Lecture Nine The Athenian Empire and Democracy Teacher: Wu Shiyu Email: [e-mail]

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Lecture NineThe Athenian Empire and
Democracy Teacher Wu Shiyu
Email shiyuw_at_sjtu.edu.cn
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A Review Battle of SalamisDecisive Greek
victory.

• Like the Battles of Marathon and
  Thermopylae, Salamis has gained something of a
  'legendary' status (unlike, for instance, the
  more decisive Battle of Plataea), perhaps because
  of the desperate circumstances and the unlikely
  odds.
• Salamis is one of the most significant
  battles in human history.
• Much of modern western society, such as
  philosophy, science, personal freedom and
  democracy are rooted in the legacy of Ancient
  Greece.

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Greek Trireme
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Lecture NineThe Athenian Empire and
Democracy Teacher Wu Shiyu
Email shiyuw_at_sjtu.edu.cn
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9.1 The Establishment of the Athenian Empire

• The collaboration in fighting against
  the Persians evoked a rare interval of interstate
  cooperation in ancient Greek history. Athens and
  Sparta, the two most powerful city-states, had
  put aside their mutual suspicions.
• During the Persian Wars, they had
  shared the leadership of the united Greek
  military forces.
• Later this cooperation after the defeat
  of the Persians failed. Out of this failure arose
  the Athenian Empire.

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9.1.1 The Troubles of Sparta

• In 479 B.C., the Greek coalition decided
  to continue to drive out the Persian outposts
  (??) that still existed in northern Greece and
  western Anatolia (?????).
• Spartan general, Pausanias was chosen to
  lead the united army and began the first
  expedition in 478 B.C. This proved to be a
  mistake.

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9.1.1 The Troubles of Sparta

• Spartan men in positions of power, once
  away from home, inescapably behaved badly. In
  Sparta, they were always under regimented
  training and under the scrutiny of one another,
  but outside Sparta, with no constraints imposed
  on them, they were ill prepared to operate
  humanely and effectively.
• As a result, the Greek forces under
  his control could not tolerate his arrogant and
  violent behavior toward his allies as well as
  local Greek citizens.

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9.1.1 The Troubles of Sparta

• In addition, away from the rigid virtue,
  Pausanias took to living luxuriously. He would
  wear elaborate Persian costumes. And he even
  began to negotiate with Xerxes in an attempt to
  gain greater power with Persian help.
• Eventually, he was recalled to Sparta and
  tried for treason but was acquitted for lack of
  sufficient evidence.

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9.1.1 The Troubles of Sparta

• Pausanias committed a most
  unforgivable sin to Spartans to organize a
  revolt of helots. The plot was discovered and
  Pausanias fled to a temple for safety, where he
  was surrendered and starved to near death.
• He did not die in the temple, a sacred
  ground. He was removed and died outside.

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9.1.1 The Troubles of Sparta

• The Spartans lost their prestige among
  the members in the Greek coalition and eventually
  the Athenians came to lead the alliance.
• Yet the leaders at Sparta was happy
  to be free of the leadership because, in the
  words of the Athenian historian Thucydides, they
  were afraid any other commanders they sent abroad
  would be corrupted, as Pausanias had been, and
  they were glad to be relieved of the burden of
  fighting the Persians.
• Also, Spartans had to be alert to
  guard against the helot revolts, and prolonged
  overseas operations were difficult to maintain.

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9.1.2 The Delian League

• In 477 B.C., the other Greeks were
  persuaded to request Athenian leadership of the
  alliance against the Persians. The Greek alliance
  against Persia now took on a new form under
  Athenian leadership.
• Member states, located in northern
  Greece, on the islands of the Aegean Sea, and
  along the western coast of Anatolia, would swear
  a solemn oath never to desert the coalition.
• Sparta, on the other hand, was still
  leading a league long since established, referred
  to as the Peloponnesian League by modern
  historians. Thus, Athens and Sparta each had its
  own coalition (??) of allies. Each of the
  alliances had an assembly to set policies, but
  the final say went to the head of the alliances,
  namely, Sparta and Athens.

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The Delian League
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9.1.2 The Delian League

• Athenian domination over the alliance
  was promoted by special arrangements made to
  finance naval operations of the Athenian-led
  alliance.
• Aristides set the standards of dues
  (??, ??) to be paid by the member states every
  year, based on their size and prosperity. Larger
  member states were to supply whole warships,
  triremes at the time, with crews and their pay
  smaller states were to share the cost of a ship
  or simply contribute cash, which would be pooled
  with others dues to pay for the ship and its
  crew.
• The alliances funds were put in the
  sacred temple of Apollo on the Aegean island of
  Delos, and consequently the alliance was later
  referred to as the Delian League.

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9.1.2 The Delian League

• Over time, more and more states found
  that contributing cash was easier than going to
  the trouble of supplying warships. Most of these
  states opted for this because they had difficulty
  in building ships as specialized as triremes and
  training crews to operate them. However, as
  Athens was far larger than most of the allies, it
  had the capacity to build triremes in large
  numbers. More importantly, it had a large
  population of men eager to earn pay as rowers.

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9.1.2 The Delian League

• As a result, Athens built and manned
  most of the warships, using the dues of other
  states to complement its own contribution.
• The Athenian rowers on these warships
  came from the poorest social class, the class of
  the laborers, and as they contributed to the
  navy, they earned money and also gained more
  political importance.
• Though Athens continued to maintain its
  hoplite army, over time its fleet became its most
  powerful force. As the fleet gained more
  importance militarily, so did the rowers
  politically, which would later influence the
  political structure in Athens.

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9.1.2 The Delian League
The Delian League did achieve it principal
goal within the next twenty years since its
foundation, league forces succeeded in expelling
almost all of the Persian garrisons (????)out of
the city-states along the northeastern Aegean
coast and driving the Persian fleet from the
Aegean Sea, ending the Persian threat to Greece
for the next fifty years.
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9.1.3 The Athenian Empire

• Meanwhile Athens grew stronger from its
  share of the spoils (???) captured from the
  Persians and the dues paid by other members of
  the Delian League.
• By the middle of the fifth century
  B.C., the dues alone amounted to 600 talents.
  This annual income meant general prosperity for
  people living in a state the size of Athens
  (about thirty or forty thousand adult male
  citizens).

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9.1.3 The Athenian Empire

• However, over time, as Persian threat
  was minimized, other members were beginning to
  doubt on the necessity of retaining the Delian
  League.
• The Athenians, of course, would not
  allow any desertion (??) of the league to happen.
  They would not even tolerate the disagreement
  with the decisions made for the league as a whole
  under Athenian leadership. As most allies
  eventually lacked the warships of their own,
  Athenians were able to use their fleet to compel
  discontented allies to adhere to league policy
  and to continue paying their dues
• As Thucydides observed, rebellious
  allies lost their independence, and the
  Athenians were no longer as popular as they used
  to be .

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9.1.3 The Athenian Empire

• The most astounding instance of Athenian
  compulsion of a reluctant ally was the case of
  the island of Thasos in the northern Aegean Sea.
• In 465 B.C., Thasos unilaterally
  withdrew from the Delian league after it disputed
  with Athens.
• To force the Thasians to keep their
  sworn agreement that they should never desert the
  league, the Athenians, leading allied forces,
  besieged them. The Thesians had to surrender in
  463 B.C.. As punishment, Thasos was forced to
  dismantle its defensive walls, give up its naval
  force and pay enormous tribute and fines.

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9.1.3 The Athenian Empire

• In this way, the originally voluntary
  Delian League was eventually transformed into an
  empire, the so-called Athenian Empire, a term
  invented to point out the harsh dominance Athens
  came to exercise over other members.
• To Athenians, this transformation was
  justified because it was Athens that kept the
  alliance strong enough to perform the principal
  mission of the Delian League to protect Greece
  from the invasion of the Persians.

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The Athenian Empire
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9.2 Athenian Democracy

• In the decades following the Persian
  wars, as the poorer men of the thete class were
  manning the Athenian fleet, the political
  importance also increased. And they began to
  recognize that it was they who provided the basis
  for Athenian security and prosperity. Apparently
  it was the time to make administration of justice
  as democratic as the process of making laws in
  the assembly.
• It was true that the assembly could
  serve as a court of appeals at this time, but it
  was the archons (???), the annual magistrates
  (???), and the Areopagus council (????)of archons
  who were rendering the judicial verdicts (??).

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9.2 Athenian Democracy

• Since 487 B.C., the nine archons had been
  chosen by lot instead of the previous election,
  making those offices filled by random chance and
  not to be dominated by wealthy men from higher
  classes. Thus it was felt to be democratic as it
  gave an equal chance to all eligible
  (????)citizens.

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9.2.1 The Democratic Reform of System of Justice

• Still the democratically chosen archons
  were likely to be corrupted by bribery (??) or
  under pressure of socially prominent (???) men.
  If the laws were to be applied fairly and
  honestly, it should be administrated in a
  different judicial system instead of by the
  archons. A reform of the judicial system was
  needed.

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9.2.1 The Democratic Reform of System of Justice

• The time was ripe for further
  democratic reforms. In 461 B.C., Ephialtes seized
  the moment to convince the assembly to pass
  measures limiting the power of the Areopagus.

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Ephialtes

• Ephialtes was an ancient Athenian politician and
  an early leader of the democratic movement there.
  In the late 460s BC, he oversaw reforms that
  diminished the power of the Areopagus, a
  traditional bastion of conservatism, and which
  are considered by many modern historians to mark
  the beginning of the "radical democracy" for
  which Athens would become famous.

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9.2.1 The Democratic Reform of System of Justice

• Previously, the Areopagus had had
  authority to judge accusations of the archons
  misconduct, and this was referred to as
  guardianship of the laws. As the Areopagus was
  composed of former archons, it would presumably
  have been on good terms with the current archons.
  For the misconduct of the current archons, which
  deserved punishment, there existed possibility of
  the Areopagus forgiving.
• The reforms abolished the guardianship
  of the laws from the Areopagus, although Ephiltes
  showed respect for its venerable history and long
  traditions, leaving it with jurisdiction over
  homicide and some religious matters and the
  council remained the court for premeditated
  murder and wounding, arson, and other offenses.

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9.2.1 The Democratic Reform of System of Justice

• Most significantly for the Ephialtic
  reforms, a judicial system of courts was
  established. The courts were composed of juries
  of male citizens over thirty years old, selected
  by lot to serve for a year. Previously, it was
  the archons and the Areopagus that were
  exercising most of the judicial power. Now the
  power was largely transferred to the jurors
  (???).
• There were six thousand men in all, to
  be randomly chosen and distributed into
  individual juries as needed to handle the case
  load. Under this new judicial system, the archons
  were to treat minor offenses, the Areopagus had
  its few special judicial competencies, and the
  council and assembly could deal with certain
  cases concerning public interest, but the newly
  established courts were given an extraordinary
  jurisdiction.

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9.2.1 The Democratic Reform of System of Justice

• In most cases the charges were
  brought to the court, and the only government
  official present was a magistrate to keep order
  during the trial. The jurors had sworn an oath to
  pay attention and judge fairly, and they were not
  instructed by any judge or harangued (????) by
  prosecutors (??)or defense lawyers. Only when a
  magistrate was on trial for misconduct in office
  or when the case involved the public interest
  would a citizen be appointed to speak for the
  prosecution.

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9.2.1 The Democratic Reform of System of Justice

• In criminal cases, persuasive speech
  was the most important element due to limitation
  of techniques used in modern trials such as blood
  tests or fingerprints. Both the accuser and the
  accused had to speak for themselves in the court.
• Sometimes they could pay someone else
  to organize the speech for them to deliver, or
  they could ask others to support their arguments
  or prove their good character.
• Therefore, their characteristics and
  reputations were always relevant, and the jurors
  expected to find out about truth partly from
  hearing about a mans background and his conduct
  as citizen.

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9.2.1 The Democratic Reform of System of Justice

• After hearing the speeches by the persons
  involved, the jurors made up their minds and
  decided on their own how the law should be
  applied in each case. A majority vote of the
  jurors was their decision and there was no higher
  court to overrule the decision. Also there was no
  appeal from their verdicts.
• Such was the enormous power of the
  court system and in practice, the juries were
  defining the fundamental principles of Athenian
  public life. In Aristophanes comic play about
  the Athenian judicial system, The Wasps, produced
  in 422 B.C., a juror boasts, our power in court
  is no less than royal! .

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9.2.1 The Democratic Reform of System of Justice

• At the end of their term of service, the
  jurors did not have to undergo a public scrutiny
  of their actions as jurors, unlike other
  officials in Athenian democracy. As there were so
  large juries, numbering from several hundred to
  several thousand, bribing jurors to improperly
  influencing the outcome of cases was very
  difficult. Later, the system was even further
  revised to assign jurors to cases by lot and not
  until the day of the trial.

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9.2.1 The Democratic Reform of System of Justice

• The structure of the new court system
  reflected the underlying principles of the
  Athenian democracy in the mid-fifth century B.C.
  It was participated by a widespread cross-section
  of randomly selected male citizens, with
  corruption prevented by elaborate precautions.
  And individual citizens, regardless of their
  wealth, were equally protected under the law.

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9.2.1 The Democratic Reform of System of Justice

• Significant though the Ephialtic reforms
  were, there were people who disliked the turn the
  government was taking. Shortly after the reforms
  were enacted, presumably these people arranged
  for the assassination of Ephialtes. Upon his
  death the leadership was transferred to his
  dynamic associate Pericles, who remained the most
  prominent politician in Athens from about 461B.C.
  to his death in 429 B.C.

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Pericles

• Pericles is the son of Zenpos. For more
  than 30 years, he has led the Athenian people,
  not a king, not a dictator, but as the embodiment
  of their will, this great democratic people.
• He has been ranked with Abraham Lincoln
  and Winston Churchill as one of the three
  democratic leaders in human history. He is a true
  statesman Thucydides pays him the same high
  tribute he does to Themistocles. Extracting from
  that I will say to you that a true statesman is
  possessed of a bedrock of principles, beliefs. He
  has a moral compass of profound integrity and
  truth. And Thucydides tells us that Pericles was
  the very embodiment of integrity. Statesmen must
  have a vision. And he must be able to build a
  consensus to achieve that vision.

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Pericles

• Like Churchill and like Roosevelt,
  Pericles was an aristocrat, came from one of the
  most distinguished of all Athenian families, the
  Alcmeonid. He had been educated and he partook
  all the intellectual currents of one of the
  greatest ages of cultural creativity. For the
  prosperity and freedom, he attracted for the
  city, the finest minds of Greece, who probed all
  aspect of natural science, questions of ethics
  and morality. History itself was born there, and
  it was the freedom of Athens that attracted
  Herodotus.

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Pericles

• Pericles was rich enough, and unlike
  Themistocles, he didnt have to take bribes. A
  man of calm, he persuaded the Athenians by the
  intellectual force of his rhetoric. Themistocles
  was inclined to give flowery speeches and
  passionate speeches. Pericles led Athenians in
  logic step by step. He never curried favor with
  them. He was a true leader. He did not use public
  opinion polls. He led and he had a vision. That
  vision is that Athens will be No. 1 power in the
  Greek world.

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9.2.2 The Reforms of Pericles

• In the 450s B.C., the Athenian
  democracy received further backing when Pericles
  (c. 495-429 B.C.) proposed that a daily stipend
  (??) be paid using state revenues (????) to men
  who served on juries, in the council of five
  hundred, and in other public offices filled by
  lot.
• With the stipend as suggested by
  Pericles, it was easy for poor men to leave their
  regular work to serve in these time-consuming
  positions. By contrast, the ten generals received
  no stipends.

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9.2.2 The Reforms of Pericles

• The ten generals were elected rather
  than chosen by lot since their positions required
  expertise and experience, and they were the most
  influential public officials responsible for
  military and civil affairs, especially public
  finances. They were not paid because mostly it
  was the rich men like Pericles, who were able to
  receive education required for this top job and
  who had the free time that were expected to win
  the election as generals.
• Though generals received no pay, they
  were compensated by the high prestige they held.

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9.2.2 The Reforms of Pericles

• Pericles and other rich people had
  inherited enough wealth so that they were able to
  plunge into politics without worrying about
  making money, but payment for public service was
  essential for democracy as the mass of working
  men had to think twice before they pushed their
  work aside and served for the public without
  payment.
• The stipend paid to other officials
  and jurors was no more than an ordinary laborer
  could earn in a day, but it was able to enable
  poorer Athenians to serve in government.
  Pericles proposal for stipends for jurors earned
  him enormous popularity among ordinary citizens.
  As a result, He was able to carry out more
  reforms in the domestic policy.

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9.2.2 The Reforms of Pericles

• In 451 B.C., Pericles sponsored a law
  regulating that henceforward citizenship would be
  granted only to children whose mother and father
  were both Athenians. Previously, the children of
  Athenian men and non-Athenian women had been
  Athenian citizens. With the passing of the new
  law, the notion of Athenian identity was
  solidified to be special and exclusive. More
  importantly, it emphatically recognized the
  special status of Athenian women as possessing
  equal citizenship with Athenian men in the
  important process of setting up the citizenship
  of new generations of Athenians.

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9.2.2 The Reforms of Pericles

• Not long after the citizenship law
  was passed, Athenians began a checkup of
  citizenship among them and those who had claimed
  citizenship fraudulently were expelled. For
  Athenian men, the advantages of citizenship
  included the rights to participate in politics
  and in juries, to influence decisions related
  with their lives, to be protected under the law,
  and to own land and property in Athenian
  territory.
• Citizen women had fewer rights because
  they were excluded from politics, but they did
  enjoy the basic guarantees of citizenship the
  right to control property and to be protected by
  law for their persons and their property. Both
  men and women citizens were sharing unparalleled
  material prosperity with an increased sense of
  communal identity.

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Pericles pushed the Athenian democracy even
further. Now together with the assembly, composed
of all classes of citizens, the council of five
hundred, the magistrates or archons chosen by
lot, and ostracism ((???)?????), with the
authority of majority over any minority or
individual when the vital interests of the state
were at stake, Athenian democracy reached its
height, and the city-state itself entered into a
Golden Age.
9.2.2 The Reforms of Pericles
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Thank You!