This week we saw the great golden age of Periclean Athens collapse into the abyss of the Peloponnesian War. We began the week by asking why “Golden Ages” tend to last not much longer than a generation.
- Some suggest that the success and power a golden age brings would bring about the envy of others, and this envy could turn into a threat.
- Another might suggest that the generation that grew up with the ‘golden age’ in place would likely have a much different experience than their parents. I found this comment especially perceptive. As we saw last week, golden ages usually arise from a creative response to a particular challenge. Those that grow up without the challenge won’t have the experience or ‘training’ to continue what their parents started.
- Last week we also noted how golden ages require a variety of factors coming together at once, some physical and others psychological. No one can reasonably keep all the plates spinning for long. Eventually nature dictates that something will begin to spin off the axis sooner or later, and this will drag other things down with it.
Some of their comments did in fact apply directly to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, especially#1. Athens went from plucky underdog in 490 B.C. to the then equivalent of the New York Yankees or New England Patriots by 431 B.C. Many city-states lined up against them with Sparta. We did not spend a great deal of time on the war itself, as during their senior year we devote a few weeks entirely to this conflict and the issues it raises, but we did touch on a few key points
1. How in war the unexpected and unforeseen can occur
Of course the unforeseen can always occur, in war or at any other point. But since war requires a great deal of planning, many assume that the conflict will go as we wish. The making of the plans itself creates that expectation. Yet, in war as in life, things rarely go according to our preconceived version of events.
2. Peace treaties may not be what they seem
After 10 years of intermittent conflict, both Athens and Sparta signed a treaty called the Peace of Nicias. But treaties in name may not be in fact. Some treaties bring real peace, some only reflect a desire to call a ‘time out’ in the fighting. Unfortunately for Athens, this treaty turned out to be one of the latter.
3. War Stresses Democracy
War will put stress on any form of government and any society. Some wars brought down monarchies — like W.W. I. We assume that democracies are more stable, but the Peloponnesian War brought out many weaknesses within Athenian democracy and for a time ended it within Athens. We looked at how desperation and panic act on a democratic people in the battle of Arginusae. The Athenians won this battle, but the generals failed to pick up the dead and give them proper burial, something that could be considered sacrilege, and sacrilege could be punished by death. Grief stricken, the city put the generals on trial, found them guilty, and executed them. A few days later they regretted their actions. They put the lawyer who prosecuted the generals on trial for murder, found him guilty, and executed him also.
Ostensibly, Sparta won the Peloponnesian War. But in truth the war had no real winners in Southern Greece. All exhausted themselves in the conflict. Thebes, involved in the conflict but slightly to the north, emerged as the strongest party in the more immediate aftermath of the war. But it would be Macedon, further still to the north, and never involved in the fighting at all, that would eventually assert absolute supremacy over Greece in the person of Phillip of Macedon and his son Alexander. We’ll look at them next week.
You can see the geography of it below here, with everything pink or yellow caught up in the fighting (with even blue areas involved sporadically), and Macedon waiting patiently above in brown.
For those of you who have seen From Russia with Love, the scene where “Number 1” talks about the Siamese Fighting Fish is a good parallel, if we think of Macedon as the fish who stays out of the fight.