Download Lecture 15 The Peloponnesian War pt. 1

3/21/2012
Lecture 15
The Peloponnesian War pt. 1
HIST 332
Spring 2011
Olympias, a reconstruction of an ancient Athenian trireme
sea trials in 1987, 1990, 1992 and 1994
The bronze bow ram weighed 200 kg.
The ship was built from Oregon pine and Virginia oak
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Trireme as a weapon
Three banks of oars
• same length
– lower through ports in hull
– upper through gunwale
– middle through “rowing apparatus” parexeresia
• 9 knots sprint; 4 knots cruising
• execute 180° turn in less than a minute and no wider than
2.5 ship-lengths
• Athenian contingent of triremes a Salamis:
• 34,000 oarsmen
– mostly Thetes (become powerful political force in Athens)
– paid a dracma a day
Trireme specs
• Length: 37 meters (121 feet)
• Beam: 5.5 meters (18 feet)
• 170 (sometimes more) oarsmen needed to row
– 2 rows of 31 on the top
– 2 rows of 27 in the middle & bottom
– Oarsmen only had about 3 feet of room
• Oar length: 4.2 meters (13 feet, 8 inches)
– Shorter oars were used at the ends of the ship
• These oars measured around 4 meters (13 feet)
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Trireme Crew
170 oarsmen with 30 “non-sailors” and 1 captain.
Oarsmen sat in 3 tiers
Names were given for the 3 levels:
• Thranites (top level)
– The top crew, which held the most amount of oarsmen, was
• located at the top of the ship
• Zygites (middle level)
• Thalamites (bottom level)
– other two layers were within the ship’s hull.
– Crews were required to undergo training in order to keep fit
Shipwrights
“The construction of a single trireme was a major
undertaking: building one hundred at once was a labor fit
for Heracles. Once the rich citizens who would oversee the
task received their talents of silver, each had to find an
experienced shipwright. No plans, drawings, models, or
manuals guided the builder of a ship. A trireme, whether
fast or fully decked, existed at first only as an ideal image
in the mind of a master shipwright. To build his trireme,
the shipwright required a wide array of raw materials”
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The Trireme
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWlgxhU
H3JQ
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4Dd5v_
NHCs&playnext=1&list=PLFE7DA3B248C5D17
D
The “Long Walls” of Athens
Peloponnesian War (431-21)
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Chronology of Peloponnesian War
431-404
Peloponnesian War
Phase 1: Archidamian War (431-21)
– Plague hits Athens (431/0)
Peace of Nicias (421-416)
Phase 2: Sicilian Expedition (416-413)
Phase 3: Ionian War (413-404)
– Oligarchic coup of 400 (411)
– Athens defeated (404)
403 30 Tyrants
402 Athens “liberated” by Thebes
399 Socrates executed by the state
Thucydides (460-395 BCE)
History of the Peloponnesian War
– down to 411 BCE
Considered the “First Historian”
• objective methods
– archaeology
– inscriptions
• preserves speeches
– could not have been present
– “If I didn’t write down what they said, I
wrote down what they meant”
Marble, Roman copy of
Greek original
Metro Museum, New York
Differences in Strategies and Strengths
Athens
democratic polis
• sea-based power
• quick naval raids
• could hit anywhere in
Spartan territory
• defensive walls and harbor
• considered themselves the
“best” in Greece
Sparta
oligarchic polis
• land-based power
• could only fight late from
late Spring to early Fall
• needed to get home to
farms
• territory was their defense
• considered themselves the
“best” in Greece
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• Sparta wants decisive
hoplite battle to finish
the war quickly
– besiege Athens for the
summer, go home
winter
• Athens under Pericles
refuses to meet them
in land; fight by sea
– 23 battles land troops
for quick skirmishes
– “Long Walls” key to
this strategy
2nd Peloponnesian War:
Phase 1 (431-421)
430s series of crises brought Delian and
Peloponnesian Leagues into conflict
• Sparta wants decisive hoplite battle to finish
the war quickly
– besiege Athens for the summer, go home winter
• Athens under Pericles refuses to meet them in
land; fight by sea
– 23 battles land troops for quick skirmishes
– “Long Walls” key to this strategy
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Athens becomes an Island
• Pericles
– safe within the “Long Walls”
– Funeral Oration (431/0)
“you must reflect that it was by
courage, sense of duty, and a keen
feeling of honor in action that men
were enabled to win all this, and that
no personal failure in an enterprise
could make them consent to deprive
their country of their valor, but they
laid it at her feet as the most glorious
contribution that they could offer.”
Plague ravages Athens 430/29
• Entire Attic population behind Long Walls
• virulent epidemic (bubonic plague?) kills 35%
of Athenian population
• Thucydides describes the scene as horrific
– abandon all morals
– let passions run wild
• Ultimately kills Pericles
• radical Cimon takes control of city
Fall of Pericles
• Plague may have killed over 30,000 Athenians and
affected even Pericles.
• Disobeying Pericles, some Athenians sought a separate
peace with Sparta that was rejected.
• Pericles returned from a botched naval battle at
Epidaurus. He was suspended as strategos and audited.
430 judges convicted him of misappropriating five
talents
– He was fined fifty talents.
429
Later reinstated, Pericles dies leaving a huge void
in Athenian leadership.
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Major Battles Phase 1
428 Mytilenaean Revolt
427 Corcyra Massacre
425 Battle of Sphacteria
• near Mycenaean Pylos
• Athenians built a fort
• Spartan force get trapped on island
– They surrender (never happened before)
424-422 Battle of Amphipolis
• stalemate
421 Peace of Nicias
• Athens wanted time to fortify bases around Aegean
• Sparta wanted prisoners taken at Sphacteria
Revolt at Mytilene
Island of Lesbos major Athenian ally
– large naval partner
largest polis was Mytilene
– led revolt to unify island against
Athens
– disliked taxes and restrictions of navy
428
Mytilene pressed their concerns at Olympic Games
– Sparta promises aid but never comes
– Athens makes Lesbos put down revolt
427 leaders of revolt executed under Cleon’s orders
• then vote to execute ALL men
– Diodotus calls to rethink; order stayed
Corcyraean Revolt (427 BCE)
Athens’ ally Corcyra falls victim to internal strife
– demos: allies of Athens
– oligarchs: eager to enlist support of Sparta
• Revolt begins when Corinth, an ally of Sparta,
released Corcyraean prisoners
– promise that the former prisoners would work to
convince Corcyra to abandon its alliance Athens and
join the Peloponnesian side.
• These men brought Peithias, a pro-Athenian civic
leader, to trial on charges of “enslaving Corcyra to
Athens”
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Corcyraean Revolt (427 BCE)
• Peithias acquitted
– takes revenge by charging his accusers in turn
– pro-Spartans burst into court, killed Peithias and 60 other
people
Naval engagement between Spartans and Corcyra
• Spartan fleet leaves for fear of larger Athenian fleet
• demos take opportunity to slay as many pro-Spartans as
they could get their hands upon
– slay some who had appealed to Hera as suppliants
– others committed suicide or killed each other
• chaos in Corcyra
Thucydides 3.81.4
“the Corcyraeans were engaged in butchering those
of their fellow-citizens whom they regarded as their
enemies: and although the crime imputed was that
of attempting to put down the democracy, some
were slain also for private hatred, others by their
debtors because of the monies owed to them.”
Battle of Sphacteria
(425 BCE)
• 420 Spartans trapped on
Sphacteria
• blockade seems to fail
– help by Helots
• Athenians circumvallate
Spartans
• Messenians travel
“impassable” terrain to
surprise Spartans
• 120 Spartiates surrender
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Battle of Amphipolis
424 BCE Sparta besiege Amphipolis
– sends to Athens for help
• Thucydides
• Spartan general Brasidas
– offers amnesty to any who wish to
leave
– those who will accept Spartan rule
can keep property
– city capitulates (day Thucy arrives)
423 BCE truce
422 BCE Cleon comes to
attack Amphipolis
– defeated by Brasidas
Peace of Nicias (421-16 BCE)
• Athens wanted time
to fortify bases
around Aegean
• Sparta wanted
prisoners taken at
Sphacteria
Unknown Athenian general
Vatican Museum
An Uneasy Peace
• Sparta’s unilateral peace with Athens leads to
dissolution of the Peloponnesian League…for
a time
• Argos, an old rival of Sparta, joins with
disaffected poleis Mantinea and Elis to forge a
separate alliance
• Then, at both Athens and Sparta there was a
triumph of war “hawks.” In Athens, the
wisdom and restraint of Pericles was sorely
missed.
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