XXXIV. End as of 10/26/95
a) Aristagoras split for Thrace, Histiaeus for Chios--
thanks, guys! Histiaeus crucified in 493.
2. Bambi vs. Godzilla: The full weight of the Persian
Empire comes down:
a) Greek fleet destroyed at Lade in 494 after Lesbians
and Samians defect, Persians exploit political
divisions within the Greek cities (they'll do a lot of
this), tyrants vs. democrats, Her. 6.1-21
b) Miletus falls (Her. 6.31-3), Didyma gets looted
anyway, and Phrynichus found out that the Athenians
didn't want to be reminded of it. A guy named
Themistocles was the play's producer...
c) Just worth noting that the Persians decided that
democracies would be a noisier about another revolt
than tyrants such as Aristagoras had been. (Her. 6.42-
45)
XXXV. Large Empires tend to be nervous about sources of
trouble outside of their frontiers (remember that!):
The Persian Wars:
A. Darius's policy: He was going there anyway.
Herodotus 7.130, earth at Athens, water at Sparta.
1. Mardonius re-subdues Thrace and Macedonia but his
fleet gets wrecked of Mt. Athos in 492 (Her. 6.46).
2. The direct approach in 490 (Her. 6.94-124):
a) Cut Eretria and Athens off from Allies, submission
of Aegina in the middle of a nasty little war with
Athens
b) The Persian ships straight to Euboea via Naxos
(burned) and Delos (spared, but earthquaked)
c) Exstirpation (Roman word) of Eretria after quarrels
within the walls
d) Descent upon Marathon
3. Moral of the resulting episode: Cornered rats can
be remarkably hard to get along with, and never let the
enemy control your actions (Military Science rule #1!)
a) Militiades was back from Thrace after the Scythians
had gotten through his wall across the Chersonese.
(1) Enemy of both the Pisistratids and the Persians
(2) He's one of the strategoi once he'd been cleared of charges
from his conduct in the North.
(3) He's also politician enough to get the assembly to vote to
send the whole army (9,000) down to meet the Persians on the
beach
b) Pheidippides/Philippides, the original "Marathon
Man" (there's a reason for that) runs his first great
trip to Sparta with one message: HELP!
c) Gymnasia in progress--or is Cleomenes being cute?
Sparta was having a political crisis over the
accession, again. Pheidippides has his interview with
Pan.
d) Plataeans showed up, 1,000 strong.
e) Herodotus describes the alternating command, but
(Her. 6.109) Militiades convinced the Polemarch to do
unto the Persians first.
f) Persian strength in archers, cavalry--horses not
good on the beach and
g) The Athenians run downhill in heavy armor,
justifying all those athletics, and it gets very gory
down near the Persian ships, casualties 6,400 to 192,
and the Spartans showed up to verify it (Her. 6.123, so
there, B3)
h) Pheidippides on the steps of the Pynx: "We
conquer!" Thud. Great way to go.
B. Darius passes the burden of conquest and supressing
a series of revolts to his delightful son Xerxes, 486-
465, Her. 7.1-3)who had a lot in common with Cambyses.
Everybody knew there was going to be a round II.
1. The Egyptian revolt had to be put down, and was
between 484-3.
2. Xerxes had his sources of information, most
particularly the Spartan king Demaratus.
3. His strategic grand scheme can best be summed up
(see your Herodotus) as SPLAT: Bury the Greeks once
and for all under the combined weight of the whole
Persian empire. This had worked in suppressing Ionian.
C. Meanwhile, back in Greece--do the times make the men,
or the men make the times?
1. The same political crisis that threw Demaratus out
of Sparta put Leonidas into power. Brave, honest,
decent people like that can really play hob with a
tyrant's plans (not typecasting with this guy Xerxes--
note Her. 7.36-41, Hellespont, engineers, and the story
of Pythius's eldest son). Pausanias, his nephew, was
competent, if crooked in the end.
2. And Themistocles: Sneak, admiral, and political
genius.
a) First of all--The Fall of Miletus. IT certainly got
the Athenians' attention about the Persian threat.
b) True intelligence: construction of naval base at
Piraeus before effort to build the fleet, archonship of
493/2.
c) Third, and greatest: State mines at Laurion, big
strike
d) Use of Aegina (which incidentally, had Medized as
the threat to justify the fleet, 483/2, then
e) Repetition of previous system to double the size of
the fleet.
f) And if you think he's bad in peacetime...
XXXVI. The Descent of Xerxes upon Greece, 480-79
A. B3 recognize how improbable the ultimate victory of the
Greeks was (p. 167). If you do feel a need to excuse
Herodotus for his way of describing what had happened,
just contrast the wonder at this incredible vindication
of everything Greece stood for with the incessant
infighting and fratricide taking place as Herodotus was
writing this thing. Contrast also his tone and attitude
with that of Thucydides, most pungently expressed by him
in Thuc. 1.23.1.
B. Another thought for you to consider: Can you OVER plan
something?
1. In addition to assembling that monster
army, Xerxes had thought to propagate a 5th
Column in Greece itself, Her. 7.133, with the
northern Greek cities and even Thebes
offerins submission and posing a serious
threat.
2. Note the warning in 7.49 about a fleet and
army too big for the area to be
conquered...(contrast the yet additional
scientific experiment of Her. 7.60--
10,000/enclosure-- with the mess over the .8
million man march measurement). The ancients
weren't dumb.
3. The trouble was that all these
preparations made noise, took time (and
Themistocles took advantage), and
accomplished the impossible: It drove the
mainland Greeks together into the Congress of
the Isthmus and the Hellenic League.
4. Athens' fear even made her accept Spartaan
overall command, just as it made her recall
those ostracized... (explain: quorum of
6,000, 10-year exile with return)
C. Although it pains me to DO this, I'm going to skant you
on the details of MOST of the battles. B3 will give them
to you in excruciating detail and Herodotus will give
them to you in an enjoyable way. I do need to explain
why the battles were fought at all, which are matters
involving technology and geography as well as tactics.
XXXVII. End as of 10/30/95
1. What is going on at Thermopylae and
Artemisium (Her. 7.170-238) harkens back to
what I told you about ancient seafaring:
a) The huge Persian fleet needed to
beach and dock its fleet preferably once
a night, so it needed the army for a
safe place to land and supplies.
b) The army needed the fleet to keep the
Greeks from getting behind it and
attacking its lines of supplies.
c) Thermopylae gave the Greeks two choke
points, but they had to hold them, and
despite their courage, they couldn't.
"Go, stranger..." was, as B3, probably
Leonidas's decision to sacrifice his
command in order to buy time for the
rest of Greece. (Thebes' reputation vs.
Thespis--the movie has its moments).
2. Themistocles' last triumph: the
evacuation of Athens, Themistocles' Decree,
Fornara 55. For hard-ball ancient history,
read Bury & Meiggs' note 3 on this on p. 529-
30. I don't buy nearly all of their
arguments, and what's left don't bother me...
Her. 8.1-103.
a) Abandon what we can't defend, off to
Salamis, August 480.
b) Systematic evacuation, carefully
worked out, prestige of Areopagus for
providing emergency funds.
c) Athens completely, systematically
leveled,
(1) But survives as an institution within the framework of the
navy and army,
(2) Enough for Themistocles to prevail over Greek tactical
fallacy of defending the Isthmus (We'll found our own city at
Siris in South Italy!).
d) Once again, thanks to Themistocles, a
chokepoint--Salamis. You can't get us,
you can't get past us, and we (thanks,
Sicinnius!) can't get out. September 17,
480--love those eclipses.
(1) Superiority of Greek tactics and seafarers
(2) Absolutely brilliant exploitation of weather, geography, and
ethnic sentiment--note Herodotus's discussion of Artemisia.
Embarrassment or pride? Her. 8.87
e) And again, Themistocles' little
message about the bridge to Xerxes, Her.
8.108-111
(1) That had scared Darius nearly out of Europe
(2) And the less Persians in Greece the better
(3) And yet...(both messages true, bolthole to Magnesia).
3. And finally, at Plataea (Her. 9.1-105):
Showdown
a) Persian divided command in absence of
the Great King: Mardonius vs. Artabazus
b) Incurable hatred of the Athenians for
Persia after what had happened to their
homes, Alexander of Macedon's embassy,
8.139-144; Mardonius's offer to co-opt
and the stoning of Lycidas (Her. 9.4)
Indulging one's hatred can cost too
much, Xerxes.
c) One BIG error: Mardonius gave the
Spartan army no better choice than
hitting him head on with everything they
had. They did.
d) Meanwhile, in keeping with
Themistocles strategy of menancing the
Persian's rear areas, the Greek fleet
sails to Samos with Leotychidas still in
command.
(1) Two very significant decisions: the Persians had made the
decision to abandon the naval war and had sent the surviving
Phoenicians home (Her. 9.98) and consequently
(2) The fleet they had left was turned into chipped beef on toast by
an amphibious landing led by the Athenian fleet, a skill at which the
Athenians would come to excel; Mid-August, 479.
e) The Persian army consequently had no
other choice than to evacuate Greece
completely.
XXXVIII. Sparta drops the Ball: Failures of leadership and
the Rise of Athenian Imperialism.
A. Despite Eurybiades's ostensible command and the
infamous awards story (Her. 8.123-4); everyone knew, even
the Spartans, that Themistocles and the Athenian fleet
(which he had built) had won the day at Salamis and
Mycale
1. The Spartan suggestion of evacuating Ionia may have
made military sense (for Sparta), but it was a PR
disaster and EXACTLY what is meant by "a failure of
leadership." (Her. 9.107)
2. The Athenians would not hear of this, and proceeded
to do something of tangible gain on their own by
cutting off a larger piece of the Persian invasion
route by besieging and taking Sestos (Her. 9.114-121
and end), and the fleet WAS on the way to smash the
bridge over the Hellespont) when it did that.
B. Pausanias fell HARD: (contra B3, p.202)
1. Story of Mardonius's tent: (Her. 9.83)
They came to rob US? Dueling dinners
anecdote.
2. Siege of Thebes and execution of Medizers
(Her. 9.89) on his own authority. Worth
noting that Herodotus didn't care to tell us
what happened next, which is why it gets so
sketchy:
3. We call this period, note, the "Pentekontetia"
because that's Thucydides' label from his own brief
survey (Thu. 1.82-117, which is a site better than
nothing, for all that we feel he left too much out
4. Pausanias put his own name on the Panhellenic War
memorial (WHICH SURVIVES) something the ephors could
not endure, Th.1.132-3)
5. Once you've abdicated leadership, you have
a very hard time getting it back: the
Spartans scrape up a fleet and try and
protect Ionia.
a) Pausanias hits Cyprus in 478, but on
his own authority again doubles back and
takes Byzantium on the Dardanelles
jugular.
b) Seems to have spared some of Xerxes
relatives, and tried to make himself
king of Byzantium in a position where he
can squeeze both Persia and Greece
c) Called back to Persia in 477, and in
the "trial of the 5th century" is
acquitted and goes right back to
Byzantium; takes Sestos and THAT the
Athenians under Cimon cannot stand and
expel him for good. The Allies are
disgusted with all things Spartan and
accept Athenian leadership (Thu. 1.94-
96)
d) Pausanias gets set-up by the ephors
and rather horribly dead, in an episode
the Athenians will bring to everybody's
attention at the start of the
Peloponnesian War (Thu. 1.128-135)
C. Then the Spartans found out that Themistocles, for all
his good feeling, could turn his wits on them (Plutarch's
biography of Themistocles):
1. Faintly-possible legitimate fear of Athens
being used as a Persian base, but who is
really the threat to a city without walls?
2. Themistocles to Sparta, denial, envoys,
and some of the fastest construction in
history.
3. You take care of yourselves, Spartans, and
we'll do the same,
4. Fortification of Piraeus
5. Athenian tendency to turn against their
leaders: the ostracism of Themistocles,
about as archaeologically-exciting a
political event as we've ever found! See
your B3, p.206-207. Multiple ostraka by a
few writers. Died well, though.
6. It was going to be a lot harder for
Sparta, most of the rest of Greeece, and
finally Persia to put Athens down and keep
her down. But I'm getting ahead of the
story:
End as of 11/1/95