Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy & the Birth of Democracy (53 page)

 

408 Twenty-fourth year of war. Alcibiades and his colleagues recapture Byzantium, taking control of the Bosporus with its lucrative toll station on Black Sea commerce. Funds sent home to Athens allow the completion of the Erechtheum on the Acropolis.

 

407 Twenty-fifth year of war. Alcibiades returns to Athens and is elected general by the Assembly. In the autumn he is sent to Ionia with a fleet but without adequate funds to pay the crews. Prince Cyrus of Persia meanwhile is bankrolling the Spartan naval effort through gifts to the admiral Lysander. Alcibiades’ steersman Antiochus is responsible for a naval defeat at Notium near Ephesus. Alcibiades returns to his perennial exile.

 

406 Twenty-sixth year of war. The Spartans blockade Athens’ best ships in Mytilene harbor, but the Athenian general Conon gets an appeal for help through to the Assembly. In order to man a relief fleet, the Athenians enfranchise metics and slaves. Thrasyllus, young Pericles, and other generals lead a large fleet to the Arginusae Islands opposite Mytilene and win a victory over the Spartan fleet. Afterward the generals are tried and condemned to death for their failure to pick up Athenian corpses and survivors from the sea.

 

405 Twenty-seventh year of war. Aristophanes comments on Athens’ desperate plight and the importance of the naval effort in his comedy
Frogs.
An Athenian fleet tracks the Spartans under Lysander to the Hellespont, where the Athenians are defeated at Aegospotami in the final battle of the war.

 

404 The Peloponnesian War ends in early spring with the surrender of Athens to Lysander’s forces. The Long Walls are torn down, the navy is reduced to twelve triremes, and an oligarchy of Thirty Tyrants is imposed on Athens. Alcibiades dies in Asia Minor. Thrasybulus initiates a democratic resurgence.

 

403 Democracy is restored at Athens. Lysander falls from power.

 

401 Xenophon of Athens embarks on his expedition with the Ten Thousand, a Greek mercenary army hired by Prince Cyrus of Persia. Their defeat at Cunaxa near Babylon confirms the rule of Artaxerxes II as Great King.

 

399 Trial and execution of Socrates.

397 Conon the Athenian, living in self-imposed exile on Cyprus, is appointed admiral of the Persian fleet, with orders to end Spartan rule of the sea and Spartan attacks on Persian territory.

 

395 Resurgent Athenians join Thebans and Corinthians in war on Sparta and begin to rebuild the Long Walls. Meanwhile Athenian men and ships are crossing the sea to join Conon.

 

394 After years of delays Conon leads a combined Persian and Athenian naval force against the Spartans and wins a victory at Cnidus in southwestern Asia Minor.

 

393 Conon wins permission from his colleague in command, the satrap Pharnabazus, to return to Athens with his triremes and money. He restores the naval base at the Piraeus and helps finish the rebuilding of the Long Walls.

 

392 Conon dies in Asia Minor.

 

389 Thrasybulus tries with some success to reestablish Athenian rule in the Hellespont.

 

388 Thrasybulus is killed while campaigning near the Eurymedon River. The Athenian general Iphicrates continues the policy of aggressive war.

 

386 In answer to a Spartan appeal Artaxerxes II calls representatives of the Greek cities to Sardis, where his ministers hand down the King’s Peace. Athens retains a few islands in the Aegean but must swear to give up the naval and military effort to re-create an Athenian alliance.

 

380 Isocrates of Athens writes his
Panegyricus,
urging a panhellenic crusade against Persia under joint leadership of Athens and Sparta.

377 After years of Spartan provocations the Athenians establish a Second Maritime League, in which Greek cities band together against the Spartan threat.

 

376 Chabrias and Phocion lead the Athenian fleet to victory over the Spartans at Naxos.

 

375 Timotheus leads an Athenian fleet to victory at Alyzia, thus challenging Spartan supremacy in western Greece.

 

373 Iphicrates leads an Athenian expedition around the Peloponnese and ambushes a fleet from Syracuse on an islet north of Corcyra.

 

ca. 372 Spartan naval power in the west is symbolically destroyed when a tsunami at Helike in the Corinthian Gulf overwhelms a Spartan squadron of triremes.

 

371 Peace is concluded between Athens and Sparta. Within less than a month the once-invincible Spartan army is beaten by the Thebans at Leuctra. As Sparta is eclipsed, Athens embarks on a second Golden Age in the fields of sculpture (Praxiteles), rhetoric (Isocrates and Demosthenes), and above all philosophy (Plato and Aristotle).

 

360 Though only twenty-four-years old, Demosthenes volunteers to serve as trierarch under the command of Cephisodotus in an expedition to the Hellespont and the Gallipoli peninsula.

357 Demosthenes volunteers again to serve as trierarch under the command of Timotheus in an Athenian expedition to recover Euboea from Theban domination. As the specter of Athenian naval imperialism rises once more, major allies such as Chios, Rhodes, Byzantium, and Cos are persuaded by Mausolus of Halicarnassus (a leader who will one day be buried in the original “Mausoleum”) to rebel against Athens, thus launching the so-called Social War or War with the Allies. Chabrias leads a fleet to Chios but is killed fighting in the harbor.

355 The War with the Allies ends when Athens recognizes the right of states to secede from the Second Maritime League. Many small allies remain loyal, but the navy is in poor condition, suffering from a leadership crisis at the levels of both generals and trierarchs, as well as severe financial shortfalls. The Athenian statesman Periander creates trierarchic organizations called symmories to deal with the crisis.

 

354 Demosthenes makes his maiden speech in the Assembly, calling for naval reform in “On the Symmories.”

 

351 Following encroachments into the Athenian sphere of influence by the Macedonian king Philip II, Demosthenes attempts unsuccessfully to stir the Athenians to aggressive naval action with his speech known as the
First Philippic.

 

349 Demosthenes delivers speeches called the
Olynthiacs,
urging the Athenians to oppose Philip’s conquest of the northern city of Olynthus.

340 After a decade of Macedonian expansion, Demosthenes finally persuades the Assembly to declare war.

 

339 At the approach of an Athenian and allied fleet led by the veteran Phocion, Philip abandons his expedition against Byzantium and Perinthus and gives up attempts to gain control of Greeks through sea power.

 

338 Philip II and his son Alexander lead a Macedonian army south into Greece and defeat the forces of Thebes and Athens at Chaeronea.

 

337 Declaring himself the hegemon of the Greeks, Philip convenes a council at the Isthmus and announces his plan of war against the Persian Empire.

 

336 While the Athenians are awaiting mobilization orders, a lone assassin strikes Philip dead in Macedon. Alexander (“the Great”) succeeds to his father’s throne and inherits the mission to attack the Persians.

 

335 Aristotle establishes his school at the Lyceum in Athens.

334 Twenty Athenian triremes help ferry Alexander’s army across the Hellespont, then take part in successful campaigns to capture Miletus and Halicarnassus.

 

331 The Athenian ship
Paralos
is sent to petition Alexander for the release of Athenian citizens who fought as mercenaries on the Persian side. Alexander grants the request before marching into the interior of the Persian Empire.

 

330 Alexander establishes himself as new ruler of the Persian Empire. The Athenians complete Philo’s Arsenal in the Piraeus.

 

327 Alexander invades India.

 

324 The Athenians send a colonizing expedition to the Adriatic under the leadership of Miltiades, to ensure the grain supply and suppress Etruscan piracy. Demosthenes brings back to Athens from Olympia the text of Alexander’s Exiles Decree.

 

323 Athenians send the
Paralos
to secure their control over Samos. Alexander dies in Babylon and is succeeded by his half brother Philip Arrhidaeus. The Athenians call on the Greeks to wage a war of liberation against the Macedonians, known as the Hellenic War or Lamian War.

 

322 The Athenian fleet is defeated by the Macedonians in the Hellespont, then decisively at Amorgos, and finally in a mopping-up operation at the Echinades Islands. According to the terms of surrender, the Macedonians take control of the Piraeus, and most Athenians of the
demos
or thetic class are exiled from the city. This year sees the deaths of Aristotle and Demosthenes and the end of Athenian naval power.

GLOSSARY

admiral:
Spartan naval commander annually appointed to lead the allied fleet; the office could not be held more than once. The Greek term was
navarchos.
Confusingly, at Athens the naval commands were the responsibility of the ten annually elected generals
(strategoi),
and their term
navarchos,
which is rendered as “navarch” in this book, referred not to an admiral but to a naval officer in command of a small squadron and subordinate to the generals. Unlike Sparta, Athens had no unified command of its entire naval effort under a single individual.

 

Agora:
An open space in Athens and other Greek cities that served as a civic, commercial, and ceremonial center.

 

archon:
An Athenian official, one of nine, who held a leading position in the government each year. Archons were originally elected; the office lost much prestige when the people decided to select archons by lot. The eponymous archon gave his name to the year, presiding from one midsummer to the next.

 

Areopagus:
A hill near the Acropolis where the aristocratic council of ex-archons held their meetings. The council of the Areopagus accumulated prestige and power after the invasion of Xerxes, but it was stripped of most prerogatives during Ephialtes’ democratic revolution of 462-461.

 

Assembly:
Greek
ekklesia;
the gathering of citizens who debated and voted on policies and affairs of state. In Athenian democracy the Assembly held supreme power.

 

Athenian Empire:
A modern term for the territory controlled by Athens at the height of its power in the fifth century B.C., when more than 150 islands and maritime cities paid annual tribute to Athens. According to Thucydides, Pericles did once tell the Athenians that they governed an
archê
or empire, but in its own day it was never called anything other than “the Athenians and their allies.”

bema:
The speaker’s platform for Assembly meetings on the Pnyx.

 

cleruch:
An Athenian who was allotted a tract of farmland abroad and sometimes emigrated there but retained his Athenian citizenship. A colony of such expatriate Athenians is called a cleruchy and was often resented by the local population.

 

Council:
Greek
boulê;
a group of citizens or delegates who acted in an advisory or executive capacity. At Athens the Council of Five Hundred was composed of fifty citizens from each of the ten tribes, each serving for a single year and holding the presidency of the Assembly in rotation. The Council was specifically charged by the Athenian Assembly with responsibility for administering the navy and ensuring that new triremes were built on schedule.

 

Delian League:
The modern term for the organization of the Athenians and their allies formed in 478 or 477 B.C. after the invasion of Xerxes. The league maintained a naval force to preserve the freedom of Greek islands and cities and carry on perpetual war against the Persian Empire. The alliance originally held its meetings and kept its treasury on the holy island of Delos in the Aegean Sea.

 

democracy:
Greek
dêmokratia,
from
demos
(“the people”) and
kratis
(“power”); a form of government in which the majority rules, thus in theory giving power to the common citizens.

 

diekplous:
A naval maneuver in which a warship or file of warships breaks through a gap in the opposing line, then attacks the enemy ships from the flank or rear. One could counter a
diekplous
by arraying one’s own fleet in two lines or by backing one’s line up against the shore.