Lecture 15 -- From Persian Wars to Athenian Empire (499-446 BC)

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External Political developments during the first half of the 5th century BC culminated in the emergence of Athens as an imperial power, arguably the greatest military power of the eastern Mediterranean region at that time. However unintentional in development, the Athenian Empire seems to have been a natural outcome to a series of events that at each phase was determined by the inherent Greek tendency toward particularism. That is, the unwillingness of Greek communities to see beyond their local horizons. To understand this, one needs to understand how developments of the Persian Wars led irreversibly to Athenian naval expansion.

Part I, Persian Wars 499-478 BC
(Darius I, emperor of Persia)
Ionian Revolt 499-494
Battle of Marathon 490
(Xerxes I became emperor 485)
Battle of Thermopylae 480
Battle of Salamis 480
Battle of Plataea 479

Conflict was incited by Persian reliance on tyranny to control Greek city-states in Ionia (eastern Greece, a former province of Lydian empire, seized by Cyrus in 549). Tyranny was a transitional phase in Greek political development, not a permanent institution. However, the Persian king and satraps found it convenient to keep tyrants in place to facilitate tribute payments. Also there were inequalities regarding tribute payments themselves. Some towns paid less than they were able, others paid more. The Persians relied on ancient Lydian tribute rolls; times had changed, there was need for a reassessment. Frustration led to Ionian rebellion in 499 BC.

Rebellious Ionian leaders found support in Athens, which had seen its tyrant accepted at the satrap's palace at Sardis as well as economic decline after Darius I conquered Thrace and Macedonia in 514. Athenians sent a small naval contingent and participated in destructive assault on Sardis, burning down the Temple of Athena. After Darius' generals suppressed the Ionian revolt in 494, he explored the possibility of a military campaign against Athens, to restore the tyrant Hippias as his client there. A marine expeditionary force landed at Marathon in 490 BC, but was resoundingly defeated by the Athenian hoplite phalanx. Since the campaign was exploratory, the Persians did not view this as a major setback. Darius died before he could retaliate, however, and his son, Xerxes I, had to spend several years suppressing rebellions in Egypt and elsewhere in the empire before returning to this matter. He ultimately decided on a full-scale invasion and conquest of the mainland Greece. He dispatched embassies everywhere except Athens and Sparta, demanding that Greek states "medize" or yield to Persian authority. In 483 Xerxes announced the mustering of a great army drawn from all his satrapies, to assemble in Sardis in 481. Modern estimates suggest that 200,000 combatants and 1200 triremes assembled in 481 for the invasion.

During the interim some elements in Athens recognized the threat posed by the prospect of Persian retaliation and moved to prepare for resistance. In 483 BC the democratic leader Themistocles proposed that the proceeds of recently discovered veins of silver at the state mines at Laurium be used to construct and to equip a fleet of 200 triremes, state of the art warships, to protect Athenian shipping. Obstruction by conservatives, led by Aristides, led to the ostracism of 483 in which Aristides was expelled from Athens and the construction of the fleet proceeded. The ulterior motive for fleet construction seems clear -- each ship required a crew of approximately 200 sailors (170 rowers, 30 marines), none of whom could be expended by the phalanx. Themistocles knowingly drew upon the landless poor citizens, or thetes, and resident aliens (metics) of the city center to staff this fleet, some 40,000 sailors in all. Sailors were paid a day's wage by the state for every day they served, generally 3-4 months during the summer rowing season. This significantly underwrote the livelihoods of the urban population and provided Themistocles and future democratic leaders with newfound leverage in the assembly.

In the meantime news that the Persian forces were assembling in Lydia prompted Greek leaders to put down their incessant squabbling and address the emerging threat to their survival. Institutions as venerable as the Oracle of Apollo at Delphi were urging Greek states to avoid annihilation by medizing. In the face of this emergency, Greek states formed a defensive alliance known today as the Hellenic League. At its core was Sparta as hegemon and its Peloponnesian League forces. Negotiating on behalf of Athens, Themistocles had the weight of the newly constructed Athenian fleet behind him, Athens representing approximately 50% of the entire Greek fleet (400 triremes). He was able to convince the allies to attempt to hold a line at the Vale of Tempe in Thessaly. When this failed in 480, the Spartan king Leonidas attempted to stop Xerxes' forces with a small force of 300 Spartans, and 6000 allies at Thermopylae, in order to give Greek states time to regroup further south. After resisting Xerxes' forces for several days, Leonidas and his entire force were wiped out.

At this point Themistocles prepared for the worst by evacuating the Athenian population from Athens, putting some 6000 troops on the island of Salamis and drawing the Greek fleet into its interior bay. The rest of the Greek forces withdrew behind defenses at Corinth. Xerxes seized Athens and burned the Peisistratid monuments on the Acropolis in retribution for the Athenian destruction of the temple at Sardis. However, his fleet was outmaneuvered and destroyed by the Greek fleet at Salamis, led by Themistocles and Aristides, who was recalled from exile for the occasion. Having lost his naval security, Xerxes was forced to withdraw from Greece altogether. It was a stunning defeat, but not necessarily one capable of threatening Persian dominance in the Aegean. Xerxes left behind a flying column of infantry under his satrap Mardonius with the hope that he could yet achieve some result in Greece. In 479 BC the Hellenic League assembled some 80,000 infantry on the plain of Plataea in Boeotia and defeated the remaining Persian forces. The following year league naval forces inflicted yet another serious defeat on the Persian fleet of the Aegean at Mykale.

With that, the initial phase of Greek defense against Persia ended successfully. This triggered a second phase of conflict. Without the prospect of naval support, dozens of Persian garrisons holding Greek city-states throughout the Aegean were now exposed. Greek states throughout the Aegean appealed to the leaders of the Hellenic League to liberate them from Persian rule. Originally, Sparta attempted to lead naval expeditionary forces with this ambition, but reports of improprieties by the Spartan King Pausanias at the siege of Byzantium quickly exposed Spartan weakness of command. Members of the Spartan Gerousia questioned the wisdom of committing Spartan forces so far removed from the Peloponnessus and for such unlimited duration. Sparta was not a naval power and could not afford to keep its military forces overseas for extended periods of time. Its leadership preferred to withdraw its forces to the Peloponnessus and to leave the liberation efforts to the Athenians. At the time pro-Spartan politicians, Aristides and Cimon, had gained ascendancy in Athens, having driven Themistocles into exile. Sparta was content to relinquish the job of liberating the Greek Aegean world to the Athenians under the leadership of this friendly administration. The Athenians accordingly convened a congress of Greece at the Sanctuary of Apollo at Delos and formed a new hegemonic alliance known as the Delian League in 478 BC.

II. From Delian League to Athenian Empire

The Delian League was founded 478 BC; Athens acted as hegemon, that is, the military commander, while each allied state got to vote on league policies. Allies swore to abide by the league forever, promising to liberate the Greek world from Persian oppression and to avenge the destruction of Greek sanctuaries by Xerxes. Aristides equitably distributed the league contributions to all member states, earning the name Aristides the Just. Total contributions or phoros = 450 talents of silver, or at 1 talent = the cost to maintain a trireme for one campaign season, some 400+ triremes were apparently mustered to assault Persian garrisons throughout the Aegean. Led by the Athenian general Cimon, league forces slowly rooted out Persian garrisons in the northern and eastern Aegean, liberating Ionia. By 470 BC Delian League forces were extending their reach to south coastal Asia Minor. A major defeat of Persian naval forces at the Battle of the Eurymedon River in 469 exposed the entire eastern Mediterranean seaboard to league assaults. By 460 BC league forces incited a rebellion in Egypt that pinned down Persia for nearly a decade. Persia was suddenly faced with losing control over its Mediterranean territories.

However, for a number of reasons Delian League allies chaffed under the authority of Athens. Liberation of Greek states in the Aegean was one thing, but year-round operations in remote regions such as Egypt and the Black Sea raised questions regarding Athenian intentions. Athens behaved imperiously toward the allies, annually demanding their promised contingents long after defeat of the Persians in the Aegean had eliminated the nature of the threat. In addition, Athens arbitrarily determined settlement of relations with all states liberated by league forces. All liberated states were compelled to join the alliance, and in some instances such as Amphipolis near the former silver mines of the Peisistratids in Macedonia, the Athenians imposed an Athenian colony on conquered land that threatened the regional supremacy of the nearby island state of Thasos. In 465 Thasos attempted to secede from the league and was suppressed by Cimon with league forces. Cimon cited the legitimacy of the oaths sworn at Delos in 478. Thasos was suppressed, but Cimon listened to the complaints of other allies and agreed to commute their annual military contributions to cash payments. Tired of committing their manpower to sustained overseas campaigns, most Greek states were pleased with Cimon's decision and willingly agreed to make annual cash payments. Since the payments meant a reduction in military contributions, and hence the size of the fleet, Athens offset this shortfall by constructing more warships. However, these new warships were Athenian by right. The gradual but inevitable result of this development was the demilitarization of the allies. The Athenian navy grew in strength and numbers, while the military capacity of the allied states declined. By 454 BC only 17 states were still furnishing naval contingents to league operations; by 431 only the three great maritime states, Lesbos, Chios, and Samos, were still providing ships.

The simultaneous emergence of Athenian naval and commercial might promoted a dynamic shift in the fortunes of the Aegean. Athens became a significant cultural, military, and economic center, and began to draw the most talented people of the region to its city center. Population rose to perhaps 400,000 by mid century. Thousands of rowers, artisans, and traders migrated to Athens to take up residence as metics because of the superior opportunities there. A veritable "brain drain" of Greek migrants to Athens further eroded the bargaining position of Greek states in the Aegean vis-à-vis Athens. Once difficulties beset the league forces in Egypt, Athens began to impose its will more forcefully.

Severe defeat in Egypt (200 warships and 20,000 forces lost in 454 BC) induced a retrenchment in Athens. The league treasury was removed from Delos to Athens where it could be administered by the priests of Athena on the Acropolis. The priests began the practice of maintaining lists of annual phoros payments by the allies, known today as the Athenian Tribute Lists. Although very fragmentary, these two inscribed stelai reveal evidence of numerous rebellions by league allies, followed by suppression and imposition of punitive tribute payments by the Athenians. Caught between the growing hostility of Sparta and Persia alike, Athens, now led by the democratic leader Pericles, sought to end the long-standing conflict with Persia. With the Peace of Callias in 449 Pericles was able to settle the conflict with Persia while maintaining Athenian control of the Aegean. Realizing that the allied states would immediately call into question the continuance of league operations, he convened a Greek Congress during the same year to determine future direction. All Greek states, including Sparta, were invited to attend, but none outside Delian league allies chose to do so. Sparta would not lower itself to be summoned to a congress by Athens. This is precisely what Pericles expected. At the congress he announced that the league and its cash contributions must continue and that the 5000 talents that had accumulated in the League treasury would now be used to reconstruct the monuments destroyed by Persia, beginning with the temples on the Athenian acropolis.

With this pronouncement the expressed reality of an Athenian Empire replaced the illusion of a voluntary league to liberate the Greek world from Persia. Phoros, the word for voluntary military contributions, now became the word for tribute. Athens suppressed numerous rebellions in the following decade. To keep the peace it imposed military colonies on land seized from rebellious allies (cleruchies), dispatched roving inspectors, and in some instances imposed garrisons in their acropolis’. Laws imposed by the Athenian assembly became binding on the league as a whole; for example, the Athenian assembly passed laws requiring League use of Athenian currency and Athenian weights and standards in all league business. The assembly required that all grain traded throughout the league be first brought to the port of Athens, the Piraeus, and off-loaded before being reshipped to points beyond. This ensured the burgeoning population of Athens of sufficient food supplies, but it also enabled Athens to control the flow of grain to allied states and to shut off grain shipments to states in rebellion. Finally, Pericles pursued a deliberate foreign policy of seeking to obtain control of grain supplies from three pivotal sources - Egypt, the Crimea in the Black Sea, and Sicily. Attempts to forge alliances with states in Sicily threatened the survival of maritime states aligned with Sparta, especially Corinth. By extending Athenian naval influence to Sicily, Pericles apparently believed that he could compel Peloponnesian League allies to abandon Sparta and join his alliance, since Sparta was agriculturally self-sufficient and unwilling to address the growing threat of Athenian naval supremacy. His hope, apparently, was to isolate and to marginalize Sparta in Greek affairs. The entire Greek world now looked to Sparta as their only hope against the supremacy of Athens.

Athenian disturbances at Megara, Potidaea, and Corcyra (the last two being colonies of Corinth) ultimately provoked the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) -- Sparta and its allies sought to liberate the Greek world from the tyranny of Athens. However, the point to be emphasized is that the emergency imposed by the threat of Persian invasion had culminated in the rise of the Athenian empire. Unwillingness of Greek states to involve themselves in sustained international affairs had enabled Athens to surpass them militarily. Sparta withdrew from involvement after the siege of Byzantium and the Delian League allies voluntarily agreed to convert their military contributions to cash payments, ultimately demilitarizing themselves in the process. By retiring to their traditional habit of particularism and relinquishing control of their foreign affairs to Athens Greek states initially yielded their autonomy in foreign affairs, followed by their freedom.