Monday, 3/2: The Aftermath of the Persian Wars

Post-Persian War career of Pausanias:

• 478: active at Cyprus and Byzantium
  • recalled to Sparta
• 477: Back to Byzantium as private citizen
• 476: Driven out by the Athenians under Kimon
  • goes to Troad, probably trying to work out an arrangement with Darius
  • recalled to Sparta, accused of Medizing and inciting the Helots to revolt
    • no real proof until a servant to whom he had given a letter to take to Artabazus turned it over to the Ephors
    • blockaded in the temple of Athena, where he was starved to death 471?

Other setbacks for Sparta:

• Leotycides in Thessaly, condemned for brivery 476
• Argos getting stronger, joined with cities of Arcadia to present opposition to Sparta
• 473 -- Battle of Tegea, Tegean and Argos: Sparta wins, but not decisively
• 471? Dipaea: Arcadians defeated by Archidamus

Athens

• establishment of 'Delian League' (modern term)
  • protect liberated Greece from Persia
  • plunder Persian territory to recoup financial losses of war
  • punish Persians for desecration of temples
• League consists of:
  • Ionian and Aeolian cities of Asia Minor
  • Islands along coast from Lesbos to Rhodes
  • Propontis, some of Thrace
  • Most of Chalcidice
  • Cyclades
  • Euboea except Carystos
• Athenians, with their naval supremacy, are the de facto leaders
  • Treasury established at Delos
    • Hellenotamiai (treasurers)
  • cities contributed money and/or ships
    • Aristides amd the intial assesment

Themistocles

• had encouraged Athens to build up its fleet between the Persian Invasions
• after war, got Athenians to fortify the Pireaus
  • entrances to harbor fortified by moles
  • idea of moving city to Pireaus, abandoning old city rejected:
    • meant that Athens, to maintain its city and its sea power, basically had to fortify two cities
    • Later, it would build long walls connecting the two
• ostracism c. 472, career in Persia

Rise of Kimon:

• already had driven Pausanias out of Byzantium and Sestos
• 476-5: beseiged and captured Eion on the Strymon, the most important pocket of Persians in Europe at this point
  • also strategically important: access to timber and silver in Thrace
• 474-3: Reduced Scyros, on sea route from Athens to western Thrace
  • inhabitants enslaved
  • land portioned out to Athenian settlers
• 468?: liberated Greek cities of Caria
  • enrolled towns of Lycia in the Delian league
• 466? Battle at the Eurymedon river in Pamphylia
  • defeated a Persian army and a Phonecian fleet of 200 ships, as well as a reenforcement squadron from the Persian part of Cyprus
  • tremendous booty: part of it used to finance building projects on the Acropolis at Athens, wall
  • Persian threat to Greece from the seaboard of Asia Minor greatly reduced
  • followed up by cleaning up the last few remaining Persian outposts on the Thracian Chersonese

Delian League or Athenian Empire?

• 472? Karystos on Euboea
  • subjugated and forced to join league
• 469? Naxos decides to secede from the League, allied fleet blockaded and forced them to submit
  • Both lose autonomy, become subjects of Athens
• Thasos -- 465
  • important island in the region, large fleet
  • Athens also interested in the region, been active at Eion, etc.
    • Thasos also dependent on Strymon trade
  • dispute over gold mine in region, Thasians revolt
    • ask for help from Sparta, but they're busy with a helot revolt
  • Kimon defeats Thasian fleet, blockades island, and by 463 Thasos surrenders
    • walls pulled down, fleet handed over to Athens
    • claim on gold mine given up, agreed to pay whatever tribute Athens assessed.
  • Meanwhile, Athenian settlers trying to settle at Ennea Hodoi on the Strymon,
    • surrounded and annihilated by Thracians at Drabescus

Wednesday, 3/4: The Evolution of the Athenian Empire

3 classes of League members:

• non-tribute paying, contributing ships
• tribute paying, independent
• triubute paying, subject to Athens

454: transfer of league treasury to Athens

Kimon's career:

• Spartan connections
• 464: earthquake in Sparta, Messenian helot revolt
• 462: Kimon brings Athenian force to help Sparta, Athenian help is spurned
• 461: Kimon ostracized
• 459: Spartans take Messenian stronghold of Ithome, Athens helps resettle helot refuges at Naupaktos

Athens under the leadership of Pericles

• breaking of relations with Sparta
• new alliances with Argos and Thessaly
• 459: Megara breaks with Peloponnesians, joins Athens
  • Athenian fortification of Nisaia, long walls
  • Long walls at Athens
• Conflicts with Peloponnesians:
  • 459: Halieis, Cecrypalaia
  • 458-6: Aigina
• Egyptian expedition
  • 459: League fleet to Cyprus against Persians, invited to Egypt to help rebellion against Artaxerxes
  • capture of Memphis, long blockade of Persian garrison on citadel
  • 456: Persian force under Megabyzus expells Athenians, destroys Athenian relief fleet at mouth of Nile

Spartan involvement outside Peloponnese

• 457: expedition to defendDoris
  • restoration of Thebes to hegemony of Boiotian league
• Battle of Tanagra
• Battle of Oinophyta
• increase in Athenian sphere of influence on land
• Athenian activities in Gulf of Corinth

451: 5-year peace between Athens and Sparta

450: Kimon (recalled after Tanagra) to Cyprus with 200 ships, dies during blockade of Persian stronghold of Kition

• Battle at Cypriot Salamis

Friday, 3/6: Conflicts between Athens and Sparta

449 -- End of hostilities between Greece and Persia

• Peace of Callias?

Delian League evolution

• problems with tribute collection?
• Pan-Hellenic congress proposed, never meets

Relations between Athens and Sparta

• 448 -- 'Sacred War'
• 446 -- Battle of Coroneia, revolt of Euboia, Revolt of Megara
  • Pleistoanax' expedition into Attica, turns back at Eleusis
  • exile of Pleistoanax
  • recovery of Euboia

30-Year's peace

• Athens withdraws from Nisaia and Pagai; gives up alliances with Phocis, Troizen, Achaia; grants self-government to Aegina

Revolt of Samos, 440-439

Thucydides

• Athenian general, exiled during the course of Peloponnesian war
• Style of his history (compared to Herodotus)
• Begins history when war broke out; lives through war, but his account is unfinished

Reasons for the war, according to Thucydides:

• immediate pretexts -v- underlying reasons
• Underlying cause has to do with Spartan fear of the growth of Athenian power
• Immediate pretexts:
  • Dispute between Corcyra and Corinth
    • Epidamnus
  • Defensive alliance between Corcyra and Athens
  • 433 - Battle of Sybota
  • Blockade of Potidaia, 432
  • Megarian decree, 432
• Congress at Sparta -- war declared on Athens
  • Archidamus' caution