The Persian Menace

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The Persian Menace

Marathon . In 490 b.c.e. at Marathon, on the northern coast of Attica, the Athenians repulsed an army of Persians intent on gaining their submission and on reimposing on them the rule of the tyrant Hippias, who had been forced from Athens twenty-one years before. That Athens could block both the Persians and the return of tyranny gave a tremendous morale boost to its still budding democratic constitution. The Athenians had adopted it in 506, but they still had concerns about those who might aim at tyranny. That they won this victory without the help of the Spartans, the foremost warriors of the Greek world and the leaders of the Hellenic League, helped establish the Athenians’ own claim to be an effective, independent fighting force. Athens was clearly the leading city among the Ionian Greeks, who lived on the central islands of the Aegean and on the coast of Turkey, and the Athenians had already established influence around the Hellespont and on Lemnos. However, they had lacked confidence in themselves in comparison to the Spartans, their superior Dorian cousins. After Marathon they were much more confident.

Thermopylae . In 480 the Persians attacked again, this time with a much larger force. There were questions among the Greeks about where to meet them in battle. Many from the Peloponnese thought that the Greeks should withdraw to their southern peninsula and block the Persians at the isthmus. However, this course of action meant abandoning Athens and many other poleis to the enemy. As a result, the Spartan king Leonidas heroically led his elite bodyguard of three hundred experienced hoplites north to Thermopylae, a narrow pass between north and central Greece. If he were killed, he thought, the Spartans would fight to the end to avenge him. For a time Leonidas’s force, with contingents from several other poleis, managed to block the enemy advance, but after several days the Persians found a way around the pass. Leonidas sent the other Greeks away while he and the Spartans made a desperate stand against the Persians, sacrificing themselves for Greek unity.

Salamis . Afterward, at the island of Salamis, near Athens, a combined Greek navy managed to defeat a much larger Persian fleet. Although Sparta technically commanded the Greek fleet, it was recognized as a united fighting force. The Athenians had provided the most ships, and the tactical guile of one of their commanders, Themistocles, contributed in large part to the victory as well as to maintaining Greek unity in trying circumstances. The fact that the Athenians first abandoned their city to the ravages of the Persians and then still fought alongside the rest of the Greeks gave them even more respect; they put Greek interests before their own.

Final Victories . In 479 the Greeks met and defeated the much larger Persian land forces at Plataea, on the border between Attica and Boeotia. Here again the Greek forces worked effectively together, the Athenians showing themselves to be every bit as competent on the field as the Spartans. At almost the same time, across the Aegean at Mycale, the Greek fleet again defeated the Persians. While the Persians could still dominate the many Greek cities along the coastline of western Turkey, they would never again attempt an assault on the Greek mainland.

Reflection . At the next Olympic games, in 476, which were the preeminent event to be shared by the entire Greek-speaking world, everyone applauded Themistocles as the person behind the Greek victory. There were criticisms only against the poleis that had refused to participate in the combined Greek forces, such as Corcyra and Syracuse, and those cities that appeared to have given up to the Persians without an adequate fight, such as Thebes.

Panhellenism . The stage seemed to be set for a period of prosperous Panhellenism, the idea of a united Greece. Historians discern that these united accomplishments held a strong psychological grip over the Greek world. Long after there would be references to “the Marathon men” who had repulsed the Persians. The Athenian Acropolis, whose monumental buildings had been destroyed by the Persians, was not rebuilt for a long time in commemoration of what “the barbarians” had done. Even when its edifices were renovated, conscious memorials of the conflict with the Persians were included. The columns of the old Parthenon were embedded in a prominent place on the side of the Acropolis, and 192 figures were included in the new frieze, one for each of the Athenian dead at Marathon. The metope sculptures celebrate the battles of Greek heroes against monsters, forces of savagery that represent the barbarian threat. Persia had become a point for comparison for the Greeks: the world was divided into Greeks and non-Greeks, or barbarians, who were understood to be the Persians. The Greeks gained a sense of their homeland Hellas and what it meant to be Hellenes.

Imperialism . The Athenians in the fifth century reached the peak of their cultural development, which has made their achievements, whether the Parthenon or the tragedies of Sophocles, the “classical” models on which so much Western art, architecture, and literature have been based. Especially exciting is the fact that these were the achievements of the world’s first democracy. Yet, Athens was not only a democracy, it was also a slave-owning society, and in this period whose accomplishments have been so celebrated, Athens was considered a “tyrant city” by many Greeks, including some Athenians.

Disunity . After the Greek victories at Plataea and Mycale, the Hellenic League was poised to pursue a vendetta against the Persians and drive them out of the Greek world entirely. The Athenians then organized the Delian League, which united the lonians of the Aegean Islands and the coast of Asia Minor. Sparta and its Peloponnesian allies, who were mostly Dorian, did not join. The Hellenic League continued to exist until 462 b.c.e., but the Delian League took over the fight against Persia, and Athens was its hegemon (leader).

Delian League . Athens had no political parties, so it is impossible to look for a cohesive policy with which any group can be identified. Yet, in the early years of the Delian League there were at least four areas in which Athenian views diverged. The first was in regard to pursuing antagonisms against Persia. Sparta, with its large Helot population to control at home and its commitment to land-based hoplite warfare, had allowed Athens to assume leadership in this area. Following Aristides, the Athenians accepted Greek hegemony, or leadership, against the Persians without exception. However, there were nuances to this role: some states in 480 had gone over to the Persian side; were they to be excluded from the Greek councils? One of these was the Amphictyonic Council, which administered the sanctuary and oracle at Delphi. The Spartans wanted to expel the “medizers,” those who had collaborated with the Medes (Persians), from this Council. Themistocles

opposed the Spartans on this point and quickly lost good standing with them.

New Fortifications . The second area for divergence was with regard to Sparta and the Greek alliance. The Persians had sacked Athens twice, in 480 and 479, and the city had been in ruins. Although the Acropolis was left largely unrestored as a memorial of the Persian destruction, which the Spartans encouraged, Themistocles took a leading role in refortifying Athens despite Spartan opposition. He also suggested burning the Greek fleet in order to ensure Athenian naval dominance. This proposal caused his sometime political rival Aristides to stand against him. Moreover, Sparta soon withdrew from involvement in the Greek alliance because its regent, Pausanias, misbehaved and discredited the Spartans.

Miltiades . A related area involved attempts by Athens to achieve influence beyond its borders. Even before the Persian incursions, the Athenian Miltiades established a principality in the Chersonese. Miltiades then won great acclaim by leading the Athenians at Marathon. Nevertheless, his further attempts at expansionism at Paros had been a failure, and he died in disgrace in 489.

Politics . The fourth area of divergence was in politics at home. In the aftermath of Salamis, the aristocratic council of the Areopagus, consisting of former archons, had the upper hand. Its leadership had proved decisive in organizing the Athenian resistance to the Persians, but there was a change in the offing. In 487 the selection of magistrates was changed from election to selection by lottery. This situation meant that although the older members of the Areopagus had all enjoyed sufficient popularity, at least at one time, to have been chosen to lead the Athenians, the more-recent members held their positions only by the luck of the draw. They had no political capital upon which to base their Council’s authority. On the other hand, Athens’s new naval dominance gave its rowers huge new political importance. Democratic politicians, such as Themistocles, made use of this new political force. They had to act through the mechanisms of the polis, since they had no money of their own. Aristocratic politicians could dispense largesse as they wished, and they could themselves finance ships for Athenian fleets.

Cimon . After organizing the Delian League, Aristides faded quickly from the scene, and Themistocles held the upper hand; however, his arrogance toward the other Greeks and his lack of a pure Athenian aristocratic pedigree quickly led to a loss of political support, especially in a city still dominated by the aristocratic Areopagus. The new political and military star was Cimon, the son of Miltiades, who had impeccable aristocratic credentials and ambitions for Athens and the Delian League. After expelling the Spartan renegade Pausanias from Byzantium, he had captured Eion in northern Greece and then the island of Skyros, near Euboea. These two places had been pockets of pro-Persian sympathizers. Nevertheless, they were Greek states, and there was some unease about the Greek alliance attacking other Greeks. Then Cimon moved against Carystos and finally Naxos, which revolted in the early 460s. The first great battle against the Persians after Mycale in 479 did not occur until the naval battle of the Eurymedon River in 467, but the possibilities of exploiting this victory were forestalled. The Greek fleet turned back to suppress a revolt by the island of Thasos in 465.

Exile . Themistocles was ostracized sometime in the mid 470s, just as he had had Aristides ostracized some years before. Once out of the city, he was powerless to act against those at home who brought charges against him. The playwright Aeschylus produced his Persians in 472, celebrating Themistocles’s moment of triumph at Salamis. But it was not enough. Themistocles was forced to flee from his sanctuary at Argos, and after an epic chase across the Greek world in search of refuge, he finally ended up in the Persian king’s court.

Intrigue . Cimon had rock-solid support among Athens’s upper classes. He was one of them; he was enormously successful as a general; and he managed to allay the tendencies of some in the state to provoke the inevitable confrontation with Sparta over the manner of Athens’s leadership role. Sparta was not pleased when Cimon led the Delian fleet against Carystos and Naxos, but it was powerless to do anything. However, when Cimon and the fleet besieged Thasos in 465 and the island’s inhabitants appealed to Sparta for help, the Spartans secretly offered to invade Attica, which would have forced Cimon to break off his attack. Thus, one pillar of Cimon’s support was undercut because his leadership no longer excluded the possibility of Spartan aggression. The small landowners in the Attic countryside, the backbone of Athens’s hoplite class, protested loudly and started looking for someone to take a more militant line against the Spartans.

Disrespect . The Spartans were prevented from attacking Attica by a revolt of their Helot population at Ithome in Messenia, and by an earthquake. These events also gave Cimon an opportunity: he would lead the Athenians to Sparta’s aid and thereby win back their goodwill. In their moment of distress, the Spartans invited him to come. Cimon led four thousand troops into Spartan territory, but the actual appearance of this unprecedented sight, Athenian soldiers in Spartan territory, frightened the Spartans, who were now, in any case, recovering on their own. The Athenians were a potentially subversive presence, and they were told to go home.

Reforms . The Athenian demos itself also became concerned, which caused a great change in policy. Alliances were forged with Sparta’s rival Argos and with Thessaly. Antagonism with Megara, on the border with Attica and thus a potential buffer, came to an end. Cimon was ostracized. The Areopagus, which had championed Cimon, lost many of its political and legal functions, which were shifted to the Council and Assembly. Aeschylus, the playwright who had earlier celebrated the Athenian victory over Salamis in order to ease anger against Themistocles, now wrote about how the Areopagus was originally instituted as a homicide court, which was now the only function it had left. The Areopagus had had sweeping powers to preserve the constitution by hearing cases against magistrates and generals. These cases were now given to the more-representative assemblies as were the dokimasia and the euthuna, by which magistrates were scrutinized and audited at the beginning and end of their terms. In addition, the senior magistrates would no longer try cases; all legal proceedings would go straight to the popular law courts.

Pericles . The author of these democratizing reforms in 462 b.c.e. was Ephialtes, an aristocrat and a devoted democrat. Soon after his reforms, however, he was assassinated. His role as the champion of the democrats was taken over by Pericles, who went on to dominate Athenian politics for more than thirty years. One of Pericles’ first reforms was to introduce payment for participation in Athens’s juries. Unlike today, Athenian jurists could not be compelled to participate, so unless they received some compensation, only those who could afford to take time away from their other responsibilities could participate. With jury pay, Pericles saw to it that the lower classes could judge cases as well. In 457 he opened the holding of the senior magistracies to the Zeugitai. In 451 he introduced a law requiring that to be recognized as an Athenian citizen, a man had to show that both his parents had been Athenians.

War . Under Pericles’ leadership, Athenian relations with Sparta continued to sour. Athens’s assistance to Megara in severing its ties to the Spartans and the other Peloponnesians led to what is now called the First Peloponnesian War (461-445 b.c.e.). During this conflict, Athens built its Long Walls, which connected Athens with its harbor at Piraeus. In 458 the Spartans marched north into Boeotia in an attempt to shore up their allies in Thebes. The Athenians confronted them at Tanagra and were defeated, but the Spartan losses were also considerable and forced them to withdraw. Athens then retook Boeotia and dominated it for the next ten years.

Athenian Empire . Athens’s hostility to Persia had not yet wavered. In 459 two hundred Athenian ships ventured to Egypt to support a revolt against the Persians. Like other revolts against the great Persian king, this one enjoyed temporary success, but in 454 it collapsed and Athens’s entire expedition, including fifty more ships that had been sent out as reinforcements, were lost. It was a huge disaster, which led to two significant events. First, citing the possibility of a renewed Persian threat, Athens moved the treasury of the Delian League from Delos to Athens. Second, in about 450 Athens ended its hostilities with Persia with the so-called Peace of Callias. Despite the end of the war against Persia, however, Athens continued to insist that its allies contribute to the upkeep of its fleet. The Delian League had become the Athenian Empire.

Peace Treaty . In 447 Athens’s ambitions to maintain a hold over Boeotia and thus hold an empire on land as well as on the sea were ended when the Spartans again defeated them, this time at Coronea. Two years later a peace treaty was concluded, and Sparta was to lead the Greeks of the Peloponnese and Boeotia, while Athens was to have its naval empire. The peace treaty required that trials involving Athenians and its allies be held at Athens, and it imposed Athenian silver coinage, weights, and measures on all its allies. Those allies that were deemed recalcitrant could expect to have a colony of Athenian clerychs, stakeholders, placed nearby. The clerychs allowed the Athenians to keep an eye on things and provided a home for some of Athens’s burgeoning population.