Greece and the Great Man

Greece is very important to us because it influenced our government system, the study of politics, our sports, and our art, architecture and drama. We owe democracy to Greece; it was developed in Athens in 507 BCE by Cleisthenes. The study of politics was started by Aristotle when he wrote his book about the city-state or polis. This book was recovered in Oxyrynchis, an Egyptian pet cemetery, because the pages had been used as the papyrus to mummify the animals. This book also outlines Athens’ constitution. We owe the Olympics to the Greeks. Beautiful art was recovered in Philip’s tomb in Vergina. The Greeks also defined aesthetics as symmetry and proportion. The Golden Mean is the perfect distance. It represents moderatioin. It is a ration between distances, that things should always be in the same ratio, because that ratio is beautiful. This same number applies to harmonics, and the human body itself! They also developed the tragic drama.

The two most memorable city-states of Greek civilization were Sparta and Athens.

City-States

City-states were isolated pockets of civilization with accompanying pockets of farmland. This design for the civilization was due to the irregular coastlines and mountains that created only small, isolated regions suitable for settlement. That makes this place an even less likely cradle of empire! The city-states had populations of less than 15,000, and were called polis in Greek. The farmland could be defended. Characteristics of a polis were the agora (marketplace) and acropolis (fortified hilltop to protect residents during a battle). The population was very loyal to its city-state, and very egocentric, so each city-state remained independent and there was very little cooperation. The city-states were only ever unified during religious or athletic festivals at Delos, Delphi or Olympia. At all other times, they squabbled, so food couldn’t be evenly distributed. There were inadequate supplies of food. To solve this problem, the Greeks began to search for new fertile farmland.

Settlement: They took to their ships and settled all around the Mediterrannean. They began colonization on an unpredecented scale in 750 BCE, from the Black Sea to coastal Spain:

  1. Ionia (now Turkey)

  2. Southern Italy and Sicily, including Naples. These region was called Magna Graecia by the Romans.

  3. The Black Sea. The story of colonizing this region is told in the myth of Jason and the Argonauts.

  4. Southern France, including Marseilles, which is one of today’s largest Mediterranean port cities.

  5. North Africa, Cyrene (!!), now Libya.

  6. Egypt (Naucratis) near the mouth of the Nile. There they picked up the story of Atlantis.

  7. modern-day Syria: Tell Abu-Hawam.

  8. Acco, across from Haifa.

Their pattern of colonization was rather like “frogs sitting around a pond”. They reached all around the Mediterranean, but never really ventured inland.

We can see their influence because we see their pottery everywhere.

This marked the first age of progress since the Myceneans had been wiped out.

The Evolution of Government

Coinage was developed in the kingdom of Lydia. The Greeks picked it up, which led to financial imbalance. Kings were replaced by rich aristocrats and landowners who could afford to outfit an army. The farmers were dissatisfied with this arrangement, because it left them in debt, forcing them to sell their land and to become hoplites (infantrymen). They demanded to be able to have a voice in decision-making. With all this unrest, the aristocrats were overthrown by a series of tyrants who obtained power illegally.

The Age of Tyrants: 650–500 BCE: Despite their name, the tyrants weren’t always bad. They codified laws, developed industry and commerce, and in order to appease the farmers they would sometimes even divide up large estates to redistribute the wealth to the farmers.

  1. 620 BCE: Draco. He developed the first law code in Athens, which was rather harsh (from which we get the term “draconian”). This law code was written in an alphabet, so there could be no mistake.

  2. 600 BCE: Solon. He redivided the classes according to wealth (the number of bushels of whatever they produced). For example, the pentakontadimnoi were those could could produce 500 bushels, meaning they had a lot of land. He abolished debt slavery. He also established the olive industry.

    Ah, the olive industry. Ferdinand Braudel defines “Mediterranean” as wherever olive trees grow. Oil became the basis of Athens’ economy. It could be used fo cooking, light, and bathing. It led to the pottery industry, to contain the oil. They may not have valued their pottery then, but today we are incredibly thankful for its beautiful art! The oil was exported, which created a demand for ships and brought in money. It is said that the olive tree was a personal gift from Athena!

  3. 540 BCE: Pisistratus. He was known as the “popular tyrant”. He beautified Athens.

  4. 507 BCE: Cleisthenes. He set up ten new classes with representations from Solon’s original four, which was set up like tribes to try to encourage cooperation. Not to mention he was the inventor of democracy! He was the last “tyrant”, because after him Athens was a democracy!

Over time, the city-states developed new types of governments.

Sparta’s oligarchy: The Spartans enslaved other Greeks and kept them under control with an incredibly wel-trained army. They had selfless devotion for the common good at any cost. One could call an oligarchy the “rule of the few”:

  1. 2 kings who serve as priests and judges: elected by the Assembly

  2. 5 ephors (overseers) who presided over the Senate and Assembly. They put forth legislation about education and public and private moral conduct, and they decided whose yell was loudest (“yes” or “no”). They had the most political power, ad their own secret police force. They were elected annually by the Assembly.

  3. the Senate prepared legislation for the Assembly and advised the kings. They were elected by the Assembly for life.

  4. the Assembly was made up of all the free men over thirty. They elected kings, ephors and the Senate. They voted on legislation but could not initiate it.

Athens’ democracy: Athens encouraged contact (trade, commerce) with other city-states. They were sometimes criticized for being too chaotic in comparison to the rigidly orderly Sparta. One could call a democracy the “rule of the many”:

  1. the Council of Five Hundred was chosen annually by lottery from all citizens over thrity. This Council was divided into ten groups of fifty. They dealt with day-to-day business. They prepared legislation and topics for Assembly discussion. A new president of the Council was chosen by lottery every day.

  2. The Board of Ten Generals was elected by the Assembly for one year, because they needed knowledge of military and naval strategy.

  3. The Jury of Six Thousand was chosen by lottery from free citizens over thirty.

  4. There was a Judicial Board of Nine Archons.

  5. The Assembly was made up of all the male citizens over eighteen. They had open meetings with public discussion of all issues. They passed all the laws, determined foreign policy and directed military operations. The decision of the majority was final. There was a small fee to attend, so the impoverished could not get involved.

Each city-state had its own methods and believed that its methods were best, although sometimes they would unite for battle.

The Persian Wars

Persia was established by Cyrus in 538 BCE. He conquers Babylon and sets the Jews free. He conquers Lydia. He was succeeded by his son, Camyses, who conquered Egypt by catapulting cats into Memphis.

The Persian empire began to expand in 599 BCE. It reached its pinnacle in 522 BCE under Darius I, who ruled from 525–485 BCE. The empire stretched for 4000 kilometres, from the Indus River to the eastern Aegean. It had a population of ten million. They had a common language, standard currency, and one ruler. Their unity certainly put them a huge step ahead of the squabbling city-states. They were flexible in recognizing local law and tradition, but maintained pride in their homeland. They regarded Greece as barbarian outposts on the fringe of the great Persian civilization. They had an expansionist attitude, and they needed naval bases and trading centres, so they conquered Ionia.

In 499 BCE, Ionia revolted with the help of Athens and Eretria. The Persians were mortified that these barbarians could successfully revolt against their great empire, so they decided to get back at them by attacking the Greek mainland. On his first try to get to Greece, his entire fleet was destroyed in storms. He tried again in 490 BCE and took a different route, which took them to Marathon, north of Athens. Darius struck first, taking the Eretrian force of 40,000. There were only 10,000 Athenians and 1000 other Greeks to combat a force of 20,000 Persians. Here is where the story of the marathon run comes from. This one dude runs from Marathon to Sparta to ask for help. The Spartans are like, “Umm, no, we have a, uhh, religious festival. Yeah. Basically, fuck off.” So he has to run all the way back to Marathon to tell them that the Spartans aren’t coming. Then, the battle is won, and he runs all the way back to Athens to say, “Nike! <Victory!>”, and then he drops dead.

But the Greeks were motivated; they were fighting for their freedom! They attacked at dawn, taking the Persians by surprise so they couldn’t organize their cavalry. The Greeks actually won by a landslide, with 6400 dead Persians and only 192 Greek losses.

The sequel: In 500 BCE, Darius’ son, Xerxes, led an expedition of 150,000 soldiers and 500 warships out of revenge. This time the Spartans helped. They steadily defended a mountain pass at Thermopylae. A traitor showed the Persians where to attack from the rear, so 300 Spartans and 700 Thespians stayed behind in Thermopylae in a suicide battle, just to give the others time to come up with a plan.

The plan — designed by Themistocles — was to abandon Athens to the Persians and have a naval showdown with 200 triremes that they would buy with the silver they’d just discovered. The Athenian navy beat the Persian navy in a bay off the island of Salamis. For some reason, the Athenians then decided to ostracize Themistocles, even though they owed him everything. I guess it was because the guy got too powerful. Then the Spartans defeated the Persians at Plataea.

These victories gave the Greeks a sense of unity. After the war, Athens organized the Delian League, but Athens was pretty much in charge of it so it was more of an Athenian empire than a league. The arrangement was that Athens would defend the other city-states as long as the other city-states would send them money and soldiers. The Spartans never joined the Delian League, and conflict was revived. There were several military clashes, but in 445 BCE an uneasy Thirty Years’ Peace was declared.

The Golden Age of Athens: Athens was having such a great time that their thoughts turned to more pleasant things. Pericles, a great politician and public speaker, felt the need to build a massive monument to democracy and Athens’ triumphs. He chose the site of the Acropolis where two temples to Athena had been destroyed under Persian occupation. The monument that was built was the Parthenon. It contained an eleven metre gold and ivory statue of Athena. The statue was sculpted by Pericles’ friend, Phidias, who also happend to be an artistic genius. The Parthenon was built from 447–438 BCE, plus six years just for sculpting.

Athens also started a summer festival called the Panathenaea. Every four years there would be athletics, music, oracles, a procession along Sacred Way, and they gave a new robe to Athena.

The Peloponnesian War

Corinth turned to Sparta, Thebes and others to try to overthrow the Athenian empire. All of Greece was split between the pro-Athens and the anti-Athens. The resulting war lasted 27 years. It was a drawn-out struggle because Sparta had an incredible military, but Athens had an equally incredible navy.

Athens’ war plan was to stick with their strengths: coastal raids, and naval blockades of food supplies. The civilians headed for the cities to hide from Spartan retaliation. So many people living in such close quarters led to an inevitable outbreak of plague, which killed a quarter of the population — including Pericles. Morale plummeted, and Athens lost any advantage.

Sparta borrowed money from Persia to build their own kick-ass navy. They launched a surprise attack in 405 BCE and won. Athens surrendered in 406 BCE.

After the Peloponnesian War, there were thirty years of skirmishes between Sparta and its rivals. The Second Athenian League crippled the Spartan navy at Naxos. Thebes defeated them at Leuctra. Then the Messenians revolted again and won. Sparta simply didn’t have enough soldiers. They were forced to take advantage of non-citizens to increase wealth, so morale plummeted. By the time Thebes had defeated them, they had only a thousand men in their army. No one could maintain the Spartan army because there was too much suspicion.

Sparta versus Athens

The history of Sparta: In the Golden Age, they had music and dancing like all other normal civilizations, but then in 620 BCE the Messenian slaves revolted. The Spartans decided that strict control was the only way.

That army! They only ever had 8000 soldiers, but they had a reputation to be unbeatable. They had fanatical dedication. In their constitution it stated that the state is everything, and the individual is nothing. Goodness means strength and bravery. Babies who fail a physical examination are left to die. Military training starts at age seven, and when I say “military training” I do mean bullying and brutalization. Crying is a sin. An example of a ceremony is being whipped bloody at an alter to Artemis, and you must die before you cry! Theft is okay, as long as you aren’t caught.

Here’s a legend: A boy steals a live fox and hides it under his tunic. He is nearly caught, and the fox starts eating his internal organs, but the boy gets away with it because he showed no pain despite the fact that the fox was feasting on his goddamn liver.

They had to stay in the barracks between the ages of twenty and thirty. After this term, they became citizens and could vote in the Assembly.

Women were commanded to produce more soldiers for the army, so they had to keep in shape so they could produce more babies. If they couldn’t get married on their own, they would get systematically set up. Women had equal rights in everything but voting, because the husbands were always in the army. The state took much of the child-rearing responsibilities.

Other Greeks saw the Spartan women as too masculine and empowered.

The social hierarchy in Sparta had the Laconian and Messenian slaves at the bottom, then the helots (serfs) who farmed but had to turn over most of their yield. They were kept in check by the secret police. The ephors would declare war on them every year. The helots revolted a lot. Next were the Periocci (shopkeepers/tradesmen). They dealt in iron bars — their currency. They wanted to discourage amassing wealth.

The Spartan economy was self-sufficient. They didn’t need or want much trade with other countries. They didn’t like different ideas. They would sometimes deport foreign people. Due to their education, they were all mindless zombies. There was no creative thought or adaptability.

Once they became an empire, they fell apart. They became so corrupt that they were nearly betraying each other all day. Their downfall came from changing inheritance laws, which led to small lots being absorbed into large estates. Many Spartans lost their land and citizenship and emigrated, so the army shrunk. By 400 BCE, Sparta was no longer a major power.

Pericles describes Athens: Power in the hands of everyone! Class doesn’t matter! Everyone is equal before the law! We have a free and tolerant private life, but still respect the law! We choose whom we must obey! We have loads of leisure time and fun! Things are beautiful! We have loads of foreign goods! We’re open to new ideas! We go to the army voluntarily!

And we’re really not softies. We don’t throw away our money, really. Poverty is not shameful; only laziness is shameful. Everyone in Athens is interested in politics! We think before we act! All of Greece should learn from us. We are all our own owners. We are powerful! We have all these monuments! We’ll be remembered!

W. R. Agard is critical of Athenian democracy: Political rights are only given to about 10% of the population: males over eighteen born to Athenian parents who were both citizens. Everyone else were foreigners in on business (knowns as metics), war captives, women and children. They only wanted those who were experience and who had a permanent stake in Athens to vote.

The way they had it worked out, everyone would have participated in public service at one point in his life. It was expensive, though, because they had to take time off work, so they started paying them to attend.

However, the system was inconsistent. One person might persuade everyone to adopt a policy, but since there was a new chair every day, he might not be there when they actually have to execute it. Sometimes execution was left in the hands of someone who had been opposed to the idea to begin with.

They also had this screwed-up idea of ostracizing people who become too influential. This was often abused because people would just randomly vote to ostracize someone without really knowing what they were talking about.

Otherwise, things were pretty good. Slaves were treated relatively well. 1Ú5 of them worked in the mines, which was horrible, but the rest were protected from bodily harm, loved, were paid if they worked as artisans, could buy freedom, worked alongside citizens, sometimes in high-skill jobs. They were happy, as evidenced by the lack of slave revolts.

Women were entirely excluded from politics. They managed the household and educated the children. Everything else was controlled by men. Men arranged marriages, and got everything in the case of a divorce, including the children. They were looking for temperate, modest, and obedient women.

Its golden age: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripedes and other great dramatists lived in Athens. Playwrights got olive wreaths just like athletes, so Athenians’ tastes were well-rounded. The plays dealt with taboos like incest, women’s issues, hubris1 and pride, hamartia…

The origin of drama was religious festival to Dionysus.

So who’s better? Sparta had no monuments! Athens also had more hierarchy and more specialists.

Both abandoned dissatisfactory children. Spartans dumped them on the side of a mountain. Athenians left them in their disgusting slums in jars or on streetcorners to be picked up by slave traders, eaten by dogs, or just to die.

In both, citizenship was not automatic.

The Macedonians

At first the Macedonians were an agricultural society with an aristocracy of horse breeders. The Greeks considered them barbarians. Then Philip II rose to power in 359 BCE. He was a shrewd soldier and a calculating diplomat. He took over all of Greece via “divide and conquer”. He secured his northern and eastern borders from attacks from hill tribes, then slowly moved in as the city-states squabbled. He took Thessaly during the Third Sacred War, with all its grain and horses.

Demosthenes in Athens recognized the threat of the Macedonians, but no one listened to him. They got a tenuous peace in 346 BCE, but then Philip defied the treaty and started taking over small, isolated communities. He tried to cut off Athens’ wheat supply but he couldn’t. He also couldn’t hold Thermopylae. When the Phocians gave over their capital for reduced tribute, which gave Philip a route directly to Athens, the Athenians were frightened into allying themselves with Thebes.

At the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE, Philip wiped out the combined forces of Athens and Thebes. He officially united Greece.

Now it was time to attack Persia! He made a league of all the defeated city-states (except Sparta; they were allies), but then he got assassinated. Alexander had to take over the job!

Compared to Philip, Alexander was impulsive rather than cautious and shrewd like his father. He liked to think of himself as Achilles from the Iliad. He was born to be a military leader. He could fight fast and hard, but he also had the patience for sieges. He could use lots of odd tactics like chariots armed with scythes, elephants, nomad horsemen… He led the left wing of the cavalry in the Battle of Chaeronea, when he was only eighteen! He was educated by Aristotle, who taught him to appreciate art, poetry and science too, but while Aristotle believed in the city-state, Alexander believed in empire!

In his first two years as king, Alexander expanded his territory to the north and west. He attacked Persia and had it by 334 BCE! He knew he could never win in a naval battle, so he just attacked all the ports from land.

Darius fled once at the Battle of Issus in 333 BCE, then at the Battle of Gaugamela in 331 BCE. At the Battle of Issus, by freak chance, the Persians ended up behind the Macedonians. When Alexander found out, he didn’t freak out; he just calmly turned around, attacked, and won. He used the phalanx method: a group of guys with long pikes that make a huge moving porcupine thingie. Philip had picked that up while imprisoned at Thebes. It didn’t matter that Alexander was outnumbered six to one at Issus; the battleground was very skinny. They were caught between water and mountains. After Darius fled, Alexander was very nice to his wives and to his own wounded soldiers.

Then Alexander took Babylon, Susa and Persepolis (all three of Persia’s capitals) and hunted Darius, but Darius was killed by his own frustrated men. At that moment, Alexander was officially king of Persia. He tried to bring Persia and Macedon together. He married Persian princesses and encouraged his soldiers to do the same. He drafted Persian cavalry into his army, trained Persian boys in Macedonian styles of fighting, and adopted Persian dress. He tried to get his soldiers to treat him like a god-king the way the Persians treated their kings, but the soldiers were like, “No way man.” Overall the soldiers were like, “Empire? Wha? What for?” They didn’t want to try to be equal to the barbaric Persians.

He spread Greek culture around Persia, but also tolerated other cultures. He introduced the idea of city-state to all his conquered lands, and named sixteen of the new city-states ‘Alexandria’. He took India (and lost his horse at that battle), but died at the age of 32 (in 323 BCE) before he could invade Arabia. He wanted to conquer all the way to the ocean, but he had no idea how far that was. The soldiers had a better sense, and they were like, “NO WAY MAN. What the fuck is up with the monsoons, yo??” They refused to march, so they had to go home. Alexander was planning another go while sitting in Babylon, but then he got a fever and died.

He had never lost a battle. He was so legendary that we have over eighty versions of his life story in 24 languages.

After Alexander’s death, generals divided up the remaining territory. Seleucus took the Seleucid Kingdom in Persia. Ptolemy took Egypt. Antigonus took Macedonia. Captured regions of Greece and India regained independence.

Hannibal!!!

Carthage was founded by Queen Dido as a colony of Tyre. It wanted to conquer the western Mediterranean. It gained territory in Spain, but Rome didn’t want another Punic War, so it agreed to divide Spain between them at the Ebro River.

Hannibal didn’t want none o’ dis bleedin’ truce, so he attacked Saguntum in 219 BCE, fully aware that he was starting a war. He had sworn to dedicate his life to bringing Rome down, and Carthage crucified unsuccessful generals.

His forces were mercenaries from Spain, Numidia, and uh, Celt-land...? but they were very loyal. Hannibal kept them in their usual groups and allowed them to use their familiar tactics. He lived among the soldiers and fought with them.

Hannibal’s accomplishments were entirely military. He started the second Punic War, transporting his forces through Spain, across the Alps and into the heart of Roman territory. He brought elephants across the Alps.He used super tactics, but couldn’t keep hold of the territories he passed. He lacked the armaments to attack Rome itself. But on the other hand, Rome couldn’t beat him either.

At the river Trebia, the Romans wanted to catch Hannibal at the river crossing. Hannibal sent forth a decoy cavalry. The Romans fell for it and followed them into an ambush where they lost half their men. So then Hannibal scored northern Italy!

The Romans were trailing Hannibal at Lake Trasimene, but they wouldn’t attack because they were outnumbered. So Hannibal hid in the hills around Lake Trasimene and attacked as the Romans were passing through a narrow valley. They killed 15000 men in two hours.

The Romans elected a new general to oppose Hannibal: Quintus Fabius Maximus. He knew that Hannibal’s strength lay in his cavalry, so he wanted to wait for a time when Hannibal couldn’t use his cavalry. For that attitude he gained the nickname of “the delayer”.

Samson styles: Fabius traps Hannibal in a mountain pass, so the Carthaginians tie bundles of twigs to the heads of their cattle and lit the twigs on fire, so it looked like a massive force holding torches. When the cattle started getting singed, they started shaking their heads, and it must have looked like a huge attack. The Romans scattered. The Carthaginians passed through the pass unchallenged.

Then the consuls gave it a shot, choosing a battleground at Cannae on the plains — perfect for cavalry, the fools. They outnumbered the Carthaginians, but of course Hannibal kicked their asses. He used a crescent formation, first swelling outward with the cavalry on each end and the infantry advancing first to meet the Romans. He slowly swung his cavalry around, inverting the crescent and turning it into a complete circle to envelop the Romans and turned it into a slaughterpen. The Romans lost 25000 men and 10000 as captives. The Carthaginians lost 5700.

At this stage, the towns in southern Italy allied themselves with Carthage. Rome and central Italy was still untouchable, though, without siege engines. Hannibal found himself stuck in southern Italy without reinforcements, but with free reign of the countryside. At least there was food there; if he went any further north, the Romans would protect their crops within their walls, or burn their crops rather than leave them for the Carthaginians.

So the Romans pulled out Publius Cornelius Scipio. He had experience fighting Carthaginians and used tactics similar to Hannibal’s at Cannae.

Hannibal’s brother, Hasdrubal, had taken 30,000 men out of Spain and was going to join Hannibal. Unfortunately, Roman’s intercepted his messenger and learned the rendezvous point with Hannibal, so two Roman armies went to meet Hasdrubal instead of Hannibal. The Romans won that battle at Metaurus River — their first victory in eleven years. They sent Hasdrubal’s head to Hannibal.

Meanwhile, Scipio convinced the Senate that they had to wipe out Carthage. They sent a force of 30,000 to North Africa in 204 BCE. Carthage, sensibly, decided to discuss peace terms. But then Hannibal returns, and Carthage’s spirit is revived, and they’re like, goshdarnit, screw peace! So there was a final showdown between Hannibal and Scipio at Zama.

Hannibal outnumbered the Romans, but his cavalry was slightly weaker. He staged a retreat, intending to pop out with his infantry, but the Romans regrouped too fast. Hannibal escaped, but his army got whooped. Hannibal fled to Syria; he couldn’t very well stay in Roman-occupied Carthage. The Romans tracked him down, but before he could be captured, he committed suicide via the bottle of poison he kept with him at all times.

Rome demanded reparations from Carthage after all this.

In 150 BCE Carthage fought a Third Punic War, but when they lost this time, their culture pretty much got eliminated.


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