Greek History

Herodotus & Thucydides

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Tradition & History
In 490bc Darius, ruler of a Persian Empire, invaded Greece, a consequence of unrest in Ionian cities overseen by Persian satraps. Greek cities, previously acting in relative isolation, joined to repel the Persians, with Sparta and Athens playing leading roles. Chios, Samos and Miletos were Greek colonies established from the 8th century, but they had come under the control of Persian governors (satraps). In the 580s Ionian cities revolted, and Darius sought to destroy Greek influences which threatened insurrections in his territories. Differences between Greek and Persian cultures led to war, but such differences fomented on the coast of Asia minor and outlying islands rich exchanges not only of goods, but also of ideas. Unlike traditional Greek societies, notably Sparta, Ionian colonies explored new ways of governing thought and action, personally, politically and philosophically. In 480bc Xerxes, the successor to Darius, mounted a second invasion. Athenians and Spartans at Marathon opposed him, but he continued on to Athens, firing the deserted city. Under Pericles, retreating Athenians trusted to their ships. Eventually at Salamis southwest of Athens the Athenian fleet destroyed the larger Persian fleet. Greeks under Athenian and Spartan leadership formed the Delian League, sharing conscripts, weapons and ships, and monies to resist further incursions. Spartan military prowess followed traditional patterns of a military state, but Athenian prowess resulted from a most unusual culture, a democracy, where the contributions of numerous citizens, motivated by a resistance to living under foreign control, established fighting prowess equal to that of traditional Spartans.  Athenian ingenuity, moreover, including innovations in shipbuilding and trade, together with a city open to foreigners, spread a culture at odds with tradition.

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Herodotus

Herodotus traveled extensively and inquisitively throughout Asia minor, recording for his History a compendium of varied customs. Among his interests was an exploration of the causes of the Trojan War, a conflict he saw as a clash between Greek and Asian temperaments and governance. His comparative interests appear in his noting the appearance of Solon, the Athenian statesman, traveling in Asia minor after reconstituting Athenian governance. Changes in state, Herodotus implies, always favor some and disfavor others. To avoid the displeasure of antagonisms from those whose power he had reduced, he wisely leaves Athens. Heodotus’ follower, the first century ad historian Plutarch, follows his master's comparative interests by comparing the Spartan reformer Lycurgus with the Athenian Solon. Differences in Athenian and Spartan governance lead eventually to the Peloponnesian War, with devastation sufficient to reduce Greece to Macedonian dependency under Philip and then under his son Alexander the Great.

Without taking sides, Herodotus collected anecdotes concerning the practices of alternative cultures. His accounts of Gyges and of Croesus offer exemplary tales richly embellished with local customs.

Herodotus'Gyges
Herodotus' Croesus

Plutarch compares the Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus and his Athenian counterpart Solon:

Plutarch’s Lycurgus
Plutarch’s Solon

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Thucydides

Sparta and Athens competed for influence in Greece following the Persian invasions. Competition broke into open warfare in 31 bc with the invasion by the Spartan ally Thebes of the Athenian ally Plataea. Thucydides  served as an Athenian general in the ensuing war between Sparta and Athens. Relieved of his command after a retreat abandoning fallen soldiers, he wrote in exile an account of the Peloponnesian War. In contrast to the curious explorer of cultural relativism Herodotus, Thucydides works to reveal the underlying forces which govern events. He recalls with particular energy the performance of Pericles, the chosen speaker at a funeral for Athenians fallen in defense of Athens against Spartan invaders. Refusing to follow tradition, choosing not to praise the superior few who lead to death and fame, he praises instead the Athenian institutions which distinguish it from traditional states, in particular from Sparta. Athenians live with relative freedom, replacing unthinking bravery and loyalty to kin with rational adaptations suited to shifting circumstances, modified by contact with foreign commerce and foreign visitors.

Tracing through Pericles an attention to how Athenian customs arise and change, he invites consideration of why as well as how customs work. Ten tents, he notes, house the remains of fallen soldiers from ten tribes, and one additional tent houses the remains of unknown soldiers. But facts for Pericles, as for Thucydides, invite contextualization, the recollection of circumstances in which they are embedded. Prior to Solon, Athenians featured kinship allegiances to four tribes. When debilitating power struggles continued, Solon initiated a division of Athenians into ten tribes, identified not by kin but by geography. His audience would having just moved through a funeral tent to pay respects to a fallen soldier can now recognize how Athenian boundaries work, now favoring a collective enterprise.

Thucydides’ Pericles

Thucydides account anticipates a force as powerful as war to threaten life and liberty: plague. His account of plague follows the same attention to specifics apparent in his account of Pericles’ funeral oration. Beginning with consideration of possible sources for plague, tracing then the course of plague in an individual, and then chronicling the social consequences in changing attitudes and actions of Athenian citizens, Thucydides invites his readers to join him in piecing together ongoing adaptations adjusted for new credibilities. Perhaps collective work may lead to defenses against plague or to treatments. But even if such improvements fail, the understanding of how events proceed offers attractions all the greater as chaos spreads. Facing fate with clarity offers an alternative to desperate pleasures.

Thucydides on Plague

Thucydides knew as he wrote that Pericles himself would fall to plague, and with his death, Athenians would largely abandon an empire based on shared wealth and power, an empire in which Athens, rather than ruler, would be first among equals. Following the ravages of war and plague, Athenians rescinded their claim that Greek states could choose their allegiances. Melos, a colony off the coast near Athens founded by Sparta, chose neutrality in the war. Adjacent to Athens, but unwilling to fight descendents of common Spartan ancestors, the Melians appealed to Athens to follow their stated policy of choice. But Athenians, worn down by war and plague,  blockaded the island, starved out its inhabitants, killed all Melian men, and enslaved the women and children. Thucydides’ account of the Melian controversy takes the form of a tragedy: he alternates speeches, MELIAN followed by ATHENIAN, noting the unfolding action exactly as a tragedy would be notated. The reversal he anticipates will occur when the Athenian fleet attacking Syracuse goes down to defeat, Athenian survivors themselves discovering their reversal in slavery. Recognition will be slow and painful for Athenians, but readers of Thucydides anticipating the impending dissolution of the Athenian empire, and with it Athenian liberties may discover the limits of rational ingenuity. Thucydides, among the first of modern rational thinkers, remains fundamentally a proponent of Homeric origins: in the beginning is chaos. Aeschylus following the devastation at Melos mounted a tragedy, The Trojan Women, in which a messenger from Odysseus must inform Andromache that her son, Astyonax (Lord of the City) will be thrown from Troy’s wall to be devoured by kites and dogs, a lesson to surviving Trojans to refrain from opposition. Athenian law prohibited the treatment of current events in tragic performance, but Euripides’ audience could hardly avoid recognizing Melian women as accompanying the laments of Andromache, Hecuba and attendant women.

Thucydides on the tragedy of Melos