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by John Nash
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Graham Allison and Thucydides both suggest that war becomes inevitable due to the growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta. Identify some elements of Athenian and Spartan strategy to show how war does or does not become inevitable.
The purpose of this thesis is to suggest why Athenian oligarchs reacted against the democratic agenda of Panhellenism in 413–411. Panhellenism was a gradual process of Greek cultural unification, which took on a politicized connotation after the Persian Wars calling for the accession of a hegemon to oppose the Persian Empire. This thesis examines the differences in political ideology between oligarchs and democrats, the increasing economic burdens on oligarchs to finance the Peloponnesian War, and the rift between oligarchic restraint (sophrosyne) and democratic courage (andreia) as the reasons for the oligarchs’ opposition to Panhellenism after the failed Sicilian Expedition. By examining Thucydides’ History, various speeches of the Attic orators and Athenian plays, as well as incorporating inscriptionary evidence, this thesis shows that Panhellenism was indeed not a universally held notion in Athens, and that further study must be done on the fragmentary nature of Athenian Panhellenism in the Classical Period.
Despite the rich scholarly studies about Greek warfare, not much has been written about what could be defined Greek “unconventional warfare”, especially regarding the period between the 8th and the 5th century BC. Most of the modern scholars, in fact, have been focusing on the reconstruction of the various phases of a typical battle, or have considered the strategies and tactics used at the expense of a deeper study of the actual fighting dynamics. Ultimately, this means that almost nobody has tried to relate battle patterns and their theoretical aspects, as if they were completely unrelated to each other, and investigate why some parts of Greece were more receptive to military innovation than others. This dissertation aims to solve this issue, and includes: a few considerations about unconventional warfare, as it has been defined in modern times, and an adaptation of its definition that may be applied to Greek warfare; a brief description of the various troops that composed a typical 5th century BC polis’ army, and of their role in battle; the analysis of some significant episodes of the Peloponnesian War, where the strategies and tactics applied by the commanders stand out for their innovative approach. Lastly, some considerations on how in reality these unconventional strategies and tactics are not relegated to the Peloponnesian War only: in fact, they can be found in other past conflicts. This may lead to the supposition that they are part of a diachronic military evolution, whose roots date back at least to the Homeric Poems, and whose evidence is sometimes hidden by predominant tradition of hoplite warfare.
Detailed account of the Confederacy of Delos, including its nature, scope, origins, and history from inception down to the Thirty Years Peace between Athens and Sparta. As with my other general articles on this site, I wrote this for the Encyclopedia of Ancient History, because I find most encyclopedia entries inadequate.
2010, D. Pritchard (ed.) War, Democracy and Culture in Classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 65-87
How, are we to explain documented cases in which a democracy, for example Athens in the era of the Archidamian War, does well in fierce and sustained competition? Following a recent article by Kenneth Schultz and Barry Weingast (2003), we may call this the puzzle of democratic advantage.3 This chapter argues that Thucydides addressed a version of the democratic-advantage puzzle, and did so in a way that anticipates some important modern developments in social science.
2015, Greek Historiography, Wiley Blackwell, T. Scanlon author.
Sparta had long been Greece’s dominant land power, because its hoplites, as full-time professionals, fought much better than its enemies and it could force its allies to provide further hoplites for its wars without the need to pay them. Yet in the Peloponnesian War’s first two phases the enormous army that Sparta could raise proved ineffective against Athens; for whenever it entered Athenian territory, the Athenians simply withdrew within their fortifications, imported food-supplies by sea and waited for their enemies to leave. Now Sparta realised that they could only defeat Athens if it became a major sea power. But to become one it too had to find a way to meet a fleet’s astronomical costs. Sparta found a way in 413/2, after the destruction of the enormous expedition that Athens had sent to Sicily. Persia saw this destruction as the best opportunity in decades to get rid of the Athenian empire. In exchange for re-gaining the right to levy tribute on Anatolia’s Greeks it thus provided Sparta with enough gold to build and to maintain a fleet. In the course of the Ionian War, which is the name of the Peloponnesian War’s last phase, this Spartan fleet came in time to surpass what was left of the Athenian fleet. In 405/4 Sparta easily destroyed the last of the Athenian triremes in the Hellespont and so was able to force the surrender of Athens by a land and sea blockade. With its full control of the Aegean Sea it subjugated the last of the Greek states that supported Athens and so could bring the Athenian empire to an end.
A dissertation which studies the impact of crowd emotions in Ancient Greek assemblies on the causes of the Peloponnesian War, specifically focussing on how ancient Greek emotions - and the honour-based stimuli of those emotions - differed from those of modern historians.
2016, Emotion and Persuasion in Classical Antiquity (eds. Ed Sanders & Matthew Johncock)
This paper examines the Spartan general Brasidas’ speech at Acanthus, a subject of Athens, in 424 BCE (Thuc. 4.84-87). Brasidas presents himself as Acanthus’ liberator while simultaneously threatening the city with military action. In effect, he forces Acanthus to be free. While many see Brasidas as a cynical agent of imperialism, Brasidas’ speech can best be understood in light of the concept of eunoia, or goodwill. For Brasidas, the eunoia for Sparta verbally expressed by Acanthus must be matched by deeds, or it is no eunoia at all. Also, Rousseau’s ideas of the General Will and forced freedom shed further light on Brasidas’ rhetoric and actions.
Imperial democracies are rare in history – and Athens was the first, for the Athenian Empire was acquired and consolidated with the ascendancy of the world's first democracy. To speak of an Athenian " empire " is to transfer the Latin term and concept of imperium to the hegemonic rule exercised by the Athenians over other Greeks. With some reservations, the word "empire" may be applied to the rule of the Athenians over the Aegean Sea and coastline during the fifth century. The traditional dates for the Athenian empire run from the formation of the Delian League under the hegemony (hegemonia) of Athens (478) to the Athenian defeat and surrender (404) to her arch-rival and political antithesis, Sparta. These dates also correspond to what would be the first of two centuries of literary and intellectual flourishing, known to posterity as the 'classical' age of ancient Greek history. The vibrant and unique genius of that era – embodied by such fifth-century luminaries as Themistokles, Sophocles, Perikles, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Alkibiades, and Sokrates – engendered accomplishments in politics, drama, and the arts which served as the seminal soil into which fourth-century philosophers and orators – like Xenophon, Plato, Isokrates, Demosthenes, and Aristotle – sank their roots. Surpassed in scope and longevity by the PERSIAN EMPIRE, which Athens had initially sought to oppose and thereby rose to prominence among the Greeks; dwarfed in her conquests by the MACEDONIAN EMPIRE, which brought an end to Athenian freedom and democracy (as well as to the Persian Empire), Athens in the fifth century acquired an empire of unrivaled power and prestige whose lasting effect upon the culture of western civilization can hardly be overestimated – the legacy of the Roman Republic and ROMAN EMPIRE notwithstanding. Literary and material evidence for the Athenian empire is abundant. The penetrating historia, or inquiry, of the great war waged between the Athenians and their allies and a coalition of Peloponnesians led by the Spartans, known as the Peloponnesian War (431-404), written by Thucydides, an Athenian citizen and general, remains the principal source of contemporary literary evidence for the Athenian empire. Additional sources include an extant treatise on the Constitution of the Athenians (attributed to an 'Old Oligarch'), the comedies of Aristophanes, and the Hellenika of Xenophon the Athenian (a continuation of Thucydides' unfinished account of the Peloponnesian War, and a history of Greek affairs down to 362). Fourth-century sources range from philosophers (Plato and Aristotle), to orators (Isokrates and Demosthenes) – to name just a few. Material evidence for reconstructing the history and character of the fifth-century Athenian empire has been brought to light in the last century by work in the fields of archaeology, numismatics, epigraphy, art and architectural history.
The purpose of my dissertation is to analyse the negative comments concerning Pericles; the 5th Century BCE Athenian statesman and general. This will involve an assessment of both ancient and modern writers. It will include an exploration of his early career as well as the decisions he made whilst in high office. His personal life will also be examined to clarify to what extent it affected his judgement in politics. Larger themes such as Athenian Imperialism and financial greed will also be taken into account to confirm if Pericles' actions were all just simply part of the current social-political landscape of the polis of Athens. The eventual aim of my dissertation is to evaluate these various assessments and judge if there is substantial weight to them.
Byzantion’dan Constantinopolis’e İstanbul Kuşatmaları, Editörler: Murat Arslan-Turhan Kaçar, İstanbul: İstanbul Araştırmaları Enstitüsü, 2017, 39-62.
Before the Persian Wars the Greeks did not rely on public finance to fight each other. Their hoplites armed and fed themselves. But in the confrontation with Persia this private funding of war proved to be inadequate. The liberation of the Greek states beyond the Balkans required the destruction of Persia’s sea power. In 478 Athens agreed to lead an alliance to do just this. Already it had Greece’s largest fleet. But each campaign of this ongoing war would need tens of thousands of sailors and go for months. No single Greek city-state could pay for such campaigns. The alliance thus agreed to adopt the Persian method for funding war: its members would pay annually a fixed amount of tribute. This enabled Athens to force Persia out of the Dardanelles and Ionia. But the Athenians also realised that their military power depended on tribute and so tightened their control of its payers. In so doing they turned the alliance into an empire. By 450 Athens had become a threat to Greece’s other dominant power. But Sparta struggled to counter it effectively. In the Peloponnesian War Sparta realised that it could only do so if it too became a sea power. But its weak public finances ruled this out. All changed in 412, when Persia’s Great King decided to give it the necessary funds. In exchange for the right to levy tribute again on Ionia’s Greeks he helped the Spartans to acquire a large fleet. In 405 this fleet destroyed the last warships of Athens. Sparta could now dismantle its empire and force it to surrender by a land and sea blockade. In the Corinthian War Persia initially funded the anti-Spartan alliance, as the Spartans had decided to fight it for control of Ionia’s Greek city-states. The Athenians used its gold to rebuild their fleet. With these warships they set out to re-establish the Athenian empire. But this represented a still bigger threat to Persia. Consequently it switched its funding to the Spartans. They quickly assembled a fleet in the Dardanelles where they stopped the grain ships sailing for Athens. The Athenians feared being starved into submission once again and so accepted the King’s Peace. This treaty of 386 scuttled their attempt to re-establish their empire. To keep waging wars they now had to develop different funding-sources. In this Athens was reasonably successful. It was thus able to keep Sparta at bay and quickly became a major regional power. But it was not successful enough to stop the rise of Philip. By 338 this king had defeated Greece’s other regional powers and so made Macedonia its hegemon. This success rested largely on his public-finance reforms. His son became less concerned about public finance as he conquered Persia; for plunder easily paid for his army. But the hellenistic kingdoms which arose after him managed their public finances carefully. With vastly larger tax-bases they fielded armies several times larger than those of classical Athens or Sparta. War for dominance among the Greeks had now moved well beyond their city-states.
Classical Quarterly 59.1 75–90 (2009)
Thucydides and Herodotus, pp. 316-44. Edited by E. Foster and D. Lateiner. Oxford University Press
The aim of this article is to show that the reason for large numbers of Athenian tetradrachms being part of hoards buried in southern and south-eastern Asia Minor, mainly Cilicia, is related to the supply of timber for the Athenian fleet. From the reign of Perdikkas II to the beginning of the Hellenistic period, Athens was only able to import timber from Macedonia for a very limited number of years and so Macedonia could not be Athens’s regular timber supplier.
Detailed account of the Confederacy of Delos, including its nature, scope, origins, and history from the Thirty Years Peace between Athens and Sparta down to the start of the Ten Year's War. As with my other general articles on this site, I wrote this for the Encyclopedia of Ancient History, because I find most encyclopedia entries inadequate.
Thucydides’ History remains the basis for numerous claims within International Relations Theory, contributing to defining concepts from the security dilemma to the dynamics of bi-polarity and hegemonic transition theory. But the historical record that underpins Thucydides’ History provides a more complex view of the rivalry between Athens and Sparta. This analysis argues that basing explanations for the Great Peloponnesian War on the premise of Spartan “fear” is incomplete. A bi-polar, hegemonic rivalry did not lock-in the two states; they existed in a complex multi-polar system. This multi-polarity allowed other actors—notably Corinth—to play a key role in the outbreak of war. It was consideration for alliances, empires, and political rivalries within the context of multi-polarity, rather than a prosaic Spartan “fear,” that were at the heart of the war. These unique characteristics combined with the misrepresentation of the historical record, make generalising from the Peloponnesian War dangerous.
2001, D.R. McCann and B. S. Strauss (eds.), Democracy and War: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War (Armonk, N.Y. and London: M.E. Sharpe, 2001), 273- 306. Reprinted in J. Rusten (ed.) Oxford Readings in Thucydides (2009)
Granted that Thucydides' account of states and power supports the development of some sort of Realist international relations theory, the question I pose is whether reading Thucydides as a strong Realist will yield an adequate account of the complex text that is Thucydides' history of the Peloponnesian War. My eventual conclusion is no. I will suggest that Thucydides the "strong Realist" theorist is indeed a centrally important presence in the text. But the careful reader eventually finds Thucydides the theorist of state power (Thucydides Theoretikos) challenged and even confuted by another of the text's central authorial presences: Thucydides the historian (Thucydides Histor). Thucydides text suggests that the best theorizing will be informed and chastened by attention to the complexities and contingency that characterizes the best historical narratives.
The main forum for political speech in the Greek city-state was the Assembly, which all male citizens had the right to attend. Speakers in the Assembly were not members of political parties promoting an ideology but appealed to the interests of the entire community and to shared social values. To win the trust of fellow citizens, speakers employed rhetoric to stress their moral integrity and their personal dedication to public service. The agenda of the Assembly was set by the Council, and speakers had to address a specific proposal for immediate action. The business of the Assembly included foreign affairs, public finance, military campaigns, and religious business—there was no separation of church and state in the ancient Greek world. The Greeks made a strict distinction between speeches before the Assembly (deliberative oratory) and those given in the law courts (forensic oratory) and at festivals and public funerals (epideictic oratory).
2017, AIO Papers 8
This paper discusses two important inscriptions for the history of the Athenian Empire, the Chalkis decree of 446/5 (or 424/3?) BC (IG I3 40) and the tribute reassessment decree (“Thoudippos’ decree”) of 425/4 BC (IG I3 71). Based on English translations of the most up-to-date and authoritative Greek texts, the paper sets out to explain the inscriptions in historical context, without assuming prior knowledge of ancient Greek or of the history of Athens and the Athenian Empire. To help the reader new to the study of Athenian inscriptions, the Paper includes an introduction to inscribed Athenian decrees of the fifth century BC. This paper will be useful for researchers, teachers and learners of Greek History at University level, but is also designed to help teachers and students in UK 6th forms studying Ancent History A-level (H407, LACTOR4 1.78 and 138). Note: minor corrections were incorporated on 28 June 2017. Hard copies are available at: http://www.andromedabooks.gr/product.asp?catid=38457.
2019, T. J. Figueira and S. E. Jensen, eds., Hegemonic Finances: Funding Athenian Domination in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries B.C. (Classical Press of Wales: Swansea)
Thucydides' characterization of Perikles' aggressive policy as "moderate" can only be understood in the context of the Athenian hyper-aggression that preceded and followed Perikles' last years of political dominance. Athens' history of expanding her hegemony extends back to the synoicism of Attica and (at least) the seventh century B.C. The vindication of Harold B. Mattingly's attempt to show that three-barred sigmas continued in Athenian inscriptions after ca. 445 B.C. has freed Greek historians and epigraphists from an ill-founded view of Attic stone-masons and the development of imperial bureaucracy but does not alter the history of Athenian aggression, which began long before the Persian Wars and the Delian League.
2012, Imperialism, Cultural Politics, and Polybius
2014, Ph.D. dissertation: Dalla guerra corinzia a quella archidamica: una visione geopolitica delle prospettive nord-occidentali di Atene
Centrata su alcuni aspetti troppo spesso lasciati in secondo piano della storia classica di Atene e in particolare della guerra archidamica, la prima fase (431-421) della guerra del Peloponneso (431-404), la tesi spazia con disinvoltura fra storia antica, geografia fisica e umana, geopolitica, polemologia. Il principale obiettivo del lavoro è l'individuazione della nascita di un embrione di pensiero geopolitico durante il periodo interessato, alla luce dell'improvviso ampliarsi delle prospettive militari e delle sfere d'influenza delle poleis greche contemporanee. Forzatamente limitata, sia per carenze organizzative sia per assenza di tempo, la dissertazione resta uno spunto interessante sul tema, che si dovrà prima o poi riprendere.
This is a partial list of resources dealing with ancient Greek warfare (in progress).
Alcibiades was one of the most controversial and widely discussed figures in Classical Athenian history. Furthermore, he was at the forefront of events during an extremely tumultuous period of time for Athens and all of Greece. This paper navigates through his life, focussing on the most influential and controversial moments of his career, while trying to interpret and evaluate them within the wider context of Athenian democracy and imperialism.
2018, Eirene: Studia Graeca et Latina
A longish review of R. K. Balot - S. Forsdyke - E. Foster (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Thucydides, Oxford 2017