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Athens and the Persian Wars TITLE PAGE A BRIEF HISTORY OF ANCIENT GREECE Politics, Society, and Culture Sarah B. Pomeroy Stanley M. Burstein Hunter College and California State University, the City University of New York Los Angeles Graduate Center Walter Donlan Jennifer Tolbert Roberts University of City College and California, Irvine the City University of New York Graduate Center New York • Oxford OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2004 5 THE GROWTH OF ATHENS AND THE PERSIAN WARS During the Archaic period, numerous Greek city-states struggled with a vari- ety of problems—factional quarrels between aristocratic families, tension be- tween aristocrats and the people, and tyranny. Sparta found a unique solution to the Archaic crisis and so did Athens. By 500 BC Athens’ problems had been largely resolved. The last tyrant had been expelled, Athens had a democratic government, and aristocratic stasis was largely confined to competing for office and persuading the assembly. Because of their relative harmony, wealth, and great numbers, the Athenians had become the second most powerful Greek polis, they were poised to play a major role in the great war that was about to begin. For while the Greek city-states were evolving, the Persian Empire was growing into an ambitious power that would threaten to engulf the Hellenic world. A strong Athens would be vital to the defense of Greece against invasions by the Persian kings Darius I and Xerxes. ATHENS FROM THE BRONZE AGE TO THE EARLY ARCHAIC AGE Literary evidence and physical remains show that during the Late Bronze Age Athens was the largest and most important settlement on the Attic peninsula and a major Mycenaean palace-center that exercised a loose control over the other fortified palace-centers in the region. These remained, however, independent of the Athenian wanax. Archaeology also confirms the tradition that the invasions of the late thirteenth century BC bypassed Athens. Still, if the story about the Achaeans taking refuge at Athens is true, they would have found in Attica the same collapse of the centralized ruling structure, drastic depopulation, and dis- persal into small village communities as in the regions from which they had fled. The first sign of Athenian recovery from the post-invasion slump is the ap- pearance of Protogeometric pottery around 1050 BC. Although reduced to a cluster 110 The Growth of Athens and the Persian Wars 111 of villages around the Acropolis, Athens continued without interruption as the central place of Attica. It is likely that by 900 BC, if not earlier, the basileus of Athens was preeminent within Attica. A series of rich ninth-century graves re- veals significant growth in wealth and overseas trade during the later Dark Age. The population around Athens rose sharply during the eighth century, and new settlements appeared throughout Attica, perhaps through “internal colonization” from the plain of Athens. Significantly, Athens did not colonize overseas during the late eighth century. The synoecism or “joining together” of the towns and villages of Attica into a po- litical unity under the leadership of Athens was probably gradual, only being completed around the middle of the eighth century. The Athenians ascribed the unification to Theseus, whom myth linked with his companion, the Dorian hero Heracles. Theseus’ exploits, such as defeating the Minotaur in Crete and the Amazons in Athens, were enshrined in Athenian art and literature. In making Theseus the founder of Athens and its democracy, the Athenians followed the common Greek practice of attributing important events of the preliterate period to some great figure from the legendary past. More important than the details of the process of unification is the fact that af- ter the Dark Ages every settlement in Attica considered itself “Athenian,” and none attempted to declare its independence as happened elsewhere, nor were there subordinate populations such as the Spartan helots or perioikoi. The unifi- cation of Attica, however, created unique problems. Although all Athenian citi- zens could participate in the government of Athens, in reality people who lived in or near Athens would find it easier to vote than those who lived farther away. Thus, for example, a visit to Athens by a farmer who lived 15 or 20 miles away would probably require three days. The importance of this fact for understand- ing Athenian history cannot be underestimated since until the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BC most people still lived in the countryside. The early government of Athens was aristocratic. Probably during the later eighth century the chiefs of Attica replaced the paramount basileus with three civic officials called collectively archons—that is, “the leaders”—who divided the leadership roles among themselves. One of the archons, called the basileus, ad- ministered the city’s cults of the polis and judged lawsuits pertaining to cult property and other religious matters. The polemarch (war archon) commanded the army and judged disputes involving noncitizens. The most prestigious office was that of the archo¯n, who had overall supervision of public affairs, including pre- siding over the council and the assembly and judging nonreligious cases. He was known as the eponymous archon, because he gave his name to the year. Six ju- dicial officials called thesmothetai (“layers down of the rules”) were added later, making up the governing body of the “nine archons.” The nine archons were elected annually from candidates drawn from the small circle of aristocratic fam- ilies known as the Eupatrids (“people with good fathers”). The archons governed Athens in concert with the council that met on the hill (pagos) sacred to the war god Ares and was called for that reason the Council of the Areopagus. Because archons joined the council after the end of their term, sitting 112 A Brief History of Ancient Greece archons would probably think twice before flouting its wishes. Citizen males also participated in the assembly, but its precise role in the government and the part that the ordinary citizens played in it are unknown, although Aristotle claimed that it elected the archons (Politics 2.1274a 1–2 and 15–17). Alongside these official state institutions were other forms of social organiza- tion that directed the lives of the citizens. In Attica, as in the rest of Greece, the basic social units—the individual households (oikoi)—were grouped into larger but poorly understood kin-like associations: tribes, phratries, and clans. Every cit- izen family belonged to one of four phylai (“tribes”) and to another smaller group within their tribe, called a phratry (“brotherhood”). Since all the Ionian peoples had the same four tribes, these probably originated early in the Dark Age. They probably served as political and military divisions—each tribe furnishing a con- tingent to the army. The phratry may originally have designated a “brotherhood of warriors,” like the warrior bands led by Dark Age chieftains that we see in Homer. By the seventh century, however, the phratries were concerned with mat- ters of family and of descent. Proof of citizenship, for example, was provided by membership in a phratry, and in cases of unintentional homicide, the members of the victim’s phratry were obligated to support his family, or, if the victim had no family, to pursue the case on his behalf. The “clans” (gene¯) were associations of aristocratic households dominated by a top oikos and claiming descent from a common ancestor. It was within this framework that the events of seventh and sixth century Athens unfolded. The Conspiracy of Cylon Only two events of Athenian history are known from the seventh century, both plainly connected with unrest of some kind. About 632 BC, an Olympic victor named Cylon took advantage of his marriage connection with Theagenes, the tyrant of nearby Megara, to seize the Acropolis and attempt to become tyrant of Athens, only to find himself and his supporters besieged by the Athenians. Cylon and his brother escaped, but his supporters, who had taken refuge at the altar of Athena, surren- dered to the nine archons on condition that their lives would be spared. The con- spirators even tied a thread to the statue of Athena, and descended while holding onto it, hoping the goddess would protect them. When the thread snapped, how- ever, the archon Megacles and his supporters killed them. People believed that Megacles had committed sacrilege, and soon his family was exiled, including dead relatives whose bodies were exhumed and cast beyond the Attic frontier. Although Cylon’s coup failed, it played an interesting role in future Athenian history because of the prominent family to which Megacles belonged. The Alc- maeonid genos would contribute important politicians to Athens, including Cleis- thenes and Pericles, two of the most prominent Athenian statesmen of the sixth and fifth centuries. Politically motivated demands for the expulsion of the “ac- cursed” repeatedly sent shock waves through the body politic because people be- lieved that the family’s shared responsibility for its members’ impious actions might call the wrath of the gods down on the state. The Growth of Athens and the Persian Wars 113 Draco and Early Athenian Law More is known about the codification of Athenian law by a mysterious man named Draco around 620 BC. Because drako¯n is Greek for “snake” and the Athe- nians worshiped a sacred snake on the Acropolis, some scholars have suggested that priests published the laws of “Draco” on the supposed authority of the sa- cred snake. It is more likely, however, that Draco was a real person. The best known of Draco’s laws is that concerning homicide, which replaced the family and kin with the state as the arbiter of justice in cases of both inten- tional and unintentional killings. Before Draco’s homicide law, bereaved family members were entitled and obliged to avenge the deaths of their slain relatives, unless the kin could be persuaded to accept compensation.
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