479-460BC in the Near East

Bull Column at Persepolis

This blog will try and look at the Near East for the years 479-460BC, which during this period was mainly included in the Persian Empire. I will occasionally mention the affairs of Carthage as well. From the Persian period onwards, the historical sources become quite scant and we are quite heavily reliant on the writings of the Greeks, particularly Herodotus. This period sees the ending of Herodotus’ history and the sources become even sparser.

Other important sources will be Thucydides, Plutarch and Diodorus Siculus. Occasional snippets of information may come from the Hebrew biblical writings, or sacred traditions, but these will generally only concern affairs in Judea or those pertaining specifically to Jewish history. The story of Esther is an exception of sorts, but even this event would not have been of major concern to other peoples of the empire. It is not that there is nothing to say for this period, but the history is now mainly written by the Greeks. So if most of what I have to say concerns the Greeks, we should remember it is because they are writing the history, not because nothing else was happening in the Persian Empire. For any events that deal with the Greeks, I will only write of them briefly as they are dealt with in greater detail in previous blogs, which will be listed at the end.

In the year 479 Persia ruled most of the world known to the people of the Near East. From Ionia to India, from the edges of Scythia to the edges of Kush, the Persian Empire held sway, under the monarchy of Xerxes I. In the previous year Xerxes had launched an unsuccessful invasion of Greece and had suffered a major naval defeat at the Battle of Salamis. Faced with an enemy that now had a naval advantage, Xerxes retreated from Europe and went to Sardis in Lydia, there to wait to hear the outcome of the war. He had left a high-ranking general by the name of Mardonius in Greece who would carry on the struggle against the Athenians and Spartans. Mardonius had a large army and there were good reasons to suspect that he would achieve his goals. The Persian navy had fallen back and was anchored near the Aegean island of Samos, quite close to the mainland of Asia Minor.

Relief of Persian soldiers from Susa

Mardonius attempted to negotiate with the Greek cities, particularly the Athenians, to try and detach them from their alliances. This was a good tactic, albeit unsuccessful, and led to serious dissensions among the Greek alliance. Trying to pressure his enemies, Mardonius moved his armies towards Attica and tried once more to negotiate.

Meanwhile a city in the north of Greece had already rebelled against Persia, thinking Persia already defeated in the wars. This could not be allowed to stand and Mardonius had sent a force to subdue the city of Potidaea before the rebellion could spread. The siege was proceeding against the coastal city when the sea suddenly retreated away from the shore, exposing weakened areas of the walls of Potidaea. The Persians could not pass up such a heaven-sent opportunity and they ran across the exposed shallows towards the wall. While their columns were rushing along the sand the Persians were caught as the sea returned in a greater tide than had ever been seen in that region. The attackers were swept away in the surf and the Persian commander abandoned the siege. This may possibly be the first description of a tsunami in the historical record.

Meanwhile Mardonius occupied Athens and, upon hearing that the Athenians were flatly refusing any further negotiations, he burned it to the ground as thoroughly as he could accomplish. The Athenians appealed to the Spartans to actually do something instead of waiting behind fortifications at the Corinthian Isthmus and finally the Spartans did march out.

Relief from the palace at Susa

The Spartans and their allies, combined with the Athenians and other troops, made up an army perhaps 80,000-100,000 strong, which was also probably the largest Greek army (not counting later Macedonian armies) ever fielded in the classical era. I could be mistaken on this however. Mardonius had a slightly larger army, probably numbering around 100,000-120,000. The Persians were much less lightly armoured, but had the advantage of Greek allies such as the Thebans, who were armed much like the Spartans. The Persians also had the advantage of having a much stronger cavalry component to their army.

The two armies met on a plain in Boeotia near the city of Plataea. The Greeks won some initially skirmishes, beating back Persian cavalry attacks and killing a Persian cavalry commander. Wishing to capitalise on these successes, the Greeks, under the leadership of a Spartan general called Pausanias, moved closer to the Persian camp. But this proved to be a mistake on the part of the Greeks, as their food and water supplies were now threatened by the more mobile Persian units. The Greeks decided to pull back to a more defensible position, covering themselves from Persian attack by retreating at night.

Their retreat was uncoordinated and Mardonius mistook this for a full-scale withdrawal. He ordered a Persian attack, but while his army was readying itself, the Greeks managed to get into some form of order and prepared for the Persian assault. Mardonius had thus committed himself to fighting an uphill infantry battle against more heavily armoured troops. But his army was already engaged by the time the mistake would have been realised and there would have been no choice but to carry on with the battle and hope that Persian courage would carry the day. The balance of the battle hung in doubt until Mardonius was killed in the thick of the fray. The Persian army collapsed after the death of Mardonius and probably only around half the Persian army was able to escape. The Persian land invasion of Greece had failed.

Bull column from the palace at Susa

The Greek fleet had sailed eastwards to engage the Persian fleet. The Persians had moved from Samos to the nearby mainland at a place called Mycale, where they had beached their ships and built a stockade to protect themselves from attack. Seeing that the Persians did not offer battle on the sea, the Greeks landed their marines and sailors and moved to the attack. The Persians left their camp so as not to be surrounded by the Greeks. It seems as if the Persian morale was poor or that perhaps they were not expecting an engagement. The Greek hoplite armour would have been much heavier than the Persian armour (which was often simply a light shield) and in close-quarters combat the Greeks defeated the Persians, sacked their camp and burned their ships. This ended the last chance that the Persians had to offer any resistance to the Greeks in the Aegean. Both the battles of Plataea and Mycale are described in more detail in previous blogs.

Xerxes had been in Sardis while these events were ongoing and it must have been extremely demoralising to hear the news of catastrophic defeat after catastrophic defeat. I wonder why the Persians did not bring up more troops to attack the Greeks or to fight back. But there are some indications to suggest that the province of Babylon was in revolt at this time and any troops that could be spared would have had to be sent to quell this. However, this is far from proved. It is not certain that the Babylonians drew away troops from the western satrapies of the Persian Empire, but it is a possibility and the Greek victories may have been easier, or less contested than they would otherwise have been. But this is speculation.

Coins of the
Ghazzat Hoard

At least some Persians (or Phoenicians) returned from the wars. A coin hoard was found underwater near Gaza in Palestine, now known as the Ghazzat hoard. These coins were all from the northern areas of Greece and parts of Thrace, and all of these coins are from the decades immediately previous to Xerxes invasion of Greece. I wonder if this was the part of the pay or plunder of a Phoenician captain who managed to escape the storms and battles of Artemision and Salamis only to return to the Levant and perish within sight of their native land. I’m being very melodramatic here, but it is interesting to see that there is such physical evidence of the invasion found in various parts of the Near East.

In the year 478 Xerxes seems to have left Sardis and returned to the centre of his empire, probably to Susa or Persepolis. It is not known if he left the heartland of his realm again and we know of no further military campaigns undertaken by the king.

The Greeks attacked Cyprus and continued their attacks on Persian holdings around the Aegean Sea. It is likely that there were still some areas that acknowledged the Persian king in northern Greece or in Ionia. But they would have acknowledged the king in name only and the Greek alliance, now led by the Athenians, would be continually attacking any place that had any illusions of remaining loyal to the Persian invaders.

One of the last events recorded by Herodotus is a strange affair whereby Xerxes falls in love with a lady called Artaynte. She was the daughter of his brother Masistes and Xerxes ordered her to be married to his son and heir, the Crown Prince Darius. Xerxes seems to have been in love with both Artaynte and her mother. Herodotus records that Xerxes swore to give Artaynte a gift: Any gift that was in his power to give. She asked for a shawl that had been a gift from Amestris, one of the wives of Xerxes. Xerxes feared to give this to her, as it would mean his angry wife would hear of it, but he had promised and the word of the King could not be rescinded.

Treasury at Persepolis

Artaynte is said to have worn the shawl and Amestris inevitably heard of this. Suspecting that the mother of Artaynte was behind the entire affair, Amestris went to Xerxes and asked a gift of Xerxes: Any gift that was in his power to give. Amestris then asked for the mother of Artaynte to be handed over to her. Xerxes tried to save his brother’s wife, but once again, he had given his word. The wife of Masistes was handed over to Amestris who tortured, humiliated and mutilated her before sending her back to her brother.

Masistes was a son of a king and the brother of a king and must have felt the insult keenly, as well as fearing for his life. He fled to the east of the empire, towards Bactria, looking to raise a rebellion against Xerxes. However he and his sons were caught and killed and the rebellion, such as it was, was swiftly quelled.

Our main source for this is Herodotus and it is likely that this story has some factual basis, but I would be surprised if this was the exact reason for the rebellion and death of Masistes. There are too many elements in it that seem to mirror earlier or later stories. It might be entirely true, but I feel it would be good to show some caution on this tale. This is the last piece of information given to us by Herodotus about the Persian Empire.

Persepolis in the evening

According to the most common way of interpreting the book of Esther, Esther was selected and crowned queen around this time. After Vashti had been dismissed by Xerxes he eventually selected another woman to be his queen, in this case the Jewish lady called Esther, or Hadassah in Hebrew. She is unlikely to be referred to by this name, as Esther may have been a Babylonian name derived from the goddess Ishtar (it might also have derived from a Persian word however). Her uncle was known as Mordecai, which is certainly derived from the name of the Babylonian god Marduk, so the Babylonian form is more likely.

Scholars have not been sure how to correlate the crowning of Esther with the tale of Herodotus about Amestris, who clearly seems to be the main wife of Xerxes. Some have identified Amestris with Vashti or even with Esther. The identification of Esther with Amestris is probably wrong, as Amestris has full-grown children in 478 at the time of the Masistes affair. But if Amestris is Vashti, then she should have been in seclusion and out of favour with the king at this time. The solution is probably not a simple one, but we must remember that Herodotus is writing some decades later, is liable to confuse details, and is to a certain extent a hostile witness to the deeds of Xerxes and his family. The Book of Esther is also written perhaps a generation later and seems to use different names to those used by the Greeks (or the Persians). So some major confusion is really only to be expected here.

While not losing battles or engaging in silly love affairs Xerxes carried on the building programs of his father. The cities of Susa and Persepolis were adorned with vast buildings. This period, though not necessarily this exact year, saw the completion of the Imperial Treasury at Persepolis. This is sometimes referred to as the Harem (as it has many identical rooms), but is more likely to be the treasury of the empire, or even more likely, one of the treasuries of the empire.

Gate of All Nations at Persepolis

Another colossal building work completed in or around this time was the Gate of All Nations. This was a great gateway to the terrace containing the main palaces of Persepolis. The gates themselves are flanked with Assyrian style lamassu and the stairs leading to the gates are engraved with reliefs of the peoples of the empire.

As impressive as the building works at Persepolis and Susa are, they also exemplify a problem with how the Persian Empire was run. Fundamentally the Persians requested large payments in tribute every year. They were perhaps not as draconian in their tribute demands as the Assyrians or Babylonians, but they were drawing from a much larger area. Thus every year the Persians would take in precious metals, which would be melted down for bullion and stored in Susa, Persepolis and Ecbatana and a few other regional centres of Persian power. The money would never be spent and the provinces were perpetually drained of their resources. Because much of the wealth of the Persians was simply locked in ever accumulating vaults it never even benefitted the people in the heartland of the realm. Thus it seems that the nations of Asia began to suffer from a slow economic malaise during the 5th century BC.

The problem probably did not surface under Cyrus and Cambyses, who did not mint coinage and whose taxation policies were much looser. The seeds of the problem were sown with the more efficient bureaucracy of Darius, but probably only became noticeable during the reign of Xerxes. This economic stagnation and impoverishment of the provinces would continue for as long as the Persian Empire lasted. It seems to have led to the decline of Ionia at a later time period, and explains some of the economic issues seen in the literature from Judah, Babylon and Egypt.

Al-Yahudu Tablets

In the year 477 the Al-Yahudu Tablets, a cache of cuneiform documents from Babylonia, that shed light on the life of the Jewish exiles living there, comes to an end. It is not clear if the Jewish community was badly affected by the turmoil in Babylonia or why the archive comes to an end at this time.

Around this time, King Eshmunazar II of Sidon died. He was buried in a sarcophagus that had been looted from Sais in Egypt, as his father Tabnit had been. The sarcophagus has a Phoenician inscription on it however, where Eshmunazar tells of his lifetime and asks the reader not to open his tomb and to leave it undisturbed.

In the month of Bul, in the fourteenth year of the royalty of King Eshmunazzar, King of the two Sidons, son of King Tabnit, King of the two Sidons, King Eshmunazzar, King of the two Sidons, said as follows: I am carried away, the time of my non-existence has come, my spirit has disappeared, like the day, from whence I am silent, since which I became mute. And I am lying in this coffin, and in this tomb, in the place which I have built. O thou reader remember this: "May no royal race and no man open my funeral couch, and may they not seek after treasures, for no one has hidden treasures here, nor move the coffin out of my funeral couch, nor molest me in this funeral bed, by putting another tomb over it.”
Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II, written circa 477BC

Eshmunazzar Sarcophagus in the Louvre

In this year the last vestiges of Persian power in Europe seem to have been finished. The Spartans campaigned against the Thessalians and the Athenians were in full control of the Hellespont. This meant that even if any Greek, Macedonian or Thracian peoples had wished to acknowledge the rule of Xerxes, the Athenians and Spartans would actively make war upon them to prevent this. The Spartans appear to have left the main continuation of the war to the Athenians at this point however.

In the year 476 the Greek alliance, now primarily led by the Athenians, continued their war against the Persian Empire. This year they seem to have focused on freeing any remaining Ionian cities from the Persians and in offensive operations against Persian targets within easy reach of the coast.

In 475 the Greeks seem to have focused their attacks on the island of Scyros in the Aegean. It is not clear if the Dolopian inhabitants of Scyros had any attachment to Persia, or if they were simply pirates, but this operation seems to have occupied the Greek alliance and left the Persian holdings on the mainland in peace for the time at least.

Around this time Atossa died. She had been the daughter of Cyrus the Great, the wife of Darius and the mother of Xerxes. She was the primary link of legitimacy that connected the family of Darius to the older branch of the Persian royal family. She had possibly been the reason Xerxes had been given the throne by Darius. Xerxes was not the eldest son of Darius, but he was the eldest son of Darius through Atossa, after Darius had ascended to the throne. She was a formidable figure but respected by all. Even the Greek playwright Aeschylus gives her a role in his play The Persians, which was written shortly after this time.

Griffins at Persepolis

It may have been around this time that Sataspes returned. Sataspes was a cousin of Xerxes who had been convicted of raping the daughter of Megabyzus. Megabyzus was one of the most powerful nobles in the empire. He was descended from one of the seven conspirators who had helped put Darius on the throne. He had commanded the Persians who crushed the rebellion in Babylon in the previous decade and he had been a prominent commander during the invasion of Greece. Even a cousin of the king would have to be punished for such a crime, particularly when the father of the victim was a powerful man in his own right.

Sataspes was initially condemned to death, but at the urging of Atossa he had been allowed to take a different course. He was told to take ships and sail around the coastline of Africa, to circumnavigate it from the west, passing the Pillars of Heracles, and sailing southwards along the western coast, through the Atlantic Ocean until he had reached the Red Sea.

Herodotus records that he had attempted it (although Herodotus does not give an exact date). He had an Egyptian ship with Egyptians as crew and sailed far to the south. He reported that the people he saw were very small and that his ship simply stopped and went no further. Xerxes must have believed that these were tall tales and ordered Sataspes to be executed by impalement. I have recorded the expedition here, but again, there is great uncertainty on the date.

Map showing the Benguela Current in the south Atlantic
that Sataspes' ship would have struggled to make
headway against

It must be noted that there are peoples of shorter stature in central Africa, particularly along the Congo Basin, known as pygmies. There are also strong currents flowing northwards around the mouth of the Congo. Later Portuguese explorers avoided these by sailing westwards, towards Brazil and following the Atlantic currents around towards the Cape of Good Hope. So Sataspes may have been telling the truth. It seems as if this was the last serious attempt to circumnavigate Africa in this direction until the Age of Exploration.

Sataspes went to Egypt where he received a ship and a crew from the Egyptians, and sailed past the Pillars of Heracles. Having sailed out beyond them, and rounded the Libyan promontory called Solois (possibly Cape Cantin), he sailed south; but when he had been many months sailing over the sea, and always more before him, he turned back and made sail for Egypt. Coming to King Xerxes from there, he related in his narrative that, when he was farthest distant, he sailed by a country of little men, who wore palm-leaf clothing; these, whenever he and his men put in to land with their ship, left their towns and fled to the hills; he and his men did no harm when they landed, and took nothing from the people except cattle. As to his not sailing completely around Libya, the reason he said was that the ship could move no farther, but was stopped.
Herodotus, Histories, 4.43, written circa 440BC

An 1869AD painting of Esther, by Portaels

Around the year 474 the Haman Affair occurred. Dates are very far from certain on this so a certain chronological leeway should be allowed. Haman was a courtier in the retinue of King Xerxes and was highly honoured by the king. He had a feud with a less important courtier named Mordecai, who was also Jewish and the uncle of Queen Esther. Mordecai was not nobody however, and was known to the king. Mordecai had also helped the king by reporting a palace plot some time previously.

Haman, who may have had an ancestral grudge against the Jews decided to revenge himself on Mordecai by asking the king to hang Mordecai, but also to allow the Jews to be hunted and murdered with impunity on a certain day.

There was a twisted precedent for this, as Darius seems to have allowed people to hunt and kill the Magi on a particular day, as the “imposter” impersonating Bardiya was said to have been from the tribe of the Magi. It is said that Xerxes agreed to this. However, Esther, who seems to have fallen out of favour with the king by this time, approached the king unannounced, in a breach of court protocol that could have led to her execution to ask the king and Haman to a banquet.

After diplomatically getting the sympathy of the king at a later time, Esther revealed that Haman was seeking the destruction of Xerxes’ queen and all her people. Xerxes ordered the execution of Haman.

However, the king’s word was law and the destruction of the Jews could not be countermanded, however, the king sent another edict allowing the Jews to defend themselves. After this Mordecai, the uncle of Esther, was promoted to a high rank and the Jews later came to celebrate their deliverance in what is now known as the Feast of Purim. The story was commemorated in the book of Esther, which may have been written as early as sixty or so years after the events it describes.

Monumental ruins at Persepolis

This has been a very brief paraphrase of the book of Esther. It is a short book and worth reading in its own right. The dates, names and overall veracity of the book are hard to verify. It is written for a Jewish audience but is dealing primarily with a non-Jewish subject matter. This means that some details are obscured and it makes it more difficult to discover the truth of the matter.

But, some of the details, such as the immutability of the word of the king and the picking of a certain day for the murder of an entire ethnic group do sound familiar from the words of Herodotus. If the story of Amestris and Artaynte is true, then it shows that there were vicious harem feuds at play at the Persian court; feuds that could trigger coups and rebellions. This too rings true to the account of Esther. It is hard to definitively say more.

There is little that can be said for the years 473, 472 or 471. I’m sure that many things happened in these year, possibly even things that I have described as happening at different times, but I cannot say for sure.

Idalion Tablet from Cyprus

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 when this siege actually was. 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.

When the Medes (Persians) and Kitians had the city of Idalion under siege, in the year of Philokypros, son of Onasagoras, King Stasikypros and the city – the Idalians – called physician Onasilos, son of Onasikypros, and his brothers, to treat people who were wounded in battle, without payment.
Idalion Tablet, written circa 470BC

Griffins at Persepolis

Not much can be said to my knowledge for the year 469. Presumably things happened, but sadly I am not aware of them.

In or around the year 468 King Siaspiqa of Kush died. Nasakhma, presumably his son, succeeded him as King of Kush. Both monarchs are attested by some small artefacts and lists from Nuri and Meroe, but as with all of the monarchs of Kush from this era, very little is known about them.

Not much can be said to my knowledge for the year 467. Presumably things happened, but sadly I am not aware of them.

In the year 466 the Persians were potentially trying to retake the cities of Ionia that they had lost after the failed invasion of Xerxes. However the Persian army and navy were attacked by the Athenians at the Eurymedon River and the Persians suffered a heavy defeat. The Athenians, led by their general Cimon, inflicted a near total defeat on the Persian navy and what seems to have been a very conclusive defeat upon their land army as well. Although Xerxes had not led this debacle, it was the last major Persian defeat to have occurred during his reign.

Probable tomb of Xerxes at Naqsh-i-Rustam

In the year 465 Xerxes I, King of Persia, was murdered in a palace coup. It is unclear why he was murdered. His subjects may not have been happy with the continual defeats and losses after the failed invasion of Greece. They may not have been happy with the heavy taxation needed to fund the extravagant building projects of the king and his court. The conspirators may have had purely personal reasons for wishing Xerxes dead. But, whatever the cause, Xerxes was murdered.

The Persian sources, such as they are, do not seem to mention this and no Jewish text records these events. We are reliant on an offhand comment in a later work by Aristotle, written perhaps a century later, and a very unreliable account written by a Greek doctor called Ctesias, who wrote perhaps six decades after the event and is a very dubious witness. Ctesias wrote two works, Indica and Persica, neither of which survive in their original form and both of which have some very serious problems. Sadly, for Persian history, we are partially reliant on the Persica of Ctesias.

Ctesias records that a courtier who had risen to favour named Artabanus, (a different nobleman from both the Artabanus’ and the Artabazus’ mentioned in Herodotus’ work) was scheming to attain the throne. He planned a complex coup, where he enlisted the help of Megabyzus, a powerful Persian noble and one of the most powerful men in the empire, and a palace eunuch named Aspamitres.

Artabanus killed Xerxes with the help of Aspamitres and then told one of the younger princes, named Artaxerxes, that the Crown Prince Darius had murdered their father Xerxes. Artaxerxes reacted swiftly and Prince Darius, the supposed murderer, was quickly slain.

Detail from the (probable) Tomb of Xerxes

Artaxerxes became king, but Artabanus seems to have planned to murder Artaxerxes as well. After acting as regent for some time, Artabanus made some form of pact with Megabyzus to slay the young Artaxerxes. However, Megabyzus had no interest in serving some lowborn character and told Artaxerxes of the plot. Artabanus and his sons were killed and Artaxerxes I was now the undisputed king of Persia. Some rebellions were fought in the east, as Bactria rose up against the king of Persia, but Ctesias does not go into great detail.

Certain later classical sources, such as Justin and Diodorus Siculus, refer to this tale, but they seem to be either drawing directly from Ctesias, or embellishing his account. If Ctesias was a better source generally, I would have much more faith in this account. But as it stands, I am not convinced the episode took place at all.

There is something similar alluded to in the book of Esther, where there is a palace intrigue, an upstart courtier (Haman in Esther, Artabanus in Ctesias, both of whom seem to have sons involved in the plots) and a plot involving eunuchs (Bigthana and Teresh in Esther, Aspamitres in Ctesias). However in the account of Esther the plot/s fail and Xerxes survives. Without saying that the book of Esther is correct in this instance, it is quite possible that Ctesias has misheard an incident from the Persian court tales and garbled the entire account of Xerxes death. In case anyone thinks I am being too tough on Ctesias, note that he somehow manages to garble the account of Xerxes’ invasion of Greece, which was common knowledge during his lifetime.

Where Xerxes was buried is not known for sure, but there is a rock hewn tomb at Naqsh-i-Rustam that is very similar to the tomb of his father. There is no inscription remaining. It is nevertheless assumed that this is the tomb of Xerxes.

It is recorded that Inaros II and Amyrtaeus of Sais rose up against Artaxerxes and Persian rule shortly after Artaxerxes took the throne. If that is the case then it would appear that the uprising may have taken place in the year 464, but it is quite likely that the revolt actually took place some years later.

Coin of Themistocles, possibly showing a portrait on it
(or possibly not)

In or around this time, at some point around the year 463, although it may have been some years previously, during the regency of Artabanus or even the reign of Xerxes, it seems that Themistocles arrived at the court of the king of Persia. He had been instrumental in the defeat of the Persian invasion, but the Persian kings were generally not vindictive to their foes. Themistocles was treated well and was even given a small province in the region of Magnesia to rule in the name of the Persian Empire. Themistocles ruled here for some years and even minted his own coins. The coins with portraits are perhaps some of the earliest portrait coins that are known to history, but whether or not Themistocles was the first to put his portrait on a coin is still rather debateable.

Around this time Nasakhma, King of Kush, died. He was probably succeeded by Malewiebamani, who was probably his son. Various artefacts of Nasakhma and Malewiebamani survive, but very little is known of their reigns. It is unfortunate that the kingdom of Kush is not better known and understood.

Not much can be said to my knowledge for the year 462. Presumably things happened, but sadly I am not aware of them.

In the year 461 it seems that the Athenians sent the wealthy nobleman Callias (known as Callias II to differentiate him from others of the same name) to Persia. He was sent as an ambassador, but it is not clear what his mission was. As Athens was on the brink of war with Sparta it is possible that Callias was sent to Persia to investigate whether or not the ceaseless war between Athens and Persia could end. It seems that his mission did not succeed however.

Fallen lion head at Persepolis

In Egypt, the revolt of Inaros II, a Libyan chieftain who ruled some portion of the Nile Delta region, was still ongoing (or just beginning at this time, the chronology is unclear). Achaemenes, who was the Persian satrap of Egypt and a brother of Xerxes I, had gathered a large army to fight it. The Athenians sent a large force of 200 ships to aid the rebellion. The Athenians made contact with the Egyptians and together they set out to confront the Persian garrison. The two armies clashed in what is known as the Battle of Pampremis and, after a sharp struggle, the Persians were routed. Achaemenes was slain in the rout.

However the victory of the Greeks was not fully complete. A section of the Persian garrison fled to a fortified section of Memphis called the White Castle and they could not be removed from this position. They had ample supplies and enough troops to disrupt the whole region of Lower Egypt. So the Athenians and their Egyptian allies settled down for a siege of this fortress.

Meanwhile Inaros, son of Psammetichus, a Libyan king of the Libyans on the Egyptian border, having his headquarters at Marea, the town above Pharos, caused a revolt of almost the whole of Egypt from King Artaxerxes and, placing himself at its head, invited the Athenians to his assistance. Abandoning a Cyprian expedition upon which they happened to be engaged with two hundred ships of their own and their allies, they arrived in Egypt and sailed from the sea into the Nile, and making themselves masters of the river and two-thirds of Memphis, addressed themselves to the attack of the remaining third, which is called White Castle. Within it were Persians and Medes who had taken refuge there, and Egyptians who had not joined the rebellion.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC

In the heartlands of the Persia, the Apadana palace complex in Persepolis was probably finished around this time. Artaxerxes I was a builder but he undertook no gigantic building projects on the scale of the buildings of Xerxes, but the projects that had been ongoing when he had taken the throne were brought to completion.

Historical image of Mount Gerizim seen from nearby
Mount Ebal

In the region of Samaria, a very minor province of the Persian Empire, the religious group that later became known as the Samaritans probably began building a temple atop Mount Gerizim. This group held beliefs that derived from the Judaism, as it had been practiced before the destruction of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. They were based primarily in what had been the older northern kingdom of Israel, rather than the southern kingdom of Judah. They had perhaps mixed with the deportees from Mesopotamia who had been planted there by the Assyrian kings after the destruction of Samaria.

There was tension between the Samaritans and the groups who had returned from exile in Babylonia. Both sides claimed to represent the continued tradition of Judaism. The Jewish exiles in Jerusalem had rebuilt (albeit on a much reduced scale) a temple in Jerusalem. It seems that at some point in the mid-5th century BC that the Samaritans built their own rival temple atop Mount Gerizim. While the disputes between the two communities are remembered to a certain extent today, because of their religious writings that survive, we must remember that both the Samaritans and the Jews were very tiny minorities within the Persian Empire at the time.

Thus the period draws to a close, beginning with the defeat of Xerxes’ invasion and ending with the Greeks aiding the Egyptian revolt against Artaxerxes I. The period saw great buildings and the Persian Empire at near the height of its splendour, but also saw the beginnings of its decline, with the growing penury of the outer provinces and the serious military weaknesses of the empire exposed by its wars with the Greeks.

Relief from the (probable) Tomb of Xerxes

Primary Sources:
Sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II, written circa 477BC
Idalion Tablet, written circa 470BC
Herodotus, Histories, written circa 440BC
Book of Esther, written possibly as early as 420BC
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC
Ctesias, Persica, written circa 398BC
The Parian Chronicle, written circa 216BC
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, written circa 40BC
Plutarch, Themistocles, written circa AD100

Secondary sources:
The Sale of the Ghazzat Hoard:

Related Blog Posts:
499-480BC in the Near East
489-480BC in Greece
479-470BC in Greece
469-460BC in Greece
479-460BC in Rome
459-440BC in the Near East

469-460BC in Greece

The Bronze of Artemision
Statue of either Zeus or Poseidon
found in a shipwreck north of Euboea

This post will look at Greece and the wider Greek world from the years 469BC to 460BC. 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 469BC the exiled Eurypontid Spartan king Leotychidas, who had been exiled some years previously after he had been bribed by Thessalian nobles, died in exile. Sparta was rather unusual in the ancient world for having two lines of kings, the Agiad and Eurypontid. It was actually a rather good system, as it meant that if one king was too young or too old to lead armies, then the other king could still act as a general in the field.

Meanwhile in the Aegean, the island of Naxos had had enough of the continued war against Persia. They wanted to leave the Delian League and take no more part in the war. The other members of the Delian League, particularly the Athenians, would not allow this. If a state continued to enjoy peace and freedom from invasion, then it was only fair that they should help to shoulder the cost of protection.

The navy of the Athenians and their allies sailed to Naxos to force the Naxians back into the League. The Naxians resisted but resistance was futile in the face of the combined navies of the Aegean. The Naxians were disarmed and their ships were taken from them. They were forced to remain in the League, but from now on they would only contribute tribute rather than ships.

Meanwhile to the north of Greece, the disgraced Athenian general Themistocles was still hiding at the court of Admetus, King of the Molossians. The Spartans heard that Themistocles was there and sent word to Admetus that if Themistocles was not handed over that they would march against him with the combined land armies of Greece. Admetus was furious that he would be threatened like this, but could not hope to stand against the Spartans and their allies, so he gave a large quantity of money and some guides to Themistocles and told him to disappear.

Themistocles escaped into the night, travelling only under cover of darkness across land and sea. Reputedly he was travelling in disguise on a ship that took him perilously close to the Athenian navy He seems to have stayed hidden in Persian territory for a number of years, possibly trying to gain access to funds that had been left at Argos when he fled.

According to some historians the Battle of the Eurymedon was fought this year, but the chronology here is not exact. It is possible that it was fought this year, but also possible that this happened a number of years later. I have chosen to write of it three years later, but wanted to mention it here.

The ancient Lion Gate of Mycenae

In the year 468 war seems to have broken out between the Argives and some of their tributary cities. The very ancient citadel of Mycenae lay not far from Argos. Argos claimed a position of great importance in Greece, due to her ancient fame from Homeric times, which was out of all proportion to the actual power of Argos. But in Homeric times, the citadel of Mycenae had been more important still. There was tension between the two groups because of this ancient rivalry, and this was exacerbated by the fact that the people of Mycenae had sided with the Spartans during the Persian Wars.

Argos felt that this was too dangerous to be allowed to continue and invaded the tiny state of Mycenae, besieging it, deporting its people and razing the fortifications. Thus ended the city of Mycenae, which would be only barely remembered by the end of antiquity and which would then be lost entirely until the excavation by Schliemann in the 19th century. I have recorded this event in this year, but there are certain indications that might suggest that this happened some years later. The chronology of Greece at this time is not perfectly exact unfortunately.

Around this time Aristides the Just died. He had been a dutiful servant of the Athenian people. He had served at Marathon and guarded the battlefield after the main army marched back to defend Athens from the Persian fleet. He had been ostracised for his opposition to Themistocles, but had returned to his country in its hour of need. He had commanded a detachment at the Battle of Salamis and fought valiantly there. He had commanded the Athenian forces at the Battle of Plataea, again winning renown. Finally, his justice and fair dealings had been one of the prime reasons the Greek cities preferred Athenian leadership to Spartan leadership in the continued war with Persia. Despite being trusted with the assessment of the various dues and contributions of all the states in the Aegean, he did not take bribes. It is said that his estates had been badly destroyed by the Persian invasion and that he died penniless; having to be buried at the expense of the state he had served.

Lekythos of the Oreithyia Painter

Around this time the Parian Chronicle, a chronicle composed on marble columns on the island of Paros, records that Simonides of Ceos died. Simonides had lived a long and eventful life. Very few instances of his poetry have come down to us from him, but he was very famous during his lifetime. He had spent time with the cultured tyrants of Athens before their deposition, but this didn’t affect his popularity with the Athenians. He had been asked to write the epitaphs for the Athenian war dead at Marathon and for the Three Hundred Spartans at Thermopylae.

"Oh stranger, tell the Lacedaemonians that here we lie, obedient to their laws."
Epitaph of the Three Hundred Spartans, composed by Simonides of Ceos and recorded by Herodotus

Simonides of Ceos was said to have developed a system of mnemonics. The story goes that he composed a poem in praise of a boxer in Thessaly. He embellished the poem with many references to Castor and Pollux, the heroic twin-gods of Greek mythology. The Thessalian was at a banquet and told the poet to collect half his fee from the hero-twins, as clearly the poem was half theirs as well. After receiving this insult Simonides was called outside as two people wished to speak to him. As soon as Simonides left the building, the building collapsed; the Hero-Twins had saved the poet from the catastrophe. The bodies of those inside were so mangled that Simonides was only able to identify people by where they had been sitting at the banquet table.

This is almost certainly a fictional story, but Simonides was credited with the invention of the mnemonic device known as the method of loci, or the palace of memory and it is still used to this day by those who are concerned with extending their powers of memory. Simonides was also credited with other inventions, such as improving the Greek alphabet and improving the lyre. Both of these were almost certainly not done by him, but it shows that he was remembered as an innovator. He also was concerned with ethics and was quoted by later philosophers such as Plato. Considering that he seems to have been such an interesting character, it is a shame that we have not more of his work.

A view from the seats of the Theatre of Dionyisus in Athens
The seats that remain are mostly from the Roman era however

In this year Sophocles won a prize at the Great Dionysia for a play called Triptolemos. The play was probably a tragedy, but may have been a satyr play. Sadly, it is lost to us and we are not even entirely sure of the plot.

The Olympic Games were held this year. Parmenides of Poseidonia won the stadion race. Menalkes of Opous won the boxing. Epharmostos of Opous won the wrestling competition. Agesias of Sicily won the mule-cart race. Lycophron of Athens won the boys stadion race. Epitimadas of Argos won the pancration. Hiero I of Syracuse owned the team of horses that won the tethrippon chariot race, in a victory that was celebrated by an ode of the poet Bacchylides.

In the year 467 Hiero I, the tyrant of Syracuse, died. He had ruled the city of Syracuse and the surrounding territories for eleven years. He was succeeded by his brother Thrasybulus.

Before Hiero died, he had encouraged the sons of Anaxilas of Rhegion to come to his court in Syracuse. Here they grew to adulthood while Micythus was the tyrant of Rhegion. Hiero had told the sons of Anaxilas to return to Rhegion and claim back their father’s throne from the regent. Presumably Hiero was hoping to cause a war.

The sons of Anaxilas returned and pressed their claim to the throne. Anyone who has any familiarity with the period would expect a civil war to break out, but instead Micythus promptly stepped down and handed over the treasury intact and with a full accounting of what he had spent. Unlike what Hiero had told the children, the former slave Micythus had in fact been loyal. Thus Micythus retired with wealth and honour to Tegea in the Peloponnese and Leophron the son of Anaxilas became tyrant of Rhegion and Zancle.

Some historians put the revolt of Naxos in this year, but I think that it probably happened some years previously. As I have mentioned, the chronology of the Greek world is somewhat confused around this time. We have a fair idea what happened and the decades that they happened in, but cannot always be precise in terms of years.

In Athens, Aeschylus won the Great Dionysia tragedy competition with the play Seven against Thebes. This play is set in Thebes, telling the tale of the siege of Thebes in ancient times, where two sons/brothers of Oedipus, products of his incestuous union with his mother, are fighting for the throne of Thebes, one as usurper, the other as invader of his homeland. Each brother has the aid of six champions and they fight at the mythical seven gates of Thebes. The play survives to this day, but it was probably edited in later years to make it tie in to a later play written by Sophocles. An unknown playwright named Aristias took second place.

Halley's Comet

In or around this time, plus or minus a year due to some uncertainty in the dating, a great stone fell from the heavens at Aegospotami, near the Hellespont. This fall of the stone was recorded by later Greek writers as an interesting celestial phenomenon, with some noting that a comet was seen around the time the stone fell. This may be a coincidence, or recorded wrongly, but it is also the potentially the first recorded sighting of Halley’s Comet.

In the year 466 the Persians began belatedly preparing to reconquer the Ionian cities. It is not clear why it took the Persians so long to respond to their subjects breaking free. Also remember that some scholars place this battle as occurring three years earlier. Perhaps Xerxes had been preoccupied with crushing unrest in Babylon and other parts of the empire? Perhaps he was now focused primarily on building projects and had lost all taste for war? Perhaps the Persians had lost so many troops on the Greek campaigns that they were extremely cautious about fighting again unless they were certain of victory. Persian morale must have been quite low in the western satrapies at this time.

Eventually the Persians collected a fleet and a land army at Aspendus, near the mouth of the Eurymedon River. The army was relatively strong, though nowhere near as strong as Persian armies in the past. The Persian fleet probably numbered about 200 ships.

Cimon of Athens realised that the fleet and army could have only been assembled for the re-conquest of Ionia. The fleet was probably intended to sail along the coast, closely following the army. The army would then attack each city while the navy blockaded the ports. In this way the Persians could reduce each city without facing a major naval engagement. The navy of the Delian League was now considerably stronger and more experienced that the navies of the Persians, so the land army was probably expected to do most of the work.

A modern bust of Cimon in Cyprus

To stymie the Persian advance, Cimon took 200 ships and sailed to Phaselis, which was the city closest to the western flank of the Persians. Here he besieged the city to "convince" them to become an ally of the Athenians. Eventually Phaselis surrendered to Cimon, giving the Athenians and their allies a base from which to threaten the Persians.

The Persians appear to have been waiting for reinforcements. Cimon took advantage of this to launch an attack on their base at the mouth of the River Eurymedon. The Persian fleet did not initially give battle when the Greeks appeared but eventually put out to sea to face the Greeks. This was a mistake. The Persian fleet was outmatched, presumably because their hastily organised battle order was no match for the prepared formations of the Athenian triremes. After suffering some losses the Persians tried to retreat back to the shore.

This would have been the perfect time disengage, having inflicted hurt upon the enemy. But instead of treating this as a prelude to a later engagement, Cimon made the decision to carry on the attack, following the Persians to the shore. The Persian sailors abandoned their beached ships to the Greeks and fled back towards their land forces. The Persian land forces had not been expecting to fight and were hampered by their own sailors fleeing through their lines. On the other hand they could no longer afford to wait, as the Greeks were threatening to torch the entire Persian navy as it lay beached on the shore.

The Persian land army was hastily committed and defeated by the battle-hardened Greek marines, who may have been able to use the beached triremes as bastions. The Greeks pushed forward and the Persian morale must have crumbled. Eventually the Persian land army was defeated and turned to flight. The Athenians and their allies now burned the entire Persian navy that had been beached before the battle. Some sources suggest that Cimon then searched out and sank the Phoenician reinforcements that had been en route before the battle. The victory was complete, Ionian freedom from Persia was secured, and the Greeks, in particular the Athenians, were the undisputed masters of the Aegean.

The Eurymedon Vase. The caption in Greek reads:
"I am Eurymedon. I stand bent over"

There is a vase that survives called the Eurymedon vase, where a defeated Persian solder is shown bent over, while on the other side of the vase a naked Greek soldier appears ready to forcibly have sex with the Persian archer. Exactly what the vase and its inscription mean is not precisely clear and various scholars have various opinions, but the most likely explanation is that it means the Persians were now seen as effeminate and weak. In previous decades the Persians were feared as the potential destroyers of Greece. After the Battle of the Eurymedon River, the Greeks seem to have begun to despise the Persians. In warfare it is always a dangerous thing to underestimate the enemy.

Next we come to the actions by land and by sea at the river Eurymedon, between the Athenians with their allies, and the Medes, when the Athenians won both battles on the same day under the conduct of Cimon, son of Miltiades, and captured and destroyed the whole Phoenician fleet, consisting of two hundred vessels.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC

In the city of Syracuse the tyrant Thrasybulus was struggling to maintain control. He had taken over the city when his brother Hiero I had died the previous year. However, his rule had been cruel and the citizens would put up with it no longer. Furthermore he had alienated the members of his own clan, the Deinomenids, who were unhappy that Hiero’s son had not been allowed to take the throne. Thrasybulus fled the city and gathered some mercenaries and colonists in other cities who were willing to help him. The citizens of Syracuse fought a battle with him and after facing defeat in this, Thrasybulus negotiated a surrender. The ex-tyrant would leave and live out the rest of his life in the city of Locri, while the mercenaries were allowed to leave the lands held by Syracuse. Thus democracy was re-established in Syracuse, where it lasted for some time. However, the mercenaries did not leave quietly and there were a number of battles fought between the citizens and soldiers for some time.

Vase painted by the Tarquinia Painter

The city of Taras, in southern Italy, continued its long war with the Iapygian speaking tribes (the Messapians, Apulians and Peucetians). They had suffered a heavy defeat nine years earlier. It is not clear what sparked this particular war however. The Greek colonists of Taras were heavily defeated again. They suffered such heavy casualties among their leaders that the city of Taras changed its government from an aristocratic oligarchy to a democracy. It is possible that the Pythagoreans were associated with the aristocracy, as they seem to have been expelled from the city of Taras at this time also.

Sparta may have viewed these events with some concern. The seeming invincibility of the Athenians in their continued wars with the Persians and the growth of their influence on other city states would have been concerning. The trend towards democracies was also concerning. The Spartans were no fans of the Sicilian tyrants, but they also preferred dealing with stable oligarchies instead of the participatory democracies of which Athens was the greatest example.

In the year 465 Battus IV of Cyrene died. His reign had been long and peaceful, having been on the throne for around fifty years. Not much is known of the reign save that it was peaceful and under Persian hegemony. He was succeeded by Arcesilaus IV as King of Cyrene.

Another, far more influential king passed away this year. Xerxes I of Persia, whose invasion had been so thoroughly defeated fifteen years previously, was murdered in Persia. After some internal power struggles his son Artaxerxes I took the throne of the Persian Empire later that year.

A coin of Thasos from around this time period

In the Aegean, the northern island of Thasos, famed for its gold mines, revolted from the Delian League and refused to take part any more in the ceaseless wars against Persian organised by the Athenians. The Thasians had their own navy and put to sea to defend their isle from the forces of the Athenians and their allies. Cimon led an attack on the island and inflicted a major defeat on their navy. With the navy defeated the city on the island was besieged by Cimon.

The Athenians decided that the region was a problematic one and dispatched ten thousand settlers to found a new city at Amphipolis, which lay north of Thasos on the Thracian coast. Sadly for the settlers they were not sufficiently protected by the Athenian military and they were slaughtered by the Thracians in the region.

Around this time, the exact year is unknown, some helots were fleeing from the Spartans and had come to a sanctuary, a temple of Poseidon at Taenarus, far from Sparta. The Spartans were furious with their runaway slaves and dragged them out of the temple, presumably to face torture and execution. The desecration of a temple would have put the Spartan state into a state of ritual pollution, as far as the Greek religion was concerned.

Around this time the Corinthians began to rebuild the Temple of Poseidon at Isthmia, which had burned down about five years previously. It had been one of the most ancient temples in the Greek world and it was an important temple for the Isthmian Games, one of the four Pan-Hellenic Games of Greece. So the Corinthians were clearly planning on rebuilding it spectacularly.

A later re-imagining of what the Acropolis must have looked
like. The statue of Athena Promachos is visible to the left.
The other temples of the Acropolis and the Propylaea
would not yet have been built however 

In Athens, the sculptor Phidias (or Pheidias) was planning on building a gigantic statue. This statue was known as Athena Promachos (roughly translating as "Athena the Front Fighter"). This statue was to be built on the Acropolis, standing 10 metres tall. It was probably intended as a thanksgiving to the gods after the defeat of the Persians at Eurymedon. The statue was made of bronze, took around nine years to build and was said to be so tall that ships rounding the Cape of Sounion could see it from a great distance. The statue seems to have lasted through antiquity, before being brought to Constantinople where it was eventually destroyed after the Fourth Crusade. It was almost certainly the largest statue in Athens in antiquity.

Around this time various vase painters flourished, including Hermonax, the Oreithyia Painter, the Tarquinia Painter, the Pan Painter and the Beldam Painter. While in many cases we know very little about these people, their works are some of the most vivid artistic works that survive from antiquity.

In the year 464 Cimon of Athens attacked the Chersonese (what is now the region around Gallipoli). He did not attack the Macedonians, who were suspected of aiding the Thasians in their rebellion. The siege of Thasos continued apace.

Vase painted by the Pan Painter

Meanwhile in Sparta a major earthquake happened and levelled a great part of the city of Sparta to the ground. The city of Sparta was mostly unwalled and the buildings were generally small and one-story buildings, so the damage was certainly less than it could have been. However, a considerable number of people still died.

The helots and the Messenian slaves who had been in the vicinity of Sparta seem to have seen this as a perfect opportunity to attack a weakened Sparta. Perhaps this earthquake was also seen as a punishment from Poseidon the Earth shaker for the crime of having dragged helot suppliants from his alter at Taenarus. While Archidamus II, the Eurypontid king of Sparta, was able to fight off a first assault from the helots and led his army out into the field, he was unable to quell the rebellion.

The Messenians threw off their shackles and fled to their traditional stronghold on Mount Ithome. The Spartans, disoriented by the damage to their city from the earthquake, were in no fit state to crush the rebellion and the rebellion spread. Sparta tried to fight on their own for a time but were simply unable to defeat the slave uprising without external aid. This sustained uprising became known as the Third Messenian War.

During this year a great and incredible catastrophe befell the Lacedaemonians; for great earthquakes occurred in Sparta, and as a result the houses collapsed from their foundations and more than twenty thousand Lacedaemonians perished. And since the tumbling down of the city and the falling in of the houses continued uninterruptedly over a long period, many persons were caught and crushed in the collapse of the walls and no little household property was ruined by the quake. And although they suffered this disaster because some god, as it were, was wreaking his anger upon them, it so happened that other dangers befell them at the hands of men for the following reasons. The Helots and Messenians, although enemies of the Lacedaemonians, had remained quiet up to this time, since they stood in fear of the eminent position and power of Sparta; but when they observed that the larger part of them had perished because of the earthquake, they held in contempt the survivors, who were few. Consequently they came to an agreement with each other and joined together in the war against the Lacedaemonians.
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, Book 11, written circa 40BC

Another uprising took place this year in Egypt. An Egyptian named Inaros attempted to break free of the Persian Empire and launched a rebellion that would continue for a number of years. It is possible that this uprising was actually launched some years later. The dates, as always for this period, are a little complicated.

In this year Metrodorus of Lampsacus died. He was a philosopher from the Hellespont region of Greece. Very few of his works survived but he was said to have been a friend of the philosopher Anaxagoras and was mentioned by Plato in later years. His main contribution to thought appears to have been the reinterpretation of Homeric myths as allegories.

Jar of Three Amazons by the
Beldam Painter

The Olympic Games were held this year. Xenophon of Corinth won the stadion and also the pentathlon race. Pherias of Aegina won the boys wrestling, while Pythagoras of Mantineia won the boys stadion and Protolaus of Mantineia won the boys boxing. Diagoras of Rhodes won the boxing. Ergoteles of Himera won the dolichos. Echecratidas of Thessaly won the horse race (owned the horses). Ephotion of Mainalos won the pancration. Cratisthenes of Cyrene won the tethrippon chariot race (or more specifically, owned the team of horses that won).

In 463 the citizens of Thasos were forced to surrender to the Athenians after a two-year siege. They were forced back into the League. Presumably after this rebellion they were disarmed and forced to make their contributions in money only. The fact that the Athenians were shouldering so much of the burden of the wars and that other states generally preferred to give money instead, meant that when a state rebelled against Athens, that they had no experienced navy to fall back upon, whereas the Athenians only became more practiced in war. The Delian League is a modern term. In ancient times people would probably have used the phrase, "Athens and its allies". But modern historians also begin to refer to it as the "Athenian Empire" around this time. There was no longer any real threat from Persia and yet Athens kept the fleets and contributions of their allies to more and more serve the needs of Athens.

This year Cimon faced an ostracism attempt. Cimon was an aristocrat and favoured the aristocrats, as well as favouring a peace with Sparta. He was opposed by Ephialtes, a politician who favoured the causes of the poorer classes of society and who seems to have wanted war with Sparta. Just to clarify, Ephialtes had no relation to the Ephialtes of Trachis, who is said to have aided the Persians at Thermopylae. Aiding Ephialtes was his young protégé, Pericles.

The exact charge brought against Cimon was that he had taken bribes not to attack the Macedonians during the siege of Thasos, as the Macedonians were held to have covertly aided the Thasian rebellion. Cimon survived the ostracism attempt however.

A coin of Themistocles. The picture is potentially a portrait

Around this time Themistocles made his way to the court of Artaxerxes I, the new king of Persia. He was received well and treated almost as a celebrity. Artaxerxes would not try and restore him to Athens, but he did make Themistocles the ruler of the province of Magnesia. Themistocles went to his assigned province and ruled Magnesia, minting coins and founding a dynasty of Greek rulers serving Persian kings. Themistocles’ coins show various portraits on them and it is possible that these are some of the first coins to show a portrait of the ruler. This is speculative, but possible. Meanwhile it must have been deeply ironic to see the victor of Salamis becoming a provincial governor for Persia.

In the year 462 Sparta was still struggling with the helot revolt that had its heart at the rebel base on Mount Ithome. Sparta appealed to all her allies to bring sufficient troops to help crush this dangerous rebellion. Many of the Spartan allies, such as Corinth, sent troops. The Athenians also sent a large contingent of 4,000 hoplites. This was not a giant force, but was probably a substantial percentage of the trained hoplites in the city. They were led by Cimon, who was not only the greatest general in Athens at the time, but also a general who knew, feared, and admired Spartan strength in war. Ephialtes had not wanted to send any help at all, but Cimon knew that Athens and Sparta were still nominally allies and felt it would not be right to abandon an ally in need.

However, once the Athenians had actually arrived in Messenia, the Spartans became worried that this Athenian force had come with ill intentions and that the Athenians would wait for the opportune moment before joining forces with the Messenian helot rebels on the mountain to attack Sparta. Fearing betrayal, the Spartans dismissed the Athenian forces as untrustworthy. The Athenian forces returned to Athens where an uproar ensued. Cimon lost all popularity; being seen as a mere lapdog of the Spartans.

The Spartans accordingly dismissed the Athenians alone of the allies, without declaring their suspicions, but merely saying that they had now no need of them. But the Athenians, aware that their dismissal did not proceed from the more honourable reason of the two, but from suspicions which had been conceived, went away deeply offended, and conscious of having done nothing to merit such treatment from the Lacedaemonians; and the instant that they returned home they broke off the alliance which had been made against the Mede, and allied themselves with Sparta's enemy Argos; each of the contracting parties taking the same oaths and making the same alliance with the Thessalians.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC

There were rumours that Sparta had considered aiding Thasos in their rebellion previously. Athenians believed that Spartans were trying to undermine them in all things and many spoke of war against Sparta, particularly from within the party of Ephialtes.

View from the hill of the Areopagus looking
northwards towards the Agora and Athens

Ephialtes took advantage of this decline in the popularity of Cimon to prosecute members of the Areopagus, which was a type of aristocratic court that sat on a hill near the Acropolis, for corruption. The powers of this bastion of the aristocracy were severely reduced.

Around this time the philosopher Anaxagoras, who was interested in investigating the physical nature of the world, came to Athens. Athens at this time was like a candle and the philosophers, poets and thinkers of the world were like moths gathering towards the flame. While in Athens, Anaxagoras made a friendship with Pericles, the young up and coming protégé of Ephialtes.

In the year 461 it seems that Athens and Persia finally began to consider making peace. Callias II, the Athenian nobleman who was said to have stolen a load of Persian gold at the Battle of Marathon, was sent by the Athenians to Susa to act as an ambassador to the Persian king Artaxerxes I. However no treaty came of it and it is possible that his mission there was not explicitly to make peace.

Athens did however make an alliance with Argos. There were other alliances with the Thessalian cities, which gave the Athenians access to the best cavalry troops in Greece. The Thessalian alliance also allowed the Athenians to threaten their enemy Thebes from the northern flank if the two cities ever went to war.

In southern Italy, the tyrant Leophron, who had taken back the cities of Rhegion and Messana from Micythus, found that the citizens were rebelling against him. Both he and his brother were expelled from the region and the cities became democracies. It is unknown where Leophron and his brother went next. Tyrants do seem to have become most unpopular in Italy and Sicily during this time.

Ostraca with the name of Cimon, son of Miltiades, inscribed
upon it

In Athens, Cimon was ostracised following the debacle of his attempt to aid Sparta in her war against the helots. Cimon had won victory after victory for Athens, but as we have seen, this was never a sufficient guarantee of safety.

Ephialtes and Pericles had been prosecuting the members of the Areopagus for corruption. Now they reformed it entirely, with nearly all of the power now resting with the Ekklesia (the Assembly) and the law courts. An alliance was made with the Argives, who were the traditional enemies of Sparta. Ephialtes was at the height of his career and was almost unopposed in Athens when suddenly he was murdered. His killers did not even bother to hide the body.

His murderer was never found. As with any political murder, conspiracies arose. The obvious blame lay with his enemies. The aristocratic faction had just lost Cimon to the machinations of Ephialtes, who had ostracised their leader. They doubtless hated Ephialtes and wished him dead. Revenge formed a clear motive for the aristocrats to murder Ephialtes. But things are not always so simple.

Ephialtes was not always a popular politician, even with his own party. Perhaps others felt that Ephialtes was dangerous or that a better politician could be found to lead the party. It is certain that Pericles stepped forward to lead Athens, in an almost uncontested fashion, after the murder of Ephialtes. But this does not necessarily mean that Pericles ordered the murder either.

Ostraca with the name of Cimon, son of Miltiades, inscribed 
upon it

Later writers suggest that the murderer (or one of them) was a man known as Aristodikos of Tanagra. Presuming this is true, it does not solve the mystery. Aristodikos seems to have some involvement with the aristocratic party, but was also an ally of Pericles. Perhaps Ephialtes was slain for some entirely unrelated reason? We will probably never fully know. It must be said that murders such as this one very seldom happened in Athenian politics. Politics was a brutal game, but compared to the murders and assassinations of other republics and democracies, Athenian democracy preserved a general civility; usually.

The year 460 was a very busy year and many things happened. In Egypt, the revolt of Inaros II, a Libyan chieftain who ruled some portion of the Nile Delta region, was still ongoing. Achaemenes, who was the Persian satrap of Egypt and a brother of Xerxes I, had gathered a large army to fight it. The Athenians sent a large force of 200 ships to aid the rebellion. The Athenians made contact with the Egyptians and together they set out to confront the Persian garrison. The two armies clashed in what is known as the Battle of Pampremis and, after a sharp struggle, the Persians were routed. Achaemenes was slain in the rout.

However the victory was not fully complete. A section of the Persian garrison fled to a fortified section of Memphis called the White Castle and they could not be removed from this position. They had ample supplies and enough troops to disrupt the whole region of Lower Egypt. So the Athenians and their Egyptian allies settled down for a siege of this fortress.

Amphora by the Niobid Painter
showing a musical scene

Meanwhile Inaros, son of Psammetichus, a Libyan king of the Libyans on the Egyptian border, having his headquarters at Marea, the town above Pharos, caused a revolt of almost the whole of Egypt from King Artaxerxes and, placing himself at its head, invited the Athenians to his assistance. Abandoning a Cyprian expedition upon which they happened to be engaged with two hundred ships of their own and their allies, they arrived in Egypt and sailed from the sea into the Nile, and making themselves masters of the river and two-thirds of Memphis, addressed themselves to the attack of the remaining third, which is called White Castle. Within it were Persians and Medes who had taken refuge there, and Egyptians who had not joined the rebellion.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC

It was around this time that King Teres I organised the Thracian tribes into something resembling a single state. This was known as the Kingdom of Odrysia and would be a significant power in the region for around a century to come.

In Sicily, the Greeks had to deal with native resistance in a manner that they had not faced in many decades. Sicily was named after the Sicel people who inhabited the interior, however, the Greeks and Carthaginians had set up so many cities along the coast and into the interior that the lands of the Sicels were being encroached on and the Sicels were in fact in danger of being absorbed. A native leader arose called Ducetius who seems to have been familiar with Greek methods of fighting and Greek customs.

Syracuse and Catana were at war. Catana had taken some land from the Sicel people so Ducetius organised an army of the Sicels and joined the war on the side of Syracuse. Catana was defeated and Ducetius was given thanks by the people of Syracuse. Ducetius then founded a city on the land that the city of Catana had taken (modern Mineo) and occupied other land in the vicinity. The Syracusans became worried that Ducetius might turn the Sicel army against themselves and the friendship between the two groups became strained.

Crater by the Niobid Painter showing a battle
with the centaurs

In Magnesia, in Asia Minor, Themistocles died. He was now the Persian governor of Magnesia and lived a comfortable lifestyle there. It is not clear if he ever led troops against the Athenians and the Delian League on his borders, or if they ever ventured inland to attack him. Some authors record that Themistocles was ordered by Artaxerxes to lead a third invasion of Greece and that Themistocles killed himself by drinking bull’s blood to prevent this. This is merely a tale. There is a rather more plausible tale told that in later days his ashes were brought back to Athens and he was interred on Athenian soil. This I could believe. His son Archeptolis seems to have travelled to Susa to be granted the lands granted to his father. In later years he too ruled Magnesia.

Megara had a border dispute with Corinth and after coming off the worse with their larger neighbour, the Megarians appealed to Sparta. Sparta was however concerned about alienating the Corinthians and stayed out of the war. Furious with the Spartan refusal to help, the Megarians went to nearby Athens and appealed to them to aid them against the Corinthians. The Corinthians and Athenians had previously got on quite well (Corinth had aided Athens in previous wars with Aegina) so the Corinthians were horrified when the Athenians made an alliance with Megara.

Megara lay on the Isthmus, to the east of Corinth, and the Athenians sent troops and citizens to build Long Walls, that stretched down and connected the city of Megara to its port. This meant that Megara could hold out against a siege and that the Athenian navy could sail to the port and reinforce the city at leisure. They also began to build a wall across the Isthmus, which would fence in the Corinthians, and the Spartans, in the Peloponnese. This development was viewed with great alarm in Sparta and Corinth had become an implacable enemy of Athens.

The Artemision Bronze
Statue of either Zeus or Poseidon
found in a shipwreck north of Euboea

The most significant event this year however was the outbreak of war between Athens and Sparta. This war is sometimes called the First Peloponnesian War. Both sides started the war with very serious handicaps. The Spartans were locked in a struggle with the helots that was far from over. They had confined the resistance to Mount Ithome, but were unable to drive the helots from the heights. Meanwhile the Athenians had committed two hundred ships and thousands of soldiers to their war in Egypt, assisting in the revolt of Inaros. As a result of the two sides being heavily committed, both were slow to actually go to war with each other and no battles were fought this year.

The Argives and the Athenians did possibly inflict a small defeat on the Spartans at a place called Oenoe, but no details of the battle survive. It is possible that no battle in fact took place and that later sources are confused.

The comic writer Epicharmus of Kos died around this time. He lived in Syracuse and composed comic plays, which is a sure sign that the dramatic tradition existed outside of Athens at this time. A few fragments of his works survive, but no complete plays. He also wrote on philosophical themes and on morality. In this he may have had an influence on later thinkers such as Plato, but this is not certain.

Around this time a physician by the name of Aegimus lived and practiced his art in the Greek city states of Italy. We know very little about him, but we do know that he wrote a treatise on the beating of the heart, although we do not know what exactly he said.

In architecture, the second Temple of Hera was built at Paestum, in what is now Campania (right beside an earlier Temple of Hera). This is one of the best preserved temples from antiquity and its outer sections still stand today (although the roof has long since collapsed). It is sometimes referred to as the Temple of Neptune/Poseidon, but this is not in fact the case. The lines of the temple are curved, so as to make the proportions more harmonious to a viewer on the ground.

The Temple of Hera Lacinia in Acragas

The Temple of Hera Lacinia in Acragas was also built around this time. It was later damaged in a fire and although it was restored, it has not survived intact to the present day. It is part of what is now known as Valle dei Templi in Agrigento (Valley of the Temples).

In this year, the playwright Aristias won the tragedy prize in Athens. The Olympics were also held this year. Alcmedon of Aegina won the boys wrestling. Sostratos of Pellene won the boys stadion. Kyniskos of Mantineia won the boys boxing. Ladas of Argos won the dolichos. Timodemos of Athens won the pancration competition. Amesinas of Barca won the wrestling. King Arcesilaus IV of Cyrene owned the team of horses that won the tethrippon. The poet Pindar celebrated this win in an ode where he urged the king to be reconciled to his enemies. It does not seem that the king listened to him.

Even the dead have their share when paid them with due rites, and the grace of kinsmen's honour the dust does not conceal. From Hermes' daughter Fame shall Iphion hear and tell to Kallimachos this lustre of Olympic glory, which Zeus hath granted to this house. Honour upon honour may he vouchsafe unto it, and shield it from sore disease. I pray that for the share of glory fallen to them he raise against them no contrary discontent, but granting them a life unharmed may glorify them and their commonwealth.
Olympian Ode of Pindar, celebrating the win of Alcmedon of Aegina in the boy’s wrestling competition. 

The Niobid Krater, by the Niobid Painter

In the visual arts, the Niobid Painter and Penthesilea Painter flourished. The Niobid Painter is famed for painting a beautiful vase with Niobe weeping for her slain children on one side of the vase, and soldiers preparing for battle while standing at a shrine of Heracles on the other. It is thought that the soldiers may be depictions of Athenians preparing for the Battle of Marathon. The vase is currently held in the Louvre.

Around this time the painters Polygnotus, Micon and Panaenus were engaged in painting the Stoa Poikile in the Agora of Athens. Micon painted the Amazonomachy (presumably Theseus fighting the Amazons), Polygnotus painted the Fall of Troy and Panaenus painted the Battle of Marathon. A later Greek writer describes this painting in great detail and it can be reconstructed to a certain extent. Another painting may have been added later, showing the Athenian victory over the Spartans at Oenoe, but this is conjectural.

Finally, one of the most spectacular bronze works of the Classical world was created around this time: The Artemision Bronze. This was a statue of either Poseidon or Zeus (probably Zeus). The god is about to either cast the thunderbolt or stab with a trident. The statue was recovered from a shipwreck. The object in its hand is missing, as are the eyes of the statue, which must have originally been inland. Like the works of its era, the statue is perfectly created from a technical perspective, but also is perfectly calm, as if one can hurl the lightning unperturbed. It resides today in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

Thus the period draws to a close. It is not often studied, because the chronology is not perfect. But this period saw the city states of Athens and Sparta move from friendly allies who fought the Persians to enemies who viewed each other as existential threats. The period also saw the continued flowering of Greek painting, architecture, sculpture, drama and a host of other cultural achievements.

The second Temple of Hera at Paestum

Primary Sources:
Pindar, Odes, written circa 475BC
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC
The Parian Chronicle, written circa 216BC
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, written circa 40BC
Plutarch, Life of Aristides, written circa AD100
Plutarch, Themistocles, written circa AD100
Pausanias, Description of Greece, written circa AD150

Secondary Sources:
Historical eruptions on Mount Etna
A scholarly article on whether or not the Battle of Oenoe took place

Related Blog Posts:
479-470BC in Greece
479-460BC in the Near East
479-460BC in Rome
459-450BC in Greece

Reconstructed painting from the Stoa Poikile showing the Battle of Marathon
Reconstructed using the writings of Pausanias