Aspects of Greek History (750–323BC)

by Terry Buckley

  Soon after the battle of Cynossema, there was near to Abydus a hard-fought battle which was turned in favour of the Athenians by the arrival of Alcibiades with 20 ships; the Peloponnesian forces were saved from further damage by Pharnabazus’ land forces (D.S. 13.45–47; Xen. 1.1.4–7). Both sides now asked their home governments for reinforcements, as they prepared for the crucial conflict about mastery of the Hellespont. Mindarus’ decision to make the Hellespont the main theatre of war and to cooperate with Pharnabazus marked a significant change in Spartan strategy: instead of a slow war of attrition by picking off individual Athenian subjects, the Spartans were attempting to win the war quickly by cutting off the Athenians’ grain supply and starving them into surrender. The Athenians naturally had to prevent this outcome with all their might. In March or April 410, Mindarus with 60 ships seized Cyzicus in the Propontis, but the Athenians with 86 ships, in three divisions under Alcibiades, Thrasybulus and Theramenes, lured Mindarus into a sea-battle at Cyzicus. A great victory was won by the Athenians, resulting in the death of Mindarus and the loss of the entire Peloponnesian fleet, including the Syracusan ships which were burned by their own crews to prevent them from falling into enemy hands (D.S. 13.50–51; Xen. 1.1.11–18). The Athenians then established a fortified customs station at Chrysopolis, opposite Byzantium, which ensured the safety of the grain supply and brought in much needed income by charging a customs duty of 10 per cent on all Black Sea shipping. This military success also brought about the restoration of full democracy at Athens (see Chapter 23).

  The desperation of the Spartans was summed up in the typically ‘laconic’ despatch of Hippocrates, Mindarus’ vice admiral, to Sparta:

  ‘Ships gone. Mindarus dead. The men are starving. Don’t know what to do.’

  (Xenophon, Hellenica 1.1.23)

  According to Diodorus (13.52), the Spartans even sued for peace on the terms of each side keeping what it already possessed, the withdrawal of all fortified garrisons in each other’s territory and a return of captives. It would seem from the Spartans’ willingness to make a separate peace that they considered the third treaty with Tissaphernes to have been rendered invalid by his failure to maintain and pay the Peloponnesian forces. The Athenians, however, flushed with confidence, once again rejected the opportunity to make peace on favourable terms, as they had in 425 after the Pylos success (D.S. 13.53).

  The following three years (410–407) brought increasing success for the Athenians in the Ionian War, especially in the Hellespontine region. Although Pharnabazus was most helpful in supporting the Peloponnesian survivors from the battle of Cyzicus and ordered the construction of a new fleet (Xen. 1.1.24–25), the Peloponnesians were in no fit state to engage the Athenians at sea for a few years. The Athenians controlled most of the cities in the Hellespont and the islands, except for Chios, but Ionia and Caria were still mainly in the hands of the Spartans and Tissaphernes. Thrasyllus had been sent to Athens in the winter of 411/0 to obtain reinforcements for the Hellespontine fleet to consolidate Athenian control of this area, but it seems that the involvement of these generals, especially Alcibiades, in the establishment of the constitution of The Five Thousand (see Chapter 23) had made the Athenians reluctant to support them. In fact, Thrasyllus was sent out in 409 with a large force to Ionia with the strategic purpose of capturing Ephesus, which would have been a perfect springboard for the recovery of the cities in Ionia and offsetting the success of the Athenian generals in the Hellespont. However, Thrasyllus’ forces suffered a defeat at the hands of Tissaphernes at Ephesus (Xen. 1.2.1–10), and thus, in November or December 409, they joined the Athenian forces at the Hellespont. Friction between both forces was resolved by a convincing victory over Pharnabazus at Abydus in the same winter (Xen. 1.2.15–17). There followed further successes for the Athenians in 408 with the recovery of Chalcedon and Byzantium, both at the mouth of the Black Sea (D.S. 13.66.1–4; Xen. 1.3.2–7).

  By the end of 408, the Spartans were militarily in a weak position: Abydus was their sole remaining possession in the Hellespont; the Sicilian forces had been withdrawn in 409 to face a Carthaginian attack on Sicily; also Pharnabazus, who had been their most consistent supporter, was negotiating after his defeat at Chalcedon with the Athenians, and was even accompanying them on an embassy to the King (Xen. 1.3.8–9); and even Tissaphernes might have been supporting the Athenians, as he is mentioned in a decree honouring Evagoras of Salamis (IG I3 113; SEG X 127). There may even have been another attempt by the Spartans to make peace with the Athenians (Androtion FGH324 F44). This Spartan weakness may have been the main reason for Alcibiades’ and his fellow generals’ willingness to return to Athens, instead of vigorously prosecuting the war in Ionia in the first half of 407. However, at this very moment, Sparta’s fortunes were to change dramatically with the arrival of two powerful personalities, Lysander as the Spartan ‘nauarch’ (admiral-in-chief), and Cyrus, the son of King Darius II.

  The turning point in Spartan–Persian relations was the return of a Spartan embassy from the King in the spring of 407 and the statement of Boiotios, one of the ambassadors:

  that the Spartans had gained everything that they had wanted from the King.

  (Xenophon, Hellenica 1.4.2)

  It would seem that the King had decided to throw his weight fully and determinedly behind the Spartans to bring the war to an end. To achieve this, he had sent his younger son, Cyrus, as satrap of Lydia, Greater Phrygia and Cappadocia, and as commander of all the Persian forces in the west (Xen. Anabasis. 1.9.7). Cyrus had been given clear instructions from the King to wage war alongside the Spartans as vigorously as possible (D.S. 13.70.3; Xen. 1.4.3; 1.5.2–3); he said that he had also come with 500 talents and, if this was insufficient, he would use his own money to pay for the Peloponnesian fleet:

  as the treaty (tas sunthekas) had laid down, there would be thirty minae [i.e. half a talent/3,000 drachmas] per month for each ship for as many ships as the Spartans should choose to maintain.

  (Xenophon, Hellenica 1.4.3–5)

  It would seem from the use of the words ‘tas sunthekas’ and the mention, for the first time, of specific pay rates that a treaty had been agreed between the Spartans and the King of Persia. It would seem from later negotiations that the Persians, in return, were granted the right to collect tribute from the Asiatic Greek cities, but that these cities were allowed to remain autonomous, as had previously been agreed between the towns of Chalcidice and the Athenians in the 421 Peace of Nicias (5.18.5).

  Lysander, who established an excellent working relationship with the young Cyrus, asked him to increase the payment of the crews from 3 to 4 obols per day. Not only did Cyrus agree to the increase in pay, he also paid all the arrears and gave a month’s wages in advance (Xen. 1.5.7). This act of generosity and good will, so different from their treatment at the hands of Tissaphernes, greatly increased the morale of the Peloponnesian sailors, but caused despondency among the Athenians, whose attempts to change Cyrus’ mind through the agency of Tissaphernes proved futile (Xen. 1.5.8). The Spartans, at long last, had the necessary means to win the war at sea: a first-class commander, a large navy and regular pay. Success soon came, either late in 407 or in the spring of 406, at the battle of Notium, close to Ephesus. Alcibiades had left the Athenian fleet under the command of Antiochus with strict instructions to avoid battle, but Lysander lured him into a sea-battle and defeat (D.S. 13.71; Xen. 1.5.11–15). Although this was not a serious defeat, it destroyed Alcibiades’ fragile relationship with the Athenians; he retired in disgrace to his castle in Thrace, and thus the Athenians lost the services of their best general at the very time when they most needed him to oppose the newly invigorated Peloponnesians.

  The Spartans, however, made a crucial error: Lysander was replaced as nauarch (admiral-in-chief) in summer 406 by Callicratidas; the post of nauarch was only tenable for a year. Lysander greatly resented this and made sure that there was no easy transfer of power. Instead of handing over the unused money to his successor, he
returned it to Cyrus (Xen. 1.6.10); in addition, probably at his instigation, Lysander’s supporters in the fleet began a whispering campaign against the new commander, stressing his inexperience compared to Lysander’s (Xen. 1.6.4). There are convincing reasons to believe that the issue between the two men was not simply a matter of competitive personal ambition but of policy. Both these men were ‘mothakes’, the sons of Spartan fathers and ‘Helot’ mothers, or possibly of ‘Inferiors’, impoverished Spartans who had lost their Spartiate status. These mothakes, therefore, were of lower status, who hoped to attain full citizenship. Yet, Lysander and Callicratidas had risen to a position of great importance by their appointment as nauarch, which must pre-suppose political support from influential Spartans.

  It would seem that relations with Persia had split Sparta into two factions: Lysander representing the faction whose policy was one of full cooperation with the Persians; while Callicratidas was representing the faction that entertained serious doubts about the wisdom and the morality of fighting alongside Persia against fellow Greeks. The Agiad kings, from Pleistoanax onwards, had supported a policy of coexistence with the Athenians; Pleistoanax had been the main Spartan advocate for the Peace of Nicias (5.16–17), and Pausanias, his son and successor in 408, did much to bring political stability to Athens in 403 and was a bitter enemy of Lysander. It is in this context that the remarks of Callicratidas, having been told by Cyrus to wait for the return of the unused money, can be understood:

  But Callicratidas, annoyed by the delay and angered at the constant visits to his [Cyrus’] doors, said that the Greeks were in a most wretched state when they have to fawn on foreigners for the sake of money; and that, if he got home safely, he would do all that he could to reconcile the Athenians and the Spartans.

  (Xenophon, Hellenica 1.6.7)

  Callicratidas imposed his authority upon his forces and, with a fleet of 140 ships, captured Delphinium, the Athenian base on Chios, Teus and Methymna. He then defeated the smaller force of the Athenian general, Conon, who lost 30 ships, and blockaded him in the harbour of Mytilene (D.S. 13.76–78.3; Xen. 1.6.4–19). The Athenians sent out a relief force from Athens, amounting eventually to 150 ships, and made for Mytilene to relieve Conon. Callicratidas, who now had a fleet of 170 ships, left 50 ships to maintain the blockade of Mytilene, and sailed to the Arginusae islands to meet the new Athenian fleet. The ensuing battle in 406 was a great victory for the Athenians, resulting in the death of Callicratidas and the loss of over 70 ships (D.S. 13.97.4–99; Xen. 1.6.28–38).

  The Spartan fleet had not been utterly destroyed and Eteonicus, the Spartan vice-admiral, still had roughly 90 ships but, without Persian financial support, they could not feed themselves, let alone challenge the Athenians at sea. This defeat at Arginusae and the desperate plight of the Peloponnesian navy possibly led to another fruitless attempt by the Spartans to make peace with the Athenians (Aristotle, Ath. Pol. 34.1), whose victorious fleet, using Samos as a base, was laying waste the territories of the pro-Spartan cities in the islands and on the mainland (D.S. 13.100.6). These pro-Spartan cities held a conference at Ephesus and decided to ask the Spartans to restore Lysander to the nauarchy; this request was further strengthened by envoys of Cyrus who also desired Lysander’s reinstatement. The Spartans, faced with such a forceful demand, resolved the problem of the illegality of appointing the same man to the nauarchy twice by appointing Lysander as vice-admiral to Aracus, but making it plain that Lysander was to be in command (D.S. 13.100.8).

  Lysander moved with commendable speed, assembling his fleet at Ephesus around the end of winter in 406/5, ordering the construction of new ships at Antandrus and, most important of all, visiting Cyrus at Sardis; Sparta’s main need, as always, was money. Cyrus explained to Lysander how all the King’s money had been spent and much more, even producing the accounts to confirm his statement, but he still provided money. In this way Lysander paid the arrears of pay to his sailors (Xen. 2.1.11–12). However, the money was insufficient in itself to bring victory, but then Lysander enjoyed a massive stroke of luck. Cyrus had executed two of his cousins for not paying the respect that was due to a king – a clear sign of his future ambitions – and was recalled by Darius II to explain his action, although the King stressed that it was more a matter of needing his presence due to his own illness (Xen. 2.1.8–9). Cyrus summoned Lysander to him and, having told him not to fight the Athenians until he had a clear superiority in ship numbers:

  he assigned to him all the tribute from the cities which personally belonged to him, and gave him the surplus money that he had.

  (Xenophon, Hellenica 2.1.14)

  This massive injection of money was one of the key reasons for Lysander’s success in defeating the Athenians in the final sea-battle that brought the war to an end. The other was the Athenians’ execution of six of its most experienced generals after the battle of Arginusae in 406 on the grounds of failing to pick up survivors from the sea (D.S. 13.101; Xen. 1.7.1–35), and the non-appointment as generals of Theramenes, who was rejected at his ‘dokimasia’ (see Glossary), and Thrasybulus.

  Lysander, when he was convinced that his fleet was ready, switched the theatre of war from Ionia to the Hellespont:

  in order to prevent the merchant-ships from sailing out, and to attack the cities that had revolted from the Spartans.

  (Xenophon, Hellenica 2.1.17)

  He had realized, as had King Agis earlier, that the Spartans could only win the war by starving the Athenians into submission, and that this could only be achieved by cutting off their grain supply from the Black Sea. The inexperience of the Athenian generals and the skill of Lysander brought about the total defeat of the Athenian navy at Aegospotamoi, in the Hellespont opposite Lampsacus, in the late summer of 405 (D.S. 13.105–6.7; Xen. 2.1.21–29). After that, it was only a matter of time before the Athenians, blockaded on land by the forces of King Agis from Decelea and King Pausanias from the Peloponnese, and by sea by Lysander’s navy, surrendered in the first half of 404:

  After this Lysander sailed into the Piraeus and the exiles returned, and they destroyed the Long Walls to the sound of flute-girls with great enthusiasm, thinking that day was the beginning of freedom for Greece.

  (Xenophon, Hellenica 2.2.23)

  Cyrus’ wholehearted support of the Spartans, especially in the supply of Persian gold, proved to be the decisive factor in helping the Spartans to defeat the Athenians in the Ionian War. If the Spartans had chosen to cooperate with Pharnabazus, had concentrated on the Hellespont as the main theatre of war and had displayed the necessary urgency in 413/2 to deliver the killer blow, the war would have ended much earlier. In the aftermath of Athens’ surrender, the liberation of the Greeks, Sparta’s rallying-cry to the Greeks in 431 against the Athenians, was exposed as a complete sham by Lysander’s imposition of oligarchies and decarchies (pro-Spartan ten-men oligarchies, often supported by a garrison under a Spartan commander) throughout the former Athenian Empire and in parts of mainland Greece. As for the Persians, in the next century they were to learn to their cost the value of Alcibiades’ advice to Tissaphernes, when he said that the Spartans were bound to attack the Persians, and that such a super-power, with control over the sea and land, would cause great damage to the King (8.46).

  Bibliography

  Andrewes, A. CAH vol. 5, 2nd edn, ch. 11.

  Cartledge, P. Sparta and Lakonia, pt 3, ch. 12.

  Hornblower, S. The Greek World 479–323 BC, ch. 12.

  Kagan, D. The Fall of the Athenian Empire, chs 1–4, 9–13 and 15.

  Lewis, D. M. Sparta and Persia, chs 2–6.

  Powell, A. Athens and Sparta, ch. 5.

  Sealey, R. A History of the Greek City States 700–338 BC, chs 13 and 14.

  23

  THE RISE AND FALL OF THE OLIGARCHIC MOVEMENT IN ATHENS, 411– 410

  The rise of oligarchy

  The last recorded oligarchic threat to Athenian democracy came in c.457 after the battle of Tanagra (Thuc. 1.107.4) and, although the
Athenians suspected that oligarchic plots lay behind the mutilation of the Hermae in 415 just before the Sicilian expedition set sail (Thuc. 6.27), the possibility of a successful oligarchic coup before 413 was virtually non-existent. However, after the Sicilian disaster in the autumn of 413, a number of influential factors came together which resulted in the establishment of an oligarchy in June 411. There was, first of all, the disillusionment and anger of a large number of Athenians, mainly the wealthy upper class but also among many of the more affluent ‘hoplites’, at the incompetence of the ‘radical’ democracy in its conduct of the Peloponnesian War, and the increasing economic burden upon themselves owing to the war. Second, there was the coordinated action of the upper-class political clubs (‘hetaireiai’) in the build-up to the coup in 411. Third, the Athenian ‘demos’ temporarily lost confidence in its ability, through its own democratic institutions, to win the war; this confidence was only fully restored after the resounding victory over the Peloponnesian fleet at Cyzicus in 410 (see Chapter 22). Finally, the intervention of Persia into Greek affairs led to the widespread belief that Persian support, even at the cost of giving up the democracy, was absolutely essential to avoid defeat at the hands of the Spartans.

  The first key factor in the build-up to oligarchy was the change in attitude of the Athenian upper class: men of property and ‘good’ birth who referred to themselves as the ‘kaloikagathoi’ (see Chapter 18). The malicious and confrontational nature of Athenian politics after the death of Pericles in 429, personified by the so-called ‘demagogues’, led many of the wealthy to withdraw from active politics; but the majority of them still accepted the ‘radical’ democracy, while they enjoyed the economic benefits of the Empire. The outbreak of the war had placed a greater financial burden on the upper class through the ravaging of their estates by annual Peloponnesian invasions (up to 425) and the occasional imposition of a special war tax (‘eisphora’). However, this financial loss was offset by the economic benefits accruing from the possession of extensive land-holdings among the subject-allies (see Chapter 16) and by their exemption from paying for the fleet, which ensured the flow of the subject-allies’‘phoros’ into Athens and protected their overseas investments.