Athens at War : The Peloponnesian War

Gillian Shepherd

.      

Gillian Shepherd

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Thucydides: •  Athenian general in 424 BC •  I.e. at least 30 yrs old then – born between

460-55? •  Probably related to Kimon •  Probably died c. 400 •  Author of a history of the Peloponnesian

War in 8 books (incomplete) •  I.E. the war between Athens and Sparta

and their respective allies between 431-404 BC

•  Complicated writing style •  Caught plague at some point between

430-27, but recovered (Thuc. 2.48) •  Exiled in 424 for failure to save

Amphipolis (northern Greece) from the Spartan Brasidas

Cast of a bust of Thucydides, Pushkin Museum

I lived through the whole of [the war], 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 for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis; I saw 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 5.26.5

Thucydides (I. 22) describes his method: In this history I have made use of set speeches some of which were delivered just before and others during the war. I have found it difficult to remember the precise words used in the speeches which I listened to myself and my various informants have experienced the same difficulty; so my method has been, while keeping as closely as possible to the general sense of the words that were actually used, to make the speakers say what, in my opinion, was called for by each situation And with regard to my factual reporting of the events of the war I have made it a principle not to write down the first story that came my way, and not even to be guided by my own general impressions; either I was present myself at the events I have described, or else I heard of them from eye-witnesses whose reports I have checked with as much thoroughness as possible. Not that even so the truth was easy to discover: different eye-witnesses give different accounts of the same events, speaking out of partiality for one side or the other or else from imperfect memories

Of all the legitimate [children of Peisistratos] it is only in the case of Hippias that there is a record of any children being born, as is shown by the altar [in the Pythium] and by a pillar set up on the Athenian acropolis to commemorate the crimes of the dictator. On this pillar no child of Thessalos or Hipparchos is mentioned, but there are five children of Hippias… and on the same pillar his name comes next after the name of his father, which again is the natural thing, since he was the next oldest to him and he held the dictatorship.

Thucydides 6.55

Thucydides the Athenian wrote the history of the war fought between Athens and Sparta, beginning the account at the very outbreak of the war, in the belief that I was going to be a great war and more worth writing about than any of those which had taken place in the past… this was the greatest disturbance in the history of the Hellenes, affecting also a large part of the non-Hellenic world, and indeed, I might almost say, the whole of mankind. For though I have found it impossible, because of its remoteness in time, to acquire a really precise knowledge of the distant past or even of the history preceding our own period, yet, after looking back into it as far as I can, all the evidence leads me to conclude that these periods were not great periods either in warfare or in anything else.

Thucydides 1.1

And it may well be that my history will seem less easy to read because of the absence in it of a romantic element. It will be enough for me, however, if these words of mine are judged useful by those who want to understand clearly the events which happened in the past and which (human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much the same ways, be repeated in the future. My work is not a piece of writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done to last forever (ktema es aei).

Thuc. 1.22

“Perikles, son of Xanthippos, an Athenian” Roman copy of a Greek original of c. 430 BC

Image  source  page:    h0p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pericles_Pio-‐ClemenCno_Inv269.jpg  

Perikles: •  C. 495-29, an Alkmaeonid •  An aristocrat, but became a highly influential

figure in democratic Athens •  Impressive orator •  Heavily involved in Athens’ public building

programme of the 440s-30s •  Caught the plague and died in 429 BC •  Was responsible for the introduction of a

number of measures including: •  Pay for citizens doing jury service

(possibly also theoric pay, ie grants to enable poor citizens to attend the theatre), c. 454

•  The citizenship law of 451, ie a citizen had to have an Athenian mother as well as an Athenian father

The Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC)  

•  Fought between Athens and her allies (the Delian League: cf. Thuc. 1.99)…

•  And Sparta and her allies (the Peloponnesian League) •  Competing powers: according to Thucydides, Spartan

unrest at increasing power of Athens •  Phase I: the “Archidamian” or “Ten years war” •  Ended with the “Peace of Nicias” in 421 •  Treaty did not last long – only about 7 years before

hostilities reopened •  Phase II: the ‘Ionian’ War, 415-404 •  Athens surrendered to Sparta in 404 BC

Image  source  page:  h0p://www.utexas.edu/courses/introgreece/pel_war_map_1.jpg  

Our  constitution  is  called  a  democracy  because  the  power  is  in  the  hands  not  of  a  minority  but  of  the  whole  people…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…We  regard  wealth  as  something  to  be  properly  used,  rather  than  as  something  to  boast  about.  As  for  poverty,  no  one  need  be  ashamed  to  admit  it:  the  real  shame  is  in  not  taking  practical  measures  to  escape  from  it.  

Thuc.  2.34  ff  (Perikles’  funeral  oration)

Conjectured  location  ofthe  demosion  semaCf.  Thuc.  2.34:The  coffins  are  laid  in  the  public  sepulchre  (demosion  sema)which  is  situated  in  the  most  beautiful  suburb  of  the  city;  there  they  always  bury  those  fallen  in  war,  except  indeed  those  who  fell  at  Marathon…See  also  Pausanias  1.29

Excavations  of  the  site  identified  as  the  demosion  sema  (Salaminos  St,  Athens)

NB:  polyandria

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Image  source  page:  h0p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pelopennesian_War,_Walls_ProtecCng_the_City,_431_B.C..JPG  

People in perfect health suddenly began to have burning feelings in the head; their eyes became red and inflamed; inside their mouths there was bleeding from the throat and tongue, and the breath became unnatural and unpleasant… the skin was rather reddish and livid, breaking out into small pustules and ulcers… inside there was a feeling of burning, so that people could not bear the touch of even the lightest linen clothing… and indeed most of all would have liked to plunge into cold water. Many of the sick who were uncared for actually did so, plunging into the water tanks in an effort to relieve a thirst that was unquenchable… then the disease descended to the bowels, producing violent ulcerations and uncontrollable diarrhoea, so that most of them died later as a result of the weakness caused by this…

Thuc. II.49

Kerameikos  metro  station  site

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Image source: http://www.utexas.edu/courses/greeksahoy!/maps.html

Greek settlements in Sicily and Southern Italy

At the time when the first ambassadors from Athens had come to look into the question of the money, the Segestans had deceived them by the following plan. They took the Athenians to the Temple of Aphrodite at Eryx and showed them the treasure laid up there in offerings – bowls, goblets, censers and much else, which, being silver, looked imposing to the eye even though the value in money was comparatively small. They also entertained the ships’ crews in their private houses, and did this by collecting together all the cups of gold and silver in Segesta itself, borrowing others from the neighbouring cities, Phoenician or Hellenic, and then letting each host produce them at the banquets as if they were his own property. All used pretty much the same articles and everywhere there was a great abundance of them, so the Athenians from the ships were astonished at it and, when they got back to Athens, told everyone of the vast quantities of valuable objects which they had seen.

Thuc. 6.46

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The Greek Temple at Segesta (Elymian), late 5th cent. BC

The Sicilian Expedition (415-413 BC) •  Athens sends 134 triremes initially •  i.e. 5,100 hoplites; also archers,

light troops, slingers and cavalry and 130 supply ships

•  Commanded by generals Nicias, Alcibiades and Lamachas (later killed in action)

•  Nicias reluctant and had attempted to dissuade the Athenians from the expedition

•  Alcibiades in favour of it, but was recalled to Athens to answer a charge of impiety (mutiliation of the herms)

•  Athens sent reinforcements in 414 •  Gylippus (Spartan commander)

gained Sicilian allies advised the Syracusans under Hermocrates to engage Athens at sea

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Image  Source  Page:  h0p://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/00336/greek_ships.htm  

The trireme “Olympias”

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The Great Harbour, Syracuse, Sicily