Ithaka Bound

Sing to me of the Man, Oh Muse…(III)

Emboldened by their new prosperity, prestige, and power, Pericles and the Athenians began to pursue empire.  Despite their protestations to the contrary, they began to treat their allies as their subjects.  Ideologically committed to their own form of radical democracy, they saw it as their mission and their right to foster, or if necessary to force, this democracy on their sister states.

You either supported Athens, or you braced yourself to be her enemy.

Sparta rightfully saw Athens as a threat and came to realize that the two of them – Athens and Sparta – were on a collision course.  Their suspicions were confirmed when the Athenian Assembly declared war on Sparta and the Peloponnese after an impassioned speech by Pericles.

At the same time, the political enemies of Pericles sought to erode his power and topple him by attacking those closest to him.  His friend Phidias, ancient Athens’ greatest sculptor and the man for whom the golden mean was named, was thrown in jail for embezzlement and died not long after.  The philosopher Anaxagoras was indicted for teaching that the sun was a red-hot mass of metal, and not a god, and for treasonable correspondence with Persia.  Anaxagoras was condemned to death, but was saved through the intervention of Pericles.  Aspasia was also put on trial, then saved by Pericles.

Pericles’ meticulous plan to defeat Sparta took account of everything, except that which can never be taken into account.  One year after the start of the war, the plague entered Athens. It spread through the over-crowded city like wildfire, taking 20,000 lives in the first outbreak.

Pericles’ two legitimate sons from his first marriage died within a week of each other, and the Athenians saw their stoic leader cry in public.

Pericles himself died of the plague during the third year of the Peloponnesian war and the glory that was Athens died with him.

The democracy was left prey to hostile factions and reckless leaders who pursued their own advantage.  Traditional warfare in Greece was brutal but brief.  A battle might last only hours or even minutes.  When one side yielded the field, the other side declared victory, erected a trophy, and collected its dead.  The practical aim of war was to bring the enemy to submission, whereas in the Peloponnesian war – through the leadership of inferior men – the aim became to annihilate the enemy.  Any line between warriors and innocents, between young and old, was ignored.  War became indistinguishable from atrocity.

The Peloponnesian War lasted nearly 30 years, and in the end Athens lost everything.  Her prosperity and democracy, her people and her principles had all been fed to the consuming ache for empire.  The Golden Age of Athens was over, and the Greek world from Sicily to Asia Minor was devastated.

The Spartans sacked Athens, tore down its city walls, destroyed the fortifications of its port, Piraeus, and all but 12 warships were surrendered.  Athens was henceforth to be a Spartan ally and to follow the same foreign policy. Persia was finally allowed to establish an influence in Greece, something it had not succeeded in doing during all the military battles of the last century.

The future of Greece lay to the north.  The torch of empire, which eventually consumes every hand that grasps it, was passed to a young boy named Alexander, tutored by Aristotle, who is said to have slept with the Iliad under his pillow.

 (parts excerpted from Ancient Greece: an Explorer's Guide)

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