550-525BC in Greece

Pottery from the workshop of Exekias in Athens

This post will look at Greece and the wider Greek world from the years 550BC to 525BC. Firstly a word as to our sources. By and large, the closer we move to the present, the better the sources become. Archaeology will shed some light on the period, but not much. Archaeology can give information on settlement patterns and occasional destruction levels, but it cannot tell the stories of the people who lived at this time. For this we are reliant on later writings from the classical world. Unlike the Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources, at least some of which are near contemporary with the events they describe, we have almost no manuscripts from this era, so most of what we hear will be mediated through the words of later writers. This is not necessarily an issue but it should be remembered.

I will also be dealing with elements of Roman history as these arise. I will shortly give Rome its own posts, probably from the year 500BC onwards, but for now there is too little that can be said with certainty about it, so I will mention it along with the events of the Greek world. Roman history will probably also be mentioned in the context of European history in later blogs as well.

I must reiterate that I am not a professional historian, or any other type of historian for that matter. There are certainly mistakes and errors in the sources and I may make mistakes in my interpretations of these sources. Mistakes are particularly likely to occur when dealing with years, as the years in the ancient world do not necessarily correspond exactly to our own. Even professional historians have differing opinions on the exact ordering of events at this time, so exact precision is not likely here. Also, a lot of events have only approximate dating anyway, so some historians will place an event in 570 while another might say 560 and the truth is that no one knows for sure, although some opinions are more founded than others. Also, a lot of writers and poets of the time are active for various periods of time. Thus I might mention Anaximander as being active in the year 560 but he was doubtless also active and engaging in philosophy in the years around this time as well.

Drachm of Ephesus from this period

I will recap the year 550, as recounted in the previous blog. Around the year 550 a great deal appears to happen, but this is probably just scholars generalising and rounding their approximations to a convenient number. Many of the dates here should be taken very sceptically.

Around the year 550 the Spartan Eurypontid King Agasicles dies and is succeeded by Ariston as the Eurypontid King of Sparta. Sparta had two lines of kings, the Agiad and the Eurypontid lines.

In Cyrene, the Greek colony on the North African coast, in what is now Libya, there was civil strife between King Arcesilaus II and a close advisor (and possibly relative) named Learchus. Supposedly Learchus had been a trusted counsellor and had led to a more tyrannical state of government in Cyrene. But Learchus was ambitious and seemed to be aiming at the throne himself. He was exiled and Learchus and his followers fled to a nearby region called Barca, which they fortified and rallied the Libyans against the Greek colonists. When Arcesilaus II tried to chase them down the fugitives under Learchus routed the Cyrenaicans and Arcesilaus himself died by poison soon after, possibly by suicide. Learchus then tried to seize the throne of Cyrene, but he was murdered himself and the lame son of the dead king was placed on the throne and reigned as King Battus III. After this the people appealed to the oracle of Delphi and on their advice received an arbitrator from Mantinea called Demonax, who reorganised their city for them.

Obol of Miletus

This Battus had a son Arcesilaus; on his first coming to reign, he quarrelled with his brothers, until they left him and went away to another place in Libya, where they founded a city for themselves, which was then and is now called Barce; and while they were founding it, they persuaded the Libyans to revolt from the Cyrenaeans. Then Arcesilaus led an army into the country of the Libyans who had received his brothers and had also revolted; and they fled in fear of him to the eastern Libyans. Arcesilaus pursued them until he came in his pursuit to Leucon in Libya, where the Libyans resolved to attack him; they engaged, and so wholly overcame the Cyrenaeans that seven thousand Cyrenaean soldiers were killed there. After this disaster, Arcesilaus, being worn down and having taken a drug, was strangled by his brother Learchus; Learchus was deftly killed by Arcesilaus' wife, Eryxo.
Herodotus’ Histories, 4.160, written about 440BC

Pottery from the Naucratis Painter

Despite falling under Lydian control, or perhaps because of it, the city of Miletus sent some of its citizens to the northern coast of the Sea of Azov, in present-day Ukraine to found a new city called Olbia. This city would be outside of Lydian control and was yet another colony of Miletus in the Black Sea region.

Sparta was indisputably the strongest state in Greece and was so because it had managed to reduce another large-ish region (Messenia) to a state of serfdom and slavery. The Spartans seem to have considered doing the same to another of the neighbouring regions and to crush the Arcadians, starting with the city of Tegea. They consulted the Oracle at Delphi who gave them a response that they would receive the plain as a dancing ground to measure out, which sounded promising, as the Spartans wanted to measure out the land among themselves. They attacked Tegea, bringing with them chains to shackle their future slaves, but were badly defeated and made slaves themselves, bound with the very chains they had brought. The Spartans were then set to labour in the fields themselves as slaves, which was held to fulfil the prophecy of the Oracle and the chains were hung in a temple in Tegea as a trophy. This battle is known as the Battle of the Fetters, in memory of the chains of the over-confident Spartans.

Lion of Miletus, created around 550BC, in the Altes Museum
Berlin

They were not content to live in peace, but, confident that they were stronger than the Arcadians, asked the oracle at Delphi about gaining all the Arcadian land. She replied in hexameter: 
“You ask me for Arcadia? You ask too much; I grant it not. There are many men in Arcadia, eaters of acorns, who will hinder you. But I grudge you not. I will give you Tegea to beat with your feet in dancing, and its fair plain to measure with a rope.” 
When the Lacedaemonians heard the oracle reported, they left the other Arcadians alone and marched on Tegea carrying chains, relying on the deceptive oracle. They were confident they would enslave the Tegeans, but they were defeated in battle. Those taken alive were bound in the very chains they had brought with them, and they measured the Tegean plain with a rope by working the fields. The chains in which they were bound were still preserved in my day, hanging up at the temple of Athena Alea.
Herodotus Histories 1.66, written circa 440BC

Exekias Painter, showing battle scene, possibly
from the Iliad

Around this time the epigrammatist Demodocus flourished. He was a poet who wrote brief allusive poetry, which could be seen as containing deeper meaning in its obscurity. Very little survives of his work save a few quotations in the works of other authors.

Thus says Demodocus: The Milesians are not stupid. They just behave as if they were. 
Demodocus quoted in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, written circa 330BC

In the realm of music Epigonus of Ambracia flourished around this time. He was a musician who introduced a type of harp or psaltery to Greece. It was named in his honour as the epigonion. He lived at Sicyon and was made a citizen of that city in recognition of his musical talent.

In art the development of statuary continued apace, with the Orchomenos-Thera and Tenea-Volomandra groups of kouroi being dated to roughly around this time period, among other archaic statuary, such as the statue known as the Berlin Goddess or the Lion of Miletus.

Cup by the Phrynos Painter in Athens

The Lydos Painter was an Athenian vase painter of Lydian origin who painted black-figure pottery. He had a workshop that produced a large quantity of pottery that ultimately became aimed at the poorer section of the market. Another painter active at this time was the Naucratis Painter, who lived and worked in Laconia and who, similarly to the Lydos Painter, was a foreigner in the region. Other black-figure painters were the C Painter and the Phrynos Painter in Attica.

Another character who may have lived around this time was Sostratos of Aegina. Aegina is a rocky island in the Aegean to the south of Athens. At this time Aegina was a major trading hub in the Aegean and they seem to have been some of the earliest adopters of coinage in the Greek world, apart from the Ionian cities on the coast of Lydia, such as Miletus. Sostratos was mentioned as the son of Laodamas and was said to be the richest trader known to Herodotus, who wrote perhaps in 440BC. There have been a few archaeological finds, such as anchors, that seem to suggest that Sostratos was a real person, but it is still open to interpretation.

Remains of the Temple of Hera at Samos

Greek architecture continued to grow as the architects embarked upon ever more ambitious projects. However the temple of Hera on the island of Samos seems to have collapsed in an earthquake around this time. The Samians determined to rebuild it even greater than before.

This may have been because, with funding from Croesus of Lydia, the city of Ephesus decided to rebuild their temple to Artemis in a style grander than any before it. It was to be 115m long and 46m wide and may have been the first temple to be built of marble. This temple was not the one that would later become known as a wonder of the world, but it was still probably the largest temple that the Greeks had yet attempted to build. The architect’s name, Chersiphron, is preserved in writings but we know little else about the building of the temple. The temple itself housed a statue of Artemis, but she was depicted here in an unusual fashion, with many breasts (or bull’s testicles according to some scholars). This may have been following the model of a pre-Greek cult statue. Later copies of the statue survive and can be seen in museums to this day.

Around the year 550, or more strictly, in the mid-6th Century BC, Myson of Chenae lived. He does not appear to have really done anything particularly unusual, except for the fact that despite coming from wealth, he mainly spent his time living on a farm and leading a quiet and inoffensive life. He eventually became a byword for his wisdom and simple way of life and was included by some later writers in the Seven Sages of Greece, normally by those who excluded Periander, the tyrant of Corinth.

Remains of the Temple of Hera at Samos

Another sage-like character who lived around this time was Anacharsis, a Scythian who travelled in the Greek world and gained the friendship of the Athenians, particularly Solon. He is said to have been treated as an honorary Greek and to have been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries of the Athenians, which was a rare privilege for a non-Greek. Some have suspected that he was a philosopher or a travelling mystic but none of his writings survive and it is hard to know exactly what to make of this rather mysterious character. Like Myson of Chenae, he is sometimes accounted among the Seven Sages of Greece.

I have made a number of references, both in this blog and the preceding two blogs, to the Seven Sages. This was a concept that arose later, that the age just preceding the Classical period of the 5th century had seen seven great men, who combined wisdom, courage, statesmanship and skill. The lists changed depending on who reported it. The concept of Seven Sages is not even a Greek concept, as the Mesopotamians had a very similar concept when speaking about their ancient past.

Supposedly there was a tripod that had been discovered in the sea between two cities, both of whom claimed it. Someone had the idea that it should be given to the “wisest of men” and it was given to Thales. Thales however could not accept it and passed it on to another, who passed it on to another and so forth until the tripod returned to Thales, who dedicated it in Delphi. Supposedly the Seven are those to whom the tripod was given but there are many versions of this story and it is almost certainly a later invention. There was no fixed agreement about who all composed the Seven. Thales of Miletus, Bias of Priene, Pittacus of Mitylene and Solon of Athens were universally recognised as being in the seven. But the remaining three places were contested by Epimenides of Crete, Anacharsis of Scythia, Chilon of Sparta, Myson of Chenae, Periander of Corinth, Cleobulus of Lindus, etc. The list may in fact be as high as 17, so when someone refers to a person as one of the Seven Sages of Greece, just remember that there were more than seven that people gave that name to.

Duenos Inscription in the Altes Museum Berlin

While I’m sure the reader is probably tired of the mid-6th century BC it should be noted that the Forum Inscriptions, such as the one on the Lapis Niger, some of the earliest Latin inscriptions, date from around this time. Also, around this time but perhaps slightly later is the Duenos Inscription. These are not the earliest artefacts, as the Praeneste Fibula from the preceding century is definitely older and almost certainly not a forgery, but this is just to note that at this time Rome was beginning to become literate.

Finally, a story that I am not sure where to place so I will put it here. The cities of Carthage and Cyrene both existed along the North African coast. Two trading cities, one Phoenician, one Greek. Neither side had great interest in the desert interior and were both more interested in trading with the rest of the Mediterranean. Thus they decided to draw a border between them. It was decided that two runners would set out from each city and run as fast as they could along the coast until they met the runners from the other city. Supposedly the Carthaginian runners made incredible speed and met the runners from Cyrene well over halfway away from Carthage. The runners from Cyrene understandably were annoyed and accused the Carthaginians, two brothers known as the Philaeni Brother, of cheating. Cheating may in fact have taken place. The Greeks wanted to rerun the race while the Carthaginians wanted the result to stand.

Eventually the Greeks agreed to a compromise. They would accept the result, if the Philaeni Brothers were to be slain. If the Philaeni Brothers wanted to live they would rerun the race. The Philaeni chose to die so that their homeland could enjoy the advantage that they had won for it. Solemn sacrifices were made and until the time of late Antiquity the boundary between the two regions was fixed at the Altar of the Philaeni. Later the Roman Empire would be split into east and west at the point where the Philaeni Brothers died. I’m not sure when this story happened and I’m not at all sure if the story is true. It probably is not. But there are no records of Cyrene and Carthage going to war at least.

Remains of the Temple of Hera at Samos

There is not much that can be said for the year 549 in the Greek or Roman world to my knowledge. Doubtless events occurred, but I am not aware of them.

In the year 548 the Olympic Games were held. Diognetus of Croton won the stadion race, while Euagoras of Sparta owned the team of horses that won the tethrippon, or chariot race.

In this year the main sanctuary of Delphi burned down in a fiery conflagration that was said to be hot enough to melt some of the gold from the offerings. The temple was rebuilt by the Amphictyonic League in an even grander style than ever before.

In Africa, the Greek colony of Cyrene, ruled by King Battus III, made an alliance with Pharaoh Amasis of Egypt. Ladice (or Ladike) who was probably a princess of the royal family, was sent to Egypt to become one of Amasis’ wives. Herodotus tells a tale that Amasis had difficulty consummating the marriage and thought that Ladice had bewitched him, but that after Ladice prayed to Aphrodite, the issue was resolved. Ladice subsequently sent a statue as a votive figure to Cyrene in thanks.

Remains of the Temple of Hera at Samos

Amasis made friends and allies of the people of Cyrene. And he decided to marry from there…
Herodotus, Histories, 2.181, written around 440BC

Around the year 548 the ambassadors of King Croesus of Lydia came to Delphi seeking guidance. He wished to attack Persia, but was unsure whether the gods would look favourably on this. The Oracle answered that if he attacked Persia a great empire would fall. Croesus took this for a good omen and made war upon the Persians.

Now, this story is in fact suspicious. There is good reason to think that such an ambiguous oracle would not be acted upon. So, did the Oracle in fact promise victory to Croesus and did this failure of the prophecy have to be explained away by later Greek writers, who paint Croesus as missing such an obvious clue? I’m not sure as to its truth, but this may be the most famous story of the Oracle of Delphi and I find it quite implausible.

From the workshop of Exekias

When the Lydians came to the places where they were sent, they presented the offerings, and inquired of the oracles, in these words: “Croesus, king of Lydia and other nations, believing that here are the only true places of divination among men, endows you with such gifts as your wisdom deserves. And now he asks you whether he is to send an army against the Persians, and whether he is to add an army of allies.” Such was their inquiry; and the judgment given to Croesus by each of the two oracles was the same: namely, that if he should send an army against the Persians he would destroy a great empire.
Herodotus Histories 1:53, written around 440BC

In the year 547 Alcetas I, king of Macedon died. He was succeeded by his son Amyntas I of Macedon.

In the year 546 Peisistratos became tyrant of Athens for the third and final time. During his exile of nearly ten years he had gathered a great deal of wealth and made many allies. The problems and factional strife in Athens meant that when he landed at the beach at Marathon that many of the populace were secretly glad he had returned. Many joined him at Marathon, although a force was collected to fight against him. Peisistratos made a surprise attack on his opponents and defeated them, before riding ahead and telling the defeated stragglers to go to their homes and that no harm would come to them. Peisistratos now had taken full control of the city, but he kept his word and did not take reprisals against those who had opposed him.

The Athenians did, and by this means Pisistratus gained Athens for the third time, rooting his sovereignty in a strong guard and revenue collected both from Athens and from the district of the river Strymon…
Herodotus Histories 1:64, written around 440BC

Piraeus Apollo, probably created
around 525BC

He did however begin almost immediately to begin building a vast temple, one that would be the wonder of the Greek world and a larger temple than the temples of Artemis at Ephesus and Hera at Samos. This was the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens. The floorplan was 41 metres by 108 metres. Even to clear the ground for this edifice would have been a major task. But this huge public work also generated employment for the poorer people of the city.

In the Peloponnese, the Spartans and the Argives were at war over the plain of Thyrea. Both armies were assembled, but both sides had much to lose by committing their full forces to the battle, considering that both sides were relatively well-matched. They decided to let 300 champions from each side fight to the death and determine the outcome in this manner. Neither side had a clear advantage but the Argives fought until they could see no live Spartans on the field. Only two Argives lived to see this and, claiming victory, they returned to Argos to tell the news. However, a wounded Spartan had survived and claimed that, as he was in fact the last person alive on the battlefield, that Sparta was the true victor. The Spartan, Othyrades, conveniently committed suicide afterwards, so his story was somewhat difficult to verify. As both sides claimed victory they ended up fighting a pitched battle anyway. Argos was defeated and Sparta claimed the territory under dispute.

Having agreed, the armies drew off, and picked men of each side remained and fought. Neither could gain advantage in the battle; at last, only three out of the six hundred were left, Alcenor and Chromios of the Argives, Othryades of the Lacedaemonians: these three were left alive at nightfall. Then the two Argives, believing themselves victors, ran to Argos; but Othryades the Lacedaemonian, after stripping the Argive dead and taking the arms to his camp, waited at his position. On the second day both armies came to learn the issue. For a while both claimed the victory, the Argives arguing that more of their men had survived, the Lacedaemonians showing that the Argives had fled, while their man had stood his ground and stripped the enemy dead. At last from arguing they fell to fighting; many of both sides fell, but the Lacedaemonians gained the victory.
Herodotus Histories 1:82, written around 440BC

Decorations from Temple of Apollo at Didyma

In the Chersonese, the area north of the Dardanelles, roughly corresponding with present-day Gallipoli, Miltiades the Elder was tyrant. He was an aristocrat from Athens, who had either been sent by or fled from, Peisistratos. In the year 546 he built a wall that spanned the Chersonese, thus protecting the people behind it from the land attacks of their neighbours.

In Lydia, the powerful and wealthy King Croesus of Lydia was defeated, and probably killed, by the Persians under Cyrus the Great. Now Herodotus records that Croesus was captured by Cyrus’ army and was placed on a huge pyre to be burned alive. Herodotus records that Croesus was saved from the burning because Croesus wailed aloud about how Solon was right and that no man could be called happy until his life had been lived to its end. Cyrus then pardoned the defeated king and kept him as an advisor. But Herodotus is writing around the year 440BC, around a hundred years after the fall of Sardis. However Bacchylides, writing perhaps about 468BC, refers to Croesus as having tried to burn himself to death but the flames were extinguished by rain sent by Zeus. Croesus was then rescued and taken away to live in a mythical land to the far north by Apollo in recognition for his piety and devotion to the oracle at Delphi. The Greeks must have felt misgivings about the death of a king that was obviously pious. Perhaps they mitigated the downfall of the king by giving him a rescue from his fate? Herodotus in particular seems to have spent time at Delphi and received much of his knowledge from the priests of Delphi, who would have wished to exonerate their god and his Oracle. But it is hard to escape the conclusion that the Oracle of Delphi and the god Apollo had betrayed the king of Lydia.

Later Greek red-figure vase depicting the burning of Croesus

Croesus had no intention of waiting any longer for the tears of slavery. He had a pyre built before his bronze-walled courtyard, and he mounted the pyre with his dear wife and his daughters with beautiful hair; … His daughters cried out, and threw their arms out towards their mother; for death is most hateful to mortals when it is right before their eyes. But when the flashing force of terrible fire began to shoot through the wood, Zeus set a dark rain-cloud over it, and began to quench the golden flame. Nothing is unbelievable which is brought about by the gods' ambition. Then Apollo, born on Delos, brought the old man to live among the Hyperboreans, along with his slender-ankled daughters, because of his piety, since of all mortals he sent the greatest gifts to holy Pytho.
Bacchylides Ode 3, written shortly after 468BC

Also around this time, the philosophers Thales of Miletus and Anaximander of Miletus died. Thales is perhaps the first named philosopher, astronomer and scientific thinker of the western world. He was said to have questioned the origins of the world and to have postulated a beginning from natural causes, without invoking the gods. He believed that all the world had come from water. He had also made certain observations about right angles, although these were certainly known to the mathematicians of other civilisations before him.

Anaximander had possibly been a pupil of Thales. He had drawn up one of the earliest maps of the world and made some assumptions about how the Sun, Moon and stars moved in relation to the earth. Some of his ideas about generation and the early ages of the world sound a little like the theory of evolution to modern ears, but this is probably not what Anaximander was saying. Like Thales, Anaximander speculated about what material all the matter on earth had come from. Thales had believed it to be water but Anaximander believed that there was a kind of infinite substance from which all others had their being. The important thing about these philosophers is not what they believed, which was generally wrong, but in the fact that they were trying to examine the world and determine truth through reason.

Gateway of the unfinished Temple of Apollo on Naxos

In 545 Lygdamis of Naxos, an aristocrat from Naxos who had helped to bring Peisistratos to power in Athens, took over Naxos and became tyrant there. He had help from Peisistratos in this matter. Like Peisistratos he seems to have wanted to create giant temples as a means of generating employment for the poorer people, who would then give him support.

In Ionia, along the western coast of what is now Turkey, the Greek cities of the coast came under attack from the Persians. The Ionians had been nominally part of Croesus’ Lydian kingdom and now that the Lydians had been conquered, the Persians wished to take over these regions. Aside from the city of Miletus, which had made a treaty with Cyrus, the Ionian cities had taken part in the Lydian War and now were forced to submit to Persian rule as a consequence. The Persians first attacked Priene, Magnesia and then Phocaea. Phocaea was fortified with a large wall that had been paid for by their trade with Tartessos in Spain. However they dared not to face the Persian assault, but instead abandoned the city and set sail for the western Mediterranean where they had a variety of adventures that mainly involved piracy. The nearby city of Teos was also abandoned by the inhabitants, who fled to Abdera in Thrace.

The Chians, then, surrendered Pactyes, and afterwards Mazares led his army against those who had helped to besiege Tabalus, and he enslaved the people of Priene, and overran the plain of the Maeandrus, giving it to his army to pillage and Magnesia likewise. Immediately after this he died of an illness.
Herodotus Histories 1:161, written around 440BC

Kroisos Kore, possibly from around
530BC

Meanwhile Harpagus had taken over command from Mazares and vigorously attacked the coastal Greek city-states. The city-state of Cnidus was at the end of the long peninsula, which the inhabitants attempted to cut through while Harpagus was attacking other cities. The Delphic Oracle apparently told them that they should cease the attempt and that “If Zeus had wanted an island, he would have made an island”. Considering that the some other priests of Apollo had counselled that the Lydian rebel Pactyes should be handed over to the Persians and that this advice to the people of Cnidus would doom their city, it seems almost as if the oracles were cooperating with the Persian conquest. But this is later speculation and paranoia.

Many of them were at this work; and seeing that the workers were injured when breaking stones more often and less naturally than usual, some in other ways, but most in the eyes, the Cnidians sent envoys to Delphi to inquire what it was that opposed them. Then, as they themselves say, the priestess gave them this answer in iambic verse: ““Do not wall or trench the isthmus: Zeus would have given you an island, if he had wanted to.” At this answer from the priestess, the Cnidians stopped their digging, and when Harpagus came against them with his army they surrendered to him without resistance.
Herodotus Histories 1:174, written around 440BC

According to Herodotus, during the Persian conquest of Lydia the Spartans had sent a penteconter (fifty-oared) ship to Cyrus to tell him that he should not harm any Greek states, “because the Spartans would not tolerate it”. This embassy prompted Cyrus to ask in return “Who are the Spartans?” While the anecdote is an interesting one, I doubt that it is true.

But the Lacedaemonians, though they had rejected their envoys, did nevertheless send men in a ship of fifty oars to see (as I suppose) the situation with Cyrus and Ionia. These, after coming to Phocaea, sent Lacrines, who was the most esteemed among them, to Sardis, to repeat there to Cyrus a proclamation of the Lacedaemonians, that he was to harm no city on Greek territory, or else the Lacedaemonians would punish him. When the herald had proclaimed this, Cyrus is said to have asked the Greeks who were present who and how many in number these Lacedaemonians were who made this declaration.
Herodotus Histories 1:152-153, written around 440BC

Herakles fighting the Nemean Lion, created around
440BC

In 544 the Olympics were held, with Archilochus of Corcyra winning the stadion race, Euadoras of Sparta once again owning the winning team of horses in the tethrippon, or chariot race, while Praxidamas of Aegina took the crown in boxing.

For I have been before now to the land of Sicily, ere now to the vine-clad lowlands of Euboea, and to Sparta the glorious town of reedy Eurotas, and all made me welcome in right friendly wise; but not one of them came as a joy to my heart, so true is it after all that there's no place like home.
Theognis, Lines 783-788, written around 544BC

Around this time a lyric poet named Theognis of Megara flourished in Greece. He was an accomplished writer who created homely poetry about life at this time, giving a view into the world of the wealthy among whom he lived, and offering moralistic advice. He was very popular at this time and his works have survived rather better than those of Tyrtaeus, Sappho, Alcaeus or Archilochus. Theognis was from Megara, but it was not clear if it was the Megara on mainland Greece, between Athens and Corinth, or a Megara in Sicily. I have used the traditional dating for the time that he flourished. Modern scholarship is divided on when Theognis actually lived and wrote, as his writings contain some works that were probably written by others, thus confusing the chronology. Current poetic tastes generally find Theognis a little too moralistic, but he was very popular in Greek culture.

At each and every thing one man is better and another worse; no man alive is skilled in all things.
Theognis, Lines 901-902, written around 544BC

Cave of Pherecydes on Syros

There is not much that can be said for the years 543, 542 or 541 save for the fact that during this time Pherecydes of Syros was probably active. He was a mystical character who wrote a mythical origin of the world, explaining it as the interactions of Zeus, Chronos (Time) and Chthione (Earth). Pherecydes’ work should probably be seen in the context of Thales and Anaximander, who were querying how the cosmos could have come into being and how it came to be as it was today. While Thales and Anaximander gave answers that we would now see as quasi-scientific, we would generally class Pherecydes’ answer as a religious or allegorical answer. But its probable allegorical nature may well have contained quasi-scientific ideas as well. He wrote a book probably called “The Five Recesses” (or “Seven Recesses”) that contained this mystical system and it was known to later writers but only exists in fragments and incomplete summaries today. On the Greek island of Syros today you can visit a cave that is said to be the cave of Pherecydes, but this is probably just because caves are referenced in his book. It is not clear that the cave has any real connection with him.

For him Zeus they make the houses many and great. And when they had finished providing all this, and also furnishings and men-servants and maid-servants and all else required, when all is ready, they carry out the wedding. On the third day of the wedding, Zeus makes a robe, large and fair, and on it he embroiders Earth and Ocean and his dwelling . . . 'For wishing your marriage to take place, I honour you with this. Therefore receive my greeting and be my wife.' This they say was the first unveiling ceremony, and hence arose the custom among gods and men. And she answers him, receiving the robe from him…
Fragments of Pherecydes, written around 542BC

Pherecydes also was one of the first Greeks to talk seriously about the possibility of reincarnation, perhaps making him the first Western thinker to contemplate such concepts. He also is said to have created a type of sundial, but this is later attribution. He must have been an interesting man; a mystic at the time when human scientific and philosophical enquiry was beginning to blossom. It is a shame his works do not survive.

Kouros from the sanctuary
of Apollo at Didyma
created around 525BC

Zeus and Time existed always, and Chthoniê; but Chthoniê acquired the name Gê, since Zeus gives earth to her as a gift of honour.
Fragments of Pherecydes, written around 542BC

In the year 540 the Phoceans, who had fled from the Persian conquest of Ionia in 545, were brought to battle by the Carthaginians and Etruscans. They previously had put their population onto ships and sailed out to the western Mediterranean where they had established a base on Corsica. Having a large naval force and doubtless being desperate, they became pirates. The Carthaginians and Etruscans eventually had enough and around the year 540 a battle was fought between them, known as the Battle of the Sardinian Sea. The Phoceans were supposedly victories, but they had taken such losses that whether or not they were victorious, they had to flee. Taking their families from Corsica, they returned the way they had come, heading towards the toe of Italy, near Rhegium, before founding a city on the southwestern coast of Italy. In antiquity it was known as Elea, but in the present day it is known as Velia.

The Olympics were held in the year 540. Apelleus of Elis won the stadion race. Euagoras of Sparta was the owner of the winning team of horses in the tethrippon chariot race, for the third Olympiad in a row. Leokron of Keos won the boys’ boxing but most notably, Milo of Croton won the boys’ wrestling. Milo of Croton will be a name seen again.

In the arts, the Princeton Painter, an Attic black-figure vase painter, was active around this time. The Greek vases and statuary were nearing the end of the Archaic Period and were approaching the beauty that we recognise from the classical era.

Ananius the iambic poet is said to have been active in this era, however little can be said about him. Hipponax of Ephesus was also active around this time, but his work is slightly better preserved. Hipponax is said to have been ugly. His poetry, as it is preserved for us, is mostly abusive quips at people he disliked. He is said to have had a feud with Athenis and Bupalus, two great sculptors of the time. Supposedly, Bupalus hanged himself because of the vicious satires against him, but these legends are recounted of a number of Archaic poets. Bupalus and Athenis’ work may survive but there are no pieces of art that we are completely sure are theirs.

Laconian tumuli relief

Also flourishing around this time was the priestess Themistoclea of Delphi. Later tradition suggests that she was one of the main teachers of the later Pythagoras. If she ever wrote any treatises they have been lost to time, but even though almost nothing is known about her, she has the distinction of being one of the earliest known Greek women thinkers.

Also around the year 540 Anaximenes of Miletus flourished. Like Thales and Anaximander, he was from the Ionian city of Miletus, one of the greatest cities of the eastern Greeks. He may have been taught by Thales or Anixamander but he would certainly have known both of his predecessors. Thales had said that the world was composed originally and primarily from water. Anaximander had postulate an eternal, infinite substance from which earth, air, fire and water all came. Anaximenes was different in that he believed air to have been the primordial matter. Like all early scientists his ideas were generally completely incorrect. He believed that the sun, moon and earth were all flat for example. But it is not his ideas themselves that are important, but rather how he went about searching rationally for answers to the world around him.

But Anaximenes, who himself was also a native of Miletus, and son of Eurystratus, affirmed that the originating principle is infinite air, out of which are generated things existing, those which have existed, and those that will be, as well as gods and divine (entities), and that the rest arise from the offspring of this. … And that the expanded earth is wafted along upon the air, and in like manner both sun and moon and the rest of the stars; for all things being of the nature of fire, are wafted about through the expanse of space, upon the air. And that the stars are produced from earth by reason of the mist which arises from this earth; and when this is attenuated, that fire is produced, and that the stars consist of the fire which is being borne aloft.
Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1:6, written around AD220

Antenor Kore
probably created
530BC

In the year 539 I do not know of anything of note happening in the Greek world. I am sure an observer at the time would doubtless have found much of interest.

In the year 538 Polycrates became tyrant of Samos. He seized power during a festival of the goddess Hera, who was particularly revered on the island of Samos. His brothers Pantagnotus and Syloson had helped him to take power, but Pantagnotus was killed and Syloson was exiled once Polycrates was well established. Polycrates then made alliances with Amasis, the Pharaoh of Egypt, before going to war with several Ionian states, such as Mitylene and Miletus. He was a dynamic ruler, with vision and luck on his side and he was an early adopter of the use of naval power. He created a large navy and used it to make the small island of Samos disproportionately powerful.

Around the year 537 the philosopher Xenophanes flourished. I say that he flourished around this time, but he probably lived around one hundred years, from around 580 to 480. He was not from Miletus, as Thales and Anaximander had been, but instead probably hailed from Colophon, also in Ionia. I’m also not sure if he should truly be treated as a philosopher. He may have thought of himself more as a poet.

But had the oxen or the lions hands, 
Or could with hands depict a work like men, 
Were beasts to draw the semblance of the gods, 
The horses would them like to horses sketch, 
To oxen, oxen, and their bodies make 
Of such a shape as to themselves belongs.
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Book V:14, written around AD215

Xenophanes of Colophon was sceptical of the Homeric account of the gods, saying that the Homeric gods acted disgracefully and were unworthy of worship. He also noted that gods tended to resemble the people that worshipped them, and joked that if the animals could talk they would make gods that looked and acted like them. This has sometimes been interpreted as a form of atheism, but in fact Xenophanes seems to have believed in a different, single god; one that was supreme and incorporeal. In fact, Xenophanes may be the first Greek monotheist.

Panel relief from the Siphnian Treasury, probably
created around 525BC

Rightly, then, Xenophanes of Colophon, teaching that God is one and incorporeal, adds: “One God there is 'midst gods and men supreme; in form, in mind, unlike to mortal men.”
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, Book V:14, written around AD215

In the tradition of the philosophers of Miletus, he also speculated about the cosmos. He disagreed with Anaximander and believed that the earth was not a floating disk but instead went down endlessly, with the sun always overhead. He also is said to have speculated that the rainbow was a type of cloud. He also thought that land and sea would mix over the course of the ages and one would gradually turn into the other, noting the presence of marine fossils far inland as proof of this belief. Very little of his work has survived apart from a few scattered quotations in later writings. As with the other Greek thinkers of this and later times, Xenophanes is more interesting for the way in which he thought rather than for what he actually said.

And Xenophanes is of opinion that there had been a mixture of the earth with the sea, and that in process of time it was disengaged from the moisture, alleging that he could produce such proofs as the following: that in the midst of earth, and in mountains, shells are discovered; and also in Syracuse he affirms was found in the quarries the print of a fish and of seals, and in Paros an image of a laurel in the bottom of a stone, and in Melita parts of all sorts of marine animals. And he says that these were generated when all things originally were embedded in mud, and that an impression of them was dried in the mud, but that all men had perished when the earth, being precipitated into the sea, was converted into mud; then, again, that it originated generation, and that this overthrow occurred to all worlds.
Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, 1:12, written around AD220

Pottery by the Lysippides Painter

In the year 536 the Olympic Games were held. Agatharchos of Corcyra won the stadion race. Cimon Coalemos of Athens won the tethrippon, meaning that he was the owner of the team of horses that won the chariot race. Cimon was probably in exile from Athens at this point. Agatharchos of Opous won the pankration competition.

In 535 there is little that can be said about the Greek world. In Rome however, according to the traditional timeline, things were most eventful, with the king, Servius Tullius being assassinated by Lucius Tarquinius. Servius had been a wise ruler, who had led the city to success in war and who had also weakened the power of the aristocracy. He had instituted a census and introduced what were known as the Servian Reforms, whereby Servius gave certain voting rights to the plebeian farmers and poorer citizens of Rome. The exact details are rather complicated but it is sufficient to note that Servius is said to have been responsible for giving extra civic rights and duties to many Romans and for bringing the people closer to the business of government. Servius also is said to have constructed a temple to the goddess Diana, the virgin huntress goddess of the moon, on the Aventine Hill.

Servius had been summoned by a breathless messenger, and arrived on the scene while Tarquin was speaking. As soon as he reached the vestibule, he exclaimed in loud tones, ‘What is the meaning of this, Tarquin? How dared you, with such insolence, convene the senate or sit in that chair whilst I am alive?’ Tarquin replied fiercely that he was occupying his father's seat; that a king's son was a much more legitimate heir to the throne than a slave, and that he, Servius, in playing his reckless game, had insulted his masters long enough.
Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, written around 18BC

A later painting of Tullia riding her chariot over the corpse
of her father while Lucius Tarquinius Superbus spurs his
horse to ride past

The death of Tullius was done by a shocking crime. His younger daughter, Tullia, was married to one of the sons of the previously murdered king (Lucius Tarquinius Priscus). However she was in an adulterous relationship with another son of the murdered king, Lucius Tarquinius, who was also married to her sister. The previous king had been slain by the sons of Ancus Marcius and Tullius Servius was innocent of the death. Nevertheless, Tullia and Lucius Tarquinius plotted the downfall of their siblings and of the king. In a dramatic speech Lucius Tarquinius accused Tullius Servius of being a usurper and, while the people were shocked and outraged at this, with the aid of hired thugs and supporters, he cast the king onto the street where the helpless king was murdered. It was said that the heartless Tullia drove her chariot over the body of her murdered father in her haste

She had got as far as the top of the Cyprius Vicus, where the temple of Diana lately stood, and was turning to the right on the Urbius Clivus, to get to the Esquiline, the driver stopped horror-struck and pulled up, and pointed out to his mistress the corpse of the murdered Servius. Then, the tradition runs, a foul and unnatural crime was committed, the memory of which the place still bears, for they call it the Vicus Sceleratus. It is said that Tullia, goaded to madness by the avenging spirits of her sister and her husband, drove right over her father's body, and carried back some of her father's blood with which the car and she herself were defiled…
Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, written around 18BC

And thus it came to pass that Lucius Tarquinius Superbus became king. It is said that he was given the name Superbus, or Proud, because he refused to allow murdered king Servius Tullius to be buried. This is an extraordinary narrative, but it is hard to know what of it is true. Even if it is all entirely true, it is likely that the dates are incorrect and that this may have happened at some later time.

Late medieval representation of Thespis and his cart

Around the year 534 the Great Dionysia was instituted in Athens. This was a competition for plays, particularly tragedies that would be performed as part of a festival for the god Dionysius. Originally the festivities at a Dionysia Festival would just have included songs sung by a chorus, sometimes in two parts and often telling the tale of a myth. However, Thespis of Icaria had revolutionised the play by standing on the stage in between the choruses and singing and speaking a part himself, in a play that had been previously written, rather than just speaking spontaneously to the crowd. In a word, Thespis is likely to have been the first actor and the Great Dionysia is almost certainly the first theatre competition. Thespis is said to have toured the Greek world with a cart, carrying all his props, which could act as a stage; a one man entertainment show. For the Athenians, they watched their plays on the southern hillside of the Acropolis, which was vaguely semi-circular in shape and allowed the majority to sit and hear clearly the words of the speakers below. This was later fitted with benches and ruins (mostly from the Roman era) are still there today. This was the world’s first true theatre.

In the year 533 not much happened in the Greek world to my knowledge.

View of the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, viewed from the
Acropolis

In the year 532 the Olympic Games were held. Eryxidas of Chalcis won the stadion race. Peisistratos, the tyrant of Athens, won the tethrippon. Peisistratos had not in fact won the chariot race himself, but the wealthy Athenian noble, Cimon Coalemos, who was an exile from Athens, won the race and dedicated the victory to the tyrant Peisistratos. Impressed by this gesture Peisistratos allowed Cimon, who was related to Miltiades the Elder (the Athenian-born tyrant of the Chersonese), to return to Athens. An immensely strong wrestler, who went by the name of Milo of Croton, became the winner of the wrestling contest.

Nothing of note happened in the Greek world to my knowledge for the year 531.

From the workshop of the Andokides Painter

Around the year 530 Battus III of Cyrene died and his son Arcesilaus III succeeded. Arcesilaus III resented the reforms of the kingdom. These had been made by the lawmaker Demonax and had made Cyrene like a Dorian city-state, giving many rights to the people.

Also around this time, Peisistratos of Athens ordered the purification of Delos. Delos was a sacred island with a temple to Apollo in the midst of the Aegean. In Greek mythology it was the birthplace of Apollo and Artemis. The Ionian Greeks, including the Athenians, treated it as a place of pilgrimage. It was small, but significant, and Athens controlled it at this time. To make the island pure, the bones of all graves within sight of the temple were exhumed and reburied on another island.

From the Nikosthenes Painter

Also around this time, the Spartans finally conquered Tegea. Herodotus tells us that there was a prophecy from the Delphic Oracle that the bones of Orestes were buried in Tegea and Sparta would never conquer this part of Arcadia until they were returned. The Spartans had tried to attack Tegea before, with disastrous results as many of the soldiers were captured in what became known as the Battle of the Fetters. Eventually a chance remark led a Spartan noble to learn that a Tegean blacksmith had discovered a giant skeleton buried on his land. This was interpreted to be the bones of Orestes and the Spartan purchased the land at great price and secreted the bones back to Sparta. Armed with this psychological advantage the Spartans once again attacked Tegea and brought it under Spartan control. It is a nice story but I’m rather sceptical how much, if any truth is in it. However I do not doubt that Sparta controlled most of the Peloponnese by 530.

The Pythia responded that they should bring back the bones of Orestes, son of Agamemnon. When they were unable to discover Orestes' tomb, they sent once more to the god to ask where he was buried. The Pythia responded in hexameter to the messengers: 
 "There is a place Tegea in the smooth plain of Arcadia,
  Where two winds blow under strong compulsion.
  Blow lies upon blow, woe upon woe.
  There the life-giving earth covers the son of Agamemnon.
  Bring him back, and you shall be lord of Tegea."...
The smith perceived that he was amazed, so he stopped what he was doing and said, “My Laconian guest, if you had seen what I saw, then you would really be amazed, since you marvel so at ironworking. I wanted to dig a well in the courtyard here, and in my digging I hit upon a coffin twelve feet long. I could not believe that there had ever been men taller than now, so I opened it and saw that the corpse was just as long as the coffin. I measured it and then reburied it.” So the smith told what he had seen, and Lichas thought about what was said and reckoned that this was Orestes, according to the oracle. In the smith's two bellows he found the winds, hammer and anvil were blow upon blow, and the forging of iron was woe upon woe, since he figured that iron was discovered as an evil for the human race.
Herodotus Histories 1:67-68, written around 440BC

In the arts, the Nikosthenes the vase painter flourished around this time. He probably owned a painting workshop in Athens and his vases were mostly done by others. The work was mostly done by others. His workshop mainly specialised in black-figure vases that were often sold to the Etruscans in Italy. Exekias was another potter and painter who created fine black-figure pottery around this time. His output was less prodigious than that of Nikosthenes, but was of a higher quality.

Kylix from the Nikosthenes Vase Painter

Also at this time, Andokides the potter flourished in Athens, working alongside an unknown painter called the Andokides Painter. Their work was of a similar quality to Exekias. But they are mostly remembered for inventing a new type of pottery ornamentation, called red-figure painting. Greek vases were generally baked with a black glaze. This was then typically scratched off to leave figures and ornamentation in the remaining glaze. The new technique of Andokides was to scrape off the glaze to show the figures (who would not be highlighted on the red clay rather than in the black glaze. This was known as red-figure painting. It was generally held to be more difficult than black-figure painting, as there was less room for error. It would go on to become the dominant style in the Greek world.

Engineering was making great strides in the Greek world as well. Eupalinos of Megara was a hydraulic engineer who had gone to Samos. Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, was an energetic ruler who had tried to attract the greatest minds of the Greek world to Samos. To supply the Samians with a secure water supply Eupalinos supervised the digging of a tunnel, under a mountain and through solid rock, drilling from both ends. This was similar to the Hezekiah Tunnel in Jerusalem dug around 160 years previously, but done on a much larger scale. When the tunnel was complete it was probably the longest tunnel in the world, being over a kilometre long.

Tunnel of Eupalinos in Samos

I have written at such length of the Samians, because the three greatest works of all the Greeks were engineered by them. The first of these is the tunnel with a mouth at either end driven through the base of a hill nine hundred feet high; the whole tunnel is forty-two hundred feet long,1 eight feet high and eight feet wide; and throughout the whole of its length there runs a channel thirty feet deep and three feet wide, through which the water coming from an abundant spring is carried by pipes to the city of Samos. The designer of this work was Eupalinus son of Naustrophus, a Megarian.
Herodotus Histories 3:60, written around 440BC


Polycrates also constructed a huge mole in the harbour, providing a breakwater for his ships to anchor in. This was described by Herodotus as being 1200 feet in length and 120 feet in depth at its end. Finally, there were huge walls built around his city as a defence.

This is one of the three works; the second is a breakwater in the sea enclosing the harbor, sunk one hundred and twenty feet, and more than twelve hundred feet in length.
Herodotus Histories 3:60, written around 440BC

Gateway of the unfinished Temple of Apollo on Naxos

In other building works undertaken around this time, Lygdamis, the tyrant of Naxos, began to build a temple of Apollo on Naxos. Like the works of Peisistratos and Polycrates, this was construction on a giant scale, but the temple was never completed. Only the doorway remains and stands to this day, where it is still quite impressive.

In poetry, the poet Phocylides of Miletus flourished around 530. His poetry mainly consisted of moralistic maxims and sayings. He was held to be a gnomic poet because his writings were short and pithy and could carry a weight of meaning that would not necessarily be obvious on the surface. Very little of his work survives, although a much later work, probably written five centuries later by a Jewish writer in Alexandria, was once supposed to have been written by him. This writer of this later work is now referred to as Pseudo-Phocylides.

As part of his reforms of the city of Athens, Peisistratos also patronised the poets and it seems to have been at this time that the first definitive version of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey were created. The earlier texts probably were similar enough to what we have today, but the Peisistratid redaction is probably the origin of the text as we now know it.

The so-called Pythagoreans, who were the first to take up mathematics, not only advanced this subject, but saturated with it, they fancied that the principles of mathematics were the principles of all things.
Aristotle, Metaphysics 1–5, written around 350 BC

Roman bust of Pythagoras
in the Capitoline Museum

This is probably a good time to mention Pythagoras of Samos. He was a philosopher, thinker and religious teacher. Because he was so revered in later times, legends have grown up around him, and it is hard to know exactly what he taught. Unlike the Milesian philosophers, he was much given to mysticism, similarly to Pherecydes, who may have been his teacher. He was born in Samos, but had left it some years before to travel the world in search of wisdom. Classical writers record that he visited Egypt, some say that he visited Babylonia, others that he travelled to Phoenicia, to Scythia, to the Celts in the west and even to India in the east. It is extremely improbable that all of these are true. It is quite possible that he visited Egypt, but even this is a stretch. His ideas resemble certain ideas in India, but these were held by other Greeks and may simply have been an independent development.

While still young, so eager was he for knowledge, he left his own country and had himself initiated into all the mysteries and rites not only of Greece but also of foreign countries. Now he was in Egypt when Polycrates sent him a letter of introduction to Amasis; he learnt the Egyptian language, so we learn from Antiphon in his book “On Men of Outstanding Merit”, and he also journeyed among the Chaldaeans and Magi. Then while in Crete he went down into the cave of Ida with Epimenides; he also entered the Egyptian sanctuaries, and was told their secret lore concerning the gods. After that he returned to Samos to find his country under the tyranny of Polycrates; so he sailed away to Croton in Italy…
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, D. L. 8.1, written around AD250

Pythagoras in Raphael's later painting
The School of Athens, in the papal apartments

Pythagoras may not have written any works and his thought only survives in quotations. He believed in the transmigration, or reincarnation, of the soul, similarly to Pherecydes. Pythagoras apparently went further and claimed that he could remember his previous incarnations, including being a soldier in the Trojan War. He also was deeply concerned with ritual purity and ordered his followers to abstain from many things, including the eating of meat and even of certain types of beans. He was possibly the first Greek to become obsessed with the properties of number. He became aware that the notes in music corresponded to numbers and that one could use mathematics to understand certain musical types. This led to the idea that mathematics could be used to understand the cosmos. This was an intoxicating idea. Mathematics could be seen to be vital for understanding the measurement of land and the construction of buildings. The theorem of Pythagoras, that in a right-angled triangle the square of the hypotenuse is equal [to the sum of] the squares of the two other sides, was known to the Babylonians and probably the Egyptians, but had probably not been known to the Greeks before.

He (Pythagoras) it was who brought geometry to perfection, while it was Moeris who first discovered the beginnings of the elements of geometry. Anticlides in his second book “On Alexander” affirms this, and further that Pythagoras spent most of his time upon the arithmetical aspect of geometry; he also discovered the musical intervals on the monochord. Nor did he neglect even medicine. We are told by Apollodorus the calculator that he offered a sacrifice of oxen on finding that in a right-angled triangle the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the squares on the sides containing the right angle.
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, D. L. 8.1, written around AD250

A joke cup said to have been designed by
Pythagoras to teach moderation. If the
wine is filled past the line all the wine drains
away, onto the holder of the cup

Pythagoras, with his mysticism and his maths, was seen as the wisest man of his times. If he had lived earlier he would have been placed among the Seven Sages of Greece. His followers were like a cult, following their master wherever he went. They lived a communal lifestyle, with strict rules. In many ways we would consider them a cult today. The school of Pythagoras was based in southern Italy, in the city of Croton. This was a city that had a large population, but had problems with civil strife.

The orderly conduct of the Pythagoreans led to the city council inviting them to help rule the city. Pythagoras may have had good relations with the famed doctor Calliphon of Croton, who was probably the father of the later Democedes of Croton. Calliphon was a man of influence within the city, although not nobility. The Pythagoreans ruled, or helped to rule, the city for the next twenty years, which does not seem like much but which was actually quite a stable period considering the history of many Greek city-states.

And he (Pythagoras) further bade them to honour gods before demi-gods, heroes before men, and first among men their parents; and so to behave one to another as not to make friends into enemies, but to turn enemies into friends. To deem nothing their own. To support the law, to wage war on lawlessness. Never to kill or injure cultivated trees, nor even any animal that does not injure man. That it is seemly and advisable neither to give way to unbridled laughter nor to wear sullen looks. To avoid excess of flesh, on a journey to let exertion and slackening alternate, to train the memory, in wrath to restrain hand and tongue, to respect all divination, to sing to the lyre and by hymns to show due gratitude to gods and to good men. To abstain from beans because they are flatulent and partake most of the breath of life; and besides, it is better for the stomach if they are not taken, and this again will make our dreams in sleep smooth and untroubled.
…
So he sailed away to Croton in Italy, and there he laid down a constitution for the Italian Greeks, and he and his followers were held in great estimation; for, being nearly three hundred in number, so well did they govern the state that its constitution was in effect a true aristocracy (government by the best).
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, D. L. 8.1, written around AD250

A later painting showing Pythagoreans welcoming the dawn

For the year 529 I know of nothing definite that happened in Greece at that time.

In the year 528 the Olympic Games were held. Parmenides of Kamarina won the stadion race. Milo of Croton, the famous strongman of southern Italy won the men’s wrestling, which was his second title in this category and his third overall Olympic victory, including his victory in the boys’ wrestling competition. Cimon Coalemos of Athens owned the team of horses which won the tethrippon chariot race. He was murdered shortly after this, his third and final victory in the Olympics, by the jealous sons of the tyrant Peisistratos, Hippias and Hipparchus.

Around this time, although the dates are uncertain, Anaximenes of Miletus died. He was the last of the three great philosophers of Miletus, who have the honour of being the oldest known school of western philosophy, if viewed in a certain light.

Pottery in the manner of the Lysippides Painter

In the year 527 Peisistratos, the relatively benevolent tyrant of Athens, died. His son Hippias succeeded him as tyrant, closely supported by his brother Hipparchus.

For the year 526 I know of nothing definite that happened in Greece at that time.

In the year 525 Polycrates, the tyrant of Samos, created a fleet of forty triremes, probably in addition to his existing fleet. This was a very large fleet at the time. It was supposed to have been created to aid the Egyptian king Amasis (who had just died in the previous year) against the imminent Persian invasion. The ships may in fact have been financed by the Egyptians. Manning the ships with his political opponents, possibly hoping that they would die in battle, Polycrates ordered the ships to aid the Persian King Cambyses’ invasion of Egypt, while he remained in Samos.

Egypt fell to the Persians, with or without Samian help on either side. Even though the Samians had proved no help to either side, many Greeks did fight in the conquest of Egypt, on both sides. A tactician named Phanes of Halicarnassus, who had defected from the Egyptians to the Persians was said to have been influential in the Persian victory. Also, when Cambyses had captured Egypt he returned Ladice, an influential lady from Cyrene who had been married to Pharaoh Amasis, back to her homeland with great honour. This probably helped in Cyrene’s decision to submit to the Persians.

Scene from the Siphnian Treasury in Delphi

Those Samians who had been sent to man the ships by Polycrates suspected foul play and turned on Polycrates. A battle may have been fought between the two sides, but if so, Polycrates was victorious over the Samian exiles, and these fled to Sparta asking for aid to overthrow the tyrant Polycrates. The Spartans agreed to help and other Greek states, such as Corinth agreed to join the expedition also.

Some say that these Samians who were sent never came to Egypt, but that when they had sailed as far as Carpathus discussed the matter among themselves and decided to sail no further; others say that they did come to Egypt and there escaped from the guard that was set over them. But as they sailed back to Samos, Polycrates' ships met and engaged them; and the returning Samians were victorious and landed on the island, but were there beaten in a land battle, and so sailed to Lacedaemon.
Herodotus Histories 3:45, written around 440BC

In the visual arts, the Lysippides Painter was active around this time. He was a pupil of Exekias and also collaborated with the Andokides Painter. He mainly created black-figure vases.

Silver stater of Corinth, circa 525BC

In poetry, the lyric poet Ibycus flourished around this time. He came from Rhegium, in what is now southern Italy, but lived mainly in Samos during the time Polycrates. His poetry was highly praised at the time but has not been well preserved. We do have some of his verses with us still however.

Theagenes of Rhegium also flourished around this time. In an attempt to defend Homer from the sarcastic quips and moralistic condemnation of writers like Xenophanes, Theagenes is said to have interpreted Homer allegorically. This shows that even at this time the Greeks were beginning to think quite critically about their mythological tradition and how to interpret this in the light of reason. Nothing of what Theagenes wrote has survived however.

Myrtis of Anthedon also flourished around this time. She was a poet of Boeotia, and is said to have been the first of the great lyric poets there. Almost nothing of her works survive however, save a paraphrase of one in Plutarch.

Replica of one of the panels of the Siphnian Treasury
 in Delphi

In architecture, around this time, the Siphnian Treasury was built at Delphi. Siphnos was a rich island city-state that had experienced much prosperity. To celebrate their wealth they gifted a treasury building to the priests of the Oracle of Delphi to hold the many votive offerings given by the Greeks. The building itself was a beautiful structure complete with lavish friezes and decorations.

And thus the period draws to a close. It is clear that the Greek culture was becoming something very special. Art, architecture, engineering, poetry, philosophy and theatre were now all highly developed in the Greek world and the next twenty-five years would see this trend continue. But in spite of all the cultural development, the Ionian Greeks were now under the domination of the newly arisen Persian Empire.

From the workshop of Andokides

Primary Sources:
Bacchylides Ode 3, written shortly after 468BC
Theognis, written around 544BC
Fragments of Pherecydes, written around 542BC
Herodotus’ Histories, written about 440BC
Demodocus quoted in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, written circa 330BC
Titus Livius, Ab Urbe Condita, written around 18BC
Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, written around AD215
Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, written around AD220
Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, D. L. 8.1, written around AD250

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