459-450BC in Greece

Statue A from the Riace Bronze
Sculptures, found undersea
near Calabria

This post will look at Greece and the wider Greek world from the years 459BC to 450BC. 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 Aeschylus, Thucydides, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, and Pausanias.

In the year 459 the Athenians and Spartans were at war in what would become known as the First Peloponnesian War. The Spartans were probably still fighting a helot uprising and the Athenians were fighting a major campaign against the Persians in Egypt, having committed perhaps 200 ships and their crews to that war. Thus, even though the war had begun the previous year, it is not clear that either side had really engaged each other. However the dates are somewhat unclear from this time, so some of what I mention in this year may in fact have occurred the year previously.

Some scholars place the alliance between Athens and Megara in this year, but I think it more likely that this occurred the year previously, as it was likely a cause for the war. However, I would certainly not be dogmatic about it.

The Athenians fought the Corinthians and the Corinthian allies from Epidaurus at a place called Halieis. Both Athens and Corinth were naval powers, but this battle was fought on land. The Athenians suffered a defeat, but probably not a very serious one. The Athenian navy was more successful than their land army, and won a victory over the Corinthians in a naval battle fought near the tiny island of Cecryphaleia, which was near to Aegina. Aegina was a traditional foe of Athens and the presence of their enemies in force must have frightened the Aeginetans.

Roman copy of a bust of Pericles

The Aeginetans joined the war on the Spartan side (this may possibly have happened early in the following year), adding their navy to the navy of the Corinthians and other Peloponnesian allies. Even with the huge naval force already engaged in Egypt, the Athenian navy was still the terror of the seas. The remainder of the Athenian fleet engaged the full fleet of the Aeginetans and whatever allies were available to help them. The Athenians were victorious, winning a huge victory, capturing 70 ships and entirely crippling the navy of Aegina.

A large Athenian force then landed on the island of Aegina and began to besiege the city. The Spartans had sent a force of three hundred soldiers to aid the Aeginetans, but it was nowhere near enough to sally forth and rout the Athenians. The siege dragged on, as siege warfare was not advanced in this time period among the Greeks. The Spartans meanwhile were decidedly inactive, which leads me to suspect that they were still fighting the helot uprising at this time.

Around this time, in Asia Minor, Archeptolis, son of the Themistocles, became governor of Magnesia. He governed the region as a vassal of the Persian kings and followed his father's example in minting coins in his own name, which may also include a portrait of his face upon the obverse of the coins.

In Sicily, the leader of the native people (the Sicels) took over the settlement of Morgantina. This town was probably taken from one of the Greek cities, Catana or Camerina.

Coin of Archeptolis, son of Themistocles, ruler of Magnesia

In the year 458 the Spartans remained inactive, perhaps still engaged in quelling the helot uprising. The Corinthians were not inactive however, and they decided, as the foremost of Sparta's allies, to take the initiative. They had previously defeated the Athenians in a land engagement and the Athenian land forces were acting as marines in Egypt or Aegina, fighting two simultaneous major wars. The Corinthians recognised that this would leave them vulnerable to a land invasion. The Corinthians sent their land forces to attack the city of Megara, a recent Athenian ally and one that lay on the route from Corinth to Athens.

The Corinthians had reasoned correctly and the Athenians had no proper land forces ready to counter the Corinthian attack. The cemetery of Kerameikos in Athens has a number of funerary monuments that give casualty lists for various years. The casualty lists for these years are, by any standards, high. There was a statue, excavated from the Acropolis Hill and created around this time that shows Athena exhausted and mourning, presumably for the Athenians who were paying such a heavy cost for their many battles and many wars.

Contemplative Athena

But the Athenians did not lack initiative themselves. They responded to the Corinthian attack. They armed the young and the old, calling every man who could hold a spear and sent this motley bunch of misfits to hold Megara at all costs, under the command of a general called Myronides.

The Megarians had their own troops of course, although they were outnumbered by the Corinthians. The Athenians joined forces with the Megarians and an inconclusive battle was fought between the two sides, quite near to the city of Megara itself. Neither side had much advantage, but the Corinthians, not wanting to stay so close to the hostile city of their foes, simply went home after the battle, thinking they had won, or at least, not lost.

Now it was tradition in ancient Greek warfare for the victor to erect a trophy to show all the world that they had been victorious. The Athenians believed that they had won the battle and thus put up a trophy after the Corinthians had gone home. The Corinthians were galled by the insult and went back to Megara to put up their own trophy. The Athenians and Megarians saw a small Corinthian detachment putting up their own trophy and they sallied out to punish this impudence.

The Corinthian detachment was put to flight and the Athenians pursued this group until it re-joined the main Corinthian army. Being disoriented by their own fleeing troops and the rapidity of the Athenian attack, the main Corinthian army was routed. Many Corinthians simply ran all the way back to Corinth, which was not very far away. A detachment of Corinthians got caught in a fenced enclosure on a farm and the Athenians surrounded them and killed them, which was a major blow to the Corinthian land army.

Bust of Pericles in
Vatican Museum

Around this time, the Athenians began constructing their own Long Walls, to connect the city of Athens (which is some kilometres inland), with their ports of Piraeus and Phalerum. These were rather longer than the Long Walls of Megara, which the Athenians were also constructing for their allies. The Athenians knew that, even if their land armies were not inferior to their enemies, their troops would often be away on distant engagements. The walls were to enable the city to withstand sieges and still continue to be supplied from the sea. Even if they lost control of their farmland outside their walls, the Athenians never envisaged themselves losing control of the sea. These walls were not close to each other and encompassed all the land between Piraeus and Phalerum.

In Sparta, Pleistarchus, the son of the famed Leonidas and Gorgo, died. He was succeeded by Pleistonax, who was the son of the disgraced regent Pausanias, as the Agiad King of Sparta. Nicomedes, son of Cleombrotus, acted as a regent however, as the king was still a young man.

The playwright Aeschylus won the tragedy prize at the Great Dionysia Festival that year. The trilogy of plays that he presented that year was the Oresteia. This is the first full trilogy of plays that survives to us from the classical era. It is also arguably one of the finest works of tragedy ever written.

Theatre of Dionyus in Athens. The seating and stage
date from the later Roman era

The first play is "Agamemnon", where the Mycenaean king and his prisoner Cassandra return after ten years of war at Troy, only to be murdered by his wife Clytemnestra and treacherous relative Aegisthus, in vengeance for murders and human sacrifices committed earlier.

The next play is "The Libation Bearers", where Orestes, son of Agamemnon and his wife Clytemnestra, returns unknown from exile to avenge his father, eventually trapping and killing Aegisthus and then his own mother. On the one hand he has fulfilled the will of the gods and of justice by slaying his father's murderer. On the other hand Orestes has committed the heinous crime of matricide and thus he is pursued by the Erinyes, or as their name translates, the Furies.

In the third play, "Eumenides", the haunted Orestes wanders the earth only to arrive in Athens. Here he pleads to Athena, goddess of wisdom. She answers his prayer by allowing Orestes to stand trial, where he is eventually found innocent. The nature of vengeance then changes. The primordial cycle of revenge gives way to the laws of the state and of reason. The Furies become the embodiment of the fury of the law and the place of the trial, the Areopagus, became a permanent law court for Athens. It is a majestic trilogy spanning heights and lows and is one of the greatest works of Greek literature.

Aeschylus also wrote a satyr play, called Proteus, to accompany the dark and gloomy majesty of the Oresteia, but the play is lost to us. Sophocles received the second prize for his plays that year, but these are (to my knowledge) unknown. Euphonius received the prize in the Comedy competition.

A kylix showing the murder of Cassandra by Clytemnestra

Chorus: What is it, Cassandra? What terror turns your head? 
Cassandra: Terror! Terror, terror indeed! 
Chorus: What terror, Cassandra? Is there some terror in your heart? 
Cassandra: Do you smell that? In there. Do you smell that? The palace is clogged thick with the stench of slaughter! 
Chorus: What are you saying? It is the smell of animals sacrificed on the altar! 
Cassandra: It is like the stench that emanates from a tomb. 
Aeschylus, Agamemnon, 1305-1312, written circa 458BC

Around this time a painter named Agatharchus flourished in Athens. He was reputed to have been a great painter and is said by a later Roman writer to have painted the backdrops to one of Aeschylus' plays and to have used a form of perspective and vanishing points.

In the first place Agatharchus, in Athens, when Aeschylus was bringing out a tragedy, painted a scene, and left a commentary about it. This led Democritus and Anaxagoras to write on the same subject, showing how, given a centre in a definite place, the lines should naturally correspond with due regard to the point of sight and the divergence of the visual rays, so that by this deception a faithful representation of the appearance of buildings might be given in painted scenery, and so that, though all is drawn on a vertical flat facade, some parts may seem to be withdrawing into the background, and others to be standing out in front.
Vitruvius, De Architectura, Preface to Book 7, written circa 20BC

Vase by the Persephone Painter

In this year Pericles made the archonship a paid position and allowed the poorer citizens to attain to this office. This was part of Pericles' policy of expanding the democracy. Even though Pericles came from a very aristocratic background himself, his policies generally strengthened the overall body politic at the expense of the aristocratic faction in Athens.

In the year 457 the Phocians attacked the region of Doris near Boeotia. This region was the reputed homeland of the Spartans and it was felt that this insult to Spartan power could not be ignored. The Spartans must have felt that they were no longer threatened by the helot uprising, or possibly the rising had been finished at this time. In any case, they were able to raise a large army and slip across the Gulf of Corinth, eluding the Athenian navy. The Spartans, under the command of Nicomedes, fought with the Phocians and compelled them to cease attacking Doris.

The Spartans had won a victory, but were now in a tricky situation. The Athenians were aware that a large Spartan force had left the Peloponnese and their navies now watched the seas. The land route led them by the city of Megara along the narrow isthmus and the Athenian land armies were mustering now to stop the Spartans from passing this way.

Pediment detail from the Temple of Zeus at
Olympia

The Spartans waited in Boeotia for the Athenians to come to them. The Athenians slightly outnumbered the Spartans. Presumably some marines had been brought from the siege at Aegina to strengthen the Athenian numbers. The two sides met at Tanagra and a protracted struggle ensued. The fighting was intense and there were heavy losses for both armies. Eventually the Athenians were forced off the field, but this was no great Spartan victory. The Spartans were unable to do anything with this victory except retreat back to Sparta using the land route past Megara, where they cut down some fruit trees of the Megarians, but accomplished little else.

The reason for the Spartan retreat may have been more than just their heavy losses. Athens had previously concluded an alliance with Argos, and the Spartans may have feared leaving their lands exposed for too long to attack from an enemy so near to them. The Athenian navy meanwhile could still roam unchecked and attack anywhere on the coasts of the Peloponnese at will.

The Athenians were in no way dismayed however and immediately gathered more troops from their allies and subjects. Two months later they marched northwards again, commanded by their general Myronides who had led them to victory over the Corinthians, knowing that the Spartans had abandoned the region. The Thebans and other Boeotians were defeated by the Athenians at the Battle of Oenophyta. The Athenians then converted this into a tangible and lasting success for their empire and forced all of Boeotia (except Thebes) and Phocis to join the Delian League. This is sometimes referred to as the Athenian Land Empire. The walls of Tanagra were destroyed, to make sure it couldn't stand against Athens again and the regions of Locri and Phocis were also ravaged by the Athenian troops before peace was made. The Athenians then gave the administration of Delphi, a very important role, to their Phocian allies.

Pediment detail from the Temple of Zeus at
Olympia

During this year, the city of Aegina fell to the Athenian forces besieging it. The Athenians had finally defeated their old enemy and the terms of peace were not lenient. Aegina was forced to join the Delian League, tear down her walls, abandon her navy, and pay heavy tribute to Athens.

Athens was going from strength to strength. The Long Walls of Athens, that enclosed the ports of Piraeus and Phalerum, were also finished around this time, making Athens practically invulnerable to land invasion by Corinth, Thebes or even Sparta.

The battle was fought at Tanagra in Boeotia. After heavy loss on both sides, victory declared for the Lacedaemonians and their allies. After entering the Megarid and cutting down the fruit trees, the Lacedaemonians returned home across Geraneia and the isthmus. Sixty-two days after the battle the Athenians marched into Boeotia under the command of Myronides, defeated the Boeotians in battle at Oenophyta, and became masters of Boeotia and Phocis. They dismantled the walls of the Tanagraeans, took a hundred of the richest men of the Opuntian Locrians as hostages, and finished their own long walls. This was followed by the surrender of the Aeginetans to Athens on conditions; they pulled down their walls, gave up their ships, and agreed to pay tribute in future.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I, written circa 400BC

Athens had had success in nearly every venture that they had attempted. They had been defeated by Sparta to be sure, but only barely defeated, and they had recovered from that defeat to take over much of central Greece. Their sea power was unassailable by any Greek state and with their alliance with Megara, they nearly had the entire Peloponnese in a stranglehold. The only cloud on the horizon was that their armies in Egypt had still not managed to win the war against the Persians and Egyptians besieged in a fortress in Memphis.

Ruins of the Temple of Zeus at Olympia

In this year it seems that the Temple of Zeus at Olympia was completed. This was a large temple, built at the site of earlier temples, at the site of the oldest of the Panhellenic Games. It was a temple built in the Doric style. The sculptor Phidias was brought to create the statue that would be placed inside the temple, but this was done at a later date. The actual pediments of the temple itself were decorated by an unknown sculptor known as the Olympia Master. Many of the pediment decorations survive and some are in the Louvre, where they serve as an example of the early Classical style of statuary. Some refer to this style as Severe style, in that it shows a high technical ability, but like the earlier archaic statues, shows no variety of emotion. However their expressions are unlike the enigmatic smiles of the Archaic statues. The Severe statues show a firm unsmiling dignity and are serious above all else.

Around the year 456 the Athenians, revelling in their successes of the previous years, seem to have decided to launch a punitive expedition against the Spartans. They had control of the seas with their many triremes and the Peloponnese was nearly an island. They would attack all around the shores and coastlines of the Peloponnese, harassing Sparta from every side and weakening her allies. The expedition was probably mustered in this year, but may not have set sail until the following year.

Later Roman bust of Aeschylus
copied from a Greek original

As a sign of the military strength of the Athenians, the statue of Athena Promachos, meaning Athena Front-Fighter, was finished on the Acropolis hill. This statue was created by Phidias, probably the greatest of the Greek sculptors at the time and stood over 9 metres tall. It is said that the flashing of the metal could be seen by ships rounding Cape Sunium far to the south of Athens.

Around this time the Athenian playwright Aeschylus died while abroad in Sicily. He was the first of the three tragic playwrights who would be become famed in antiquity. His works comprise the oldest surviving plays from anywhere in the world. There are later legends that he was killed by an eagle mistaking his bald head for a rock and dropping a tortoise on it to shatter the tortoise. This is rather obviously a later legend, but too wonderful not to relate. His plays were so beloved by the people that they were sometimes re-staged at festivals. This is commonplace now, but at this time, plays were generally staged once in a competition and then not staged again.

But of all the praises that were given to Aeschylus before and after his death, the one that he was most proud of was that he had fought in the Battle of Marathon, and not been found wanting. This was engraved upon his tombstone in Athens.

Beneath this stone lies Aeschylus, son of Euphorion, the Athenian,
who perished in the wheat-bearing land of Gela;
of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon can speak,
and the long-haired Persian knows it well.
Funerary Inscription of Aeschylus

Vase by the Altamura Painter

In this year the Olympic Games were held, where all of the Greek cities held a truce and competed against each other for glory. Phrynichus of Athens won the boys wrestling competition. Ikadion of Crete won the boys stadion. Alkainetos of Lepreon won the boys boxing. Psaumios of Camarina won the mule-cart race. Polymnastos of Cyrene won the stadion race. Diactorides won the tethrippon chariot race, or, more accurately, owned the horses that won the race. Leontiskos of Sicilian Messene won the wrestling competition. Timanthes of Kleonai won the pancration. Mnaseas of Cyrene won the hoplitodromos race.

In the year 455 the Athenian fleet sailed around the coast of the Peloponnese. They attacked and burned the port of Gythion in the southern Peloponnese. This was where the Spartans and their allies in that region had been storing supplies and building a navy in a meagre bid to challenge the naval dominance of the Athenians. It was probably the best port in the region and would later become important for the Spartans of later generations. The Athenian burning of the port by the admiral Tolmides and his navy would have set back any hopes of the Spartans to even contest the seas or give any naval aid at all to their allies.

Vase by the Achilles Painter

The fleet continued to sail its course around the Peloponnese. They had attacked the island of Cythera, which could have been strategic as a future base, and attacked the region of Messenia, perhaps in the hope of sparking fresh hope into the helot revolt. But the Spartans had quashed all remnants of hope among the bondmen there.
Sailing around the Peloponnese, Tolmides attacked and took Chalcis and Naupactus on the northern coast of the Gulf of Corinth. He then sailed further into the Gulf of Corinth and attacked the city of Sicyon, near Corinth itself. Tolmides won a battle here but was unable to take the city of Sicyon itself. Some Achaean cities along the northern coast of the Peloponnese seem to have switched to Athenian allegiances however.

All was not going to plan for the Athenians however. The long siege in Egypt had been broken. The Athenians and rebel Egyptians under Inaros and Amyrtaeus, had been besieging the Persians and loyalist Egyptians in a fortified area of Memphis known as White Castle. The siege had apparently dragged on for years, and the Athenians had probably been unable to fully capture the Nile waterway and stop the resupply of the Persian garrison. While the siege had dragged on, the Persians had been mustering a counterattack.

Obverse of Athenian Tetradrachm showing head of
Athena with test cut

The Persian general Megabyzus had been put in charge of the campaign by Artaxerxes I. He had spent time retraining his army and preparing it for the campaign. He attacked the Egyptians and Greeks and raised the siege of Memphis. The Egyptians were defeated and possibly their armies were broken at this point. The Athenians retreated in good order to the island of Prosopitis in the Nile where their ships were moored. However they were unable or unwilling to abandon the campaign and reach the sea. Megabyzus then began to besiege the island and began drainage works to drain that section of the Nile itself.

The Athenians must have known that something had gone terribly wrong in Egypt and prepared a counter-stroke. An additional 50 ships were prepared to sail to the relief and rescue of the Egyptian expedition.

The Athenians may also have finally realised that they had overstretched themselves. There seems to be a general cessation of hostilities around this point and what I suspect happened is as follows. The Athenians approached the Spartans with an offer of a temporary truce. The Spartans, who now saw Athenian garrisons within the Peloponnese itself, must have been glad to accept. They in turn gave terms to the helots who were still holding out against the Spartans on Mt Ithome. The rebel helots were allowed to leave on the condition that they would never return. The rebels left the Peloponnese under a promise of safe conduct and went to Athens. The Athenians then settled these refugee rebels in the captured city of Naupactus, which was very close to the Peloponnese and a threat to naval traffic in the Gulf of Corinth. Thus the Third Messenian War drew to a close.

Statue A from the Riace Bronze
Sculptures, found undersea
near Calabria

Now, the dates here are rather confused and some people believe that the Third Messenian War actually ended before the First Peloponnesian War, five years earlier. This is, I believe, wrong, because the Athenians would not have been able to give the helots the city of Naupactus until after Tolmides had captured it,  which certainly happened in the midst of the Peloponnesian War. The safe-conduct to the Athenians is most likely to have happened under a temporary truce and the setbacks in Egypt would likely have had to have happened before Athens would grant a truce, as up until that point they had had nearly constant successes.

The settlement of the helots at Naupactus led to tension between Athens and Sparta, but I would argue that this tension occurred during a temporary truce, rather than being a cause of the war. If the Spartans were not facing an internal threat of some sort it is difficult to explain their almost complete inaction in the early parts of the war.

In this year Euripides produced his first known tragedy, called Peliades. It did not win a prize and the play itself has not survived from antiquity.

Around this time a bronze statue was made known as Statue A of the Riace bronzes. Unlike most Greek bronze sculptures from this period, the statue has survived, perhaps being thrown overboard in a storm near the coast of Calabria in Italy, along with a slightly later statue. When statues were discovered by a diver, it was thought that it might actually be a recent drowning victim, so lifelike was the statue at first glance. Both this statue and the later statue have been recovered and restored. Their creators and the purposes for which they were made remain unknown, although some have suspected that they may have represented two of the figures known as "Seven Against Thebes", from a play by Aeschylus.

Coin of Alexander I of Macedon

In the year 454 Alexander I of Macedon died and was succeeded by Alcetas II. He had been a vassal of the king of Persia during the earlier part of his long reign, but after the defeat of Xerxes' invasion he had once again become an independent king. The Macedonians were viewed as perhaps not fully Greek by the more southerly Greek speakers. Their names and customs were seen as strange and they were a much larger, though still small, political unit compared to the average Greek city state. However Alexander I had petitioned to take part in the Olympic Games and had drawn up a genealogy that suggested his ancestors were Greeks from the time of the Trojan War. This was seen as sufficient and the Macedonians were afterwards treated as Greeks, but perhaps with certain reservations. Alexander had also been a patron of Bacchylides and Pindar and now minted coins like other Greek states. Alcetas II was less successful as a king and seems to have drank heavily.

It seems that there was a war of sorts between the two cities of Segesta and Selinunte in the region of eastern Sicily. But this is merely based on an anachronistic statement of Diodorus Siculus and we do not know if it was merely written in error or if there was indeed a war.

Roman bust of Panyassis from
the buried city of Herculaneum

In Halicarnassus, the poet Panyassis was executed for treason against the ruling tyrant Lygdamis II, who ruled the Carian city in the name of Persia. Panyassis was a famed poet in antiquity, but none of his works survive. It is guessed that his more famous nephew, Herodotus, was exiled around this time. Herodotus took this opportunity to travel around the world of the eastern Mediterranean, gathering stories and tales and eventually weaving these into what would become known to us as the "Histories". Lygdamis II probably died not long after this however, perhaps as the result of Athenian intervention, and shortly thereafter Halicarnassus became part of the Delian League (or the Athenian Empire depending on what term you want to use). Perhaps the dates here are wrong however and the death of Panyassis occurred earlier. This is probably the latest possible date for the execution of Panyassis and the beginnings of the travels of Herodotus.

Around this time unrest grew in southern Italy against the still considerable influence of the Pythagoreans. This quasi-mathematical, quasi-religious cult is generally seen today as a harmless yet slightly strange society of philosophers. In antiquity however they do seem to have had connections to political power, generally allying themselves with aristocrats against the common people and justifying this by saying that only the wise should rule. This led to a lot of unrest against them, and as democracies became more popular in the western Greek cities, in Sicily and Italy, the Pythagoreans became ever more hated.

This hatred came to a head, possibly in this year, and the meeting places of the Pythagoreans were burned. The Pythagoreans fled, with many of them leaving the western regions and travelling to mainland Greece. Here they set up new centres of teaching, at Phlius and Thebes. They influenced later thinkers but they never again attained political prominence. They did however carry nostalgic memories of a time when philosophers ruled cities.

Coin of Segesta in Sicily

One of those who fled was the philosopher Philolaus, who seems to have been the first thinker we know of to have conceived of a universe where the earth was not the centre. This should not be confused with helio-centrism.

Philolaus believed that everything rotated around a central flame that was far off, high up and invisible. The central fire could not be seen, as it was blocked by the disk of the sky, but presumably this was what gave light to the stars. There was also a counter-earth added to the system to make the number of heavenly bodies 10, rather than 9. Bare fragments of his work survive and the witnesses to Philolaus' work are generally later philosophers who are at least partly hostile to his thinking. We know that Philolaus was also interested in music and in the types of mathematical relationships in harmonies.

But Philolaus the Pythagorean says that it revolves round the fire in an oblique circle, in like manner as the Sun and Moon.
Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 15.LVIII, written circa AD320

Remains of a temple in Memphis in Egypt

In Egypt, the Athenian forces had been under siege on an island in the Nile. They had been defeated by the Persians in the previous year and their Egyptian allies were scattered. However, secure on their island, the Athenians were able to fend off the attacking Persians. However, the Persian commander Megabyzus had ordered the Nile to be diverted away from that area. Once the river drained away, the Persians could march over and attack the Greek forces by land. Also, the two hundred ships of the Athenians were now useless. Some Athenians tried to escape and some made it out, eventually marching along the coast and making it to Cyrene. Most did not. The Persians inflicted a terrible defeat on the Athenians, capturing or destroying the entire expeditionary navy and killing or capturing nearly all of the rowers and marines.

To further compound the disaster, the relief force that the Athenians had sent approached Egypt, unaware of the disaster. This comprised 50 ships; a sizeable force, but not a huge one. The Persian navy caught the Athenian reinforcements and utterly defeated them. The Athenians and their Greek allies had grown used to easily defeating the Persians and their overconfidence made them pay a terrible price. The defeat of the Egyptian expedition was nearly complete. The Athenians and their allies lost 250 ships and perhaps 50,000 men. It was a defeat so heavy that it should have ended most empires.

Statue of the goddess Neith
from Sais, one of the centres of
the Egyptian rebellion

The Egyptians were similarly hurt. Their rebellion against Persia was nearly ended by the defeat. The Libyan chieftain, Inaros II, who had been the main leader of the revolt, was captured by the Persians, having fled to a place called Byblos (presumably a place near Memphis rather than the more famous Byblos in Phoenicia). He was afterwards crucified or impaled on the orders of Artaxerxes I. Another leader of the rebellion, Amyrtaeus of Sais, who was an Egyptian, seems to have had more success and carried out a low-level guerrilla war against the triumphant Persians. Amyrtaeus and his remaining troops escaped the Persian retaliations by hiding in the marshes of the Nile Delta.

Arriving by land he defeated the Egyptians and their allies in a battle, and drove the Hellenes out of Memphis, and at length shut them up in the island of Prosopitis, where he besieged them for a year and six months. At last, draining the canal of its waters, which he diverted into another channel, he left their ships high and dry and joined most of the island to the mainland, and then marched over on foot and captured it. Thus the enterprise of the Hellenes came to ruin after six years of war. Of all that large host a few travelling through Libya reached Cyrene in safety, but most of them perished. And thus Egypt returned to its subjection to the King, except Amyrtaeus, the king in the marshes, whom they were unable to capture from the extent of the marsh;
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I, written circa 400BC

Vase by the Hasselmann Painter

The Athenians panicked when they heard of the scale of the disaster. Their naval supremacy was now threatened and there was a real fear that the Persians would attack Greece in strength once more. Once news of the losses became known, the Athenians decided to move the treasury of the Delian League from the island of Delos in the midst of the Aegean, to Athens itself. This would protect it from any threat of the revived Persian navy, but it also meant that Athens could help itself to that money with greater ease.

It might be wondered how Athens could survive such a defeat at all. After all, Athens probably only had around 200,000 inhabitants? The exact numbers of Athenians is debateable, but I think the answer is that the soldiers and sailors who died in Egypt were from all the cities of the Delian League. Thus the actual loss of Athenian citizens was perhaps closer to 10,000 with the rest spread across the other maritime cities who made up the League. The loss in Egypt was still a heavy loss, but the loss of life from their allies and subject states perhaps explains why there were no immediate rebellions against Athenian rule.

The Athenians, under the leadership of Pericles, responded with characteristic vigour. The truce between Athens and Sparta, if it existed in the first place, was surely broken by the Spartans once they heard of the defeat that the Athenians had suffered on the Nile. There seems to have been an uprising in Thessaly against Orestes, a leader of the Thessalians and an ally of Athens. The Athenians marched northwards to restore him, but Pericles was unable to force the Thessalians to take back their exiled ruler.

Athenian funerary stele
showing a woman and a slave

With Thessaly now hostile, Pericles took the initiative and led an expedition across the Corinthian Gulf to attack the city of Sicyon. The Athenians won a victory here, but once more, seem not to have actually taken the city of Sicyon. Embarking on their ships once more, the Athenians took their Achaean allies from the north of the Peloponnese and attacked Oeniadae, on the northern shore of the Gulf of Corinth. This was a city of the Acarnanians and neighbours of the recently settled helots at Naupactus. The helots and the Acarnanians were at war, and the helots had recently taken Oeniadae, before the Acarnanians had forced them out again and retaken their city. Pericles must have hoped to aid the helots in their war, but his siege was unsuccessful.

In this year, Pericles made the position of juryman a paid position. This meant that poorer people who were too old to serve in the navy could still earn money by serving the state. It was a measure designed to strengthen the poorer classes and bolster the democracy of Athens. It was opposed by the aristocratic faction in Athens, but these had little influence. Pericles was to all intents and purposes the absolute ruler of Athens, despite it being a democracy. Pericles was an astute politician, but seems to have not been an excellent general. He was not terrible, but his campaigns led to no great victories for Athens.

Coin of Catana in Sicily

In the year 452 no great battles, sieges or campaigns took place in the First Peloponnesian War. However in Sicily, Ducetius, the leader of the Sicels, who were some of the original inhabitants of Sicily before the Greek and Phoenician colonisation, founded a city called Palice, near the sanctuary of two Sicilian gods, called the Palici. Their temple was near a lake system that emitted sulphurous fumes and held sacred significance for the Sicels. This new city was to be the capital of the Sicels and the runaway slaves from the Greek and Carthaginian cities could flee to it and be protected by Ducetius. By now the Greek cities on the coast were becoming concerned about the growth of Ducetius' power.

On the southern coast of Italy, some exiles from the defeated city of Sybaris attempted to refound the city. However, the nearby city of Croton, who had originally defeated and exiled the Sybarites, expelled them once more. It is perhaps ironic that sybarite and sybaritic, are almost synonyms for hedonist and hedonistic, yet the actual history of the city of Sybaris seems to show mostly hardship.

The Olympic Games were held this year. Lachon of Chios won the boy's stadion race. Cleodorus won the boy's wrestling. Lykos of Larissa won the stadion race, as well as winning the hoplitodromos. Euboulos won the diaulos. Hippobotus won the dolichos. Ariston of Epidaurus won the boxing. Leontiskos of Sicilian Messene won the wrestling, for the second Olympic Games in a row. Damagetos of Rhodes won the pancration. Damagetos was the son of Diagoras, a famous boxer who had won two victories at the Olympic Games, four in the Isthmian, two in the Nemean and at least one in the Pythian Games. Psaumios of Camerina owned the team of horses that won the tethrippon chariot race, while Python was the owner of the horse that won the horse race.

Ostraca showing the name of Cimon, son of Miltiades

In the year 451 Cimon of Athens returned from the ten year exile imposed by his ostracism. He seems to have made his peace with the new order within Athens and there is no record of Pericles and himself quarrelling.

The power of Pericles was undiminished and he passed a new citizenship law, restricting Athenian citizenship to those whose parents were both Athenian. This was again popular with many of the common people, who may have been concerned with wealthy foreigners arriving and becoming citizens, but there must have been some opposition to the law. There is no record of Cimon using his influence to oppose it however. Cimon must have been quite an old man at this time however.

Some believe that there was an alliance of sorts forged between Cimon and Pericles. Pericles would lead the political development of Athens, while Cimon would use his military skill to lead the Athenian armies in the field. Cimon would also use his pro-Spartan connections to foster a truce and perhaps even forge a peace with Sparta. If such an alliance truly existed it was to the benefit of the Athenians.

Coin of Acragas from around this time

Cimon brokered some sort of truce with the Spartans. The terms of this truce involved the Athenians breaking their alliance with Argos (which was of minimal use to the Athenians anyway, as Argos had not sent many soldiers to aid Athens). There was too great hostility between Argos and Sparta for there to ever be lasting peace between them. But the Argives were weak enough that they were prepared to agree to a thirty year truce between Argos and Sparta, which was close enough to a lasting peace in the tumultuous Greek world. Meanwhile Athens took advantage in the lull in hostilities to prepare their fleets to face the Persians once more, under the leadership of Cimon, their greatest general.

In Sicily, Ducetius led his army of Sicels and attacked Motyon, which was held by the Greek city of Acragas and is possibly the archaeological site currently known as Vassallaggi. This was considered to be too threatening by the Syracusans and despite having previously supported Ducetius, they now supported Acragas against the Sicels. Ducetius was undeterred however and took Motyon in despite of the Syracusans.

Athenian funerary stele of a young
girl and two doves

In the year 450 a great many things are said to have occurred. Of these many are simply placed by historians to have happened in or around this time, because it is the midpoint of the century. I shall first deal with the things that certainly happened in this year, before dealing with the things that happened around this time.

In Sicily, Ducetius, the leader of the Sicels, fought a battle with the Greek cities of Syracuse and Acragas, which were probably the two strongest Greek settlements on the island. He was defeated at a place called Nomae and his army was scattered. Fearing the wrath both of the people of Acragas and his own people, Ducetius fled to his enemies, the Syracusans, and made himself their suppliant. The Syracusans took pity on their defeated foe, who had once been their ally, and instead of killing him, sent him into exile overseas to Corinth, not to return without the permission of the Syracusans. The people of Acragas were angry that their enemy had been released unilaterally by the Syracusans, but the Syracusans refused to answer to Acragas and gave some measure of the protection to the defeated Sicels left behind.

Meanwhile in Athens, Cimon had not been idle and had raised a great fleet of 200 triremes to send against the Persians. He attacked Cyprus with his main force, but split off a fleet of 60 triremes to sail southwards to Egypt to support the faltering revolt of Amyrtaeus. The Athenians and their allies laid siege to Kition, but were unable to take the city, as siege warfare was not well developed in those days. The Persians were mustering a response to Cimon's attack and were preparing their own navy and land army.

A modern bust of Cimon in Cyprus

While the siege dragged on, Cimon died, either of a wound or sickness, or just old age, as he cannot have been a young man. A large Persian army and navy arrived on Cyprus and the Greeks abandoned the siege of Kition, retreating towards Salamis. This was not the more famous Salamis where Persia had been defeated under Xerxes, but a city named Salamis-in-Cyprus.

The Athenians were not informed of Cimon's death and were told that he was still in command and drawing up the plans of battle. The Athenian general Anaxicrates was actually in command however. The Athenians defeated the Persians on land and sea at Salamis-in-Cyprus, giving Cimon the honour of being one of the few generals to win a posthumous victory. However, the victory was a hollow one, as the Athenians had not enough men or ships to exploit their victory. Taking the body of Cimon, the expeditionary force returned to Athens, joined by the ships that had been sent to Egypt, which had also achieved very little.

Cimon was buried in Athens, but was remembered by shrines in Cyprus where he had died. In more recent times statues have been placed to honour his memory there. More than any other person he had ensured the military greatness of Athens, particularly in her wars with Persia in the aftermath of the invasion of Xerxes. He was probably the single greatest military commander that Athens ever had. His death left a void in Athenian politics and his role as leader of the aristocratic party was filled by Thucydides of Alopece, who, just to clarify, was not the more famous historian Thucydides, who would come to prominence later.

Vase by the Altamura Painter

Cimon's half-sister, and reputed lover, Elpinice, survived him by many years. She was the lover of the painter Polygnotus, but was a sharp-witted woman who used her status to continue to oppose Pericles in her own right.

This year Crates won the Comedy prize for his plays at the Great Dionysia Festival. Very little survives of his works, but there are a few fragments of his work that remain. No single play remains intact however.

Many events took place around the mid-fifth century BC and, as there is no convenient year that these can be confidently ascribed to, I shall mention them here. In the realm of the theatre, it is possible that Sophocles wrote his early play "Women of Trachis" around this time, but this is unclear. The work survives to us, but is not accounted as one of the best works of Sophocles. Some scholars place it here, others assign it to a later date.

Around this time, the Achilles Painter, the Altamura Painter (who was the brother of the Niobid Painter), the Hasselmann Painter and the Persephone Painter all flourished. These were Attic painters who painted their creations in workshops just outside the city of Athens, near the cemetery and whose art was highly valued in antiquity and which survives today in many museums around the world.

Vase by the Persephone Painter

It was around this time that the perhaps legendary lawyers and masters of rhetoric, named Corax and Tisias are said to have lived in Syracuse. Corax undertook to teach Tisias how to argue before the law. He took no fee for his instruction on the understanding that Tisias would pay him from the winnings of his first court case. Tisias was fully trained in the art of speaking and debating and Corax fully expected that he would soon become an active figure in the courts. But Tisias ended up doing nothing really and Corax was furious with him.

Corax then took him to court to get him to pay his fee, however Tisias pleaded his own case. He made the rather innovative argument that if Corax won his case then, Tisias would not pay the fee, as the teaching of Corax would be shown to be useless (as Tisias could not win his case). On the other hand if Tisias won the case, then Tisias wouldn't pay the fee (as the non-payment of the fee was what Tisias was wanting).

The story is a fun one and could lead to many imaginary debates. Corax and Tisias probably existed but nothing of their work survives and this particular story is probably false. Tisias may have been the teacher of the later orator Isocrates.

Around this time the doctor Herodicus of Selymbria flourished. He is said to have favoured exercise therapy, sometimes recommending that his patients walk the 30km to Megara from Athens. His prescriptions for healthy living were probably of minimal use to anyone who had a genuinely life-threatening ailment, but would have been of interest to the populace in general and athletes in particular. It was said that he was one of the teachers of Hippocrates, who would later become the most famous doctor of the ancient world.

Relief of Zeus and Hera from
Selinunte Temple E

The mathematician and astronomer Oenopides of Chios seems to have flourished around this time. He made some astronomical observations, primarily regarding the zodiac and the Great Year, where relative apparent orbits of the sun and the moon would repeat the same patterns after a given length of time. His calculations here were useful, but imprecise. His works in geometry seem to have been more theoretical and he was apparently the first geometer to explicitly rule out more brute-force methods of solving puzzles. Only a compass and a straight-edge could be used to truly solve a problem. Thus geometry became a more theoretical discipline, whereas it had previously been an extremely practical one. He also had certain beliefs about the nature of the universe, and was a philosopher, but little of his thought remains to us.

Another astronomer who flourished around this time was the astronomer Harpalus. Little is known about him, save that he improved on certain calculations of Cleostratus, an astronomer from two generations previous who may have been influenced by the Babylonian astronomical records.

Around this time the philosopher Melissus of Samos flourished. He came from the island of Samos but had been taught in the Magna Graecia region of Italy under the tutelage of Parmenides. He is usually treated as being part of the Eleatic school of philosophy. His philosophy is quite similar to that of Parmenides, arguing for a timeless, changeless state of Being. Like the other Eleatics, Melissus was concerned to show that the concept of change was an illusory one. He restated many of the points of Parmenides, but also spoke on how there could be no true vacuum. Thus, if there was no true vacuum, there was no empty space for Being to move to. It is an odd argument, like all of the arguments of the Eleatics, but worth considering, if only as a way of testing the mind.

Zeno's Paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise:
Even though Achilles is ten times faster, he will never
catch the tortoise

The best-remembered of the Eleatics also flourished around this time. Zeno of Elea was another of the pupils of Parmenides. As a way of protecting the very unusual doctrines of his teacher from ridicule, Zeno set out to show that our normal ways of considering change and being were equally worthy of ridicule. He created nine paradoxes, including the paradox of the moving arrow, which is in motion, but if examined at any given second appears to rest still and motionless in the air. Another of the most famous paradoxes was that of Achilles and the Tortoise. Achilles runs ten times faster than the tortoise, but the tortoise starts 10 paces ahead of Achilles. By the time Achilles has run 10 paces, the tortoise has moved 1 pace. By the time Achilles has run 1 pace, the tortoise has move 0.1 pace, etc. Thus Achilles will never catch the tortoise.

These puzzling paradoxes seem to have captivated the imagination of various philosophers and many spent time trying to disprove them. A later work by Plato suggests that these paradoxes may never have been intended for publication, but that once they were known, they could not be recalled. Zeno's Paradoxes seem obviously wrong, but without a knowledge of physics and logic it can be hard to say exactly why. In this unprovable error and puzzlement lay their enduring appeal.

In the realm of architecture around this time, the Corinthian order was invented. This was a type of column that had an elaborate capital, adorned with decorations and acanthus leaves and other decorations. This became known as the third Classical Order, along with Doric and Ionic. However it did not immediately become popular and the Doric and Ionic orders were primarily used in this period. It would become very popular some centuries later.

Site of the water clock in the Athenian Agora

In Athens, a new council house was built in the Agora. The new hero temple of Theseus, whose supposed bones had been brought back to Athens by Cimon, was also completed around this time. A water clock, known as a clepsydra, was also placed in the Agora of Athens. Water clocks had been invented centuries earlier in other cultures and were well known in the ancient world, but the Greeks were beginning to make significant improvements on the ones known in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Finally, the sacred area of Eleusis, where the Athenians held the Eleusinian Mysteries, was also rebuilt after its destruction in the Persian Wars.

In Sicily, the Temple of the Dioscuri was built in Acragas around this time. In Selinunte, the Temple E was built. Scholars are unclear as to whether this was a temple to Hera or to Aphrodite. The temple contains a number of surviving reliefs that are preserved in a museum in Palermo. The temple itself stands impressively today, but was reconstructed using the fallen material in the 1950's.

Temple of the Dioscuri in Acragas

Writing around this time, the poet Praxilla of Sicyon wrote lyric poetry. Little of her work survives, but we have some references to her work in other sources. Her work was well regarded in antiquity despite its eventual loss. She wrote about mythological subject matter, but also wrote drinking songs for symposia (drinking parties). Some have suspected that the reason she was allowed to these traditionally male-dominated events was that she was a hetaira, or a prostitute, but this is not proven at all.

Around this time the early logographers wrote. These were people who were interested in the stories of times past and who wrote down lists of times, people and places. They were concerned with genealogies and festivals, being almost like a cross between a Mesopotamian chronicler and a later Greek historian. By and large they showed no critical faculty in discerning between the mythical and the historical. They also were not overly concerned with cause and effect. But their compiled lists and tales were often used by later classical historians. They were not the first historians. They were not really historians at all. But they are an important symptom of the birth of historiography in Greece.

Hellanicus of Lesbos was one such of these. He wrote lists of the priestesses of Hera, lists of the winners of the Carnea festival, a genealogy of a mythical Peloponnesian king named Phoronis, as well as some of the earliest writings about Rome, and histories of Troy, Persia and Attica. Thucydides later notes that Hellanicus' work was not particularly good, but he seems to have been used as a source by later historians.

Selinunte Temple E

Pherecydes of Leros was another such systematiser. He wrote a history of the island of Leros and long genealogies, which sometimes contained historical information.

The logographers were not even all Greek. One such writer was Xanthus of Lydia, who wrote a history of his native Lydia, which was a lost work known as the Lydica. He also is said to have written a work about Persian religion, known as Magica, after the Persian Magi.

Ultimately almost none of what the logographers wrote has survived to the present day. But I thought that it was worth mentioning their work. Even the word logographer has fallen out of our vocabulary. Their entire enterprise has been subsumed by the discipline of history. In one sense of the word, logographers are prehistoric, the last remnants of a less critical age.

In the realm of sculpture, the Severe style, or Early Classical, can be said to end, and the Mature Classical, can be said to begin. Around this time the sculptor Polycleitus formulated the Kanon, or Canon of statuary. This defined perfection in sculpting the human body as a matter of perfect proportions and symmetry. Polyclitus defined the exact proportions that he believed best exemplified these principles.

Roman marble copy of the
Doryphoros of Polycleitus

The principles were shown in Polycleitus' work Doryphoros, meaning Spear Bearer. This was a statue that showed a relaxed male nude, standing emotionless and carrying a spear over his left shoulder. The statue was made originally in bronze and has been lost to us. But there are numerous Roman copies through which its likeness survives in marble, including one found in the buried city of Pompeii.

Another important sculpture made around this time is the Discobolus, created by the sculptor Myron. This showed an athlete in the moment of spinning with a disc in hand, instants before releasing the disc. There is motion and power in the statue, but the figure is still perfectly calm. Again, this statue did not survive antiquity, but it survives in numerous Roman marble copies.

And thus the period draws to a close, with advances being made in history, mathematics and astronomy. New poets, painters, sculptors and architects were creating art of the highest quality. Philosophy and physics were under consideration. The playwrights wrote tragedies, comedies and satyr plays, with the art of theatre reaching a recognisable form.

In the political world, Athens and Sparta had spent much of the decade at war with each other. The Athenians had generally been victorious in their wars, but Sparta had concluded the helot revolt, while Athens had suffered a grievous defeat against Persia with the failure of the Egyptian expedition. Athens was led by Pericles, who continued the trend of strengthening the democracy, and had seen the loss of Cimon, their greatest general. The Persian Wars themselves were drawing to a close, as both the Persians and the Athenians were becoming tired of the decades-long struggle. Elsewhere in the Greek world, the Syracusans had exiled Ducetius, who had threatened their hegemony with his failed attempt to create a Sicel state. It is not an often studied period of history, but there is enough here to make it worth the time to take a second glance.

Roman copy of the Discobolus of Myron

Primary Sources:
Pindar, Odes, written circa 475BC
Aeschylus, Agamemnon, written circa 458BC
Aeschylus, Libation Bearers, written circa 458BC
Aeschylus, Eumenides, written circa 458BC
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC
The Parian Chronicle, written circa 216BC
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, written circa 40BC
Vitruvius, De Architectura, Preface to Book 7, written circa 20BC
Plutarch, Life of Themistocles, written circa AD100
Plutarch, Life of Cimon, written circa AD100
Plutarch, Life of Pericles, written circa AD100
Pausanias, Description of Greece, written circa AD150
Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, written circa AD320

Secondary Sources:
Historical eruptions on Mount Etna
Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Part I
Agamemnon by Aeschylus, Part II

Related Blog Posts:
Greece 469-460BC
459-440BC in the Near East
459-440BC in Rome
449-440BC in Greece

479-470BC in Greece

Achilles and Aias playing dice, by the Berlin Painter

This post will look at Greece and the wider Greek world from the years 479BC to 470BC. Firstly, a word about our sources. Archaeology can shed some light on this period, but for this time in particular we are indebted to Herodotus' "Histories", the earliest book of history to have come down to us. Other sources, such as the writings of Aeschylus, Thucydides, Plutarch, Pausanias will also form part of the narrative. The Histories of Herodotus end in this time period, thus we will be bidding farewell to them, as to a well-beloved, but occasionally unreliable friend.

The Greek world had been hit with two major invasions in the previous year. The Carthaginians had invaded Sicily to restore an allied Greek tyrant to power in Himera and Xerxes, with a far larger force, had invaded mainland Greece to conquer it for the Persian Empire. The Carthaginians had been defeated at the Battle of Himera and their king killed. The Persians had suffered a much larger, but slightly less decisive defeat at the Battle of Salamis. After the Battle of Salamis the navies of the Persians were no longer a match for the combined Greek navies of the cities that still opposed Persia. Thus, Xerxes retreated to Persia, his fleet withdrew back into the Aegean and a smaller but still very significant land army was left behind under the command of the Persian general Mardonius, to try and continue the campaign in the next year.

A later bust of Themistocles, who had been
instrumental in the Greek victory at Salamis

The Persians had suffered a major defeat at Salamis to be sure, but many generals have lost great battles before going on to win final victory. Salamis had made the war winnable for the Greeks, but it had not yet won the war. The land army of Persia was still undefeated at the beginning of 479BC, but with real problems facing it. They had supply problems. They had lost a lot of troops with the withdrawal of Xerxes back to Asia, which meant that they had numerical superiority, but not overwhelmingly so. There were not really enough Persian troops to try and force their way past the heavily fortified Isthmus of Corinth into the Peloponnese. Their infantry was also far less heavily armoured than the Greek hoplites.

But the Persians had a number of major advantages still. They had a cavalry force that was more fearsome than any in Greece. If a hoplite phalanx was caught on level ground with unprotected flanks, the Persian cavalry could destroy it. But the greatest advantage that Mardonius had was cohesion. In the absence of their king, the Persian army answered to Mardonius and Mardonius alone. The Greek alliance was made up of a patchwork of states, all of whom had competing goals and aspirations. If Mardonius was clever and waited for long enough, he would be able to exploit the divisions and feuds of the Greeks: Divide and conquer.

Kylix from the Providence Painter

The Persian fleet had retreated eastwards and was lying at anchor off the island of Samos in the Aegean. The Greek fleet had been stationed at Aegina and had moved eastwards, possibly to try and liberate Ionia at the urging of some Ionian tyrants. However, the Athenian fleet was probably not with the main Greek fleet, probably due to disagreements between Athens and Sparta as to how to continue the war. The Spartans had not marched from the Peloponnese to liberate Attica, so the Athenian fleet took no action to liberate other states. Deprived of around half their numbers, the Greek fleet halted at Delos and proceeded no further.

It also seems probable that Themistocles had been deprived of his command by the Athenians. Xanthippus now commanded the Athenian fleet and Aristides the Just commanded the Athenian land forces. Xanthippus had been ostracised some years previously, but like Aristides, had returned to Athens when the amnesty was announced.

A coin of Gelo, tyrant of Syracuse

The main Spartan army was at this point still stationed at the Corinthian Isthmus and engaged in wall-building. Their wall grew higher every day but the Isthmus is around 7km wide and a wall of that length is not easy to build in a short space of time. The Athenians, who had fled to Salamis and Troezen, began to return to their lands, as Mardonius and the Persian army were far to the north in Thessaly.

Meanwhile, Potidaea, a Greek city on the western-most of the three peninsulas of Chalcidice had revolted against the Persians as soon as Xerxes had retreated past their lands. They had assumed that the Persians had left Greece defeated and had no wish to continue paying tribute. The Persians remaining in Greece under Mardonius could not allow Greek cities to revolt at will, so Artabazus was dispatched by Mardonius to Potidaea to capture the city and punish it.

A Corinthian helmet

Artabazus attacked Potidaea and the neighbouring city of Olynthus, probably around January of 479BC. Olynthus fell to the Persians, but Potidaea resisted stubbornly. An attempt at taking the city by treason failed when an arrow carrying a message hit a bystander who was not in on the conspiracy and who then raised the alarm.

After about three months, perhaps in March or April of 479 the water surrounding the city receded in a lower tide than anyone had ever seen. This exposed poorly defended parts of the city walls and the Persians decided to attack through the shallows. While they were racing towards the city, the waters returned in the greatest tide that the city of Potidaea had seen. The Persian attacking force was either drowned or slain by the Potidaeans in little boats, as the remaining Persians tried to swim back to the now distant shoreline. This is described by Herodotus and it is perhaps the first account of a tsunami in recorded history.

Facing the wrath of the gods in such a natural disaster, Artabazus ordered the Persian armies to abandon the siege of Potidaea and return to the Thessalian camp of Mardonius. The Potidaeans credited their deliverance to Poseidon, god of earthquakes and the sea.

A coin of Gelo, tyrant of Syracuse

But when Artabazus had besieged Potidaea for three months, there was a great ebb-tide in the sea which lasted for a long while, and when the foreigners saw that the sea was turned to a marsh, they prepared to pass over it into Pallene. When they had made their way over two-fifths of it, however, and three yet remained to cross before they could be in Pallene, there came a great flood-tide, higher, as the people of the place say, than any one of the many that had been before. Some of them who did not know how to swim were drowned, and those who knew were slain by the Potidaeans, who came among them in boats.
Herodotus, Histories, 8.129 written circa 440BC

Mardonius sent a message to the Athenians, using King Alexander I of Macedon as an ambassador, to urge them to make peace with Persia. Very generous terms were offered, but the Athenians turned these down in no uncertain terms. Mardonius was told that Athens would never ally with Xerxes. The Spartans had been worried that the Athenians would make peace and sent their own embassy, but there was no need for Spartan intervention.

Mardonius must have hoped that the Athenians would turn. If their navy joined the Persian navy, the remaining Greeks would be outnumbered and the Peloponnese could be assaulted. Perhaps in frustration, perhaps in an attempt to goad his enemies into making mistakes, Mardonius moved south into Attica. Any Athenians who had returned had to be evacuated once more to the island of Salamis and Mardonius reoccupied Athens.

Mardonius sent a second embassy to the Athenian refugees on Salamis, asking them to come to terms. The Athenians were so enraged that they killed Lycides the Athenian who had allowed the embassy to even be heard. Even the family of Lycides were killed by the mob in their fury. However, while they were still refusing terms with Mardonius, they were losing patience with the Spartans, who remained hidden behind their walls on the Isthmus.

Stadion track at Olympia

The Athenians sent an embassy to the Spartans upbraiding them with cowardice and threatening to leave the alliance unless the Spartan army marched to actually defend Greece instead of just the Peloponnese. It seems that the Spartans were quite unconcerned with this threat. Their walls were nearly completed along the Isthmus and they seem to have thought that they could withstand any Persian attacks. This was a bad miscalculation, as the Athenian navy could combine with the Persian navy and bypass the Isthmus entirely. But the Spartan commanders had little experience of naval warfare and may simply have discounted this possibility. The Spartans delayed giving any answer at all to the Athenian delegation until they had finished celebrating the Hyacinthia festival.

Eventually wiser counsels prevailed and an outsider named Chileus of Tegea persuaded the Spartans of the folly of alienating the Athenians. The Spartans then sent out a huge force. Herodotus estimates the force at 5,000 Spartiates, with 35,000 more lightly armed helots. When the Athenians arrived the next day to demand action, the Spartan ephors told them that the army was already on the march. A further 5,000 medium infantry perioci are said to have followed the main Spartan army. These numbers may be a little high, but if true, this would be the largest army ever fielded by Sparta and one of the highest ever fielded by any Greek city. The army itself was led by Pausanias, who was a high-ranking Spartan and the regent while Leonidas' son was still a child.

The Argives, who hated the Spartans and who had made some form of deal with Mardonius, sent messengers to inform Mardonius that the Spartan army was leaving the Peloponnese and marching rapidly against him.

Mardonius then proceeded to destroy Athens far more thoroughly than the previous destruction nine months previously. This sack of the city must have happened in or around the months of May or June of 479BC. The Athenians would have once more seen the flames from their temporary dwellings on Salamis. The Persian beacons carried the news of the second sack of Athens all the way to Sardis. Mardonius then retreated northwards after sending a skirmishing cavalry force to engage the Spartan vanguard at Megara. As the armies of Mardonius began their withdrawal and the Athenians on Salamis heard of the march of the Spartan land armies, the Athenian fleet was sent to re-join the Greek naval forces at Delos.

View of the battlefield at Plataea

Mardonius established a large camp near the River Asopus, near the Boeotian city of Plataea. The Spartan advance had only been swift until they reached the Isthmus, at which point they waited for other cities in the Peloponnese to send troops. When their army had been reinforced they marched towards Attica, joining with the Athenian land army at Eleusis. From here they marched into Boeotia and took up a position against the armies of Mardonius.

The army of Mardonius was probably the larger of the two. Ancient Greek sources give a number of 350,000-500,000 troops in the Persian army. Modern scholars estimate perhaps 100,000-120,000. The Greek army was smaller, but of comparable size. Estimates range from about 80,000 to 100,000. The Persians had the advantage in cavalry and had a fortified camp on the plains. The Greeks had the advantage in heavy infantry and their position on the hill gave them a defensive advantage in case they were attacked. Neither side could dare to commit their forces without a clear advantage appearing. If Mardonius lost, he was far from home and his army would be annihilated. If the Greeks lost they would be cut down by the cavalry and they would never again be able to assemble such an army. The stakes were high.

Lekythos by Athena Painter

Mardonius had the advantage in cavalry and decided to use it to harass his enemies. A large detachment of cavalry attacked a weak point in the Greek lines and inflicted some damage. But the cavalry commander, a high ranking Persian noble named Masistius, was killed in the struggle and his loss was a major morale blow to the Persians and a morale boost to the Greeks. After the death of Masistius, the Greek alliance decided to move further down the slopes to be closer to the Persians.

Meanwhile the reunited Greek fleet anchored at Delos received a Samian delegation from Ionia. The Samians recounted that the Persian navy had terrible morale and that they would not risk another battle. The Ionians would revolt once more if the Greeks could destroy the Persian navy. Armed with this information the Greek fleet began to move eastwards towards the coast of Asia.

The Persian navy was anchored at Samos, but word reached them of the movements of the Greek naval forces. Not believing their navy strong enough for another battle as at Salamis, the Persians retreated to the nearby mainland, anchoring near the slopes of Mount Mycale, near the city of Priene. From here they sent whatever Phoenician ships remained in the navy away to the south. It is not clear how many ships remained to the Persians, or who manned these ships. It seems as if many of the ships that remained were Ionian ships, manned by Greeks from the coast of Asia Minor, whose loyalty to Persia was perhaps doubtful.

Faced with poor morale, dubious loyalties and the sheer fact that they would likely be outnumbered, the Persian commanders seem to have decided to not risk battle at all. They would encamp on the shore, create a barricade around their ships and receive some land based reinforcements from Sardis. Thus they would wait out the Greek attack and wait for Mardonius to win the war with the land army in Greece.

View of the battlefield of Plataea from the heights
not far from where the Greeks were encamped

Back in Plataea, the Greek army was now encamped quite close to the Persian army. The greater mobility of the Persian cavalry showed that this was perhaps a mistake. The two armies waited in a stalemate for some eight days before Mardonius launched a cavalry raid that captured supplies incoming for the Greek camp. With no way of forcing Mardonius to an engagement the Greek commanders must have been concerned with this threat to their supplies. Even worse, two days later, another Persian attack threatened their water supply. This could not be risked and the Greeks now contemplated a tactical retreat to a nearby, better position.

However they were so close to the Persian army that such a retreat was risky. How to move safely over broken terrain while still maintaining their cohesion and battle order? Rather than risking the Persians attacking them while on the move, the Greeks were ordered by Pausanias to retreat at night. This went as well as most night operations in ancient warfare, which is to say, it went badly. The army had managed to split up into various detachments, some retreating the wrong way, others not retreating at all. The various groups were still fairly close to each other, but all moving fairly haphazardly and confusedly. This movement was seen by Persian scouts who reported to Mardonius.

Mardonius knew of the dissensions in the Greek ranks and seems to have interpreted this as a full-scale retreat. All that he would need to do is to attack and the retreating Greeks would further split, then flee, then rout. The Persian army was ordered hastily to prepare and attack.

Map of the Battle of Plataea, the Spartans are on the Greek
right

This was a very understandable move by Mardonius, but completely incorrect. The Greeks were not in retreat and were close enough to reform some semblance of a battle line before the Persians were fully engaged. The Greek retreat had accidentally lured Mardonius into the worst type of battle that the Persians could have fought. As they were fighting uphill against formed up phalanxes with their flanks covered, the cavalry could not be properly utilised. The Theban and Thessalian allies of the Persians could fight well against the other Greeks, but even the heaviest Persian soldiers would struggle to face a phalanx head on.

Once the battle had been started and troops committed, Mardonius had no choice but to continue the battle despite his mistake. He displayed great personal courage and sent his bodyguard to try and hold off the Spartans. The fighting was sustained and fierce all along the line, with the Thebans holding the Athenians at bay on the other flank. The other Greek allies of the Persians seem to have been slower to engage and may have not fought wholeheartedly.

The battle was hard-fought and perhaps shifting in the favour of the Greek alliance, when Mardonius was killed fighting. Once news of Mardonius' death passed along the line, the Persian army collapsed, with the exception of Mardonius' bodyguard who continued fighting the Spartans to the death.

Modern drawing of Spartans fighting Persians
at the Battle of Plataea

Where Mardonius was himself, riding a white horse in the battle and surrounded by a thousand picked men who were the flower of the Persians, there they pressed their adversaries hardest. So long as Mardonius was alive the Persians stood their ground and defended themselves, overthrowing many Lacedaemonians. When, however, Mardonius was killed and his guards, who were the strongest part of the army, had also fallen, then the rest too yielded and gave ground before the men of Lacedaemon. For what harmed them the most was the fact that they wore no armour over their clothes and fought, as it were, naked against men fully armed.
Herodotus, Histories, 9.63 written circa 440BC

The Thebans retreated straight towards their own city, fighting a slow, but measured, retreat against reckless Greeks who assumed they were routing and tried to run them down. The majority of the Persians fled towards the camp of Mardonius. A fierce battle was fought for the Persian camp, but the Persians were now disorganised and leaderless and they were slaughtered inside their own fortifications.

White-figure jug by the Athena Painter

Few Persian who made it to the camp survived, but Artabazus led a large number of the Persian allies and retreated directly north towards Phocis, hoping to escape from Greece altogether. He moved at such speed that many of the Greek cities that he passed were not even aware that the Persians had suffered a defeat. As he went north he gathered the Persian garrisons that had been left along the route. Perhaps forty thousand troops escaped with Artabazus. It's not clear if any other troops from Mardonius' army managed to escape.

The Persian camp was looted and vast wealth found by the Greeks. It is possible that Pausanias decided to use the Persian beacon system to transmit a message across the sea of the great Greek victory over the Persians.

On this day, apparently, the Greek fleet, under the command of the Spartan king Leotychidas, had arrived at Mycale. They had expected to see the Persian ships putting out to sea to offer battle, but no battle was offered. Instead the Persians kept their ships beached on the shore behind a barricade of sorts. After sailing back and forth for some time, the Greek fleet made an approach to the shore and called out a message (in Greek) to the Ionian Greeks, asking them to fight against the Persians. This had the double benefit of possibly working and even if it did not work, it would make the Persians distrust the Ionians.

Vase from the Siren Painter

The Persians disarmed the Samians and then sent the Milesians away from the camp to guard the passes. The Greeks then landed nearby and prepared to assault the Persian land camp. This seems to have thrown the Persian commanders off guard. They genuinely don't seem to have considered what would happen if the Greeks landed. They had built a fortified camp, but if they did not give battle on sea or on land, then the Greeks would just surround them and they would die in the siege. They were outnumbered at sea, but the Persians probably had a numbers advantage on land. They decided to fight outside the camp, as to do otherwise would hand over all initiative to the Greeks.

The Persian morale must have been low though. In the course of a year, their navy had declined from the largest navy yet seen on earth, to one so insignificant that it dare not give battle on the sea at all. The news of the Persian defeat at Plataea also seems to have become known.

Vase from the Siren Painter

This is a confusing point. On the one hand Herodotus says that this battle, the Battle of Mycale, took place on the same day as Plataea. On the other hand, he suggests that the Greeks knew of the victory at Plataea, which was a number of days journey away. Some scholars suggest that the Persian beacon system was used to transmit the news and that this would allow the word to spread in a matter of hours rather than days. But this is guesswork. It is more likely that the "same day" hypothesis is simply wrong. Perhaps it happened on the same day that the news reached the Greek fleet. Or perhaps it is just another calendrical mishap. Each Greek city state had their own calendar. They could barely agree on their years never mind their days. Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus suggest that the Battle of Himera happened on the same day as either Thermopylae or Salamis. To have so many important battles falling on identical days sounds more like calendrical confusion or people wanting to make the stories symmetrical.

The Athenian contingents deployed nearly opposite the Persian camp, while the Spartan forces marched inland to try and flank around the Persian armies. The Persians formed a type of shield wall with their wicker shields and tried to hold off the Athenians. But the Athenians fought extremely bravely and pushed their way through. The battle descended into a confused mess, with the Persians fighting a type of last stand in their camp, while their allies tried to run away, the Spartans tried to force their way into the camp, the disarmed Samians tried to join the allied Greeks, the other Ionians who still held arms switched sides to join the allies and the Milesians on the hills began to direct the fleeing Persians on winding paths that led them straight back to the Greeks.

Map of the Battle of Mycale

As long as the Persians' shields stood upright, they defended themselves and held their own in the battle, but when the Athenians and their neighbours in the line passed the word and went more zealously to work, that they and not the Lacedaemonians might win the victory, immediately the face of the fight changed. Breaking down the shields they charged all together into the midst of the Persians, who received the onset and stood their ground for a long time, but at last fled within their wall. The Athenians and Corinthians and Sicyonians and Troezenians, who were next to each other in the line, followed close after and rushed in together. But when the walled place had been razed, the barbarians made no further defence, but took to flight, all save the Persians, who gathered into bands of a few men and fought with whatever Greeks came rushing within the walls.
Herodotus, Histories, 9.102 written circa 440BC

The Greek victory was a total one, but with relatively high casualties for the Greek side, because of the last stand of the Persians in their camp. After the victory the Greeks burned all of the ships of the Persians, wiping out all Persian naval power, with the exception of the Phoenician ships that had been sent away previously. Some stragglers from the Persian army did escape, including one of the naval commanders called Artyntes and a son of Xerxes called Masistes. Xerxes was still in Sardis during the year 479 and it must have been bitter news to hear of the complete defeat of his land and sea forces and the complete failure of his expedition. It was a crushing defeat for Xerxes; one of the worst, if not the worst, defeat the Persian Empire had ever suffered.

Pyxis from the Wedding Painter

The allied Greek forces at Plataea spent time looting the Persian camp and hunting down and capturing survivors. After this they spent time trying to divide out the vast spoils and putting up burial mounds for their dead, before deciding what to do next. The Thebans had been the primary Greek supporters of the Persians and their city lay nearby. Ten days after the Battle of Plataea, the allied army moved to besiege Thebes, demanding the surrender of the city and the handover of several oligarchs who had been instrumental in going over to the Persians. Thebes endured a siege of about twenty days before deciding to hand over the Theban oligarchs to Pausanias. They had expected to be able to bribe their way to freedom, but Pausanias executed them instead.

After the victory at Mycale, the Greek fleet held a council with the representatives of the Ionian states. The Spartans, under Leotychidas, seem to have wanted to evacuate the Ionian cities and move them to mainland Greece. This would boost the population of Greece greatly, but it was a very unpopular opinion with both the Ionians and the other Greeks. The Athenians, under Xanthippus, persuaded the Spartans to not pursue the plan further. It is possible that the Spartans believed it would be impossible to defend the Ionian states from further Persian attacks and that this move was for their own protection.

Temple of Nike at Himera, built by the Sicilian tyrants in
memory of their victory over the Carthaginians

The Greek fleet then sailed northwards to the Hellespont where they intended to destroy the famed pontoon bridges of Xerxes. These had in fact been ruined by storms the previous year and there was nothing further for the Greek fleet to do in fact. The Spartan contingent under Leotychidas sailed home, while the Athenians and some of the other allies began to besiege the city of Sestos in the Chersonese. Here there were two high-ranking Persians who were caught in the siege. They resisted for several months, but eventually the two Persian commanders abandoned the siege, slipped out of the town secretly and went their separate ways. One was captured by the Thracians and sacrificed to their gods. The other was captured by the Greeks and crucified on the shores of the Hellespont.

It is at this point that the Second Persian Invasion of Greece is said to have ended and it is here that Herodotus ends his Histories. The book was of course written some decades after the events it describes, and may not have reached its current form until perhaps forty years later, but it was still close enough in time for Herodotus to be able to speak to eyewitnesses of the invasion.

Temple of Athena in Syracuse (afterwards converted into
a church)

In Sicily during this year of 479BC a treaty was concluded between the Carthaginians and the Sicilians who were under the leadership of Gelo of Syracuse. This treaty seems to have largely restored the status quo before the Carthaginian invasion of the previous year. Himera remained under the control of Theron and the plunder and prisoners taken in the battle would not be returned, but Carthage would give up no territory (Himera had not technically been theirs to retake). The weakening of the kings of Carthage stems from this time and no later king would wield the same influence as Hamilcar and his predecessors had done.

With the vast wealth and the many prisoners of war taken in this battle Gelo and Theron embarked on an ambitious building program. Phaeax the architect built impressive sewers in the city of Acragas. A large temple of Olympian Zeus was also begun in Acragas around this time. A temple of Nike was erected in Himera in remembrance of the battle there, while in Syracuse a Temple of Athena was constructed. This temple of Athena survives to this day, but it has seen some later reconstruction work in classical times and has subsequently been converted into a church.

It was around this time that the lyric poet Timocreon made his way to the court of the king of Persia. He was a Greek who had been accused of siding with the Persian invaders or "medizing" as it was called. He had tried to bribe the Athenian general Themistocles to allow him to stay, but Themistocles took his money and then allowed Timocreon to be banished anyway. Timocreon fled to the Persians and continued writing poetry. Not much of Timocreon's work survives, apart from a few very bitter poems, mostly directed against Themistocles. The Persian king allowed him to join his court and Timocreon lived out a rather luxurious life in Persia.

A photo of a recent eruption of Mt Etna

It was in this year that the Parian Chronicle, which is a short Athenian chronicle inscribed on marble columns in the island of Paros, records that Etna erupted and spilled fire over Sicily. There are records of eruptions of Etna in earlier times, but this seems to be the earliest eruption that falls within the realms of reliably recorded history. Etna is of course an extremely active volcano and has regular eruptions, so we can assume that ancient writers would only mention an eruption in Sicily when it was particularly violent.

...The battle in Plataea occurred, the Athenians fighting against Mardonius, Xerxes's commander, which the Athenians won, and Mardonius died in the battle, and the fire erupted in Sicily at Etna…
The Parian Chronicle, written circa 216BC

In the year 478 the Greek cities decided that an offering would be made and dedicated to the gods at the shrine of the Oracle of Delphi. This would be made as a bronze column of serpents. Their intertwining forms would form a pillar, which would be surmounted by the heads of three serpents. Atop the serpent heads would be a golden (or bronze) cauldron. This would be set up as an everlasting memorial to the victory at Plataea that had brought the Greeks their freedom.

Replica of a part of the Serpent Column at Delphi

Meanwhile the war against the Persians continued. A much reduced fleet comprising at least fifty ships sailed against the island of Cyprus. This island was far from mainland Greece and very close to Phoenicia. It's not clear exactly what the point of this attack was, but it is more likely to be a raiding expedition than a serious attempt at conquest of the island. After the attack on Cyprus, the Greek fleet, under the command of the Spartan regent Pausanias, sailed to Byzantium and besieged it. The siege of Byzantium was a success and the Greeks had now secured the trade routes to the Black Sea. With their fleet gone and control of the straits lost, the Persian Empire lost any hope of regaining their possessions in Europe, in the short term at least.

What happens next is unclear, but it seems that Pausanias had perhaps grown over-proud. He was haughty in his dealings with the allied states. Aristides the Just and other Athenian commanders, such as Cimon and Xanthippus were much more popular among the Ionian cities who were being liberated. Pausanias began to dress in Persian clothes and placed a person called Gongylus of Eretria in charge of the conquered Byzantium. Gongylus was also entrusted with several important Persian prisoners, who subsequently escaped (or were released) back to King Xerxes. It was suspected that Pausanias was seriously thinking of betraying the Greeks and trying to take over Greece with Persian help. The victor of Plataea would then become the Persian viceroy in Greece.

Coin of Gongylus (the image on the right may be a portrait)
when he was a ruler of Pergamon under Persian hegemony

Now this may all be later propaganda. Pausanias was disliked by the Athenians and he may have had unusual ideas about the helots, which may have made him disliked by the Spartans. Whatever the truth of the matter, Pausanias was accused of being a traitor and of sending messages to King Xerxes via Gongylus of Eretria. Pausanias was forced to return to Sparta to face charges. There was not really enough evidence for Pausanias to be condemned as a traitor. A letter was said to have been written from Pausanias to Xerxes, offering to betray Greece, but this seems spurious, as surely that would have been enough to condemn any person. Perhaps the letter is a later invention. Pausanias was acquitted, but he was left as a private citizen rather than restored to the commander of the Greek alliance.

However, the allegations were serious enough that Gongylus the Eretrian fled to Persia. Here he was welcomed by Xerxes. Gongylus rose high enough in the Persian king's esteem that he was granted the city of Pergamon to rule. Gongylus would go on to found a dynasty of rulers who would reign the city in the name of the Persian kings for the next century. The flight of Gongylus may be slightly later however. The exact chronology of this time period is slightly disordered.

A broken head, one of three, from the Serpent Column

It was discovered that Pausanias had ordered the Serpent Column to be inscribed with a boastful inscription in his own name, as if he had single-handedly defeated the Persians. The other allies became angry at this, and the Spartans changed the inscription to mention all of the cities who had fought at Plataea. Again, things may not be quite as they seem here. Perhaps the Spartans were actually satisfied with the words of Pausanias but were forced to change them because of the anger of their allies. But in later times, the inscription of Pausanias came to be seen as a proof that he was planning to enslave Greece.

The Serpent Column survives to this day. It has lost the bowl that once stood atop it and it has lost the heads of the serpents. It was moved with Delphi to Constantinople and it has had an eventful history. If you go to Istanbul it can still be seen and I hope to see it in person someday soon.

Serpent Column in Istanbul

After the recall of Pausanias, the Spartans, who had assumed leadership of the anti-Persian alliance, sent out another commander to take control of the fleet near Byzantium. The Spartan commander, Dorcis, had only a few ships with him and the other allies, having had quite enough of the behaviour of Pausanias, simply refused to serve any more under Spartan leadership, especially as they had so few ships. After finding it clear that they would no longer be allowed to lead, the Spartans returned to mainland Greece. As far as they were concerned, the war with Persia was effectively over. They may also have been concerned about continuing the war for too long, as the rulers of Sparta always feared a helot uprising in Laconia. However the more maritime states were concerned with the possibility of a naval resurgence of the Persians and were convinced that the war needed to continue. The Athenians now took charge of continuing the war.

The islands and coastal lands liberated by the Greek alliance now decided to make their own more formal alliance. Each city would give a fixed amount of ships and/or money to aid in the continued war with the Persians. Each city would also be entitled to a certain share of the plunder, based on the amount of ships. The more ships and money given, the greater the vote of that city in the new alliance. The treasury of this new alliance was decided to be fixed at Delos; the sacred island of Apollo and Artemis in the midst of the Aegean. This was thus known as the Delian League. As the Athenians had the largest navy, they were disproportionately influential from the very beginning in the affairs of the League. The exact amount of ships and money owed by each city was fixed by Aristides the Just. It is said that Aristides lived up to his name and took care that Athens not pay, or give in ships, any less than her fair share.

Remains of temples on the island of Delos

Meanwhile the Athenians had returned to their city after the victory of Plataea. They had been concerned to rebuild their city, but any city that is defenceless is not worth living in. Thus they had decided to prioritise rebuilding their city walls over rebuilding the private houses. The Spartans viewed this with alarm, as the Athenians might perhaps be a threat to them in the future. The Spartans sent an embassy asking the Athenians to leave their city unwalled and to help the Spartans tear down the walls of any city outside the Peloponnese. In this way the Persians could never again have a base of operations in Greece.

This proposal had a hint of fairness in it. Sparta was a famously unwalled settlement. But it is easy to be unwalled if the city is defended by the strongest land army in the region. If cities were left unwalled it would guarantee Spartan supremacy in Greece forever. Themistocles went on an expedition to Sparta to try and negotiate, while at the same time leaving instructions that the wall-building was to proceed at full speed, stopping for nothing and tearing down any building that might furnish materials.

Remains of the foundations of the Themistoclean Walls, near
Pnyx Hill

Themistocles made his way slowly to Sparta to negotiate. When he finally arrived he made excuses and refused to meet with the Spartans. Meanwhile the Athenians were building their walls as fast as they could, even using the broken columns of the burned temples on the Acropolis to patch the walls where possible. Spartan messengers kept arriving, telling the Spartans that the walls were rising. Eventually, when word reached Themistocles that the walls were nearing completion and were defensible, he simply told the Spartans that Athens was now a walled city and that, while Athens would take advice from friends, she would not be talked to as anything but an equal. The Spartans took the rebuke quite calmly, primarily because there was still a great deal of respect for both the Athenians in general and Themistocles in particular due to their gallant conduct in the wars of the previous years.

These walls are known as the Themistoclean Walls and some small ruins of them still survive to this day. It should be remembered that the walls were torn down and rebuilt at later stages in Athenian history. They were remembered for having been built quickly, using any available stone. I was thus surprised to see that the foundations that were yet standing were in fact quite massive. Sections of them can be seen on the Pnyx Hill and elsewhere.

The rebuilt northern walls of the Acropolis, here
reusing drums from the broken columns of the
Old Parthenon Temple

In Sicily the tyrant Gelo (or Gelon) of Syracuse died and was succeeded by his brother Hiero I. Gelo would be remembered fondly in Syracuse and many years later, when the people were casting down the statues of tyrants, they would leave the statues of Gelo standing as a sign of respect for everything he did for Syracuse.

In the year 477 the wars continued between the Delian League and the Persians. Various islands were attacked and their garrisons defeated. City after city joined the League. But while we know that war was ongoing we do not have many details of exactly what happened. At some point during this conflict Pausanias, the disgraced Spartan general, left Sparta as a private citizen and went to Byzantium, where he seems to have controlled the city for some years, much to the displeasure of Athens.

In the year 476 the Spartans do seem to have taken a renewed interest in the war. They sent a force through Greece northwards to Thessaly. The purpose of this was to fully recapture the north of Greece and to punish the powerful Aleuadae family for medizing (supporting the Persians in their invasion). The Thessalians were rather unlike other Greek cities in that they had numerous cities that were all controlled by a single hegemonic family. The members of this family would fight among each other for influence and occasionally other aristocratic families would challenge the Aleuadae for dominance. The leader of this family would be called the Tagus, which was a title analogous, but not identical to King. The Thessalians were also unusual in the Greek world for having a strong emphasis on cavalry, which was quite rare in the better documented Greek states to the south.

A modern bust of Cimon in Cyprus

The Spartan force was far stronger than the Thessalians could hope to match and the Aleuadae family, or at least some of them, were very obviously guilty of medizing. However, Leotychidas didn't arrest them or do anything at all to them even after they submitted to him. In fact Leotychidas had been bribed by the wealthy Thessalian noblemen. The Spartans maintained a strict lifestyle in Sparta, but this does seem to have made their generals very vulnerable to bribery whenever they left Sparta. Leotychidas was placed on trial and fled to the nearby city of Tegea rather than face the charges. He was deposed as king and exiled. His young grandson Archidamus was crowned as the new Eurypontid king of Sparta, under the name Archidamus II.

In Ionia, Cimon of Athens led the navy of the Delian League and continued the war against the Persians. Cimon came from an aristocratic family and was the son of the famous general Miltiades, who had led the Athenians to victory at Marathon. While this may have seemed an impossibly legacy to surpass, Cimon made an attempt to surpass his father in great deeds.

Cimon had taken care to pay off the debts of his father, including the large fine that had been imposed upon his father for treason. This act of filial devotion had restored the family to the good graces of the Athenians and despite how Miltiades had died (in prison and despised by the Athenians), they soon elected his son to military commands. He had married into the powerful Alcmaeonidae family in Athens, but gossips always spread the rumours that he was in love with his sister/half-sister Elpinice.

Cimon ousted Pausanias from Byzantium around this time. He also besieged the city of Eion on the river Strymon, which had been held by the Persian land forces in the region. Other Athenian commanders were in the region but the overall victories appear to have been attributed to Cimon.

Roman copy of the sculpture of
Harmodius and Aristogeiton

In Italy, the city of Croton attacked the city of Sybaris once more. Sybaris had been conquered about 35 years previously, with Milo of Croton taking part in the battle. It is unclear why the conquered city was being attacked again. It seems that whatever struggle between the two cities took place, that Croton was victorious. The Sybarites had asked the Syracusans for aid, but this had not been forthcoming due to internal struggles in Syracuse.

Hiero I had thought to send his brother, whom he suspected of treachery, to aid the Sybarites and to die in the attempt. His brother, fearing the plot, fled to Theron of Acragas. Hiero prepared to attack Theron, but then heard that Theron's conquered city of Himera was restless and offered to free the citizens of Himera from the brutal rule of Theron's son. Theron, fearing the loss of Himera, handed over Hiero's brother to be executed and promptly began executing the prominent citizens of Himera. Thus the two tyrants were once more at peace, but the powerless people in the story, such as the brother and the peoples of Himera and Sybaris, were all far worse off: Never meddle in the affairs of tyrants.

Also in Sicily, the tyrant Anaxilas of Rhegion died. He was succeeded by Micythus, who promised to act as regent until the sons of Anaxilas were to come of age.

Roman copy of the sculpture of
Harmodius and Aristogeiton

Two of the great culture heroes of Athens were Harmodius and Aristogeiton; the two lovers whose assassination of the tyrant's brother had set in motion the events that led to Athenian democracy. There had previously been a statue set up to these men on the Acropolis Hill, but the Persians had destroyed it. The sculptors Kritios and Nesiotes were asked to create a new sculpture to commemorate the achievements of the Tyrannicides, which they did around this time. The original is lost, but numerous copies were later made by the Romans, and these have survived. The original statue group was in bronze, but the Roman copies were in marble. The two statues are moving forward in their stabbing motions and this dynamic forward movement has inspired many other sculptures in history.

The Olympics were held this year. Skamandros of Mytilene won the stadion race (the main sprint competition). Dandis of Argos won the diaulos (a race twice as long as the stadion). Theognetos of Aegina won the boys wrestling competition, while an unknown Spartan won the boys stadion. Euthymos of Locris won the boxing and Agesidamos of Locri won the boys boxing. Theagenes of Thasos won the pankration (he had won the boxing competition four years previously). Zopyros of Syracuse won the hoplitodromos (the race in full battle armour), while Theron of Acragas won the tethrippon (chariot race) and Hiero I of Syracuse won the horse race (he owned the horse, but was not the jockey).

Later bust of Pindar the poet

Pindar the poet decided to go to Sicily around this time. He was originally from Thebes, but seems to have left it before the Persian invasion previously. He seems to have had no issues in meddling in the affairs of tyrants. He wrote powerful lyric odes to celebrate the victors of the great games; of the Nemean, Isthmian, Pythian and most importantly, the Olympic Games. Many of the tyrants of Sicily received odes dedicated to them and Pindar seems to have been a welcome guest in Acragas and Syracuse. He was a personal friend of Thrasybulus, the nephew of Theron of Acragas and the actual driver of the chariot of Theron in the tethrippon.

In 475 Cimon led the navies of the Delian League to attack the island of Scyros, which is nearly in the middle of the Aegean Sea. The inhabitants of this isle were reputed to be pirates and more importantly, had not joined the Delian League. The original inhabitants were defeated and at least some of them were expelled from the island. Settlers from other Greek cities, primarily Athens, came to the island and it became an important base for the Athenian navy.

While on Scyros, the Athenian general Cimon is said to have found the bones of the Athenian hero Theseus. It was said that Theseus had died on this island so it is likely that the Athenians were looking for these when they conquered the island. Cimon brought back the supposed relics of the hero to Athens, where the remains were reinterred and a hero shrine instated for Theseus in the centre of Athens. It was known and visible in later times and later travel writers commented on it during the Roman era, but I believe that the tomb has since been lost.

Messapian pottery

In Italy the Messapians defeated the Greek city of Taras (later known as Tarentum in Roman times and Taranto now). The Messapians were an Italian people who lived in the region now known as Calabria and who resisted the encroachments of the Greek colonies from the coastlands.

Heraclitus is said to have passed away around this time. He is remembered as an acerbic, melancholy character, who was obsessed with change. He believed that the universe was in continuous flux. If Thales was to be associated with water, Heraclitus was to be associated with Fire, as he believed the world to be nothing more than rarefied fire undergoing a series of transformations. His philosophy was compelling, but difficult to understand. He was known as the Obscure, or the Riddler, to his contemporaries. Due to his melancholy nature, he is also known as the Weeping Philosopher. He was from Ephesus and was doubtless active during the time of the Ionian Revolt, although it is not known that he took any part in it. He wrote a book and deposited it in the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, but only small fragments have come down to us of it.

A later Roman bust that may represent
Heraclitus

In the circumference of a circle the beginning and end are common. You will not find the boundaries of soul by travelling in any direction, so deep is the measure of it. It is pleasure to souls to become moist. A man, when he gets drunk, is led by a beardless lad, tripping, knowing not where he steps, having his soul moist. The dry soul is the wisest and best. Man kindles a light for himself in the night-time, when he has died but is alive. The sleeper, whose vision has been put out, lights up from the dead; he that is awake lights up from the sleeping. 
Fragments of Heraclitus' works, written circa 480BC?

The Pythagoreans are said to have split into two separate traditions around this time. One group was referred to as akousmatikoi, which translates loosely as "the followers of wise sayings". These interpreted the mystical words of Pythagoras extremely literally and were really only interested in carrying on the ways laid down by their founder. The mathematikoi, which translates as "learners" took a different approach and carried on the musical and mathematical speculations of Pythagoras. Both groups would continue to exist for about a century or so. By the end of this time they had mostly been absorbed into various groups. The mathematikoi Pythagoreans became indistinguishable from other philosophers of the day, while the akousmatikoi Pythagoreans became merged into the various Orphic and mystery cults that flourished at that time.

Also around this time various vase painters flourished, such as the Berlin Painter, the Brygos Painter, the Siren Painter and the Athena Painter. Obviously all of these were active many years before and after this date, but this is a convenient mid-point in their careers in which to mention their work. They were all distinguished red-figure pottery painters, although the Athena Painter also specialised in white-ground pottery painting as well, mostly based around Athens. I have put examples of their work as illustrations throughout the blog.

Etruscan helmet dedicated at Olympia by Hiero I of
Syracuse after the Battle of Cumae

In the year 474 the Etruscans were attacking the Greek coastal city of Cumae, along the western coast of Italy. The Etruscans had a sizeable navy and the small city of Cumae was unable to fight against them. They appealed to the powerful Sicilian city-state of Syracuse. Hiero I, the tyrant of Syracuse, sent them aid and his ships, in combination with whatever Cumae was able to send, were able to defeat the Etruscans. A great naval battle was fought in the Bay of Naples and the Etruscans were badly defeated. Hiero I later dedicated an Etruscan helmet as a prize of battle at the sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia. He also fortified an island near the Bay of Naples called Ischia, leaving a garrison there to guard against further maritime incursions from the Etruscans.

Syracuse was now the strongest of all the Sicilian states. Hiero I had instituted a type of secret police that kept order in the cities and, while he may not have been loved, he was certainly feared. The poet Pindar seems to have left Sicily around this time to return to his native Thebes, while still on good terms with the Sicilian tyrants.

Further south in Italy, the city of Taras formed an alliance with Rhegion against the Messapians. However, even with their new allies, the Greeks of Taras were defeated by the Messapians near Kailia. Not much is known of these wars however. But it is good to remember that other parts of the Greek world also had eventful histories. There is a tendency to look at Greek history as the histories of a few major city-states, such as Athens or Sparta, without remembering that these large cities were in many ways unusual.

In the year 473 I am not aware of any notable event that occurred. I'm sure that many such did occur, but I simply do not know of them.

In the year 472 Theron, the tyrant of the city of Acragas in Sicily, died. His son Thrasydaeus succeeded him as tyrant and ruler of the cities of Acragas and Himera.

Photograph of the Perserschutt when excavated

In the Aegean, the city of Carystus, on the southern edge of the island of Euboea, was forced to join the Delian League. There were certain reasons for this. It was an island state, which benefitted from the security the League provided, but paid no price in ships or treasure to maintain this security. Still, it now seemed that the League was no longer just fighting Persians or even ridding the seas of pirate threats, but bullying other states that didn't want to join it. Some citizens of certain states probably were beginning to be concerned about the strength of this self-defence alliance that had been formed at the end of the Persian invasions. They would also have been concerned about the growing influence of Athens within the League and within Greece itself.

Athens itself was culturally thriving. The city was in a frenetic pace of rebuilding and their pottery workshops were in full swing. The walls around the city had been rebuilt immediately after the Athenians had been returned, but other places were rebuilt more slowly. The houses and the buildings of the Agora were next to be restored.

Finally, the Athenians began to give thought to what should be rebuilt on the Acropolis. The Persians had ravaged the Acropolis Hill and the temples there were destroyed beyond repair. Some drums of the columns were reused in the walls, but it seemed sacrilegious to try and repair the broken and ancient statues. The Athenians decided to bury the broken remnants of the temples. It is not clear exactly when this was done, but it must have been done in the decade or so after the invasion of Xerxes. The burial was done deliberately and reverently. The statues were later discovered by a German excavation of the Acropolis and the area they were found in was known as the Perserschutt. Many of the finest Archaic style statues were found here, such as the Kritios Boy and the Moschophoros. These statues are mostly preserved in the new Acropolis Museum in Athens. Now that the hill was cleared, the Athenians could eventually look at creating new statues.

View of the Theatre of Dionysius from the Acropolis Hill

On the southern slopes of the Acropolis hill lay the Theatre of Dionysius. In this year the playwright Aeschylus presented a trilogy of tragic plays to the Athenians. They were presented as part of the Great Dionysia Festival and each of the playwrights would present a trilogy of tragedies, and sometimes a bawdy satyr play to lighten the mood.

This particular trilogy of plays is unique in that it contained the play, The Persians, which was a mythologised account of the Battle of Salamis and the aftermath. Aeschylus had himself fought in the battle and many of his audience must have been veterans of this conflict. It is, to my knowledge, the only Greek historical play to have survived from antiquity. It is a useful historical source, being composed so closely in time to the events it describes. Most particularly it is unique in that it is the earliest play yet extant in the world; Greek or otherwise.

Greek tragedy had evolved over the previous decades, with innovators like Thespis and Phrynichus leading the way. The plays had few actors, but very large groups of singers who would act as choruses. Thespis is said to have been the first to introduce a speaking actor that was not part of the chorus. Aeschylus was said to have introduced a second speaker, and Sophocles later introducing a third speaker in his plays. But it may have been Phrynichus who introduced the second speaker.

A scene from Aeschylus' Persians, where the ghost
of King Darius appears to Atossa

The plays would usually focus on a tragic hero, who would be brought low by a fault that was inherent in himself. In this way The Persians is actually a slightly atypical play, although the main character is Xerxes, who has been brought low by his overweening pride and confident belief in the strength of his armies.

The character of Xerxes speaking: Ah! Miserable Fate! Black Fortune! Black, unbearable, unexpected disaster! A savage single-minded Fate has ravished the Persian race! What troubles are still in store for me? All strength has abandoned my body… my limbs… there is none left to face these elders. Ah, Zeus! Why has this evil Fate not buried me, as well, send me to the underworld, among all my men?
Aeschylus, The Persians, written circa 472BC

Aeschylus is considered to be the first of the three great tragedians, with the others being the slightly later Sophocles and Euripides. Only the works of these three survive, which is a pity, as they were far from the only writers of tragedies.

Later bust of Aeschylus

In this year Magnes also won the Comedy competition. He was an early Comic playwright, but none of his plays survive and very little is known about him.

The Olympic Games took place this year. Dandis of Argos won the stadion race. Euthymos of Locri won the boxing, while Tellon of Mainalos won the boys' boxing. Ergoteles of Himera won the dolichos and Callias of Athens won the pankration. Hiero I of Syracuse owned the horse that won the horse race and the city of Argos owned the team of horses that won the tethrippon (the chariot race.)

In the year 471 Micythus, the deputy tyrant of Rhegion, founded the town of Pyxus on the western coast of Italy. It is now known as the town of Policastro Bussentino in present-day Italy. It is not a large town now, but it was probably not a large town then either.

In this year, the people of Athens finally turned against Themistocles. Themistocles had probably saved Athens, and possibly the Greek world, with his decision to build a great navy with the money from the silver mines. This decision has probably changed the course of history. The Athenians knew exactly what Themistocles had done for them and how he had saved them. All the Greek world knew how much he had done against the Persians. And yet, it was not enough to save him from banishment.

Ostraca inscribed with the name of Themistocles,
son of Neokles

Themistocles had made his name as an advocate of democracy, who championed the rights of the common people by causing a fleet to be built. While the hoplite phalanx was seen as the preserve of the nobility, rowing a trireme could be done by anyone and guaranteed a wage for the poorer people in the state. Now that the Persian invasion had been defeated with the navy, and the Delian League was created to preserve the Greeks from future invasion, no one argued about the importance of sea power.

In fact, Themistocles' old rival Aristides, had not only become an advocate for the fleet as well, he had drawn up terms for the new naval alliances of the League. Cimon, the son of Miltiades, was not only an advocate of naval power, but he was also probably a better general than Themistocles as well. Other more strident voices took up the cause of popular democracy. The Spartans no longer viewed him as an ally, after the affair of the clandestine rebuilding of the walls.

Ostraca inscribed with the name of Themistocles,
son of Neokles

Themistocles was no longer needed by the people as a prophetic figure, a champion of the masses or as an admiral. In fact, Themistocles had now become known for taking bribes. He had also become proud, acting as if he had acted single-handedly in saving Greece. And thus, a motion of ostracism was brought before the people. The quorum was reached and Themistocles, son of Neokles, was exiled from Athens for ten years. Themistocles left the city and settled in the city of Argos for some time. It is hard not to wonder what Aristides thought upon seeing the fall and exile of his old rival, who had imposed a similar fate upon Aristides ten years previously.

In Sparta, an even worse fall from grace was occurring. Pausanias, the general who had acted as regent for the son of King Leonidas, and who had led the Greeks to victory at Plataea, was accused once more of treason. This time he was accused of treason against Sparta for conspiring with the helots to overthrow the state of Sparta. Again, Pausanias was a man who had been instrumental in defeating the Persian invasion, but like Themistocles, it seems that this was not enough to save him from his enemies, or from his own pride.

Pistoxenus Painter

Pausanias became aware that he was being hunted and rather than facing arrest he fled to a nearby temple, claiming sanctuary. It was thought to be impious to kill anyone in a temple and temples would protect those who were accused of crimes. It was an unusual system in our eyes, but it may have acted as a way of protecting people from irrational violence of kings and tyrants. It was thought to be impious to drag someone out of a temple against their will, but the Spartan leaders were not going to let Pausanias get away and they set a watch around the temple.

In this year Polyphrasmon won the tragedy competition in the Great Dionysia in Athens. He was a son of the dramatist Phrynichus. Sadly none of his plays survive, even in fragmentary form.

In the year 470 matters came to a head in Sparta. Pausanias had been hiding in the temple of Athena, known as the Temple of Athena of the Brazen House. The Spartans had set a guard over the temple and refused any food to be given to the convicted Pausanias. He refused to go out and face his fate and had been wasting away. As he lay dying in the last throes of starvation, the guards set by the Spartan ephors entered the temple and took him outside the temple boundary, where he died shortly after. He was too weak to resist and the fact that he had died just outside the temple meant that technically the Spartans had not killed someone inside the temple, nor had they allowed someone to be dragged outside of it (as he was too weak to protest). But this was viewed by many as cheating the spirit of the law and the Spartan state was thought to have incurred ritual pollution by this act. Thus died Pausanias, victor of Plataea.

Modern painting of Themistocles arriving at the
court of his enemy King Admetus

When they found that he was on the point of expiring, just as he was, in the chamber, they brought him out of the temple, while the breath was still in him, and as soon as he was brought out he died. They were going to throw him into the Kaiadas, where they cast criminals, but finally decided to inter him somewhere near. But the god at Delphi afterwards ordered the Lacedaemonians to remove the tomb to the place of his death—where he now lies in the consecrated ground, as an inscription on a monument declares—and, as what had been done was a curse to them, to give back two bodies instead of one to the goddess of the Brazen House. So they had two brazen statues made, and dedicated them as a substitute for Pausanias.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 1.134, written circa 400BC

Themistocles was now under suspicion. He was living in exile at Argos and was suspected by the Spartans of being involved in the plot of Pausanias, although it's really not clear if he was, or if there even was a plot of Pausanias. Themistocles slipped away from Argos and sailed to Corcyra (modern Corfu) before fleeing to Admetus, the King of the Molossians. Admetus was in fact a personal enemy of Themistocles, but he took pity on a fugitive and allowed Themistocles to stay in his kingdom. The Spartans would however pursue Themistocles once they learned of his whereabouts.

Around this time in Cyprus, which was now a disputed territory between the Persians and the Aegean Greeks, the Idalion Tablet was made. This was a bronze tablet from the city of Idalion that records the Greek language but written with an ancient script known as the Cypriot Syllabary.

This recorded a contract made by King Stasicyprus of Idalion and some physicians who had cared for the soldiers and people of the city during a long siege. It is unclear what dates should be taken for this siege. It may have begun in 478, but may also have taken place during the time of the Ionian Revolt, or been an entirely unrelated war.

The king had asked the physicians to treat the people without charge and in gratitude the king gifted a plot of land to the physicians forever. This is sometimes referred to as the first public health plan, but considering that it was an emergency action during wartime, this may be overstating the case.

Painting by the Pistoxenus Painter

Around this time the great Temple of Zeus in Olympia was begun. The architect of this temple was Libon of Elis and he tried to incorporate certain curved lines into the construction, to make the overall appearance more pleasing to the eye.

In this year Polyzalus, tyrant of Gela and brother of Hiero I of Syracuse, owned the team of horses that won the chariot race at the Pythian Games in Delphi. To commemorate this victory a bronze statue was made and dedicated. It is known as the Charioteer of Delphi and is one of the few nearly intact bronzes to survive from this era, as many were melted down for weaponry. The figure is a magnificent sculpture. The statue is in motion yet calm, active yet poised. The expression no longer shows the "Archaic smile" but is instead focused intently on the task at hand.

Around this time the Pistoxenus Painter, the Wedding Painter and the Providence Painter flourished. These were red-figure vase painters who worked mostly in Athens. Vase painters in Athens are better known than other areas, because Athens has been the focus of such study, but at this point Attic vase-painting also had a high prestige value outside Athens and their works would have been very popular in other regions of Greece and the wider world. This was yet another instance of the growing cultural influence of Athens.

Around this time Damon of Athens was flourishing. He was a musicologist; someone who specialised in the teaching of music and the theory of teaching music. Music was held to be an important art and Athenian education was at least partly a musical education. Thus Damon may have acted partly as a music teacher, but also partly as an overall teacher and advisor to the youth of Athens. One of his most promising pupils was a young man named Pericles. Pericles' father was Xanthippus, who had commanded the Athenian naval forces at Mycale. Xanthippus had entrusted his son's education to Damon and was expecting great things of his son.

Later bust of Parmenides

Finally, the philosopher Parmenides was active, or flourished at least, around this time. He was from Elea, on the south-western coast of what is now Italy and his followers are sometimes referred to as Eleatic philosophers. He wrote a poem called On Nature, parts of which survive to this day. As is so often the case with the early Greek philosophers it is hard to know exactly what he believed, however, he does seem very concerned with being.

Rather than concern himself with the substance of world and question whether the primary substance was water or air or fire, Parmenides was concerned with Being itself. He believed that nothing could come from nothing and that true vacuums were an impossibility. Thus, because nothing could come from nothing and there was never any space for matter to move to, Parmenides seems to have come to the rather unusual conclusion that there was never any change in the universe. His universe was a type of unchanging immovable sphere outside of which nothing could be comprehended. It is a strange picture and one that seems very easy to dismiss.

The thoughts of Parmenides are perhaps poorly phrased, but his thoughts were laid out in a clear type of argument. Most people clearly disagreed with him, after all, it seems obvious that the world changes, but in a world without clear rules for logic, it was hard to disprove him or see the flaws in his reasoning. His followers, Melissus and Zeno provided additional arguments for his ideas and in certain ways Parmenides laid down a challenge for future thinkers: Either disprove Parmenides or admit that reasoning leads to absurdities.

Vase by the Brygos Painter

But I have always thought that the central questions of Parmenides are actually quite pertinent to modern cosmology. We still hold it as an axiom of physics that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. We no longer believe in the impossibility of pure vacuums, but we dilute the concept by allowing for quantum vibrations and other things that would make our vacuums not truly empty (in Parmenides' eyes at least). The idea of the universe as an unchanging sphere, when viewed from some impossibly hypothetical outside, is hardly cutting edge physics, but it is still interesting to imagine if an outside observer of the universe would actually see it expanding or contracting. After all, the amount of matter/energy remains the same?

I'm not wanting to imply that Parmenides was presciently predicting modern physics or cosmology, or anything of the sort. But I'm just wanting to show that his ideas are not as strange as they might sound on first hearing. If one considers for too long the nature of matter as a whole, it is hard to avoid odd thoughts.

And this brings our look at the period to a close. The ten year period began with the great defeats of Persia at Plataea and Mycale and ended with the cities of Athens and Sparta triumphant, but pursuing very different paths. Parmenides may have been wrong to say that change was impossible. But one thing at least has remained constant over the last few decades that we have examined in Greek history. We can ponder the fates of Miltiades, Aristides, Leotychidas, Pausanias and Themistocles and remember that it was difficult to be a politician in ancient Greece.

Our judgment thereon depends on this: "Is it or is it not?"
Parmenides, On Truth, written circa 470BC, preserved in fragmentary quotations

Dionysius and Silenus by the Brygos Painter

Primary Sources:
Fragments of Heraclitus' works, written circa 480BC?
Aeschylus, The Persians, written circa 472BC
Pindar, Odes, written circa 475BC
Parmenides, On Truth, written circa 470BC, preserved in fragmentary quotations
Herodotus, Histories, written circa 440BC
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC
The Parian Chronicle, written circa 216BC
Plutarch, Life of Aristides, written circa AD100
Plutarch, Themistocles, written circa AD100
Pausanias, Description of Greece, written circa AD150

Secondary Sources:
Historical eruptions on Mount Etna
Etruscan helmet dedicated by Hiero I at Olympia after Battle of Cumae, held in the British Museum

Related Blog Posts:
489-480BC in Greece
479-460BC in the Near East
479-460BC in Rome
469-460BC in Greece