Delian League, Athenian democracy

1
Delian League, Athenian democracy

• Precursor to Empire in the Aegean

2
After the Persian Wars

• When Platea and Mycale were won, no one knew for
  sure that the Persian threat was over.
• Spartans returned to defense of the Peloponnesus,
  but Athens continued to press the Persians by sea
  for all Greece.
• The Greeks who opposed Persia found a new sense
  of cultural identity.
• Athenians led a new alliance devoted to prevent
  further Persian incursions.
• As most powerful and populous of Greek poleis,
  Athens coffers would fill with tribute money
  from other cities to provide leadership against
  the Persians.

3
Formation of Delian League

• 477 saw the first meeting of reps of Greek cities
  at the island of Delos (hence Delian).
• Oaths were sworn, binding their cities to defense
  of all Greece.
• Policy was formed by all poleis in assembly, but
  Athenian generals were to enforce those policies.
• At first the money collected was deposited on
  Delos, but was clearly controlled by the
  Athenians.
• Some poleis paid tribute in the forms of ships
  rather than cash.
• Sparta was conspicuously absent they were
  isolationist.

4
Athens as top dog

• Leadership in the Delian league benefited Athens
  economy.
• Most agree that Athens used this windfall to
  build a model democracy.
• For many, government became a career when money
  came available to remunerate for public service.
• Lower-class rowers on Greek triremes had saved
  Athens, now they would be given more of a voice
  as citizens.
• Athens would incur resentment from other Greeks
  when they would come to depend on this higher
  standard of living, and insist upon the Leagues
  perpetuation Empire.

5
Preserving an empire

• Cities were threatened with reprisal if they left
  the league, and new cities were forced to join.
• Part of the agreement was preservation of the
  integrity of each city, but Athens made judgments
  as to what was necessary in view of the foreign
  threat.
• Athens was demanding protection money and was
  essentially forming an empire. Until his
  ostracism, Themistocles encouraged imperial
  designs and competition with Sparta.
• This direction was almost avoided by the brief
  ascendency of Cimon, son of Miltiades.

6
Cimon the strategos

• Cimon was an Athenian general who distinguished
  himself cleaning up the Aegean for the Delian
  League.
• He drove Persians from Eion at the mouth of the
  Strymon, most important remaining stronghold of
  the Persians west of Hellespont.
• He drove pirates from the island of Scyrus and
  Athens annexed it.
• Most sensational, on Scyrus Cimon won unfading
  glory by discovering the bones of Theseus and
  returned them to Athens.
• In 468 he won decisive land and sea battles over
  the Persians in southern Asia Minor destroying
  hundreds of ships at Eurymedon.

7
Cimons political career

• After Themistocles was ostracized, Cimon was the
  leader Athenians turned to.
• He symbolized the success of the Delian League
  and was an aristocrat.
• Somewhat bland but dignified, Cimon led
  idealogues who favored alliance with Sparta.
• He was opposed by anti-Spartan and democrat
  Ephialtes and his associate Pericles, son of
  Xanthippus.

8
Earthquake in Sparta fate takes a hand

• In 464 an earthquake leveled the five villages of
  Sparta.
• Cause was attributed to massacre of helots who
  had sought sanctuary at temple of Poseidon.
• Helots in Messenia choose that moment to revolt
  and win an early victory over the Spartans, and
  pressed the revolt for four years.
• The Spartans, who had been threatening Athens
  with war over her imperial designs now asked for
  help in quelling the rebellion.

9
Helot rebellion
Naupactus
Athens
Mt. Ithome
Sparta
10
Athens sends help

• Athenians split over sending help. Cimon
  overcomes democratic opposition and leads 4000
  hoplites to help put down the Helots.
• At stake was the issue of Spartan alliance and
  democracy in Athens, and thus the leadership and
  integrity of Cimon, then at his zenith of power.
• The Athenians joined other Greek states in
  helping Sparta besiege the fortress of Ithome in
  SW Messenia.
• But they were surprised that the Helots were not
  sub-men, but reasonable Greeks.

11
Fall of a Laconiaphile

• The Athenians were unable to take the fortress.
• The Spartans then dismissed the Athenians,
  supposedly fearing their adventurous and
  revolutionary spirit.
• Cimon was disgraced and it was shown to be futile
  to expect friendship from the jealous Spartans.
• Now labeled a laconiaphile, Cimon was ostracized
  and exiled for ten years.
• The Athenians now gave sanctuary to Helot rebels
  at Naupactus, thus thumbing their noses at Sparta.

12
Areopagus and assassination

• Ephialtes had capitalized on Cimons absence in
  Messenia by pushing through reforms that diminish
  the power of the Areopagus, stripping them of all
  politically-significant powers.
• Council of Areopagus was reduced to jurisdiction
  in murder cases, care of the sacred olive trees,
  and minor religious duties.
• Soon after Cimons ostracism in 461, Ephialtes is
  assassinated.
• Pericles emerges as the most powerful leader of
  the democracy-minded Athenians.

13
Periclean foreign policy

• Pericles dominated Athenian politics for thirty
  years.
• The foreign policy of Athens now changed, leaving
  alliances with Sparta and her allies and allying
  with Argos and Thessaly. The enemies of Sparta.
• These policies ran afoul of Corinth and Aegina,
  which eventually joined forces against Athens.
• It started when Megara defected to the Athenian
  side in 459, giving Athens an effective control
  of the eastern Corinthian gulf.

14
A hot war between Greeks

• Corinth felt threatened by Athens, economically
  and militarily, skirmishes ensue.
• In 458, a Peloponnesian fleet engages the
  Athenians off the Argive coast and loses.
  Alarmed, the Aeginians enter the war.
• Athens wins naval and land engagements, besieges
  Aegina.
• Aeginans surrender in 456 and join the Delian
  league as a subject state.

15
Athenians overextend themselves

• The Lybian rebel Inaros asked the Delian forces
  to support his invasion of Persian-held Egypt.
• The time looked ripe following Xerxes
  assassination and troubles at the Persian court.
• The fleet is transferred from Cyprus to Egypt and
  helps in the capture of Memphis in 459.
• In 456, high and dry, the Greeks lose Memphis,
  hundreds of ships and perhaps as many as 40,000
  lives.
• Despite the losses, Pericles retains his power.

16
Possibility of Peace?

• War places a tremendous strain on resources and
  Athens began to long for relief.
• In 452 Cimon was recalled from exile and settled
  a five-year truce with Sparta, while the Argives
  signed a thirty year peace treaty with Sparta.
• Athens and allies used the truce to resume
  warfare against Persia.
• In 449 Cimon dies besieging the Persians at
  Cyprus, and his death motivated Pericles to
  conclude a peace with the Persians in 448.
• Cyprus comes to be dominated by Phoenician allies
  of Persia.

17
Antebellum Athens

• Eve of the Peloponnesian War

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445 partial collapse of empire

• 445 was a crucial year for Athens.
• Aristocracies recover many poleis governments.
• Various parts of the Athenian empire began to
  chafe Euboea and Megara revolted at the same
  time.
• Pericles fights on two fronts until Spartans
  threaten Attica from the south. Pericles unites
  armies in the south.
• King Pleistoanax withdraws but Megara realigns
  with Sparta, Boeotians form own league.
• Athenians forced to sign a peace with the
  Spartans.

19
The Thirty Years Peace

• The Thirty Years Peace only lasted fourteen
  years.
• Athens was humiliated out of fear of Spartan
  invasion.
• Surrendered Megarian ports.
• No ally could switch sides.
• Neither side could interfere with the others
  allies, but each could deal with its own allies
  without interference.
• The peace would end with the beginning of what we
  call the (second) Peloponnesian War that began in
  431.

20
Positioning of Democracy

• Under Pericles Athens became an imperial power
  and a democracy.
• As Strategos and leader of democratic ideologues,
  Pericles instituted liturgies as a taxation
  system for the wealthy.
• Liturgies were a system of patronage of arts and
  military in service of Athens.
• Strategoi became the most powerful politicians
  due to trust and esteem.
• But power in Athens was diluted by the lot and
  the diffusion of power among many voluntary
  public servants.

21
Periclean Antebellum Athens

• Imperial tribute and liturgies made Athens a
  dominant cultural center.
• The Acropolis was remade with its Parthenon,
  Temple of Athena Nike, and the Erektheion of
  Poseidon.
• Athenians expand trade and form true colonies to
  exchange wares.
• Metics, foreign traders and artisans, flock to
  Athens, attracted by democracy and the
  by-products of Empire.

22
Greek Architecture

• Though they lived in wooden houses, Greeks built
  permanent structures in stone for religious
  centers.
• These were the earthly dwellings of gods,
  containing their image and accoutrements.
• Three types of temples that emerged corresponded
  to three types of architecture Ionic, Doric, and
  Corinthian, the latter not emerging fully until
  the fourth century.

23
Architecture of Athens

• From the time of Pericles

24
The Acropolis

• For the first time in history, architects, not
  priests, directed these building projects.
• The Parthenon in Athens, was built in 447-438 BC
  by the architects Ictinus and Callicrates.
• During the Classical period (450-330 B.C.) three
  important temples were erected on the ruins of
  earlier ones the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, and
  the Temple of Nike.
• The Propylaea was the monumental entrance to the
  sacred area.

25
The Parthenon

• The Parthenon is the largest building on top of
  the Acropolis. It was dedicated to Athena
  Parthenos.
• It was completely made out of marble and
  surrounded by free-standing columns.
• Two pediments east, above building's main
  entrance, shows birth of Athena west, fight
  between Athena and Poseidon to name city of
  Athens.

26
The Parthenon

• This structure reflects the Doric style that
  emerged on the Western Aegean shore. This style
  was used in mainland Greece and the colonies in
  southern Italy and Sicily.
• The Doric style is stout and uncomplicated. The
  Doric column has a dish-shaped top, or capital,
  and no base.
• This building contained the treasury of Athens
  and later that of the Delian league.

27
Parthenon Detail

• The entablatures (lintels), spanning the columns
  are also distinct, the Doric having a row of 3
  vertical grooves, or triglyphs, between sculpted
  metopes (square spaces) and mutules under the
  cornice.
• The pediments contained scenes like Heracles.

28
The Erectheion 421-406

• The temple of Erechteus, or Erechtheum, was the
  last the most complex, and the most richly
  embellished building.
• It was dedicated to the worship of the two
  principal gods of Attica, Athena and Poseidon
  Erechteus.
• It is an example of Ionic, or east shore style.
• The Ionic style is thinner and more elegant. Its
  capital is decorated with a scroll-like design (a
  volute).
• Ionic has paired volutes at its capital and
  carved rings at its base.

29
The Erectheion

• The Erechtheum is best known for its caryatid
  porch.
• The present caryatids are copies, the originals
  having been moved in order to preserve them.
• The inner chamber of Athena was on the east side
  and was perpetually illuminated.
• Lamp only filled once a year!

30
The Agora

• Large flat area at the base of the Acropolis.
• Market and focal point of Athenian life.
• Doric temple either to Hephaestus or Theseus.
• Stoa bordered the Agora and held shops.

31
A time of cultural development

• Orchestra of the Dionysian theatre where dramas
  were performed below the Acropolis.
• The Temple of Athena Nike was an Ionic building
  built in 420 by Kallikrates on the Ionic order.
• But more than architecture and drama were
  developingso was historical narrative.

32
History as a discipline

• History as a rational discipline is founded in
  this era.
• Herodotus of Halicarnassus (484-428) traveled
  widely conducting interviews and lecturing.
• He is known for his book History that covered up
  through the Persian Wars.
• His history depended on two criteria eyewitness
  accounts and hearsay.
• His purpose was to tell the stories of the
  struggle between East and West.
• History had an explainable pattern combined with
  smaller lessons.

33
Thucydides

• Herodotus has been called the father of
  historical practice (Juan Luis Vive preferred,
  father of lies).
• His younger contemporary was Thucydides
  (460-400?).
• An Athenian general, he was exiled and finally
  assassinated.
• His work is a history of the first twenty years
  of the Peloponnesian War.
• He marginalizes myth, poetry, and the Trojan War
  distrusts hearsay.
• History is explained by human ideas,
  deliberation, and decision rather than accident,
  fate, or the gods.