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Athens at War :
The Peloponnesian War
. Gillian Shepherd
Gillian Shepherd
Thucydides:
Image Source Page: h0p://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thucydides_pushkin01.jpg Cast of a bust of Thucydides, Pushkin Museum
•  Athenian general in 424 BC
•  I.e. at least 30 yrs old then – born between
460-55?
•  Probably related to Kimon
•  Probably died c. 400
•  Author of a history of the Peloponnesian
War in 8 books (incomplete)
•  I.E. the war between Athens and Sparta
and their respective allies between
431-404 BC
•  Complicated writing style
•  Caught plague at some point between
430-27, but recovered (Thuc. 2.48)
•  Exiled in 424 for failure to save
Amphipolis (northern Greece) from the
Spartan Brasidas
I lived through the whole of [the war], being of an age to understand
what was happening, and I put my mind to the subject so as to get an
accurate view of it. It happened, too, that I was banished from my
country for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis; I saw what
was being done on both sides, particularly on the Peloponnesian side,
because of my exile, and this leisure gave me rather exceptional
facilities for looking into things
Thucydides 5.26.5
Thucydides (I. 22) describes his method:
In this history I have made use of set speeches some of which were delivered just
before and others during the war. I have found it difficult to remember the precise
words used in the speeches which I listened to myself and my various informants
have experienced the same difficulty; so my method has been, while keeping as
closely as possible to the general sense of the words that were actually used, to
make the speakers say what, in my opinion, was called for by each situation
And with regard to my factual reporting of the events of the war I have made it a
principle not to write down the first story that came my way, and not even to be
guided by my own general impressions; either I was present myself at the events I
have described, or else I heard of them from eye-witnesses whose reports I have
checked with as much thoroughness as possible. Not that even so the truth was
easy to discover: different eye-witnesses give different accounts of the same
events, speaking out of partiality for one side or the other or else from imperfect
memories
Of all the legitimate [children of Peisistratos] it is only in the case of
Hippias that there is a record of any children being born, as is shown by the
altar [in the Pythium] and by a pillar set up on the Athenian acropolis to
commemorate the crimes of the dictator. On this pillar no child of Thessalos
or Hipparchos is mentioned, but there are five children of Hippias… and on
the same pillar his name comes next after the name of his father, which
again is the natural thing, since he was the next oldest to him and he held the
dictatorship.
Thucydides 6.55
Thucydides the Athenian wrote the history of the war fought between Athens and
Sparta, beginning the account at the very outbreak of the war, in the belief that I
was going to be a great war and more worth writing about than any of those
which had taken place in the past… this was the greatest disturbance in the
history of the Hellenes, affecting also a large part of the non-Hellenic world, and
indeed, I might almost say, the whole of mankind. For though I have found it
impossible, because of its remoteness in time, to acquire a really precise
knowledge of the distant past or even of the history preceding our own period,
yet, after looking back into it as far as I can, all the evidence leads me to conclude
that these periods were not great periods either in warfare or in anything else.
Thucydides 1.1
And it may well be that my history will seem less easy to read because of
the absence in it of a romantic element. It will be enough for me,
however, if these words of mine are judged useful by those who want to
understand clearly the events which happened in the past and which
(human nature being what it is) will, at some time or other and in much
the same ways, be repeated in the future. My work is not a piece of
writing designed to meet the taste of an immediate public, but was done
to last forever (ktema es aei).
Thuc. 1.22
Perikles:
•  C. 495-29, an Alkmaeonid
•  An aristocrat, but became a highly influential
figure in democratic Athens
•  Impressive orator
•  Heavily involved in Athens’ public building
programme of the 440s-30s
•  Caught the plague and died in 429 BC
•  Was responsible for the introduction of a
number of measures including:
•  Pay for citizens doing jury service
(possibly also theoric pay, ie grants to
enable poor citizens to attend the
theatre), c. 454
•  The citizenship law of 451, ie a citizen
had to have an Athenian mother as well
as an Athenian father
Image source page: h0p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pericles_Pio-­‐ClemenCno_Inv269.jpg “Perikles, son of Xanthippos, an Athenian”
Roman copy of a Greek original of c. 430 BC
The Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) •  Fought between Athens and her allies (the Delian
League: cf. Thuc. 1.99)…
•  And Sparta and her allies (the Peloponnesian League)
•  Competing powers: according to Thucydides, Spartan
unrest at increasing power of Athens
•  Phase I: the “Archidamian” or “Ten years war”
•  Ended with the “Peace of Nicias” in 421
•  Treaty did not last long – only about 7 years before
hostilities reopened
•  Phase II: the ‘Ionian’ War, 415-404
•  Athens surrendered to Sparta in 404 BC
Image source page: h0p://www.utexas.edu/courses/introgreece/pel_war_map_1.jpg Our constitution is called a democracy because the power is in the hands not of a minority but of the whole people…No one, so long as he has it in him to be of service to the state, is kept in political obscurity because of poverty…
We regard wealth as something to be properly used, rather than as something to boast about. As for poverty, no one need be ashamed to admit it: the real shame is in not taking practical measures to escape from it. Thuc. 2.34 ff (Perikles’ funeral oration)
Conjectured location of
the demosion sema
Cf. Thuc. 2.34:
The coffins are laid in the public sepulchre (demosion sema)which is situated in the most beautiful suburb of the city; there they always bury those fallen in war, except indeed those who fell at Marathon…
See also Pausanias 1.29
Image Source Page: h0p://www.greece-­‐athens.com/page.php?page_id=60 Excavations of the site identified as the demosion sema (Salaminos St, Athens)
NB: polyandria
Image source page: h0p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pelopennesian_War,_Walls_ProtecCng_the_City,_431_B.C..JPG People in perfect health suddenly began to have burning feelings in the head; their
eyes became red and inflamed; inside their mouths there was bleeding from the
throat and tongue, and the breath became unnatural and unpleasant… the skin was
rather reddish and livid, breaking out into small pustules and ulcers… inside there
was a feeling of burning, so that people could not bear the touch of even the lightest
linen clothing… and indeed most of all would have liked to plunge into cold water.
Many of the sick who were uncared for actually did so, plunging into the water tanks
in an effort to relieve a thirst that was unquenchable… then the disease descended to
the bowels, producing violent ulcerations and uncontrollable diarrhoea, so that most
of them died later as a result of the weakness caused by this…
Thuc. II.49
Image Source Page: h0p://3.bp.blogspot.com/_7QpFAh-­‐lss8/S9M7teAA3vI/AAAAAAAAApY/cLRqw1PhDpY/s1600/Kerameikos.jpg Kerameikos metro station site
Greek settlements
in Sicily and
Southern Italy
Image source: http://www.utexas.edu/courses/greeksahoy!/maps.html
At the time when the first ambassadors from Athens had come to look into the
question of the money, the Segestans had deceived them by the following plan. They
took the Athenians to the Temple of Aphrodite at Eryx and showed them the treasure
laid up there in offerings – bowls, goblets, censers and much else, which, being silver,
looked imposing to the eye even though the value in money was comparatively small.
They also entertained the ships’ crews in their private houses, and did this by
collecting together all the cups of gold and silver in Segesta itself, borrowing others
from the neighbouring cities, Phoenician or Hellenic, and then letting each host
produce them at the banquets as if they were his own property. All used pretty much
the same articles and everywhere there was a great abundance of them, so the
Athenians from the ships were astonished at it and, when they got back to Athens,
told everyone of the vast quantities of valuable objects which they had seen.
Thuc. 6.46
Image Source Page: h0p://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Segesta-­‐Temple01.JPG The Greek Temple at Segesta (Elymian), late 5th cent. BC
The Sicilian Expedition (415-413 BC)
Image Source Page: h0p://www.trentu.ca/faculty/rfitzsimons/AHCL3958H/Calendar.htm •  Athens sends 134 triremes initially
•  i.e. 5,100 hoplites; also archers,
light troops, slingers and cavalry
and 130 supply ships
•  Commanded by generals Nicias,
Alcibiades and Lamachas (later
killed in action)
•  Nicias reluctant and had attempted
to dissuade the Athenians from the
expedition
•  Alcibiades in favour of it, but was
recalled to Athens to answer a
charge of impiety (mutiliation of the
herms)
•  Athens sent reinforcements in 414
•  Gylippus (Spartan commander)
gained Sicilian allies advised the
Syracusans under Hermocrates to
engage Athens at sea
Image Source Page: h0p://library.thinkquest.org/06aug/00336/greek_ships.htm The trireme “Olympias”
Image Source Page: h0p://galeri.uludagsozluk.com/r/trireme-­‐179863/ Image Source Page: h0p://www.utexas.edu/courses/introgreece/lecture_27.html The Great Harbour, Syracuse, Sicily