ANCIENT GREEK CIVILIZATION

the period following Mycenaean civilization, which ended in about 1200 BC, to the death of Alexander the Great, in 323 BC. It was a period of political, philosophical, artistic, and scientific achievements that formed a legacy with unparalleled influence on Western civilization. Additional reading General works A wealth of information on ancient Greek civilization is provided by the volumes in The Cambridge Ancient History (1923 ), some in newer 2nd and 3rd editions; by N.G.L. Hammond and H.H. Scullard (eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1970, reprinted 1984); and by John Boardman, Jasper Griffin, and Oswyn Murray (eds.), The Oxford History of the Classical World (1986). Michael Grant and Rachel Kitzinger (eds.), Civilization of the Ancient Mediterranean: Greece and Rome, 3 vol. (1988), discusses the geography, inhabitants, arts, language, religion, politics, technology, and economy of the area from the early 1st millennium BC to the late 5th century AD. Broad coverage of the physical and cultural settings and of archaeological discoveries is also provided by Peter Levi, Atlas of the Greek World (1980); and Nicholas G.L. Hammond (ed.), Atlas of the Greek and Roman World in Antiquity (1981). Overviews of the histories of Greek civilization include Nicholas G.L. Hammond, A History of Greece to 322 B.C., 3rd ed. (1986); J.B. Bury and Russell Meiggs, A History of Greece to the Death of Alexander, 4th ed. (1975), revised to take account of new evidence; and Roger Ling, The Greek World (1976, reissued 1990). Many ancient historical sources are available in The Loeb Classical Library series, with original text and parallel English translation; and in the series Translated Documents of Greece and Rome. Emily D. Townsend Vermeule Simon Hornblower John Ferguson Nancy Thomson de Grummond Gary Edward Forsythe Richard P. Saller Ramsay MacMullen The early Archaic period John Boardman, The Greeks Overseas: Their Early Colonies and Trade, rev. and enlarged ed. (1980), is a well-illustrated and fully documented account of Greek colonization. Commercial factors are stressed by Martin Frederiksen, Campania, ed. by Nicholas Purcell (1984). Peter Garnsey, in Famine and Food Supply in the Graeco-Roman World (1988), is skeptical of the land-hunger explanation. See also Robert Sallares, The Ecology of the Ancient Greek World (1991), a discussion of problems of demography and food supply. The importance of rural sanctuaries to the growth of the polis is argued in Franois de Polignac, La Naissance de la cit grecque (1984); and Robin Osborne, Classical Landscape with Figures (1987), which also discusses the ways in which the Greek countryside was exploited in different regions. Monumentalization is stressed in a good general account of the period, Anthony Snodgrass, Archaic Greece: The Age of Experiment (1980). Ian Morris, Burial and Ancient Society (1987), discusses burial and the Greek polis. Martin Bernal, Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (1987 ), is a controversial work about Phoenician influence on Greece.Explorations of phratry and genos are found in Denis Roussel, Tribu et cit (1976); and Flix Bourriot, Recherches sur la nature du Genos, 2 vol. (1976). K.J. Dover, Greek Homosexuality, new ed. (1989), is a good treatment. The significance of the symposium is argued for by Oswyn Murray, The Symposion as Social Organisation, in Robin Hgg (ed.), The Greek Renaissance of the Eighth Century B.C.: Tradition and Innovation (1983), pp. 195199. Murray's Early Greece (1980) is a readable general history of the period stressing the symposium at a number of points. Gabriel Herman, Ritualised Friendship and the Greek City (1987), examines xenia. A discussion of proxenia may be found in L.H. Jeffery, Archaic Greece: The City-States, c. 700500 B.C. (1976), an elegant general history arranged regionally. Robert Drews, Basileus: The Evidence for Kingship in Geometric Greece (1985), argues that the early Greek kings (basileis) were really just hereditary aristocrats; but see Pierre Carlier, La Royaut en Grce avant Alexandre (1984), for a differing view.Useful monographs on individual poleis important in the Archaic period include J.B. Salmon, Wealthy Corinth: A History of the City to 338 BC (1984); and Thomas J. Figueira, Aegina: Society and Politics (1981). But see M.I. Finley, Politics in the Ancient World (1983), which warns against the dangers of writing histories of particular poleis. The later Archaic periods The classic exposition of the hoplite theory of tyranny is A. Andrewes, The Greek Tyrants (1956, reissued 1974); it is refined by Paul Cartledge, Hoplites and Heroes: Sparta's Contribution to the Technique of Ancient Warfare, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 97:1127 (1977). But G.L. Cawkwell, Philip of Macedon (1978), ch. 10, discusses hoplite fighting as a more individual affair than is sometimes allowed. The ideological implications of hoplite fighting are treated by W.R. Connor, Early Greek Land Warfare as Symbolic Expression, Past & Present, 119:329 (May 1988); and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, The Black Hunter: Forms of Thought and Forms of Society in the Greek World (1986; originally published in French, 1981).W.G. Forrest, A History of Sparta, 950192 B.C., 2nd ed. (1980), is a provocative brief work. Paul Cartledge, Sparta and Lakonia: A Regional History, 1300362 BC (1979), is also useful. Laconism is explored in Elizabeth Rawson, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (1969). R.E. Wycherley, The Stones of Athens (1978), discusses Athens' natural advantages. Attic produce and exports are studied by Signe Isager and Mogens Herman Hansen, Aspects of Athenian Society in the Fourth Century B.C. (1975). Russell Meiggs, Trees and Timber in the Ancient Mediterranean World (1982); and Robert Garland, The Piraeus: From the Fifth to the First Century B.C. (1987), present naval aspects. Discussion of every aspect of early Athenian political history is contained in P.J. Rhodes, Commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion Politeia (1981). Robert Parker, Miasma: Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion (1983), covers Cylon and the religious taint often incurred through some wrongful act or neglect of ritual obligation. M.I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (1980), investigates the link between Solon and slavery.A good account of Peisistratid building policy in its competitive aspect is found in T. Leslie Shear, Jr., Tyrants and Buildings in Archaic Athens, in Athens Comes of Age: From Solon to Salamis (1978), pp. 115. Peisistratid artistic propaganda is summarized in John Boardman, Archaic Greek Society: Material Culture, ch. 7c in John Boardman et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 4, 2nd ed. (1988), pp. 414430. R.M. Cook, Pots and Pisistratan Propaganda, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 107:167169 (1987), presents another view. John S. Traill, Demos and Trittys: Epigraphical and Topographical Studies in the Organization of Attica (1986), a specialist account of the deme system based on inscriptions, supplements his The Political Organization of Attica: A Study of the Demes, Trittyes, and Phylai, and Their Representation in the Athenian Council (1975). David Whitehead, The Demes of Attica, 508/7ca. 250 B.C.: A Political and Social Study (1986), is magisterial and reliable. Robin Osborne, Demos: The Discovery of Classical Attika (1985), is a speculative essay with some interesting suggestions not fully worked out. Emily Kearns, Change and Continuity in Religious Structures after Kleisthenes, in Paul Cartledge and F.D. Harvey (eds.), Crux (1985), pp. 189207, is valuable on the religious aspects of Cleisthenes' reforms. The modern reconstructed Greek trireme is the subject of J.S. Morrison and J.F. Coates, The Athenian Trireme (1986).Early Greek philosophy is dealt with generally in Edward Hussey, The Presocratics (1972); and Jonathan Barnes, The Presocratic Philosophers, rev. ed. (1982), a more difficult work; and on Pherecydes in particular in M.L. West, Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient (1971). More works on Greek philosophy and philosophers can be found in the bibliography of the article history of philosophy. Rosalind Thomas, Oral Tradition and Written Record in Classical Athens (1989), supersedes all previous studies on literacy. Classical Greek civilization Information on the Persian empire and the Ionian revolt can be found in J.M. Cook, The Persian Empire (1983); and a postscript by David M. Lewis in the book by A.R. Burn, Persia and the Greeks, 2nd ed. (1984). Lewis' Sparta and Persia (1977), analyzes Persian administration. Simon Hornblower, Mausolus (1982), treats satrapally controlled Anatolia.General histories of the period 479 BC to Alexander the Great include J.K. Davies, Democracy and Classical Greece (1978); and Simon Hornblower, The Greek World, 479323 BC, rev. ed. (1991). Russell Meiggs, The Athenian Empire (1972), offers a full scholarly history and analysis. A very different view, in particular denying that there was a mid-century qualitative change in the character of the Athenian empire, is presented by M.I. Finley, The Fifth-Century Athenian Empire: A Balance-Sheet, in Peter Garnsey and C.R. Whittaker (eds.), Imperialism in the Ancient World (1978), pp. 103126. More succinct than Meiggs is the very brief work by P.J. Rhodes, The Athenian Empire (1985). G.W.M. de Ste. Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World: From the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests (1981), contains much relevant material. Athenian foreign policy in the period is explored by E. Badian, The Peace of Callias, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 107:139 (1987); and David M. Lewis, The Origins of the First Peloponnesian War, in Gordon Spencer Shrimpton and David Joseph McCargar (eds.), Classical Contributions (1981), pp. 7178. Works on Thucydides and his History include W. Robert Connor, Thucydides (1984); Simon Hornblower, Thucydides (1987); Colin Macleod, Collected Essays (1981); Nicole Loraux, The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City (1986); and A.W. Gomme, A. Andrewes, and K.J. Dover, A Historical Commentary on Thucydides, 5 vol. (194581). This last work assumes a good knowledge of Greek, but Simon Hornblower, A Commentary on Thucydides (1991 ), translates all Greek commented on.P.J. Rhodes, The Athenian Boule (1972, reissued 1985), discusses an important aspect of internal Athenian history in the 5th century. A full account of constitutional developments is given in Martin Ostwald, From Popular Sovereignty to the Sovereignty of Law (1986). J.K. Davies, Athenian Propertied Families, 600300 B.C. (1971), is indispensable on individual politicians; it may be supplemented by Davies' Wealth and the Power of Wealth in Classical Athens (1981). A stimulating treatment of demagogues is given in W. Robert Connor, The New Politicians of Fifth-century Athens (1971); but Wesley E. Thompson, Athenian Leadership: Expertise or Charisma? in Gordon Spencer Shrimpton and David Joseph McCargar (eds.), Classical Contributions (1981), pp. 153159, argues against all attempts to impute greater professionalism to them. Studies on oligarchic sympathizers include L.B. Carter, The Quiet Athenian (1986); Glenn Richard Bugh, The Horsemen of Athens (1988); and Andrew Lintott, Violence, Civil Strife, and Revolution in the Classical City, 750330 B.C. (1981).G.E.M. de Ste. Croix, The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (1972), argues a controversial thesis, but is excellent on Sparta. A contribution on this topic of the first importance is E. Badian, Thucydides and the Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, in June W. Allison (ed.), Conflict, Antithesis, and the Ancient Historian (1990), pp. 4691, showing that Thucydides' presentation has suspiciously pro-Athenian features. Athenian strategy in the war itself is discussed in J.B. Salmon, Wealthy Corinth: A History of the City to 338 BC (1984); G.L. Cawkwell, Thucydides' Judgment of Periclean Strategy, Yale Classical Studies, 24:5370 (1975); and A.J. Holladay, Athenian Strategy in the Archidamian War, Historia, 27(3):399426 (1978). Spartan strategy is examined by P.A. Brunt, Spartan Policy and Strategy in the Archidamian War, Phoenix, 19 (4):255280 (1965). The link between speculative thinking and democracy is argued for by G.E.R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason, and Experience: Studies in the Origin and Development of Greek Science (1979); it is qualified in the epilogue to Hugh Lloyd-Jones, The Justice of Zeus, 2nd ed. (1983). See also Cynthia Farrar, The Origins of Democratic Thinking: The Invention of Politics in Classical Athens (1988).The best handbook on Greek art is Martin Robertson, A History of Greek Art, 2 vol. (1975). John Boardman, Greek Art, new rev. ed. (1985), is also worth consulting. Greek tragedy is assessed in Brian Vickers, Towards Greek Tragedy: Drama, Myth, Society (1973); and Simon Goldhill, Reading Greek Tragedy (1986), which attempts to put Greek tragedy in its polis framework, and The Great Dionysia and Civic Ideology, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 107:5876 (1987). The standard work on Attic dramatic festivals is Arthur Pickard-Cambridge, The Dramatic Festivals of Athens, 2nd ed. rev. by John Gould and David M. Lewis (1988). Fifth-century Athenian building is put in a political context in Johannes Sipko Boersma, Athenian Building Policy from 561/0 to 405/4 B.C. (1970); and the brief and provocative work by Rhys Carpenter, Architects of the Parthenon (1970).A useful general book about Greek women in classical antiquity is Sarah B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, and Slaves (1975). The position of Athenian women is discussed in the splendid essay by John Gould, Law, Custom, and Myth: Aspects of the Social Position of Women in Classical Athens, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 100:3859 (1980); and by David M. Schaps, Economic Rights of Women in Ancient Greece (1979). A valuable discussion of female religious life in mostly male-dominated Attica is Christiane Sourvinou-Inwood, Studies in Girls' Transitions: Aspects of the Arkteia and Age Representation in Attic Iconography (1988), which discusses Brauron and the Artemis cult, celebrated there by women and girls. Averil Cameron and Amlie Kuhrt (eds.), Images of Women in Antiquity (1983), is an interesting collection of papers.Slavery is discussed by M.I. Finley (ed.), Classical Slavery (1987), and Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (1980); and by Yvon Garlan, Slavery in Ancient Greece, rev. and expanded ed. (1988; originally published in French, 1982). The best accounts of ancient Greek military technology are E.W. Marsden, Greek and Roman Artillery, 2 vol. (196971); A.W. Lawrence, Greek Aims in Fortification (1979); and Josiah Ober, Fortress Attica: Defense of the Athenian Land Frontier, 404322 B.C. (1985). The 4th century M.I. Finley, Ancient Sicily, rev. ed. (1979), includes discussion of Dionysius I. The study of 4th-century Athenian democracy has been transformed by Mogens Herman Hansen, The Athenian Ecclesia, 2 vol. (198389), a collection of essays, and The Athenian Assembly in the Age of Demosthenes (1987; originally published in German, 1984). Additional works include R.K. Sinclair, Democracy and Participation in Athens (1988), an intelligent synoptic account; and Mogens Herman Hansen, The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes (1991), the best comprehensive treatment. Lysander's role in the causes of the Corinthian war is admirably discussed by A. Andrewes, Spartan Imperialism? in Peter Garnsey and C.R. Whittaker (eds.), Imperialism in the Ancient World (1978), pp. 91102. The whole period from 404 to 360 BC is discussed from a Spartan point of view by Paul Cartledge, Agesilaos and the Crisis of Sparta (1987). But G.L. Cawkwell, The Decline of Sparta, Classical Quarterly, new series, 33(2):385400 (1983), presents a very different perspective denying that there was any serious shortage of manpower at Sparta in this period. The diplomacy of the period is presented in Timothy T.B. Ryder, Koine Eirene (1965).Contrasting verdicts on the Second Athenian Confederacy are presented by G.T. Griffith, Athens in the Fourth Century, in Peter Garnsey and C.R. Whittaker (eds.), Imperialism in the Ancient World (1978), pp. 127144; Jack Cargill, The Second Athenian League: Empire or Free Alliance? (1981); and G.L. Cawkwell, Notes on the Failure of the Second Athenian Confederacy, Journal of Hellenic Studies, 101:4055 (1981), and Athenian Naval Power in the Fourth Century, Classical Quarterly, new series, 34(2):334345 (1984). Mausolus' role in its breakup is addressed by Simon Hornblower, Mausolus (1982).Studies on the Theban hegemony include J.A.O. Larsen, Greek Federal States (1968); G.L. Cawkwell, Epaminondas and Thebes, Classical Quarterly, new series, 22:254278 (1972); and John Buckler, The Theban Hegemony, 371362 BC (1980).The rise of Macedon is portrayed in N.G.L. Hammond, G.T. Griffith, and F.W. Walbank, A History of Macedonia, 3 vol. (197288); and R. Malcolm Errington, A History of Macedonia (1990; originally published in German, 1986). Philip and Alexander are placed into historical context by G.L. Cawkwell, Philip of Macedon (1978); Miltiades B. Hatzopoulos and Louisa D. Loukopoulos (eds.), Philip of Macedon (1980), which includes good pictures of the Vergina tomb discoveries; A.B. Bosworth, Conquest and Empire: The Reign of Alexander the Great (1988), a masterly study, both scholarly and readable; and Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (1973, reissued 1986), a lively work.Fourth-century Greek emigration is discussed well by Paul McKechnie, Outsiders in the Greek Cities in the Fourth Century B.C. (1989). Greek attitudes to foreigners are explored by Arnoldo Momigliano, Alien Wisdom: The Limits of Hellenization (1975). M.J. Osborne, Naturalization in Athens, 4 vol. in 3 (198183), treats grants of citizenship. Euergetism is the subject of Paul Veyne, Le Pain et le cirque: Sociologie historique d'un pluralisme politique (1976), also available in an abridged translation, Bread and Circuses (1990). Walter Burkert, Greek Religion (1985; originally published in German, 1977), is a full and brilliant study; other works may be found in the bibliography of the article Greek religion. Simon Hornblower Classical Greek civilization Ancient Greece. The Persian Wars Between 500 and 386 BC Persia was for the policy-making classes in the largest Greek states a constant preoccupation. (It is not known, however, how far down the social scale this preoccupation extended in reality.) Persia was never less than a subject for artistic and oratorical reference, and sometimes it actually determined foreign policy decisions. The situation for the far more numerous smaller states of mainland Greece was different inasmuch as a distinctive policy of their own toward Persia or anybody else was hardly an option for most of the time. However, Eretria, by now a third-class power, had its own unsuccessful war with Persia in 490, and some very small cities and islands were proud to record on the Serpent Column (the victory dedication to Apollo at Delphi) their participation on the Greek side in the great war of 480479. But, even at this exalted moment, choice of sides, Greek or Persian, could be seen, as it was by Herodotus, as having been determined either by preference for local masters or by a desire to spite an equal and rival state next door. (He says this explicitly about Thessaly, which Medizedi.e., sided with the Persiansand its neighbour and enemy Phocis, which did not.) Nor is it obvious that for small Greek places the change to control by distant Persia would have made much day-to-day difference, judging from the experience of their kinsmen and counterparts in Anatolia or of the Jews (the other articulate Persian subject nation). Persia had no policy of dismantling the social structures of its subject communities or of driving their religions underground (though it has been held that the Persian king Xerxes tried to impose orthodoxy in a way that compelled some Magi to emigrate). Persia certainly had no motive for destroying the economies of the peoples in its empire. Naturally, it expected the ruling groups or individuals to guarantee payment of tribute and generally deferential behaviour, but then the Athenian and Spartan empires expected the same of their dependents. The Athenians, at least, were strikingly realistic and undogmatic about not demanding regimes that resembled their own democracy in more than the name. Classical Greek civilization The Athenian empire The Athenian Empire at its greatest extent. The eastern Greeks of the islands and mainland felt themselves particularly vulnerable and appealed to the natural leader, Sparta. The Spartans' proposed solution was an unacceptable plan to evacuate Ionia and resettle its Greek inhabitants elsewhere; this would have been a remarkable usurpation of Athens' colonial or pseudocolonial role as well as a traumatic upheaval for the victims. Samos, Chios, Lesbos, and other islanders were received into the Greek alliance. The status of the mainlanders was temporarily left in suspense, though not for long: in early 478 Athens on its own account captured Sestus, still under precarious Persian control hitherto. In this it was assisted by allies from Ionia and the Hellespontthat is to say, including mainlanders. The authority for this statement, which should not be doubted, is Thucydides, the main guide for most of the next 70 years. The capture of Sestus was one manifestation of Athenian independence from Spartan leadership, which had gone unquestioned by Athens in the Persian Wars of 480479, except for one or two uneasy moments when it had seemed that Sparta was reluctant to go north of the Isthmus. Another manifestation was the energetic building in the early 470s of a proper set of walls for the city of Athens, an episode elaborately described by Thucydides to demonstrate the guile of Themistocles, who deceived the Spartans over the affair. Whether the walls were entirely new or a replacement for an Archaic circuit is disputed; Thucydides implies that there was a pre-existing circuit, but no trace of this has been established archaeologically. The Themistoclean circuit, on the other hand, does survive, although the solidity of the socle does not quite bear out Thucydides' dramatic picture of an impromptu all hands to the pump operation carried out with unprofessional materials. Sparta's reluctance to see Athens fortified and its angerconcealed but realafter the irreversible event show that even then, despite its cautious attitude to the mainland Ionians, Sparta was not happy to see Athens take over completely its own dominant military role. Or rather, some Spartans were unhappy, for it is a feature of this period that Sparta wobbled between isolationism and imperialism, if that is the right word for a goal pursued with such intermittent energy. This wobbling is best explained in factional terms, the details of which elude the 20th century as they did Thucydides. Thucydides disconcertingly juxtaposes the wall-building episode, with its clear implication of Spartan aggressiveness, with the bland statement that the Spartans were glad to be rid of the Persian war and considered the Athenians up to the job of leadership and well-disposed toward themselves. In fact, there is evidence in other literary sources for the first and more outward-looking policy, such as a report of an internal debate at Sparta about the general question of hegemony, as well as particular acts such as a Spartan attempt to expel Medizers from the Delphic amphictyonyi.e., pack it with its own supporters. One easily identifiable factor in the formation of Spartan policy is a personal one: the ambitions of Pausanias, a young man flushed from his success at Plataea. Pausanias was one of those Spartans who wanted to see the impetus of the Persian Wars maintained; he conquered much of Cyprus (a temporary conquest) and laid siege to Byzantium. But his arrogance angered the other Greeks, not least, Thucydides says, the Ionians and the newly liberated populations. These now approached Athens in virtue of kinship, asking it to lead them. This was a crucial moment in 5th-century history; the immediate effect was to force the Spartans to recall Pausanias and put him on trial. He was charged with Medism, and, though acquitted for the moment, he was replaced by Dorcis. Yet Dorcis and others like him lacked Pausanias' charisma, and Sparta sent out two more commanders. Pausanias went out again to Byzantium in a private capacity, setting himself up as a tyrant to intrigue with Persia, but he was again recalled and starved to death after having taken sanctuary in the temple of Athena of the Brazen House in Sparta. (The end may not have come until late in the 470s.) The charge was again Medism, and there was some truth to this because the rewards given by Persia to Gongylus of Eretria, one of his collaborators, can be shown to have been historical. There was also a suspicion that Pausanias was organizing a rising of the helots, and it was true, Thucydides says. Despite its successes in 479, Sparta, then, was as much a prisoner of the helot problem as ever, and it could not rely on the loyalty of Arcadia or the Peloponnese generally: Mantinea and Elis had sent their contingents to the Battle of Plataea suspiciously late. The Delian League The most important consequence of the successful Greek appeal to Athens was the beginning of the Athenian empire, or Delian League (a modern expression). The appeal to Ionian kinship set the tone for the organization and for much of its subsequent history, though one can fairly complain that this does not emerge strongly enough from Thucydides, who always tends to underreport the religious or sentimental factor in Greek politics. The Athenians first settled which allies should pay tribute in the form of money and which should provide ships; the details of this assessment were entrusted to the Athenian statesman and general Aristides. Tribute, the need for which was assumed rather than explained, was to be stored at Delos, which would also be the site of league meetings, or synods. Thucydides does not add that the choice of Delos, with its associations with Ionian Apollo, was essentially religious in motivation. Nor does he bring out more than the mercenary or revenge motive of the league (to get redress by devastating the king of Persia's territory). In fact, the mood at the league's founding was positive and solemn, with oaths and ceremonies cementing the act of liberation (478477). It is unlikely that there was much small print to which allies had to subscribe. League meetings were to be held, almost certainly, in a single-chamber organization, in which Athens had only a single vote, though a weighty one; there were perhaps undertakings, subsumed in the general oath taking, about not deserting or refusing military contributions. Unfortunately there are no inscribed stelae, or pillars, as there are for the Second Athenian Confederacy a century later, recording precise pledges by Athens or (equally valuable) listing the members in the order of their enrollment. Apart from the big Ionian islands and some mainlanders, there were in fact Dorian members like Rhodes and Aeolians like Lesbos; there even were some non-Greeks on Cyprus, always a place with a large Semitic component. (Some Cypriot communities probably joined at the outset.) Some Thracian cities were surely enrolled very early. There was no doctrinaire insistence that the league should be exclusively maritime, though the facts of geography gave it this general character automatically. For instance, by mid-century it seems that (in the period of Athens' decade of control of Boeotia, 457446) the land-locked cities of Orchomenus and Akraiphia were in some sense members. Nor was the league necessarily confined to the Aegean: in 413, financial contributions from Rhegium in the south of Italy, among other places, were handled by the imperial Treasurers of the Greeks. No inscribed records of tribute exist before 454 BC; after that point, one has the intermittent assistance of the Athenian Tribute Lists, actually the record of the one-sixtieth fraction paid to the goddess Athena. It should be stressed that until roughly the late 450s there are virtually no imperial inscriptions at all. Such lack of evidence makes it difficult to show in detail the increasing oppressiveness of the Athenian empire in the second half of its existence (450404), particularly in the 420s when policy was affected by demagogues like the notorious Cleon. There is simply too little comparative material from the first three decades, and, in the absence of documentary material and of detailed information like that provided by Thucydides for the Peloponnesian War of 431404, one must infer what happened from the very sparse literary account Thucydides gives for the years 479439 and from supplementary details provided by later writers. Although it is right to protest, against facile talk of the harsh imperialism of Cleon, that imperialism is never soft, an important but sometimes overlooked chapter of Thucydides is nonetheless explicit that Athens suffered a loss of goodwill through its excessive rigour. By the middle of the 470s, Greek unity had not come too obviously apart, though the reluctant withdrawal of Sparta was ominous. Even so, at the Olympic Games of 476, an unusually political celebration (the first after the last of the Persian Wars and held in the honoured presence of the Athenian Themistocles), there were still victorious competitors from Sparta, as well as from other Dorian states such as Argos and Aegina and from Italy and Sicily. Classical Greek civilization The Peloponnesian War Ancient Greece. Causes The causes of the main Peloponnesian War need to be traced at least to the early 430s, although if Thucydides was right in his general explanation for the war, namely Spartan fear of Athenian expansion, the development of the entire 5th century and indeed part of the 6th were relevant. In the early 430s Pericles led an expedition to the Black Sea, and about the same time Athens made an alliance with a place close to areas of traditional Corinthian influence, Acarnania. (On another view this belongs in the 450s.) In 437 Athens fulfilled an old ambition by founding a colony at Amphipolis, no doubt on a large scale, though figures for settlers do not exist. This was disconcertingly close to another outpost of Corinthian influence at Potidaea in the Chalcidice, and there is a possibility that Athens subjected Potidaea itself to financial pressure by the mid-430s. That city was an anomaly in being both tributary to Athens and simultaneously subject to direct rule by magistrates sent out annually by Corinth; it clearly was a sensitive spot in international relations. Thus to the west (Acarnania and other places) and northeast (Amphipolis, Potidaea) Corinth was being indirectly pressured by Athens, and this pressure was also felt in Corinth's own backyard, at Megara. Athens passed a series of measures (the Megarian decrees) imposing an economic embargo on Megara for violations of sacred land. The religious aspect of the offense was reflected in the exclusions imposed: like murderers, the Megarians were banned from the Athenian marketplace and the harbours in the Athenian empire. But one should not doubt that Athens caused and intended to cause economic hardship as well or that the decrees were the first move in securing Megara as a military asset, a line of policy further pursued in the years 431 to 424. Reactions to all this, within the empire and outside it, are hard to gauge. Athens' savage reduction of Samos, a member of the Delian League, in 440439, did not stop Mytilene and most of Lesbos from appealing at some time in the prewar period to Sparta for encouragement in a revolt they were meditating. No encouragement was given: Sparta was standing by the Thirty Years' Peace and should be given (a little) credit for doing so. For the period from 443 to 411 a vastly more detailed narrative is possible than theretofore, but the reader should be warned that this freak of scale is due to one man, Thucydides, who imposed his view of events on posterity. It would, however, be artificial to write as if the information for this unique period were no better than that available for any other. The main precipitating causes of the war, thought of as a war between Athens and Sparta, actually concerned relations between Sparta's allies (rather than Sparta itself) and other smaller states with Athenian connections. The two causes that occupy the relevant parts of Thucydides' first, introductory book concern Corcyra and Potidaea. (Thucydides does not let his readers entirely lose sight of two other causes much discussed at the timethe Megarian decrees and the complaints of Aegina about its loss of autonomy. One 4th-century Athenian orator actually dropped a casual remark to the effect that we went to war in 431 about Aegina.) Corcyra, which had quarreled with Corinth over the Corcyran colony of Epidamnus on the coast of Illyria (a colony in which Corinth also had an interest), appealed to Athens. Taking very seriously the western dimension to its foreign policy (it was about then that the alliances with Rhegium and Leontini were renewed), Athens voted at first for a purely defensive alliance and after a debate, fully recorded by Thucydides, sent a small peace-keeping force of 10 ships. This was, however, trebled, as a nervous afterthought; no political background is given for this move, which, moreover, emerges only subsequently and in passing during the narrative of events concerning Corcyra itself. (This is a small illustration of the important point that Thucydides' presentation unduly influenced modern views on the general issue of Athenian belligerence, as on so many other issues. A different narrative, by emphasizing the escalation of the Athenian commitment and making it the subject of another full debate, might have left a different impression.) In fact, Corinthian and Athenian ships had already come to blows before the reinforcements arrived. Then at Potidaea, a Corinthian colony, the Athenians demanded that the Corinthian magistrates be sent home. Potidaea revolted, and an unofficial Corinthian force went out to help. Potidaea was laid under siege by Athens. None of this yet amounted to war with the Peloponnesian League as a whole, but the temperature was as high as it could be, short of that. A congress of Spartan allies was convoked to discuss grievances against Athens, and the decision was taken for war. The other Spartan ally seeking to involve Sparta in a private feud with an enemy was Thebes, whose attack on its neighbour Plataea (an Athenian ally) in time of peace was retrospectively recognized by Sparta as an act of war guilt. Sparta should not have condoned it, nor should it have invaded Attica (despite the fact that Athens had placed a garrison in Plataea) so long as Athens was offering arbitration, as it seems it was. Thucydides vacillates between two events for the beginning of the war, the invasion of Plataea and the Spartan invasion of Attica. Both occurred in 431, separated by a mere 80 days. Classical Greek civilization Greek civilization in the 5th century The effect of the Persian Wars on literature and art was obvious and immediate; the wars prompted such poetry as the Persians of Aeschylus and the dithyramb of Pindar praising the Athenians for laying the shining foundations of liberty and such art as the Athenian dedications at Delphi or the paintings in the Painted Colonnade at Athens itself. Less direct was the effect of the Persian Wars on philosophy. It has already been noted that famous centres of philosophy, such as Elea and Abdera, owed their existence to the Persian takeover of Ionia in 546. The thinkers for which those places were famous, Parmenides of Elea and Democritus from Abdera, were, however, products of the 5th century, and the title of school has been claimed both for the atomists of Abdera and for the Eleatics, who argued for the unreality of all change. A number of Ionian thinkers arrived at Athens after Xerxes' invasion, perhaps because 5th-century Ionia experienced relative material poverty and was thus no longer an agreeable place or perhaps because they had escaped from the Persian army, into which they had been conscripted. This has been suggested for Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, who impressed Socrates by identifying mind as the governing power of the universe. Another 5th-century Ionian who found his way to Athens was Hippodamus of Miletus, an eccentric political theorist, who made his own clothes and was famous for a theory of town planning. However, the laying out of cities on orthogonal, or rectilinear, principles cannot quite be his invention (though he gave his name to such Hippodamian plans): such layouts are already found in Italy in the Archaic period at places like Metapontum. Hippodamus, nevertheless, may have had a hand in the orderly rebuilding of the port of Piraeus after the Persian Wars and even in the new colony at Thurii in 443. (A tradition associating him with the planning of the new city of Rhodes, almost at the end of the century, surely stretches his life span beyond belief.) The more theoretical side of Hippodamus' political thought did not have much detectable effect on the world around him (he thought that communities should be divided into farmers, artisans, and warriors) except perhaps for his suggestion that a city of 10,000 souls, a myriandros polis, was the ideal size. This is the number of colonists allegedly sent out to Heraclea in Trachis by the Spartans; and the concept of the myriandros polis was to be very influential in the 4th century and Hellenistic period. It has been plausibly claimed that there is a general link between the rise of a political system, namely democracy, and the self-critical speculative thinking that characterizes the Greeks in and to some extent before the 5th century. Democracy, it is held, was causally responsible for the growth of philosophy and science, in the sense that an atmosphere of rational political debate conduced to a more general insistence on argument and proof. To this it can be objected that there are already, in the Homeric poems, remarkable debates constructed on recognizable rhetorical principles. Great warriors needed to be persuasive speakers as well. But political accountability was a cardinal principle of the Ephialtic reforms at Athens in the late 460s, and it is certainly attractive to suppose that intellectual accountability was a parallel or consequent development. A further difficulty in assessing the relationship between intellectual activities consists in the lopsided ways in which the relevant evidence has survived. First, little is extant from any centre other than Athens, and this inevitably means that a treatment of 5th-century culture tends to turn into a treatment of Athenian culture. One can note the problem but not solve it. Second, some literary genres have survived more intact than others. Attic tragedy and comedy survive in relative abundance (the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, and the comedies of Aristophanes). The study of philosophy before Plato is, by contrast, a matter of detective work conducted from fragments preserved by later writers, whose own faithfulness in quotation and transmission may be suspect because of their own prejudices. (Christian apologists have perhaps been too readily trusted in this matter by students of the pre-Socratics, or predecessors and contemporaries of Socrates.) One set of texts that does survive in bulk and is neither Athenian in origin nor the work of poets is the Hippocratic corpus of medical writings. Hippocrates was a 5th-century native of the Dorian island of Cos, but the writings that have survived are probably not his personal work. Many of them contain references to northern Greek places such as Thasos and Abdera, a reminder that intellectual activity went on outside Athens. The most striking feature of these writings, apart from the exactness of their descriptive passages, is their rhetorically conditioned polemical character. It was necessary for the practicing doctor not merely to offer the best prognosis and cure but to disparage his rivals and show by aggressive and competitive argumentation that his own approach was superior. In fact, it seems that on one specific major medical issue the professional doctors did not fare as well as an amateur commentator, the historian Thucydides, who in his description of the great plague was aware, as they were not, of the concepts of acquired immunity and contagion.