Greek Archaic Period & the Peloponnesian War

Ancient Greece
 MIGRATIONS AND GREEK TRIBES
• Greek tribes: Doric, Ionic, and Aeolians
• Ethnic linguistic / cultural differences
The basic political unity : POLIS
• Equivalent to what we would today call a city-state.
• Small cohesive units where political, economic, religious and cultural interests were intertwined.
• The influence of nature over political organization (Greece vis-à-vis Egypt/Fertile Crescent).
• Urban centre and a surrounding countryside
• Aristotle: men as social creatures designed teleologically to live in the polis.
• And only in the polis could man attain the truly good life.
• It should embody community of place, i.e., identity of the territory with the people who inhabit it.
• “men are the polis” (Thucydides’ Nikias)
• Eleutheria, Autonomia, Autarkia
• Constitutional condition: the presence of an elective representative & legislative body.
Athenian Democracy
• Last tyrannos: Peisistratos father of Hippias & Hipparchus
• Connotation of the term tyrant in ancient Greece (e.g. Peisistratos)

• Tyranicide of Hipparchus (c.514 B.C.) by Harmodius & Aristogeiton

• Hippias reign of terror & the revolt of 508B.C.
• Clisthenes & moderate democracy.
• The warring character of Athenian democracy (ostracism).
• Battle of Marathon (490B.C.)
• Battle of Salamis (480B.C.)
• Themistocles and radical democracy
• Warfare and types of democracy
Worldviews in a collision course
ATHENS SPARTA
• Democratic. * Elitist
• Open & Outward-looking. * Closed & Xenophobic
• Commerce (trade). * Militaristic
• Seafaring. * “Landlocked”
• Expansive/ Imperious * Preservation of the status-quo
Thucydides & the Peloponnesian War
• One book: History of the Peloponnesian War
• In-between status: historian & political philosopher
• Managed to live through the entire war
• Antagonists were at the cusp of their power
• Delian League (DL) Vs the Peloponnesian League (PL)
• Detailed narration & contemporaneous political speeches
• (mostly) abstains from voicing his own opinion
• Prefigures some of Aristotle’s ideas concerning political wisdom
• It’s almost as if he asks of us to situate ourselves in situ
• Brief introductory chapter on the origins of Greek civilization
History of the Peloponnesian War
• Cause of the war (Thucydides): the rise of Athenian Power; i.e., its imperious behaviour
• The DL had started as a defensive alliance in the aftermath of Persian aggression (ex. Athenian PTS)
• But began to be seen (by its neighbours and non-DL polis) as a tool of Athenian imperialism
• First accusation: Corinth (PL member) against Athens for its aid to Corcyra (Corfu)
• Corcyra (Corinthian colony) had been threatened by Corinth and had sought an alliance with Athens
• Defensive alliance est. between Athens & Corcyra (one of the mightiest naval fleets).
• Victory for Athens which prompted fears of Corinthian retaliation via Poteidaia.
• Potidea a corinthian colony was now a DL member.
• Athenian demands: expulsion of its corinthian magistrates, hostages, and the destruction of walls
• Potidean rebellion at the behest of both Corinth & Sparta / Athenian victory
• Grievances against Athens in the PL (Spartan Assembly).
• Corinth’s diatribe against Athenian arrogance, but also against Spartan inaction.
• Widespread sympathy among the Greek world to the Spartan position (at least initially).
• Framed as a war of liberation from athenian yoke
• With overwhelming majority the PL voted to declare war agains Athens.
• Relevance, however, of spartan’s fears in their decision to go to war.
• Corinthians even threatened abandoning the PL if Sparta
did not enter the fray
• It was thus the fear of loosing allies rather than helping
them that prompted Sparta to war.
 LEGAL POSITIVISM & THE ROLE OF FEAR IN IMPERIAL LOGIC
• Athenian defence (in the PL Assembly) of the accusations against them.
• More than a defence it was an attempt at dissuasion:
• Couched in terms of the reasonableness (& rightfulness) of their right to construct an empire
• Imperial logic argument by the Athenians in the PL Assembly:
1. Forced through fear to create an empire & afterwards to expand it.
“empire is a tyranny that is unjust to claim but dangerous to loose” (Pericles).
2. Thence through honor & specially through profit to consolidate & expand it even further.
• they claimed that empires have always been established by the strong to subjugate the weak.
• no one who has had the opportunity to do so has refrained from it owing to ethical considerations.
• They temperate their claims however by claiming to rule with more justice than others would have
• Imperialist thesis exemplified by the Athenian ambassadors to the inhabitants of Melos (Cfr.)
• An example why Thucydides & most of the Greek world sided with the PL at the onset of the war.
• Realpolitik : divorce of politics from morality: might makes right / (Thrasymacus & Callicles).
• Pericles Funeral Oration as both an eulogy for Athens,
(for its military might, its openness) & a praise for the
dead at war.
• Fate turning against the Athenians
• Massacre of the Melians after their inability to convince
them to surrender.
• Plague over Athens (II, 34-54)
• Moral retrogression/atrophy in Athens.
• The Sicilian expedition as imperial overreach?
• An implicit idea of divine punishment for hubris
Human nature
• Homo homini lupus
• Was justice served with the Athenian downfall?
• Or was justice itself a victim?
• The Spartans were no better and soon replaced the Athenians as oppressors
• In fact they had always been so, their whole economy was based on slave labor & military conquest.
• E.g. the massacre of Plataea
• Betrayal of some of their PL allies after the Peace of Nicias (421B.C.)
• Confirmation of the Athenian claims at Melos about Spartan behaviour
• That all that is to their advantage they consider the same as just.
• other examples:
• the behaviour of Thracian mercenaries on their way back home in Mycalessus
• The civil wars that abated on many Greek polis (e.g. Corfu).
• Justice in war is a feeble concept & selfishness and fear usually rule over the hearts of men
• One of the main themes in Thucydides
• Appalling behaviour had happened before & would happen in the future, owing to human nature

• This Anthropological Pessimism as his main tool to reveal the general truth about human affairs.
• Human nature guarantees that, when given the opportunity, men will behave accordingly.
• In the Melian dialogue, the athenian ambassadors state that,
• their Realpolitik could be seen not so much as the denial of the concept of the common good, but
rather, as an honest affirmation that in some cases, interests cannot be reconciled.
• & that in such instances, it is right for the stronger party to seek its own advantage.
• This help explains their refusal to accept blame for their behaviour.
 THE RUDIMENTS OF SOFT POWER
• Athenians couple their argument of a natural compulsion with the idea of a worthiness to rule
• A right to rule based on an alleged superiority based on intellectual & moral grounds
• Pericles Funeral Oration: Athenians are lovers of beauty & wisdom;
• Brave in battle despite not being raised to do so (unlike the Spartans).
• But above all, because of their public spirit; their commitment to political life,
• and this without detriment to their private affairs;
• A public-spiritedness that fulfills /completes the individual.
• They are noble, i.e., because they have voluntarily put their intelligence, courage and skills to the
service of their polis (and thus its empire as well).
• Fallen soldiers’ death was noble because it trascended cold (private) calculation
• They benefiting others, not out of altruism or empathy, but as a consequence of their noble pursuits
• Their thirst for honour in the pursuit of high ends & worry not about the dangers involved
• To the point of sacrificing themselves for the common good (the polis).
• Time and again they remind their listeners of their moderation in the exercise of power
• Pericles encouraged them to keep & increase their empire,
• Notwithstanding the hatred this would earn them,
for hatred is transient, glory is long-lasting.
• Even their enemies seemed to agree with them on this point,
• Corinthians said of them that “they used their bodies…
in the benefit of their city, and their intelligence which
is very proper… to do something in its name”.
• Demosthenes & the fortification of Pylos.
as an example of Athenian democratic virtue.
• Athenian moderation in the aftermath of the rebellion at Mitilini.
The Sicilian expedition
• The conquest of Sicily was an old dream of the Athenians.
• Pericles however, before his death, had warned about the
dangers involved in such endeavour.
• Expanding the empire while in war with Sparta was ill-advised.
• That it would be enormously costly and fraught with risks.
• The desire to help the the inhabitants of Leontini/Lentini.
• Nobility in defeat according to Pericles
• While Sparta was more moderate in prosperity than Athens,
Athens was unrivalled in the greatness of its ambitions & its
tenacity in the face of adversity.
• The inexorable march of everything towards decay.
• Failure was always a possibility, so why not aim for everlasting greatness?
• The subordination of public to private interests as the cause of military failure in Sicily.
• Nicias blamed the defeat more particularly on Alcibiades’ selfish motives.
• Alcibiades (452-404B.C.)
• Talented statesman & military tactician.
• Extremely wealthy & charismatic (Pericles’ nephew).
• Given to scandals & treasonous behaviour.
• 415B.C. : ousted from his post as head of the expedition.
• Betrayed Athens for Sparta (gave them military advice).
• Charges (impiety) against Alcibiades as dubious to say the least
• The danger of Alcibiades becoming a tyrant in case the expedition against Sicily as a success.

• The role of Nicias in the Athenian defeat in Sicily.

• Virtuous but lacking in character & good judgement
• Military retreat/escape averted owing to Licias’ fears of being called a traitor.
• Second opportunity to escape aborted due to an unbecoming superstition on his part.
• He was very fond of fortune telling and the like.
• In the chaos that ensued they didn’t even asked for their fallen soldiers’ bodies to be
returned.
• They even abandoned their wounded comrades.
• By letting go of Alcibiades they had lost
their best general.
• Nicias was more pious & trustworthy,
but also less capable.
Hubris & imperial Overreach
• The expedition made the city stretch to an imprudent degree its resources.
• Human nature & its proclivity to self-deception.
• Ultimately, Thucydides’ account of the war is a portrait of human nature
• Of it’s dark side, as well as its noble one.
• Paradigm to analyse more contemporaneous cases of imperialism.
• America & Vietnam, Korea, Irak, Afghanistan, etc.
• United Kingdom & the Boer War, the Suez Canal attack, etc.
• France and its colonies in South-East Asia & specially in Africa.
• Soviet Union in Afghanistan.