449-440BC in Greece

Later copy of a Diomedes statue by Kresilas

This post will look at Greece and the wider Greek world from the years 449BC to 440BC. Firstly, a word about our sources. Archaeology can shed some light on this period, but we are primarily reliant on written sources, such as the writings of Thucydides, Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, and Pausanias. A more complete list of sources is given at the end of the blog.

In the year 449BC the Athenians and the Spartans had an uneasy peace with each other, having brokered a temporary truce in the previous years under the auspices of Cimon. Now however, Cimon was dead, and it was unclear that the truce he had made would last.

The Athenians took this opportunity to send the wealthy nobleman Callias (also known as Callias II to differentiate him from others of the same name in Athens) to Persia to negotiate a peace between the Athenians and the Great King, Artaxerxes I. In the aftermath of Xerxes' failed invasion, the Athenians and their Greek allies had inflicted numerous defeats on the Persians and they had wrested Ionia and the western coast of Asia Minor from the Persian Empire. But they had been unable to seriously damage the Persians, whose inland empire was vast and the Athenians had suffered defeats in Cyprus and Egypt. The last engagement, in Cyprus, had seen the death of Cimon, the tactical defeat of the Persians and the strategic defeat of the Athenians. There was no longer any advantage for either state to continue fighting.

Head of woman, from Melos

It is said that a peace treaty was made, generally referred to in literature as the Peace of Callias. The terms of the peace were said to be that the Athenians would cease to support the enemies of Persia, particularly in Egypt and Cyprus. In return the Persians would acknowledge the liberation of the Ionian cities and would not allow them to be interfered with. The Persian navy would also be bound not to sail into the Aegean Sea.

This would appear to be a triumph of diplomacy and is sometimes seen as the end of the Persian Wars. However, all may not be all as it seems. Most references to the Peace of Callias are from a century later, when orators compared it to a much less favourable peace that had been imposed. There was supposedly a monument to the treaty, but it had been written using the wrong script, suggesting that perhaps it was forged later? It is honestly hard to tell. Thucydides makes no mention of it and he is one of the better historians of this era. But, regardless of whether the Peace of Callias actually existed or not, or if the terms were exactly the ones mentioned, it does seem as if the Persians and Athenians stopped fighting each other for a while.

Stele from around 447BC stipulating
tribute payments for the
Delian League/Athenian Empire

Another argument for the existence of a peace treaty is that the other states of the Delian League became restless. The Delian League had been formed to fight the Persians. But with the possibility of a lasting peace with Persia, the need for the League's existence was now uncertain. The Athenians still required high payments of tribute in either ships or money. Most allies now paid in money and the treasury of the League was held at Athens, rather than on the island of Delos as had previously been the case. Here, the Athenians were beginning to contemplate using these funds for purposes other than protecting the League.

For all the genius of the Greeks, it seems bizarre that they never were able to cooperate unless in times of desperation. They spent so much blood and treasure on fighting each other that it seems strange that they never thought of combining into a more unified group. There is an inkling that something of this might have been tried this year. Athens, Sparta and Persia were all at peace and Pericles proposed a Congress that could use the treasury of the Delian League and other funds in Greece to rebuild all the temples that had been destroyed in the Persian invasions, as a symbol that the long war was truly over. This was not a call for political unity, but it was asking the Greeks to act in a unified way on something other than just the Panhellenic Games.

Bust of Pericles in the Altes Museum
Berlin

The Spartans rejected it. It seemed too like an Athenian trick. The ostensible aim was to spend a lot of money rebuilding temples that had been destroyed, and a lot of Athenian temples had been destroyed. The proposer was Pericles, who was a man who had favoured war with Sparta before. The Spartans believed this was some cheap way for the Athenians to further their influence over the rest of the Greek world, and to be fair to the Spartans, it probably was. But I would like to imagine that for a brief moment, there was a chance of something greater, some vision that offered hope, before it faded and the Greek cities continued along the path that they had always followed.

In the wake of the failure of the proposed Congress, Pericles raised more money from the Delian League to rebuild some of the temples in Greece, primarily in Athens. Sparta had a different reaction however. They wanted to reassert their own authority on Pan-Hellenic matters and marched against Phocis.

When the Athenians had defeated Thebes in the Battle of Oenophyta eight years earlier, they had also made Delphi reliant on nearby Phocis, rather than the defunct Amphictyonic League, led by Sparta. The Spartans marched northwards and made Delphi independent of the Phocians. It is hard to imagine that this act was viewed kindly in Athens. In fact, with this act the truce can be said to have been broken. This act marked the beginning of a short and unremarkable conflict known as the Second Sacred War.

This year in Athens saw Herakleides win the competition for tragedy at the Great Dionysia Festival. With the new funds allocated for temple building, work began on the Temple of Hephaestus, on the north-western corner of the Agora, as well as the Temple of Athena Nike on the Acropolis hill itself, just to the right of the entrance area. The temple of Nike was probably planned by the architect Callicrates.

Coinage of Perdiccas II of Macedonia

In the year 448, King Alcetas II of Macedon was murdered, after a short and rather undistinguished reign. The Macedonian kingdom was breaking up and the nephew of the king, named Archelaus, murdered the king. The king's brother Perdiccas succeeded to the throne as Perdiccas II and tried to re-establish the strength of the kingdom. However, other members of the royal family, such as Perdiccas' brother Philip, tried to place themselves on the throne and civil war ensued.

In central Greece, the Athenians marched to Delphi and placed the sanctuary of Delphi back under the control of Phocis. This marked the end of the short and unremarkable conflict known as the Second Sacred War. While the dispute over Phocis and Delphi was fairly trivial in itself, it marked the resumption of the First Peloponnesian War, with Athens and Sparta once again at war.

Perhaps because of this resumption of hostilities, construction began on another Long Wall in Athens, known as the Middle Wall. The first two Long Walls had covered all the ground in the triangle between Athens, Phalerum and Piraeus. The Middle Wall created a narrow, but protected, road between Piraeus and Athens, in case the naval power of Athens failed and the Phalerum was taken or the eastern Long Wall was breached by siege.

Reverse of Athenian Tetradrachm

The Olympic Games were held that year. Lacharidas won the boy's stadion. Polynikos of Thespiai won the boy's wrestling. Ariston won the boy's boxing. Krison of Himera won the prestigious stadion race, while Eucleides of Rhodes won the double pipe (diaulos race). Lyceinos won the race in full armour, the hoplitodromos, while Cheimon of Argos won the wrestling competition. Keton of Locroi won the pentathlon, while Arcesilaus of Sparta owned the team of horses that won the tethrippon chariot race.

Yet nothing surpassed the triumph of the family of Diagoras of Rhodes at this Olympic Games. Diagoras was a supposed descendent of the Messenian hero Aristomenes and if true, lived up well to the fame of his forebears. He had been victorious as a boxer in all four of the Panhellenic Games: The Olympic, Pythian, Isthmian and Nemean Games. These wins included two Olympic victories, celebrated with a victory ode by no lesser poet than the poet Pindar. He had also sired mighty sons.

In this year his son Damagetos of Rhodes won the pancration for the second time at the Olympics. Meanwhile another of his sons, Acusilaus of Rhodes, won the boxing competition as his father had done. The two Olympic victors celebrated by carrying their aging father on their shoulders around the race track, while the spectators cheered and saluted their good fortune, skill and glory.

Modern statue in Rhodes, showing
Diagoras being carried on the shoulders of
his sons

The story goes that Diagoras came to Olympia in the company of his sons Acusilaus and Damagetus. The youths … proceeded to carry him through the crowd, while the Greeks pelted him with flowers and congratulated him on his sons. The family of Diagoras was originally, through the female line, Messenian, as he was descended from the daughter of Aristomenes.
Pausanias, Description of Greece, 6.7.3, written circa AD150

It is said that a spectator called out to Diagoras that he might as well die at that moment, as this was the height of human happiness. It is also said, probably as a later addendum to the legend, that Diagoras died at that moment; the happiest man in the world. This is probably a later tale, but it is certain that Diagoras' family were legendary. A third son, Dorieus, would go on to win glory in the Olympics, and it is said that his daughter was so obsessed with sports that she trained her son (Diagoras' grandson) and made her way in disguise into the arena to watch his victory. It's hard to know how much of this is true, but it is worth remembering the tales, even if they are merely legends.

Diagoras' tomb was created in Rhodes and was later mistakenly reverenced by the locals as the tomb of a saint. The local football team and their stadium, as well as the airport of Rhodes are also named after him.

Tomb of a youth in Boeotia

In 447 Pericles led an expedition to the Chersonese to expel the non-Greek inhabitants of the area and plant Athenian colonies. Pericles was correct in identifying the Straits of the Hellespont as vital to Athenian interests. Athens was growing as a city and had long been unable to feed itself. It instead paid (or required as tribute) for grain to be shipped from the lands surrounding the Black Sea to feed the population.

While Pericles was away with much of the Athenian fleet, an oligarchic revolt against Athenian rule broke out in Thebes. Thebes was the traditional leader of Boeotia and a traditional enemy of Athens. However Thebes had been defeated by Athens ten years previously and their ruling oligarchs expelled. The Athenians favoured the democratic faction in Thebes and strengthened it. However the alliance with the traditional rivals must have eroded the popularity of the democratic faction in Thebes. The exiles returned and ousted the democratic faction.

The Athenians led a small force of Athenians and allies, under the command of Tolmides, to bring Thebes back into line. Either they underestimated the threat, or they had overextended their reach in their expedition to the Hellespont. After an initial Athenian success, the Thebans counterattacked and heavily defeated the Athenians at the Battle of Coronea.

In the aftermath of this defeat, the remainder of the Athenian army was effectively trapped in hostile territory. In order the extricate themselves, the Athenians had to make a humiliating peace and Boeotia and Thebes left the Delian League. As Boeotia lay across the land routes to Locris and Phocis, it became clear that Athens would no longer be able to hold these areas and shortly thereafter these regions also left.

Decree authorising construction of the Parthenon

Not much is known exactly about tactics or the politics of this conflict, but it was a crucial one in Greek history. The Athenians had attempted to control both land and sea and had controlled the land of central Greece as far north as the borders of Macedonia. Now they had lost the vast majority of their land empire, with their northern border being the mountains to the immediate north of Attica and with Megara being the only contiguous land area they controlled.

In Athens itself, the Middle Long Walls were completed, giving a measure of security to the port of Piraeus and providing reassurance to the Athenians that even if the land was lost, the sea was still their undisputed empire.

The Athenians passed the Coinage Decree, proposed by an Athenian named Clearchus, which stipulated that the Athenian weights and measures, and most specifically, coinage, should be used throughout the Athenian Empire. This was quite sensible in certain ways, but cannot have endeared the allies to the Athenians.

In this year work began on the most famous of all Greek temples, the Parthenon. The architects in charge of its design were Callicrates and Ictinus.

Around this time, Achaeus of Eretria wrote his first play. He was a writer of tragedies and was said to have had great competence. However he only won one competition and none of his plays survive antiquity.

Modern painting of Antigone and her unburied
brother Polyneices

Wonders are many and none is more wonderful than man himself.
Sophocles, Antigone, written circa 447BC

Also around this time, although the year is slightly uncertain, Sophocles wrote the play Antigone. This is the eponymous story of one of the daughters of the doomed Oedipus, King of Thebes. Her brothers have quarrelled over the throne of Thebes and one attacked Thebes to kill his brother, while the other defended Thebes (to kill his brother). Both brothers fought with each other and died from their wounds. The new king, Creon, the brother of Oedipus' mother/wife, vows that the corpse of the son of Oedipus who attacked the city should be left to rot. Antigone, his sister, refuses to leave her brother unburied, regardless of what he has done, or the demands of the state. She honours her family and the gods above the duties of the political authorities.

The play follows the struggle between the two strong-willed tragic figures, both driven by what they believe is the right way to act. It has been seen as the great work of civil disobedience, of the conflict between religion and the state, between public and private morality and a host of different interpretations.

We have only a little time to please the living. But all eternity to love the dead.
Sophocles, Antigone, written circa 447BC

Coin of Sybaris before their expulsion in 446BC

In the year 446, in Italy, the exiles of Sybaris were expelled once again from their city. They had returned to their city under the leadership of a Thessalian and possibly with an alliance with the Greek city of Poseidonia. However the nearby city of Croton was too powerful once again and the Sybarites were once more expelled and banished from the region.

In Sicily Ducetius, the Sicel rebel leader, returned from Corinth and founded a new city at Caleacte on the northern coast of Sicily. It is probable that he did so with some level of permission from Syracuse, as the Syracusans did not venture to attack him, as they would doubtless otherwise have done.

The return of Ducetius was opposed by the Greek city of Acragas, and they sent a force towards the Himera River to attack the Syracusans, who were believed to have been behind Ducetius' return. The Syracusans won a victory there and Acragas was forced to make peace shortly thereafter.

On mainland Greece the Achaeans, in the northern Peloponnese, revolted against the Athenians. The Theban victory of the previous year had proved that far from being invincible, that the Athenian Empire was extremely vulnerable to attack by land. To add insult to injury, the island of Euboea revolted against the Athenians. Euboea was a large island and very close to Attica. If it was to revolt successfully, Athenian control of the Aegean would be threatened. Pericles took an army to bring Euboea back into the empire by force.

Athenian Tetradrachm

While the Athenians were engaged in Euboea, the people of Megara decided to revolt against the Athenians. The Corinthians, Epidaurians and Sicyonians joined in the attack on the Athenian garrison and the garrison were all killed.

The Athenians perhaps did not realise the seriousness of their danger and did not immediately recall their army from Euboea. Meanwhile the Spartans displayed their strength and marched in force from the Peloponnese under the leadership of King Pleistonax.

The Athenians had sent military forces to retake Megara. These were unable to retake the city though and had to retreat to avoid the oncoming Spartans. A later tombstone in Athens is dedicated to a man named Pythion of Megara, who is said to have saved the lives of three tribes of Athens. It may be that Pythion was a Megarian who was friendly to Athens and who guided the Athenian troops homewards once the Spartan army approached. As the Spartans were advancing in force, Pythion probably led them through a circuitous and unexpected route into Boeotia.

Pleistonax passed Megara, which had previously been a bastion keeping the Spartans in the Peloponnese, and advanced as far as Eleusis. There was nothing to stop the Spartans from advancing as far as the walls of Athens, but Pericles hurriedly abandoned the sieges in Euboea to return to Athens with the full Athenian army.

Bust of Pericles

The Spartans had made their presence felt and Pericles seems to have sent emissaries to Pleistonax and his close advisor Cleandridas. It is not clear exactly what was said, or what terms were offered. But Pleistonax led the Spartan army away. In a purely coincidental fact, the Athenian treasury for that year had 10 talents unaccounted for, which Pericles had simply marked as "Important state business".

It seems likely that Pericles had bribed Pleistonax to retreat. But this was perhaps an oversimplification. The Athenians knew that they were in trouble certainly. But Pericles and Pleistonax both knew that the Spartans could not have taken the city of Athens. The walls of Athens were far too strong for the Spartans to besiege. So, a withdrawal actually was the best outcome for both sides, even though Pleistonax (or his advisor Cleandridas) probably did take the small bribe.

Freed from the immediate threat of Spartan invasion of Attica, Pericles took the Athenian army back to Euboea and conquered it, forcing it back into the Athenian Empire. The town of Histaiea was the only one that was not settled with a negotiated surrender; possibly because these townspeople had massacred the crew of an Athenian trireme. They were expelled from their lands and an Athenian colony planted there.

Also in this year, the Athenians disarmed the city of Miletus, perhaps suspecting it of disloyalty to the Delian League/Athenian Empire. As they were now disarmed, they would have to contribute money instead of ships to the fleet.

Female statue from Theseion

This year the comic poet Callias won the prize for Comedy in the Great Dionysia festival in Athens. It is not known, by me at least, for which play he won. The works of Callias are not well known, but some fragments of one of his plays survive, as well as the titles of some of his other works. The work of his that is known is called the Letter Tragedy, where there were 24 chorus members, each representing one of the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet.

In the year 445, after around fifteen years of intermittent warfare, Athens and Sparta made peace. Callias II, the wealthy nobleman who had perhaps negotiated the peace with the Persians (or perhaps had not) was sent to Sparta to deal with the Spartans and create a peace. More accurately, what had been agreed upon was a thirty year truce, but this was a much stronger agreement than the previous five year truce negotiated by Cimon.

Athens was to give up all the bases that she had occupied around the Peloponnese. Aegina was to remain tributary but was to have autonomy. Megara was to re-join the Peloponnesian League of Sparta and her allies. Both cities would recognise the alliances that were in place already and would not try and tempt cities to join them. So, Athens, for example, would not try and tempt Corinth or other cities to forsake the Spartans and join the Athenians while Sparta would likewise refrain with Athenian allied cities.

The Athenian attempt to become dominant in mainland Greece was ended, but the two cities of Athens and Sparta were unquestionably the two strongest states in Greece and roughly comparable in military might. However, their methods of military force differed. Athens was very strong at sea, while Sparta was very strong on the land. But for now, they were at peace.

White-ground lekythos painted
by the Phiale Painter

There were probably some in Sparta who were unhappy with the treaty, as Spartan fortunes in war had been improving after the quelling of the helot revolt in the previous decade. The Agiad king of Sparta, Pleistonax, was banished, along with his advisor Cleandridas. Cleandridas was later sentenced to death in absentia for his taking of bribes from Pericles and the Athenians. Cleandridas never returned, but his son would later serve with distinction in the Spartan army. Pleistonax went into exile.

Meanwhile, in Italy, the expelled Sybarites took advantage of the newfound peace between Sparta and Athens to request their aid. They begged for colonists to be sent to Sybaris, to re-found Sybaris with representatives of the two strongest states in Greece. Surely the people of Croton would not dare to anger both Athens and Sparta simultaneously? The Athenians and Spartans were pleased with the proposal and sent out settlers to re found the city.

Preparations began for the new colonists, but probably not many were sent out originally. The colonists arrived in Sybaris and began to rebuild the city, but then moved slightly away from the city, to found a new city nearby. This new city was named Thurii (or Thurium) and was probably made in response to an oracle. The city was a combination of the numerous settlers and the few remnants of the original Sybarites.

In the arts, the Phiale Painter flourished around this time. He was an Attic red-figure vase painter. He was probably a student of the Achilles Painter.

In the year 444 the leadership of Pericles was challenged in Athens. Pericles held the elected position of strategos, meaning general, which allowed him certain privileges, but his real leadership of Athens lay in his ability to speak and persuade the Assembly. Pericles was an aristocrat, but had continued the reforms of the murdered Ephialtes, who had favoured a more radical democracy than had existed under Cimon or Themistocles.

He was opposed by Thucydides, son of Melesias, who led an aristocratic party against Pericles. He was probably related to the more famous Thucydides son of Olorus, who later wrote a history of the Peloponnesian War, but it is not clear exactly how the two were related. Both had Thracian connections and Thucydides, son of Melesias, was a relative of Cimon. After Cimon's death he had taken up the mantle as leader of the conservative opposition. His followers were less than those of Pericles, but he magnified their effect in the Assembly by having them sit and stand together, thus making their voices seem perhaps greater than they would have been otherwise.

Temple of Hephaestus in Athens

Thucydides began to take Pericles to account for his expenditure of money. Firstly there was the matter of the ten missing talents that had clearly been used for a bribe to get the Spartans to leave when Pleistonax had invaded Attica. However this was so obviously done for the benefit of the state that the auditors seemed quite content to accept this irregularity.

There was however the more serious matter of the huge sums being spent on the building of new temples. Pericles had used the treasury of the Delian League to finance this. Not only was this money that had been taken from their allies and subjects, but it was such an outlay that the state would struggle to pay such expenses.

Thucydides took Pericles to task for this extravagance. He was a good speaker and the building works, so obviously visible from Pnyx Hill, were visible to everyone. The public feeling rose high against Pericles. However, Pericles was a bold and accomplished orator and when the rage of the people had reached its zenith, he took to the speaking platform.

Earthquake shaken column of the
Temple of Hephaestus in Athens

He made no apology for the scale and expense of his building program and told his listeners how these adornments would make Athens the finest city in the world. He then told the people that if they were concerned about cost, that he, Pericles, would personally pay for each and every monument that he was building, but that to shame the populace, he would inscribe his own name upon the buildings, as the people were clearly unworthy of such splendour. The people of Athens were amused and amazed by this and they voted to continue with the building work. Pericles was once more back in the favour of the people and Thucydides son of Melesias was held in poor regard.

When the orators, who sided with Thucydides and his party, were at one time crying out, as their custom was, against Pericles, as one who squandered away the public money, and made havoc of the state revenues, he rose in the open assembly and put the question to the people, whether they thought that he had laid out much; and they saying, "Too much, a great deal." "Then," said he, "since it is so, let the cost not go to your account, but to mine; and let the inscription upon the buildings stand in my name." When they heard him say thus, whether it were out of a surprise to see the greatness of his spirit, or out of emulation of the glory of the works, they cried aloud, bidding him to spend on, and lay out what he thought fit from the public purse, and to spare no cost, till all were finished.
Plutarch, Life of Pericles, written circa AD100

Around this time, the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens was mostly completed. However, only the basic structure had been put in place. The friezes and ornamentation were not yet finished, as the primary building effort was now put into the work on the Parthenon and other temples on the Acropolis. The temple of Hephaestus was built of Pentelic marble and even in an unfinished state, would have looked quite wonderful from the nearby Agora.

Interior of the Temple of Hephaestus in Athens

The Olympic Games were held this year. Krison of Himera won the stadion race. Tausosthenes of Aegina won the wrestling competition. Alkainetos of Lepreon won the boxing competition. Iccus of Taras (or Taranto) won the pentathlon. Charmides of Elis won the boy's boxing, while Arcesilaus of Sparta owned the team of horses that won the tethrippon chariot race once again.

Iccus of Taranto was famed in antiquity as being one of the greatest gymnasts of his age. He followed Pythagorean precepts in preparing for his athletic contests. He would eat abstemiously and abstain from sex while in training. He is sometimes held to be the first proponent of special athletic diets. This is probably overstating the case, but it shows that the Greeks were beginning to treat sport in an almost scientific fashion, in a way that modern Olympians would find familiar. The methods of training, diet and overall preparation were different, but the attention to detail and care given would have had similarities.

Around the year 443 the new city of Thurii was beginning to flourish. This was very near to the vanquished city of Sybaris and its people were composed of the defeated Sybarites and new colonists from Athens, Sparta and many other parts of Greece. It looked as if the fortunes of the people of Sybaris were finally about to change for the better; after decades of defeats inflicted by their neighbouring city, Croton, Sybaris would rise once more.

However, it was not to be. The Sybarites had seen themselves as the core of the new city and are said to have given themselves certain privileges, such as restricting certain voting rights to themselves alone, giving the tracts of land closest to the city to themselves and allowing their wives to sacrifice first to the gods. The new colonists resented this and a few years after the new city of Thurii was founded, the colonists rose up in revolution.

Later bust of Pindar

The exact year is uncertain, but it was probably between 443 and 440, that the colonists, who were intended to protect the Sybarites, took over the city for themselves. Those few Sybarites who were not killed in this new disaster were exiled.

They did not go far, but instead founded a new city, known as Sybaris on the Traeis. The exact location of this city is unknown, but it was quite a small city, probably more akin to a town. It was located somewhere along the Trionto River in present day Calabria in Italy.

It is around this time that Pindar, perhaps the greatest of the Greek lyric poets, died. He was originally from Thebes, but had travelled in his lifetime throughout much of the Greek world, including Thessaly, Aegina and Syracuse, attending the Panhellenic Games and writing odes in the honour of the victors. In certain cases the athletes would commission these themselves, while in other cases the home city of the athlete would pay for an ode to be composed in the honour of their victor. Some of the victors were rulers of cities in their own right, such as the tyrant Hiero I of Syracuse, and thus could afford to have their glories remembered. It is through the works of Pindar that we can begin to see the importance of sport to the ancient Greeks, who commissioned poetry to explicitly compare their sporting heroes to the demigods and heroes of old.

For words live longer down the years than deeds.
Pindar, Nemean Ode 4, written circa 465BC

Ostraca cast against Pericles. Thucydides son of Melesias
was ostracised instead, but some votes were clearly cast
against Pericles

It is perhaps in this year that Thucydides, son of Melesias, was ostracised by the Athenians after his failure to discredit Pericles in the previous year. Thucydides left the city for a ten year banishment and Pericles was once more unchallenged in the political favour of the Athenians.

In the year 442 the playwright Sophocles was elected as a treasurer of the Athenians. He had probably been given this position because he was beloved playwright. There was more scope than ever for playwrights, as the lesser known annual festival of the Lenaia was moved to the Theatre of Dionysus around this time and plays were performed at it. It seems that in this year comedy was added to the Lenaia.

In the year 441 a dispute seems to have arisen between the cities of Miletus and Samos about which would control the nearby region of Priene. All of the cities were in close proximity to each other and both Samos and Miletus were famed in the Greek world. However, Miletus had been disarmed by the Athenians five years previously. The Samians by contrast had not only kept their navy, but were one of the very few cities in the Athenian Empire to still maintain their own navy, which they did with pride. Thus when the two cities eventually came to blows, the Samians had much more success than the Milesians.

Later bust of Euripides

In this year Euripides is said to have won the tragedy competition at the Great Dionysia, but the play with which he won has not survived. He was the youngest of the three great tragedians of antiquity. Aeschylus had been revered by the Athenians and had served his country in war. Sophocles was a well-known public figure in addition to being a great dramatist. Euripides however had a reputation for being a bit weird and was satirised by comic writers as being a brooding misanthrope. More of his works survive than any of the other playwrights of antiquity however.

It is possibly around this time that Sophocles wrote his tragedy, Ajax. This was a character study into a hero whose pride leads him to madness and then tragic suicide. The fate of the body of the hero is then debated by his family and by those that Ajax had planned to murder, eventually culminating in respect being allowed even to foes in death.

In the year 440BC in Cyrene in North Africa, the people had finally had enough of the tyrannical rule of their king Arcesilaus IV. He had exiled many of the nobles and had kept himself in power by hiring mercenaries. He and his son fled the city to go to what is now the Benghazi region in Libya. Here he was caught and killed and his corpse desecrated. His son was beheaded and his head cast into the sea. The land of Cyrene was subsequently made into a republic, while remaining under Persian rule.

Coin of Acragas from this period

In Sicily, the Sicel leader Ducetius, who had been defeated by Syracuse, exiled to Corinth and later returned to found a new colony at Caleacte, died. While he may not have directly controlled the Sicels any longer, it seems that his death was the signal for the city of Acragas to attack the Sicels. The city of Palice, founded by Ducetius, had been a place for slaves to flee to, and it seems that perhaps this was once more seen as a threat by the people of Acragas. Palice was attacked and destroyed and the Sicel communities were scattered, leaderless and decentralised once more. The colony of Caleacte also seems to have failed and only became prosperous in later centuries. Thus passed Ducetius, the failed freedom fighter of a forgotten people.

In the Aegean, the dispute between Miletus and Samos had come to blows and the Samians were victorious. The Milesians appealed to Athens. The Milesians had previously been disarmed by the Athenians, but they were still, like the Samians, part of the Athenian Empire. The Athenians were perhaps motivated by a number of factors, perhaps fearing Samian overreach, or perhaps fearing that if they did not defend those they disarmed that they would seem weak. Perhaps they disliked the oligarchic Samian government and preferred the democratic Milesian government.

Whatever the reason, the Athenians told the Samians to give up the disputed territories and to accept Athenian judgement on the matter. Some Athenians suspected that this favourable judgement was given because Pericles was in love with the hetaira (courtesan) Aspasia, who was originally from Miletus.

Later bust supposedly of Aspasia

The Samians refused to accept these terms and so the Athenians, acting swiftly and before the Samians were aware, sent a force of forty ships to Samos. This fleet changed the government of Samos to a democracy, took 100 hostages and placed them on the island of Lemnos, and left an Athenian garrison on Samos.

This had been an easy win for Athens, but this was only because the Samians had been caught off guard. Some of the exiled oligarchs went inland into Asia Minor, where they appealed to Pissuthnes, who was a Persian satrap in Sardis. Pissuthnes gave them 700 mercenaries and the exiles made the short crossing to Samos in the night, where they began a revolution. The Athenian garrison was captured and handed over to the Persians. The Samian hostages were then rescued from Lemnos and word sent out to other states in the Aegean to rise up against the Athenians.

The Samian War had now begun. The strategic city of Byzantium had also risen up against the Athenians, which threatened the grain supply of Athens from the Black Sea regions. Pericles immediately set out against Samos with a large fleet. The Samians, who had a significant fleet of their own, sent out their ships, but the Athenians defeated them near the island of Tragia. The Athenians then received reinforcements, landed on the island of Samos and then began to make siege works to try and take the city. While no Greek army at this period showed any great skill in siege-craft, the Athenians were probably the most skilled in this art.

Temple of Hephaestus in Athens seen from the Agora

At this time, Pericles, who was leading the attack on Samos, heard that there was a Persian fleet approaching from Caria to assist the Samians. He hurriedly took 60 ships and moved south to fend off this threat. The Persian fleet never materialised, however the Samians took advantage of the reduced Athenian forces to sally forth and inflict a defeat on the besiegers. It is recorded that the leader of this attack was Melissus of Samos, the Eleatic philosopher who did not believe in vacuums. The attack was so successful that for a little time, the Samians were once again master of the seas around their island.

Once it was clear that the Persian fleet was not coming to defend Samos, Pericles returned to Samos with the 60 Athenian ships. The blockade around Samos was re-established and the city was placed under siege in earnest once more.

But in the meantime the Samians made a sudden sally, and fell on the camp, which they found unfortified. Destroying the look-out vessels, and engaging and defeating such as were being launched to meet them, they remained masters of their own seas for fourteen days, and carried in and carried out what they pleased. But on the arrival of Pericles, they were once more shut up.
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, Book I, written circa 400BC

Later bust of Sophocles

Around this time, the city of Mytilene, an important city on the island of Lesbos, was considering joining the revolt. The Samians had appealed to Sparta and her allies for aid against the Athenians and the Peloponnesian League was gathered in Sparta to decide whether or not to go to war against Athens once more. The League was nearly evenly split, but in an interesting turn of events, the Corinthians argued against intervention, thus saving Athens from the danger of fighting the Spartans and quelling a major revolt simultaneously.

Around this time the Temple of Poseidon at Sunium was completed by the Athenians. This temple reared dramatically above the cape. The designer may have been the same architect who designed the Temple of Hephaestus near the Agora in Athens. It is only partly preserved, with some of the outer columns standing yet. The cape had an entire captured Persian trireme dedicated to Poseidon, great god of the sea, as a memorial to Athenian naval might.

It was around this time that Phidias created his statue Athena Lemnia, which was hailed by later Greeks as the greatest of his works. Like nearly all works of Greek statuary from this period, it has not survived, but some glimpse of it can be seen from the Roman copies.

Around this time, the physician Euryphon of Cnidus flourished. He wrote some books on medicine, of which nothing now survives. There were two competing schools of Greek medicine, at Cnidus and Cos. It seems that Euryphon may have been aware of the difference between arteries and veins. Another doctor who flourished around this time was Pausanias of Sicily. Little is known about Pausanias of Sicily save that he was the eromenos of Empedocles.

Eromenos was a term denoting a "male beloved" in Greek. However, this had some differences between homosexuality as it is currently understood. This had some fairly crucial differences from our culture's experience of homosexuality. The eromenos was generally younger, in certain cases much younger, than the other man. We would probably be quite uncomfortable with the arrangement, as the Athenians and at least some other Greek states, seem to have viewed consent as the important thing rather than age. At least some of these relationships would be viewed as child abuse now. Probably all of these relationships would be viewed as problematic, as the older man would have comparatively more power and status within society and this asymmetry of power would lend itself to manipulation and abuse (much like a teacher seducing a student).

Theatre of Dionysus in Athes

There certainly were some homosexual relationships that we would be more familiar with, where two men of roughly comparable ages were lovers, but these seem to have been regarded as somewhat unusual in Athens.

The point is not to morally castigate the ancient Greeks. They certainly engaged in many practices that we would consider immoral. The ubiquity of slavery as a means of production and torture as a means of interrogation are but two examples of how ancient morality differed from our own. It is fair to point out that they engaged in this behaviour, but condemning them doesn't revert the harm that was done. The only reason to morally criticise the past is to learn from it ourselves.

But I do think it is worth remembering that the cultural expressions of sexuality in the ancient world were quite different from the cultural expressions of sexuality in our own times. The subject is quite a complex one and many of the terms of discussion do not easily translate from one period to another. This is the barest introduction to the study of ancient sexuality, but it is worth studying.

Fragment of the writing of Empedocles
found in Egypt

Empedocles was from Acragas, in southern Sicily and, like many ancient philosophers, was quite an influential man in his own city. He was known as an orator and later legends credit him with seemingly miraculous powers, which he seems to have partly fostered himself. He wrote at least one, perhaps two, poems on philosophical matters, parts of which survive in fragments and quotations of other works. Like many ancient philosophers he was said to have travelled, but these accounts are much later and hard to verify. His thought was a mixture of many other schools and philosophies, but there is much that is original. Like many other Greek thinkers at the time, he would have been troubled by the opinions of Parmenides and the Eleatics, who held that change was impossible.

Rather than prioritising any one of the four classical elements (for example Thales had believed that all things came from water), Empedocles believed that the four elements exist in the same proportions from eternity. Empedocles may have been the first to propose that each of these "elements" were fundamental. The apparent change in the world was caused by two powers in the world, known as Love and Strife. These were used with different meanings than in normal Greek and might perhaps be better known as Combination and Dissolution. The changes in the world were caused by the forces of Love and Strife in flux.

Empedocles, like all the Greek intellectuals, had interests that spanned the full horizon of thought. He believed that light emanates from our eyes to allow us to see (the opposite of what is in fact the case). Like the Pythagoreans, he was a vegetarian and believed in the transmigration of souls. He believed that the world had at one point been spontaneously populated by all possible forms of creatures, but that only certain ones were able to survive and which eventually gave us the creatures we see today. Like Parmenides and the Eleatics, he believed that the cosmos was a sphere but that within the sphere, the elements were operated on by the forces of Love and Strife. The sphere as a whole seems to have been considered by Empedocles as in some way divine.

Decorative element from Parthenon

And I shall tell thee another thing. There is no substance of any of all the things that perish, nor any cessation for them (the four elements) of baneful death. They are only a mingling and interchange of what has been mingled. Substance is but a name given to these things by men.
Empedocles, On Nature, written circa 440BC

Parmenides and the Eleatics, Melissus and Zeno, who had believed that motion was impossible had to a certain extent laid down a challenge to the thinkers of the Greek world. To prove that motion was impossible, Melissus of Samos, who around this time was battling the Athenians in the Samian War, had argued against the existence of the vacuum. It is around this time that a thinker named Leucippus, possibly from Abdera but more likely Miletus, became convinced in the positive existence of the vacuum.

In an irony of history, if Leucippus was from Miletus and an influential member of society, he may have been a leader of Miletus at the outbreak of the Samian War. Melissus of Samos was almost certainly a leader of the Samians and thus the initial squabbles between Miletus and Samos may have been driven by beliefs about the existence of the vacuum, as well as territorial struggles over Priene. This is just humorous speculation of course.

A modern painting of Leucippus

Leucippus is a poorly understood figure. It is entirely possible that Leucippus did not in fact exist, but enough has been written about him that we can at least talk about the legend of Leucippus. It is said that Leucippus posited that vacuum itself existed. If vacuum existed within the world, then substances could not be infinitely divisible. There would have to be a minimum size of the smallest part of the smallest objects that could not be further divided. This was referred to as an atom, from the Greek word for "indivisible".

We of course use the word atom today to describe a certain class of particles. These particles are different from what Leucippus would have envisioned, as (famously) these particles can indeed be divided. We must be careful not to confuse our modern physics with the philosophical ideas of Leucippus and his followers. But the conception of tiny indivisible particles being the fundamental building blocks of all matter, bouncing off each other in the vacuum of the void has proved a very fruitful philosophical conception of matter and continues to inform our perceptions on reality.

It is probable that Leucippus (or if not Leucippus, then his pupil Democritus) invented atomic theory in the west, however there were similar ideas among some of the thinkers in India. It is quite difficult to date these theories however, so it is difficult to gauge who has the priority in invention. Neither Greek nor Indian proponents of atomism had any way of testing their ideas experimentally, so these ideas remained pure philosophical ideas until quite recently.

Leucippus is said to have founded a school at Abdera, on the coast of Thrace, around this time. It is also said that the city of Metapontum, in southern Italy, was founded by Leucippus, but this was probably (almost certainly) a different Leucippus altogether. This is all that we can say about the (possible) father of Atomism.

Dying Niobid Statue

Another Greek thinker who flourished at this time, and who was very likely a contemporary of Leucippus, was Protagoras of Abdera. He is believed to have been the first sophist. Sophist is now almost a term of insult today, with the related word "sophistry" being a synonym for obscure, technical and misleading argumentation. But in the latter half of the 5th century BC it generally just meant wise person.

Protagoras would travel from city to city offering to teach wisdom to any who would learn. He charged a fee for this of course, but other philosophers had done similarly. What set Protagoras apart from mystics like Pherecydes, proto-physicists like Leucippus, or mystic mathematicians such as Pythagoras, was that he did not seem to have set doctrines, but would rather teach his student how to think and how to debate skilfully. In a world where many states were democracies or oligarchies, the ability to speak well in the assembly or council was greatly prized and people flocked to learn from Protagoras. In a time before the rules of logic had been formulated, a lot of debating skills were little better than verbal tricks and many people began to intensely dislike the sophists.

Protagoras spent a lot of time teaching in Athens, where he seems to have had a friendship with Pericles. The sophist and the statesman are said to have had a debate on a case where an athlete had accidentally killed a spectator with a javelin, as to where the responsibility lay. Did the fault lie with the thrower of the javelin, those responsible for the games, or even with the javelin itself? What conclusion they came to is unknown. However, any skilful debater must be able to argue both sides of a question. When this skill was taught, many believed that the sophists were enabling injustice to prevail over justice, as long as the unjust cause hired a speaker trained by sophists.

Funerary stele in Athens

Protagoras is said to have proclaimed that "Man is the measure of all things", which is perhaps the first example of philosophical relativism (at least in western culture). It is unclear if Protagoras actually believed this, if it was attributed to him by his enemies, or if it was merely a clever statement that he argued for in a sample debate. Relativism holds that most or all states of being are relative to the perceiver. Thus what one perceives as hot, will be perceived by another observer as cold. Neither are wrong, but neither are right without qualification.

Protagoras is also said to have been unsure of the existence of the gods, certainly as they were described in Greek myths. Again, it is unclear if Protagoras actually believed this, or if later writers believed that he had believed it.

It is said that Protagoras taught Euathlus to speak on the basis he would repay him from the winnings of this first lawsuit. Euathlus refused to take on any cases. Protagoras did what every good teacher should do and took him to court. He reasoned that he couldn't lose his fee because "… if I win the case, I should get the fee because I have won it; If you win the case, I should get the fee because you have won it!" This is the same tale that is told of the Syracusan orators Corax and Tisias, so we shouldn't take this story too seriously. This is most of what we can say about Protagoras of Abdera with any certainty.

Of all things the measure is Man, of the things that are, that they are, and of the things that are not, that they are not.
Sayings attributed to Protagoras, circa 440BC

Another philosopher or thinker who lived around this time may have been Diotima of Mantineia. She is only mentioned in one later work of Plato's. This work of Plato's did however have other historical personages in it, leading some to believe that Diotima was perhaps also a real person. According to Plato, she was a seer-like figure who had once had some conversations with Socrates about love. Also according to Plato, around this time Diotima had been consulted by the Athenians about the correct sacrifices to make, which were said to be able to ward off plague for some years. It is not clear if she existed, but it is possible and so mention is made of her here.

The Lune of Hippocrates (the shaded area is equal to the
triangle ABC

It was clearly an intellectually fruitful time, with Hippocrates of Chios being the first to write a textbook of geometry, known as the Elements. He attempted without success to square the circle, which is now known to be impossible using the geometric methods available. However, as part of a partial solution Hippocrates was able to discover what is known as the Lune of Hippocrates. Sadly the transcendental value of pi will forever frustrate some attempts to the end of time.

Hippocrates of Chios clearly had a taste for doomed endeavours and also spent some time working on the problem of Doubling the Cube, which again is now known to be impossible (using only the geometers tools of compass and straightedge: it can of course be done to a given value of precision using inductive methods). Finally he spent time puzzling over the nature of celestial phenomena such as the Milky Way, which he understood to be an optical illusion. Like Empedocles he seems to have considered vison to be a type of ray extending from the eye, rather than the eye receiving light, which seems to have led him astray.

Around this time Theodorus of Byzantium flourished. He was a teacher of public speaking and was sometimes accounted as a sophist and sometimes spoken of as one of the pioneers of rhetoric. Of course the distinction is a little bit of an academic one, as certain other sophists were certainly teachers of rhetoric. Nothing survives of his work save generally approving references in later classical writings.

Around this time the comic poet Pigres of Halicarnassus flourished. He was the son, or possibly the brother, of Artemisia of Halicarnassus, who had fought against the Greeks at the Battle of Salamis during the invasion of Xerxes. He was famed for his skill at adapting the works of Homer. It is said that to display his skill he added a pentameter line underneath every line of the Iliad (which is written in hexameters), maintaining the sense of the poem while nearly doubling its length.

He was also famed in antiquity for writing a poem called Margites, about an eponymous character who was famously stupid. Margites became a byword for stupidity among the Greeks, however this work was also attributed (incorrectly) to Homer. It is not clear if Pigres actually wrote it, but it is clear that Homer didn't. Another work that was sometimes attributed to Pigres and sometimes attributed to Homer was Batrachomyomachia, which was a type of Homeric satire. Very little of any of his works have survived and only in quotation by later authors.

Phiale Painter

Also active at this time was Hippodamus of Miletus. He was a city planner who had assisted in rationalising the plan of his own city, before planning the rebuilt city of Rhodes and then creating the city plan for the Athenian port of Piraeus. There had been instances of city planning before in other civilisations, but Greek cities had previously been quite haphazardly laid out. Hippodamus envisioned neat grids of houses laid out with squares and plazas so that the streets should meet at right angles. The grid plan of the Piraeus was so admired that the central square was named the Hippodameia in his honour.

Hippodamus also wrote books on the composition of the ideal state, which he envisioned as comprising about 10,000 citizens, who would compete for rewards as to who could benefit the city the most. He wrote a number of books on mathematics, city planning and political theory.

It is said that Hippodamus was sent by the Athenians to Thurii to assist in planning the city there. However I am unsure of this. Most of the other individuals that we have mentioned are associated with the foundation of Thurii; Herodotus, Empedocles, Protagoras, etc. Some of these may have gone to Thurii, others may not.

The Olympic Games were held this year. Gnathon of Dipaia won the boy's boxing. Krison of Himera won the stadion race. Theompompos of Heraia won the wrestling competition while Polycles of Sparta owned the horses that won the tethrippon chariot race.

Modern statue of Herodotus at the Parliament
building in Vienna

It was around this time that Herodotus' Histories came to be written in something resembling the form in which we have it today. It is likely that some parts of the Histories had been written perhaps ten years earlier and some sections show signs of revision up to perhaps a decade later. But the majority of it must have been written around this time. Herodotus had spent some time travelling in the eastern Mediterranean, although it is not clear if he actually visited Egypt and Babylonia. I believe that he did indeed visit Egypt, but I am sceptical if he ever made it to Babylonia.

This was the first work of history to come down to us in a nearly intact form. It is the basis of the vast majority of history in the 6th and early 5th centuries BC. Without the Histories of Herodotus our knowledge of the world would be greatly diminished. He created a trend of historical writing that was lasted in a nearly unbroken chain to this day. While there is a separate birth of history in China, with the Grand Historian Sima Qian, Herodotus is unquestionably earlier. While in many cases Herodotus may have misunderstood his sources, it seems likely that he was a truthful narrator insofar as he could be. He was however influenced by his sources, and the time that he spent in Athens gives his work a decidedly pro-Athenian bias. However, it is almost impossible to not be influenced by sources.

Temple of Poseidon at Sounion

It is said that Herodotus, when his work was nearing completion, went to the Olympic Games to read his Histories aloud to the gathered Greeks at the festival. Some accounts say that the reading was a great success and that he read the entire work from start to finish (almost impossible unless it was much shorter then than it is now). Another account recounts that Herodotus refused to begin reading his work until some clouds covered the sun, allowing him to read in the shade. By the time some clouds did eventually oblige Herodotus, the gathered Greeks had dispersed, leaving Herodotus to read his life's work aloud to an empty plaza. Thus "Herodotus and his shade" became a proverb describing those who miss their greatest opportunity by waiting.

This is the display of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, so that things done by man not be forgotten in time, and that great and marvellous deeds, some displayed by the Greeks, some by the non-Greeks, not lose their glory, including among others what was the cause of their waging war on each other.
Opening Prologue of Herodotus's Histories, written circa 440BC

And thus the period draws to a close, with the weakening of Athens, the end of the Athenian Land Empire, the end of the First Peloponnesian War and the beginning of the First Peloponnesian War. There were revolutions in Cyrene and new kings in Macedonia and Odrysian Thrace. There was athletic triumph with the achievements of Diagoras of Rhodes and his sons. Pericles had been challenged for the leadership of Athens and had retained his influence. A new spate of temple building had begun in Athens. The tragic playwrights were reaching new heights of achievement with the works of Sophocles and Euripides. Doctors, city planners, mathematicians, poets and dieticians all left their mark on history. The period saw the rise of the sophists and orators, as well as the birth of relativism, the postulation of the four classical elements and the birth of atomic theory as well, with the works of Protagoras, Empedocles and Leucippus (and possibly Leucippus' pupil Democritus). While this is one of the lesser studied period in Greek history, it is not uneventful.

Temple of Poseidon at Sounion

Primary Sources:
Pindar, Odes, written circa 475BC
Sophocles, Antigone, written circa 447BC
Herodotus, Histories, written circa 440BC
Sayings attributed to Protagoras, circa 440BC
Empedocles, On Nature, written circa 440BC
Fragments attributed to Pigres, written circa 440BC
Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, written circa 400BC
The Parian Chronicle, written circa 216BC
Diodorus Siculus, Library of History, written circa 40BC
Plutarch, Life of Pericles, written circa AD100
Pausanias, Description of Greece, written circa AD150

Secondary Sources:
Historical eruptions on Mount Etna

Related Blogs
Protagoras of Abdera
Greece 459-450BC
459-440BC in the Near East
459-440BC in Rome
439-430BC in Greece

550-525BC in Greece

Pottery from the workshop of Exekias in Athens

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

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

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

Drachm of Ephesus from this period

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

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

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

Obol of Miletus

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

Pottery from the Naucratis Painter

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

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

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

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

Exekias Painter, showing battle scene, possibly
from the Iliad

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

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

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

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

Cup by the Phrynos Painter in Athens

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

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

Remains of the Temple of Hera at Samos

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

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

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

Remains of the Temple of Hera at Samos

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

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

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

Duenos Inscription in the Altes Museum Berlin

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

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

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

Remains of the Temple of Hera at Samos

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

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

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

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

Remains of the Temple of Hera at Samos

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

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

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

From the workshop of Exekias

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

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

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

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

Piraeus Apollo, probably created
around 525BC

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

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

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

Decorations from Temple of Apollo at Didyma

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

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

Later Greek red-figure vase depicting the burning of Croesus

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

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

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

Gateway of the unfinished Temple of Apollo on Naxos

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

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

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

Kroisos Kore, possibly from around
530BC

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

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

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

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

Herakles fighting the Nemean Lion, created around
440BC

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

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

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

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

Cave of Pherecydes on Syros

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Laconian tumuli relief

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

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

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

Antenor Kore
probably created
530BC

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Pottery by the Lysippides Painter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Late medieval representation of Thespis and his cart

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

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

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

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

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

From the workshop of the Andokides Painter

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

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

From the Nikosthenes Painter

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

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

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

Kylix from the Nikosthenes Vase Painter

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

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

Tunnel of Eupalinos in Samos

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


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

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

Gateway of the unfinished Temple of Apollo on Naxos

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

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

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

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

Roman bust of Pythagoras
in the Capitoline Museum

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A later painting showing Pythagoreans welcoming the dawn

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

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

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

Pottery in the manner of the Lysippides Painter

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

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

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

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

Scene from the Siphnian Treasury in Delphi

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

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

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

Silver stater of Corinth, circa 525BC

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

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

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

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

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

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

From the workshop of Andokides

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

Related Blogs:
575-550BC in Greece
550-525BC in the Near East
525-500BC in Greece