The First Clash

by Jim Lacey

  From a base near the city of Eretria, Pisistratus crossed over the narrow strait to the Plain of Marathon. Here, his preparations and the continued cultivation of the loyalty of the hill people and Athens’s poor paid their expected dividends. They flocked to his banner, while the Athenian government found it was having trouble fielding an adequate force to resist the tyrant’s return. After a short delay, Pisistratus began his advance on Athens, twenty-six miles distant. At Pallene, barring his way, were the leaders of the Parties of the Coast and Plains, along with whatever forces they could assemble. Their army was apparently caught at leisure and failed to form before Pisistratus’s attack fell upon them. The Battle of Pallene was over in minutes as the routed defenders of Athens streamed back toward the city. Showing the cunning he was famous for, Pisistratus sent messengers after the fleeing Athenians, telling them that if they returned peaceably to their homes, they would be left secure and unmolested. Most Athenians, whose hearts were never in the fight, took him up on the offer. The road to Athens was clear, his enemies were in flight, and from those important families too slow to get away Pisistratus took hostages that he stored with his ally Naxos.

  After two failures, Pisistratus’s tyranny finally took root, and he ruled for the next seventeen years. During that time, he took Athens from being a troubled, second-rate city and set it on the path to greatness. Despite his hold on absolute power, Pisistratus held the reins of power lightly, keeping all of Athens’s old institutions in place. To any observer the government of Athens was little changed, but now it was guided by the will of one man. The nearest parallel we have for this in the ancient world is Augustus’s rise to supreme power in Rome. He too kept the mechanisms of government virtually unchanged, including the dignity of the Roman Senate, but Augustus himself became the guiding force of all that was done.

  As a first step, Pisistratus made sure that those who supported him during his long exile were properly rewarded. The great estates of the nobles were broken up and disbursed among the mass of common laborers. In this one act, Pisistratus created a yeoman class that would one day be available as hoplites in the Athenian battle line. It also stripped the nobles of the economic basis of their power, effectively crushing the power of the Party of the Plains for almost a generation. These new landowners were required to pay a tenth of their produce in taxes, which must have seemed a light burden to men who had previously had nothing.

  This revenue source probably became the backbone of the government’s finance, but it was far from its only revenue source. Pisistratus kept his hold on the silver mines he controlled in Thrace, and to this he added the silver from the Attic mines at Laurion, which started to be worked much more extensively from this point forward.16 This combined silver hoard was minted into a new Attic currency with a bust of Athena on one side and an owl on the other. The weight of these coins and their purity soon ensured they were in high demand. Moreover, their entry into the economic system in large quantities greatly improved Athenian trade and added to the prosperity of many who had previously supported the Party of the Coast, effectively bringing them into alliance with Pisistratus.

  This was not all Pisistratus did to advance the Athenian economy. In a policy reminiscent of the first year of Darius’s reign, but maintained for a much longer period of time, Pisistratus spent liberally. He financed farmers and entered into an extensive building program, which had the added benefit of mopping up the remaining excess labor in Athens. Moreover, he began the process of transitioning Attica’s farmers from grain production to the growing of olives. The effects of these changes cannot be underestimated, as they had profound consequences for Athenian society and diplomacy and later in the decision to fight at Marathon.

  Olives were a cash crop and brought substantially more revenues to farmers than grain. As Athens produced much more olive oil than could profitably be used in Attica, it was forced to begin trading with other cities. This trade, along with the introduction of new silver coinage, soon made Athens the greatest and richest trading city in Greece. However, the transition to olives as Athens’s cash crop was not without its downside. Foremost was that Athens was unable to grow the grain necessary to feed its growing population. Although there were several regions that produced excess grain, the farms around the Black Sea produced the greatest surplus. It was not long, therefore, before Attic traders were making regular trips to the Black Sea, a region that soon became critical to Athens’s survival. Because of this the Hellespont, the gateway to the Black Sea, became an area of strong Athenian strategic interest, and from this point forward we see increasing Athenian influence in the area, including a number of Athenians who became tyrants of cities in the area. Miltiades, an eventual hero of Marathon, was one of these.17 Another drawback of this agricultural transformation was that olive trees are easily destroyed. This must have been a tremendous factor as the Athenians made the decision whether to hide behind their walls or go out to face the Persians at Marathon.18 This susceptibility of olive trees to destruction made it imperative that Athens remain at peace for a prolonged period, at least long enough for the city to become powerful enough to protect them. Therefore the policy of Pisistratus and his immediate successors became the maintenance of peace at almost any cost.

  In total, the economic policies and reforms of Pisistratus greatly increased the wealth of Athens and its citizenry. While Athens was not yet the military and economic power that it would become in later decades, by the time of Marathon it was richer and more powerful than most historians credit. As most hoplites were required to purchase their own armor and weapons, the creation of a wealthier peasant class automatically increased the numbers available to fill the army rolls. Moreover, it was this rapid economic growth that made it possible for Athens, which at the start of Pisistratus’s reign had trouble defeating relatively insignificant Megara, to mobilize a force capable of defeating a large Persian army.

  If protecting his economic miracle was not enough incentive to pursue a policy of being a good neighbor to all, Pisistratus’s own experience was enough to convince him that it was dangerous to allow enemies to accumulate too close to home. He owed his return to power to Eretria providing him a base, Macedon sheltering him, Thebes sending him money, Argos sending soldiers, and Naxos offering him substantial military and economic support. As the men he sent into exile, particularly the always dangerous Alcmaeonidae clan (Megacles and his brilliant son Cleisthenes), were consistently intriguing for their return, it was imperative that he maintain good relations with all his neighbors. The tenacity and capacity of these exiles were not to be despised, and Pisistratus made it his first order of business that they never found succor in the cities or regions near Attica.

  This task was not easy. Megara still harbored ill feeling over the loss of Salamis; close relations with the militarily powerful Thessaly tended to anger Thebes, which was already growing wary of Athens’s growing strength; Aegina and Corinth became increasingly unfriendly as they continually found themselves on the losing side of expanding Athenian trade and industry; and finally, Pisistratus’s close relations with Sparta could not be long held while he remained friendly to Argos. The strain of balancing all of these diplomatic arrangements must have been tremendous, but during his lifetime, Pisistratus was up to the task. Unfortunately for the legacy of his family, they proved unmanageable for his son and successor, Hippias.

  Even though he maintained a policy of peace in the near abroad, on the other side of the Aegean, Pisistratus undertook a policy of imperialism. As we previously saw, this policy was propelled by the necessity to secure Athens’s access to grain, as more and more of Attica’s fertile land was transitioned to olive production. As a first step, Athens took the port city of Sigeum from the Mytilenians. This city was previously under Athenian control and was probably first seized during the war with Megara to hinder that city’s trade in the region. Herodotus does not tell us how or when it was lost to Mytilene, nor does he tell us when it was retaken. He does relate, ho
wever, that Pisistratus installed his illegitimate son (of an Argive woman) Hegesistratos as tyrant and that this led to a long, bitter war with Mytilene.

  The capture of Sigeum gave Pisistratus control of the southern shore of the Dardanelles; however, to completely control access to the Black Sea, Athens needed to control the north shore also. Fortunately, this was accomplished early in Pisistratus’s tyranny. At the time, the Thracian tribe of the Dolonci controlled the Chersonese peninsula (the north shore of the Dardanelles) but were hard-pressed in a war with a tribe to the north, the Apsinthians. The Dolonci appealed to Athens for help, and Pisistratus was only too ready to agree and thereby extend Athenian influence into this strategic region. Pisistratus selected Miltiades (uncle of the Miltiades who would fight at Marathon), a leader among the powerful Philaidae clan, to take a force north and become the tyrant of the Chersonese, a position his family would hold until after the Ionian revolt.19 Upon his arrival, Miltiades won or otherwise ended the war, built a defensive wall across the Chersonese peninsula, and became a close ally of Lydia’s king Croesus. For Pisistratus, this single stroke removed a powerful potential rival from Attica, deprived what was left of the Party of the Plains of its leadership, and greatly enhanced Athenian power in a critical region.

  * Solon, although he was formerly Pisistratus’s mentor, turned against him when he seized power in Athens. He was one of the very few to speak openly against Pisistratus in the Agora. When asked why he took such risks, he stated that his old age protected him from fear. For his part, Pisistratus continued to honor the aging Solon until his natural death.

  Chapter 8

  A STATE CREATED FOR WAR

  Marathon would be, above all, a victory of Athenian arms. In fact, the advance guard of the most formidable military power in Greece—Sparta—did not arrive until the day after the battle. However, the truth is that in the decades prior to Marathon, Sparta played a decisive role in the development of Athens, both politically and militarily. Furthermore, in the two years just prior to the Persian assault, it was the actions of Sparta’s army that made Athens’s victory possible. In those two years, Sparta had all but annihilated the army of Argos, a city only sixty miles from Athens that was suspected of inviting Persian intervention in Greek affairs. Spartan arms also thoroughly cowed Athens’s perennial enemy Aegina, which was also leaning dangerously toward Persia. Spartan troops would miss the Battle of Marathon, but they set the conditions that kept Athens from having to fight on multiple fronts. It is therefore fair to state that Sparta, knowingly or not, saved Athens from destruction. However, their temporary friendship came only after decades of conflict.

  Sparta was different from any other Greek city-state. As a state it was born in war, and for several centuries it existed only for war. Alone among the Greek city-states, Sparta, during the centuries of its greatness, never built a wall around the five villages that constituted its core.1 Modern historians are fond of stating that no walls were necessary, as Sparta was protected by the formidable Taygetus mountain chain, which rises nearly eight thousand feet at its peak. However, as all Greeks at the time understood, there was a far better reason Sparta lacked walls—its hoplites were the most formidable soldiers in the ancient world. Before it suffered crushing defeats against Thebes’s brilliant general Epaminondas at the Battles of Leuctra (371 BC) and Mantinea (362 BC), it was considered the height of folly for any Greek city to send its army into Sparta.2

  As the cities of ancient Greece rose out of the Greek dark ages, populations soon began outstripping food supplies. Most cities addressed this problem by dispatching colonies to unpopulated lands. Sparta, however, eschewed colonies in favor of policy or military expansion, with the aim of subduing the entire Peloponnesus to its will.3 Early Spartan conquests came from pushing the Argives back from the upper Eurotas valley and subjecting the local Laconian population to helot (serf) status. This early Spartan-Argive war was the start of a rivalry that was to plague the Peloponnesus for centuries afterward. Unsatisfied with this addition of Argive land, Sparta began to covet the fertile soil of Messenia in the southwestern Peloponnesus. Spartan soldiers first marched into Messenia in about 743 BC, but after that almost nothing is known but legends.4 According to the Spartans, the dispute began during a celebration at the Temple of Artemis, in which both Spartans and Messenians were participating. In the midst of the Dance of the Spartan Virgins, some Messenian youth rushed the women and possibly tried to make off with them. When the Spartan king, Teleclus, tried to protect the virgins, he was murdered. The Messenians have a different version. In their telling, Teleclus had disguised fifty Spartan soldiers, armed with daggers, as virgins and was trying to sneak them into their territory. When the plot was discovered, Teleclus was killed in the ensuing scuffle. Still, war did not break out until Spartan anger was unleashed by a distinguished Messenian Olympic hero named Polychares, who took it upon himself to kill any Spartan who came his way as revenge for a Spartan having killed his son and stolen his cattle herd. This story probably reflects distant and long-lost tales of a period of intense border raids that could have easily escalated into all-out war.

  For the next twenty years, the First Messenian War raged. The Messenians, although they may have won a few battles, were rarely a match for the Spartans in the field. They were, however, able to withstand interminable sieges behind their city walls and in their mountain fortresses, particularly Ithome. After enduring a number of frustrating setbacks, some decisive event occurred of which no source offers an explanation. All that is recorded is that in the twentieth year of the war, the fighting ended and the Messenians passed into servitude. As part of the peace settlement, the Messenians were forced to swear oaths that they would never rebel against Sparta and half of their agricultural produce would be delivered to Sparta as annual tribute. The Spartan general and poet Tyrtaeus records:

  Like asses worn down by heavy burdens they were compelled to make over to their masters an entire half of the produce of their fields, and to come in the garb of woe to Sparta, themselves and their wives, as mourners at the death of a Spartan king.

  For almost forty years, the Messenians endured the degradation of helot status. But in 685 BC, they revolted.5 The Spartans advanced without proper preparations and were beaten in an indecisive battle. However, the Messenians took advantage of the Spartan retreat and raided Sparta. Here, they added insult to injury by offering a captured Spartan shield, rather than one of their own, at the Temple of Athena, deep within Spartan territory. In the midst of this crisis a new Spartan general, Tyrtaeus, came to the fore.6 Although the Spartans suffered one more reverse at the Battle of Boar’s Grave, in the third year of the war, Tyrtaeus turned the tide and defeated the Messenians, along with a number of their Peloponnesian allies, at the Battle of the Great Foss (Great Trench).

  Tyrtaeus, besides being a general of formidable talent, was also a poet. In fact, he was the Kipling of his time, and his poems inspired the Spartans to one more supreme effort. When as a result of this crisis Sparta had transformed itself into the warrior state of popular imagination, the evening mess began with the singing of the holy paean, after which each member of the mess recited verses of Tyrtaeus’s poetry. In one of the surviving texts, we find the ideal that motivated a Spartan army at war:

  SPARTAN SOLDIER

  Young men, fight shield to shield and never

  succumb to panic or miserable flight,

  but steel the heart in your chests with

  magnificence and courage. Forget your own life

  when you grapple with the enemy. Never run

  and let an old soldier collapse whose legs have lost their power.

  It is shocking when an old man lies on the front line

  before a youth: an old warrior whose head is white

  and beard gray, exhaling his strong soul into the dust

  clutching his bloody genitals in his hands:

  an abominable vision, foul to see: his flesh naked.

  But in a young
man all is beautiful when he still

  possesses the shining flower of lovely youth.

  Alive he is adored by men, desired by women,

  and finest to look upon when he falls dead in the forward clash.

  Let each man spread his legs, rooting them in the ground,

  bite his teeth into his lips, and hold.

  After reducing half the Peloponnesus to helotry, the Spartans found it much more difficult to conquer the cities of the northern Peloponnesus. After a generation of continuous war, Sparta took a different tack. If it could not conquer the northern cities, then binding them into an alliance with Sparta as the dominant member was the next best option. For the war-weary northern cities, joining Sparta in a military alliance probably seemed a small price to pay if their political independence was assured. However, not every city in the Peloponnesus joined the alliance; most notably, the powerful city of Argos remained unswervingly anti-Spartan and was always outside of what became known as the Peloponnesian League.7

  The Peloponnesian League is probably best viewed as a loose network of perpetual bilateral alliances. Each of the members swore to subordinate its foreign policy to the will of Sparta and to come to Sparta’s aid in time of war. However, Sparta did not make any similar promise in return. So while Sparta could call on any member of the league in the event it went to war, none of the other members could make a similar claim on Sparta. In return, the members of the league supposedly received Sparta’s protection, not least from Argos, which was viewed to be as avaricious in its demands on other Peloponnesian cities as Sparta was. The league had no permanent institutions, and the only time representatives of each city met as a body was when the Spartans called an assembly. Moreover, although every member had only one vote, Sparta appears to have controlled the votes of many of the smaller towns.8 In any event, there was nothing in any of the league’s agreements that enjoined Sparta to accept the dictates of the congress. Similarly, some of the major cities in the league, such as Corinth, maintained a large measure of independence. Later, Corinth’s independent streak was to cause the Spartans considerable embarrassment in their military and diplomatic engagements with Athens in the years leading up to the Battle of Marathon. In fact, in the next century Corinth started a major war against its former colony of Corcyra without Spartan permission, starting the ruinous Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta.