In the fifth century BCE, Empedocles postulated that everything was composed of four elements; fire, air, earth and water. He believed that Aphrodite
made the human eye out of the four elements and that she lit the fire
in the eye which shone out from the eye making sight possible. If this
were true, then one could see during the night just as well as during
the day, so Empedocles postulated an interaction between rays from the
eyes and rays from a source such as the sun. He stated that light has a
finite speed.
In the 4th century BC Chinese text, credited to the philosopher
Mozi, it is described how light passing through a pinhole creates an
inverted image in a "collecting-point" or "treasure house".
In his OpticsGreek mathematicianEuclid
observed that "things seen under a greater angle appear greater, and
those under a lesser angle less, while those under equal angles appear
equal". In the 36 propositions that follow, Euclid relates the apparent
size of an object to its distance from the eye and investigates the
apparent shapes of cylinders and cones when viewed from different
angles. Pappus believed these results to be important in astronomy and included Euclid's Optics, along with his Phaenomena, in the Little Astronomy, a compendium of smaller works to be studied before the Syntaxis (Almagest) of Ptolemy.
For from whatsoever distances fires
can throw us their light and breathe their warm heat upon our limbs,
they lose nothing of the body of their flames because of the
interspaces, their fire is no whit shrunken to the sight.
In his Catoptrica, Hero of Alexandria
showed by a geometrical method that the actual path taken by a ray of
light reflected from a plane mirror is shorter than any other reflected
path that might be drawn between the source and point of observation.
The Indian Buddhists, such as Dignāga in the 5th century and Dharmakirti in the 7th century, developed a type of atomism
which defined the atoms which make up the world as momentary flashes of
light or energy. They viewed light as being an atomic entity equivalent
to energy, though they also viewed all matter as being composed of
these light/energy particles.
The early writers discussed here treated vision more as a geometrical
than as a physical, physiological, or psychological problem. The first
known author of a treatise on geometrical optics was the geometer Euclid (c. 325 BC–265 BC). Euclid began his study of optics as he began his study of geometry, with a set of self-evident axioms.
Lines (or visual rays) can be drawn in a straight line to the object.
Those lines falling upon an object form a cone.
Those things upon which the lines fall are seen.
Those things seen under a larger angle appear larger.
Those things seen by a higher ray, appear higher.
Right and left rays appear right and left.
Things seen within several angles appear clearer.
Euclid did not define the physical nature of these visual rays but,
using the principles of geometry, he discussed the effects of
perspective and the rounding of things seen at a distance.
Where Euclid had limited his analysis to simple direct vision, Hero of Alexandria
(c. AD 10–70) extended the principles of geometrical optics to consider
problems of reflection (catoptrics). Unlike Euclid, Hero occasionally
commented on the physical nature of visual rays, indicating that they
proceeded at great speed from the eye to the object seen and were
reflected from smooth surfaces but could become trapped in the
porosities of unpolished surfaces. This has come to be known as emission theory.
Hero demonstrated the equality of the angle of incidence and
reflection on the grounds that this is the shortest path from the object
to the observer. On this basis, he was able to define the fixed
relation between an object and its image in a plane mirror.
Specifically, the image appears to be as far behind the mirror as the
object really is in front of the mirror.
Like Hero, Claudius Ptolemy in his second-century Optics
considered the visual rays as proceeding from the eye to the object
seen, but, unlike Hero, considered that the visual rays were not
discrete lines, but formed a continuous cone.
Optics documents Ptolemy's studies of reflection and refraction.
He measured the angles of refraction between air, water, and glass,
but his published results indicate that he adjusted his measurements to
fit his (incorrect) assumption that the angle of refraction is proportional to the angle of incidence.
In the Islamic world
Reproduction of a page of Ibn Sahl's manuscript showing his discovery of the law of refraction, now known as Snell's law
Al-Kindi (c. 801–873) was one of the earliest important optical writers in the Islamic world. In a work known in the west as De radiis stellarum, al-Kindi developed a theory "that everything in the world ... emits rays in every direction, which fill the whole world."
Ibn Sahl, a mathematician active in Baghdad during the 980s, is the first Islamic scholar known to have compiled a commentary on Ptolemy's Optics. His treatise Fī al-'āla al-muḥriqa "On the burning instruments" was reconstructed from fragmentary manuscripts by Rashed (1993). The work is concerned with how curved mirrors and lenses bend and focus light. Ibn Sahl also describes a law of refraction mathematically equivalent to Snell's law. He used his law of refraction to compute the shapes of lenses and mirrors that focus light at a single point on the axis.
Ibn al-Haytham (known in as Alhacen or Alhazen in Western Europe), writing in the 1010s, received both Ibn Sahl's treatise and a partial Arabic translation of Ptolemy's Optics. He produced a comprehensive and systematic analysis of Greek optical theories.
Ibn al-Haytham's key achievement was twofold: first, to insist,
against the opinion of Ptolemy, that vision occurred because of rays
entering the eye; the second was to define the physical nature of the
rays discussed by earlier geometrical optical writers, considering them
as the forms of light and color.
He then analyzed these physical rays according to the principles of
geometrical optics. He wrote many books on optics, most significantly
the Book of Optics (Kitab al Manazir in Arabic), translated into Latin as the De aspectibus or Perspectiva, which disseminated his ideas to Western Europe and had great influence on the later developments of optics. Ibn al-Haytham was called "the father of modern optics".
Avicenna (980–1037) agreed with Alhazen that the speed of light
is finite, as he "observed that if the perception of light is due to
the emission of some sort of particles by a luminous source, the speed
of light must be finite." Abū Rayhān al-Bīrūnī (973-1048) also agreed that light has a finite speed, and stated that the speed of light is much faster than the speed of sound.
Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ma'udh, who lived in Al-Andalus during the second half of the 11th century, wrote a work on optics later translated into Latin as Liber de crepisculis, which was mistakenly attributed to Alhazen. This was a "short work containing an estimation of the angle of depression of the sun at the beginning of the morning twilight
and at the end of the evening twilight, and an attempt to calculate on
the basis of this and other data the height of the atmospheric moisture
responsible for the refraction of the sun's rays." Through his
experiments, he obtained the value of 18°, which comes close to the
modern value.
In the late 13th and early 14th centuries, Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (1236–1311) and his student Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī (1260–1320) continued the work of Ibn al-Haytham, and they were among the first to give the correct explanations for the rainbow phenomenon. Al-Fārisī published his findings in his Kitab Tanqih al-Manazir (The Revision of [Ibn al-Haytham's] Optics).
In medieval Europe
The English bishop Robert Grosseteste (c. 1175–1253) wrote on a wide range of scientific topics at the time of the origin of the medieval university
and the recovery of the works of Aristotle. Grosseteste reflected a
period of transition between the Platonism of early medieval learning
and the new Aristotelianism,
hence he tended to apply mathematics and the Platonic metaphor of light
in many of his writings. He has been credited with discussing light
from four different perspectives: an epistemology of light, a metaphysics or cosmogony of light, an etiology or physics of light, and a theology of light.
Setting aside the issues of epistemology and theology,
Grosseteste's cosmogony of light describes the origin of the universe in
what may loosely be described as a medieval "big bang" theory. Both
his biblical commentary, the Hexaemeron (1230 x 35), and his scientific On Light (1235 x 40), took their inspiration from Genesis
1:3, "God said, let there be light", and described the subsequent
process of creation as a natural physical process arising from the
generative power of an expanding (and contracting) sphere of light.
Optical diagram showing light being refracted by a spherical glass container full of water. (from Roger Bacon, De multiplicatione specierum)
His more general consideration of light as a primary agent of physical causation appears in his On Lines, Angles, and Figures where he asserts that "a natural agent propagates its power from itself to the recipient" and in On the Nature of Places where he notes that "every natural action is varied in strength and weakness through variation of lines, angles and figures."
The English Franciscan, Roger Bacon (c. 1214–1294) was strongly influenced by Grosseteste's writings on the importance of light. In his optical writings (the Perspectiva, the De multiplicatione specierum, and the De speculis comburentibus) he cited a wide range of recently translated optical and philosophical works, including those of Alhacen, Aristotle, Avicenna, Averroes, Euclid, al-Kindi, Ptolemy, Tideus, and Constantine the African.
Although he was not a slavish imitator, he drew his mathematical
analysis of light and vision from the writings of the Arabic writer,
Alhacen. But he added to this the Neoplatonic concept, perhaps drawn
from Grosseteste, that every object radiates a power (species) by which it acts upon nearby objects suited to receive those species. Note that Bacon's optical use of the term species differs significantly from the genus/species categories found in Aristotelian philosophy.
Several later works, including the influential A Moral Treatise on the Eye (Latin: Tractatus Moralis de Oculo) by Peter of Limoges (1240–1306), helped popularize and spread the ideas found in Bacon's writings.
Another English Franciscan, John Pecham
(died 1292) built on the work of Bacon, Grosseteste, and a diverse
range of earlier writers to produce what became the most widely used
textbook on optics of the Middle Ages, the Perspectiva communis.
His book centered on the question of vision, on how we see, rather
than on the nature of light and color. Pecham followed the model set
forth by Alhacen, but interpreted Alhacen's ideas in the manner of Roger
Bacon.
Like his predecessors, Witelo
(born circa 1230, died between 1280 and 1314) drew on the extensive
body of optical works recently translated from Greek and Arabic to
produce a massive presentation of the subject entitled the Perspectiva. His theory of vision follows Alhacen and he does not consider Bacon's concept of species,
although passages in his work demonstrate that he was influenced by
Bacon's ideas. Judging from the number of surviving manuscripts, his
work was not as influential as those of Pecham and Bacon, yet his
importance, and that of Pecham, grew with the invention of printing.
Theodoric of Freiberg (ca. 1250–ca. 1310) was among the first in Europe to provide the correct scientific explanation for the rainbow phenomenon, as well as Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi (1236–1311) and his student Kamāl al-Dīn al-Fārisī (1260–1320) mentioned above.
Renaissance and early modern period
Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) picked up the investigation of the laws of optics from his lunar essay of 1600. Both lunar and solar eclipses
presented unexplained phenomena, such as unexpected shadow sizes, the
red color of a total lunar eclipse, and the reportedly unusual light
surrounding a total solar eclipse. Related issues of atmospheric refraction
applied to all astronomical observations. Through most of 1603, Kepler
paused his other work to focus on optical theory; the resulting
manuscript, presented to the emperor on January 1, 1604, was published
as Astronomiae Pars Optica (The Optical Part of Astronomy).
In it, Kepler described the inverse-square law governing the intensity
of light, reflection by flat and curved mirrors, and principles of pinhole cameras, as well as the astronomical implications of optics such as parallax and the apparent sizes of heavenly bodies. Astronomiae Pars Optica is generally recognized as the foundation of modern optics (though the law of refraction is conspicuously absent).
Willebrord Snellius (1580–1626) found the mathematical law of refraction, now known as Snell's law, in 1621. Subsequently, René Descartes
(1596–1650) showed, by using geometric construction and the law of
refraction (also known as Descartes' law), that the angular radius of a
rainbow is 42° (i.e. the angle subtended at the eye by the edge of the
rainbow and the rainbow's centre is 42°). He also independently discovered the law of reflection, and his essay on optics was the first published mention of this law.
Christiaan Huygens (1629–1695) wrote several works in the area of optics. These included the Opera reliqua (also known as Christiani Hugenii Zuilichemii, dum viveret Zelhemii toparchae, opuscula posthuma) and the Traité de la lumière.
Isaac Newton (1643–1727) investigated the refraction of light, demonstrating that a prism could decompose white light into a spectrum of colours, and that a lens
and a second prism could recompose the multicoloured spectrum into
white light. He also showed that the coloured light does not change its
properties by separating out a coloured beam and shining it on various
objects. Newton noted that regardless of whether it was reflected or
scattered or transmitted, it stayed the same colour. Thus, he observed
that colour is the result of objects interacting with already-coloured
light rather than objects generating the colour themselves. This is
known as Newton's theory of colour. From this work he concluded that any refracting telescope would suffer from the dispersion of light into colours. He went on to invent a reflecting telescope (today known as a Newtonian telescope),
which showed that using a mirror to form an image bypassed the problem.
In 1671 the Royal Society asked for a demonstration of his reflecting
telescope. Their interest encouraged him to publish his notes On Colour, which he later expanded into his Opticks. Newton argued that light is composed of particles or corpuscles and were refracted by accelerating toward the denser medium, but he had to associate them with waves to explain the diffraction of light (Opticks
Bk. II, Props. XII-L). Later physicists instead favoured a purely
wavelike explanation of light to account for diffraction. Today's quantum mechanics, photons and the idea of wave-particle duality bear only a minor resemblance to Newton's understanding of light.
In his Hypothesis of Light of 1675, Newton posited the existence of the ether to transmit forces between particles. In 1704, Newton published Opticks,
in which he expounded his corpuscular theory of light. He considered
light to be made up of extremely subtle corpuscles, that ordinary matter
was made of grosser corpuscles and speculated that through a kind of
alchemical transmutation "Are not gross Bodies and Light convertible
into one another, ...and may not Bodies receive much of their Activity
from the Particles of Light which enter their Composition?"
Diffractive optics
Thomas Young's sketch of two-slit diffraction, which he presented to the Royal Society in 1803
The effects of diffraction of light were carefully observed and characterized by Francesco Maria Grimaldi, who also coined the term diffraction, from the Latin diffringere,
'to break into pieces', referring to light breaking up into different
directions. The results of Grimaldi's observations were published
posthumously in 1665. Isaac Newton studied these effects and attributed them to inflexion of light rays. James Gregory (1638–1675) observed the diffraction patterns caused by a bird feather, which was effectively the first diffraction grating. In 1803 Thomas Young did his famous experiment observing interference from two closely spaced slits in his double slit interferometer.
Explaining his results by interference of the waves emanating from the
two different slits, he deduced that light must propagate as waves. Augustin-Jean Fresnel
did more definitive studies and calculations of diffraction, published
in 1815 and 1818, and thereby gave great support to the wave theory of
light that had been advanced by Christiaan Huygens and reinvigorated by Young, against Newton's particle theory.
Although disputed, archeological evidence has been suggested of the
use of lenses in ancient times over a period of several millennia. It has been proposed that glass eye covers in hieroglyphs from the Old Kingdom of Egypt (c. 2686–2181 BCE) were functional simple glass meniscus lenses. The so-called Nimrud lens, a rock crystal artifact dated to the 7th century BCE, might have been used as a magnifying glass, although it could have simply been a decoration.
The earliest written record of magnification dates back to the 1st century CE, when Seneca the Younger, a tutor of Emperor Nero, wrote: "Letters, however small and indistinct, are seen enlarged and more clearly through a globe or glass filled with water." Emperor Nero is also said to have watched the gladiatorial games using an emerald as a corrective lens.
Ibn al-Haytham (Alhacen) wrote about the effects of pinhole, concave lenses, and magnifying glasses in his 11th centuryBook of Optics (1021 CE). The English friar Roger Bacon,
during the 1260s or 1270s,
wrote works on optics, partly based on the works of Arab writers, that
described the function of corrective lenses for vision and burning
glasses. These volumes were outlines for a larger publication that was
never produced, so his ideas never saw mass dissemination.
Between the 11th and 13th centuries, so-called "reading stones" were invented. Often used by monks to assist in illuminating manuscripts, these were primitive plano-convex lenses,
initially made by cutting a glass sphere in half. As the stones were
experimented with, it was slowly understood that shallower lenses magnified
more effectively. Around 1286, possibly in Pisa, Italy, the first pair
of eyeglasses was made, although it is unclear who the inventor was.
The earliest known working telescopes were the refracting telescopes that appeared in the Netherlands in 1608. Their inventor is unknown: Hans Lippershey applied for the first patent that year followed by a patent application by Jacob Metius of Alkmaar two weeks later (neither was granted since examples of the device seemed to be numerous at the time). Galileo greatly improved upon these designs the following year. Isaac Newton is credited with constructing the first functional reflecting telescope in 1668, his Newtonian reflector.
The earliest known examples of compound microscopes, which combine an objective lens near the specimen with an eyepiece to view a real image, appeared in Europe around 1620.
The design is very similar to the telescope and, like that device, its
inventor is unknown. Again claims revolve around the spectacle making
centers in the Netherlands including claims it was invented in 1590 by Zacharias Janssen and/or his father, Hans Martens, claims it was invented by rival spectacle maker, Hans Lippershey, and claims it was invented by expatriateCornelis Drebbel who was noted to have a version in London in 1619.
Galileo Galilei
(also sometimes cited as a compound microscope inventor) seems to have
found after 1609 that he could close focus his telescope to view small
objects and, after seeing a compound microscope built by Drebbel
exhibited in Rome in 1624, built his own improved version. The name microscope was coined by Giovanni Faber, who gave that name to Galileo Galilei's compound microscope in 1625.
Light is made up of particles called photons
and hence inherently is quantized. Quantum optics is the study of the
nature and effects of light as quantized photons. The first indication
that light might be quantized came from Max Planck in 1899 when he correctly modelled blackbody radiation
by assuming that the exchange of energy between light and matter only
occurred in discrete amounts he called quanta. It was unknown whether
the source of this discreteness was the matter or the light.In 1905, Albert Einstein published the theory of the photoelectric effect. It appeared that the only possible explanation for the effect was the quantization of light itself. Later, Niels Bohr showed that atoms could only emit discrete amounts of energy. The understanding of the interaction between light and matter
following from these developments not only formed the basis of quantum
optics but also were crucial for the development of quantum mechanics as
a whole. However, the subfields of quantum mechanics dealing with
matter-light interaction were principally regarded as research into
matter rather than into light and hence, one rather spoke of atom physics and quantum electronics.
This changed with the invention of the maser in 1953 and the laser in 1960. Laser science—research
into principles, design and application of these devices—became an
important field, and the quantum mechanics underlying the laser's
principles was studied now with more emphasis on the properties of
light, and the name quantum optics became customary.
As laser science needed good theoretical foundations, and also
because research into these soon proved very fruitful, interest in
quantum optics rose. Following the work of Dirac in quantum field theory, George Sudarshan, Roy J. Glauber, and Leonard Mandel
applied quantum theory to the electromagnetic field in the 1950s and
1960s to gain a more detailed understanding of photodetection and the statistics of light (see degree of coherence). This led to the introduction of the coherent state
as a quantum description of laser light and the realization that some
states of light could not be described with classical waves. In 1977, Kimble
et al. demonstrated the first source of light which required a quantum
description: a single atom that emitted one photon at a time. Another
quantum state of light with certain advantages over any classical state,
squeezed light, was soon proposed. At the same time, development of short and ultrashort laser pulses—created by Q-switching and mode-locking techniques—opened the way to the study of unimaginably fast ("ultrafast") processes. Applications for solid state research (e.g. Raman spectroscopy)
were found, and mechanical forces of light on matter were studied. The
latter led to levitating and positioning clouds of atoms or even small
biological samples in an optical trap or optical tweezers by laser beam. This, along with Doppler cooling was the crucial technology needed to achieve the celebrated Bose–Einstein condensation.
In the context of the art, architecture, and culture of Ancient Greece, the Classical period corresponds to most of the 5th and 4th centuries BC (the most common dates being the fall of the last Athenian tyrant in 510 BC to the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC). The Classical period in this sense follows the Greek Dark Ages and Archaic period and is in turn succeeded by the Hellenistic period.
Construction of the Parthenon began in the 5th century BC
This century is essentially studied from the Athenian outlook because Athens has left us more narratives, plays, and other written works than any of the other ancient Greek states. From the perspective of Athenian
culture in classical Greece, the period generally referred to as the
5th century BC extends slightly into the 6th century BC. In this
context, one might consider that the first significant event of this
century occurs in 508 BC, with the fall of the last Athenian tyrant and Cleisthenes' reforms. However, a broader view of the whole Greek world might place its beginning at the Ionian Revolt of 500 BC, the event that provoked the Persian invasion of 492 BC. The Persians were defeated in 490 BC. A second Persian attempt, in 481–479 BC, failed as well, despite having overrun much of modern-day Greece (north of the Isthmus of Corinth) at a crucial point during the war following the Battle of Thermopylae and the Battle of Artemisium. The Delian League
then formed, under Athenian hegemony and as Athens' instrument. Athens'
successes caused several revolts among the allied cities, all of which
were put down by force, but Athenian dynamism finally awoke Sparta and brought about the Peloponnesian War
in 431 BC. After both forces were spent, a brief peace came about; then
the war resumed to Sparta's advantage. Athens was definitively defeated
in 404 BC, and internal Athenian agitations mark the end of the 5th
century BC in Greece.
Since its beginning, Sparta had been ruled by a diarchy.
This meant that Sparta had two kings ruling concurrently throughout its
entire history. The two kingships were both hereditary, vested in the Agiad dynasty and the Eurypontid dynasty. According to legend, the respective hereditary lines of these two dynasties sprang from Eurysthenes and Procles, twin descendants of Hercules. They were said to have conquered Sparta two generations after the Trojan War.
In 510 BC, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow their king, the tyrant Hippias, son of Peisistratos. Cleomenes I, king of Sparta, put in place a pro-Spartan oligarchy headed by Isagoras. But his rival Cleisthenes,
with the support of the middle class and aided by pro-democracy
citizens, took over. Cleomenes intervened in 508 and 506 BC, but could
not stop Cleisthenes, now supported by the Athenians. Through
Cleisthenes' reforms, the people endowed their city with isonomic institutions—equal rights for all citizens (though only men were citizens)—and established ostracism.
The isonomic and isegoric (equal freedom of speech) democracy was first organized into about 130 demes, which became the basic civic element. The 10,000 citizens exercised their power as members of the assembly (ἐκκλησία, ekklesia), headed by a council of 500 citizens chosen at random.
The city's administrative geography was reworked, in order to
create mixed political groups: not federated by local interests linked
to the sea, to the city, or to farming, whose decisions (e.g. a
declaration of war) would depend on their geographical position. The
territory of the city was also divided into thirty trittyes as follows:
ten trittyes in the coastal region (παρᾰλία, paralia)
ten trittyes in the rural interior, (μεσογεία, mesogia).
A tribe consisted of three trittyes, selected at random, one from
each of the three groups. Each tribe therefore always acted in the
interest of all three sectors.
It was this corpus of reforms that allowed the emergence of a wider democracy in the 460s and 450s BC.
In Ionia (the modern Aegean coast of Turkey), the Greek cities, which included great centres such as Miletus and Halicarnassus, were unable to maintain their independence and came under the rule of the Persian Empire in the mid-6th century BC. In 499 BC that region's Greeks rose in the Ionian Revolt, and Athens and some other Greek cities sent aid, but were quickly forced to back down after defeat in 494 BC at the Battle of Lade. Asia Minor returned to Persian control.
In 492 BC, the Persian general Mardonius led a campaign through Thrace and Macedonia. He was victorious and again subjugated the former and conquered the latter,
but he was wounded and forced to retreat back into Asia Minor. In
addition, a fleet of around 1,200 ships that accompanied Mardonius on
the expedition was wrecked by a storm off the coast of Mount Athos. Later, the generals Artaphernes and Datis led a successful naval expedition against the Aegean islands.
In 490 BC, Darius the Great,
having suppressed the Ionian cities, sent a Persian fleet to punish the
Greeks. (Historians are uncertain about their number of men; accounts
vary from 18,000 to 100,000.) They landed in Attica intending to take Athens, but were defeated at the Battle of Marathon by a Greek army of 9,000 Athenian hoplites and 1,000 Plataeans led by the Athenian general Miltiades. The Persian fleet continued to Athens but, seeing it garrisoned, decided not to attempt an assault.
In 480 BC, Darius' successor Xerxes I sent a much more powerful force of 300,000 by land, with 1,207 ships in support, across a double pontoon bridge over the Hellespont.
This army took Thrace, before descending on Thessaly and Boeotia,
whilst the Persian navy skirted the coast and resupplied the ground
troops. The Greek fleet, meanwhile, dashed to block Cape Artemision. After being delayed by Leonidas I, the Spartan king of the Agiad Dynasty, at the Battle of Thermopylae
(a battle made famous by the 300 Spartans who faced the entire Persian
army), Xerxes advanced into Attica, and captured and burned Athens. The
subsequent Battle of Artemisium resulted in the capture of Euboea, bringing most of mainland Greece north of the Isthmus of Corinth under Persian control. However, the Athenians had evacuated the city of Athens by sea before Thermopylae, and under the command of Themistocles, they defeated the Persian fleet at the Battle of Salamis.
Map of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars (500–479 BC)
In 483 BC, during the period of peace between the two Persian
invasions, a vein of silver ore had been discovered in the Laurion (a
small mountain range near Athens), and the hundreds of talents mined there were used to build 200 warships to combat Aeginetan piracy. A year later, the Greeks, under the Spartan Pausanias, defeated the Persian army at Plataea. The Persians then began to withdraw from Greece, and never attempted an invasion again.
The Athenian fleet then turned to chasing the Persians from the Aegean Sea, defeating their fleet decisively in the Battle of Mycale; then in 478 BC the fleet captured Byzantium. At that time Athens enrolled all the island states and some mainland ones into an alliance called the Delian League, so named because its treasury was kept on the sacred island of Delos.
The Spartans, although they had taken part in the war, withdrew into
isolation afterwards, allowing Athens to establish unchallenged naval
and commercial power.
Origins of the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League
In 431 BC war broke out between Athens and Sparta. The war was a struggle not merely between two city-states but rather between two coalitions, or leagues of city-states: the Delian League, led by Athens, and the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta.
Delian league
The Delian League
grew out of the need to present a unified front of all Greek
city-states against Persian aggression. In 481 BC, Greek city-states,
including Sparta, met in the first of a series of "congresses" that
strove to unify all the Greek city-states against the danger of another
Persian invasion.
The coalition that emerged from the first congress was named the
"Hellenic League" and included Sparta. Persia, under Xerxes, invaded
Greece in September 481 BC, but the Athenian navy defeated the Persian
navy. The Persian land forces were delayed in 480 BC by a much smaller
force of 300 Spartans, 400 Thebans and 700 men from Boeotian Thespiae at the Battle of Thermopylae. The Persians left Greece in 479 BC after their defeat at Plataea.
Plataea was the final battle of Xerxes' invasion of Greece. After
this, the Persians never again tried to invade Greece. With the
disappearance of this external threat, cracks appeared in the united
front of the Hellenic League.
In 477, Athens became the recognised leader of a coalition of
city-states that did not include Sparta. This coalition met and
formalized their relationship at the holy city of Delos. Thus, the League took the name "Delian League". Its formal purpose was to liberate Greek cities still under Persian control. However, it became increasingly apparent that the Delian League was really a front for Athenian hegemony throughout the Aegean.
Peloponnesian (or Spartan) league
A
competing coalition of Greek city-states centred around Sparta arose,
and became more important as the external Persian threat subsided. This
coalition is known as the Peloponnesian League. However, unlike the
Hellenic League and the Delian League, this league was not a response to
any external threat, Persian or otherwise: it was unabashedly an
instrument of Spartan policy aimed at Sparta's security and Spartan
dominance over the Peloponnese peninsula. The term "Peloponnesian League" is a misnomer. It was not really a "league" at all. Nor was it really "Peloponnesian".
There was no equality at all between the members, as might be implied
by the term "league". Furthermore, most of its members were located
outside the Peloponnese Peninsula. The terms "Spartan League" and "Peloponnesian League" are modern terms. Contemporaries instead referred to "Lacedaemonians and their Allies" to describe the "league".
The league had its origins in Sparta's conflict with Argos,
another city on the Peloponnese Peninsula. In the 7th century BC Argos
dominated the peninsula. Even in the early 6th century the Argives
attempted to control the northeastern part of the peninsula. The rise of
Sparta in the 6th century brought Sparta into conflict with Argos.
However, with the conquest of the Peloponnesian city-state of Tegea in
550 BC and the defeat of the Argives in 546 BC the Spartans' control
began to reach well beyond the borders of Laconia.
As the two coalitions grew, their separate interests kept coming into conflict. Under the influence of King Archidamus II
(the Eurypontid king of Sparta from 476 BC through 427 BC), Sparta, in
the late summer or early autumn of 446 BC, concluded the Thirty Years Peace with Athens. This treaty took effect the next winter in 445 BC Under the terms of this treaty, Greece was formally divided into two large power zones.
Sparta and Athens agreed to stay within their own power zone and not to
interfere in the other's. Despite the Thirty Years Peace, it was clear
that war was inevitable.
As noted above, at all times during its history down to 221 BC, Sparta
was a "diarchy" with two kings ruling the city-state concurrently. One
line of hereditary kings was from the Eurypontid Dynasty while the
other king was from the Agiad Dynasty. With the signing of the Thirty
Years Peace treaty, Archidamus II felt he had successfully prevented
Sparta from entering into a war with its neighbours.
However, the strong war party in Sparta soon won out and in 431 BC
Archidamus was forced to go to war with the Delian League. However, in
427 BC, Archidamus II died and his son, Agis II succeeded to the
Eurypontid throne of Sparta.
Causes of the Peloponnesian war
The
immediate causes of the Peloponnesian War vary from account to account.
However three causes are fairly consistent among the ancient
historians, namely Thucydides and Plutarch. Prior to the war, Corinth and one of its colonies, Corcyra (modern-day Corfu), went to war in 435 BC over the new Corcyran colony of Epidamnus. Sparta refused to become involved in the conflict and urged an arbitrated settlement of the struggle.
In 433 BC, Corcyra sought Athenian assistance in the war. Corinth was
known to be a traditional enemy of Athens. However, to further
encourage Athens to enter the conflict, Corcyra pointed out how useful a
friendly relationship with Corcyra would be, given the strategic
locations of Corcyra itself and the colony of Epidamnus on the east
shore of the Adriatic Sea.
Furthermore, Corcyra promised that Athens would have the use of
Corcyra's navy, the third-largest in Greece. This was too good of an
offer for Athens to refuse. Accordingly, Athens signed a defensive
alliance with Corcyra.
The next year, in 432 BC, Corinth and Athens argued over control of Potidaea (near modern-day Nea Potidaia), eventually leading to an Athenian siege of Potidaea. In 434–433 BC Athens issued the "Megarian Decrees", a series of decrees that placed economic sanctions on the Megarian people. The Peloponnesian League accused Athens of violating the Thirty Years Peace through all of the aforementioned actions, and, accordingly, Sparta formally declared war on Athens.
Many historians consider these to be merely the immediate causes
of the war. They would argue that the underlying cause was the growing
resentment on the part of Sparta and its allies at the dominance of
Athens over Greek affairs. The war lasted 27 years, partly because
Athens (a naval power) and Sparta (a land-based military power) found it
difficult to come to grips with each other.
The Peloponnesian war: Opening stages (431–421 BC)
Sparta's initial strategy was to invade Attica, but the Athenians were able to retreat behind their walls. An outbreak of plague in the city during the siege caused many deaths, including that of Pericles. At the same time the Athenian fleet landed troops in the Peloponnesus, winning battles at Naupactus (429) and Pylos
(425). However, these tactics could bring neither side a decisive
victory. After several years of inconclusive campaigning, the moderate
Athenian leader Nicias concluded the Peace of Nicias (421).
In 418 BC, however, conflict between Sparta and the Athenian ally Argos led to a resumption of hostilities. Alcibiades was one of the most influential voices in persuading the Athenians to ally with Argos against the Spartans. At the Mantinea
Sparta defeated the combined armies of Athens and her allies.
Accordingly, Argos and the rest of the Peloponnesus was brought back
under the control of Sparta.
The return of peace allowed Athens to be diverted from meddling in the
affairs of the Peloponnesus and to concentrate on building up the
empire and putting their finances in order. Soon trade recovered and
tribute began, once again, rolling into Athens. A strong "peace party" arose, which promoted avoidance of war and continued concentration on the economic growth of the Athenian Empire. Concentration on the Athenian Empire, however, brought Athens into conflict with another Greek state.
The Melian expedition (416 BC)
Ever
since the formation of the Delian League in 477 BC, the island of Melos
had refused to join. By refusing to join the League, however, Melos
reaped the benefits of the League without bearing any of the burdens.
In 425 BC, an Athenian army under Cleon attacked Melos to force the
island to join the Delian League. However, Melos fought off the attack
and was able to maintain its neutrality.
Further conflict was inevitable and in the spring of 416 BC the mood of
the people in Athens was inclined toward military adventure. The island
of Melos provided an outlet for this energy and frustration for the
military party. Furthermore, there appeared to be no real opposition to
this military expedition from the peace party. Enforcement of the
economic obligations of the Delian League upon rebellious city-states
and islands was a means by which continuing trade and prosperity of
Athens could be assured. Melos alone among all the Cycladic Islands
located in the south-west Aegean Sea had resisted joining the Delian
League. This continued rebellion provided a bad example to the rest of the members of the Delian League.
The debate between Athens and Melos over the issue of joining the Delian League is presented by Thucydides in his Melian Dialogue.
The debate did not in the end resolve any of the differences between
Melos and Athens and Melos was invaded in 416 BC, and soon occupied by
Athens. This success on the part of Athens whetted the appetite of the
people of Athens for further expansion of the Athenian Empire. Accordingly, the people of Athens were ready for military action and tended to support the military party, led by Alcibiades.
Thus, in 415 BC, Alcibiades found support within the Athenian Assembly for his position when he urged that Athens launch a major expedition against Syracuse, a Peloponnesian ally in Sicily, Magna Graecia.
Segesta, a town in Sicily, had requested Athenian assistance in their
war with another Sicilian town—the town of Selinus. Although Nicias was a
sceptic about the Sicilian Expedition, he was appointed along with Alcibiades to lead the expedition.
However, unlike the expedition against Melos, the citizens of Athens
were deeply divided over Alcibiades' proposal for an expedition to
far-off Sicily. In June 415 BC, on the very eve of the departure of the
Athenian fleet for Sicily, a band of vandals in Athens defaced the many
statues of the god Hermes that were scattered throughout the city of Athens. This action was blamed on Alcibiades and was seen as a bad omen for the coming campaign. In all likelihood, the coordinated action against the statues of Hermes was the action of the peace party.
Having lost the debate on the issue, the peace party was desperate to
weaken Alcibiades' hold on the people of Athens. Successfully blaming
Alcibiades for the action of the vandals would have weakened Alcibiades
and the war party in Athens. Furthermore, it is unlikely that
Alcibiades would have deliberately defaced the statues of Hermes on the
very eve of his departure with the fleet. Such defacement could only
have been interpreted as a bad omen for the expedition that he had long
advocated.
Even before the fleet reached Sicily, word arrived to the fleet
that Alcibiades was to be arrested and charged with sacrilege of the
statues of Hermes, prompting Alcibiades to flee to Sparta.
When the fleet later landed in Sicily and the battle was joined, the
expedition was a complete disaster. The entire expeditionary force was
lost and Nicias was captured and executed. This was one of the most
crushing defeats in the history of Athens.
Alcibiades in Sparta
Meanwhile,
Alcibiades betrayed Athens and became a chief advisor to the Spartans
and began to counsel them on the best way to defeat his native land.
Alcibiades persuaded the Spartans to begin building a real navy for the
first time—large enough to challenge the Athenian superiority at sea.
Additionally, Alcibiades persuaded the Spartans to ally themselves with
their traditional foes—the Persians. As noted below, Alcibiades soon
found himself in controversy in Sparta when he was accused of having
seduced Timaea, the wife of Agis II, the Eurypontid king of Sparta. Accordingly, Alcibiades was required to flee from Sparta and seek the protection of the Persian Court.
Persia intervenes
In
the Persian court, Alcibiades now betrayed both Athens and Sparta. He
encouraged Persia to give Sparta financial aid to build a navy, advising
that long and continuous warfare between Sparta and Athens would weaken
both city-states and allow the Persians to dominate the Greek
peninsula.
Among the war party in Athens, a belief arose that the
catastrophic defeat of the military expedition to Sicily in 415–413
could have been avoided if Alcibiades had been allowed to lead the
expedition. Thus, despite his treacherous flight to Sparta and his
collaboration with Sparta and later with the Persian court, there arose a
demand among the war party that Alcibiades be allowed to return to
Athens without being arrested. Alcibiades negotiated with his supporters
on the Athenian-controlled island of Samos.
Alcibiades felt that "radical democracy" was his worst enemy.
Accordingly, he asked his supporters to initiate a coup to establish an
oligarchy in Athens. If the coup were successful Alcibiades promised to
return to Athens. In 411, a successful oligarchic coup was mounted in
Athens, by a group which became known as "the 400". However, a parallel
attempt by the 400 to overthrow democracy in Samos failed. Alcibiades
was immediately made an admiral (navarch)
in the Athenian navy. Later, due to democratic pressures, the 400 were
replaced by a broader oligarchy called "the 5000". Alcibiades did not
immediately return to Athens. In early 410, Alcibiades led an Athenian
fleet of 18 triremes against the Persian-financed Spartan fleet at Abydos near the Hellespont. The Battle of Abydos
had actually begun before the arrival of Alcibiades, and had been
inclining slightly toward the Athenians. However, with the arrival of
Alcibiades, the Athenian victory over the Spartans became a rout. Only
the approach of nightfall and the movement of Persian troops to the
coast where the Spartans had beached their ships saved the Spartan navy
from total destruction.
Following Alcibiades' advice, the Persian Empire had been playing
Sparta and Athens off against each other. However, as weak as the
Spartan navy was after the Battle of Abydos, the Persian navy directly
assisted the Spartans. Alcibiades then pursued and met the combined
Spartan and Persian fleets at the Battle of Cyzicus later in the spring of 410, achieving a significant victory.
Lysander and the end of the war
With
the financial help of the Persians, Sparta built a fleet to challenge
Athenian naval supremacy. With the new fleet and new military leader Lysander, Sparta attacked Abydos, seizing the strategic initiative. By occupying the Hellespont, the source of Athens' grain imports, Sparta effectively threatened Athens with starvation. In response, Athens sent its last remaining fleet to confront Lysander, but were decisively defeated at Aegospotami
(405 BC). The loss of her fleet threatened Athens with bankruptcy. In
404 BC Athens sued for peace, and Sparta dictated a predictably stern
settlement: Athens lost her city walls, her fleet, and all of her
overseas possessions. Lysander abolished the democracy and appointed in
its place an oligarchy called the "Thirty Tyrants" to govern Athens.
Meanwhile, in Sparta, Timaea gave birth to a child. The child was
given the name Leotychidas, after the great grandfather of Agis II—King
Leotychidas
of Sparta. However, because of Timaea's alleged affair with Alcibiades,
it was widely rumoured that the young Leotychidas was fathered by
Alcibiades.
Indeed, Agis II refused to acknowledge Leotychidas as his son until he
relented, in front of witnesses, on his deathbed in 400 BC.
Upon the death of Agis II, Leotychidas attempted to claim the
Eurypontid throne for himself, but this was met with an outcry, led by
Lysander, who was at the height of his influence in Sparta. Lysander argued that Leotychidas was a bastard and could not inherit the Eurypontid throne;
instead he backed the hereditary claim of Agesilaus, son of Agis by
another wife. With Lysander's support, Agesilaus became the Eurypontid
king as Agesilaus II, expelled Leotychidas from the country, and took over all of Agis' estates and property.
The end of the Peloponnesian War left Sparta the master of Greece, but the narrow outlook of the Spartan warrior elite did not suit them to this role.
Within a few years the democratic party regained power in Athens and in
other cities. In 395 BC the Spartan rulers removed Lysander from
office, and Sparta lost her naval supremacy. Athens, Argos, Thebes, and Corinth, the latter two former Spartan allies, challenged Sparta's dominance in the Corinthian War, which ended inconclusively in 387 BC. That same year Sparta shocked the Greeks by concluding the Treaty of Antalcidas
with Persia. The agreement turned over the Greek cities of Ionia and
Cyprus, reversing a hundred years of Greek victories against Persia.
Sparta then tried to further weaken the power of Thebes, which led to a
war in which Thebes allied with its old enemy Athens.
Then the Theban generals Epaminondas and Pelopidas won a decisive victory at Leuctra
(371 BC). The result of this battle was the end of Spartan supremacy
and the establishment of Theban dominance, but Athens herself recovered
much of her former power because the supremacy of Thebes was
short-lived. With the death of Epaminondas at Mantinea (362 BC) the city lost its greatest leader and his successors blundered into an ineffectual ten-year war with Phocis. In 346 BC the Thebans appealed to Philip II of Macedon to help them against the Phocians, thus drawing Macedon into Greek affairs for the first time.
The Peloponnesian War was a radical turning point for the Greek
world. Before 403 BC, the situation was more defined, with Athens and
its allies (a zone of domination and stability, with a number of island
cities benefiting from Athens' maritime protection), and other states
outside this Athenian Empire. The sources denounce this Athenian
supremacy (or hegemony) as smothering and disadvantageous.
After 403 BC, things became more complicated, with a number of
cities trying to create similar empires over others, all of which proved
short-lived. The first of these turnarounds was managed by Athens as
early as 390 BC, allowing it to re-establish itself as a major power
without regaining its former glory.
The fall of Sparta
This
empire was powerful but short-lived. In 405 BC, the Spartans were
masters of all—of Athens' allies and of Athens itself—and their power
was undivided. By the end of the century, they could not even defend
their own city. As noted above, in 400 BC, Agesilaus became king of
Sparta.
Foundation of a Spartan empire
The
subject of how to reorganize the Athenian Empire as part of the Spartan
Empire provoked much heated debate among Sparta's full citizens. The
admiral Lysander
felt that the Spartans should rebuild the Athenian empire in such a way
that Sparta profited from it. Lysander tended to be too proud to take
advice from others.
Prior to this, Spartan law forbade the use of all precious metals by
private citizens, with transactions being carried out with cumbersome
iron ingots (which generally discouraged their accumulation) and all
precious metals obtained by the city becoming state property. Without
the Spartans' support, Lysander's innovations came into effect and
brought a great deal of profit for him—on Samos, for example, festivals
known as Lysandreia were organized in his honour. He was recalled to
Sparta, and once there did not attend to any important matters.
Sparta refused to see Lysander or his successors dominate. Not
wanting to establish a hegemony, they decided after 403 BC not to
support the directives that he had made.
Agesilaus came to power by accident at the start of the 4th
century BC. This accidental accession meant that, unlike the other
Spartan kings, he had the advantage of a Spartan education. The Spartans
at this date discovered a conspiracy against the laws of the city
conducted by Cinadon and as a result concluded there were too many dangerous worldly elements at work in the Spartan state.
Agesilaus employed a political dynamic that played on a feeling
of pan-Hellenic sentiment and launched a successful campaign against the
Persian empire.
Once again, the Persian empire played both sides against each other.
The Persian Court supported Sparta in the rebuilding of their navy while
simultaneously funding the Athenians, who used Persian subsidies to
rebuild their long walls (destroyed in 404 BC) as well as to reconstruct
their fleet and win a number of victories.
For most of the first years of his reign, Agesilaus had been
engaged in a war against Persia in the Aegean Sea and in Asia Minor.
In 394 BC, the Spartan authorities ordered Agesilaus to return to
mainland Greece. While Agesilaus had a large part of the Spartan Army
in Asia Minor, the Spartan forces protecting the homeland had been
attacked by a coalition of forces led by Corinth. At the Battle of Haliartus
the Spartans had been defeated by the Theban forces. Worse yet,
Lysander, Sparta's chief military leader, had been killed during the
battle. This was the start of what became known as the "Corinthian War" (395–387 BC).
Upon hearing of the Spartan loss at Haliartus and of the death of
Lysander, Agesilaus headed out of Asia Minor, back across the
Hellespont, across Thrace and back towards Greece. At the Battle of Coronea,
Agesilaus and his Spartan Army defeated a Theban force. During the war,
Corinth drew support from a coalition of traditional Spartan
enemies—Argos, Athens and Thebes.
However, when the war descended into guerilla tactics, Sparta decided
that it could not fight on two fronts and so chose to ally with Persia. The long Corinthian War finally ended with the Peace of Antalcidas or the King's Peace, in which the "Great King" of Persia, Artaxerxes II,
pronounced a "treaty" of peace between the various city-states of
Greece which broke up all "leagues" of city-states on Greek mainland and
in the islands of the Aegean Sea.
Although this was looked upon as "independence" for some city-states,
the effect of the unilateral "treaty" was highly favourable to the
interests of the Persian Empire.
The Corinthian War revealed a significant dynamic that was
occurring in Greece. While Athens and Sparta fought each other to
exhaustion, Thebes was rising to a position of dominance among the
various Greek city-states.
The peace of Antalcidas
In
387 BC, an edict was promulgated by the Persian king, preserving the
Greek cities of Asia Minor and Cyprus as well as the independence of the
Greek Aegean cities, except for Lymnos, Imbros and Skyros, which were
given over to Athens.
It dissolved existing alliances and federations and forbade the
formation of new ones. This is an ultimatum that benefited Athens only
to the extent that Athens held onto three islands. While the "Great
King," Artaxerxes, was the guarantor of the peace, Sparta was to act as
Persia's agent in enforcing the Peace. To the Persians this document is known as the "King's Peace." To the Greeks, this document is known as the Peace of Antalcidas, after the Spartan diplomat Antalcidas
who was sent to Persia as negotiator. Sparta had been worried about the
developing closer ties between Athens and Persia. Accordingly,
Antalcidas was directed to get whatever agreement he could from the
"Great King". Accordingly, the "Peace of Antalcidas" is not a negotiated
peace at all. Rather it is a surrender to the interests of Persia,
drafted entirely for its benefit.
Spartan interventionism
On the other hand, this peace had unexpected consequences. In accordance with it, the Boeotian League, or Boeotian confederacy, was dissolved in 386 BC.
This confederacy was dominated by Thebes, a city hostile to the Spartan
hegemony. Sparta carried out large-scale operations and peripheral
interventions in Epirus and in the north of Greece, resulting in the
capture of the fortress of Thebes, the Cadmea, after an expedition in the Chalcidice
and the capture of Olynthos. It was a Theban politician who suggested
to the Spartan general Phoibidas that Sparta should seize Thebes itself.
This act was sharply condemned, though Sparta eagerly ratified this
unilateral move by Phoibidas. The Spartan attack was successful and
Thebes was placed under Spartan control.
Clash with Thebes
In
378 BC, the reaction to Spartan control over Thebes was broken by a
popular uprising within Thebes. Elsewhere in Greece, the reaction
against Spartan hegemony began when Sphodrias, another Spartan general,
tried to carry out a surprise attack on Piraeus.
Although the gates of Piraeus were no longer fortified, Sphodrias was
driven off before Piraeus. Back in Sparta, Sphodrias was put on trial
for the failed attack, but was acquitted by the Spartan court.
Nonetheless, the attempted attack triggered an alliance between Athens
and Thebes.
Sparta would now have to fight them both together. Athens was trying to
recover from its defeat in the Peloponnesian War at the hands of
Sparta's "navarch" Lysander in the disaster of 404 BC. The rising spirit
of rebellion against Sparta also fueled Thebes' attempt to restore the
former Boeotian confederacy. In Boeotia, the Theban leaders Pelopidas and Epaminondas
reorganized the Theban army and began to free the towns of Boeotia from
their Spartan garrisons, one by one, and incorporated these towns into
the revived Boeotian League. Pelopidas won a great victory for Thebes over a much larger Spartan force in the Battle of Tegyra in 375 BC.
Theban authority grew so spectacularly in such a short time that
Athens came to mistrust the growing Theban power. Athens began to
consolidate its position again through the formation of a second
Athenian League. Attention was drawn to growing power of Thebes when it began interfering in the political affairs of its neighbor, Phocis, and, particularly, after Thebes razed the city of Plataea, a long-standing ally of Athens, in 375 BC. The destruction of Plataea caused Athens to negotiate an alliance with Sparta against Thebes, in that same year. In 371, the Theban army, led by Epaminondas, inflicted a bloody defeat on Spartan forces at Battle of Leuctra.
Sparta lost a large part of its army and 400 of its 2,000
citizen-troops. The Battle of Leuctra was a watershed in Greek history.
Epaminondas' victory ended a long history of Spartan military prestige
and dominance over Greece and the period of Spartan hegemony was over.
However, Spartan hegemony was not replaced by Theban, but rather by
Athenian hegemony.
It was important to erase the bad memories of the former league. Its financial system was not adopted, with no tribute being paid. Instead, syntaxeis
were used, irregular contributions as and when Athens and its allies
needed troops, collected for a precise reason and spent as quickly as
possible. These contributions were not taken to Athens—unlike the 5th
century BC system, there was no central exchequer for the league—but to the Athenian generals themselves.
The Athenians had to make their own contribution to the alliance, the eisphora. They reformed how this tax was paid, creating a system in advance, the Proseiphora,
in which the richest individuals had to pay the whole sum of the tax
then be reimbursed by other contributors. This system was quickly
assimilated into a liturgy.
Athenian hegemony halted
This
league responded to a real and present need. On the ground, however,
the situation within the league proved to have changed little from that
of the 5th century BC, with Athenian generals doing what they wanted and
able to extort funds from the league. Alliance with Athens again looked
unattractive and the allies complained.
The main reasons for the eventual failure were structural. This
alliance was only valued out of fear of Sparta, which evaporated after
Sparta's fall in 371 BC, losing the alliance its sole 'raison d'etre'.
The Athenians no longer had the means to fulfill their ambitions, and
found it difficult merely to finance their own navy, let alone that of
an entire alliance, and so could not properly defend their allies. Thus,
the tyrant of Pherae was able to destroy a number of cities with
impunity. From 360 BC, Athens lost its reputation for invincibility and a
number of allies (such as Byzantium and Naxos in 364 BC) decided to secede.
In 357 BC the revolt against the league spread, and between 357
BC and 355 BC, Athens had to face war against its allies—a war whose
issue was marked by a decisive intervention by the king of Persia in the
form of an ultimatum to Athens, demanding that Athens recognise its
allies' independence under threat of Persia's sending 200 triremes
against Athens. Athens had to renounce the war and leave the
confederacy, thereby weakening itself more and more, and signaling the
end of Athenian hegemony.
Theban hegemony – tentative and with no future
Boetian art, dating from mid-5th century BC
5th century BC Boeotian confederacy (447–386 BC)
This
was not Thebes' first attempt at hegemony. It had been the most
important city of Boeotia and the centre of the previous Boeotian
confederacy of 447, resurrected since 386.
The 5th-century confederacy is well known to us from a papyrus found at Oxyrhynchus
and known as "the Anonyme of Thebes". Thebes headed it and set up a
system under which charges were divided up between the different cities
of the confederacy. Citizenship was defined according to wealth, and
Thebes counted 11,000 active citizens.
The confederacy was divided up into 11 districts, each providing a federal magistrate called a "boeotarch",
a certain number of council members, 1,000 hoplites and 100 horsemen.
From the 5th century BC the alliance could field an infantry force of
11,000 men, in addition to an elite corps and a light infantry numbering
10,000; but its real power derived from its cavalry force of 1,100,
commanded by a federal magistrate independent of local commanders. It
also had a small fleet that played a part in the Peloponnesian War by
providing 25 triremes for the Spartans. At the end of the conflict, the
fleet consisted of 50 triremes and was commanded by a "navarch".
All this constituted a significant enough force that the Spartans
were happy to see the Boeotian confederacy dissolved by the king's
peace. This dissolution, however, did not last, and in the 370s there
was nothing to stop the Thebans (who had lost the Cadmea to Sparta in
382 BC) from reforming this confederacy.
Theban reconstruction
Pelopidas
and Epaminondas endowed Thebes with democratic institutions similar to
those of Athens, the Thebans revived the title of "Boeotarch" lost in
the Persian King's Peace and—with victory at Leuctra and the destruction
of Spartan power—the pair achieved their stated objective of renewing
the confederacy. Epaminondas rid the Peloponnesus of pro-Spartan
oligarchies, replacing them with pro-Theban democracies, constructed
cities, and rebuilt a number of those destroyed by Sparta. He equally
supported the reconstruction of the city of Messene thanks to an invasion of Laconia that also allowed him to liberate the helots and give them Messene as a capital.
He decided in the end to constitute small confederacies all round
the Peloponnessus, forming an Arcadian confederacy (the King's Peace
had destroyed a previous Arcadian confederacy and put Messene under
Spartan control).
Confrontation between Athens and Thebes
The
strength of the Boeotian League explains Athens' problems with her
allies in the second Athenian League. Epaminondas succeeded in
convincing his countrymen to build a fleet of 100 triremes to pressure
cities into leaving the Athenian league and joining a Boeotian maritime
league. Epaminondas and Pelopidas also reformed the army of Thebes to
introduce new and more effective means of fighting. Thus, the Theban
army was able to carry the day against the coalition of other Greek
states at the battle of Leuctra in 371 BC and the battle of Mantinea in 362 BC.
Sparta also remained an important power in the face of Theban
strength. However, some of the cities allied with Sparta turned against
her, because of Thebes. In 367 BC, both Sparta and Athens sent delegates
to Artaxerxes II, the Great King of Persia. These delegates sought to
have the Artaxerxes, once again, declare Greek independence and a
unilateral common peace, just as he had done in twenty years earlier in
387 BC. As noted above, this had meant the destruction of the Boeotian
League in 387 BC. Sparta and Athens now hoped the same thing would
happen with a new declaration of a similar "Kings Peace". Thebes sent
Pelopidas to argue against them.
The Great King was convinced by Pelopidas and the Theban diplomats
that Thebes and the Boeotian League would be the best agents of Persian
interests in Greece, and, accordingly, did not issue a new "King's
Peace."
Thus, to deal with Thebes, Athens and Sparta were thrown back on their
own resources. Thebes, meanwhile, expanded its influence beyond the
bounds of Boeotia. In 364 BC, Pelopidas defeated the Alexander of
Pherae in the Battle of Cynoscephalae, located in south-eastern Thessaly in northern Greece. However, during the battle, Pelopides was killed.
The confederational framework of Sparta's relationship with her
allies was really an artificial one, since it attempted to bring
together cities that had never been able to agree on much at all in the
past. Such was the case with the cities of Tegea and Mantinea,
which re-allied in the Arcadian confederacy. The Mantineans received
the support of the Athenians, and the Tegeans that of the Thebans. In
362 BC, Epaminondas led a Theban army against a coalition of Athenian,
Spartan, Elisian, Mantinean and Achean forces. Battle was joined at
Mantinea.
The Thebans prevailed, but this triumph was short-lived, for
Epaminondas died in the battle, stating that "I bequeath to Thebes two
daughters, the victory of Leuctra and the victory at Mantinea".
Despite the victory at Mantinea,
in the end, the Thebans abandoned their policy of intervention in the
Peloponnesus. This event is looked upon as a watershed in Greek
history. Thus, Xenophon
concludes his history of the Greek world at this point, in 362 BC. The
end of this period was even more confused than its beginning. Greece had
failed and, according to Xenophon, the history of the Greek world was
no longer intelligible.
The idea of hegemony disappeared. From 362 BC onward, there was
no longer a single city that could exert hegemonic power in Greece. The
Spartans were greatly weakened; the Athenians were in no condition to
operate their navy, and after 365 no longer had any allies; Thebes could
only exert an ephemeral dominance, and had the means to defeat Sparta
and Athens but not to be a major power in Asia Minor.
Other forces also intervened, such as the Persian king, who
appointed himself arbitrator among the Greek cities, with their tacit
agreement. This situation reinforced the conflicts and there was a
proliferation of civil wars, with the confederal framework a repeated
trigger for them. One war led to another, each longer and more bloody
than the last, and the cycle could not be broken. Hostilities even took
place during winter for the first time, with the invasion of Laconia in
370 BC.
Thebes sought to maintain its position until finally eclipsed by the rising power of Macedon in 346 BC. The energetic leadership within Macedon began in 359 BC when Philip of Macedon was made regent for his nephew, Amyntas.
Within a short time, Philip was acclaimed king as Philip II of
Macedonia in his own right, with succession of the throne established on
his own heirs.
During his lifetime, Philip II consolidated his rule over Macedonia.
This was done by 359 BC and Philip began to look toward expanding
Macedonia's influence abroad.
Under Philip II, (359–336 BC), Macedon expanded into the territory of the Paeonians, Thracians, and Illyrians.
In 358 BC, Philip allied with Epirus in its campaign against Illyria.
In 357 BC, Philip came into direct conflict with Athens when he
conquered the Thracian port city of Amphipolis, a city located at the mouth of the Strymon River
to the east of Macedonia, and a major Athenian trading port.
Conquering this city allowed Philip to subjugate all of Thrace. A year
later in 356 BC, the Macedonians attacked and conquered the
Athenian-controlled port city of Pydna. This brought the Macedonian threat to Athens closer to home to the Athenians. With the start of the Phocian War in 356 BC, the great Athenian orator and political leader of the "war party", Demosthenes, became increasingly active in encouraging Athens to fight vigorously against Philip's expansionist aims. In 352 BC, Demosthenes
gave many speeches against the Macedonian threat, declaring Philip II
Athens' greatest enemy. The leader of the Athenian "peace party" was Phocion,
who wished to avoid a confrontation that, Phocion felt, would be
catastrophic for Athens. Despite Phocion's attempts to restrain the war
party, Athens remained at war with Macedonia for years following the
original declaration of war. Negotiations between Athens and Philip II started only in 346 BC.
The Athenians successfully halted Philip's invasion of Attica at
Thermopylae that same year in 352 BC. However, Philip defeated the Phocians at the Battle of the Crocus Field. The conflict between Macedonia and all the city-states of Greece came to a head in 338 BC, at the Battle of Chaeronea.
The Macedonians became more politically involved with the
south-central city-states of Greece, but also retained more archaic
aspects harking back to the palace culture, first at Aegae (modern
Vergina) then at Pella, resembling Mycenaean
culture more than that of the Classical city-states. Militarily, Philip
recognized the new phalanx style of fighting that had been employed by
Epaminondas and Pelopidas in Thebes. Accordingly, he incorporated this
new system into the Macedonian army. Philip II also brought a Theban
military tutor to Macedon to instruct the future Alexander the Great in
the Theban method of fighting.
Philip's son Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) was born in Pella, Macedonia. Philip II brought Aristotle to Pella to teach the young Alexander. Besides Alexander's mother, Olympias, Philip took another wife by the name of Cleopatra Eurydice. Cleopatra had a daughter, Europa, and a son, Caranus. Caranus posed a threat to the succession of Alexander.
Cleopatra Eurydice was a Macedonian and, thus, Caranus was all
Macedonian in blood. Olympias, on the other hand, was from Epirus and,
thus, Alexander was regarded as being only half-Macedonian (Cleopatra
Eurydice should not be confused with Cleopatra of Macedon, who was Alexander's full-sister and thus daughter of Philip and Olympias).
Philip II was assassinated at the wedding of his daughter Cleopatra of Macedon with King Alexander I of Epirus in 336 BC. Philip's son, the future Alexander the Great,
immediately claimed the throne of Macedonia by eliminating all the
other claimants to the throne, including Caranus and his cousin Amytas. Alexander was only twenty years of age when he assumed the throne.
Thereafter, Alexander continued his father's plans to conquer all
of Greece. He did this by both military might and persuasion. After his
victory over Thebes, Alexander traveled to Athens to meet the public
directly. Despite Demosthenes'
speeches against the Macedonian threat on behalf of the war party of
Athens, the public in Athens was still very much divided between the
"peace party" and Demosthenes' "war party." However, the arrival of
Alexander charmed the Athenian public. The peace party was strengthened and then a peace between Athens and Macedonia was agreed.
This allowed Alexander to move on his and the Greeks' long-held dream
of conquest in the east, with a unified and secure Greek state at his
back.
In 334 BC, Alexander with about 30,000 infantry soldiers and 5,000 cavalry crossed the Hellespont into Asia. He never returned. Alexander managed to briefly extend Macedonian power not only over the central Greek city-states, but also to the Persian empire, including Egypt and lands as far east as the fringes of India. He managed to spread Greek culture throughout the known world. Alexander the Great died in 323 BC in Babylon during his Asian campaign of conquest.
The Classical period conventionally ends at the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the fragmentation of his empire, divided among the Diadochi, which, in the minds of most scholars, marks the beginning of the Hellenistic period.
Legacy of classical Greece
The legacy of Greece was strongly felt by post-Renaissance European elite, who saw themselves as the spiritual heirs of Greece. Will Durant
wrote in 1939 that "excepting machinery, there is hardly anything
secular in our culture that does not come from Greece," and conversely
"there is nothing in Greek civilization that doesn't illuminate our
own".
