Monday, October 24, 2011
487: Athenian archonship by lot instead of election
480-479: Second Persian Invasion (Thermopylae, Salamis, Plataea)
478: King Pausanias of Sparta recalled from the Aegean war; Athenians take over leadership of war against Persia: Delian League
468 or 466?: major victory of League under Cimon over Persian forces at Eurymedon
460's: first attempts by members of League to secede lead to conquest, gradual conversion of League to an empire with Athens as hêgemôn (leader)
460's: further democratic reforms under Ephialtes and Pericles, including reduction of powers of Areopagus (council of former archons)
late 460's: alliance with Argos, open break with Sparta; assassination of Ephialtes
461-446: First Peloponnesian War: Athen extends its empire on land to Boeotia; disastrous intervention in Egypt ends in 454; treasury of League moved to Athens in same year
451: Pericles' citizenship law
450(?): peace treaty with Persia (Peace of Callias); purpose of Delian League now ended, but Athens maintains control of "allies"
446: peace treaty (Thirty Years Peace) between Athens and Sparta
431: (Second) Peloponnesian War begins (Archidamian War = 431-421) [more details on this period]
429: death of Pericles
421 (spring): Peace of Nikias ratified
415-413: Athens' Sicilian campaign and disaster
413: open resumption of war by Peloponnesian League under Sparta
411: short-lived oligarchic revolution at Athens
404: end of Peloponnesian War, surrender of Athens; rule off the Thirty Tyrants
403: restoration of the Athenian democracy
A. sense of identity for free males concentrated in family and in polis
B. public ideology puts emphasis on role as citizen-soldier (earlier, Tyrtaeus, Callinus; in 5th cent. Pericles’ funeral oration, generals’ exhortations to troops, tragedies with self-sacrifice theme)
C. gap between public ideology and private feelings and real behavior
D. whose polis is it? internal strife regularly causes appeal to aid of other cities or of non-Greeks against one’s own city (Herodotus and Thucydides; tragedies on the Seven against Thebes); allegation that common people in subject cities favor Athenian rule, while the rich favor liberation from Athens (Thuc. 3.47)
A. aristocratic and oligarchic states
1. more traditional, less change and innovation
2. hierarchy in social, economic, and political terms
3. hêsychia (calm, serenity, quietism), kosmos (order), eunomia (good government, enjoyment of good laws), sôphrosynê (self-control, moderation = knowing one’s place [as a social inferior])
4. high value on autonomy and freedom, but smaller group granted full enjoyment of these goods
B. democratic states (esp. Athens under the "radical" democracy)
1. innovative, less stability
2. equality spread to a much bigger group (though far narrower than in modern democracy): isonomia (equality under the law, same law for all), parrhêsia (free, unconstrained speech), use of the lot; sôphrosynê (refraining from personal aggrandizement, from flaunting wealth or power)
3. public payments: building programs, naval expenditures, jury pay, assembly pay, theoric pay
4. risk-taking, adventurism, interventionism: polla prattein (do many things), polypragmosynê (busibodiness, officiousness); disapproval of the man who is apragmôn (inactive, lazy, disengaged), the other way to look at hêsychia
C. tendencies of the rich
1. enjoy laissez-faire attitude in a state
2. resent taxation
3. resent expenditure of public funds for "luxuries" (such as public works) and for public service (such as jury duty, assembly attendance)
4. resent redistributive activities of the city-state
5. feel loss of former prestige and power in loss of electoral outlets for competition among themselves
6. feel loss of standing among their peers in other states, since they can’t be sure of ability to deliver big favors; (in Athens) loss of intermarriage after citizenship law of 451
7. feel threatened by scrutiny of commoners for performance of office (dangers of financial or military failures) and by commoners as jury in court cases
D. tendencies of the "poor"
1. fear loss of equal political rights
2. fear loss of distinction between themselves and non-citizens and slaves
3. fear starvation and homelessness, inability to dower daughters
4. enjoy redistributive activities of state: intervention in food supply, liturgies, festivals, jury pay, naval pay
5. enjoy profits of empire
E. Dorians vs. Ionians: Thuc. 1.124, 3.86, 4.61, 5.9, 6.6, 6.77, 6.80, 6.82, 7.5, 8.25
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
A. acceptance of democratic system and participation in it
1. traditional aristocrats/generals: Pericles (Thuc. 2.65); Nicias
2. demagogues: pejorative term for new politicians of late fifth century; non-aristocratic, commercial origins; different style of speech and appearance (regarded as vulgar by traditionalists); power through political prosecution, appeals to class interest and attentiveness to trends of public opinion
B. minimal participation: perform enough public duties to cite as evidence of good citizenship, but remain otherwise inactive in courts and politics
C. opposition: small groups of close associates (hetairoi, hetaireia) share complaints, engage in minor political actions in courts, until later in Peloponnesian War, when assassinations and plots to change government arose
D. Alcibiades: pursuit of old-style aristocratic primacy within the new system, with no commitment to the system
A. insistence on greatness of the war (dismissal of Trojan War and Persian Wars)
B. contemporary history vs. oral traditions
C. complex written style (antithesis, abstraction) vs. simpler oral style
D. sophistic/scientific intentions vs. traditional piety
1. instruction, not enjoyment (1.22, 2.48)
2. effort to ascertain facts, difficulties, critical view of poetry as source
3. suppression of the personal, gossipy elements
4. rejection of reference to divine participation or causation in his own voice (reports views of others, perhaps less than really used)
5. impulse to generalization and abstraction, esp. in speeches: analysis of psychology of fear, sense of prestige
6. word/deed, body(physical)/mind(intellectual), nature/custom, (unreal) stated reasons vs. real (unstated) reasons, justice/expedience
A. juxtapositions of events
1. funeral oration and plague (Bk. 2)
2. Mitylene debate, Plataea debate, stasis (Bk. 3)
3. Melian dialogue and Sicilian campaign (Bks. 5-6)
B. might-have-beens: e.g. decisions in the Sicilian campaign
C. "reaching for more" (esp. 4.21 on response to invitation to peace after capture of Spartans at Pylos)
D. but no assertion of divine role: note 2.54, 2.17, and 2.65 (Athens could have won)
Friday, October 28, 2011
A. the author’s own statement: 1.22
B. distillation of psychological, political, and ethical themes relevant to the specific occasion and to the whole war; simplification of real debates into pairs of opposed speeches (cf. tradition of agôn logôn in drama; court procedure; sophistic training and dissoi logoi = "double speeches")
C. some significant speeches
1. Corcyra vs. Corinth in the Athenian assembly (1.32-44): open acknowledgment of rhetorical difficulty (pride in overcoming it); justice and expedience
2. Corinthians and Athenians in Sparta (1.68-77): hêsuxia vs. polypragmosynê theme (1.70); natural law of imperialism (1.76)
3. Corinthians at Sparta and Pericles at Athens (1.120-123 and 1.140-145): resources and hopes for the war; Pericles as man of forethought and control, hope founded on good reasoning; note 1.143 on "treat our city as an island" and 1.144 on not seeking more during war
4. funeral oration of Pericles, 2.35-46: ideal, encomiastic view of democracy; note 2.37 on freedom and law (including "unwritten law"--cf. Soph. Antigone 450-470), 2.40 on refinement combined with courage and on large-scale participation (apragmôn, "inactive" man is "useless")
5. Pericles’ final speech, 2.60-64; 2.63 on empire as tyranny
6. Mytilene/Mitylene [both spellings are used] Debate in Athens, Cleon vs. Diodotus, 3.37-48: what is good counsel? Cleon co-opts and twists earlier statements (e.g. 3.37 on wisdom of common men and collective decisions; 3.40 on empire)
7. Plataeans and Thebans before Spartan judges, 3.53-67 (note 58, 66 "Hellenic law" on not killing those who surrender, 65 oligarchic slogans)
8. Melian dialogue 5.85-111: a literary/philosophical experiment within the historical narrative, related to Sophistic display arguments, drama, and Socratic dialogue; naked acknowledgment that expediency and power and image of power valued over justice and gods; natural law of empire (5.105)
9. Sicilian debate, 6.9-23: Nikias vs. Alcibiades, different visions of activity vs. caution, ambition vs. service to the public