Athens and the Greek States

From Alliance to Empire

Delian League

Bust of Pericles

Thucydides on Early Greek History

Thucydides-born of Athenian aristocratic family from Haliartus ca. 460 BCE; failed as stratēgos (general) to relieve Spartan siege of Amphipolis in 424 BCE; writes History in exile (cf. Histories 4.103-106; 5.26)

Thucydides on insignificance of earlier Greek powers (Histories 1.21): Trojan War (1.9-11); Tyrants (1.17); Persian Wars (1.23)

Imaginative Bust of Thucydides

Thucydides and the “Realists”

Competitive Struggle for Security and Supremacy “Zero-Sum” Competition Power Ultimately the Final Arbiter International “System” of Anarchy the Rule “The problem is this: how to conceive of an order

without an orderer and of organizational effects where formal organization is lacking.” (Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (89))

PentekontaitiaDefensive Alliance to Athenian Empire

(Thuc. 1.89-117)

Athens rebuilt and fortified; Piraeus (Thuc. 1.90-93) The Pausanias affair and Athenian allied leadership

(Thuc. 1.126-138) Delian Confederacy and the First Assessment

Aristides’ First Assessment (460 talents); treasury at Delos (Thuc. 1.96)

Allied contributions: money or ships Hellenotamiae (“Hellenic treasurers”)

PentekontaitiaDefensive Alliance to Athenian Empire

(Thuc. 1.89-117)

Allied Military Actions Persia--470s: Eion (Persian stronghold); Scyros

(pirate lair); Carystus (medizer) Cimon’s Eurymedon campaign in Pamphylia

(469/8? 466?): Destruction of 200 Phoenician war-ships

Expedition to Egypt (ends in disaster): 459-454 Internal Policing: Naxos, 470; Thasos, 465

470s: Eion, Scyros, Carystus

Cimon and the Persian Empire (Eurymedon)

Revolts: Naxos (470) and Thasos (465)

First Peloponnesian Warca. 460-455 BCE

Revolt of Thasos (465); Helot Revolt and Mt. Ithome (465); Athenian Settlement of Refugees at Naupactus

Alignment of Greek States-Sparta or Athens Athenian Alliance with Argos, traditional Spartan enemy

(461/460) Athenian Assistance to Megara (Megarian revolt cripples

Corinth, an important member of the Peloponnesian League headed by Sparta)

Tightening of Athenian control over Allies. Fortification of Athens and the “Long Walls” (459-442)

Allied treasury moved from Delos to Athens (454); Building Program (Propylaea, Parthenon)

Athens Fortified: Long Walls

Parthenon: Symbol of Periclean Democracy

Cimon, Pericles, and the Reorientation of Athenian Foreign Policy

Cimon’s Outmoded Policy (Sparta and Athens as the “yoke-fellows” of Greece against Persia)

Ephialtic Reforms of 462/1 BCE (archons by lot, pay for jury duty, stripping of Areopagus)

Ostracism of Cimon (ca. 462); obsolescence of Cimonian policy; “Peace of Callias” in 449?

Pericles and Sparta

Thucydides’ View on the War’s Causes (1.23)

“What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta.”