The Delian League

and the Rise of the Athenian Empire

Aftermath of the Persian War

Building of the Long Walls

• Spartan concerns over Athenian strength
• Themistocles the trickster

Vengeance on the Persians

• Pausanias leads Greeks to victory against Persians at Cyprus and Byzantium

Shift of Leadership from Sparta to Athens

• Pausanias antagonizes Greek allies
• Pausanias recalled to Sparta for corruption, replaced by Dorcis
• Athenians Aristides and Cimon win favor with Greek allies

Athens and the Delian League

Formation of Delian League 478/7

Aims of the Delian League – compensation and liberation from Persia

Structure of the Delian League

• bicameral vs. unicameral
• hellenotamiae – treasurers of the league in Athens
• phoros assessment – Aristides the Just

Athenians “hawks” and “doves”

• against Sparta or against Persia
• Themistocles vs. Cimon

Delian League Campaigns

• Eion in Thrace
• against the pirates in Scyros – Cimon and the bones of Theseus
• Carystus in Euboea
• Naxos – subduing recalcitrant members – 471
• Eurymedon – Cimon leads victory against Persians – 469
• Thasos – disputes in Thrace – 463

Expansion of the Athenian Empire

Spartan Crisis – earthquake and revolt – 464

Fall of Cimon – rise of the new “hawks” Ephialtes and Pericles

Athenian Land Empire

• Megarian alliance – 460
• war vs. Aegina, Corinth, and Boeotia – 459-7
• Egyptian disaster 459-454
• Failure of Athenian Land Empire

Peace Treaties – Peace of Callias 451/0 and Thirty Years Peace 446/5

Pericles and Athenian control of the Delian League

• Decree of Clearchus
• Decree of Kleinias
• Colophon and Chalcis Decrees

Spartan Politics and the Delian League

Spartan “hawks” vs. “doves” - against Athens or against Persia

Spartans in Boeotia and Thessaly

Argos and Peloponnesian opposition

Sacred War and Spartans in Central Greece

Battle of Coronea 447 and Invasion of Attica 446 – Thirty Years Peace

Spartan Leaders

King Leonidas - died at Thermopylae

Pausanias - Regent for King Pleistarchos, son of Leonidas

- recalled from command, accused of conspiring with Persians and Helots, starved to death in temple sanctuary in 466

King Leotychides - victor at Mycale, exiled for bribery in 476

Archidamos - Leotychides' grandson and heir

Athenian Leaders

Themistokles - victor of Salamis,

anti-Spartan democrat, ostracized in 472, flees to Argos then Persia,

Aristides the Just - Athenian commander at Plataia, organizes Delian league

Cimon, son of Miltiades - military commander for Delian League,

pro-Spartan, ostracized in 461

Ephialtes - anti-Spartan democrat, attacks privileges of Areopagos, assassinated in 458

Pericles - democrat, converts Delian League funds to rebuilding of Athens

Thucydides - Pericles' rival politician, uncle of the historian, ostracized in 443

Ephialtes' reforms

Reform of Areopagus – 462

Dokimasia of Officials

Meetings of the Ecclesia

Pericles vs. Thucydides – further reforms

 

Periclean Cultural Projects

Colonies and Cleruchies

Building - the Parthenon and the Propylaia

Religious Festivals - Ionian cults, PanAthenaia, Dramatic Festivals

Drama at Athens

Greek drama performed at city festivals

• Lenaia in Gamelion (January-February)
• - lesser festival connected with the pressing of grapes
• - comedies and some tragedies produced
• Greater or City Dionysia in Elaphebolion (March-April)

Forms of Greek Drama

• dithyramb competition (choral odes for fifty member choruses)
• comedies - competition of 5 plays on one day of the festival
• tragedies - each poet submitted a tetralogy of three tragedies and a satyr play (farce)

history of tragedy

• 534 BCE - Thespis said to have staged the first tragedy - single actor and chorus
• Aristotle claims Aeschylus was the first to add a second actor and curtail the importance of the chorus.
• Sophocles added a third actor and scenery

Sophocles (496 - 406)

Won an unprecedented 24 tragic victories (cp. Aeschylus 13, Euripides 5)

First victory was in 468

Only 7 of his vast number of plays (perhaps as many as 123) have survived:

Philoctetes (409)

Electra (430-420?)

Women of Trachis and Ajax (450-440?),

The Theban Plays:

Antigone (before 441 BCE)

Oedipus Tyrannus (426 BCE??)

Oedipus at Colonus (401 BCE - staged posthumously by his grandson Sophocles the Younger)