did virtually every form of work need for life to go on normally in Athens.

Lycurgus and Spartan Society

      Of the more than 300 Greek city-states, Athens and Sparta were the most the most powerful. However, that is where any similarity between these two rivals ends. Spartans were foremost known as warriors, and despite their relatively small numbers, perhaps 5000 full Spartan warriors in good times, they enjoyed a position of leadership in Greece from some three centuries. 

      When other city-states were suffering from lack of land in the eighth century BCE and sending excess population overseas to settle, the Spartans took a different course. In along war, Sparta defeated its neighbours to the west and thereby captured more needed territory. The conquered people joined the large and sometimes rebellious population of Spartan helots, the state slaves who worked the land.

      The political, social, and military systems of Sparta were attributed in antiquity to one great legislator named Lycurgus. So much is credited to Lycurgus, but so little is known, that he has become an almost mythic figure. He may have lived in the early seventh century BCE and is supposed to have laid down the tough military training program that allowed Sparta to produce the best soldiers in the Greek world. At the same time, he proposed a constitution that guaranteed all Spartan citizens -- meaning only adult males born to citizen parents -- a minimum level of political equality. There were still rich and poor Spartans, aristocrats and ordinary people, but all who were "equals" (homoioi) could vote in the Assembly, have a share of Spartan land, and benefit from the work of the enslaved helots.  

      Sheltered family life for Spartan citizen boys ended at the age of seven when military training and rugged barracks life began. Spartiate boys learned to withstand pain without complaint, be unquestioningly obedient to leaders, cunning when necessary, and above all, never to admit defeat. Though military service continued, only at age 30 did Spartan men become full citizens, able to vote in the Assembly, hold political office, marry, have a house, and receive an estate worked by helots. 

     The Spartan government was unusual in that it had two kings who ruled equally. This system provided a strong check on the powers of the monarchy since one king could oppose the other. Advising the kings was a Council of Elders, 28 men over the age of 60 who belonged to the Spartan aristocracy. Only this body could present legislation to the Assembly for approval. The Assembly could not initiate legislation, nor could it even discuss the legislation. The Council of Elders would explain the legislation to the Assembly and even give opposing views, but then the Assembly had to vote in favour or against it. Its decision was final. As a kind of advocate for the common citizens, a new institution, the Ephorate, was created; it soon took a leading role in running Spartan affairs. The Ephorate consisted of five men called Ephors who were elected by the Assembly to hold office for one year. The Ephors presided over the Council and Assembly, but were not part of either of those bodies. 

      The Spartan system of government was conservative in order to prevent revolt by the helots. Babies who were not healthy were abandoned at birth. Boys were sometimes brutally  beaten and whipped. Interestingly though, Spartan women enjoyed more freedom and privileges than women anywhere else in Greece. As girls, they were encouraged to take part in sports to develop healthy bodies so they could have healthy children. They were given training in music and dance, like the boys, and when they reached adulthood, had both property and marriage rights. Other Greeks admired Spartan women, both for their independence and because they were said to be the most beautiful in all Greece. 

 Writing: ECHOES from the past published by McGraw-Hill Ryderson Ltd. 

Government in Greece

The Age of Tyrants

      Democracy is just one of many political systems developed by humankind to govern its communities. The Greeks were the first people to invent a formal democratic system in which citizens governed themselves through voting. The word democracy comes from two Greek words, demos meaning "the people" and kratos meaning "the rule" or "power." But democracy was not invented easily -- it was arrived at after a long, painful process. Other systems of government had been tried and failed. 

      The early Greek states were usually focused around the main town in a valley area. The normal system of rule was government by a king, and each king acted as the chief judge, leading administrator, military leader, and at times, priest of the state cult (religion). These kings, however, did not have absolute power, nor was their power automatically passed on to their heirs. A king's authority was limited by the rights and powers of a small, close-knit group of aristocrats who acted as his counsellors. 

      During the Dark Ages, many of the kings lost some or all of their powers to other members of the local aristocracy. Arbitrary rule by aristocratic families replaced the monarchy in some Greek states. But arbitrary administration of unwritten laws was just one concern. The power held by some aristocrats and not by others provoked dissent, as did the lack of a voice in government for wealthy men of non-aristocratic background. Poorer Greeks suffered loss of land, debts, and even enslavement for debt at the hands of wealthy nobles. However, the aristocrats could keep their power as long as they continued to be the military backbone of the state. Down to the early seventh century BCE, fighting depended on heavily armed individual warriors backed up by their lightly armed supporters. Only wealthy aristocrats could afford the arms and armour needed for this style of warfare. 

      This all changed in the period ca. 675-650 BCE, as a new style of warfare was introduced, one that depended on the unified movement of larger numbers of warriors, called hoplites. These were heavily armed men with large round shields, shin protectors (greaves), helmets, body armour, and spears, which they thrust rather than threw. by standing side by side, six to ten lines deep, and maintaining their places in the lines, these warriors could easily defeat the old style of fighting. Large numbers of warriors were crucial to preventing the hoplite lines from being surrounded and attacked from behind. But there simply were not enough aristocrats to fill the new battle lines. Consequently, any citizen who could afford the armour eventually came to stand shoulder to shoulder with the aristocrats. The strategic importance of these new soldiers was probably one factor that led to their demand for more political power. 

      People in control of a government usually do not surrender their power willingly. In the richer Greek states near the Isthmus of Corinth, a man of noble blood named Cypselus was excluded from the ruling circle of nobles at Corinth, despite his ability and great ambition. He gathered a military force composed of other discontented citizens and in 657 BCE defeated and forced the ruling clan of nobles into exile. Cypselus took control of the government and began to rule for the benefit of the middle class people who had supported him. The Greeks called such a person, one who had seized power unconstitutionally (for good or bad), a tyrannos or tyrant. 

 Writing: ECHOES from the past published by McGraw-Hill Ryderson Ltd. 

The Archaic Period

      Several significant developments mark the end of the Dark Ages in Greece and point to a great new culture. First was the appearance of a new national literature, epitomized by Homer's work. this not only provided Greeks with a glorious past, whether real or imagined, but also gave them a common view of their god,s almost like a national religion. Second was the resurgence of trade as the Greeks again regularly plied the waters beyond the Aegean Sea. Their first destinations were in the eastern Mediterranean, probably to exchange food or metal for manufactured goods. But more important than the objects they bought were the skills and ideas they soon acquired: shipbuilding and metal-working techniques, better knowledge of geography and navigation, artistic and religious ideas, and not least, an alphabet. The alphabet we use today for English and many other languages came for the Greeks by way of the Romans. The Greeks themselves learned it from the Phoenicians, a seafaring people who lived in the region of present-day Lebanon. The new script had only 27 letters, and was easy enough for almost anyone to learn.
      Soon after their voyages to the east began, the Greeks also began sailing westward, establishing contacts and settlements in Italy. They now had access to the iron and other metals found to the north of Rome, where a people known as the Etruscans were beginning to flourish. This led to the third development, colonization. Trading expeditions soon brought news to Greeks at home about the rich agricultural lands in Italy, Sicily, and other locations on the coasts of the Mediterranean. Since pressures to find better land were building in Greece, the trickle of groups emigrating from the Aegean soon became a flood. Hundreds of new Greek settlements were established abroad over a 200-year period, making much of the Mediterranean and Black Sea coasts an extension of the Greek homeland. While theses settlements are often called colonies, for the most part, they were new, independent Greek city-states.
      A fourth development, though minor at first, later became more important. The first Olympic Games in honour of the god Zeus were held in 776 BCE. This is the first date we have in Greek history, the starting point from which later Greeks marked their own past. The Olympic festival was one of four Panhellenic ("all Greece") games that drew competitors and spectators from every corner of the Greek world. Since the prizes at these prestigious festivals were treasured crowns of sacred tree branches, they were called Crown Games. There were some 300 other local athletic games around Greece where winners received very valuable rewrads. These were called Prize Games. They Olympic Games continued until 393 ACE when the Roman emperor Theodosius I, a Christian, ordered all pagan sanctuaries closed.

Colonization

      Towns in Greece wanting to establish new settlements abroad often consulted the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, a sacred place where priestesses or priests could answer questions put to the god about the new territory (or anything else). Then with the oracle's blessing, a group of several hundred men equipped with ships and all the tools and equipment they would need ( at great expense) and promises of further help, would sail away in excitement and anticipation. Whether women and children went out these expeditions or came later, we do not know. We do know that many Greek men took native wives in their new homes,but many more probably brought their Greek wives with them.
      Below is an inscription discovered in Cyrene, Libya, that preserves the original foundation agreement between the colonists of Cyrene and their mother city, Thera. In this case, famine was forcing the mother city to send some of its hungry citizens away. Part of the agreement reads:

Agreement of the Founders

Decided by the assembly. Since Apollo has given a spontaneous prophesy to Battus and the Theraeans ordering them to colonize Cyrene, the Theraeans resolve that Battus be sent to Libya as leader and king: that the Theraeans sail as his companions: that they sail on fair and equal terms, according to family; that one son be conscripted from each family; that those who sail be in the prime of life; and that, of the rest of the Theraeans, any free man who wishes may sail. ...But he who is unwilling to sail when the city sends him shall be liable to punishment by death and his goods shall be confiscated. And he who receives or protects another, even if it be a father his son or brother, shall suffer the same penalty as the man unwilling to sail... 

      Once colonists had arrived at their destination, they had to choose the best location for their new home, usually a harbour site. Besides the endless work of dividing the land, planting the first crops, and building their homes, settlers also had to contend with the native peoples whose land they were taking. The colonists of Cyrene, for example, were often helped by the native Libyans, but there were also bitter wars. In one battle, says Herodotus, the Libyans killed 7000 Greeks. The number of dead sounds unbelievably high but it points out the seriousness of the problem of conflict between Greek colonists and the natives of the lands they colonized.

 Writing: ECHOES from the past published by McGraw-Hill Ryderson Ltd.