Lisarow High School Ancient History -Periklean Age 1
The Periklean Age
After the Persian army left Greece, the people of the Greek cities returned home. The Athenians, who were at Troezen, Aegina and Salamis after the battle of Plataea returned and found their city in total ruin and the countryside desolated. They soon started rebuilding the city and began raising walls (478 BC). The Aeginitians immediately informed Sparta, which with the pretext, that the fortifications would help the Persians in another expedition, proposed to the Athenians to demolish them. Of course Sparta only feared the rising power of Athens.
Themistocles then devised a stratagem and as ambassador, together with Aristides and Abronychos, went to Sparta, having left orders to the Athenians to build the walls during his absence, as fast as they could. At Sparta, he used all the power of his diplomacy to gain time and when the Athenians who were working at the walls day and night, men and women, informed him that the work was almost finished, he announced it to the Spartans, who were compelled to accept it. Though the walls were raised half the projected height (raised about sixty feet), they secured the city and Themistocles started his long pursued project, to turn Athens the greatest maritime and commercial power of Greece. His plan was to build twenty triremes every year, but his work was left unfinished.
Cimon
466 - 449 BC
The aristocratic party and their leaders, Alcmaeon, Cimon and Xanthippos, under the influence of Sparta succeeded to ostracize Themistocles, at 461 BC. In Athens, the new leaders Aristides and Kimon continued the plans of the genius Themistokles. Aristeides was responsible for the regulation of the Greek islands, that had agreed to place themselves under the command of Athens. The confederacy of Delos, which started in 477 BC, was not only confided to the Ionians, but it was joined by all the Aegean islands. The treasury of the league was in the sacred island of Delos. Aristeides decided that some of the allies ought to keep a number of ships at sea and the islands who could not afford it, to pay a contribution to the treasury, starting thus the foundation for the naval dominion of Athens.
The war with Persia was still continuing and Kimon with a big fleet sailed to Thrace and laid siege to Eion, on the Strymon river (476 BC). The besieged, a Persian governor with his garrison, after a hard struggle, rather than surrender, threw the gold and the silver of the city in the river. He then raised a pile of wood and burned his wife, children and slaves, throwing himself after that in the flames. All the other Greek cities except Doriskos, that had Persian garrisons, were subdued. Kimon later sailed against Skyros (476 BC) and as executor of the Amphictionic league, he expelled the Dolopian pirates and brought Athenians to colonize the island. With him, he brought the bones of the hero Theseus, who had been assassinated in this island eight hundred years before. When the island of Naxos in 466 BC, a confederate, refused to contribute in the league, Kimon sailed with a large fleet and after forcing the Naxians to submit, he enslaved them.
From Naxos, Kimon sailed to Asia and after assembling a fleet of two hundred triremes, laid siege to the Greek city of Phaselis, and as soon as the city was submitted, he sailed to the river Eurymedon in 466 BC, to attack the Persian fleet. After a complete victory, in which two hundred ships were captured, Kimon pursued the Persians, who had fled meanwhile to the land and defeated them. When he received information, that eighty Phoenician ships were at Hydros, in Cyprus, he sailed as fast as he could, defeating and destroying the lot of them. This was the third victory in one day, of the glorious general Kimon, lifting Athens to the highest point of her power.
Never was the influence of Kimon at the decisions of Athens greater. From his vast fortune, he build at his own expense, the south wall of the Acropolis. He also started building the walls, which would connect the city of Athens with her ports (Piraeus, Phaleron). He planted the garden of the Academy, as well the market with plane trees. When the island of Thasos asked for rights to the ports and goldmines of the coast of Thrace, which the Athenians possessed, Kimon with a big fleet sailed to the island and defeated the Thasians, first at sea and then at land, ravaging the place and laying siege to the city of Thasos, which finally was submitted after three years (463 BC). The Athenians pulled down the walls, took their ships and made them pay a large sum of money. At the same time, Kimon brought ten thousand Athenians to colonize the place, called the "Nine roads" (renamed afterwards Amphipolis), opposite to Thasos. In the meantime the Thasians, asked the help of Sparta, which was ready to help them by sending an army to invade Attica, but they were stopped, after a destructive earthquake destroyed the whole city of Sparta (464 BC).
That was the opportunity the Messenians were seeking to revolt (3rd Messenian War 464 BC). Sparta with the help of the Peloponnesians unable to reduce the stronghold of the Messenians, Ithome, asked the help of the Athenians. The democratic party led by Perikles, refused to help Sparta, but Kimon persuaded them and leading an army reached Ithome. After a failed assault on Ithome, in which Athenians took also part, Sparta dismissed them. After this event, the insulted Athenians led by Perikles, succeeded to ostracize Kimon.
Megara, offended with the Spartans, who were permitting the Corinthians to harass them, made alliance with Athens (459 BC). As a result of this action, a war opened between Athens and Corinth. A small Athenian army, which landed at Halieis (459-458 BC), on the Akte, was defeated by the Corinthians, but in a naval battle, between Athens and Corinth, that took place near the little island Cekryphalea, in the Saronic gulf lying between Aegina and the Argive shore, the Athenians defeated the Corinthians. The Athenians defeated also the Aeginitians and their allies, in a great naval battle near Aegina, destroying and capturing seventy ships. After the battle, the Athenians landed on Aegina and laid siege to the city, which was taken after two years (457-456 BC). Aegina was forced to join the confederacy, as the richest subject state.
When Corinthians and their allies invaded Megaris at 458 BC, knowing that the Athenian forces were engaged at Aegina, the great Athenian general Myronides, formed an army consisted from boys and old men and marched to help the Megarians. In an indecisive battle against the Corinthians, when the later left, the Athenians raised a trophy. Reproached by the people of Corinth, the Corinthian army returned after twelve days and started erecting a trophy. When the Athenians took notice, they came out of the walls of Megara and killed them, as well other forces, that came to their aid.
During the period Athens was winning these miraculous battles, a part of her naval power was at Egypt, where 200 Athenian and confederate ships were operating at the coast of Cyprus and Phoenicia. There, they were invited by the Lybian prince Inaros, son of Psammetichos, who had revolted against Persia. The Athenian fleet sailed up to the Nile, only to find that Inaros had gained a victory over the Persian army. The fleet then sailed to Memphis, where they expelled the Persian forces, but failed to take the fortified citadel (459 BC). The siege of the fortress lasted for some years, when Artaxerxes prepared a large army and a Phoenician fleet under the command of Megabyzos.
The Athenians were compelled to retreat to the island Prosopites, in the Nile, where they resisted gallantly, until Megabyzos with his fleet diverted one of the channels, which formed the island and attacked them by land. The Athenians, who had burned their ships, were forced to capitulate. The Persians killed them all, except a few soldiers, who escaped to Kyrene. Without knowledge of the events, fifty Athenian ships which came for help, they were defeated and almost all were destroyed.
Sparta jealous for the success of Athens, under the pretext of assisting the Dorians, whose territory had been invaded by the Phokians, sent fifteen hundred hoplites and together with ten thousand allies marched into Doreis, compelling the Phokians to withdraw. From Phokis, the Spartans marched to Boeotia according to their plan, where they restored the fortification of Thebes and reduced the other Boeotian cities to the obedience of Thebes. It was there, that the Spartans received a proposition by the oligarchic party of Athens, promising to assist them to overthrow the democracy. When the Lakedaemonians took up position at Tanagra, on the borders of Attica, the Athenians quickly assembled an army of 14,000 strong, including 1000 Argives and a Thessalian cavalry and marched to engage them. Before the battle, the ostracized Kimon, requested to fight in the battle as a mere hoplite. The Athenians, suspecting that he had taken part in the oligarchic treachery, refused. Kimon then left his armor to friends, telling them to fight for his honor. One hundred of the friends of Kimon fell in the battle, after fighting with heroism. The bloody and indecisive battle took place in 457 BC. The Lakedaemonians gained the advantage, when the Thessalian cavalry treacherously deserted the Athenians. The Spartans though won the battle, they were in no condition to invade Attica and after ravaging territories of Megara, withdrew. The ostracized Kimon, after a proposal by Perikles, returned from exile.
At the beginning of the year 456 BC and two months after the battle of Tanagra, the Athenians invaded Boeotia. The Boeotians assembled a big army and came to Oenophyta, where a battle took place, in which the brilliant Athenian general Myronides won a complete and decisive victory. The Athenians after taking the Boeotian towns, banished the Lakedaemonian collaborators and established a democratic form of government.
One year after the battle of Oenophyta, Athens finished the long walls. General Tolmedes with a fleet sailed to Peloponnesos and burned the ports of the Lakedaemonians, Methone and Gytheion, capturing also Naupaktos in Lokris, establishing there the Messenians and Helots.
In 452 BC, Athens and Sparta made a truce through the instigation of Kimon, for a five years period. After the truce Kimon found the opportunity to continue the war against the Persians. He sailed to Cyprus with two hundred triremes of the confederacy. From there, he sent sixty ships to Egypt to help the prince Amyrtaeos, who was fighting the Persians at the Delta. Kimon with the remaining ships laid siege to Citium at Cyprus. During the siege Kimon died and the command of the fleet was given to Anaxicrates, who left Citium to engage the Phoenician and Sicilian fleet at Salamis of Cyprus. The Greek fleet gained a complete victory on sea and land and rejoining with the sixty ships in Egypt, sailed to Athens.
At the year 448 BC, Athens had reached the greatest height of her power, at sea and land. During the previous years, Athens had acquired the alliance of Megara, Boeotia, Phokis, Lokris, Troezen and Achaia and had also conquered the island of Aegina. The islands belonging to the confederacy of Delos had become passive tributaries and the treasury of Delos was transferred to Athens. But after 448 BC, a progressive decline of Athens occurred.
In 447 BC, a revolution in Boeotia took place and an Athenian body of one thousand hoplitae, mainly youthful aristocratic volunteers, under the command of general Tolmedes, marched to Boeotia, against the advice of Perikles, who told them to be patient and wait until they collected a stronger force. Tolmedes and his men retook Chaeronia, but when they were leaving, after a surprise attack by the exiles of Orchomenos and others, they were defeated. Many Athenians killed, including general Tolmedes, all the rest were taken prisoners. To recover the prisoners, Athens was compelled to agree to restore the exiles and permit the establishment of aristocracy in the cities. The decline of Athens continued with the expulsion of friends of Athens, from the government of Phokis and Lokris. Things went worst, when Megara and Euboea revolted and the young king of Sparta Pleistoanax invaded Attica, reaching as close as Eleusis. Pleistoanax, who was probably bribed by Perikles, evacuated Attica and later, he was found guilty of corruption and banished. Perikles, who at the time of the invasion of Pleistoanax was at expedition at Euboea returned to Athens. When the enemy withdrew, he went back to Euboea, with five thousand hoplite and fifty triremes. After a short time the island of Euboea surrendered, the landowners were expelled and their properties were taken by Athenian colonists. Though the land power of Athens was diminished, at sea she remained strong and in 445 BC signed a treaty with Sparta, for thirty years.
Perikles
444 - 429 BC
While Perikles was pursuing his plan to make Athens an empire, the oligarchs led by Thoukydides (not the historian) were accusing him, that Athens had not right to spent the contribution of her allies to build temples, support campaigns, etc. Thoukydides was banished in 442 BC, and Perikles became the undisputed leader of Athens, until his death, in 429 BC. Perikles, in a period of twenty years, changed the appearance of Athens, building in Acropolis the masterpiece Parthenon. He did not only beautify Athens, but also her port Piraeus, which had grown, since it had been fortified by Themistokles. He appointed the architect Ippodamos, who rebuild Piraeus, using a rectangular system where the main streets run parallel to the streets at right angles. This was the first city to be build in such way in Europe and its plan has been adopted by most of our modern cities.
Among the measures to strengthen the Athenian empire were the Klerouchies. The most important establishment of Klerouchoi took place at the Thracian chersonese under his personal supervision. Other settlements in Naxos, Andros, helped the unemployed Athenian citizens, to whom were allotted farms.
Athens was prospering, her trade had been increased mainly due to the decline of the merchant cities of Ionia and the diminished Phoenician trade after the victory of Greece over Persia. Athenian ships were bringing from Karthage corn, cheese and from Sicily pork, from Tuscany metal works, carpets and cushions, from Pontos corn, fish and wood. Athens at west had no colonies, like the competitor Corinth. Themistokles had tried to persuade the Athenians to make a settlement, but Athens had to wait until Perikles to execute his idea. When the exiles from Sybaris asked the help of Athens to return to their city, Perikles took the opportunity to lay the foundation of the new city of Sybaris, from exiles and Athenians.
In 443 BC, under the guidance of the seer Lampon, a close friend of Perikles, the colony of Thurii was founded not far from Sybaris. The new city was designed by Ippodamos, the architect of Piraeus.
In Thrace a new city was founded at the chersonese and named Amphipolis. It was soon flourished and played an important role in the Athenian trade. Perikles was a successful military leader also. At 440 BC, Samos revolted and Perikles with forty four triremes sailed to Samos and overthrew the aristocracy. When the Athenian fleet left, the nobles returned and took possession of the city. Immediately Perikles sailed back to Samos with two hundred triremes, blockaded the island and forced them to surrender after nine months.