chapter 36 The Greeks at War, 494 to 371 BCE

The Greeks at War, 494 to 371 BCE

Journalist-Historians | Greco-Persian War | Competing Empires | Road to the Great War | War and a Question of Genocide | Off and On again War | Athens loses, Sparta Wins | Sparta turns Victory into Defeat

Greco-Persian War...

To 500 BCE the empire of the Persian Achaemenid Dynasty extended to all of Asia Minor, into Thrace and Chalidice. Imperial Persia was generally tolerant of local customs and provided its conquered peoples protection from attacks from wandering warrior tribes. It offered its subjects peace and a stable coinage. But in 499, a desire for self-rule among the Greeks of Asia Minor helped fuel a rebellion against the Persians.

Athens and the city of Eretria (about thirty miles north of Athens), supported the uprising. By 494 the Persians crushed the rebellion, destroying the great city of Miletus, sacking and burning other towns and taking select Greek boys and girls back to Persia. Then, believing that his god-given right to rule should not have been challenged, Persia's King of Kings, Darius the Great, set out to punish Athens and others who had supported the uprising. Darius hoped to extend his rule down the Greek peninsula, and many Greeks opposed to democracy including some Athenians favored submission to the Persians. They saw Persia as a champion of authoritarian rule and expected that Persian rule would include freedom of worship and allow local self-government as it had in Asia Minor

Those who supported democracy favored resisting the Persians. So too did many Greeks who made their living in industry and trade, fearing that the Persians would give trading favors to rivals such as the Phoenicians – who were subjects of Darius. And the Spartans feared the Persians, believing that if the Persians came to the Greek mainland they would try to eliminate them as a military power.

In the year 490, the Persian fleet sailed across the Aegean Sea and landed a force of many thousand soldiers at Marathon Bay, twenty-six miles by road north of Athens. With the Persians was Hippias, former ruler of Athens, son of Pisistratus, who expected the Persians to return him to power in Athens. The Athenians responded to the threat from Persia by sending troops to Marathon, and it sent a fast runner to Sparta with the news of the Persian landing. Sparta announced that it would join Athens against the Persians. But remaining faithful to their gods, the Spartans waited for the passing of a full moon, and the Athenians had to confront the Persians without them.

Historians write of the heroism among the Greeks during the Persian war. Greeks far and wide, including the Athenians, were inspired by their victory over the great Persian Empire, and they held a religious festival at Delphi as thanksgiving to the gods for the victory at Marathon. And there the oracle of Apollo praised Athens as an eagle "for all time."

Soon it was said that the god Pan had given the Athenians their victory by his causing panic among the Persians. It was said that Pan had done so after having seen a slack in devotion to him among the Athenians and that by giving them victory he was trying to regain their devotion.

But declaring victory was premature. The Greeks had driven off the Persians, but the Persians remained a formidable power. After Darius died in 486, his son and successor, Xerxes, intended to carry out his father's plan to invade the Greek mainland again. Xerxes failed to appreciate adequately the costs that would be incurred by such an expansion or the burdens of maintaining an empire that would be farther reaching. He had trouble enough with the empire as it was. But Xerxes believed in the power of his god, Mazda.

Athens, Sparta and some other Greek city-states expected the return of the Persians. And they did as many others had done before them: they set aside their differences and formed a military alliance. Their alliance was called the Hellenic League and was led by Sparta, still seen as the greatest land-based military power among them. Member cities sent representatives to league congresses, the first of which was held in 481. This congress ended the small wars that were taking place among member cities. And at these congresses, oaths were taken that were supposed to bind the city-states to each other permanently.

Xerxes assembled the greatest military force ever, and in the year 480 he launched his invasion, marching his armies along the coast of Macedonia and down into Greece, while keeping these armies supplied by his navy. Sparta and Thebes sent armies to meet the invaders at Thermopylae, about 20 miles north of Delphi and eighty-five miles northwest of Athens. There they held the Persians at a narrow pass while the league's navy, mostly Athenian, engaged Persian naval forces offshore. The Greek writer Herodotus described the storm that wrecked much of the Persian fleet as an intervention by Zeus, but, inexplicably, Zeus appeared uninterested in helping the Greek cause on land. A traitor among the Greeks showed the Persian foot soldiers a way around the pass at Thermopylae, and the Persians attacked the Greeks from behind. The Thebans surrendered while the Spartans fought and died to the last man. The main force of Persians swarmed through the pass toward Athens. Persia's army overran Attica and Athens, while Athenians fled to the islands ofSalamis, near their port, and Aegina, tens miles to the southwest.

The Athenian navy placed itself between Xerxes' force and the Athenian refugees on the island of Salamis, and it rallied support from numerous coastal Greek cities. Near Salamis, the Athenian navy and its allies won a great naval battle, destroying the Persian fleet – the waters said to be covered with Persian wreckage and blood. With much of the Persian army dependent on ships for supplies, the Persians were forced to march out of Greece and back to Asia Minor. Xerxes had failed. But peace was not declared, and Persia and the Greeks remained at war.

During their war against Persia, a spirit of unity and brotherhood had arisen among those Greek cities opposed to the Persians, a unity served by their common language, common customs and common religious beliefs. But the spirit of unity didn't last.

A difference arose between Sparta and Athens over the question of continuing their war against Persia. The Athenians were interested in trade with the Greek cities still ruled by Persia, and they wanted to liberate their fellow Greeks from Persian rule. The Spartans were concerned about the many men they had already lost in battle, and they feared that their Helot slaves might take advantage of military losses and rise against them. Sparta and its allies on the Peloponnese peninsula withdrew from the war, leaving Athens as the most influential among those cities continuing the war. Athens created a new league of states – a voluntary association called the Delian League. (Its representatives met on the Island of Delos.) Member states agreed to donate money, ships and crewmen to the war effort and to police the Aegean Sea, and they sent representatives to assemblies where league policies and goals were to be decided.

Athens arrogated to itself the role of policeman within its alliance. According to the Athenian journalist Thucydides, the Athenians were heavy handed in pressuring allies who were "neither accustomed nor willing to undertake protracted toil." Athens forced back into its alliance a city that had broken its oath to remain in the league. It suppressed petty wars within the league and intervened in disputes within member cities, favoring those who supported democracy.

On-again, off-again little wars among the Greeks continued, with Athens fighting to maintain its power and status. Athens intervened in disputes to its north, in Boeotia, where bad governing by democrats had brought rebellion and the return of oligarchs to power. A Boeotian force defeated an Athenian force of a thousand Athenian volunteers, led by men who had mistakenly believed that their small force could subdue the rebellion.

More trouble arose for Athens. In 446, cities on the peninsula-like island of Euboea, to the east of Athens, joined the revolt against Athenian domination. The Athenian leader Pericles was worried about the example that rebellion would set for others in the Athenian empire, and he sent an army and navy to Euboea to crush the rebellion. This inspired still more trouble as the city of Megara, a little northeast of Athens, disliked what it saw as Athenian bullying and joined the anti-Athens rebellion. Pericles withdrew from Euboea to fight Megara. An army from the Peloponnesian League, under a Spartan king, Pleistoanax, responded by invading Attica, but after laying waste to some countryside it withdrew.

Pericles and an army of five thousand infantrymen supported by fifty ships returned to Euboea and subdued the entire island. Athens expelled the inhabitants of Histiaea, in the north of the island, and it sent settlers in their place. But trouble for Athens continued, which Athen met with some success. In 441, Samos, off the coast of Asia Minor, tried to secede from the so-called Athenian alliance. Samos appealed for help from Sparta and the Persians. Sparta remained passive and Persia remained fearful of the Athenian navy. By 339 the Athenian navy was able to blockade Samos and starve it into submission. Samos surrendered its navy. Its defensive walls were torn down. It was forced to pay Athens reparations with money and land. And its oligarchs were exiled and replaced by democrats.

Cities in Chalcidice disliked the extension of Athenian power into their area, and they were ready to support Corinth against Athens. Athens saw revolt coming in one of its subject-ally cities in Chalcidice – Potidaea – and, to prevent the spread of revolt, Athens demanded that Potidaea dismantle its defensive walls and give to Athens some Potidaeans as hostages. Instead, Potidaea sought support from Corinth and the Peloponnesian League. Corinth joined Potidaea and some cities in Chalcidice and Boeotia joined the revolt against Athens. All of Sparta's allies that had grievances against Athens were aroused. Corinth appealed to Sparta, suggesting that if Sparta would not fight for its allies then its allies would seek leadership elsewhere. A meeting of the Peloponnesian League was called, and Sparta sent someone to consult with Apollo at Delphi. The Great War was closer still.

The city of Thebes desired a solid front against Athens, and it sent a delegation and a small force to its neighboring city:Plataea. Violence ensued. Many Plataeans fled to Athens for safety, and Athens sent troops to Plataea. To the enemies of Athens, events at Plataea were a signal for war. Sparta, meanwhile, was encouraged by the Oracle at Delphi, who stated that Apollo was on its side, that if Sparta made war with all its might it would win.

The year was 431 BCE, described by some as the end of Greece's Golden Age. Sparta and its allies invaded Attica, announcing that they were fighting against Athenian imperialism for their independence and for the liberty of Greeks.