Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
form and performed regularly, and encouraged the theatrical festivals where Greek
drama would be born.
Athens and the Golden Age: 490-431 BC
Democracy
was a very long way from universal. The population of
Athens
and
surrounding Attica amounted to some 400,000 people, of whom about 80,000 were
slaves, 160,000 foreigners, and another 160,000 free-born Athenians. Out of this last
category came the
citizens
, those who could vote and be elected to office, and their
number amounted to no more than 45,000 adult men.
Yet if the powers of democracy were in the hands of the few, the energy, boldness and
creative spirit that it released raised Athens to greatness. Throughout the
fifth century
BC
the political, intellectual and artistic activity of the Greek world was centred on the
city. In particular Athens was the patron of
drama
, both tragedy and comedy. Athenian
tragedy always addressed the great issues of life and death and the relationship of man
to the gods. And the Athenians themselves seemed to be conscious of living out a high
drama as they fought battles, argued policy, raised temples and wrote plays that have
decided the course and sensibility of Western civilization.
The Persian Wars
The wars between Greece and Persia began with a revolt by Ionian Greeks in Asia Minor.
Athens and Eretria gave them support, burning the city of Sardis in 498 BC. Provoked by
their insolence,
Darius
, the Persian king, launched a punitive expedition. The
Persians'
unexpected repulse at
Marathon
in 490 BC persuaded Darius to hurl his full military
might against Greece, to ensure its subjection once and for all to the Persian Empire.
After Darius died in 486 BC, his son
Xerxes
took over. In 483 BC, he began
preparations that lasted two years and were on a fabulous scale. Bridges of boats were
built across the Hellespont for Persia's vast imperial army to parade into Europe, and a
canal was cut for the fleet through the Athos peninsula. Though the Greek historian
Herodotus
claimed that Xerxes' army held one million eight hundred thousand
soldiers, his figure is probably a tenfold exaggeration. Even so, it was a massive force, an
army of 46 nations, combined with a fleet of eight hundred triremes carrying almost as
many sailors as there were soldiers in the army.
Despite their numerical superiority, the might of Asia was routed both at sea of
Salamis
in 480 BC and on land at
Plataea
the following year. Within a few days of that
second battle came another naval victory at
Mycale
, off Sámos, where the battle was
won when Xerxes' subject Ionians went over to their fellow Hellenes. Xerxes could do
no more than return to Susa, his capital deep in Persia, leaving the entire Aegean free.
Despite occasional reversals, this sudden shift in the balance of power between East
and West endured for the next 1500 years. Within 150 years, Alexander the Great
achieved in Asia what Xerxes had failed to achieve in Europe, and the Persian Empire
succumbed to a Greek conqueror.
Themistocles and the rise of sea power
The greatest Athenian statesman, and architect of the victory over Persia, was
Themistocles
. Following the Ionian revolt he understood that a clash between Persia
498 BC
490 BC
480 BC
Rebellious Ionian Greeks
burn the city of Sardis,
provoking a Persian
invasion of Greece.
Victory by the Athenians and Plataeans at the
Battle of Marathon ends the first Persian campaign.
Pheidippides runs to Athens to convey the good news.
Greek defeat at the
Battle of Thermopylae,
scene of heroic
Spartan defiance.
