The Rise and Fall of Athens
Episode Stats
Summary
In a period of only about 100 years, Athens went from relative obscurity to becoming an influential empire to collapsing into ruin. My guest today will guide us through the dramatic arc of the city-state and the larger-than-life character that contributed to it, David Studdard.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast in a period of
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only about 100 years athens went from relative obscurity to becoming an influential empire
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to collapsing into ruin my guest day will guide us through the dramatic arc of the city-state and
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the larger-than-life character that contributed to it his name is david studdard he's a classicist
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and the author of phoenix a father a son in the rise of athens and nemesis alcibiades in the fall
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of athens we begin our conversation with the rise of athens and why its aristocratic families decided
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to institute a radically democratic form of government david then walks us through how the
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persian invasion catapulted athens to power in greece along the way david explains how a father
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and son named miltides and cimon led athens to power we then shift our attention to the fall of athens
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and how it's precipitated by the peloponnesian war with their one-time ally sparta david introduces us
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to the made for hollywood character that play a pivotal role in athens fall the handsome and
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charismatic aristocrat and serial traitor alcibiades we enter conversation with the lessons we moderns
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can take from the rise and fall of athens after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is
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all right david studdard welcome to the show thank you very much lovely to be here and then so you've
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written a pair of books about the period that covers about 500 bc to a little after 400 bc
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the first book is called phoenix which is about the rise of athens and sort of sort of a zenith
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of power where we think of athens today right we think of like temples and philosophy and the greek
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the greek tragedies and then the second book part of the series is called nemesis which is about the
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fall of athens and you look at you look at the fall of athens through a really he's just i mean you
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you can't make this guy up uh alcibiades and we'll talk about him yeah let's talk about what
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you cover in phoenix so like i said earlier we typically think of athens at its zenith of power
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when it's you know commanding the seas it's making great art producing philosophy commerce but before
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the persian war athens was really just one of many greek city states kind of existing in the shadows of
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sparta you know sparta was sort of the big dog but then it kind of started growing in influence can you
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give us a big picture overview of the state of athens before the persian war i mean like where did
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the athenians come from what was their government like etc sure well what's very interesting is in the
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hundred years before the persian wars really a huge amount of stuff happens up until let's say 20 years
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before the the persian wars athens is ruled by aristocrats it's ruled by one particularly
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aristocratic powerful family but because of one thing that all partly because those aristocrats had
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other aristocratic rivals and we'll be talking about that i'm sure quite a lot in this podcast
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one of that family was assassinated a chap called hipparchus which left his brother hippias in control
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of athens he became very unpopular indeed and there was a popular uprising well when i say popular
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uprising it was an uprising which was really spearheaded by a rival aristocratic family called
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the alcmionids and they enlisted the help of the spartans to drive hippias out of athens but then
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what the pain alcmionid peter really realized was that in order for him and his cohorts to retain power
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in athens they needed to enlist the support of the ordinary people so this chap a chap called the
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cleisthenes introduced a system of a government called isonomia which effectively means equality under
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the law but he also sort of reorganized the way in which athens was administrated he organized the
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way in which each individual belonged to a sort of a geographical group so that the power of the
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the the ancestral families became gradually diluted and the influence of the the state as a whole became
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greater and this was the system which eventually we don't know how eventually we don't know how
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rapidly this happened but translated itself into something which the greeks called people power
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demokratia and we call democracy of course so this democratic situation had really only been in
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in place for around about 15 years before the persians invaded first of all but the democratic
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constitution the fact that it is a democracy seems really to have caused the athenians to coalesce
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under this new cause and almost immediately attica which is the region of which athens is the
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main sort of conurbation attica was attacked by the spartans and by other neighbors and within a
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period of a very short while athens has managed to beat off these invaders so she's proving herself
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to be illiterally extremely strong as well as politically innovative well i think an interesting
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point there is that the democratic government that athens got was started by aristocrats it was just
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basically a beef between aristocrats exactly exactly and it's a way it's a way in fact that those
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aristocrats very cleverly realized that they could as i say hold on to power without necessarily all
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the problems which had been there in the hundred years before because previously there had been you
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know a lot of fighting between those aristocratic families as each of them thought that they should be
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the ones in control of athens somehow involving the people allowed that to be the people having the power
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those individual strong families become much more sort of subsumed into the the government as a whole
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they still remain important as we will see oh and before the persian war there's a lot of you know
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contention between the greek city-states themselves like there's a lot of just infighting amongst greeks
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and the the big one like sparta seemed to be like they're invading everyone all the time they invaded
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athens around 506 what was the nature of the contention and i think this is important to talk about because
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this contention it's still there like under the the radar even during the persian war when spartan athens
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were allies you're absolutely right i mean they were very i think they were very anxious about what was
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happening politically in athens they saw this isonia this proto-democracy as a little bit of a threat
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and also a few of those indian aristocrats including hippias the guy who'd been expelled
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by the spartans were asking the spartans to help them so you have people from athens you know who
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aren't happy with this new political regime who are trying to have it uh you know sort of overturned
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almost immediately and they call on the spartans for help spartans being the most powerful illiterally
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you know at that period were the spartans threatened by democracy because their whole
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government or their whole way of life depended on keeping the helots yes like in check so they thought
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it would it would spread like well man if these athenians think that their rabble can control things
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maybe the helots will start thinking that too i think what we've got to remember is that when the
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spartans did invade attica you know democracy was very much in its infancy i mean it had only been
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around for about 18 months i suppose so i don't i don't suppose the spartans or anybody had any idea
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what what it would become so perhaps what they're more interested in is really putting a puppet into
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athens that they themselves can control but you know that they i'm i'm absolutely certain that they
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are also looking at as you say at at this idea of people power very suspiciously i mean the spartans
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are your ultimate oligarchs your ultimate aristocrats i guess in that you know in order to be a spartan
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you have to own a certain amount of land you have to have a x amount of money as well and it's simply
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to allow anyone to take part in political debate and political decisions i'm sure that even at that
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early stage they could see that this posed a threat so you had one group of athenians the one group
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of aristocrats who went to sparta for help but you also had another group that they went to persia
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looking for help as for their side on their side well these are and and we don't actually know who
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these people were but we do know that the the athenians as a whole the people of athens sent
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uh an embassy off to persia i i think because they were so aware that you know the spartans were there
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they could invade at any time they had other hostile hates all around them and because the persians were
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beginning to be the most powerful horse in the east yeah you you had an embassy which went off to the
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persians to ask them if they would help them illiterally if they could have an alliance with
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them and the persians said yes of course you can as long as you give us amphoras with attic earth and
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attic water the embassy the ambassadors evidently and and i i can't believe this is true but they agreed
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without necessarily realizing that to agree to offer earth and water was to agree to be part of
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persian empire and so according to herodotus the historian who records all these things those
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ambassadors somehow agreed that athens should become part of the persian empire of course when
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they returned to athens the people of athens were horrified they'd only just created this new
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political regime of people power democracy and now they were agreeing to be part of the persian empire
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so very rapidly this was kind of ignored just swept under the carpet as if it had ever happened
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and did this deal that you know these these industries did would that in any way contribute
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to the persia eventually invading greece well i think it made the people of athens very aware that
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they didn't that that they valued their freedom and their independence and so when a string of greek
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cities in the western uh coastline of asia minor these are ionian cities the people of athens are
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ionians as well as a kind of an ethnic division of the greeks and when these ionian cities in asia
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minor that had been taken over by the persians had become part of the persian empire rebelled they asked
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athens if they would help and athens did indeed help and it was really because of that in the end
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the rebellion was unsuccessful but it was because the athenians had helped that ionian revolt the
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the persians were reminded of their existence and were determined to bring athens to heal and who was
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the persian king at this i can't remember is it darius or cyrus this it is yes it's harris the first
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and according to herodotus when he heard about the uh involvement of athens in this uh rebellion
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he had a slave say to him every day in the morning and at night remember the athenians and he vowed his
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revenge well yeah i thought that was interesting you talked about the the persians their form of
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religion czarasutrism is right is that who it is what it is that's right yeah the world was black and
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white and one of the things the persians thought was the most evil thing you could do was lie and or
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backtrack and you had uh darius thinking yeah these you got to remember these athenians they're evil
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they're one of the bad guys because they they went they they went back on their word against their oath
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yeah yeah exactly okay so the persians invade greece that's kick starts the persian war
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early on and this is where your book phoenix really starts picking up he's talking about something
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the men who played a pivotal role in the persian war on the athenian side there was a guy named
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miltides this guy came rose to prominence in the persian war tell us about him what role did he play
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in the rise of athenian power during the persian war well he's a very interesting person really
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because he had been appointed by the old regime by hippias the guy who's kicked out of athens you know
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but he'd been appointed by hippias to look after athenian interests in the eastern aegean and
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while he's there the area that he is in charge of comes under the power of the persian empire
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miltides initially seems to have sort of been quite happy to help the persians and we hear about him on a
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military expedition as as part of the persian army but then relationships with persia become
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sort of hostile and so he has to return to athens when he's in athens of course he has enemies there
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all these other aristocrats are not very happy to see miltides returning home this very powerful man
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with a power base in athens as well but they they do realize that he's actually quite an important
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person because he's he's the only real r figure in athens who has any real experience of the persians
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and the persian army so he becomes one of the military commanders who lead the army out when
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the persian army arrives in attica yeah and so he played a pivotal role in the battle of marathon
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which you know we typically think of the battle marathon us the guys where the marathon was invented
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right the guy who runs and then keels over and dies that's it so what was his role at marathon like
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what did you do there well as i say he was one of the athenian military commanders that they had this
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very strange arrangement whereby because they didn't want to put the power into the hands of one person
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the military command actually rotated every day a new commander took over but a few of his fellow
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commanders realized that he was the one who knew all about the persians and persian way of battle and
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so on and so evidently they allowed him to take command on the days on which they were supposed to
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take command and then for days the persians and the athenians are just holding off neither of them is
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prepared to commit their army onto the field and they're just eyeballing each other over about a
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mile of empty empty space now we don't know exactly what happened because even herodotus the historian who
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records this and who haven't spoke to eyewitnesses of of the battle is quite vague but it appears that
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early one day early one morning when the athenians woke up they realized that the persians were
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embarking their army onto their ships probably with the intention of voyaging around the coast of
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attica and attacking athens obviously because the army isn't in athens the army is in the east of
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of attica and so the persian horses we believe have already been embarked now this is crucial because
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the persian infantry is therefore on its own and when the greeks and when miltiades and the athenians
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realized that the army was embarking that the horses were on board the horses were out of play
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he seems to have ordered the attack and according to herodotus they attacked at a run across this long
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empty pile of oman's land during that period of course the persian archers are able to get into
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play arrows are coming raining down on the athenians as they make contact with the persian army the
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athenians are outnumbered massively outnumbered but because of the element of surprise i suppose
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to an extent although you know the persians as i say had had quite a while while the athenians advanced
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to realize what was happening but the athenians had their their homeland i suppose on the side they
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were really fighting for athens and for their families back in athens itself and very very quickly
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the persian resistance collapsed and the athenians as you say won a phenomenal and quite unexpected
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victory at marathon around 5 000 at least persians are slaughtered 192 athenians held at the battle of
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marathon we know that it was 192 because they became heroized they became this this great elite
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in emery of athens their bodies were hurried all together under a funeral mound at marathon and
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honors were paid to them every year they became heroized because this this is a very important event
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the persian fleet returns to asia minor and for 10 years the threat of invasion is hanging over them
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but it hasn't materialized again for another as i say for another 10 years all right so yeah the battle
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marathon held off the persians miltides is he's the hero of the battle of marathon but then he eventually
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is put on trial for treason by the athenians like what happened like he about a year after marathon he
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says that he can he'd like to take out the the army of athens on a military campaign but he refuses to say
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where and why he does take them on a campaign the campaign is not successful and when he returns
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home his enemies of whom he has quite a few as i said earlier put him on trial because they say that
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you know he's he squandered the resources of athens they fine him a massive amount of honey in fact he has
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been injured on campaign he's put in jail he's incredibly ill he doesn't survive and the money which
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is owed this great sort of pine which is owed is inherited by his family who have to pay it off
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and i i think really part of what i'll tidy the enemies are trying to do is to actually cripple his family
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politically you know they have to pay off this huge amount of money so because of that they're not
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they're not able to engage so easily in the you know the political life of athens so again you see
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this theme uh just aristocrats fighting aristocrats going on in athens we'll talk about miltides son
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here in a bit but at this point in the peloponnesian war is this when athens started really developing
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their sea power like the trireme was that was this is happening right now you're quite right
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there's a populist politician a man called themistocles and for a long time he's been
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really saying that athens needs to take control of the ocean of the sea the way to do this is to build
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these new ships this this new design of ships the uh the trireme and the trireme is basically a boat
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with a a very strong uh reinforced ram the idea is that the oarsmen all row as fast as they can
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against the enemy ship they hold it if they can they hold its hull so that the water pours into the
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enemy ship then of course they themselves have to disengage as quickly as they're able to so that
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you know they're not sort of involved with this enemy ship anymore they're not actually pulled down
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along with it um and and that is what the trireme is all about it's almost like a spear on the sea
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a spear which is being manipulated by all all these oarsmen so it just rushes ahead smashes into the
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enemy ship pulls back and the people of athens were very very lucky indeed because in around 483
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a massive that they had these silver mines in attica and around about 483 as i say a massive
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bedrock of silver was discovered in attica and the politician themistocles said well look either we can
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allow every man in athens to have a part of the revenue of this or we can all club together and with
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it build as many triremes as possible and this was a remarkable idea and it was an idea which he was
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able to persuade the athenians to accept and so just in in two or three years the people of athens
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were able to build a couple of hundred of these new triremes and they would prove very very important in
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the years to come and and what's interesting try you make this point trireme warfare was very suited
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to the democratic government of athens because it basically when you're in the trireme every it's
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like every the oarsmen right they're sort of these anonymous it's like the people who are making this
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happen and so yeah for some reason i guess they took a lot of pride in trireme warfare because it
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kind of it was like a corollary to their their democratic or everyone's equal government you're
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absolutely right because up until then hoplite warfare had been the great thing and hoplites are
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these when you think of a an ancient athenian army it's the hoplites you think of with their helmets and
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their big shields and their and it's only those people with a certain income who are able to afford all
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this but anyone without any income at all was able to be an oarsman this is the ultimate in sort of the
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equality you didn't have to be a wealthy union to be able to hide and i'll protect athens
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we're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors
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and now back to the show okay so we got trireme warfare going on they're having a lot of success
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with that miltides he fends off the persians at the battle of marathon but his political enemies
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within athens another aristocratic family basically find them for it sounded kind of like almost trumped
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up charges almost and the debt passed on to his family then you had miltides son akiman he picks up
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where miltides left off like what happened what did he do after his father died well he's he is a very
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he's an extraordinary man because really because of his energy and charisma he's able to attract allies
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from other aristocratic families in athens he really seems to be a man who is able to make
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important friends and one of the things he does he makes a friend who really helps him to pay off his
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everything he owes and he also realizes that when the persians invade again in 480 bc with the persian
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army coming marching over land and the persian of fleet sort of hugging the coast down towards
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athens the aristocrats are very keen to take the hoplites out and eat them in in battle in in in
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hoplite battle because they they say that this is how it ought how it's always been and how it how it
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ought to be again but themistocles he says no no what we've got to do is we've got to put everybody
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into the triremes who've got and the fleet we've got to evacuate athens and if necessary allow the
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persians to overrun athens as long as we can defeat them with our our triremes we will be all
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right because of course the persians relied on the triremes to bring in supplies bring in you know
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control the aegean so that they could eat while they're on campaign and cimon is able to really
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see that this is a very good idea and so there's a pivotal moment which we we hear about there are
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some historians who say the actual event never happened but i i i don't really see any reason why
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it shouldn't have happened in which cimon and his aristocratic friends make a procession through
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athens and up onto the acropolis and into the shrine of athena where cimon presents to the great
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statue of athena his horse's bridal and the point which he's making here is that he's he this elite
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cavalryman is handing over that element of himself his of his aristocracy of his eliteness of his
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horsemanship to athena because what he then does he comes out of the temple and with his friends walks
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down to the harbor and onto the ships and he's making this point i may be an aristocrat but i know
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that our future lies in the ships at sea and because of that the tide turned among the aristocrats
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everybody decided yes we must evacuate athens and that is indeed what they did a few sort of very old
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school people remained on the acropolis and when the persians did indeed overrun athens they were
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all slaughtered but the rest as i say went down to the sea a few days after athens had been overrun
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the greek navy hit the persian navy and defeated them and the persian threat again although the persian
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land army remained for another year it also was beaten and the persian threat again is removed from
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the mainland of greece and the persians thereafter they don't ever come back again
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all right so keeman was there he decided i'm going to go all in on this democratic trireme warfare
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and that exactly turned the tide but okay so he he people looked to him as a leader and but then
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eventually he's ostracized from greece like what so what happened how did how did he go from
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from i'm gonna do whatever this guy does to persona non grata well again we're having to
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race now through through quite a lot of history because just to condense all this is after after
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the uh the persians have been removed from greece keeman really leads uh an alliance uh based in athens
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athens and her allies and that is really constituted in order to remove the persian threat altogether so they
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get the persians out of any aegean islands any other greek owned if you like uh areas of the
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world there and they begin to take the the battle to the persians as well this alliance by the way
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very very quickly turns everyone in the alliance is supposed to be equal but athens is more equal than
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the rest and what begins as an athenian alliance turns into an athenian empire pretty pretty quickly
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keeman is phenomenally you know successful he wages many campaigns he defeats the persians and of course
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because of this a lot of persian honey and booty comes into athens but there's one thing that the
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athenians won't forgive uh keeman for and that is that he rather admires the spartans
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keeman is an old aristocrat at heart and he does rather like the way in which the spartans do things
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and so when in there was an earthquake in sparta and the spartans asked everyone they knew for help
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because they were very afraid that the helots the helot slaves would rebel which indeed they did
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keeman leads an army from athens to sparta to help them against the helots but something goes wrong
00:29:02.800
again we don't really know what it may be that members of keeman's army behave in a way that the
00:29:09.860
spartans don't approve of it could be anything we just don't know but the athenians are
00:29:14.740
asked to leave and go back to athens and this is really seen as a great disgrace in athens and
00:29:22.760
keeman is blamed for this and because of that again his enemies are able to rise up against him in
00:29:30.140
athens and they resort to this mechanism called ostracism whereby the people can vote on whether
00:29:37.880
they'd like to expel someone from athens for a set length of time you know to remove his political
00:29:43.480
power from and this is what they do and keeman is ostracized and in his absence ericles begins to
00:29:52.240
rise to power and he really taps into the the hood of athens which is very anti-spartan very bellicose
00:30:00.300
as well and he sort of you know proposes and leads a large number of campaigns that athens and
00:30:08.360
sparta case off one another illiterally there are athens is badly defeated by the the spartans and
00:30:16.300
and things don't go terribly well it's not until keeman returns from ostracism that peace is made with
00:30:23.300
sparta keeman himself then goes off on campaign again against the persians and wins victories
00:30:31.160
against them but he passes away while on campaign but just about a year after that another athenian
00:30:40.300
embassy goes to persia it's very different from the embassy which had on earlier that we spoke about
00:30:47.460
because on this occasion the athenians seem to make peace with the persians and the persians agree
00:30:54.640
that they won't be involved in any more hostilities against the greeks and it's this peace which allows
00:31:03.000
pericles in the middle of the fifth century bc to begin his great building project in athens it's now
00:31:10.420
that the parthenon is we're built and all this other and and athens really does become this great
00:31:16.740
hub that we were speaking about earlier yeah so this is like where it was about 460 450
00:31:23.820
bc yeah just yeah 450 ish let's let's really say yeah so pericles begins this big public works
00:31:31.460
project builds all these templates basically this is like when athens becomes the athens that we know
00:31:35.720
exactly we think of but so they're at the zenith of their success the zenith of their power
00:31:40.640
but what's going on like is there still all that just aristocratic contention within within athens
00:31:45.560
that's going to eventually sow the seeds of its downfall there is i think there is always that
00:31:51.360
the greeks as a whole and aristocrats in particular lived by the uh idea which is
00:31:59.400
really raised in homer's iliad he has a line i n aristue in kyoparikon m and i alone always to be
00:32:07.060
the best and to surpass all others now the greeks as a whole believed that that was what they should do
00:32:14.920
and individually they believed that as well that's that's why they they have all this competitiveness
00:32:21.280
and things like the olympic games they have competitiveness in the arts they're battling
00:32:26.820
against one another all the time to be supreme and it isn't a way to create harmony really
00:32:33.100
and in fact just at that very period that we're talking about just as peace is being
00:32:39.180
made with the persians and you think that everything could could really turn out quite harmoniously
00:32:44.840
in the end a child is born in athens who i think we were speaking about possibly for the rest of
00:32:53.840
this interview alcibiades and uh he really encapsulates that idea that homeric idea always
00:33:01.760
to be the best because that's what he wants to be and he will do everything to achieve it
00:33:09.640
okay so let's talk about alcibiades so he's like again i don't think you make this guy up
00:33:13.520
you read a story and it's like this is like some sort of hbo game of thrones succession drama going
00:33:19.400
on so he's born around you know 452 bc so the sort of the the zenith of athenian cultural power
00:33:25.940
and influence and economic might what's his story like who were alcibiades parents was he from an
00:33:31.140
aristocratic family what was he like as a kid yes he he is he is from the alchemyanid family the
00:33:39.120
family we heard about the family who introduced isonomia or democracy into athens so he's from
00:33:44.800
this very powerful family he's incredibly well off he's orphaned as a child and his father had
00:33:51.800
already made this arrangement that if he should be killed alcibiades should be looked after by
00:33:56.840
pericles the most important man the leading man in athens so alcibiades you know his his childhood
00:34:04.360
is spent in the household of pericles so he can really get an idea of what power is all about
00:34:10.660
pericles is household we hear from ancient sources it's quite austere though pericles likes to think
00:34:17.260
of himself as aloof from human emotions and human tailings and so on he is it's a household where
00:34:24.080
there's a lot of um philosophy art and so on are there but young alcibiades proves himself to be a
00:34:31.160
bit of a rebel even at an early age there are lots of anecdotes about how he behaved when he was young
00:34:37.300
there's an anecdote about how he and his friends were playing a game in the streets which involved
00:34:43.100
throwing the bones of animals on the on the ground to see how they land and just exactly how they land
00:34:49.360
you get points depending on on how the bones land as they're playing this alcibiades has just thrown
00:34:55.380
his hand and a ox cart comes trundling down the street that the driver of the ox cart says out of
00:35:01.800
your out of my way out of my way but alcibiades refuses because he wants to see how these bones
00:35:07.120
that he's been playing with have landed in the street and so he pies down in front of the ox cart
00:35:11.880
and says drive on if you like but you'll have to drive over me and of course the at the driver
00:35:17.420
reigns in the oxen and alcibiades proves his power but he's also his love of competitiveness
00:35:24.820
at that early age at some stage in his adolescence he comes under the auspices though of one of the
00:35:35.240
most influential people in athens the great philosopher socrates and this was a relationship
00:35:43.240
which puzzled a lot of people because here was he was um alcibiades is very handsome this this also
00:35:50.160
has to be said he's supposed to be the handsomest man in athens and the philosopher socrates who was
00:35:56.520
notoriously ugly also though notoriously into leading a life of virtue contemplation if you like as well
00:36:06.080
and alcibiades is completely the opposite and how these two sort of attracted one another was was
00:36:12.240
really something which interested the ancients very very much we knew that socrates and alcibiades
00:36:19.060
were on campaign with one another as soon as alcibiades became an adult athens and sparta
00:36:27.520
come really into a major conflict with one another this is when the the peloponnesian war breaks out
00:36:36.220
just before the peloponnesian war there's a little sort of sort of overture hostility it's up at a
00:36:42.860
place called hot idea up in the the chalcidese right up in the highest part up there in the aegean
00:36:49.580
and alcibiades and socrates are on campaign with one another we hear that socrates was able to save
00:36:57.440
alcibiades in when he was being attacked by the enemy rescued him from the the battlefield and looked
00:37:03.920
after him supposedly alcibiades a few years later returned the favor when they were on another campaign
00:37:12.080
and socrates was being harassed by the enemy alcibiades on his horse rides down and protects his old friend
00:37:20.080
socrates as they're being removed from the battlefield and they head off to the athenian camp
00:37:27.440
so that there is a real relationship between those two no yeah and it seems like the way you describe
00:37:32.920
it socrates you know likely saw the potential for alcibiades potential to be either a really great great
00:37:42.000
man but had to be tempered with philosophy tempered with virtue or he could just end up being just a
00:37:46.880
terrible like he said nemesis like just bring the downfall of athens yes yes so okay alcibiades
00:37:53.580
he's this good-looking cocky confident man of great will in athens he eventually steps into public
00:38:01.520
life this is like right before kind of in the lead-up of the peloponnesian war did he play any
00:38:05.620
role in the lead-up to the peloponnesian war between sparta well this is now when he becomes old
00:38:11.320
enough to take public office we're actually right in the middle of the peloponnesian war that episode
00:38:18.020
which i was talking about in fact both of those episodes in which involved alcibiades and socrates
00:38:22.800
happened in the earlier stages of the peloponnesian war but in when alcibiades was reaching as i say
00:38:30.600
an age to be appointed a military commander the age of 30 peace all of a sudden breaks out between
00:38:37.920
athens and sparta which for alcibiades is not a good thing at all because he wants to make his mark
00:38:45.300
as a general and so he frets during this peace period and he does his best to involve sparta's
00:38:55.580
enemies in a proxy war with sparta places like argos which is in the peloponnes and has been an old
00:39:05.240
enemy of sparta so alcibiades gets the the people of argos to get their army together go out and fight
00:39:13.600
the spartans and he's doing everything he can to poke away at the spartans and to try to pomemant
00:39:20.300
hostilities again he eventually does but in a in another theater of war entirely again envoys arrive
00:39:30.440
from israeli who are being attacked or being treated badly they say by these citizens of
00:39:36.600
hieracus and they ask the people of athens if they could possibly send small army in a small fleet
00:39:43.740
to help them to counter the threat of the hieracusans alcibiades is all for this and when
00:39:53.600
he addresses the popular assembly at athens they're all for it as well because they think it's going to be
00:39:59.460
a great adventure again however personal animosities come in the way because there's an older politician
00:40:07.100
an older general at athens who hates alcibiades and who says gosh this is a this is a totally stupid
00:40:14.060
idea we couldn't possibly do it in order to be able to conduct such a military campaign we'd need
00:40:20.720
twice as big an army as alcibiades is proposing and the people of athens the the union assembly is so
00:40:29.440
excited about the idea say yes all right well we'll send twice the size and because of this
00:40:36.420
because this great armada then is designated to go off in this campaign against hieracusans
00:40:43.300
the whole flavor of the military engagement changes and what could have been quite a successful
00:40:52.120
enterprise eventually turned out because athens allies in the field there when they saw the size
00:40:58.640
of the army that athens was was actually sending believed that what they were aiming to do was
00:41:06.080
actually annex the whole of the island of sicily and the whole of the south of italy as well and so
00:41:10.740
they became very anxious about it and they refused to help and so it was a disaster but before it was
00:41:18.320
a disaster alcibiades himself had ended up in pretty hot water too because before the expedition was
00:41:26.620
allowed to set sail something happened in athens which would really impinge on his career from then on
00:41:33.160
in because outside every house the major buildings in athens there were things called herms and these
00:41:41.400
statues of statues of the god hermes which were supposed to well believed to protect the houses and
00:41:49.640
protect the whole of the city of athens and one morning before the fleet actually set sail it was
00:41:57.220
discovered that the majority of these herms had been smashed now nobody knew who was responsible to
00:42:03.480
this day we have no way of telling who was responsible for smashing the herms but alcibiades
00:42:09.500
these enemies claimed that he was behind it and they claimed he'd also done something else which
00:42:16.460
was very impious and that was to page a pastiche of the eleusinian histories which were the most or
00:42:24.960
one of the most sacred initiation rites in athens and because alcibiades is implicated in this
00:42:33.780
his enemies organized that once the fleet had sailed and of course the army which was alcibiades
00:42:41.360
main support base was out of athens alcibiades should be recalled to athens and put on trial
00:42:49.000
and he knew that if he was to return to athens he would be in grave trouble indeed so instead of
00:42:57.620
accompanying the the people who've been sent to arrest him back to athens alcibiades gives them
00:43:05.420
the slip yeah and he he goes to the enemy he goes to sparta and uh convinces the spartans to uh take
00:43:14.620
him in like i mean he was formenting war against the spartans like he wanted to fight these guys
00:43:18.720
so how did he convince how did he convince the spartans yeah um take me in i want to be on your
00:43:24.220
guys's side now we know that he had posates in sparta there there were people there he knew and that
00:43:30.740
he had an old ancestral relationship with but we also know that one of the things which he said to
00:43:36.080
the spartans was if you take me in i will help you to defeat the athenians again i think this is
00:43:43.300
really something which he has learned from the iliad because when achilles is slighted by agamemnon
00:43:50.280
he goes off and refuses to take part in the trojan war anymore homer says that achilles was hoping
00:43:57.500
that the greeks would do so badly that they would ask achilles back again to their army i think this
00:44:04.920
is partly what alcibiades is hoping that if the spartans appear to be doing really well the athenians
00:44:10.660
will ask him back again and all these things about the herms and the eleus indian mysteries we can
00:44:16.900
forget all that we want you back and i think that's what he's sort of campaigning for for quite a long
00:44:22.740
time now so he offers to help the spartans he gives them advice which they'd already been thinking of
00:44:29.200
anyway here's another thing we hear all about uh what uh alcibiades offers the spartans and later
00:44:36.740
offers the the persians when he goes over to them but how do we know about this who is it that we
00:44:44.100
hear it from well we hear it from the historian thucydides who's the great historian of the
00:44:49.600
peloponnesian war but who does thucydides get this information from i think he probably got the
00:44:54.980
information from alcibiades himself because we know that thucydides interviewed all the key
00:45:00.660
of players in the peloponnesian war and there are quite a few times when we we get slants on we get
00:45:07.940
little insights on the story which presented as if alcibiades is able to trick people is able to
00:45:14.380
it's a lot smarter than anybody else and i wouldn't be at all surprised as i say if the person that
00:45:21.960
originated this version of the story was indeed alcibiades so we hear that he arrives in in in
00:45:30.440
sparta there for a little while he he does quite well and he manages to persuade the spartans who
00:45:37.640
are thinking as i say about it anyway of sending a fleet of their own to the eastern aegean to open
00:45:44.020
up a new front in what has now re-emerged the new phase of the peloponnesian war to to try to attack
00:45:52.820
athens athens allies in ionia in the eastern aegean alcibiades is able to take control of this
00:46:02.060
expedition he actually leads the spartans out to the eastern aegean and it's just as well he's left
00:46:08.320
sparta at the time he does because one of the queens of sparta there are two royal families in sparta and
00:46:16.140
one of the queens has had a child whom her household slaves overhear her calling alcibiades
00:46:25.160
and when the queen's husband chap called agis begins to do his arithmetic he realizes that he's
00:46:33.760
not actually slept with his wife for quite a long time certainly longer than you know would appear
00:46:42.080
that it was his own child so he thinks that the child is alcibiades child and so he becomes very
00:46:49.800
angry with him he manages to persuade the spartans to put a sentence of execution on alcibiades and so
00:46:59.620
here alcibiades is out in the eastern aegean with the spartan army the people of athens are his enemies
00:47:06.120
the spartans are now his enemies so what can he do who can he go to well there's only one powerhouse
00:47:13.280
that he can now go to and that is the persians the the old enemies of greece and alcibiades does
00:47:21.620
precisely that he goes over to the persians he does the same thing there he offers to help them
00:47:26.760
to defeat not only athens but sparta as well to play one side off against the other to exhaust greece
00:47:35.700
and eventually he says with greece exhausted the persians can come in and take over the mainland
00:47:42.520
of greece which is what they tried to do all those years before there's a lot of political
00:47:47.740
to-ing and fro-ing going on in athens the people the aristocrats particularly are so disillusioned by
00:47:56.940
the way that the war is going that for a little while they take over the running of athens so that the
00:48:04.520
constitution the democratic constitution is actually suspended for a little while but the fleet
00:48:12.060
the athenian fleet remember the fleet is powered by the common people the fleet which is out in the
00:48:18.860
eastern aegean is looking for really someone to inspire them and to to take over and to lead them
00:48:28.420
to help them not only against spartans but against these oligarchs at home in athens and so who do
00:48:35.940
they turn to they turn to the man who is just a few miles away in asia minor alcibiades and so we get
00:48:43.900
this bizarre situation whereby the the fleet asks alcibiades to return as their commander and alcibiades
00:48:56.400
of course is delighted this is what he's been trying for for quite a long time he returns to the fleet
00:49:03.840
he leads the fleet to a string of amazing victories over the persians and eventually once the oligarchs in
00:49:12.200
athens have been overthrown a democracy is returned to athens alcibiades returns in triumph to athens and is
00:49:20.640
welcomed as a great hero this is his highest point and after a month or so in athens he again he decides
00:49:30.980
to take the army of the fleet back to the eastern mediterranean to do battle with the spartans and then
00:49:39.120
it all goes horribly wrong again because he leaves the fleet in charge of a friend of his who engages
00:49:44.640
cages with the enemy when alcibiades has told him not to it's a disaster the athenian fleet is defeated
00:49:52.580
alcibiades realizes that if he hangs around any longer he'll be in great trouble so he takes himself
00:49:58.520
off he's already built himself some strongholds right up in the northern aegean and the that kind
00:50:06.640
of area there and he lives for the rest of the peloponnesian war as a kind of a bandit king a
00:50:14.540
bandit warlord offering his advice when he thinks it's going to be useful but his advice is ignored
00:50:21.840
and within a very short while without him there athens fleet is completely destroyed without the
00:50:31.340
fleet athens can't survive athens is besieged its people have nothing to eat they hold out for about
00:50:38.780
a year and a bit and eventually because they're so hungry and starved they offer to sue for terms
00:50:45.200
and the spartans defeat the athenians alcibiades is ill alive however but not for long because the
00:50:57.440
spartans are just as keen to really see the end of him as anyone else's and some kind of a hit squad
00:51:06.540
i think uh is is really sent out against alcibiades he tries to curry favor again with the his his old
00:51:16.320
friends in persia he offers to go and help the persian king if only he can go all the way inland to see
00:51:24.120
the persian king he says he's got very important information for him but the permissions that he's
00:51:30.380
looking for which will allow him to travel through persia don't come in and he discovers himself one
00:51:37.680
night in a cottage or a house of some sort in the hills in the west of the persian empire and he hears
00:51:47.220
people all around the house he realizes the house has been completely surrounded burning arrows are
00:51:55.420
hired into the into the the halls and the roof of the house which begins to catch a light he and
00:52:02.680
his comrades try to put out the fire but they realize that there's nothing really they can do so
00:52:08.360
alcibiades we hear wraps a cloak around his left arm holds a sword in his right opens the door of the
00:52:18.880
house and rushes out into the blackness and it's like the ending of butch cassidy and the sundance kid
00:52:27.340
it all ends there in a hail of arrows and this is a very romantic and sort of hollywood ending for a
00:52:34.860
very romantic and hollywood individual yeah when i read the story of alcibiades he just seemed like
00:52:40.820
yeah he was a guy who had that homeric ideal of be the best of the best but it was he was in a
00:52:48.020
democratic society so he would use democracy to serve that purpose like he i don't think he might
00:52:53.720
have not really cared much about democracy but hey as long as help me be the best of the best then
00:52:57.540
i'll i'll go along with it sure i i think he would use anybody to serve his purpose
00:53:02.580
anybody anything yeah so i mean after you after you readers read these books phoenix and nemesis
00:53:09.920
are there any big lessons about life or politics or warfare that you hope people walk away with
00:53:17.100
after reading them well i think one of the things obviously is that things and and people have not
00:53:22.980
changed in two and a half thousand years and we shouldn't underestimate the fact that athens
00:53:28.540
one of the reasons that it ended up by being defeated in the peloponnesian war was that it
00:53:35.740
began to believe its own propaganda athens became complacent athens every year in athens they had
00:53:43.920
this big military event where bodies of the remains of those who'd fallen in battle the year before were
00:53:50.100
buried in a public sort of burial place and the the most powerful politician of the year or the leading
00:53:57.360
general made a speech and that speech appears to have been you know pretty much the same every year
00:54:04.740
in that it remembered athens history and it stretched its history back into mythological period and
00:54:11.720
everything that it that people of athens were reminded about was athenian military success how the
00:54:19.400
athenians were the best of all the people in greece you know how they were really the ones who were
00:54:25.520
chosen to lead greece to spread freedom democracy all these great ideas and the more the athenians
00:54:34.340
heard this the more that they believed it i think the more they believed that they were invincible
00:54:38.700
and this is really a very salutary story for us all that we can't rely on our past glories our past
00:54:49.400
successes we can't rely just because we tell ourselves that everything's great we are we're
00:54:55.360
wonderful we we can't really believe everybody else to believe that to this idea of hubris that as i say
00:55:03.760
you believe your own propaganda and it generally ends in tears i'm afraid another way i've heard don't
00:55:11.860
believe your own propagandas don't like the smell of your own farts you got to be careful of that
00:55:17.920
and the other takeaway too is as i was reading this is a reminder of how quickly things can change like
00:55:24.640
this conversation we've had just covered about a hundred years yeah and all this stuff happened and
00:55:29.600
i think for us in the modern world we're so accustomed to things being relatively stable you know
00:55:35.020
for us history kind of has been everything's kind of been the same since world war ii and we think
00:55:40.960
well this is normal if you look at most of human history the norm is constant change and constant
00:55:46.220
turmoil this is absolutely right and we've i mean we only need to see how you know unprepared we've been
00:55:52.120
for the pandemic as well as if as if that was a thing which you know could not possibly impact on us
00:56:00.220
because we were so scientifically advanced and you know this is again it's it's like the athenian thing
00:56:05.460
and of course what we didn't speak about was that right at the beginning of the peloponnesian war
00:56:10.600
there was a plague hit athens and a third of the population of athens was annihilated by this plague
00:56:17.300
again the athenians believed that you know if they behaved in a pious way they would be above such
00:56:25.320
things they because they thought that things like the plagues were sent by apollo to punish people
00:56:32.300
for behaving in a an impious way so they they thought i suppose that their sort of exemplary way
00:56:40.280
of life would protect them from plague and disease just as we i think were slightly held into believing
00:56:48.480
that our medical advances so on would be so strong that anything like a pandemic would not affect us
00:56:56.340
in the way it has and and the economic impact of these things too if history teaches us anything it
00:57:02.320
really teaches us how vulnerable we are no for sure well well david this has been a great conversation
00:57:08.560
where can people go to learn more about your work well they can go onto my website which is
00:57:15.680
www.davidstutter.com they can read any of my books as well i have an email if anybody would like to get
00:57:24.920
in touch also and that's uh that's on my website fantastic well david stutter thanks for your time
00:57:30.820
it's been a pleasure thank you very much indeed thank you bye-bye my guest today was david stutter
00:57:36.600
we talked about two of his books today phoenix and nemesis they're both available amazon.com and
00:57:40.880
bookstores everywhere you can find more information about his work at his website davidstutter.com
00:57:44.760
also check out our show notes at aom.is athens where you find links to resources where you delve
00:57:49.020
deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out
00:58:00.440
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00:58:04.320
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with a friend or family member who would think we get something out of it as always thank you for
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the continued support until next time it's brett mckay reminding you to on the list of the aom