439-430BC in Greece

The Acropolis in Athens, showing the Parthenon and the
Propylaea

This post will look at Greece and the wider Greek world from the years 439BC to 430BC. Firstly, a word about our sources. Archaeology can shed some light on this period, but we are primarily reliant on written sources, such as the writings of Thucydides, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, and Pausanias. A more complete list of sources is given at the end of the blog.

In the year 439BC the Samian War came to an end after the Athenians had besieged the city on the island of Samos for 9 months. Without aid from the Spartans or the Persians the Samians eventually were forced to sue for peace and agree to Athenian terms. These terms were that the Samians would hand over their remaining ships to the Athenians, pay a large indemnity, tear down their walls so that they could not again revolt against the Athenians and convert their government to a democracy, which would be favourable to Athens. It is not known what happened to the surviving oligarchs of Samos, such as the philosopher Melissus of Samos. It is not recorded that they were executed, but it is reasonable to assume that they were exiled. The Athenians quickly put down the revolt at Byzantium and the other smaller revolts were mopped up shortly afterwards, thus securing the Athenian Empire once more.

In the year 438, after much labour and much outlay of public funds, the temple of the Parthenon on the Acropolis was finished. This was the most iconic of all the Greek temples. It was a Doric temple with some Ionian features. It held within it a statue of Athena, known as Athena Parthenos, designed by the great sculptor Phidias. The temple itself was made of Pentelic marble, designed skilfully by the architects Ictinus and Callicrates. Both of these men used skilful mathematical measurements to correct the lines in the Parthenon, meaning that lines appear straight when in fact they are not. This lends a sense of movement, which would otherwise be lacking in the building. The building is visible from nearly everywhere in Athens and probably held the treasury of the Delian League and the Athenians.

Full-size replica of the statue of Athena
Parthenos in Nashville

The statue of Athena Parthenos by Phidias was a wonder to behold. It is not clear if it was meant to be worshipped per se, as there are no clear indications of an altar or a priesthood associated with the temple. Instead, it seems to have acted almost as a giant gold reserve, as much of the statue's gold was done in great plates, which could be removed and melted for coinage if necessary. The statue was over 11 metres tall and included over 1100 kilograms of gold. The skin of the statue was mainly done in ivory, meaning that the statue is referred to as chryselephantine (meaning gold and ivory). It must have been a true wonder to behold, perhaps not as an object of worship, but as the personification of the absolute majesty of Athens at the height of its power.

The statue itself is made of ivory and gold. On the middle of her helmet is placed a likeness of the Sphinx … and on either side of the helmet are griffins in relief. … The statue of Athena is upright, with a tunic reaching to the feet, and on her breast the head of Medusa is worked in ivory. She holds a statue of Victory about four cubits high, and in the other hand a spear; at her feet lies a shield and near the spear is a serpent. … On the pedestal is the birth of Pandora in relief.
Pausanias, Description of Greece, 1.24, written circa AD150

The Parthenon was covered in statuary and the work on this statuary continued for a number of years. These are normally attributed to Phidias, but it is clear from the sheer volume of the statues and the other works that Phidias was otherwise engaged upon, that these must have been created by a team of sculptors and their assistants. Phidias was more of a master craftsman and overseer than an individual sculptor. This school probably included Agoracritus and Alcamenes, who would become famous sculptors in their own right. Phidias himself probably left Athens to go to Olympia around this time.

The Parthenon painted in 1871

The Parthenon would survive relatively intact throughout the classical era, surviving the Macedonians, Romans and later barbarians. It became a church and afterwards a mosque, before being severely damaged in AD1687 when a Venetian bombardment exploded a Turkish arsenal stored within the Parthenon. The resulting explosion devastated it and the centre of the building was largely destroyed and the roof blown off. Some statuary was removed in the early 1800's by a British nobleman and thus much is displayed in the British Museum and other museums around the world. Since the reestablishment of the Greek state a number of restoration attempts have been made. Currently a strengthening and restoration process is ongoing in Athens, with the quarries of Pentelic marble being entirely dedicated to this project.

The Parthenon is emblematic of the Acropolis, which is emblematic of Athens, of Greece, of democracy, of philosophy and the entire classical world. Even in its current state of ruin it is still one of the most recognisable places on earth. It has influenced the architectural tradition of the West and many later Classical and Neo-Classical works have some nod to the architectural norms of the Parthenon. It is so iconic that a full-scale replica of the Parthenon was created in the city of Nashville in the US as a homage to what once was.

An account of the construction of the
Parthenon

The statue of Athena Parthenos would later have its gold stripped to pay for the wars that Athens fought, but the gold was later replaced with gilded bronze as a replacement. It survived a fire around 165BC. It was later moved to Constantinople where it appears to have been destroyed during the ill-fated Fourth Crusade.

In this year Sophocles won the prize for tragedy. Euripides received the 2nd prize with a group of plays that probably included the lost play Telephus and the surviving play Alcestis, where the eponymous heroine sacrifices herself for her husband, before Heracles defeats Thanatos (Death) and returns Alcestis to life once more. The play is on a very serious matter, but the figure of death is treated in an almost light-hearted manner.

In the year 437 Pericles, taking advantage of the peace with Sparta, led an expedition to Pontus, to the southern shores of the Black Sea, to strengthen the Athenian position there. The Athenians were importing grain from these regions to feed their ever-expanding populace. There are not many details given of the expedition however.

In this year Pherecrates won the Comedy Prize at the Dionysia Festival that year. He was said to have been a very inventive and creative comic poet and to have invented a new type of meter, named the "Pherecratean" after himself. Despite this high reputation, nothing of his work has survived to us.

Propylaea in Athens

Around this time the architect Mnesikles began to build a monumental gateway to the Acropolis. While it might appear to us to have the form of a temple it was in fact closer to a fortress and store-house that framed the grand entrance to the Acropolis area. It was built of Pentelic marble, with Eleusinian marble used highlight certain areas. Much of the central area of the Propylaea has survived intact throughout most of history, but much of it was never finished and the central area was damaged by an explosion in AD1687.

In the year 436 Pericles, presumably returning from an extended expedition in the Black Sea region, founded a colony at Amphipolis. This was quite close to both the kingdom of Macedonia and the existing Corinthian colony of Potidaea. The colony was intended to protect Athenian interests in the region and was founded by Hagnon, who defeated the native Edonians who had previously lived on that location. The city itself was founded on an island in the river Strymon near to the coast. Hagnon was honoured as the founder of the city by the Amphipolitans.

The Olympic Games were held in this year. Philippos of Arcadia won the boy's boxing. Pantarkes of Elis won the boy's wrestling. Theopompos of Thessaly won the stadion race. Theopompos of Heraia won the wrestling competition. Megacles of Athens owned the horses that won the tethrippon chariot race.

Modern full-size replica of the Parthenon in Nashville

In the year 435 the small colony of Epidamnus, on the eastern coast of the Adriatic, in what is present-day Albania, had a civil war. There had been a war with the neighbouring Illyrian tribes and the city had suffered in the war. The democrats expelled the ruling oligarchs, who subsequently went over to the nearby Illyrians and began to attack Epidamnus ever more fiercely. Epidamnus was a colony of Corcyra, so the common people of Epidamnus requested the Corcyraeans to aid them against their foes. Corcyra, which was a powerful city state on the present day island of Corfu, refused to aid Epidamnus.

The ambassadors seated themselves in the temple of Hera as suppliants, and made the above requests to the Corcyraeans. But the Corcyraeans refused to accept their supplication, and they were dismissed without having effected anything.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book 1, written circa 400BC

The people of Epidamnus then appealed to Corinth. Corcyra was a colony of Corinth and thus the Epidamnians viewed themselves as Corinthian colonists by proxy. Corinth prepared to aid the people of Epidamnus and gathered a large number of colonists, both Corinthian and non-Corinthian and sent them by an overland route to Epidamnus. Corcyra and Corinth had quite bad relations and this was seen as interference by the Corcyraeans. They sent an army to expel the new settlers and to force Epidamnus to receive back their nobles. The Epidamnians refused and the Corcyraeans proceeded to besiege the city.

Reproduction of the statue of Athena
Parthenos

The Corinthians had gathered a sizeable army and navy and would not negotiate unless the siege of Epidamnus was called off. The Coryraeans refused this and so the Corinthians turned down the subsequent Corcyraean negotiation offers. The Corcyraeans met the Corinthian fleet at sea, 80 ships against 75, and defeated them. Corcyra then took Epidamnus and executed the non-Corinthian settlers, while holding the Corinthian settlers and soldiers as prisoners and hostages.

This was all fairly standard bickering between Greek city states. Similar wars were often fought between cities, although it was unusual for there to be such bad relations between a colony and the mother city. However, it is at the time of the civil strife in Epidamnus that Thucydides begins describing Greek history in great detail, in the first book of the History of the Peloponnesian War. Momentous events were to follow from this squabble between Corinth and Corcyra.

Around this time, the opponents of Pericles, seeing that they could not damage him directly, decided to attack the people who were close to him. Aspasia was the companion of Pericles and bore him a son. She was a hetaera, meaning a courtesan or prostitute, and was certainly not a traditional Athenian woman. She was probably not a prostitute in the traditional sense, but perhaps more akin to an escort who formed a longstanding attachment with one client, or perhaps a Japanese geisha. She was from Miletus and highly educated, being able to hold her own in debates with the intelligentsia of Athens at the time.

Female herm, said to be modelled on
Aspasia

As she had been from Miletus, it was suspected that she had played a role in Pericles' decision to back Miletus against Samos in the years previously; a decision that had led to the ultimately victorious, but costly, Samian War. It is said that she was prosecuted for attempting to pimp out Athenian ladies to satisfy the lusts of Pericles. It is hard to know if this charge was particularly serious, or if it even occurred. We are told that Pericles made an impassioned speech in defence of Aspasia and himself, and that the jury acquitted his companion. This was a crude attack against the main statesman of Athens, so it is perhaps not surprising it should fail.

The comic poet Hermippus, who is said to have prosecuted Aspasia, is also said to have won a prize at the Comedy competition this year. It is said that he was an opponent of Pericles and it is probable that the comedy was a political satire against Pericles. This play may have formed part of the turning of public opinion against Aspasia, or it may have confused later writers into thinking that the play was the prosecution. Either way, it was probably not a comfortable time for Pericles and Aspasia, although this is mostly speculation.

Polygnotos the vase painter flourished around this time. He was probably trained by the Niobid Painter and painted high-classical red-figure vases, particularly specialising in painting large vessels such as kraters and amphorae.

A later painting of Heracles at the crossroads
circa AD1595, currently in Warsaw

Around this time Mithaecus the cook is said to have plied his trade around Greece. He was from Sicily and was said to have been expelled from Sparta as a corrupter of morals, which is probably a later tale. He wrote the first cookbook known to history. Sadly it does not survive, but one recipe of his is known; a recipe for tainia (a type of ribbon fish). The recipe leads us to not shed too many tears for the loss of Mithaecus' cookbook.

Around this time Prodicus of Ceos is said to have flourished. He was a sophist, a travelling teacher of various things, specialising in giving additional education to Greeks who were willing to pay a fee to learn. He was often in Athens and spent his time there debating on various matters. He became famed as an orator and made a reasonable amount of money from his teaching. Some small works of his survive, including a short fable about Heracles coming to a crossroads, where he is confronted by Virtue and Vice, both of whom offer him a choice of following them. This may have been a common motif in the Mediterranean world however, as the book of Proverbs in the Old Testament has a similar rhetorical device. It became a popular subject for paintings in later European art.

Around this time the philosopher Democritus of Abdera lived and flourished. He is sometimes held to have been a student of Leucippus, who may have invented the theory of atomism. If Leucippus did not invent atomism, Democritus did, and it is certainly Democritus who gave the theory much of its popularity. It is said that Democritus travelled in his youth to distant countries. These stories are said of many Greek philosophers, but are more likely to be true of Democritus.

A later bust that may represent
Democritus

He wrote many books, fragments of which have come down to us. He was remembered as a generally cheerful fellow and later artistic representations often show him laughing. He is particularly contrasted with Heraclitus, who is said to have been quite pessimistic. Thus Heraclitus is the Weeping Philosopher, while Democritus is the Laughing Philosopher.

Democritus did not travel to Athens and his materialistic, infinite universe of the atoms and the void did not seem to appeal to the Athenians. For Democritus the world was merely a collection of atoms held together in a temporary configuration, and that there were other such worlds, all of which would eventually be destroyed and remade. His materialism was not thoroughgoing in the modern sense, as he spoke of the gods and the soul, but probably thought of them as also composed of atoms.

He wrote on mathematics, making some contributions to geometry, as well as to astronomy. He also wrote books on farming, but the books which have supplied us with the most fragments and quotations are his works on ethics. The fragmentary nature of the work means that it is difficult to understand exactly what Democritus believed, although he seems to have favoured a Greek style participatory democracy over oligarchy.

Poverty under democracy is as much to be preferred to so-called prosperity under an autocracy as freedom to slavery.
Democritus, Fragment 251, written circa 435BC

A coin that probably shows the statue of Zeus at Olympia

In this year it is said that Phidias made his crowning achievement, a work of even greater fame in the Greek world than the statue of Athena Parthenos. He created the statue of Zeus at Olympia. This was a chryselephantine sculpture with gold and ivory, placed upon a throne of cedar and adorned with ebony and gems. The statue was seated, but of large dimensions, standing over 13m tall, so tall that it looked to the viewer that it would destroy the temple if Zeus ever came to life and stood up. The ivory was protected from decay by being coated in olive oil, which made the statue appear to gleam and glisten if the darkened temple.

The workshop of Phidias was discovered at Olympia, with even some of the objects belonging to the sculptor being found by archaeologists. It is said that the Eleans killed the sculptor after he had completed the statue, but other traditions suggest that he returned to Athens after completing this work.

The fame of this statue would last forever, as the later Greeks would designate the statue as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The Eleans, who controlled the sanctuary at Olympia, began to mint coins with the statue of Zeus on the reverse. It became a very popular image on coins and many later coins would also have this statue depicted upon it. The statue was later destroyed perhaps eight centuries later, in the confusion of the fall of the Roman Empire. The gold and precious materials must have disappeared long before. The destruction of the statue means that only the description of later writers such as Pausanias and the images on the coins can give us an image of this wonder of the world.

A modern copy of the statue of Zeus at
Olympia

The god sits on a throne, and he is made of gold and ivory. On his head lies a garland which is a copy of olive shoots. In his right hand he carries a Victory, which, like the statue, is of ivory and gold; she wears a ribbon and – on her head – a garland. In the left hand of the god is a sceptre, ornamented with every kind of metal, and the bird sitting on the sceptre is the eagle. The sandals also of the god are of gold, as is likewise his robe. On the robe are embroidered figures of animals and the flowers of the lily.
Pausanias, Description of Greece, 5.11, written circa AD150

In the year 434 the Corinthians, enraged by their defeat at the hands of their colony, spent their time building ships and preparing an even larger invasion force than the one that had been beaten by the Corcyraeans. The Corcyraeans viewed this with alarm, as Corinth was a powerful and respected member of the Peloponnesian League, while Corcyra had no similar network of allies from whom to draw support.

The Megarians seems to have done something to offend the Athenians at this time. Athens and Megara were traditional enemies, and the Megarian betrayal during the First Peloponnesian War some years earlier would still have been a raw wound in the Athenian consciousness. The Athenians, who by their treaty with the Spartans, could not make war on Megara, nevertheless would have wanted to punish them for the slightest infraction. Athens and Megara bordered each other and the Megarians were said to have trespassed on sacred land near the border. Other offences were added to this one and Megara was condemned by the Athenians.

To punish Megara without actually going to war, the Athenians under Pericles issued the Megarian Decree, which was effectively a trade war. Megarian merchants were banned from all Athenian ports. Because Athens controlled the Delian League, this banned the Megarians from conducting any trade with any Aegean island, locked them out of the Black Sea and effectively spelled their economic ruin. It is an early example of economic warfare. It is hard to know exactly how effective it was, but it was certainly disliked by the Megarians.

The Parthenon as it appeared in 1978

It was suspected by some in Athens that the Megarian Decree stemmed from another reason. It was said that Aspasia, the brilliant mistress of Pericles, had some private quarrel with the Megarians. Rumour spoke of some abducted prostitutes as being at the root of the ill-feeling. This may or may not have happened, but was certainly exploited by opponents of Pericles. Aspasia was respected as an intelligent woman, but she does not seem to have been liked.

In Athens, the aristocratic opponents of Pericles attempted once more to undermine Pericles' position by attacking his friends. This time the charges of impiety were brought against Anaxagoras. Anaxagoras was a philosopher and a close friend of Pericles and Aspasia. He, like so many others at the time, wrestled with the ideas of Parmenides, and spoke of the world as being a mix of elements, ordered by Mind. This was a similar type of answer that was being sought by Democritus and Empedocles.

He is most remembered today for his naturalistic explanation of the physical phenomena. He believed that the Sun was a blazing rock, at least as large as the Peloponnese. This naturalistic explanation made a great deal of controversy in Athens. We now know that it is wrong in its particulars, but we also know that Anaxagoras was on the right track in believing the sun to be a hot, physical object, as opposed to a god. Anaxagoras also attempted to find physical explanations, again mostly wrong, for abnormalities in animals. As abnormal animals were seen as being portents sent by divine forces, attempts to explain them naturalistically made some uneasy.

The Propylaea viewed from the Areopagus

Anaxagoras was tried by the courts of Athens and imprisoned on charges of impiety. It is not clear of the exact wording of the charge. Probably nothing would have been done had Anaxagoras not been so close to Pericles. But it was the first time that the Athenians had knowingly tried and imprisoned one of these new philosophers or sophists who were turning the minds of the people to confusion and overturning old ways of thought.

While in prison Anaxagoras spent time on that wonderful trigonometric folly of squaring the circle. When one has trigonometry, a straight edge, a compass and some sand, one is never truly alone. As Anaxagoras enjoyed his time in confinement, Pericles was moving heaven and earth to try and free his friend. Pericles eventually persuaded the Athenians to release his friend, but Anaxagoras left Athens upon his release, either voluntarily or into exile. He returned to his native city of Lampsacus and died there some years later.

In Macedon, Philip, the brother of Perdiccas II, rose up in rebellion. The rebellion may have started years earlier, but this was the first time that Philip involved external allies. Philip allied himself with the Athenians, who would have had an interest in placing a friendly king on the throne of Macedon. As the Athenians were supporting a rebel claimant to the throne, Perdiccas II of Macedon began to give support to any potential enemies of Athens.

Statue of Athena Varvakeion
held to be a copy of Athena
Parthenos

He soon found some potential rebels against Athens in the people of Potidaea. Potidaea was a member of the Delian League, but was also a colony of Corinth. Potidaea was not just a colony of Corinth, but had an extremely close relationship with Corinth, being governed by officials sent out annually from Corinth at the request of the Potidaeans. It was situated on the northern coast of the Aegean, on the westernmost of the three peninsulas of Chalcidice. It had, like most colonies, a strong attachment with the mother city of Corinth, and so had sympathy with a prominent member of the Peloponnesian League.

The Potidaeans were also concerned about the recent establishment of the Athenian colony of Amphipolis, as this was quite nearby. If a dispute was to arise between Amphipolis and Potidaea, the Athenians would be sure to favour their own colonists over the colonists of their enemies. So, Potidaea was ripe for revolt against Athens. They were not yet ready to rise up, and they may never have actually intended to, but word of this potential rebellion came through to Athens.

Around this time the Telesterion temple, the central place of Mysteries at Eleusis was built anew by Ictinus. Ictinus was one of the two architects who built the Parthenon and would have been well-trusted to oversee such an important work. The site is still known to us today, but the structural remains on the site are from later rebuilding works after various destructions of the temple.

In the year 433 the Corinthian attack fleet was nearly ready to attack the Corcyraeans. They would not be so overconfident as before, and the Corinthians were now motivated by revenge and by the desire to recover the prestige that they had lost in their ill-advised previous attack on Corcyra. The Corcyraeans, who had no allies, decided to appeal to the Athenians for an alliance.

Statuary from the Parthenon

The peace that the Spartans and Athenians had signed acknowledged that both cities led alliances that comprised of city states. It was said that neither Athens nor Sparta could accept the allegiance of a city that defected from the other league, but it allowed for neutral states to join either league. Thus Corcyra was technically allowed to join the Delian League/Athenian Empire under the terms of the peace treaty. However, Corcyra wanted to join the league because they were in a state of war with Corinth. Thus if Athens made an alliance with Corcyra and sent ships, they would be in a state of war with Corinth. Corinth was an ally of Sparta and one side making war on the allies of the other was definitely prohibited by the treaty.

The truth of the matter was that the exact wording of the treaty was ambiguous and it was not clear if Athens could accept an alliance with Corcyra or not. Corcyra sent ambassadors to argue their case, while Corinth sent ambassadors to argue that the Athenians should refuse the alliance. Both sides presented their case to the Athenians. The Corinthians pointed out that they had persuaded Sparta not to attack Athens during the recent Samian War. The Corcyraeans pointed out that they had the third largest navy in Greece and that if they were taken over by the Corinthians, the Athenians would regret the loss of this navy.

Ultimately the Athenians, who may have felt that war with Sparta and her allies was inevitable at some point, decided to accept the alliance with Corcyra. They did however make it clear that it was to be a defensive alliance. They would stop Corcyra from being destroyed, but would not make offensive war on Corinth. The Corinthians left Athens in a state of anger and frustration.

The Corcyraeans and Athenians may have hoped that their alliance would dissuade Corinth from attacking. They were wrong. When it became clear that the Corinthians were intending to fight anyway, the Athenians sent 10 ships to Corcyra as a way of warning away any attackers. The Corinthian fleet sailed northwards towards Corcyra, in coordination with the Ambraciots and Megarians. With their allies they numbered 150 ships. The Corcyraeans put to sea with a formidable navy of their own, numbering 110 ships, not counting the Athenian triremes.

Statuary from the Parthenon

The Corcyraeans made a base of operations at Sybota, an island to the south of their home island. The two sides formed up for battle, and fought a hard-fought, but unskilful engagement, known today as the Battle of Sybota. The Athenian crews, which had been fighting naval battles all over the eastern Mediterranean were doubtless far more experienced than either side. The Athenian ships had been ordered to not fight the Corinthians, but to prevent the Corcyraeans from being defeated. This was an impossible diplomatic line to take and the Athenians soon found themselves drawn into the combat as the tide turned against the Corcyraeans.

Even with Athenian aid, the Corcyraean fleet began to be badly damaged. Many turned to flee, others were sunk, and others were captured. The Corinthians roved to and fro killing sailors floating in the sea, including many of their own men, as the Corcyraeans had been victorious on one wing. The Corinthians wished to push on to attack Corcyra, but a fresh squadron of another 20 Athenian ships arrived on the scene and threatened to attack if the battle-weary Corinthians attempted to press their advantage. Rather than face this new and skilful force, the Corinthians retreated.

"You do wrong, Athenians, to begin war and break the treaty. Engaged in chastising our enemies, we find you placing yourselves in our path in arms against us. Now if your intentions are to prevent us sailing to Corcyra, or anywhere else that we may wish, and if you are for breaking the treaty, first take us that are here and treat us as enemies." Such was what they said, and all the Corcyraean armament that were within hearing immediately called out to take them and kill them. But the Athenians answered as follows: "Neither are we beginning war, Peloponnesians, nor are we breaking the treaty; but these Corcyraeans are our allies, and we are come to help them. So if you want to sail anywhere else, we place no obstacle in your way; but if you are going to sail against Corcyra, or any of her possessions, we shall do our best to stop you."
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I, written circa 400BC

Statuary from the Parthenon

Both sides claimed victory. The Corinthians made the claim that they had defeated their foes and driven them from the field. The Corcyraeans made the claim as the Corinthians had retreated afterwards, without accomplishing their goal. The truth was that both sides had lost. The Corinthians had achieved nothing and the Corcyraeans had lost much of their vaunted navy. Even worse, the direct conflict between Athens and a member of the Peloponnesian League directly threatened the peace treaty between Athens and Sparta. The Corinthians now had another grudge against the Athenians.

Meanwhile in Potidaea, the Athenians had heard a rumour that there was a revolt imminent. Certainly the Macedonian king would have wished them to revolt, and certainly their ties to Corinth cannot have helped matters. But it is not entirely clear that Potidaea was actually going to revolt. Either way, the Athenians requested hostages, the expulsion of the Corinthian magistrates and the demolition of some of the walls of the city, making it vulnerable to the Athenians and thus less likely to revolt.

The Potidaeans attempted to negotiate with the Athenians, who were sending a fleet of 30 ships and 1000 hoplites to Potidaea, but also sent messages to Corinth and Sparta to beg for aid. Sparta seems to have offered some potential support, but Corinth sent tangible aid, in the form of a force to 1600 hoplites and 400 lighter troops, who seem to have marched overland. To prevent this from breaking the treaty, these hoplites were sent as volunteers, rather than as an official army of Corinth. They were led by a well-liked noble of Corinth named Aristeus. Meanwhile, with the aid of Perdiccas II of Macedon, other cities in the region revolted against Athens as well.

The Athenians sent out reinforcements of another 2000 hoplites and 40 ships. Their original force was attacking the Macedonians under Perdiccas. The Athenians made contact with their own Macedonian allies, under the rebel Philip, and fought some small actions against the Macedonians of Perdiccas, not yet moving against Potidaea itself.

Treaty document between Athens and
Leontini

Fearing the imminence of war, Pericles and the state of Athens renewed alliances with the Italian and Sicilian city-states of Rhegium and Leontini. It was not clear that these could provide immediate aid, but with Corcyra as part of the Athenian Empire, there was a much clearer sea route to the western Mediterranean. Remember that the Greek triremes tended not to venture far from coastlines, so any Greek ship sailing from Sicily to Greece would probably sail north towards Italy and cross the Adriatic to the coast of what is now Albania, before following the coast southwards. Corcyra lay near to this route.

Around this time the Athenian philosopher Archelaus flourished. He was a pupil of Anaxagoras and was primarily concerned with what we would term physics or cosmology. He believed, like some of the earlier Milesian philosophers of the previous century, that Air was the primary component of the universe. Only fragments and much later synopses of his writings and thought survive. He spoke of living creatures emerging from some form of primordial slime and also seems to have had some interest in ethics. However, in one respect he is said to be the last of the physical philosophers. His main significance seems to be that he is the first Athenian philosopher, whereas previously philosophers had come to Athens from abroad.

In the year 432 the Athenians and their Macedonian allies moved against Potidaea. The Corinthians had split up the forces of the states of the region, keeping the bulk of the heavy soldiery to defend Potidaea, while leaving the more mobile allied forces to attack the Athenian rear. It was a good plan, but the timing was off and the Athenians were able to defeat the Potidaean army in an engagement known as the Battle of Potidaea, despite Aristeus' success on one flank.

Vase painted by Polygnotos the Vase Painter

The city of Potidaea was then placed under siege by the Athenians, under the command of Phormio, Archestratus and Hipponicus. The Athenians then carried on operations against nearby towns, however the city of Potidaea was well-garrisoned, well-supplied and well-fortified and was in no mood to surrender. The siege dragged on.

Once again, the Athenians and Corinthians had fought. However the Athenians had been putting down a rebellion, as they were entitled to do under the treaty. And the Corinthians had been fighting as volunteers, which was not prohibited under the treaty. It was not clear that the treaty had been definitely broken, or if it was broken, by whom it had been broken. But it was clear that the spirit of the treaty was being stretched to breaking point by both sides.

Corinth appealed to Sparta, to tell them that the Athenians had broken the treaty and that war must follow. The Megarians, who were suffering under the economic blockade imposed by Pericles' Megarian Decree, also appealed to Sparta for redress against the Athenians. The Spartans seem to have not taken immediate action, but to have called a council to take place, with all the members of the Peloponnesian League in attendance.

When the Peloponnesian League was summoned to a meeting in Sparta the Corinthians, Megarians and others pressed strongly for a war with Athens. Thucydides gives a number of excellent speeches that were said to have been given by those in attendance. It is unlikely I think that these speeches should be taken too seriously, as Thucydides, like later historians, writes what should have been said rather than what was actually said. They are excellent speeches though.

Statuary from the Parthenon

...To describe the Athenian character in a word, one might truly say that they were born into the world being unable to live in peace themselves and unable to allows others to do so...
The Corinthian speech to the Spartans persuading them to go to war

...Take time then in forming your resolution, as the matter is of great importance; and do not be persuaded by the opinions and complaints of others to bring trouble on yourselves, but consider the vast influence of accident in war, before you are engaged in it. As it continues, it generally becomes an affair of chances, chances from which neither of us is exempt, and whose event we must risk in the dark...
The Athenian speech persuading the Spartans not to go to war (probably not given, as the Spartans would not have allowed the Athenians at a congress of the Peloponnesian League)

...Vote therefore, Lacedaemonians, for war, as the honour of Sparta demands, and neither allow the further aggrandizement of Athens, nor betray our allies to ruin, but with the gods let us advance against the aggressors...
The words of Sthnelaidas, the Spartan ephor persuading the Spartans to go to war.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I, written circa 400BC

Thus it was held by the Spartans that the treaty between Athens and Sparta had been broken, however war was not yet declared. The Spartans sent at least three embassies to try and reason with the Athenians. Even with the enmity of the Corinthians, Sparta still wished to avoid open war if this was possible.

The first and second embassies demanded that Athens raise the siege of Potidaea and allow the independence of Aegina, which Athens was bound to do under the terms of the treaty, but had not fully honoured. The Athenians were not inclined to listen to these terms. The Spartans eventually said that these matters could be overlooked, but that if the Megarian Decree was revoked, war might still be avoided. Even this gesture was refused by the Athenians.

The Greek world at the outbreak of the
Peloponnesian War

The final Spartan embassy said merely that there would be no war if the Athenians would leave the Greeks their freedom. Pericles stood up to argue against this. He said that Greek freedom was merely a phrase to force the Athenians to abandon their empire, while the Spartans maintained an empire of their own. The Megarian Decree, according to Pericles, was no different from the measures the Spartans used to keep foreigners away. Lastly, he argued that by resorting to commands rather than desiring arbitration, Sparta was not treating Athens as an equal but as a subordinate, and this Athens would never accept. Athens refused the terms of Sparta and a state of war gradually came about.

This conflict has come to be known to us today as the Second Peloponnesian War, or the Great Peloponnesian War, or most commonly, the Peloponnesian War. The first phase of the war is known as the Archidamian War, after the name of one of the Spartan kings at the time.

It was called this as it was documented most brilliantly by an Athenian named Thucydides, possibly the best of the ancient historians. He was a great writer who inspired others to write and continue his work. He was an Athenian noble, but had to leave Athens partway through the war, thus his account is in certain places a first-hand one, but never a fully one-sided one. He has problems as a historian of course. He invents speeches that are wonderfully entertaining, but not necessarily history. He does not cite his sources. Nevertheless his work is read avidly to this day, in politics and literature, as well as history.

Unlike Herodotus, he almost never uses fate, or the gods, in his work and reasons from natural phenomena alone. He writes that he knew that this war would be a major war and from the outset set himself the task of writing it. While he never uses the exact term, it is named the Peloponnesian War, because Thucydides, an Athenian, is writing it. If Thucydides was Spartan we would refer to the conflict as the Attic War.

Grave stele from Athens

In one famous passage of Thucydides, the historian remarks that the sparks that caused the war were the Megarian Decree, the Corcyra affair and the revolt of Potidaea. However Thucydides then says that the true cause of the war was Spartan fear of the growth of Athenian power. This analysis has transfixed political thinkers and historians, from Thucydides' day to our own. I think that in many respects Thucydides is correct in his analysis. But one must still ask the question, even if the Peloponnesian War was inevitable, why did it break out when it did and could anything have truly prevented it? Similar questions can be asked about World War I or World War II. "What if's" have no true place in history, but we do need to critically examine statements, even from a writer as lucid as Thucydides.

While war was breaking out in mainland Greece, in the west, around this time, the city states of Thurii and Taras were coming to a peace agreement. They had been fighting over a piece of land near Siris which was claimed by both cities. Thurii was a new colony and Taras was locked in a struggle with the Messapians, so both cities had a desire for peace. It was decided that a new city, named Heraclea (in the region of Lucania) would be founded. It would have settlers from both cities, as many as wished to join, but would be treated as a colony of Taras. This was sufficient for peace to break out and Heraclea became a significant city in its own right in later years.

Around this time the astronomer Cleostratus was said to have died. He is a little known figure who is said to have transferred Babylonian mathematical and astronomical learning to Greece. Most specifically he is said by later Greek writers to have invented the zodiac. As we know that the Babylonians had a similar system, some modern writers assume that he was a link between Babylon and Greece, but this is unclear. He seems to have had some role in measuring an 8 year cycle known as the octaeteris, where the moon phase occurs on nearly the same day of the year. This cycle again seems to have been known to the Babylonians, so exactly who invented what and when is not clear.

Modern observatory near the site of the Metonic observatory

While it is not clear that Cleostratus invented anything, or even if he existed, more can be said of Meton. Meton was an Athenian astronomer who completed observations near the Pnyx Hill, where the Athenian assembly met. By viewing the solstices from here and measuring them against various points on the nearby highpoints of Mount Lycabettus, Mount Hymettus and the Acropolis, Meton was able to draw up accurate measurements. He postulated a longer cycle of 19 years, which today is known as the Metonic cycle. As with the zodiac and the octaeteris, this cycle appears to have been known to the Babylonians before this day, however it is possible that Meton discovered it independently.

He was aided in his observations by the otherwise unknown Euctemon, who is mentioned in later sources, of whom little can be said. A version of the Metonic cycle is still used for the computation of Easter and in honour of his memory a small modern observatory stands near the Pnyx Hill in Athens where the remains of the ancient observatory can still be observed.

While Meton gazed at the stars and war was brewing, the decorations on the Parthenon seem to have been completed. These were nominally done under the oversight of Phidias, but as he had been engaged in other projects, like creating one of the Seven Wonders of the World, the real work was probably overseen by others, such as Alcamenes and Agoracritus.

The deme of Rhamnous in Attica

It is said by Pliny the Elder that there was a competition between these two apprentice sculptors to carve a statue of Venus and that Agoracritus lost, because Alcamenes was an Athenian. It was said that Agoracritus changed the statue of Venus into a statue of Nemesis and sold it to the nearby deme of Rhamnous, which had a temple to Inescapable Nemesis, on the condition that the city of Athens itself could never possess this statue.

The symbolism of a statue of Nemesis being commissioned to spite the Athenians around the start of the Peloponnesian War is powerful. The other story about this statue is that it was sculpted from a block of stone taken from the Persians at Marathon. It had supposedly been intended to celebrate their victory over Athens, but Nemesis came upon them and they were defeated. Both stories have a certain poetry and are both much later.

More prosaically, when the Athenians realised that they would soon be at war with the Spartans, they cancelled work on the Propylaea, the fortified decorative gateway to the Acropolis. They intended to continue the construction later, but it was in fact never fully finished.

The Olympic Games were held this year. Sophron of Ambracia won the stadion race. Lykinos of Elis won the boy's wrestling. Dorieus of Rhodes, who was the son of the famed boxer Diagoras of Rhodes, won the pancration competition. Lykinos of Sparta owned the team of horses that won the tethrippon chariot race.

In the year 431 the Greek world waited to see who would make the first move in the war. Would it be the energetic Athenians or the circumspect Spartans? In actual fact, the Thebans made the first move of the war. Thebes had always wanted to control all its hinterland of Boeotia, in a similar manner to how Athens controlled all of Attica. However, certain smaller cities of Boeotia had stood against them, most notably the city of Plataea, which had been an ally of Athens since before the Battle of Marathon. The Thebans realised that the outbreak of war between Athens and Sparta meant they had a chance to conquer Plataea while Athens was engaged with other theatres of war.

Statuary from the Parthenon

The Thebans made a surprise descent upon the city by night. They were let in by Theban sympathisers and the Plataeans, upon finding Theban soldiers unexpectedly in their town, surrendered. However the rainy light of morning showed that only a small Theban force was in the town. The Plataeans rose up against their new conquerors. The Thebans were outnumbered in a hostile city and were scattered into the streets, where they fought and lost a series of running street battles with the Plataeans. Nearly all were slain or captured.

Meanwhile the main Theban force was hastening to the relief of the advance guard, only to be met by a Plataean herald who told them of what had befallen their men and that they must withdraw immediately, as the Plataeans had numerous Theban prisoners who were being used as hostages. The Thebans withdrew and believed that their men would be released to them. The Plataeans however, with their blood running high from the surprise attack, killed all their prisoners anyway. This was to be a sign of things to come and that this would be a grimmer war than usual Greek wars.

The Athenians had put together reinforcements for their Plataean allies and were on their way to assist. They had sent messengers to the Plataeans warning them not to harm the prisoners, as the Athenians had seized Theban hostages in Athens on this sudden outbreak of hostilities. Upon hearing that the prisoners were already dead, they continued their march to Plataea, evacuated the women and children and left a garrison in place to defend it from the Thebans.

The Athenians had up until this point firmly maintained that they had not broken the treaty. This attack upon Plataea was an undisputed breach of the treaty however, and Athens now held that the war had started in earnest and that the Spartans and their allies were the aggressors. Both sides scaled up their war preparations.

Among the opening steps of the war were the capture and execution of all Athenians or Athenian allies that the Spartans could find. As soon as Sparta was fully at war, they had no qualms about executing the citizens of other lands. This, and the summary execution of the captives at Plataea, were a warning that this war would transcend the normal rules of Greek warfare. It would be a professionalised and brutal conflict.

Statuary from the Parthenon

King Archidamus of Sparta gathered his land forces and led an attack into Attica. The Athenians, acting on the advice of Pericles, did not attempt to stop the Spartan land army, but instead withdrew within their walls and abandoned the hinterland to the Spartans. The Spartans did a lot of damage and destroyed crops and lands, but were unable to bring the Athenians to any decisive battle. Greek armies at this time had no real siege weapons apart from ladders and rams, which were ineffective against solidly constructed walls. Thus if the Athenians chose to remain behind their walls there was little the Spartans could do about it. The sudden influx of country dwellers made the city extremely crowded however.

Meanwhile the Athenians were supplying themselves with grain and other supplies via their port of Piraeus. To strike back at the Spartans, the Athenian navy attacked the coasts of the Peloponnese, causing a certain amount of damage and attempting to raid the Spartans as the Athenians themselves were being raided. They probably did not cause as much damage as the Spartans had done to them, but they did cause damage. The Athenians also, once the Spartans had left Attica, sent their land army overland to Megara to destroy the crops and lands of the Megarians.

Partly to settle old scores and partly to prevent future harm, the Athenians expelled the people of Aegina from their island and settled it with their own settlers. The Aeginetan refugees mostly settled in the Peloponnese on land given to them by the Spartans.

Gold mask of Teres

Around this time Teres I, who had founded the Odrysian Kingdom of the Thracian tribes, died, although he may have died some years previously. He was succeeded by Sitalces, who strengthened this new kingdom and made it a force to be reckoned with, even by Athens and Sparta. When Teres died, he was buried in a tomb with magnificent grave goods, including a very heavy death mask made of gold. Because gold suffers no decay like other materials, we can be quite certain that this is a reasonable likeness of Teres. His face survives even if little else is known of his reign.

This death of Teres and accession of Sitalces proved a boon to Athens. A man named Nymphodorus of Abdera had married a sister of Sitalces and had close ties with Athens. He was appointed as a proxenos (meaning something like an ambassador or diplomatic consul, who would represent the interests of a city abroad) to the Odrysian kingdom and brought about an alliance with Sitalces.

Sitalces, who had been an enemy of Athens, now became an ally. Nymphodorus also brought about peace between the Odrysian Thracian kingdom of Sitalces and the Macedonian kingdom of Perdiccas II. These two northern monarchs were reconciled and became allies with Athens. Athens meanwhile ceased supporting the rebellion of Perdiccas' brother Philip. The forces of Perdiccas now joined with the Athenians in crushing the rebellions of the city states near Potidaea.

In this year, the playwright Euphorion, son of the great Aeschylus, won the prize for tragedy in the Great Dionysia in Athens. His plays that won do not survive, but they must have been exceptional, as the competition was stiff. Sophocles won second prize with an unknown set of compositions. Euripides won the third prize with a tetralogy of plays that is still known to us. The plays of Euripides this year were, Philoctetes (of which the plot summary and some fragments remain), Dictys (of which a few scattered fragments remain), Theristai (a satyr play of which nothing definitely identifiable remains) and Medea, which is possibly the greatest play written by Euripides and one of the greatest plays of the ancient world.

Temple of Concordia at Acragas

The plot of Medea is a complex one. Medea is a foreign sorceress of royal origin who has followed the adventurer Jason back from Colchis upon the successful capture of the Golden Fleece by Jason and the Argonauts. She has borne his children, yet at the beginning of the play Jason has told her that she will be abandoned, as he is taking a new bride, the daughter of the king of Corinth. Medea is angry, but Jason basically defends himself by saying that he is merely acting in his own rational self-interest.

Medea rails against the injustice of her lot, but then, after finding that she will have sanctuary in Athens, she decides to take revenge. She uses her skill with magic to poison the king of Corinth and his daughter in a vicious and terrible fashion. Then, to ruin the hapless Jason entirely, she murders her own children, using their deaths to devastate the man she once loved. Finally, as the woe-stricken Jason discovers the sheer scope of everything he has lost, Medea rises triumphant, sailing into the sky in the chariot of the sun god, far above her wretched husband. She is not judged by the gods, she is once more in command of her destiny.

It is an extraordinary play, for a great number of reasons. Firstly, the Athenians always knew the outcome of a play before it began. The tragedians adapted myths to their purpose, but they did not invent them. In the original myth, the Corinthians had murdered the children of Jason and Medea. To adapt the myth so that the mother slew her own children must have thrown the Athenians into almost a state of shock.

A modern production of Medea, showing the
heroine triumphant

Secondly, the triumph of Medea at the end of the play is unusual. Normally the wicked were thrown down and justice prevailed, as at the end of the Oresteia trilogy of Aeschylus. But here, the murderer of her own children, sympathetic as she might at times be, faces no consequence, and in fact even is shown divine favour in the method of her escape.

Thirdly, the fact that Athens was made to be the place of refuge for this atrocious criminal meant that their city bore some stain of the crime, even if it took place at time in the distant past. To a city that was embarking on a great and dangerous war, it must have been perilous to assert that the city was once the home of murderers and sorceresses.

Now of course it is seen that the play is one of the great works of art of the ancient world. It has been performed many times and still has a power over us. It speaks to us of the nature of power, of the oppressed, of the downtrodden, of revenge, of the nature of justice itself and what turmoil lurks in the minds of humanity.

How can I even look at you? The pain is overwhelming. I know only too well how horrible the crime I am about to commit is.
Euripides, Medea, written 431BC

Reconstruction of the shield of Athena in the
Parthenon replica in Nashville

This year, which saw the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War and the staging of one of the finest Greek tragedies, also probably saw the death of one of the finest sculptors of antiquity. There is a tradition that Phidias died in Olympia, slain by the Eleans, but it seems likely that Phidias returned to Athens. Here he was accused of various crimes, including theft (by taking some of the gold from the statue of Athena Parthenos) and impiety, (by depicting himself and Pericles upon the shield of Athena). He was cleared of the charge of theft, by having the removable gold plates taken down from the statue and weighed, but he was possibly imprisoned for the impiety charge.

It is said that he died in an Athenian prison, probably somewhere near the clepsydra in the Agora. He had sculpted one of the wonders of the world and adorned the Parthenon with his works. He is indirectly remembered today in mathematical notation for the Golden Ratio, which is named using the Greek letter phi in his honour, as he was known to have used it in his work.

Thucydides records that at the end of a year of wartime, that the bodies of the war dead would be given a state funeral, have a eulogy given to them by one of the leaders of the city and then be buried in the Kerameikos cemetery. It was said that Pericles gave the speech over the bodies of the dead this year. Thucydides records a version of the speech and it has become known as Pericles' Funeral Oration. It is not clear if the speech more accurately reflects Thucydides or Pericles or both. It is possible that Pericles never in fact spoke at this event or that Thucydides invented the entire speech. Nevertheless, it is one of the most well-remembered speeches of the classical world; a panegyric, not to the men Pericles eulogised, but to the city for which they died. A few quotes are given below.

Bust of Pericles

…Our constitution does not copy the laws of neighbouring states; we are rather a pattern to others than imitators ourselves…
…In short, I say that as a city we are the school of Hellas, while I doubt if the world can produce a man who, where he has only himself to depend upon, is equal to so many emergencies, and graced by so happy a versatility, as the Athenian…
…Future ages will wonder at us, as the present age wonders at us now…
…For heroes have the whole earth for their tomb; and in lands far from their own, where the column with its epitaph declares it, there is enshrined in every breast a record unwritten with no tablet to preserve it, except that of the heart…
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC

In the year 430, in the summer of that year, King Archidamus of Sparta led the Spartan land army to Attica once more to begin to ravage the lands of the Athenians and to force them into a battle. Once more the Athenians abandoned the countryside and took themselves into the city, which once more, became grossly overcrowded.

A thing occurred in this year that Pericles had not foreseen. A plague came upon Athens. It is written described by Thucydides, who had caught the pestilence himself, but had survived it. His account of it is the model of all later descriptions of plague in antiquity. Nothing the Athenians did could stop or prevent the plague. It struck where it pleased, an invisible force of destruction, all the more terrifying for its mysteriousness. It was said to have come from Africa, and it must have arrived in Athens via the port of Piraeus. As Athens was the largest city in the Greek world, and as the Athenians were cramped inside the walls, the scale of the death was highest in Athens.

An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new arrivals. As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the mortality raged without restraint. The bodies of dying men lay one upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets and gathered round all the fountains in their longing for water. The sacred places also in which they had quartered themselves were full of corpses of persons that had died there, just as they were; for as the disaster passed all bounds, men, not knowing what was to become of them, became utterly careless of everything, whether sacred or profane.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC

The Spartans, who were ravaging the lands on the far side of Mount Hymettus heard word of the plague and eventually withdrew, but not before burning much of the land near the silver mines of Laurion. The much more rural and scattered communities of Laconia do not seem to have suffered the plague. Thucydides gives some indication that in at least one case, the mortality rate was 3/8. Even allowing for a mortality rate of even 1/8, this must have devastated the Athenians and would have caused at least 20,000 deaths. The real figure was probably higher, possibly even much higher. The demoralising effect of facing an invisible, invincible foe must have destroyed much Athenian morale.

Vase painted by the Codrus Painter

In a desperate attempt to put the manpower of the city to good use before they were too ravaged with plague, the Athenians sent another fleet of 150 ships (100 Athenian, 50 of their allies) to attack the coast of the Peloponnese. There were a number of attacks on smaller Peloponnesian cities, but no decisive victories.

The other generals took more ships and four thousand hoplites to attack Potidaea. The siege of Potidaea was costing the Athenians a great deal of money and it had to fall. Hagnon, who had founded nearby Amphipolis, commanded this army. But it had no effect whatsoever save that the army that was already besieging Potidaea also caught the plague. Hagnon and his plague-raddled troops had to withdraw eventually, with 1500 of the original 4000 dead.

The Athenians remembered, or invented, several prophecies about the plague and it would have been seen as a sign of divine anger against them. Apollo was the god of plagues and it was said that he was fighting for the Spartans. The Athenians made some peace overtures to Sparta, who did not entertain them. The Athenians then turned their fear and anger upon Pericles, whom they blamed for the war. Pericles defended himself and escaped ostracism or worse, but he was stripped of his title of general and was fined a considerable sum of money. Thucydides records a speech made by Pericles in his own defence when being accused by his foes.

Temple of Concordia at Acragas

After the failed expedition of Hagnon to Potidaea, the Corinthians and other allies of Sparta sent ambassadors to Sitalces of the Odrysian kingdom to persuade him to switch sides and abandon the Athenian alliance. The Athenians however caught wind of the embassy and caught the ambassadors as they were leaving the territories of the king. They were executed summarily, as retribution for the Spartan murders of Athenian civilians at the beginning of the war. Among the murdered ambassadors was Aristeus of Corinth, the man who had mobilised the Corinthian volunteers to join the rebellion of Potidaea some years earlier.

The rebellion in Potidaea was itself ending around this time. Free from the unfortunate assistance of their pestilence-laden countrymen, the army of Athenians that had been besieging Potidaea finally took it. The Potidaeans had never expected a siege of such length and had been reduced to cannibalism. The Athenians, who were suffering greatly themselves, gave the survivors easy terms of surrender and allowed them to leave unmolested, but after paying a fee and leaving behind their possessions. The Athenians later sent settlers to settle in the city of Potidaea.

The plague seems to have passed, or gone into remittance, in the winter months of that year. It is still not clear to modern science exactly what the plague of Athens was. It may have been a form of bubonic plague, typhus, typhoid fever, some form of haemorrhagic fever such as Ebola or Marburg virus, or perhaps some disease that has since died out and is unknown to current medical science. The description of the plague given by Thucydides sounds like many later plagues or known diseases, but does not perfectly match any of them. It is as yet a medical mystery, but one that may be solved in the not too distant future.

During building works in Athens, a mass grave was discovered in the Kerameikos cemetery. As most Athenian burials at this time were cremations, a mass grave of un-cremated bodies, piled haphazardly and quickly, was most unusual. It was not likely to be an execution site of criminals either, as there were the bodies of a number of young children. From the carbon dating of the bodies and the nature of the gravesite, it is a reasonable assumption to think that this might be the grave of plague victims, quite probably from this year.

Reconstruction of the child Myrtis,
a probable victim of the Plague of Athens

The bones of a young girl were found in a remarkable state of preservation. This skeleton was forensically reconstructed by scientists and the young girl was referred to as Myrtis. It must of course be remembered that Myrtis is a modern designation, and is most unlikely to be her real name. She is unusual in that she is one of the few ancient Greeks to be forensically reconstructed, although certain details like eye and hair colour have been guessed at by the scientists. It was thought that Myrtis and two other skeletons showed traces of typhoid fever in their remains, which would have solved the mystery of the Plague of Athens. But this has now been shown to be problematic and the nature of the pestilence remains a mystery.

In this year the Athenian playwright Euripides put on a play known as the Children of Heracles. This play survives, but is not considered one of the great plays of Euripides. The central plot of the play concerns the illegal execution of a defeated foe, who it turns out is prophesied to one day protect Athens from the return of the children of Heracles. As the Spartans believed themselves to be descendants of Heracles this play must be seen in the context of a city wrestling with the brutal reality of the war that they were engaged in, while also wishing for easy ways out and trying to come to terms with the grimness of the new rules of engagement.

Another play that may have been written around this time is Prometheus Bound. This play was traditionally ascribed to Aeschylus, who had been dead for some time at this point. However, there are certain elements in its style that are seen as not characteristic of Aeschylus and most modern scholars believe that this was written by someone connected to Aeschylus, but not Aeschylus himself. The most obvious candidate is Euphorion, who was the son of Aeschylus and an active dramatist around this time. The play was the first part of a trilogy that included Prometheus Unbound and Prometheus the Fire-Bearer as the other plays in the trilogy.

A modern production of Prometheus bound

The play begins with the chaining of Prometheus to a rock in the Caucasus by Hephaestus. Prometheus afterwards confides to a chorus that he is in possession of knowledge that would destroy even the king of the gods. After this revelation, wandering Io, a persecuted woman destroyed by the lust of Zeus and the vengeance of Hera, passes by. Prometheus prophesies her future and eventual release from her torment. Having heard word that Prometheus knows the secret that will destroy him, Zeus sends Hermes to force Prometheus to tell his secrets. Prometheus refuses and is punished by being struck with lightning hurled by Zeus, which hurtles him into the underworld. What exactly followed in the next two plays is a matter of speculation.

Fate has not declared that my tortuous chains will be loosened here and now but after I have suffered infinite pains. Wisdom is far less powerful than Necessity.
Aeschylus/Euphorion, Prometheus Bound, written circa 430BC

In the arts, the Codrus Painter flourished around this time. This person was an Attic red-figure vase painter who painted vases. A number of their works have survived and are in museums around the world today.

Temple of Apollo at Bassae

Sadly the works of Timarete, another painter who flourished around this time, have not survived. She was one of the most noted female artists of antiquity. She did not paint vases, but rather murals and similar works. She was the daughter of Micon of Athens, who was also a famous painter of an earlier time.

Around this time, in the Greek city of Acragas on the southern coast of Sicily the Temple of Concordia was built. This was a large Doric temple, but despite its name, it probably was not dedicated to the goddess of peace. Exactly to whom it was dedicated is unknown. In later times it would be converted into a Christian church and remain in a state of relative preservation until the early modern period. It now stands in what is known as the Valley of the Temples in Sicily.

Another temple to be built around this time was the great temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae. This temple was built by the Arcadians. This was a remote site even in antiquity and the Arcadians were famous for their unlettered ways. Thus it is surprising to see one of the most beautiful and well-preserved temples in this location. It is probable that its sheer remoteness helped protect the site. Very little is known about the temple, but it was probably completed around this time. It was decorated with sculptures on the pediments and metopes, but these were probably completed in the decades after the completion of the main structure.

Diadumenos statue in Athens

Around this time the sculptor Polyclitus completed his statue Diadumenos, meaning the Diadem Bearer. The statue itself was carved in bronze and has long disappeared from the world, but some reference to it can be discovered from the Roman copies in marble that have survived. The arms of nearly all the statues are broken, but the original statue showed an Olympic victor tying a diadem around his head. One of the best Roman imitations was from the island of Delos and is still preserved in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

Around this time the physician Acron is said to have been active. He was from Acragas in Sicily but had moved to Athens where he was said to have aided in the efforts of combating the plague, although if Thucydides is to be believed, the efforts of all the doctors were unavailing. It is said that he also taught a school of medicine and general learning. He wrote some medical treatises of which none have survived, but some later physicians perhaps viewed him as the first of a particular type of empirical medicine. It is said that he afterwards returned to his homeland in Sicily before his death where he is said to have quarrelled with Empedocles and to have been buried with a rather witty epitaph. The dates of Acron are unclear and he may have flourished some decades earlier. The connection with himself and the Plague in Athens comes from much later sources and may be in error.

Another doctor who probably began to flourish around this time is Hippocrates. He is the most famous doctor of Greek antiquity, and was even said to have been descended from Aesclepius the god of healing. All ancient peoples had a keen interest in medicine, and in the cases of surgery, could often produce great effects, considering the tools that they had available to them at the time. There had been many surgeons and doctors known in the Greek world before this time.

Diadumenos statue in Athens

There were even two well-established schools of medicine in Greece; one on the island of Cos, the other on Cnidus. The school of Cos is said to have focused primarily on therapeutic treatment and prevention of disease. The school of Cnidus focused primarily on diagnosis. While contemporary scientific methods would more resemble Cnidian medicine, in the ancient world the methods of Cos were probably more useful. The tools and methods available to the physicians of Cnidus did not enable them to make very useful diagnoses.

Hippocrates established a great reputation as a competent doctor. He then left a number of principles that were to prove greatly influential. He was convinced that diseases were not fundamentally of divine origin. This is not to say that he was an atheist, or anything like it, but he viewed most if not all diseases as fundamentally physical matters treatable by physical means. He also believed that medicine should be treated as a subject in its own right. It was not merely a part of philosophy or other liberal arts, but was to be studied and taught using its own methods.

He established the principle of "First do no harm", to stop medicine becoming subordinated to dangerous ends, or to prevent his followers from abusing their positions of trust. Thus he can be said to have been the first or among the first to institute a type of professional ethics among doctors. This comes down to us in our medical tradition today as the Hippocratic Oath. It is not clear that Hippocrates wrote this, but it is certain that his followers did and, in modified versions, it has remained with us today.

Hippocrates also wrote and described many symptoms and gave us much of the terminology of medicine. He was careful to preserve the distinction between doctor and surgeon however, and part of the Hippocratic Oath forbade a doctor from cutting into a patient, as it was understood that this art was to be practiced by others. This distinction probably proved harmful in the long term.

Later depiction said to represent
Hippocrates

Hippocrates wrote widely and his writings were taken up and edited and added to and improved upon by his followers on the island of Cos and elsewhere. This has become known as the Hippocratic Corpus and while it is connected with Hippocrates, it should not be viewed as the work of a single man, but rather the collected wisdom of a school of thought. I have left a link to this corpus in the sources.

Hippocrates should not be remembered entirely without criticism. His methods and ideas were impressive for their day, but would be viewed as utterly incorrect now. Most importantly he was instrumental in the disastrous fallacy of the "Four Humours" becoming enshrined in western medicine for nearly two millennia. Hippocrates was a visionary, but he had failed to spot that the most influential theory of Greek medicine was deeply flawed.

Around this time Theodorus of Cyrene is said to have flourished. He was a Greek mathematician from Cyrene in North Africa and is said to have worked on calculating the rationality or irrationality of various square roots of numbers. He is only mentioned in an offhand reference in Plato and it is hard to say more of Theodorus.

Another mathematician and philosopher who is said to have died around this time is Hippasus. He is said to have been interested, like other Pythagoreans, in musical ratios. Like Theodorus, Hippasus is said to have experimented with square roots and is said to have shown that Pythagorean notions of harmonies might be disrupted by the existence of irrational numbers. He was a Pythagorean philosopher himself and was associated with the Mathematikoi branch of the sect. These were concerned more with mathematics itself rather than the mystical elements of the Pythagorean philosophy.

Temple of Concordia at Acragas

The other Pythagoreans disliked Hippasus and he is said to have been killed by them, either for the discovery of irrational numbers or from telling their secrets, such as how to construct a dodecahedron within a sphere. But it is hard to know much of Hippasus, save that he was mathematically minded and that he is remembered as the philosopher who destroyed the mathematical delusions of the Pythagoreans and was murdered as the result. How true any of it is, is hard to know.

Around this time Ion of Chios flourished. He was a talented playwright, philosopher and poet who spent time in Athens and composed tragedies to compete with Sophocles and Euripides, while also writing vaguely Pythagorean philosophical works and a variety of poems. A few fragments of his survive, but nothing of note.

Another philosopher who seems to have flourished around this time was the philosopher Abrotelia. She was a thinker of the Pythagorean school of thought and who was said to have been from Tarentum. Sadly none of her writings have come down to us and she is remembered purely in the reference books from later antiquity.

Around this time Zeno of Elea may have passed away. He was the philosopher who had been a follower of Parmenides and is the most well-known of the Eleatics. He had composed the famous paradoxes, including that of Achilles and the Tortoise. He was said to have been a fierce opponent of tyranny and to have died by biting out his own tongue under torture and spitting it into a tyrant's face. This is a much later story of course and is probably untrue.

Death of Empedocles, by Salvator Rosa,
AD1670

Even if the story of Zeno's death is true, it is not the most spectacular death of a philosopher reported from this time. Empedocles, the eclectic Sicilian philosopher who wrote of the Four Elements and the continued struggle between Love and Strife and a host of other matters, is said to have died around this time. He had overthrown the oligarchs of Acragas, as his father had helped overthrow the tyranny, and he seems to have dominated the city as a mystical, philosopher-ruler who was the champion of the poor. He was an enigmatic figure who was said to have been semi-divine and with miraculous powers. He is said to have vanished from the earth, but others tell the tale that Empedocles, feeling his death growing upon him, wished to disappear and thus cast himself into the fires of Mount Etna, perhaps so that those left behind would remember him as a god.

I have spoken of many figures who were prominent in the Greek intellectual tradition around this time. Acron, Hippocrates, Theodorus, Hippasus, Ion, Abrotelia, Zeno and Empedocles. But none was to have the impact that was said to have been triggered by an event in this year.

In this year 430 it was said that an unusual-looking Athenian, perhaps a little thin and pale, with an excitable manner, arrived in Delphi to enquire of the Oracle. The man's name was Chaerophon and he was a man who hungered and thirsted after knowledge. He had come to Delphi to learn, of all the many teachers and learned men in Greece, who was the wisest. The Oracle answered surprisingly that there was in fact none wiser than Chaerophon's friend; a man by the name of Socrates.

And thus the period draws to a close. It is an eventful period in Greek history and well-documented thanks to Thucydides. The wonders of the Parthenon, Athena Parthenos and statue of Olympian Zeus were created in these times. Great works of art and architecture abounded, as did some of the finest plays ever written. Philosophy, medicine, mathematics, poetry, rhetoric, astronomy and a whole host of great human endeavours were attempted at this time. But the period also saw great tragedy, with the onset of the Plague of Athens and the Peloponnesian War.

Acropolis viewed from the Areopagus

Primary Sources:
Herodotus, Histories, written circa 440BC
Sayings attributed to Protagoras, circa 440BC
Empedocles, On Nature, written circa 440BC
Fragments attributed to Pigres, written circa 440BC
Euripides, Alcestis, written 438BC
Democritus, Fragments, written circa 435BC
Euripides, Medea, written 431BC
Euripides, Heracleidae, written 430BC
Aeschylus/Euphorion, Prometheus Bound, written circa 430BC
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC
Hippocratic Corpus, written circa 300BC
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
Catalogue of Greek coins

Related Blog Posts:
Greece 449-440BC
439-420BC in the Near East
439-420BC in Rome
429-420BC in Greece