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| Later copy of a Diomedes statue by Kresilas |
In the year 449BC the Athenians and the Spartans had an uneasy peace with each other, having brokered a temporary truce in the previous years under the auspices of Cimon. Now however, Cimon was dead, and it was unclear that the truce he had made would last.
The Athenians took this opportunity to send the wealthy nobleman Callias (also known as Callias II to differentiate him from others of the same name in Athens) to Persia to negotiate a peace between the Athenians and the Great King, Artaxerxes I. In the aftermath of Xerxes' failed invasion, the Athenians and their Greek allies had inflicted numerous defeats on the Persians and they had wrested Ionia and the western coast of Asia Minor from the Persian Empire. But they had been unable to seriously damage the Persians, whose inland empire was vast and the Athenians had suffered defeats in Cyprus and Egypt. The last engagement, in Cyprus, had seen the death of Cimon, the tactical defeat of the Persians and the strategic defeat of the Athenians. There was no longer any advantage for either state to continue fighting.
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| Head of woman, from Melos |
This would appear to be a triumph of diplomacy and is sometimes seen as the end of the Persian Wars. However, all may not be all as it seems. Most references to the Peace of Callias are from a century later, when orators compared it to a much less favourable peace that had been imposed. There was supposedly a monument to the treaty, but it had been written using the wrong script, suggesting that perhaps it was forged later? It is honestly hard to tell. Thucydides makes no mention of it and he is one of the better historians of this era. But, regardless of whether the Peace of Callias actually existed or not, or if the terms were exactly the ones mentioned, it does seem as if the Persians and Athenians stopped fighting each other for a while.
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| Stele from around 447BC stipulating tribute payments for the Delian League/Athenian Empire |
For all the genius of the Greeks, it seems bizarre that they never were able to cooperate unless in times of desperation. They spent so much blood and treasure on fighting each other that it seems strange that they never thought of combining into a more unified group. There is an inkling that something of this might have been tried this year. Athens, Sparta and Persia were all at peace and Pericles proposed a Congress that could use the treasury of the Delian League and other funds in Greece to rebuild all the temples that had been destroyed in the Persian invasions, as a symbol that the long war was truly over. This was not a call for political unity, but it was asking the Greeks to act in a unified way on something other than just the Panhellenic Games.
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| Bust of Pericles in the Altes Museum Berlin |
In the wake of the failure of the proposed Congress, Pericles raised more money from the Delian League to rebuild some of the temples in Greece, primarily in Athens. Sparta had a different reaction however. They wanted to reassert their own authority on Pan-Hellenic matters and marched against Phocis.
When the Athenians had defeated Thebes in the Battle of Oenophyta eight years earlier, they had also made Delphi reliant on nearby Phocis, rather than the defunct Amphictyonic League, led by Sparta. The Spartans marched northwards and made Delphi independent of the Phocians. It is hard to imagine that this act was viewed kindly in Athens. In fact, with this act the truce can be said to have been broken. This act marked the beginning of a short and unremarkable conflict known as the Second Sacred War.
This year in Athens saw Herakleides win the competition for tragedy at the Great Dionysia Festival. With the new funds allocated for temple building, work began on the Temple of Hephaestus, on the north-western corner of the Agora, as well as the Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis hill itself, just to the right of the entrance area. The temple of Nike was probably planned by the architect Callicrates.
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| Coinage of Perdiccas II of Macedonia |
In central Greece, the Athenians marched to Delphi and placed the sanctuary of Delphi back under the control of Phocis. This marked the end of the short and unremarkable conflict known as the Second Sacred War. While the dispute over Phocis and Delphi was fairly trivial in itself, it marked the resumption of the First Peloponnesian War, with Athens and Sparta once again at war.
Perhaps because of this resumption of hostilities, construction began on another Long Wall in Athens, known as the Middle Wall. The first two Long Walls had covered all the ground in the triangle between Athens, Phalerum and Piraeus. The Middle Wall created a narrow, but protected, road between Piraeus and Athens, in case the naval power of Athens failed and the Phalerum was taken or the eastern Long Wall was breached by siege.
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| Reverse of Athenian Tetradrachm |
Yet nothing surpassed the triumph of the family of Diagoras of Rhodes at this Olympic Games. Diagoras was a supposed descendent of the Messenian hero Aristomenes and if true, lived up well to the fame of his forebears. He had been victorious as a boxer in all four of the Panhellenic Games: The Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian and Nemean Games. These wins included two Olympic victories, celebrated with a victory ode by no lesser poet than the poet Pindar. He had also sired mighty sons.
In this year his son Damagetos of Rhodes won the pancration for the second time at the Olympics. Meanwhile another of his sons, Acusilaus of Rhodes, won the boxing competition as his father had done. The two Olympic victors celebrated by carrying their aging father on their shoulders around the race track, while the spectators cheered and saluted their good fortune, skill and glory.
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| Modern statue in Rhodes, showing Diagoras being carried on the shoulders of his sons |
Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.7.3, written circa AD150
It is said that a spectator called out to Diagoras that he might as well die at that moment, as this was the height of human happiness. It is also said, probably as a later addendum to the legend, that Diagoras died at that moment; the happiest man in the world. This is probably a later tale, but it is certain that Diagoras' family were legendary. A third son, Dorieus, would go on to win glory in the Olympics, and it is said that his daughter was so obsessed with sports that she trained her son (Diagoras' grandson) and made her way in disguise into the arena to watch his victory. It's hard to know how much of this is true, but it is worth remembering the tales, even if they are merely legends.
Diagoras' tomb was created in Rhodes and was later mistakenly reverenced by the locals as the tomb of a saint. The local football team and their stadium, as well as the airport of Rhodes are also named after him.
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| Tomb of a youth in Boeotia |
While Pericles was away with much of the Athenian fleet, an oligarchic revolt against Athenian rule broke out in Thebes. Thebes was the traditional leader of Boeotia and a traditional enemy of Athens. However Thebes had been defeated by Athens ten years previously and their ruling oligarchs expelled. The Athenians favoured the democratic faction in Thebes and strengthened it. However the alliance with the traditional rivals must have eroded the popularity of the democratic faction in Thebes. The exiles returned and ousted the democratic faction.
The Athenians led a small force of Athenians and allies, under the command of Tolmides, to bring Thebes back into line. Either they underestimated the threat, or they had overextended their reach in their expedition to the Hellespont. After an initial Athenian success, the Thebans counterattacked and heavily defeated the Athenians at the Battle of Coronea.
In the aftermath of this defeat, the remainder of the Athenian army was effectively trapped in hostile territory. In order the extricate themselves, the Athenians had to make a humiliating peace and Boeotia and Thebes left the Delian League. As Boeotia lay across the land routes to Locris and Phocis, it became clear that Athens would no longer be able to hold these areas and shortly thereafter these regions also left.
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| Decree authorising construction of the Parthenon |
In Athens itself, the Middle Long Walls were completed, giving a measure of security to the port of Piraeus and providing reassurance to the Athenians that even if the land was lost, the sea was still their undisputed empire.
The Athenians passed the Coinage Decree, proposed by an Athenian named Clearchus, which stipulated that the Athenian weights and measures, and most specifically, coinage, should be used throughout the Athenian Empire. This was quite sensible in certain ways, but cannot have endeared the allies to the Athenians.
In this year work began on the most famous of all Greek temples, the Parthenon. The architects in charge of its design were Callicrates and Ictinus.
Around this time, Achaeus of Eretria wrote his first play. He was a writer of tragedies and was said to have had great competence. However he only won one competition and none of his plays survive antiquity.
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| Modern painting of Antigone and her unburied brother Polyneices |
Sophocles, Antigone, written circa 447BC
Also around this time, although the year is slightly uncertain, Sophocles wrote the play Antigone. This is the eponymous story of one of the daughters of the doomed Oedipus, King of Thebes. Her brothers have quarrelled over the throne of Thebes and one attacked Thebes to kill his brother, while the other defended Thebes (to kill his brother). Both brothers fought with each other and died from their wounds. The new king, Creon, the brother of Oedipus' mother/wife, vows that the corpse of the son of Oedipus who attacked the city should be left to rot. Antigone, his sister, refuses to leave her brother unburied, regardless of what he has done, or the demands of the state. She honours her family and the gods above the duties of the political authorities.
The play follows the struggle between the two strong-willed tragic figures, both driven by what they believe is the right way to act. It has been seen as the great work of civil disobedience, of the conflict between religion and the state, between public and private morality and a host of different interpretations.
We have only a little time to please the living. But all eternity to love the dead.
Sophocles, Antigone, written circa 447BC
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| Coin of Sybaris before their expulsion in 446BC |
In Sicily Ducetius, the Sicel rebel leader, returned from Corinth and founded a new city at Caleacte on the northern coast of Sicily. It is probable that he did so with some level of permission from Syracuse, as the Syracusans did not venture to attack him, as they would doubtless otherwise have done.
The return of Ducetius was opposed by the Greek city of Acragas, and they sent a force towards the Himera River to attack the Syracusans, who were believed to have been behind Ducetius' return. The Syracusans won a victory there and Acragas was forced to make peace shortly thereafter.
On mainland Greece the Achaeans, in the northern Peloponnese, revolted against the Athenians. The Theban victory of the previous year had proved that far from being invincible, that the Athenian Empire was extremely vulnerable to attack by land. To add insult to injury, the island of Euboea revolted against the Athenians. Euboea was a large island and very close to Attica. If it was to revolt successfully, Athenian control of the Aegean would be threatened. Pericles took an army to bring Euboea back into the empire by force.
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| Athenian Tetradrachm |
The Athenians perhaps did not realise the seriousness of their danger and did not immediately recall their army from Euboea. Meanwhile the Spartans displayed their strength and marched in force from the Peloponnese under the leadership of King Pleistonax.
The Athenians had sent military forces to retake Megara. These were unable to retake the city though and had to retreat to avoid the oncoming Spartans. A later tombstone in Athens is dedicated to a man named Pythion of Megara, who is said to have saved the lives of three tribes of Athens. It may be that Pythion was a Megarian who was friendly to Athens and who guided the Athenian troops homewards once the Spartan army approached. As the Spartans were advancing in force, Pythion probably led them through a circuitous and unexpected route into Boeotia.
Pleistonax passed Megara, which had previously been a bastion keeping the Spartans in the Peloponnese, and advanced as far as Eleusis. There was nothing to stop the Spartans from advancing as far as the walls of Athens, but Pericles hurriedly abandoned the sieges in Euboea to return to Athens with the full Athenian army.
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| Bust of Pericles |
It seems likely that Pericles had bribed Pleistonax to retreat. But this was perhaps an oversimplification. The Athenians knew that they were in trouble certainly. But Pericles and Pleistonax both knew that the Spartans could not have taken the city of Athens. The walls of Athens were far too strong for the Spartans to besiege. So, a withdrawal actually was the best outcome for both sides, even though Pleistonax (or his advisor Cleandridas) probably did take the small bribe.
Freed from the immediate threat of Spartan invasion of Attica, Pericles took the Athenian army back to Euboea and conquered it, forcing it back into the Athenian Empire. The town of Histaiea was the only one that was not settled with a negotiated surrender; possibly because these townspeople had massacred the crew of an Athenian trireme. They were expelled from their lands and an Athenian colony planted there.
Also in this year, the Athenians disarmed the city of Miletus, perhaps suspecting it of disloyalty to the Delian League/Athenian Empire. As they were now disarmed, they would have to contribute money instead of ships to the fleet.
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| Female statue from Theseion |
In the year 445, after around fifteen years of intermittent warfare, Athens and Sparta made peace. Callias II, the wealthy nobleman who had perhaps negotiated the peace with the Persians (or perhaps had not) was sent to Sparta to deal with the Spartans and create a peace. More accurately, what had been agreed upon was a thirty year truce, but this was a much stronger agreement than the previous five year truce negotiated by Cimon.
Athens was to give up all the bases that she had occupied around the Peloponnese. Aegina was to remain tributary but was to have autonomy. Megara was to re-join the Peloponnesian League of Sparta and her allies. Both cities would recognise the alliances that were in place already and would not try and tempt cities to join them. So, Athens, for example, would not try and tempt Corinth or other cities to forsake the Spartans and join the Athenians while Sparta would likewise refrain with Athenian allied cities.
The Athenian attempt to become dominant in mainland Greece was ended, but the two cities of Athens and Sparta were unquestionably the two strongest states in Greece and roughly comparable in military might. However, their methods of military force differed. Athens was very strong at sea, while Sparta was very strong on the land. But for now, they were at peace.
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| White-ground lekythos painted by the Phiale Painter |
Meanwhile, in Italy, the expelled Sybarites took advantage of the newfound peace between Sparta and Athens to request their aid. They begged for colonists to be sent to Sybaris, to re-found Sybaris with representatives of the two strongest states in Greece. Surely the people of Croton would not dare to anger both Athens and Sparta simultaneously? The Athenians and Spartans were pleased with the proposal and sent out settlers to re found the city.
Preparations began for the new colonists, but probably not many were sent out originally. The colonists arrived in Sybaris and began to rebuild the city, but then moved slightly away from the city, to found a new city nearby. This new city was named Thurii (or Thurium) and was probably made in response to an oracle. The city was a combination of the numerous settlers and the few remnants of the original Sybarites.
In the arts, the Phiale Painter flourished around this time. He was an Attic red-figure vase painter. He was probably a student of the Achilles Painter.
In the year 444 the leadership of Pericles was challenged in Athens. Pericles held the elected position of strategos, meaning general, which allowed him certain privileges, but his real leadership of Athens lay in his ability to speak and persuade the Assembly. Pericles was an aristocrat, but had continued the reforms of the murdered Ephialtes, who had favoured a more radical democracy than had existed under Cimon or Themistocles.
He was opposed by Thucydides, son of Melesias, who led an aristocratic party against Pericles. He was probably related to the more famous Thucydides son of Olorus, who later wrote a history of the Peloponnesian War, but it is not clear exactly how the two were related. Both had Thracian connections and Thucydides, son of Melesias, was a relative of Cimon. After Cimon's death he had taken up the mantle as leader of the conservative opposition. His followers were less than those of Pericles, but he magnified their effect in the Assembly by having them sit and stand together, thus making their voices seem perhaps greater than they would have been otherwise.
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| Temple of Hephaestus in Athens |
There was however the more serious matter of the huge sums being spent on the building of new temples. Pericles had used the treasury of the Delian League to finance this. Not only was this money that had been taken from their allies and subjects, but it was such an outlay that the state would struggle to pay such expenses.
Thucydides took Pericles to task for this extravagance. He was a good speaker and the building works, so obviously visible from Pnyx Hill, were visible to everyone. The public feeling rose high against Pericles. However, Pericles was a bold and accomplished orator and when the rage of the people had reached its zenith, he took to the speaking platform.
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| Earthquake shaken column of the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens |
When the orators, who sided with Thucydides and his party, were at one time crying out, as their custom was, against Pericles, as one who squandered away the public money, and made havoc of the state revenues, he rose in the open assembly and put the question to the people, whether they thought that he had laid out much; and they saying, "Too much, a great deal." "Then," said he, "since it is so, let the cost not go to your account, but to mine; and let the inscription upon the buildings stand in my name." When they heard him say thus, whether it were out of a surprise to see the greatness of his spirit, or out of emulation of the glory of the works, they cried aloud, bidding him to spend on, and lay out what he thought fit from the public purse, and to spare no cost, till all were finished.
Plutarch, Life of Pericles, written circa AD100
Around this time, the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens was mostly completed. However, only the basic structure had been put in place. The friezes and ornamentation were not yet finished, as the primary building effort was now put into the work on the Parthenon and other temples on the Acropolis. The temple of Hephaestus was built of Pentelic marble and even in an unfinished state, would have looked quite wonderful from the nearby Agora.
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| Interior of the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens |
Iccus of Taranto was famed in antiquity as being one of the greatest gymnasts of his age. He followed Pythagorean precepts in preparing for his athletic contests. He would eat abstemiously and abstain from sex while in training. He is sometimes held to be the first proponent of special athletic diets. This is probably overstating the case, but it shows that the Greeks were beginning to treat sport in an almost scientific fashion, in a way that modern Olympians would find familiar. The methods of training, diet and overall preparation were different, but the attention to detail and care given would have had similarities.
Around the year 443 the new city of Thurii was beginning to flourish. This was very near to the vanquished city of Sybaris and its people were composed of the defeated Sybarites and new colonists from Athens, Sparta and many other parts of Greece. It looked as if the fortunes of the people of Sybaris were finally about to change for the better; after decades of defeats inflicted by their neighbouring city, Croton, Sybaris would rise once more.
However, it was not to be. The Sybarites had seen themselves as the core of the new city and are said to have given themselves certain privileges, such as restricting certain voting rights to themselves alone, giving the tracts of land closest to the city to themselves and allowing their wives to sacrifice first to the gods. The new colonists resented this and a few years after the new city of Thurii was founded, the colonists rose up in revolution.
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| Later bust of Pindar |
They did not go far, but instead founded a new city, known as Sybaris on the Traeis. The exact location of this city is unknown, but it was quite a small city, probably more akin to a town. It was located somewhere along the Trionto River in present day Calabria in Italy.
It is around this time that Pindar, perhaps the greatest of the Greek lyric poets, died. He was originally from Thebes, but had travelled in his lifetime throughout much of the Greek world, including Thessaly, Aegina and Syracuse, attending the Panhellenic Games and writing odes in the honour of the victors. In certain cases the athletes would commission these themselves, while in other cases the home city of the athlete would pay for an ode to be composed in the honour of their victor. Some of the victors were rulers of cities in their own right, such as the tyrant Hiero I of Syracuse, and thus could afford to have their glories remembered. It is through the works of Pindar that we can begin to see the importance of sport to the ancient Greeks, who commissioned poetry to explicitly compare their sporting heroes to the demigods and heroes of old.
For words live longer down the years than deeds.
Pindar, Nemean Ode 4, written circa 465BC
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| Ostraca cast against Pericles. Thucydides son of Melesias was ostracised instead, but some votes were clearly cast against Pericles |
In the year 442 the playwright Sophocles was elected as a treasurer of the Athenians. He had probably been given this position because he was beloved playwright. There was more scope than ever for playwrights, as the lesser known annual festival of the Lenaia was moved to the Theatre of Dionysus around this time and plays were performed at it. It seems that in this year comedy was added to the Lenaia.
In the year 441 a dispute seems to have arisen between the cities of Miletus and Samos about which would control the nearby region of Priene. All of the cities were in close proximity to each other and both Samos and Miletus were famed in the Greek world. However, Miletus had been disarmed by the Athenians five years previously. The Samians by contrast had not only kept their navy, but were one of the very few cities in the Athenian Empire to still maintain their own navy, which they did with pride. Thus when the two cities eventually came to blows, the Samians had much more success than the Milesians.
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| Later bust of Euripides |
It is possibly around this time that Sophocles wrote his tragedy, Ajax. This was a character study into a hero whose pride leads him to madness and then tragic suicide. The fate of the body of the hero is then debated by his family and by those that Ajax had planned to murder, eventually culminating in respect being allowed even to foes in death.
In the year 440BC in Cyrene in North Africa, the people had finally had enough of the tyrannical rule of their king Arcesilaus IV. He had exiled many of the nobles and had kept himself in power by hiring mercenaries. He and his son fled the city to go to what is now the Benghazi region in Libya. Here he was caught and killed and his corpse desecrated. His son was beheaded and his head cast into the sea. The land of Cyrene was subsequently made into a republic, while remaining under Persian rule.
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| Coin of Acragas from this period |
In the Aegean, the dispute between Miletus and Samos had come to blows and the Samians were victorious. The Milesians appealed to Athens. The Milesians had previously been disarmed by the Athenians, but they were still, like the Samians, part of the Athenian Empire. The Athenians were perhaps motivated by a number of factors, perhaps fearing Samian overreach, or perhaps fearing that if they did not defend those they disarmed that they would seem weak. Perhaps they disliked the oligarchic Samian government and preferred the democratic Milesian government.
Whatever the reason, the Athenians told the Samians to give up the disputed territories and to accept Athenian judgement on the matter. Some Athenians suspected that this favourable judgement was given because Pericles was in love with the hetaira (courtesan) Aspasia, who was originally from Miletus.
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| Later bust supposedly of Aspasia |
This had been an easy win for Athens, but this was only because the Samians had been caught off guard. Some of the exiled oligarchs went inland into Asia Minor, where they appealed to Pissuthnes, who was a Persian satrap in Sardis. Pissuthnes gave them 700 mercenaries and the exiles made the short crossing to Samos in the night, where they began a revolution. The Athenian garrison was captured and handed over to the Persians. The Samian hostages were then rescued from Lemnos and word sent out to other states in the Aegean to rise up against the Athenians.
The Samian War had now begun. The strategic city of Byzantium had also risen up against the Athenians, which threatened the grain supply of Athens from the Black Sea regions. Pericles immediately set out against Samos with a large fleet. The Samians, who had a significant fleet of their own, sent out their ships, but the Athenians defeated them near the island of Tragia. The Athenians then received reinforcements, landed on the island of Samos and then began to make siege works to try and take the city. While no Greek army at this period showed any great skill in siege-craft, the Athenians were probably the most skilled in this art.
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| Temple of Hephaestus in Athens seen from the Agora |
Once it was clear that the Persian fleet was not coming to defend Samos, Pericles returned to Samos with the 60 Athenian ships. The blockade around Samos was re-established and the city was placed under siege in earnest once more.
But in the meantime the Samians made a sudden sally, and fell on the camp, which they found unfortified. Destroying the look-out vessels, and engaging and defeating such as were being launched to meet them, they remained masters of their own seas for fourteen days, and carried in and carried out what they pleased. But on the arrival of Pericles, they were once more shut up.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I, written circa 400BC
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| Later bust of Sophocles |
Around this time the Temple of Poseidon at Sunium was completed by the Athenians. This temple reared dramatically above the cape. The designer may have been the same architect who designed the Temple of Hephaestus near the Agora in Athens. It is only partly preserved, with some of the outer columns standing yet. The cape had an entire captured Persian trireme dedicated to Poseidon, great god of the sea, as a memorial to Athenian naval might.
It was around this time that Phidias created his statue Athena Lemnia, which was hailed by later Greeks as the greatest of his works. Like nearly all works of Greek statuary from this period, it has not survived, but some glimpse of it can be seen from the Roman copies.
Around this time, the physician Euryphon of Cnidus flourished. He wrote some books on medicine, of which nothing now survives. There were two competing schools of Greek medicine, at Cnidus and Cos. It seems that Euryphon may have been aware of the difference between arteries and veins. Another doctor who flourished around this time was Pausanias of Sicily. Little is known about Pausanias of Sicily save that he was the eromenos of Empedocles.
Eromenos was a term denoting a "male beloved" in Greek. However, this had some differences between homosexuality as it is currently understood. This had some fairly crucial differences from our culture's experience of homosexuality. The eromenos was generally younger, in certain cases much younger, than the other man. We would probably be quite uncomfortable with the arrangement, as the Athenians and at least some other Greek states, seem to have viewed consent as the important thing rather than age. At least some of these relationships would be viewed as child abuse now. Probably all of these relationships would be viewed as problematic, as the older man would have comparatively more power and status within society and this asymmetry of power would lend itself to manipulation and abuse (much like a teacher seducing a student).
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| Theatre of Dionysus in Athes |
The point is not to morally castigate the ancient Greeks. They certainly engaged in many practices that we would consider immoral. The ubiquity of slavery as a means of production and torture as a means of interrogation are but two examples of how ancient morality differed from our own. It is fair to point out that they engaged in this behaviour, but condemning them doesn't revert the harm that was done. The only reason to morally criticise the past is to learn from it ourselves.
But I do think it is worth remembering that the cultural expressions of sexuality in the ancient world were quite different from the cultural expressions of sexuality in our own times. The subject is quite a complex one and many of the terms of discussion do not easily translate from one period to another. This is the barest introduction to the study of ancient sexuality, but it is worth studying.
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| Fragment of the writing of Empedocles found in Egypt |
Rather than prioritising any one of the four classical elements (for example Thales had believed that all things came from water), Empedocles believed that the four elements exist in the same proportions from eternity. Empedocles may have been the first to propose that each of these "elements" were fundamental. The apparent change in the world was caused by two powers in the world, known as Love and Strife. These were used with different meanings than in normal Greek and might perhaps be better known as Combination and Dissolution. The changes in the world were caused by the forces of Love and Strife in flux.
Empedocles, like all the Greek intellectuals, had interests that spanned the full horizon of thought. He believed that light emanates from our eyes to allow us to see (the opposite of what is in fact the case). Like the Pythagoreans, he was a vegetarian and believed in the transmigration of souls. He believed that the world had at one point been spontaneously populated by all possible forms of creatures, but that only certain ones were able to survive and which eventually gave us the creatures we see today. Like Parmenides and the Eleatics, he believed that the cosmos was a sphere but that within the sphere, the elements were operated on by the forces of Love and Strife. The sphere as a whole seems to have been considered by Empedocles as in some way divine.
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| Decorative element from Parthenon |
Empedocles, On Nature, written circa 440BC
Parmenides and the Eleatics, Melissus and Zeno, who had believed that motion was impossible had to a certain extent laid down a challenge to the thinkers of the Greek world. To prove that motion was impossible, Melissus of Samos, who around this time was battling the Athenians in the Samian War, had argued against the existence of the vacuum. It is around this time that a thinker named Leucippus, possibly from Abdera but more likely Miletus, became convinced in the positive existence of the vacuum.
In an irony of history, if Leucippus was from Miletus and an influential member of society, he may have been a leader of Miletus at the outbreak of the Samian War. Melissus of Samos was almost certainly a leader of the Samians and thus the initial squabbles between Miletus and Samos may have been driven by beliefs about the existence of the vacuum, as well as territorial struggles over Priene. This is just humorous speculation of course.
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| A modern painting of Leucippus |
We of course use the word atom today to describe a certain class of particles. These particles are different from what Leucippus would have envisioned, as (famously) these particles can indeed be divided. We must be careful not to confuse our modern physics with the philosophical ideas of Leucippus and his followers. But the conception of tiny indivisible particles being the fundamental building blocks of all matter, bouncing off each other in the vacuum of the void has proved a very fruitful philosophical conception of matter and continues to inform our perceptions on reality.
It is probable that Leucippus (or if not Leucippus, then his pupil Democritus) invented atomic theory in the west, however there were similar ideas among some of the thinkers in India. It is quite difficult to date these theories however, so it is difficult to gauge who has the priority in invention. Neither Greek nor Indian proponents of atomism had any way of testing their ideas experimentally, so these ideas remained pure philosophical ideas until quite recently.
Leucippus is said to have founded a school at Abdera, on the coast of Thrace, around this time. It is also said that the city of Metapontum, in southern Italy, was founded by Leucippus, but this was probably (almost certainly) a different Leucippus altogether. This is all that we can say about the (possible) father of Atomism.
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| Dying Niobid Statue |
Protagoras would travel from city to city offering to teach wisdom to any who would learn. He charged a fee for this of course, but other philosophers had done similarly. What set Protagoras apart from mystics like Pherecydes, proto-physicists like Leucippus, or mystic mathematicians such as Pythagoras, was that he did not seem to have set doctrines, but would rather teach his student how to think and how to debate skilfully. In a world where many states were democracies or oligarchies, the ability to speak well in the assembly or council was greatly prized and people flocked to learn from Protagoras. In a time before the rules of logic had been formulated, a lot of debating skills were little better than verbal tricks and many people began to intensely dislike the sophists.
Protagoras spent a lot of time teaching in Athens, where he seems to have had a friendship with Pericles. The sophist and the statesman are said to have had a debate on a case where an athlete had accidentally killed a spectator with a javelin, as to where the responsibility lay. Did the fault lie with the thrower of the javelin, those responsible for the games, or even with the javelin itself? What conclusion they came to is unknown. However, any skilful debater must be able to argue both sides of a question. When this skill was taught, many believed that the sophists were enabling injustice to prevail over justice, as long as the unjust cause hired a speaker trained by sophists.
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| Funerary stele in Athens |
Protagoras is also said to have been unsure of the existence of the gods, certainly as they were described in Greek myths. Again, it is unclear if Protagoras actually believed this, or if later writers believed that he had believed it.
It is said that Protagoras taught Euathlus to speak on the basis he would repay him from the winnings of this first lawsuit. Euathlus refused to take on any cases. Protagoras did what every good teacher should do and took him to court. He reasoned that he couldn't lose his fee because "… if I win the case, I should get the fee because I have won it; If you win the case, I should get the fee because you have won it!" This is the same tale that is told of the Syracusan orators Corax and Tisias, so we shouldn't take this story too seriously. This is most of what we can say about Protagoras of Abdera with any certainty.
Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not.
Sayings attributed to Protagoras, circa 440BC
Another philosopher or thinker who lived around this time may have been Diotima of Mantineia. She is only mentioned in one later work of Plato's. This work of Plato's did however have other historical personages in it, leading some to believe that Diotima was perhaps also a real person. According to Plato, she was a seer-like figure who had once had some conversations with Socrates about love. Also according to Plato, around this time Diotima had been consulted by the Athenians about the correct sacrifices to make, which were said to be able to ward off plague for some years. It is not clear if she existed, but it is possible and so mention is made of her here.
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| The Lune of Hippocrates (the shaded area is equal to the triangle ABC |
Hippocrates of Chios clearly had a taste for doomed endeavours and also spent some time working on the problem of Doubling the Cube, which again is now known to be impossible (using only the geometers tools of compass and straightedge: it can of course be done to a given value of precision using inductive methods). Finally he spent time puzzling over the nature of celestial phenomena such as the Milky Way, which he understood to be an optical illusion. Like Empedocles he seems to have considered vison to be a type of ray extending from the eye, rather than the eye receiving light, which seems to have led him astray.
Around this time Theodorus of Byzantium flourished. He was a teacher of public speaking and was sometimes accounted as a sophist and sometimes spoken of as one of the pioneers of rhetoric. Of course the distinction is a little bit of an academic one, as certain other sophists were certainly teachers of rhetoric. Nothing survives of his work save generally approving references in later classical writings.
Around this time the comic poet Pigres of Halicarnassus flourished. He was the son, or possibly the brother, of Artemisia of Halicarnassus, who had fought against the Greeks at the Battle of Salamis during the invasion of Xerxes. He was famed for his skill at adapting the works of Homer. It is said that to display his skill he added a pentameter line underneath every line of the Iliad (which is written in hexameters), maintaining the sense of the poem while nearly doubling its length.
He was also famed in antiquity for writing a poem called Margites, about an eponymous character who was famously stupid. Margites became a byword for stupidity among the Greeks, however this work was also attributed (incorrectly) to Homer. It is not clear if Pigres actually wrote it, but it is clear that Homer didn't. Another work that was sometimes attributed to Pigres and sometimes attributed to Homer was Batrachomyomachia, which was a type of Homeric satire. Very little of any of his works have survived and only in quotation by later authors.
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| Phiale Painter |
Hippodamus also wrote books on the composition of the ideal state, which he envisioned as comprising about 10,000 citizens, who would compete for rewards as to who could benefit the city the most. He wrote a number of books on mathematics, city planning and political theory.
It is said that Hippodamus was sent by the Athenians to Thurii to assist in planning the city there. However I am unsure of this. Most of the other individuals that we have mentioned are associated with the foundation of Thurii; Herodotus, Empedocles, Protagoras, etc. Some of these may have gone to Thurii, others may not.
The Olympic Games were held this year. Gnathon of Dipaia won the boy's boxing. Krison of Himera won the stadion race. Theompompos of Heraia won the wrestling competition while Polycles of Sparta owned the horses that won the tethrippon chariot race.
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| Modern statue of Herodotus at the Parliament building in Vienna |
This was the first work of history to come down to us in a nearly intact form. It is the basis of the vast majority of history in the 6th and early 5th centuries BC. Without the Histories of Herodotus our knowledge of the world would be greatly diminished. He created a trend of historical writing that was lasted in a nearly unbroken chain to this day. While there is a separate birth of history in China, with the Grand Historian Sima Qian, Herodotus is unquestionably earlier. While in many cases Herodotus may have misunderstood his sources, it seems likely that he was a truthful narrator insofar as he could be. He was however influenced by his sources, and the time that he spent in Athens gives his work a decidedly pro-Athenian bias. However, it is almost impossible to not be influenced by sources.
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| Temple of Poseidon at Sounion |
This is the display of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, so that things done by man not be forgotten in time, and that great and marvellous deeds, some displayed by the Greeks, some by the non-Greeks, not lose their glory, including among others what was the cause of their waging war on each other.
Opening Prologue of Herodotus's Histories, written circa 440BC
And thus the period draws to a close, with the weakening of Athens, the end of the Athenian Land Empire, the end of the First Peloponnesian War and the beginning of the First Peloponnesian War. There were revolutions in Cyrene and new kings in Macedonia and Odrysian Thrace. There was athletic triumph with the achievements of Diagoras of Rhodes and his sons. Pericles had been challenged for the leadership of Athens and had retained his influence. A new spate of temple building had begun in Athens. The tragic playwrights were reaching new heights of achievement with the works of Sophocles and Euripides. Doctors, city planners, mathematicians, poets and dieticians all left their mark on history. The period saw the rise of the sophists and orators, as well as the birth of relativism, the postulation of the four classical elements and the birth of atomic theory as well, with the works of Protagoras, Empedocles and Leucippus (and possibly Leucippus' pupil Democritus). While this is one of the lesser studied period in Greek history, it is not uneventful.
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| Temple of Poseidon at Sounion |
Pindar, Odes, written circa 475BC
Sophocles, Antigone, written circa 447BC
Herodotus, Histories, written circa 440BC
Sayings attributed to Protagoras, circa 440BC
Empedocles, On Nature, written circa 440BC
Fragments attributed to Pigres, written circa 440BC
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC
The Parian Chronicle, written circa 216BC
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, written circa 40BC
Plutarch, Life of Pericles, written circa AD100
Pausanias, Description of Greece, written circa AD150
Secondary Sources:
Historical eruptions on Mount Etna
Related Blogs
Protagoras of Abdera
Greece 459-450BC
459-440BC in the Near East
459-440BC in Rome
439-430BC in Greece
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