I have been reading the most astonishing book, 'The Life of Greece' by Will Durant. It is Volume Two of the eleven volume The Story of Civilization.
I should like to write a précis of parts that fascinated me, from 491 BC (the Battle of Marathon), to 323 BC (The death of Alexander).
I could imagine it being made into a superb TV series, surpassing 'The Lord of the Rings' and 'Game of Thrones'.
Time-line
491 BC. Battle of Marathon. 20,000 Greeks defeat 100,000 invading Persians under Darius I.
482 BC. Themistocles persuades the Athenians to build a navy of 100 triremes.
481 BC. Xerxes launches massive Persian invasion towards Greece.
480 BC. Persians cross Hellespont. Battle of Salamis. Greeks defeat much larger Persian navy.
479 BC. Battle of Plataea. Persians defeated. End of the Greco-Persian War.
The Greco-Persian War was the most momentous conflict in European history, for it made Europe possible. It won for Western civilization the opportunity to develop its own economic life—unburdened with alien tribute or taxation—and its own political institutions, free from the dictation of Oriental kings.
It won for Greece a clear road for the first great experiment in liberty; it preserved the Greek mind for three centuries from the enervating mysticism of the East, and secured for Greek enterprise full freedom of the sea. The Athenian fleet that remained after Salamis now opened every port in the Mediterranean to Greek trade, and the commercial expansion that ensued provided the wealth that financed the leisure and culture of Periclean Athens.
The victory of little Hellas against such odds stimulated the pride and lifted up the spirit of its people; out of very gratitude they felt called upon to do unprecedented things. After centuries of preparation and sacrifice Greece entered upon its Golden Age.
“The period which intervened between the birth of Pericles and the death of Aristotle,” wrote Shelley, “is undoubtedly, whether considered in itself or with reference to the effect which it has produced upon the subsequent destinies of civilized man, the most memorable in the history of the world.”
477 BC +. Athens, led by Themistocles, became the dominant naval power in the east Mediterranean.
471 BC. Themistocles ostracised for corruption. He fled to Persia and offered to help the Persians subjugate Greece!
461 BC. Pericles (33) becomes leader of Athens from 461 - 429.
Pericles
459 BC. Pericles, anxious to control Egyptian grain, sent a great fleet to expel the Persians from Egypt. The expedition failed, and thereafter Pericles adopted the policy of Themistocles—to win the world by commerce rather than by war.
He enacted many reforms. To give work to the idle, he made the state an employer on a scale unprecedented in Greece: ships were added to the fleet, arsenals were built, and a great corn exchange was erected at Piraeus.
To protect Athens effectively from siege by land, and at the same time to provide further work for the unemployed, Pericles persuaded the Assembly to supply funds for constructing eight miles of 'Long Walls'; the effect was to make the city and its ports one fortified enclosure, open in wartime only to the sea—on which the Athenian fleet was supreme.
He lent his patronage also to literature and philosophy; and whereas in the other Greek cities of this period the strife of parties consumed much of the energy of the citizens, and literature languished, in Athens the stimulus of growing wealth and democratic freedom was combined with wise and cultured leadership to produce the Golden Age.
The School of Athens, imagined by Raphael in 1510.
Two of Pericles closest friends were Phidias the sculptor and Anaxagoras the philosopher.
450 BC. Aspasia, an hetaira (escort) from Miletus, arrived in Athens and opened a school of rhetoric and philosophy. She boldly encouraged the public emergence and higher education of women. She and Pericles fell in love and became partners.
Pericles and Aspasia admiring the statue of Athena, by Phidias.
Aspasia made his home a French Enlightenment salon, where the art and science, the literature, philosophy, and statesmanship of Athens were brought together in mutual stimulation. Socrates marvelled at her eloquence. Aspasia became the uncrowned queen of Athens, setting fashion’s tone, and giving to the women of the city an exciting example of mental and moral freedom.
Socrates
447 BC. Parthenon building commences.
The Parthenon on the Acropolis
447 to 438 BC Phidias and his aides carved the statues and reliefs of the Parthenon. Phidias was one of the greatest sculptors of classical Greece.
Phidias showing his frieze in the Parthenon to his friends.
A replica of Phidias' statue of Athena Parthenos. The original was 38 feet high and made of ivory and gold.
He later made a huge statue of Zeus in Olympia, 60 feet high. It was one of the seven wonders of the World.
Athens was a turbulent democracy, with vigorous conflict between the aristocrats and the democrats. The franchise was restricted to those sons, of two free Athenian parents, who had reached the age of twenty-one; and only they and their families enjoyed civil rights, or directly bore the military and fiscal burdens of the state. Within this jealously circumscribed circle of 43,000 citizens out of an Attic population of 315,000, political power, in the days of Pericles, is formally equal.
The voters were not gathered into parties, but were loosely divided into followers of the oligarchic or the democratic factions according as they opposed or favoured the extension of the franchise, the dominance of the Assembly, and the governmental succor of the poor at the expense of the rich.
The Athenian Empire depended on its military superiority over its various colonies around the Mediterranean.
432 BC The Battle of Potidaea. Socrates and Alcibiades fight together.
431–404 BC The Peloponnesian War between the Athens and Sparta.
431 BC. Pericles Funeral Oration for those Athenians who had already died in the new war with Sparta. It has been celebrated as one of the greatest speeches of all time. Selected passage here.
Pericles giving his funeral oration.
430 BC an outbreak of a plague hit Athens. The plague ravaged the densely packed city, and in the long run, was a significant cause of its final defeat. The plague wiped out over 30,000 citizens, sailors and soldiers, including Pericles and his sons. Roughly one-third to two-thirds of the Athenian population died. Hippocrates the 'father of medicine' came to Athens to help fight the plague.
The plague of Athens
415–413 BC. The Sicilian Expedition was an Athenian military expedition to Sicily, which took place from 415–413 BC during the Peloponnesian War between Athens on one side and Sparta, Syracuse and Corinth on the other. The expedition ended in a devastating defeat for the Athenian forces, severely impacting Athens.
A dominant character in this disaster was a young man called Alcibiades.
Alcibiades and Socrates
Alcibiades is one of the most famous (or infamous) characters of Classical Greece. A young Athenian aristocrat, he came to prominence during the Peloponnesian War between Sparta and Athens.
Flamboyant, charismatic, handsome and very wealthy, this close associate of Socrates persuaded the Athenians to attempt to stand up to the Spartans on land as part of an alliance he was instrumental in bringing together. Although this led to defeat at the Battle of Mantinea in 418 BC, his prestige remained high.
He was also a prime mover in Athens' next big strategic gambit, the Sicilian Expedition of 415 BC, for which he was elected as one of the leaders. Shortly after arrival in Sicily, however, he was recalled to face charges of sacrilege allegedly committed during his pre-expedition revels. Jumping ship on the return journey, he defected to the Spartans. Alcibiades soon ingratiated himself with the Spartans, encouraging them to aid the Sicilians (ultimately resulting in the utter destruction of the Athenian expedition) and to keep year-round pressure on the Athenians.
He then overstepped the bounds of hospitality by getting the Queen of Sparta pregnant. He was soon on the run again.
He then played a devious and dangerous game of shift in loyalties between Sparta, Athens and Persia. He had a hand in engineering the overthrow of democracy at Athens in favour of an oligarchy, which allowed him to return from exile, though he then opposed the increasingly-extreme excesses of that regime. For a time he looked to have restored Athens' fortunes in the war, but went into exile again after being held responsible for the defeat of one of his subordinates in a naval battle.
This time he took refuge with the Persians, but as they were now allied to the Spartans, the cuckolded King Agis of Sparta was able to arrange his assassination by Persian agents in 400 BC.
Alcibiades' death
Alcibiades: Athenian Playboy, General and Traitor
The Life of Alcibiades: Dangerous Ambition and the Betrayal of Athens
The Life of Alcibiades: Dangerous Ambition and the Betrayal of Athens
The two major historians of this era were Herodotus and Thucydides. The latter wrote 'History of the Peloponnesian War.'
404 BC. Athens surrendered to the Spartans. The city was ruled by Thirty Tyrants, who ruthlessly tried to stamp out democracy and anti-Spartan feeling.
The general Thrasybulus led a revolt which threw out the thirty tyrants and re-established democracy.
Socrates became more famous and prominent in this period, followed closely by two of his students, Plato the philosopher, and Xenophon, the military leader, philosopher and historian.
Plato. Major reporter of Socrates' ideas.
Xenophon.
401 - 399 BC He was in a mercenary army of 10,000 soldiers who fought in Persia for Cyrus the Younger. After Cyrus was killed, and other Athenian generals assassinated, Xenophon led the Ten Thousand on one of the world's most heroic retreats out of enemy territory.
399 BC. The trial and death of Socrates. He was accused of impiety and corrupting the morals of the youth of Athens. He was found guilty by a jury of about 500 citizens and condemned to death. He died by drinking hemlock.
The death of Socrates
387 BC. Plato set up his Academy in Athens, the first school of higher education in the Western World. One of his students was Aristotle.
Aristotle
371 BC. Thebes revolted against Sparta. The battle of Leuctra, ended with the utter defeat of the Spartans. This helped the recovery of Athens.
347 BC. Plato died.
343 BC. King Philip II of Macedonia in northern Greece summoned Aristotle to come and tutor his 13 year-old son Alexander. Many noble Macedonian families immediately submitted their own sons to be educated alongside Alexander, knowing that he would be their future king. These young men included Ptolemy, Hephaestion and Cassander who would play important roles in Alexander’s life. Some of these students became the elite unit known as Companions, the trusted circle of officers around the young conqueror on his campaigns.
Philip expanded his domain by conquering a series of cities, spreading south into the Greek heartland. Alexander’s classroom education was interrupted from time to time when his father took him on military actions—which could be looked upon as education in the field.
338 BC The epic Battle of Chaeronea. Philip and Alexander (then 18) collaborated to completely rout the Athenians, the Thebes and their allies. The Theban 'Sacred Band' of 300 gay male couples were all killed.
Philip treated the defeated states leniently, and recruited them into a grand coalition called the 'Hellenic Alliance' for his plan to invade Persia.
336 BC. Philip was assassinated at his daughter's wedding by his head bodyguard.
Alexander (20) was proclaimed king.
Alexander
334 BC. He crossed the Hellespont into Asia with only 48,100 soldiers and 6,100 cavalry, along with 120 ships. The enemy he faced could bring hundreds of thousands of troops to every battle. But he went anyway. Alexander quickly won victories at Granicus, Miletus, Halicarnassus and Termessos. He untied the Gordian knot with his sword, then went on to Issus at the northeast corner of the Mediterranean Sea where he defeated the Persian king Darius and his main army.
A siege at Tyre delayed him, but then Alexander swept south into Egypt and founded the city of Alexandria on the coast as his new Greek capital for that country.
Going to Mesopotamia, he fought Darius again, this time at Gaugamela in what is now northern Iraq. Once again Darius was defeated. With that, the war for Persia was essentially over, and Alexander marched victorious into Babylon, Susa and Persepolis. But to confirm his rule he chased remnants of the Persian army into what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and the northern tip of India. Then he returned at last to Babylon.
The tragic death of his closest friend Hephaestion, a companion since his days in Aristotle’s classroom, devastated Alexander. And it was not long before he was in failing health himself, suffering from poison or disease.
323 BC, at thirty-two years of age, he died. Alexander had conquered all of the Persian empire. In doing so he and the Greek people gained a measure of revenge for the shocking destruction of Athens 157 years earlier. And in a strange turn of events, Athens still lived, while the Persian empire perished. Yet even in death Alexander had a stature no one person could match.
Alexander: The Making of a God is a six part docudrama series that reveals the extraordinary life of Alexander the Great through his radical transformation from warrior prince to living god. The series explores his rise as an exiled young man into his obsession with defeating the mighty Persian Emperor Darius that led him to conquer the known world in just under six years. Alexander the Great's fascinating story is told through stunning drama intertwined with expert academic insight, ground-breaking archaeology and ongoing excavations at the archaeological site in Alexandria, Egypt.
It was only after much in-fighting that his Hellenic empire was divided into four parts under different Greek rulers. His childhood friend Ptolemy became king of all the African lands, ruling from Alexandria in Egypt.
Seleucus, one of Alexander’s senior generals, became king of all the Asian lands, and ruled from Babylon.
Lysimachus, another schoolmate of Alexander, ruled the bridge lands between Europe and Asia—essentially Thrace and Anatolia—from the city of Pergamon.
Another senior general, Antigonus, ruled Macedonia and exercised some measure of control over the Greek city-states, residing in the city of Pella in Macedonia.
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