Classical Greece

For the longer period of Greek development of which thisarticle’s subject is a part, see Ancient Greece.Classical Greece was a 200-year period in Greek cul-

The Parthenon, in Athens, a temple to Athena

ture lasting from the 5th through 4th centuries BC.[1]This Classical period saw the annexation of much ofmodern-day Greece by the Persian Empire[2] and its sub-sequent independence, and had a powerful influence onthe Roman Empire and greatly influenced the founda-tions of western civilization. Much of modern West-ern politics, artistic thought (architecture, sculpture), sci-entific thought, theatre, literature, and philosophy de-rives from this period of Greek history. In the contextof the art, architecture, and culture of Ancient Greece,the Classical period, sometimes called the Hellenic pe-riod,[3] corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuriesBC (the most common dates being the fall of the lastAthenian tyrant in 510 BC to the death of Alexander theGreat in 323 BC). The Classical period in this sense fol-lows the Archaic period and is in turn succeeded by theHellenistic period.

1 Fifth century BC

Main article: Greece in 5th century BCFurther information: Archaic Greece

From the perspective of Athenian culture in ClassicalGreece, the period generally referred to as the 5th cen-tury BC encroaches slightly on the 4th century BC. Thiscentury is essentially studied from the Athenian outlookbecause Athens has left us more narratives, plays, andother written works than the other ancient Greek states.In this context, one might consider that the first signifi-cant event of this century occurs in 508 BC, with the fallof the Athenian tyrant and Cleisthenes’ reforms. How-ever, a broader view of the whole Greek world mightplace its beginning at the Ionian Revolt of 500 BC, theevent that provoked the Persian invasion of 492 BC. ThePersians were finally defeated in 490 BC. A second Per-sian attempt, despite having overrun much of modern-day Greece (north of the Isthmus of Corinth) at a crucialpoint during the war following the Battle of Thermopylaeand the Battle of Artemisium,[2] eventually failed as well,in 481-479 BC. The Delian League then formed, underAthenian hegemony and as Athens’ instrument. Athens’excesses caused several revolts among the allied cities, allof which were put down by force, but Athenian dynamismfinally awoke Sparta and brought about the PeloponnesianWar in 431 BC. After both forces were spent, a briefpeace came about; then the war resumed to Sparta’s ad-vantage. Athens was definitively defeated in 404 BC, andinternal Athenian agitations mark the end of the 5th cen-tury BC in Greece.Since the beginning, Sparta had been ruled by a"diarchy". This meant that Sparta had two kings serv-ing concurrently throughout its entire history. The twokingships were both hereditary and were either from theAgiad dynasty or the Eurypontid dynasty. Allegedly, thehereditary lines of these two dynasties spring, respec-tively, from Eurysthenes and Procles, twin descendantsof Hercules. Eurysthenes and Procles were said to haveconquered Sparta two generations after the Trojan War.

2 Cleisthenes

Main article: Cleisthenes

In 510 BC, Spartan troops helped the Athenians over-

1

2 3 THE PERSIAN WARS

throw their king, the tyrant Hippias, son of Peisistratos.Cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartanoligarchy headed by Isagoras. But his rival Cleisthenes,with the support of the middle class and aided bydemocrats, managed to take over. Cleomenes intervenedin 508 and 506 BC, but could not stop Cleisthenes, nowsupported by the Athenians. Through his reforms, thepeople endowed their city with isonomic institutions —i.e., ones that all have the same rights—and establishedostracism.The isonomic and isegoric[4] democracy was first orga-nized into about 130 demes, which became the founda-tional civic element. The 10,000 citizens exercised theirpower via the assembly (the ekklesia, in Greek) of whichthey all were part, headed by a council of 500 citizenschosen at random.The city’s administrative geography was reworked, thegoal being to have mixed political groups — not feder-ated by local interests linked to the sea, to the city, orto farming — whose decisions (declaration of war, etc.)would depend on their geographical situation. Also, theterritory of the city was divided into thirty trittyes as fol-lows:

• ten trittyes in the coastal “Paralie”

• ten trittyes in “Asty”, the urban centre

• ten trittyes in rural “Mesogia”.

A tribe consisted of three trittyes, taken at random, onefrom each of the three groups. Each tribe therefore al-ways acted in the interest of all three sectors.It is this corpus of reforms that would in the end allow theemergence of a wider democracy in the 460s and 450sBC.

3 The Persian Wars

Main article: Greco-Persian Wars

In Ionia (the modern Aegean coast of Turkey), the Greekcities, which included great centres such as Miletus andHalicarnassus, were unable to maintain their indepen-dence and came under the rule of the Persian Empire inthe mid-6th century BC. In 499 BC that region’s Greeksrose in the Ionian Revolt, following a turn of events, andAthens and some other Greek cities sent aid, but werequickly forced to back down after defeat in 494 BC at thebattle of Lade. Asia Minor returned to Persian control.In 492 BC, the Persian general, Mardonius led a cam-paign through Thrace and Macedonia and, while victori-ous and having re-subjugated the former and conqueredthe latter,[5] he was wounded and forced to retreat backinto Asia Minor. In addition, the naval fleet of around

Statue of King Leonidas of Sparta

1,200 ships that accompanied Mardonius on the expedi-tion was wrecked by a storm off the coast ofMount Athos.Later, the generals Artaphernes and Datis submitted theAegean islands through a naval expedition.In 490 BC, Darius the Great, having suppressed the Io-nian cities, sent a fleet to punish the Greeks. 100,000 Per-sians (historians are uncertain about the number; it variesfrom 18,000 to 100,000) landed in Attica intending totake Athens, but were defeated at the Battle of Marathonby a Greek army of 9,000 Athenian hoplites and 1,000Plateans led by the Athenian general Miltiades. The Per-sian fleet continued to Athens but, seeing it garrisoned,decided not to attempt an assault.Ten years later, in 480 BC, Darius’ successor Xerxes Isent a much more powerful force of 300,000 by land,with 1,207 ships in support, across a double pontoonbridge over the Hellespont. This army took Thrace, be-fore descending on Thessaly and Boetia, whilst the Per-sian navy skirted the coast and resupplied the groundtroops. The Greek fleet, meanwhile, dashed to blockCape Artemision. After being delayed by Leonidas I,the Spartan king of the Agiad Dynasty, at the Battle ofThermopylae (a battle made famous by the 300 Spartanswho faced the entire Persian Army), Xerxes advancedinto Attica, where he captured and burned Athens. Thesubsequent Battle of Artemisium resulted in the captureof Euboea, by which nowmost of mainland Greece to thenorth of the Isthmus of Corinth had been overrun.[2] Butthe Athenians had evacuated the city of Athens prior tothe Thermopylae battle by sea, and under the commandof Themistocles, eventually defeated the Persian fleet atthe Battle of Salamis.In 483 BC, during the time of peace between the two Per-sian invasions, a vein of silver ore had been discovered inthe Laurion (a small mountain range near Athens), andthe hundreds of talents mined there had paid for the con-struction of 200 warships to combat Aeginetan piracy. Ayear later, the Greeks, under the Spartan Pausanias, de-

3

The Greek World duringthe Persian Wars (500–479 BC)

0 50 100 km

Thasos

Sardis

Olynthus

Dodona

Olympia

MesseneSparta

Megara

Main battle

Ambracia

Cyzicus

Lampsacus

Abydos

Pergamon

Phocaea

Halicarnassus

Cnidus

Clazomenae

Colophon

Samothrace

Lesbos

Rhodes

Karpathos

Thera

Ios

Melos

Serifos

Sifnos

Kythnos

ParosKos

Delos

Tinos

Chios

Naxos

Andros

Samos

Lemnos

Syros

Cythera

Cephallenia

Zakynthos

Astipalea

SkyrosKorkyra

CalydonNaupactus

ProconnesusDoriskos

Chalcedon

Patras

Epidamnus

Apollonia

Argos

Methoni

Elis

Tegea

Anactorium

Kassope

Assus

P E R S I A NE M P I R E

Physcus

Aegae

Kasthanaia

Odryses

TrallesEphesus

Miletus

Smyrna

Mytilene

Mylasa

Perinthus

Byzantium

Astakos

Ilium

Lindos

ThebesDelphi

Pharsalus

PheraeLarissa

Methoni

PellaStagiraTherma

MaroneaAbdera

Aenus

Pitane

AntandrusAdramyttium

Ikaros

Amorgos

Keos

Eretria

Karystos

Eion

PotidaeaTorone

Pydna

Imbros

Chalcis

Thermopylae 480

MykonosCorinth

Sestos

ACHAEAAthens

Mycale 479

Lade 494

Plataea 479

Marathon 490

480 Salamis

Skiathos

480 Cape Artemision

Anafe

Leucas

498

Greek opponents of PersiaGreek neutral statesPersian empirePersian vassal statesIonian rebels (498 BC)Mardonius (492 BC)Artaphernes/Datis (490 BC)Xerxes/Mardonius (480 BC)

Ionian revolt

Xerxes Canal

Phlius

Map of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars (500-479 BC)

feated the Persian army at Plataea. Following the Battleof Plataea, the Persians began withdrawing from Greeceand never attempted an invasion again.The Athenian fleet then turned to chasing the Persiansfrom the Aegean Sea, defeating their fleet decisively inthe Battle of Mycale; then in 478 BC the fleet capturedByzantium. In the course of doing so Athens enrolled allthe island states and some mainland ones into an alliancecalled the Delian League, so named because its treasurywas kept on the sacred island of Delos. The Spartans,although they had taken part in the war, withdrew intoisolation afterwards, allowing Athens to establish unchal-lenged naval and commercial power.

4 The Peloponnesian War

Main article: Peloponnesian WarIn 431 BC war broke out between Athens and Sparta

Cities at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War

and its allies. The war was not really a struggle betweentwo city-states so much as it was a struggle between twocoalitions, or leagues of city-states.[6] These two leagueswere the Delian League in which Athens was the leading

member, and the Peloponnesian League, which was ledby Sparta.The Delian League grew out of the necessity of present-ing a unified front of all Greek city-states against Per-sian aggression. In 481 BC, Greek city-states, includ-ing Sparta, met in the first of a series of “congresses”that strove to unify all the Greek city-states against thedanger of another Persian invasion.[7] This coalition ofcity-states formed in 481 BC became known as the “Hel-lenic League” and included Sparta. As noted above, theexpected Persian invasion of Greece under King Xerxesoccurred in September 481 BC when the Athenian navydefeated the Persian navy. The Persian land forces weredelayed in 480 BC, by a much smaller force of 300 Spar-tans, 400 Thebans and 700 men from Boeotian Thespiaeat the Battle of Thermopylae.[8] The Persians finally leftGreece in 479 BC following their defeat at Plataea.[9]

The Battle of Plataea in 479 BC was the final bat-tle of Xerxes’ invasion of Greece. After the Battle ofPlataea, the Persians never again tried to invade Greece.With the disappearance of this external threat, cracksappeared in the united front of the Hellenic League.[10]In 477 BC, Athens became the recognised leader ofa coalition of city-states that did not include Sparta.This coalition met and formalized their relationship atthe holy city of Delos.[11] Thus, the League took thename “Delian League.” The official purpose of this newLeague was to liberate Greek cities still under Persiancontrol.[12] However, it became increasingly apparent thatthe Delian League was really a front for Athenian impe-rialism throughout the Aegean.[13]

A competing coalition of Greek city-states centredaround Sparta arose and became more important as theexternal Persian threat subsided. This coalition becameknown as the Peloponnesian League. However, unlikethe Hellenic League and the Delian League, the SpartanLeague was not a response to any external threat — Per-sian or otherwise. The Spartan League was unabashedlyan instrument of Spartan policy aimed at the security ofLacedaemon (the prefecture on the Peloponnese Penin-sula in which Sparta was located) and Spartan dominanceover the Peloponnese Peninsula.[14] Sometimes the Spar-tan League is called the “Peloponnesian League.” Thisterm is ambiguous on two scores. The “PeloponnesianLeague” was not really a “league” at all. Nor was it really“Peloponnesian.”[14] There was no equality at all betweenthe members as might be implied by the term “league.”Furthermore, most of its members were not from thePeloponnese, but rather were located outside the Pelopon-nese Peninsula.[14] Indeed, the terms “Spartan League” or“Peloponnesian League” are actually modern terms. Con-temporaries actually used the term the "Lacedaemoniansand their Allies” to describe the so-called league.[14]

The Spartan League had its origins in Sparta’s conflictwith another city on the Peloponnese Peninsula--Argos.In the 7th century BC, Argos dominated the Pelopon-

4 4 THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR

nese Peninsula. Even in the period of time after 600 BC,the Argives attempted to control the northeastern part ofthe Peloponnese Peninsula. The rise of Sparta in the 6thcentury, naturally, brought Sparta in conflict with Argos.However, with the conquest of the Peloponnesian city-state of Tegea in 550 BC and the defeat of the Argives in546 BC, the Spartan’s control began to reach well beyondthe borders of Lacedaemon.

Athenian empire.

As the two coalitions grew, their separate interests keptcoming into conflict. Under the influence of KingArchidamus II (who ruled Sparta from 476 BC through427 BC), Sparta, in the late summer or early autumn of446 BC, concluded the Thirty Years Peace with Athens.This treaty took effect the next winter in 445 BC[15] Un-der the terms of this treaty, Greece was formally dividedinto two large power zones.[16] Sparta and Athens agreedto stay within their own power zone and not to interfere inthe other’s power zone. Despite the Thirty Years Peace,it was clear that eventual war was inevitable.[17] As notedabove, at all times during its history down to 221 BC,Sparta was a “diarchy” with two kings ruling the city-state concurrently. One line of hereditary kings was fromthe Eurypontid Dynasty while the other king was fromthe Agiad Dynansty. With the conclusion of the ThirtyYears Peace treaty Archidamus II, the Eurypontid Kingat the time, felt he had successfully prevented Sparta fromentering into a war with its neighbours.[18] However, thestrong war party in Sparta soon won out and in 431 BCArchidamus was forced into going to war with the DelianLeague. However, in 427 BC, Archidamus II died andhis son, Agis II succeeded to the Eurypontid throne ofSparta.[19]

The immediate causes of the Peloponnesian War varyfrom account to account. However three causes arefairly consistent among the ancient historians, namelyThucydides and Plutarch. Prior to the war, Corinth andone of its colonies, Corcyra (modern-day Corfu), got intoa dispute, in 435 BC, over the new Corcyran colony ofEpidamnus.[20] War broke out between Corinth and Cor-cyra. Sparta refused to become involved in the conflict

and urged an arbitrated settlement of the struggle.[21] In433 BC, Corcyra, sought the assistance of Athens in thewar on Corinth. Corinth was known to be a traditionalenemy of Athens. However, to further encourage Athensto enter the conflict, Corcyra pointed out, to Athens,how useful a friendly relationship with Corcyra wouldbe, given the strategic locations of Corcyra itself andthe colony of Epidamnus on the east shore of the Adri-atic Sea.[22] Furthermore, Corcyra promised that Athenswould have the use of their (Corcyra’s) navy, which wasthe third largest navy in Greece. This was too good of anoffer for Athens to refuse. Accordingly, Athens signed adefensive alliance with Corcyra.The next year, in 432 BC, Corinth and Athens arguedover control of Potidaea (near modern-day Nea Potidaia),eventually leading to an Athenian siege of Potidaea.[23] In434-433 BCAthens issued the "Megarian Decrees", a se-ries of economic decrees that placed economic sanctionson the Megarian people.[24] Athens was accused by thePeloponnesian allies of violating the Thirty Years Peacethrough all of the aforementioned actions, and, accord-ingly, Sparta formally declared war on Athens.Many historians consider these to be merely the imme-diate causes of the war. They would argue that the un-derlying cause was the growing resentment on the partof Sparta and its allies at the dominance of Athens overGreek affairs. The war lasted 27 years, partly becauseAthens (a naval power) and Sparta (a land-based militarypower) found it difficult to come to grips with each other.Sparta’s initial strategy was to invade Attica, but the Athe-nians were able to retreat behind their walls. An outbreakof plague in the city during the siege caused heavy losses,including that of Pericles. At the same time the Athenianfleet landed troops in the Peloponnesus, winning battlesat Naupactus (429 BC) and Pylos (425 BC). But thesetactics could bring neither side a decisive victory. Af-ter several years of inconclusive campaigning, the moder-ate Athenian leader Nicias concluded the Peace of Nicias(421 BC).In 418 BC, however, hostility between Sparta and theAthenian ally Argos led to a resumption of hostilities.Alcibiades was one of the most influential voices in per-suading the Athenians to ally with Argos against theSpartans.[25] At the Mantinea Sparta defeated the com-bined armies of Athens and her allies. Accordingly, Ar-gos and the rest of the Peloponnesus was brought backunder the control of Sparta.[25] The return of peace al-lowed Athens to be diverted from meddling in the af-fairs of the Peloponnesus and to concentrate on buildingup the empire and putting their finances in order. Soontrade recovered and tribute began, once again, rolling intoAthens.[25] A strong “peace party” arose, which promotedavoidance of war and continued concentration on the eco-nomic growth of the Athenian Empire. Concentration onthe Athenian Empire, however, brought Athens into con-flict with another Greek state.

5

A soldier’s helmet on black-figure pottery

Ever since the formation of the Delian League in 477BC, the island of Melos had refused to join. By refus-ing to join the League, however, Melos reaped the bene-fits of the League without bearing any of the burdens.[26]In 425 BC, an Athenian army under Cleon attacked Me-los to force the island to join the Delian League. How-ever, Melos fought off the attack and was able to main-tain its neutrality.[26] Further conflict was inevitable andin the spring of 416 BC the mood of the people in Athenswas inclined toward military adventure. The island ofMelos provided an outlet for this energy and frustrationfor the military party. Furthermore, there appeared tobe no real opposition to this military expedition from thepeace party. Enforcement of the economic obligations ofthe Delian League upon rebellious city-states and islandswas a means by which continuing trade and prosperity ofAthens could be assured. Melos alone among all the Cy-cladic Islands located in the south-west Aegean Sea hadresisted joining the Delian League.[26] This continued re-bellion provided a bad example to the rest of themembersof the Delian League.The debate between Athens and Melos over the issue ofjoining the Delian League is presented by Thucydides inhis Melian Dialogue.[27] The debate did not in the end re-solve any of the differences between Melos and Athensand Melos was invaded in 416 BC, and soon occupiedby Athens. This success on the part of Athens whettedthe appetite of the people of Athens for further expan-sion of the Athenian Empire.[28] Accordingly, the people

of Athens were ready for military action and tended tosupport the military party, led by Alcibiades.Thus, in 415 BC, Alcibiades found support within theAthenian Assembly for his position when he urged thatAthens launch a major expedition against Syracuse, aPeloponnesian ally in Sicily.[29] Segesta, a town in Sicily,had requested Athenian assistance in their war withanother Sicilian town — the town of Selinus. Al-though Nicias was a sceptic about the Sicilian Expedi-tion, he was appointed along with Alcibiades to lead theexpedition.[30]

Artemision Bronze, thought to be either Poseidon or Zeus, c. 460BCE, National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Found by fish-ermen off the coast of Cape Artemisium in 1928. The figure ismore than 2 m in height.

However, unlike the expedition against Melos, the citi-zens of Athens were deeply divided over Alcibiades’ pro-posal for an expedition to far-off Sicily. The peace partywas desperate to foil Alcibiades. Thus, in June 415 BC,on the very eve of the departure of the Athenian fleet forSicily, a band of vandals in Athens defaced the many stat-ues of the god Hermes, that were scattered throughout thecity of Athens.[31] This action was blamed on Alcibiadesand was seen as a bad omen for the coming campaign.[32]In all likelihood, the coordinated action against the statuesof Hermes was the action of the peace party.[33] Havinglost the debate on the issue, the peace party was desper-ate to weaken Alcibiades’ hold on the people of Athens.Successfully blaming Alcibiades for the action of the van-dals would have weakenedAlcibiades and the war party inAthens. Furthermore, it is unlikely that Alcibiades wouldhave deliberately defaced the statues of Hermes on thevery eve of his departure with the fleet. Such defacement

6 5 FOURTH CENTURY BC

could only have been interpreted as a bad omen for theexpedition that he had long advocated.Even before the fleet reached Sicily, word arrived to thefleet that Alcibiades was to be arrested and charged withsacrilege of the statues of Hermes. Due to these accu-sations against him, Alcibiades fled to Sparta before theexpedition actually landed in Sicily.[34] When the fleetlanded in Sicily and the battle was joined, the expeditionwas a complete disaster. The entire expeditionary forcewas lost and Nicias was captured and executed. This wasone of the most crushing defeats in the history of Athens.Meanwhile, Alcibiades betrayed Athens and became achief advisor to the Spartans and began to counsel themon the best way to defeat his native land. Alcibiades per-suaded the Spartans to begin building a real navy for thefirst time — large enough to challenge the Athenian su-periority at sea. Additionally, Alcibiades persuaded theSpartans to ally themselves with their traditional foes —the Persians. As noted below, Alcibiades soon foundhimself in controversy in Sparta when he was accusedof having seduced Timaea, the wife of Agis II, the Eu-rypontid king of Sparta.[19] Accordingly, Alcibiades wasrequired to flee from Sparta and seek the protection ofthe Persian Court.Sparta had now built a fleet (with the financial help of thePersians) to challenge Athenian naval supremacy, and hadfound a new military leader in Lysander, who attackedAbydos and seized the strategic initiative by occupyingthe Hellespont, the source of Athens’ grain imports.[35]Threatened with starvation, Athens sent its last remainingfleet to confront Lysander, who decisively defeated themat Aegospotami (405 BC). The loss of her fleet threat-ened Athens with bankruptcy. In 404 BC Athens suedfor peace, and Sparta dictated a predictably stern settle-ment: Athens lost her city walls, her fleet, and all of heroverseas possessions. Lysander abolished the democracyand appointed in its place an oligarchy called the "ThirtyTyrants" to govern Athens.Meanwhile, in Sparta, Timaea gave birth to a child. Thechild was given the name Leotychidas, after the greatgrandfather of Agis II — King Leotychidas of Sparta.However, because of her alleged affair with Alcibiades,it was widely rumoured that the young Leotychidas wasactually fathered by Alcibiades.[19] Indeed, Agis II, him-self, refused to acknowledge Leotychidas as his son untilhe relented in front of witnesses, on his death bed in 400BC.[36]

Upon the death of Agis II, Leotychidas attempted toclaim the Eurypontid throne for himself. However, therewas an outcry against this attempted succession. The out-cry was led by the victorious navarch (admiral) Lysander,who was at the height of his influence in Sparta.[36]Lysander argued that Leotychidas was a bastard andcould not inherit the Eurypontid throne.[36] Accordingly,Lysander backed the hereditary claim of Agesilaus, sonof Agis by another wife, other than Timaea. Based on

the support of Lysander, Agesilaus became the Eurypon-tid king as Agesilaus II, expelled Leotychidas from thecountry, and took over all of Agis’ estates and property.

5 Fourth century BC

Related articles: Spartan hegemony andTheban hegemony

Grave relief of Thraseas and Euandria from Athens, 375 - 350BC, Pergamon Museum (Berlin)

The end of the Peloponnesian War left Sparta the mas-ter of Greece, but the narrow outlook of the Spartanwarrior elite did not suit them to this role.[37] Within afew years the democratic party regained power in Athensand in other cities. In 395 BC the Spartan rulers re-moved Lysander from office, and Sparta lost her navalsupremacy. Athens, Argos, Thebes, and Corinth, the lat-ter two former Spartan allies, challenged Sparta’s dom-inance in the Corinthian War, which ended inconclu-sively in 387 BC. That same year Sparta shocked theGreeks by concluding the Treaty of Antalcidas with Per-sia. The agreement turned over the Greek cities of Ioniaand Cyprus, reversing a hundred years of Greek victo-ries against Persia. Sparta then tried to further weakenthe power of Thebes, which led to a war in which Thebesallied with its old enemy Athens.

5.1 The fall of Sparta 7

Then the Theban generals Epaminondas and Pelopidaswon a decisive victory at Leuctra (371 BC). The re-sult of this battle was the end of Spartan supremacy andthe establishment of Theban dominance, but Athens her-self recovered much of her former power because thesupremacy of Thebes was short-lived. With the deathof Epaminondas at Mantinea (362 BC) the city lost itsgreatest leader and his successors blundered into an inef-fectual ten-year war with Phocis. In 346 BC the Thebansappealed to Philip II of Macedon to help them againstthe Phocians, thus drawing Macedon into Greek affairsfor the first time.[38]

The Peloponnesian War was a radical turning point forthe Greek world. Before 403 BC, the situation was moredefined, with Athens and its allies (a zone of dominationand stability, with a number of island cities benefitingfrom Athens’ maritime protection), and other states out-side this Athenian Empire. The sources denounce thisAthenian supremacy (or hegemony) as smothering anddisadvantageous.[39]

After 403 BC, things became more complicated, with anumber of cities trying to create similar empires over oth-ers, all of which proved short-lived. The first of theseturnarounds was managed by Athens as early as 390 BC,allowing it to re-establish itself as a major power withoutregaining its former glory.

5.1 The fall of Sparta

This empire was powerful but short-lived. In 405 BC,the Spartans were masters of all - of Athens’ allies andof Athens itself - and their power was undivided. By theend of the century, they could not even defend their owncity. As noted above, in 400 BC, Agesilaus became kingof Sparta.[40]

5.1.1 Foundation of a Spartan empire

The subject of how to reorganize the Athenian Empire aspart of the Spartan Empire provoked much heated debateamong Sparta’s full citizens. The admiral Lysander feltthat the Spartans should rebuild the Athenian empire insuch a way that Sparta profited from it. Lysander tendedto be too proud to take advice from others.[41] Prior tothis, Spartan law forbade the use of all precious metalsby private citizens, with transactions being carried outwith cumbersome iron ingots (which generally discour-aged their accumulation) and all precious metals obtainedby the city becoming state property. Without the Spar-tans’ support, Lysander’s innovations came into effect andbrought a great deal of profit for him - on Samos, for ex-ample, festivals known as Lysandreia were organized inhis honour. He was recalled to Sparta, and once there didnot attend to any important matters.Sparta refused to see Lysander or his successors domi-nate. Not wanting to establish a hegemony, they decided

AKylix (drinking cup) fromAttica showing a goddess performinga libation, 470 BC, white ground technique pottery

after 403 BC not to support the directives that he hadmade.Agesilaus came to power by accident at the start of the 4thcentury BC. This accidental accession meant that, unlikethe other Spartan kings, he had the advantage of a Spar-tan education. The Spartans at this date discovered a con-spiracy against the laws of the city conducted by Cinadonand as a result concluded there were too many dangerousworldly elements at work in the Spartan state.In the Persian Court, Alcibiades now betrayed both: help-ing Sparta build a navy commensurate with the Atheniannavy. Alcibiades advised that a victory of Sparta overAthens was not in the best interest of the Persian Empire.Rather, long and continuous warfare between Sparta andAthens would weaken both city-states and allow the Per-sians to easily dominate the Helles (Greek) peninsula.Among the war party in Athens, a belief arose that thecatastrophic defeat of the military expedition to Sicily in415 BC through 413 BC could have been avoided if Al-cibiades had been allowed to lead the expedition. Thus,despite his treacherous flight to Sparta and collaborationwith Sparta and, later, with the Persian Court, there arosea demand among the war party that Alcibiades be allowedto return to Athens without being arrested. Alcibiadesnegotiated with his supporters on the Athenian controlledisland of Samos. Alcibiades felt that “radical democracy”was his worst enemy. Accordingly, he asked his support-ers to initiate a coup to establish an oligarchy in Athens.If the coup were successful Alcibiades promised to re-turn to Athens. In 411 BC, a successful oligarchic coupwas mounted in Athens, which became known as “the400.” However, a parallel attempt by the 400 to overthrow

8 5 FOURTH CENTURY BC

democracy in Samos failed. Alcibiades was immediatelymade an admiral (navarch) in the Athenian navy. Later,due to democratic pressures, the 400 was replaced by abroader oligarchy called “the 5000.” Alcibiades did notimmediately return to Athens. In early 410 BC, Alcib-iades led an Athenian fleet of eighteen triremes (ships)against the Persian-financed Spartan fleet at Abydos nearthe Hellespont. The Battle of Abydos had actually begunbefore the arrival of Alcibiades and had been incliningslightly toward the Athenians. However, with the arrivalof Alcibiades, the Athenian victory over the Spartans be-came a rout. Only the approach of nightfall and themove-ment of Persian troops to the coast where the Spartanshad beached their ships, saved the Spartan navy from to-tal destruction.Following the advice that Alcibiades had provided thePersian Court, the Persian Empire had been playingSparta and Athens off against each other. However, asweak as the Spartan navy was after the Battle of Abydos,the Persian navy sought to prove direct assistance to theSpartans. Thus following the Battle of Abydos, Alcibi-ades pursued and met the combined Spartan and Persianfleets at the Battle of Cyzicus later in the spring of 410BC. Alcibiades and the Athenian navy won a significantvictory against the combined navies.Agesilaus, the Eurypontid King of Sparta, employed a po-litical dynamic that played on a feeling of pan-Hellenicsentiment and launched a successful campaign against thePersian empire.[42] Once again, the Persian empire playedboth sides against each other. With access to Persian gold,the Persian Court supported Sparta in the rebuilding oftheir navy and supported the Athenians, who used Per-sian subsidies to rebuild their long walls (destroyed in 404BC) as well as to reconstruct their fleet and win a numberof victories.For most of the first years of his reign, Agesilaus hadbeen engaged in a war against Persia in the Aegean Seaand in Asia Minor.[43] In 394 BC, the Spartan author-ities decided to force Agesilaus to return to mainlandGreece. Sparta had been attacked by Thebes and other al-liedGreek city-states.[44]While Agesilaus had a large partof the Spartan Army in Asia Minor, the Spartan forcesprotecting the homeland had been attacked by a coalitionof forces from Thebes, Corinth, Athens and Argos. Atthe Battle of Haliartus the Spartans had been defeated bythe Theban forces. Worse yet, Lysander, Sparta’s chiefmilitary leader had been killed at Haliartus.[45] This wasthe start of what became known as the “Corinthian War.”Upon hearing of the Spartan loss at Haliartus and of thedeath of Lysander, Agesilaus headed out of Asia Mi-nor, back across the Hellespont, across Thrace and backtowards Greece. At the Battle of Coronea, Agesilausand his Spartan Army defeated a Theban force. For sixmore years, Sparta fought the allied city-states of Thebes,Corinth, Athens and Argos in the Corinthian War (395BC to 387 BC).[42] During the war, Corinth drew supportfrom a coalition of traditional Spartan enemies — Argos,

Athens and Thebes.[46] However, the war descended intoguerilla tactics and Sparta decided that it could not fighton two fronts and so chose to ally with Persia.[46] The longCorinthian War finally ended with the Peace of Antalci-das or the King’s Peace, in which the “Great King” ofPersia, Artaxerxes II, pronounced a “treaty” of peace be-tween the various city-states of Greece which broke up all“leagues” of city-states on Greek mainland and in the is-lands of the Aegean Sea. Although this was looked uponas “independence” for some city-states, the effect of theunilateral “treaty” was highly favourable to the interestsof the Persian Empire.The Corinthian War revealed a significant dynamic thatwas occurring in Greece. While Athens and Sparta foughteach other to exhaustion, Thebes was rising to a positionof dominance among the various Greek city-states.

5.1.2 The peace of Antalcidas

In 387 BC, an edict was promulgated by the Persian king,preserving the Greek cities of Asia Minor and Cyprus aswell as the independence of the Greek Aegean cities, ex-cept for Lymnos, Imbros and Skyros, which were givenover to Athens.[47] It dissolved existing alliances and fed-erations and forbade the formation of new ones. This isan ultimatum that benefited Athens only to the extent thatAthens held onto three islands. While the “Great King,”Artaxerxes, was the guarantor of the peace, Sparta wasto act as Persia’s agent in enforcing the Peace.[48] To thePersians this document is known as the "King’s Peace.”To the Greeks, this document is known as the Peace ofAntalcidas, after the Spartan diplomat, Antalcidas, whowas sent to Persia to negotiate a treaty for Sparta. Spartahad been worried about the developing closer ties be-tween Athens and Persia. Accordingly, Antalcidas wassent to Persia to get whatever agreement he could fromthe “Great King”. Accordingly, the “Peace of Antalci-das is not a negotiated peace at all. Rather it is a sur-render to the interests of Persia, drafted entirely along itsinterests.[48]

5.1.3 Spartan interventionism

On the other hand, this peace had unexpected conse-quences. In accordance with it, the Boeotian Leagueor Boeotian confederacy was dissolved in 386 BC.[49]This confederacy was dominated by Thebes, a city hos-tile to the Spartan hegemony. Sparta carried out large-scale operations and peripheral interventions in Epirusand in the north of Greece, resulting in the capture ofthe fortress of Thebes, the Cadmea, after an expeditionin the Chalcidice and the capture of Olynthos. It was aTheban politician who suggested to the Spartan generalPhoibidas that Sparta should seize Thebes itself. Thisact was sharply condemned, though Sparta eagerly rat-ified this unilateral move by Phoibidas. The Spartan at-tack was successful and Thebes was placed under Spartan

5.1 The fall of Sparta 9

control.[50]

5.1.4 Clash with Thebes

In 378 BC, the reaction to Spartan control over Thebeswas broken by a popular uprising within Thebes. Else-where in Greece, the reaction against Spartan hegemonybegan when, Sphodrias, another Spartan general, tried tocarry out a surprise attack on the Piraeus.[51] Although thegates of Piraeus were no longer fortified, Sphodrias wasdriven off before the Piraeus. Back in Sparta, Sphodriaswas put on trial for the failed attack, but was acquitted bythe Spartan court. Nonetheless, the attempted attack trig-gered an alliance between Athens and Thebes.[51] Spartawould now have to fight them both together. Athenswas trying to recover from their defeat in the Pelopon-nesian War at the hands of Sparta’s “navarch” (admi-ral), Lysander in the disaster of 404 BC. The risingspirit of rebellion against Sparta also fuelled Thebes’ at-tempt to restore the former Boeotian confederacy.[52] InBoeotia, Theban leaders, Pelopidas and Epaminondas,reorganized the Theban army and began to free the townsof Boeotia from their Spartan garrisons, one by one,and incorporated these towns into the revived BoeotianLeague.[48] Pelopidas won a great victory for Thebes overa much larger Spartan force in the Battle of Tegyra in 375BC.[53]

Theban authority grew so spectacularly in such a shorttime that Athens came to mistrust the growing Thebanpower. Athens began to consolidate its position againthrough the formation of a second Athenian League.[54]Attention was drawn to growing power of Thebes, whenit began interfering in the political affairs of its neigh-bor, Phocis and, particularly, after Thebes razed the cityof Platea in 375 BC Platea had been a long-term ally ofAthens.[55] The destruction of Platea caused Athens tonegotiate an alliance with Sparta against Thebes, in thatsame year of 375 BC.[55] In 371, the Theban army, led byEpaminondas, inflicted a bloody defeat on Spartan forcesat Battle of Leuctra. Sparta lost a large part of its armyand 400 of its 2,000 citizen-troops. The Battle of Leuc-tra was a watershed in Greek history.[55] Epaminondas’victory over the Sparta forces at Leuctra ended a longhistory of Spartan military prestige and dominance overGreece and the period of Spartan hegemony was over.However, Spartan hegemony was not replaced by The-ban, but rather Athenian hegemony.

5.1.5 The rise of Athens

Financing the league It was important to erase thebad memories of the former league. Its financial sys-tem was not adopted, with no tribute being paid. Instead,syntaxeis were used, irregular contributions as and whenAthens and its allies needed troops, collected for a precisereason and spent as quickly as possible. These contribu-tions were not taken to Athens — unlike the 5th century

The Temple of Hephaestus at the Agora of Athens, built 449-415BC

BC system, there was no central exchequer for the league— but to the Athenian generals themselves.The Athenians had to make their own contribution to thealliance, the eisphora. They reformed how this tax waspaid, creating a system in advance, the Proseiphora, inwhich the richest individuals had to pay the whole sumof the tax then be reimbursed by other contributors. Thissystem was quickly assimilated into a liturgy.

Athenian hegemony halted This league responded toa real and present need. On the ground, however, thesituation within the league proved to have changed littlefrom that of the 5th century BC, with Athenian generalsdoing what they wanted and able to extort funds from theleague. Alliance with Athens again looked unattractiveand the allies complained.The main reasons for the eventual failure were structural.This alliance was only valued out of fear of Sparta, whichevaporated after Sparta’s fall in 371 BC, losing the al-liance its sole raison d'etre. The Athenians no longer hadthe means to fulfil their ambitions, and found it difficultmerely to finance their own navy, let alone that of an en-tire alliance, and so could not properly defend their allies.Thus, the tyrant of Pherae was able to destroy a numberof cities with impunity. From 360, Athens lost its rep-utation for invincibility and a number of allies (such asByzantium and Naxos in 364) decided to secede.In 357 BC the revolt against the league spread, and be-tween 357 and 355, Athens had to face war against its al-lies, a war whose issue was marked by a decisive interven-tion by the king of Persia in the form of an ultimatum toAthens, demanding that Athens recognise its allies’ inde-pendence under penalty of Persia’s sending 200 triremesagainst Athens. Athens had to renounce the war and leavethe confederacy to weaken itself more and more. TheAthenians had failed in all their plans and were unable topropose a durable alliance.

10 5 FOURTH CENTURY BC

5.1.6 Theban hegemony - tentative and with no fu-ture

5th century BC Boeotian confederacy (447 – 386)This was not Thebes’ first attempt at hegemony. It hadbeen the most important city of Boeotia and the centreof the previous Boeotian confederacy of 447, resurrectedsince 386.That confederacy is well known to us from a papyrusfound at Oxyrhynchus and known as “the Anonyme ofThebes”. Thebes headed it and set up a system underwhich charges were divided up between the differentcities of the confederacy. Citizenship was defined accord-ing to wealth, and Thebes counted 11,000 active citizens.It was divided up into 11 districts, each providing a fed-eral magistrate called a “boeotarch”, a certain numberof council members, 1,000 hoplites and 100 horsemen.From the 5th century BC the alliance could field an in-fantry force of 11,000 men, in addition to an elite corpsand a light infantry numbering 10,000; but its real powerderived from its cavalry force of 1,100, commanded by afederal magistrate independent of local commanders. Italso had a small fleet that played a part in the Pelopon-nesian War by providing 25 triremes for the Spartans. Atthe end of the conflict, the fleet consisted of 50 triremesand was commanded by a “navarch”.All this constituted a significant enough force that theSpartans were happy to see the Boeotian confederacy dis-solved by the king’s peace. This dissolution, however, didnot last, and in the 370s there was nothing to stop the The-bans (who had lost the Cadmea to Sparta in 382 BC) fromreforming this confederacy.

Theban reconstruction Pelopidas and Epaminon-das endowed Thebes with democratic institutions simi-lar to those of Athens, the Thebans revived the title of“Boetarch” lost in the Persian king’s peace and - withvictory at Leuctra and the destruction of Spartan power- the pair achieved their stated objective of renewingthe confederacy. Epaminondas rid the Peloponnesus ofpro-Spartan oligarchies, replacing them with pro-Thebandemocracies, constructed cities, and rebuilt a number ofthose destroyed by Sparta. He equally supported the re-construction of the city of Messene thanks to an invasionof Laconia that also allowed him to liberate the helots andgive them Messene as a capital.He decided in the end to constitute small confederacies allround the Peloponnessus, forming an Arcadian confeder-acy. (The king’s peace had destroyed a previous Arcadianconfederacy and put Messene under Spartan control.)

Confrontation between Athens and Thebes Thestrength of the Boeotian League explains Athens’ prob-lems with her allies in the second Athenian League.Epaminondas succeeded in convincing his countrymen

to build a fleet of 100 triremes to pressure cities intoleaving the Athenian league and joining a Boeotian mar-itime league. Epaminondas and Pelopidas also reformedthe army of Thebes to introduce new and more effectivemeans of fighting. Thus, the Theban army was able tocarry the day against the coalition of other Greek statesat the battle of Leuctra in 371 BC and the battle of Man-tinea in 362 BC.Sparta also remained an important power in the face ofTheban strength. However, some of the cities allied withSparta turned against her, because of Thebes. In 367BC, both Sparta and Athens sent delegates to ArtaxerxesII, the Great King of Persia. These delegates sought tohave the Artaxerxes, once again, declare Greek indepen-dence and a unilateral common peace, just as he haddone in twenty years earlier in 387 BC. That unilateralpeace treaty, commonly called the "King’s Peace", or the"Peace of Antalcidas", breaking all bonds between thevarious city-states of Greece.[49] As noted above, this hadmeant the destruction of the Boeotian League in 387 BC.Sparta and Athens now hoped the same thing would hap-pen with a new declaration of a similar “Kings Peace”by the Great King of the Persian Empire. Thebes sentPelopidas to argue against this attempt at a new unilateral“peace treaty” guaranteed by the Persian Empire.[56] Nowhowever, twenty years later in 367 BC, the Great Kingwas convinced by Pelopidas and the Theban diplomatsthat Thebes, and the Boeotian League, would be the bestagent of Persian interests in Greece. Accordingly, theGreat King did not issue a new “King’s Peace.”[49] Thus,to deal with Thebes, Athens and Sparta were thrown backon their own resources. Thebes, meanwhile, expandedtheir influence beyond the bounds of Boeotia. In 364 BC,the Thebans defeated the army of Alexander of Pheraein the Battle of Cynoscephalae, located in south-easternThessaly in northern Greece. Pelopidas led this The-ban Army to Cynoscephalae. However, during the battle,Pelopides was killed.[57]

The confederational framework of Sparta’s relationshipwith her allies was really an artificial one, since it at-tempted to bring together cities that had never been ableto agree on much at all in the past. Such was the casewith the cities of Tegea and Mantinea, which re-alliedin the Arcardian confederacy. The Mantineans receivedthe support of the Athenians and the Tegeans that of theThebans. In 362 BC Theban general, Epaminondas, leda Theban army against a coalition of Athenian, Spartan,Elisian, Mantinean and Achean forces. Battle was joinedat Mantinea.[49] The Thebans prevailed, but this triumphwas short-lived, for Epaminondas died in the battle, stat-ing that “I bequeath to Thebes two daughters, the victoryof Leuctra and the victory at Mantinea”.Despite the victory at Mantinea, in the end, the Thebansabandoned their policy of intervention in the Pelopon-nesus. This event is looked upon as a watershed in Greekhistory. Thus, Xenophon concludes his history of theGreek world at this point, in 362 BC. The end of this pe-

5.2 Rise of Macedon 11

riod was even more confused than its beginning. Greecehad failed and, according to Xenophon, the history of theGreek world was no longer intelligible.The idea of hegemony disappeared. From 362 BC on-ward, there was no longer a single city that could exerthegemonic power in Greece. The Spartans were greatlyweakened; the Athenians were in no condition to operatetheir navy, and after 365 no longer had any allies; Thebescould only exert an ephemeral dominance, and had themeans to defeat Sparta and Athens but not to be a majorpower in Asia Minor.Other forces also intervened, such as the Persian king,who was appointed himself as arbitrator between theGreek cities, with the tacit agreement of the cities them-selves. This situation reinforced the conflicts and therewas a proliferation of civil wars, with the confederalframework a repeated trigger for wars. One war led to an-other, each longer and more bloody, and the cycle couldnot be broken. Hostilities even took place during winterfor the first time, with the 370 invasion of Laconia.

5.2 Rise of Macedon

Main article: Rise of MacedonThebes sought to maintain its position until finally

Thessalian cavalryman on the Alexander Sarcophagus, late 4thcentury BC (Istanbul Archaeological Museum)

eclipsed by the rising power of Macedon in 346 BC. Theenergetic leadership within Macedon began in 359 BCwhen Philip ofMacedon was made regent for his nephew,Amyntas. Within a short time, Philip was acclaimed kingas, Philip II of Macedonia, in his own right with succes-sion of the throne established on his own heirs.[58]

Under Philip II, (359–336 BC), Macedon expanded intothe territory of the Paeonians, Thracians, and Illyrians.[59]In 357 BC, Philip conquered the Thracian port city ofAmphipolis. Conquering this city allowed Philip to sub-

A wall mural of a charioteer from the Macedonian royal tombsat Vergina, late 4th century BC

jugate all of Thrace. Athens fought to prevent the Mace-donians from conquering Thrace. A year later in 356 BC,the Macedonians attacked and conquered the Atheniancontrolled port city of Pydna. This brought the Mace-donian threat to Athens closer to home to the Atheni-ans. Demosthenes became a leading Athenian statesman,during this time by his opposition to the Macedonians.With the start of the Phocian War in 356 BC, Demos-thenes became increasingly active in encouraging Athensto fight vigorously against Philip’s expansionist aims.[60]The Macedonians became more politically involved withthe south-central city-states of Greece, but also retainedmore archaic aspects harking back to the palace culture,first at Aegae (modern Vergina) then at Pella, resemblingMycenaean culture more than that of the Classical city-states. Militarily, Philip recognized the new phalanx styleof fighting that had been employed by Epaminondas andPhielopidas in Thebes. Accordingly, he incorporated thisnew system into the Macedonian army. Philip II alsobrought a Theban military tutor to Macedon to instructthe future Alexander the Great in the Theban method offighting.[61]

Philip’s son Alexander the Great was born in Pella, Mace-donia (356–323 BC). Philip II brought Aristotle to Pellato teach the young Alexander.[62] During his lifetime,Philip II consolidated his rule over Macedonia. This wasdone by 359 BC and Philip began to look toward expand-ing Macedonia’s influence abroad. The dream of restor-ing Greece to its grandeur by liberating all Greek landsfrom Persian dominion was alive even in this early stage.This dream even included conquering Persia itself.[63]

In 358 BC, Philip allied with Epirus in their campaignagainst Illyria. In 357 BC Philip II turned his attentionon the Strymon River valley, and came into direct conflictwith Athens. Amphipolis, a city located at the mouth ofthe Strymon River to the east of Macedonia was a majorAthenian trading port. Thus, when Philip attacked andcaptured Amphipolis in 357 BC, Athens declared war onMacedonia. The next year, in 356 BC, Philip conquered

12 7 REFERENCES

Pydna. In 352 BC, the great Athenian orator and polit-ical leader of the “war party”, Demosthenes gave manyspeeches against the Macedonian threat, declaring PhilipII as Athens’ greatest enemy. Leader of the Athenian“peace party,” was Phocion, who wished to avoid a con-frontation that, Phocion felt, would be catastrophic forAthens. Despite Phocion’s attempts to restrain the warparty, Athens remained at war with Macedonia for yearsfollowing the original declaration of war.[64] Negotiationsbetween Athens and Philip II started only in 346 BC.[65]The Athenians successfully halted Philip’s invasion of At-tica at Thermopylae that same year in 352 BC. However,Philip defeated the Phocians at the Battle of the CrocusField. The conflict between Macedonia and all the city-states of Greece came to a head in 338 BC,[66] at theBattle of Chaeronea.Besides Alexander’s mother, Philip took another wifeby the name of Cleopatra Eurydice.[67] Cleopatra had adaughter, Europa, and a son, Caranus. Caranus posed athreat to the succession of Alexander.[68] Cleopatra Eury-dice was a Macedonian and, thus, Caranus, was all Mace-donian in blood. Olympias, Alexander’s mother on theother hand was from Epicurus and, thus, Alexander wasregarded as being only half-Macedonian. (Cleopatra Eu-rydice should not be confused with Cleopatra of Mace-don who was Alexander’s full-sister and thus daughter ofPhilip and Olympias.)Philip II was assassinated at the wedding of his daughterCleopatra ofMacedon with King Alexander I of Epirus in336 BC[69] Alexander, immediately, claimed the throneof Macedonia by eliminating all the other claimants tothe throne, including his cousin Amytas and Caranus,Cleopatra Eurydice’s son.[70] Alexander was only twenty(20) years of age when he assumed the throne.[71]

Upon assumption of the throne, Alexander continued tocarry out the plans of his father to conquer all of Greece.He did this by both military might and persuasion. Af-ter his victory over Thebes, Alexander travelled to Athensto meet the public itself. Despite Demosthenes' speechesagainst the Macedonian threat on behalf of the war partyof Athens, the public in Athens was still very much di-vided between a “peace party” and Demosthenes’ “warparty.” However the arrival of Alexander charmed theAthenian public.[72] The peace party was strengthenedand then a peace between Athens and Macedonia wasagreed.[73] This allowed Alexander to move on his andGreeks long-held dream of conquest in the east, with aunified and secure Greek state at his back.In 334 BC, Alexander with about 30,000 infantry soldiersand 5,000 cavalry crossed the Hellespont into Asia. Henever returned.[74] Alexander managed to briefly extendMacedonian power not only over the central Greek city-states, but also to the Persian empire, including Egypt andlands as far east as the fringes of India.[59] He managedto spread Greek culture throughout the known world.[75]Alexander the Great died in 323 BC in Babylon during

his Asian campaign of conquest.[76]

The Classical period conventionally ends at the death ofAlexander the Great in 323 BC and the fragmentationof his empire, divided among the Diadochi,[77] which, inthe minds of most scholars, marks the beginning of theHellenistic period.

5.3 Legacy of Classical Greece

The legacy of Greece was strongly felt by post-Renaissance European elite, who saw themselves as thespiritual heirs of Greece. Will Durant wrote in 1939 that“excepting machinery, there is hardly anything secular inour culture that does not come from Greece,” and con-versely “there is nothing in Greek civilization that doesn'tilluminate our own”.[78] Noted commentator Mariannade Marzi has also observed the extent to which ClassicalGreek thought has influenced the progression of Westerncivilization, writing: “The profundity of the knowledgegained through this period in history; in art, mathemat-ics, music and more, is incomparable to almost any otherchapter in human inquiry.”

6 See also• Classical antiquity

• Classics

• Art in ancient Greece

7 References[1] The “Classical Age” is “the modern designation of the pe-

riod from about 500 B.C. to the death of Alexander theGreat in 323 B.C.” (Thomas R. Martin, Ancient Greece,Yale University Press, 1996, p. 94).

[2] Brian Todd Carey, Joshua Allfree, John Cairns. Warfarein the Ancient World Pen and Sword, 19 jan. 2006 ISBN1848846304

[3] AA.VV., Art: Perception and Appreciation, University ofthe East, p. 169.

[4] isegoria: equality in freedom of speech

[5] Joseph Roisman,Ian Worthington. “A companion to An-cient Macedonia” John Wiley & Sons, 2011. ISBN144435163X pp 135-138

[6] Donald Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War(Cornell University Press: Ithaca, New York, 1969) p. 9.

[7] Donald Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War,p. 31.

[8] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times (CharlesScribner’s Sons: New York, 1966) pp. 244-248.

13

[9] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 249.

[10] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 254.

[11] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 256.

[12] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 255.

[13] Donald Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War,p. 44.

[14] Donald Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War,p. 10.

[15] Donald Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War,p. 128.

[16] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 261.

[17] Donald Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War,pp. 2-3.

[18] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives (Pen-guin Books: New York, 1980) p. 25.

[19] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, p. 26.

[20] Donald Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War,pp. 206-216.

[21] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 278.

[22] Carl Roebuck, The Outbreak of the PeloponnesianWar, p.278.

[23] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, pp. 278-279.

[24] Donald Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War,pp.252.

[25] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times (CharlesScribner’s Sons: New York, 1966) p. 287.

[26] Donald Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expe-dition Cornell University Press: New York, 1981) p. 148.

[27] Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War: Book 5 (PenguinBooks: New York, 1980) pp. 400-408.

[28] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times p. 288.

[29] Donald Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expe-dition, p. 171.

[30] Donald Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicialian Ex-pedition, p. 169.

[31] Donald Kagan,The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expe-dition, pp. 193-194.

[32] Carl Roebuck, The world of Ancient Times, pp. 288-289.

[33] Donald Kagan, The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expe-dition, pp. 207-209.

[34] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 289.

[35] Donald Kagan, The Fall of the Athenian Empire (CornellUniversity Press: New York, 1987) p. 385.

[36] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, p. 27.

[37] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 305.

[38] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, pp. 319-320

[39] These sources include Xenophon’s continuation of Thucy-dides’ work in his Hellenica, which provided a continuousnarrative of Greek history up to 362 BC but has defects,such as bias towards Sparta, with whose king AgesilasXenophon lived for a while. We also have Plutarch, a 2nd-century Boeotian, whose Life of Pelopidas gives a Thebanversion of events andDiodorus Siculus. This is also the erawhere the epigraphic evidence develops, a source of thehighest importance for this period, both for Athens andfor a number of continental Greek cities that also issueddecrees.

[40] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander, p. 28.

[41] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times (CharlesScribner’s Sons: New York, 1966) p. 305.

[42] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 306.

[43] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, pp. 33to 38.

[44] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, p. 39.

[45] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, p. 45.

[46] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 307.

[47] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, pp. 307-308.

[48] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 308.

[49] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 311.

[50] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, p. 81.

[51] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, p. 82.

[52] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, pp. 308-309.

[53] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, p. 83.

[54] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 309.

[55] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 310.

[56] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, p. 97.

[57] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, p. 99.

[58] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times (CharlesScribner’s Sons: New York, 1966) p. 317.

[59] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 317.

[60] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, p. 198.

[61] Harold Lamb, Alexander of Macedon (Pinnacle Books:New York, 1946) p. 9.

[62] Harold Lamb, Alexander of Macedon, p. 30.

[63] Harold Lamb, Alexander of Macedon, p. 76.

[64] Plutarch, The Age of Alexander: Nine Greek Lives, p. 231.

[65] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 319.

14 7 REFERENCES

[66] Harold Lamb, Alexander of Macedon, p. 65.

[67] Harold Lamb, Alexander of Macedon, p. 55.

[68] Harold Lamb, Alexander of Macedon, p. 83.

[69] Harold Lamb, Alexander of Macedon, p. 82.

[70] Harold Lamb, Alexander of Macedon, p. 86.

[71] Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander (Penguin books:New York, 1979) p. 41-42.

[72] Harold Lamb, Alexander of Macedon, p. 96.

[73] Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, p. 64.

[74] Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, p. 65.

[75] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 349.

[76] Arrian, The Campaigns of Alexander, p. 395.

[77] Carl Roebuck, The World of Ancient Times, p. 362.

[78] Will Durant, The Life of Greece (The Story of Civilization,Part II) (New York: Simon & Schuster) 1939: Introduc-tion, pp. vii and viii.

15

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