Professor Donald
Kagan: The oaths
establishing the thirty-years
peace was sworn in the year 445.
That leaves,
as we know, of course they
didn't about fourteen years
before the Great Peloponnesian
War will break out,
and although we only know a
little bit about the events
between the two wars,
what we do know,
I think, is interesting
although not easy to interpret
evidence about the character of
that peace,
which we've been talking about.
One way to determine whether
the peace was a true peace with
a real chance of lasting and
controlling international
affairs for a good long time,
or whether it was really a
truce that merely interrupted a
conclusion to a war that was
inevitable,
I think that can be tested to
some degree by the events that
took place in those fourteen
years or so.
I think we can--one
critical question of course is
quite apart from the objective
elements of the peace,
maybe more important than those
are the intentions of the two
sides and I think it is possible
to arrive at some sense of what
those intentions were.
There is little doubt that
Pericles still in the position
of the leading politician in
Athens,
clearly the man who was,
I think, the negotiator for
peace on the Athenian side.
If I'm right about his
invention of the arbitration
clause that would suggest he was
very much personally involved in
shaping the character of that
peace.
It seems plain that he really
was sincerely committed to a
policy of preserving peace for
the future, for as far as it
could possibly go.
One reason is that several
years before the peace--indeed
before this war had broken out,
the Athenians had made a peace
with the King of Persia.
The negotiator on the Athenian
side was a man named Callias and
so it goes down in the books as
the Peace of Callias.
This is about as debated a
subject as there is in the
history of ancient Greece.
Was there really a Peace of
Callias or not?
Was it a formal peace or not?
Even in ancient times,
some writers question whether
this was a historical fact.
I won't trouble you with all
the arguments both ways,
but let me indicate--my own
opinion is that there actually
was a formal peace.
But it doesn't matter whether
that's true or false,
because nobody doubts that
there was a de facto
peace between the Athenians and
their allies on the one hand and
the Persians for a good long
time,
and that it is not broken until
well into the Great
Peloponnesian War when in the
year 412 there is a treaty made
between Sparta and Persia,
which brings Persia into the
war against the Athenians.
So, there's this considerable
stretch of time when there is
peace with Persia.
Now, about the same
time--the traditional date for
Peace of Callias is 449,
and about the same time,
we are told only by Plutarch,
so some scholars have
questioned the historicity of
this too,
that Pericles called for a
great Pan Hellenic Congress to
discuss a variety of questions,
but one of them was how shall
we keep the promises we made
after the Persian War to rebuild
the temples to the gods that had
been destroyed by the Persians
in that war,
and how shall we see to the
freedom of the seas?
Now, the question,
of course, the temples of the
gods that had been destroyed in
the Persian War were essentially
all in Attica.
So, here was an occasion where
the Athenians were apparently
hoping to bring all the Greeks
into the picture to help pay the
costs of restoring those
temples.
It was the Athenians,
who had benefited from it most,
but also maintaining the
freedom of the seas meant
providing for a fleet that would
keep the Persians out and keep
pirates out and so on.
The Athenians obviously had
that fleet.
The result of having--If the
Greeks had all in fact
participated in this activity it
would have been a way of
legitimizing both the Athenian
Empire and of course a navy that
made it great,
but also it would have
legitimized the plan that
Pericles had in mind and which
we know he carried out to the
best of his ability immediately
to rebuild those temples,
and indeed, to build some new
ones as well on the Acropolis
and elsewhere in Attica as
evidence of the greatness and
the glory of Athens.
This building program was going
to be at the center of his
domestic concerns for the rest
of the period we're talking
about.
He invited all the Greeks,
but as it turned out,
the Spartans and their friends
chose not to show up.
You can see why for the reasons
that I in fact have just given
you as to why this would be
attractive to Athens;
that's why it would not be
attractive to Sparta.
There is some debate.
Did Pericles ever expect that
the Spartans would accept or was
this just his way of making it
clear that since the Spartans
and the other Greeks would not
participate in these activities
Athens was right in going about
it unilaterally?
One of the things that it would
do, if the Athenians were now to
say well, when the Spartans
didn't show up and their allies
didn't show up--and they said if
they won't keep their promises
to the gods,
we will.
That provides justification for
building the first of the great
temples he was going to put up
on the Acropolis,
the Parthenon,
which was going to be the great
marvel of the Greek world
thereafter,
and which was going to be very
expensive, and which he was
going to use league money for.
This would legitimize it,
he hoped, and it would be an
argument for doing that.
As for the claim that they
needed to preserve the freedom
of the seas, that would give
legitimacy to the existence of
the great fleet of the league,
which was paid for by league
money.
In other words,
it would give legitimacy to the
Athenian Empire.
No doubt he thought that was
necessary because having
made--that's why I like the idea
that he did make a formal peace
with the Persians,
but in either case,
with it being obvious that
there would be no more attacks
on the Persians and that the
Persians were out and that they
were not a threat anymore,
why should the allies
contribute their ships and
money, and by the way,
by this time most of them were
not contributing money and the
Athenians were manning all of
the fleet.
Why should this continue if the
war with the Persians was over?
Pericles never imagined
that the Athenians would give up
their fleet, their empire,
the tribute that supported all
of that.
So, he needed to have a reason
for doing that.
So, my view,
and that of many other scholars
is that the Congress decree,
as it is called,
certainly had that as a motive.
Was he serious?
What would he have done if the
Spartans had said,
"sure we'll do that."
I think he expected that they
wouldn't, but he was prepared to
have them do that,
because if they would they
would contribute the money
presumably that was necessary
and they would also grant
legitimacy to what the Athenians
were doing with their navy at
sea,
and, of course,
it would be a wonderful
situation because it would
create a kind of unity between
the two that would help keep war
away and Pericles' plan for
using all of that money from the
treasury for his building
program required peace.If
the Athenians were going to be
at war,
that money would not be
available.
So for all of these reasons he
did what he did.
My guess is he anticipated the
likely outcome,
but it doesn't mean that he was
unprepared to deal with the
situation if it had been
otherwise.
There I think we see the first
bit of evidence that leads to my
opinion that Pericles was very
sincere about preserving the
thirty-years peace,
that he saw that and hoped it
would be the instrument by which
there would be--who can talk
about perpetual peace,
but at least peace for the
foreseeable future.
Another event,
a much debated one,
that cast some light on what's
going on occurs in the year 443.
In that year,
the Athenians agreed to help
establish a colony in southern
Italy at a place that they
called Thurii.
Now, there are several things
about this colony that are
interesting and perhaps as
interesting as any,
is that it was different from
any other colony we ever heard
of in the Greek world before
this time.
You know the picture of what a
typical apoikia is like.
It is the colony of a city and
that city is its mother city,
and you know all about those
relationships.
There were rare occasions where
a couple of cities might get
together and jointly be the
mother cities of the town,
but that's all.
This colony was established
from the first as a panhellenic
colony.
In other words,
it was not an Athenian colony
even though the Athenians took
the lead in establishing the
colony,
even though the Athenians
appointed the critical players
in establishing the colony.
The founder,
the oikos was an
Athenian;
Pericles sent along the leading
seer, the leading religious
figure in all of Athens to be
helpful in the founding of that
city.
Herodotus, a good friend of
Pericles, who also of course was
the father of history went out
there presumably to be the
historian of the new city.
Hippodamus, the great city
planner of the fifth century
B.C.
who was famous--you might not
think this is such a big deal
but it is;
he applied simply right angled
streets in founding the new
city, when of course,
all the old cities had been
founded as I described Athens
itself with streets that just
developed out of old cow paths
that just wound all over the
place,
so the modern grid structure
was the work of Hippodamus.
All of these guys were
friends and associates,
part of the brains trust you
might say of Athens under
Pericles and these guys went out
and established the colony of
Thurii;
all of these elements are
interesting.
Why a panhellenic colony?
Well, for one thing I should
point out too,
that Pericles had seen to it
that the membership of the
colony consisted of people from
a variety of places,
and it's interesting to point
out that although the Athenians
had the greatest single number
of people in this new colony,
when that colony's constitution
was drawn up--I forgot what's
the name of the sophist.
Protagoras laid out the
constitution for this new city;
again, he was a friend of
Pericles.
It was divided up into ten
tribes, just like Athens.
It was a democracy.
The constitution was very much
influenced by the Athenian
model.
And as I said one of the ten
tribes, and remember the ten
tribes have to be equal in order
for them to present the
necessary regiments in the army.
Only one tenth of the people
were Athenians,
even though there were more
Athenians than anybody else,
but there were several tribes
made up of Peloponnesians,
not from one particular city
but all from the Peloponnesus.
I make those points,
because I want to make it clear
that if you just look at the
percentage of the population
occupied by Athenians it will
not allow them to dominate the
city.
This really is a panellenic
colony.
Why?
My view is that Pericles was
attempting to make a very
significant point here.
After all, this colony was
established in reaction to a
request made by some Italian
Greeks,
who were having trouble in
their own city,
needed to found a new one,
needed more people in order to
make it viable,
went to Sparta,
the Spartans said we're not
interested, went to Athens and
the Athenians said "yes,"
we'll help you do this.
Now, the Athenians could have
said "no," or they could have
done the normal thing if they
wanted to say "yes."
Make it an Athenian colony.
Why did they come up with this
brand new idea that nobody had
ever seen?
In my view it was because
Pericles was glad to have an
opportunity to demonstrate
something about Athens'
intentions now and in the
future.
That was the best way to
advertise the fact that the
Athenians were not interested in
expanding their power out to the
west,
because if they had been they
would have made it an Athenian
colony.
Other scholars have taken the
opposite view,
and think it is the sign of
Athenian imperial interests,
which would have said
practically the day after the
treaty was signed;
Pericles and the Athenians were
already violating the spirit of
that treaty, but I think that is
easily demonstrated to be wrong.
All we have to do--well,
first of all what I've done
already is to look at the
internal character of the state
and you want to argue,
that is not the way to start an
imperial venture in the west,
set up a colony that's not your
colony,
and that has only got a tenth
of its population being
Athenian, but other evidence I
think makes it all the clearer.
Only a year after the
foundation of the city,
it went to war against a
neighboring town,
the town of Taras,
which became the Roman town of
Tarentum, modern Taranto.
Taras was one of the only
Spartan colonies.
So, here you have a Spartan
colony fighting against a
Thurii, whatever that is.
Imagine for a moment though it
were an Athenian colony,
as the people of a different
view say.
What does Athens do?
I think that's really critical.
The answer is nothing.
Taras defeats Thurii.
Then to rub it in they take
some of the spoils of victory
and place them at Olympia where
the games are held,
where all the Greeks can come
and see, in which they boast
about their victory over Thurii.
What do the Athenians do
about all this?
Nothing;
this is not the way to behave,
if you're planning to start an
empire in Sicily and southern
Italy.
So, I think that's a very
serious blow to the theory of
imperialism out there.
Then a few years down the road,
we get to the year 434 - 433,
the crisis which will produce
the Great Peloponnesian War has
already begun.
So, everybody is looking ahead
to the coming war between Athens
and Sparta.
At that time,
there is a big argument that
breaks out within Thurii.
Whose colony are we?
Once again, a terrific
indication that nobody thinks
it's an Athenian colony right
off the bat,
although in the argument,
the Athenians claim well it's
an Athenian colony--I mean the
Athenians in Thurii say,
we're an Athenian colony
because there are more Athenians
than anybody else.
Whereupon,
the Peloponnesians say,
yes there are more Athenians
than anybody else but there are
more Peloponnesians than there
are Athenians.
So, we are a Peloponnesian
colony, we are a Spartan colony.
Well, they couldn't agree,
and so they came to the
decision that they would allow
Apollo, through his oracle at
Delphi, to decide.
Well, that's an interesting
thing too.
Who does the oracle at Delphi
lean towards?
We've had very clear evidence
of it in the 440s.
They are pro-Spartan.
The Spartans have been the
defenders of the priests as
against the Phocians from the
outside.
There's every reason to believe
a decision made by the priest of
Apollo will favor Sparta and
that's not what happens though.
What the priest says,
you are not an Athenian colony,
you're not a Spartan colony,
you are my colony,
says Apollo.
A very nice way out of the fix.
But one thing they're not is an
Athenian colony.
Now, what do those imperialist
Athenians do about it?
Nothing.
To my mind that absolutely
undercuts any claim that
Athenian imperialism in the west
explains what's going on out
there.
But why--what's going on out
there altogether?
Why did he establish it at all?
Why did he establish it in the
way that he did and why did he
react, or not react in the way
that he did?
My suggestion for which there
is no ancient direct evidence is
it was meant specifically to use
current modern terms,
this was a diplomatic signal.
Pericles wanted the rest of
the world, and most especially,
the Spartans and their
Peloponnesians allies to know
that Athens did not have
ambitions of expanding their
empire onto the mainland or out
west.
I think what was understood by
the thirty-years peace is the
Athenian Empire as it exists in
the Aegean and its front
boundaries and to the east in
the direction of Persia,
that's the Athenian sphere of
influence, again to use a modern
term.
Everything to the west of
that the Athenians are going to
say out of and leave alone.
My view is, Pericles delivered
that message in his behavior
concerning Thurii and he would
have known,
I believe, that the number one
state who would be concerned
about what was happening out
west would be Corinth,
because the Corinthian chain of
colonies and the Corinthian
major area of commerce was in
the west;
Italy, Sicily and such.
So, it was the Corinthians I
think to whom he meant to send
this message,
and in a little while we'll how
that works out,
whether it worked or it did not.
But it seems to me that is the
only way to understand these
events that I have been putting
together,
but having said that,
I remind you that other
scholars don't understand it
that way.
This takes us to the year
440, when another critical event
tests the peace.
The Island of Samos has been an
oligarchic regime.
It has been one of the biggest
states in the empire;
it has been autonomous,
that is to say it has its own
fleet, its own government,
which is again oligarchic not
democratic, the way most of the
states are when the Athenians
conquer them.
In that state there is as
rebellion.
It comes about because of a
quarrel between the Samians,
an island I remind you very
close to the coast of Asia
Minor,
and the town of Miletus,
that famous city of
philosophers,
which is just across from
Samos,
and in between the two on the
mainland is a very small town
called Priene and each town,
each one of these states claims
Priene.
So, it's a classic quarrel
between Greek poleis
about territory that's between
them.
Now, this presents a very
special problem for the
Athenians when you think about
it.
On the one hand,
the Athenians hardly want to
get into a fight with Samos,
an island of great power and
importance with whom they have
been associated for a very long
time.
On the other hand,
how can the hegemonal power of
an alliance allow the big fish
in the alliance to eat the
little fish,
which is what would be
happening here?
That is unacceptable if you're
going to have a proper hegemonal
relationship with these folks.
So, the Athenians try to sort
of split the difference as best
they could;
they offered to serve as
arbitrators in this dispute and
thereby to avoid war.
Samos would not hear of it.
The Samians of course expected
to beat Miletus and they would
have done that.
They were in the process of
doing what they were doing,
asserting true autonomy as
against the Athenian version of
it in the past,
but the Athenians couldn't
permit that.
It's, again,
one of these confrontations in
which each side,
from its own perspective,
has right on its side but these
two concepts of right are
inevitably in conflict and
problems occur.
Well, the Athenians win.
They are told that the Samians
are turning down the arbitrators
and they're fighting against the
Milesians.
Pericles immediately puts a
fleet together and sails across
the sea and puts down the
rebellion by force,
and then he takes the steps
that the Athenians have
typically taken against
rebellious states over the last
decades.
That is, he establishes a
democracy, put an end to the
previous regime.
He takes hostages from the
rebellious aristocrats or
oligarchs and settles them on a
nearby island to be sure that
these people will behave.
Other than that,
he imposes on them an easy
settlement.
He does not do any great--does
not do any harm to anybody,
doesn't execute anybody,
doesn't take away people's
land, doesn't exile all kinds of
folks, he doesn't do that and so
his expectation,
and I guess his hope,
would have been that that would
be that.
From now on Samos would be a
democracy, and therefore
reliable and friendly and there
would be no further trouble.
The hostages would help make
that secure.
But the defeated oligarchs
did not accept defeat.
They went to the Persian satrap
inland from Ionia,
his name was Pissuthnes,
and asked for his help and he
gave it.
He sent a force and the first
they did was to go to the island
where the hostages were kept,
take those hostages back and
return them to their friends and
families, and thereby took away
this restraint against further
trouble and now the Samians
overthrew the democratic regime
that had just been placed in
power and started an oligarchic
revolution.
Now, that's very serious right
away but more serious than that
is on the news that this had
happened,
the city of Byzantium,
which became Constantinople,
which became Istanbul,
located at this vital strategic
place on the Bostras,
also rebelled.
We are told later on in
Thucydides that at some time,
and he doesn't date it,
the island of Mitilini,
another one of these big
independent, important states
with a navy,
also was thinking about
rebellion, and I go along with
those scholars who suggest this
is the time when they were doing
their thinking.
So, Athens is suddenly
confronted by a danger that they
have really not faced before.
On the one hand,
their empire may be in general
rebellion soon if this thing
spreads.
Secondly, the Persians have
actually taken an aggressive
step against the Athenian Empire
by assisting the Samians in
their rebellion.Now,
we don't know,
and the Athenians couldn't
know, whether Pissuthnes had
acted in accordance with the
instructions of the great king,
or at least the wishes of the
great king, or he was just
running an independent
operation.
The first would be a very,
very serious problem indeed.
It would mean a major threat
from Persia;
the second would still be
moderately serious.
I think we can't be sure
because there was no time for
Pissuthnes to consult the king
and everything is happening
bang,
bang, bang and it takes months
to get a message back to Susa
where the great king lives.
So, in the first instance
Pissuthnes is certainly acting
on his own.
The question is,
does he really know how the
king will react or not.
We can only guess about that.
But here we go;
there are two parts of the
trinity that will mean disaster
for Athens.
If we look ahead to the
Peloponnesian War and examine
what was it that defeated Athens
and put an end to their empire,
it was the combination of
rebellion in the empire,
assistance to the rebellions by
the Persians,
and the third critical step of
course, was that the Spartans
were also in the war and ready
to,
and in fact they did,
invade Attica and fight against
the Athenians on land and it's
that third critical element that
is decisive right now here in
440.
The Spartans call a meeting
of the Peloponnesian League to
discuss the question of should
we make war on the Athenians at
this time and that would consist
of invading Attica,
and had they done so we would
have had, as I say,
what was necessary to defeat
Athens in the Great War.
Now, we know later on,
when the final crisis in 432
and 431,433 actually is when the
speech I'm referring to takes
place,
a critical part of the story of
bringing on that war was the
attitude of the Corinthians.
As we shall see,
the Corinthians starting in 433
at least began agitating for
war,
and their agitation,
I will argue,
played a critical role in
bringing the Spartans to fight.
What do they do now?
On that occasion,
when they were on the brink of
war, the Corinthians went to
Athens and tried to argue the
Athenians out of taking steps
that the Corinthians thought
would push the war into reality
and they said this,
"When the Samians revolted from
you and the other Peloponnesians
were divided in their votes on
the question of aiding them,
we on our part did not vote
against you.
On the contrary,
we openly maintain that each
one should discipline his own
allies without interference."
Now, that's critical.
What they're saying is there
would have been an agreement to
go and attack Athens;
"we stopped it," was their
assertion.
Now, that statement cannot
be a simple outright lie,
because the Athenians and
everybody else in the Greek
world by now would have known
what happened in that meeting.
Possibly, they're exaggerating
their role, but what they cannot
be doing is misrepresenting the
position they took against the
war with Sparta.
My question is,
why were the Corinthians,
who were so annoyed by the
Athenians--remember it was
their--the Athenian alliance
with Megara against Corinth in
about 461,
460 that started the first
Peloponnesian War,
and as Thucydides tells us,
was the source of the hatred of
the Corinthians for the
Athenians and yet here we are in
440,
and they are making a critical
position against the war.
My answer to that question is
Thurii.
I believe that when
Pericles and the Athenians sent
that diplomatic message,
the Corinthians received it,
thought they understood it,
and it changed their policies.
So long as the Athenians stayed
out of their bailiwick,
they were prepared to preserve
the peace,
so I think that's a very
important story if you agree
with that analogy.
Peace was very rigorously
tested in 440,
and peace won out over a
tremendous temptation to go to
war.
That leads me to believe that
peace was possible,
and I would argue still further
that having passed this great
crisis,
having passed this test,
chances of peace were better
than ever, because the two sides
had acquired reason to trust the
other,
to behave by the rules as they
had been established.
There is one small point
but--which turns out not to be
so small, which I'll come back
to,
which is the Corinthians'
interpretation of precisely what
that peace meant,
I think will turn out to be not
exactly what the Athenians
thought that it meant and that
would be serious when we get
down to the final crisis.
By in 440, my assertion is,
the Samian rebellion
demonstrates that war is still
not necessary.
What has been established in
the minds of both sides,
this I think is perfectly
clear,
is what we would call in the
modern world a balance of power
in which the two sides recognize
the other really as equals,
where each has established a
sphere of influence out of which
the other is to stay and that
this is satisfactory.
The issue about the
Spartans and the argument about
their behavior at this time
comes down to this.
One scholar wants to emphasize
the fact that the Spartans even
thought about going to war
against the Athenians,
and if that hadn't been true
there never would have been a
meeting of the Peloponnesian
League;
that's true.
He takes their decision to call
the league as evidence that they
had decided to go to war,
and were talked out of by the
Corinthians and their allies;
that's not the way I see it.
I think that the Spartans in
440 were in the same position
they were in,
or I will argue they were in at
the beginning of the
Peloponnesian War,
divided, uncertain.
The more aggressive
Spartans were tempted by the
terrific opportunity the Samian
War presented.
The more conservative and
traditional Spartans were
reluctant to start another big
war against the Athenians,
and the hawks had enough power
to compel them to consult their
allies, but how their allies
reacted was going to be decisive
and so I think that--my reading
of it is that the conservative
Spartans were normally the
majority of the Spartans and it
took a very special set of
circumstances,
a special set of conditions to
move the Spartans to war and the
Corinthians saw to it that that
was not going to happen.
Be warned, all of this is a
matter of interpretation.
There is no certainty about it
and Thucydides himself,
who I think and most people
would agree,
thinks that the war was going
to come anyway regardless.
He doesn't express opinions
about these actions that I'm
talking about as to whether they
did or did not influence the
course of events,
but we have that evidence and
we have to use it and think
about it.
My conclusion then,
is after the Athenians are now
free to put down the rebellions
at Samos and at Byzantium,
to restore their empire,
and they will use the remaining
years before the final crisis to
strengthen their control of the
Aegean Sea and of their empire
in the east.
Again, some scholars who think
the war inevitable will say this
strengthening of the empire was
in fact itself a growth of
Athenian power and that seems to
me to be a great stretch of the
understanding of that word.
What it is is a
consolidation of what they
already have,
and there's no evidence that
these actions that I'm talking
about frighten the Spartans or
upset them,
and that's worth a lot,
because we hear plenty of
complaints about what the
Athenians are doing in the final
crisis,
but nobody makes any reference
to these events that some
scholars think show Athenian
growth.
So, there we are;
again, a crisis has been
overcome.
My argument is,
no reason in the world why the
two sides should fight each
other in the absence of some new
thing that changes
circumstances.
That brings us down precisely
to the final crisis.
So, I've been telling you the
war is not inevitable.
So, now I have to tell you why
did it happen and that's what
I'll try to do.
It starts where Thucydides
of course surely begins the
story, having told you the story
of how Athens came to be an
empire,
how Athens and Sparta came to
divide Greece between them in
that first portion of his
history in Book I.
We get to what I think is
chapter 24 in the first book
where he suddenly moves to where
the crisis begins.
Where does it begin?
It begins in a town called
Epidamnus, which is located on
the western shore of the Greek
peninsula on the Ionian Sea.
In Roman times it was called
Dyrrachium.
It was an important road system
that they had,
but in Greek times it was out
nowhere is what I'm trying to
suggest to you.
It was not even on the way to
anything very important.
I always am reminded of the
term that Neville Chamberlain
used when suddenly war
threatened about a place in the
middle of Europe called
Czechoslovakia and Chamberlain
said about it a faraway place of
which we know nothing.
I would have been embarrassed
to say that even in 1937,
but it's really something about
Epidamnus,
I mean it's way out there in
the middle of nowhere as far as
the Greeks are concerned.
Nothing is important about
Epidamnus itself.
This is one of the many
occasions in which great wars
start in places that are
inherently insignificant but
certain aspects of the situation
make them significant.
In this case,
the most important aspect was
that Epidamnus had been founded
by Corcyra,
the modern island of Corfu,
located not too far to the
south of Epidamnus.
By the way,
I should have told you that the
town of ancient Epidamnus today
is in Albania and I can't
pronounce.
I don't know how Albanians
pronounce things but my best
attempt is Durrės,
but I'm not sure that's right.
Anyway, the Corcyrians
established the colony there
centuries ago,
but Corcyra was a colony itself
of Corinth,
but as I told you earlier in
the semester it was a very
unusual colony.
Its relations with the mother
city were most unusual.
Thucydides reports that the
first trireme battle in all of
history was fought between
Corinth and Corcyra in the
seventh century and there are
repeated wars between Corinth
and Corcyra just about one a
century sometimes more
frequently,
and it's very clear that by the
time we are into the 430s,
these two cities hate each
other and they hate each other
with a traditional hatred handed
on down from century to century.
This is a very critical
part of comprehending what takes
place here.
Anyway, sometime maybe around
436, a civil war breaks out
within the city of Epidamnus in
what is not unusual by now in
the Greek world.
It's about democrats versus
oligarchs and one side has
control of the city,
the other side is driven into
exile.
The exiles get help from the
barbarian tribes in the
neighborhood,
because we're really talking
about the frontier of the Greek
world.
They are not surrounded by
fellow Greeks;
they are surrounded by
non-Greeks.
So, there they are when the
people, who are besieged,
send a delegation to their
mother city,
Corcyra, asking for help from
Corcyra in bringing peace to the
city and in putting an end to
the siege which they are
experiencing in.
Well, the Corcyraeans are not
interested;
their answer is "no."
We don't want to help you.
There's no evidence they care
about which side wins;
they see no point in getting
involved themselves.
An important part of the
story of Corcyra and its
significance in the coming of
the war is that it was neutral
towards everybody.
It was not a part of the
Peloponnesian confederation.
It was not part of the Athenian
League, and it wasn't associated
with anybody else.
In fact, it had a reputation if
you can believe the Corinthians
of being terribly uppity and
unassociating with anybody.
I guess if you asked a
Corcyrian he might have used
Lord Salsbury's term for Great
Britain late in the nineteenth
century as enjoying splendid
isolation.
It wasn't too many years before
Lord Salisbury and others
realized that isolation wasn't
so splendid as they thought and
so it was with Corcyra.
But for the moment the
Corcyraeans are saying who the
hell cares who wins your stupid
civil war, take a walk.
So, they did.
Well, I should say they took a
boat ride.
They went to Corinth.
Now, this demonstrates an
incredibly important principle
of human behavior.
What do you do if you go to
mother and you ask her,
"can I have the keys to the
car,"
or whatever it is you need and
she says, "no,
you go to grandma," you know
what grandma will say,
right?
You know the old story about
the grandmother.
Somebody rushes up,
tells the grandmother,
"your grandson has just taken a
neighbor's child and thrown him
out of a third-floor window."
Grandmother says,
"bless him, such strong hands."
So, the Corinthians react as
grandmother might;
that is to say,
they agree to send help to the
besieged Epidamnians.
They also agree to send an army;
first they'd end a fleet,
then they'll send an army which
will go there as well,
and they also are willing to
re-colonize the city,
because, of course,
the city is now divided between
two sides.
So, if the people inside are
going to win the war ultimately
they're going to need new
citizens;
they're not going to want to
take back those people trying to
kill them.
So, the Corinthians organize a
new colony to join them.
In other words,
they give them every kind of
help that anybody can imagine.
Now, if we look for a
reason why the Corinthians
should have been willing to make
this enormous contribution to
this far away argument,
scholars have had a field day
for centuries trying to figure
out what the tangible benefits
are with absolutely no luck.
There is no evidence that is
persuasive at all that there are
economic benefits to Corinth
that are significant,
if they somehow have control,
no matter what style control,
of Epidamnus and so I think we
are driven back,
as we should have been driven
in the first place,
to Thucydides' explanation whom
himself asks the question and
answers it about the whole
quarrel between Corinth and
Corcyra.
He refers simply to the hatred
that the Corinthians felt
towards the Corcyraeans.
When you get to that passage
take a good look at it,
because Thucydides understands
that we're all going to raise
our eyebrows a bit and so he
tells us the tale.
Why is that so?
He says,
because every year the
Corinthian hold a religious
festival in their city to which
all of their allies send
delegates.
This is very normal and all the
other delegates treat them as
you should treat a mother city,
with deference,
with respect,
with gratitude,
with kindness.
What do the Corcyraeans do?
They abuse them publicly,
they call them names,
they treat them like dirt,
they insult them in front of
the family so to speak.
Therefore, the Corinthians hate
them, and out of this furious
dislike, that is what their
actions are about.
This has made scholars in the
modern world very nervous.
They understand that there are
only two things that make people
fight one another.
One of--yeah that's pretty much
what they used to say now that I
think of it, and many of them
still do in the face of what we
see in the world today.
One is money,
that is economic gain,
and we can thank Marx for that
and for a whole century or more
people couldn't understand that
people would ever do anything
for any reason except for
monetary gain.
There isn't anything in this to
explain it;
it just won't do.
Scholars have failed in
attempting to show how that
might be true.
The other has to do with power.
Relationships,
if you this state on your side
it will give the balance of
power to you and so on,
but the truth of the matter is
Epidamnus is essentially
irrelevant to the ordinary
struggles of power between these
two states,
Corinth and Corcyra.
Corcyra won't be poorer,
it won't be weaker if the
Corinthians have Epidamnus nor
is there some kind of a
tremendous strategic edge if you
can launch your attack from
Epidamnus rather than from
someplace else.
No, no, there's no reason to
doubt Thucydides about this.
This is about honor and it's
about dishonor.
Now, does that sound very
remote?
Who cares about honor in the
twentieth century,
twenty-first century?
What kind of nonsense is this?
I will tell you that you and
everybody around you,
and everything you see in the
world today is motivated more
frequently--especially conflict,
but other things too,
the way you lead your life is
influenced more by
considerations of honor than of
anything else.
Let me put it in the way that's
most helpful in this context.
It's really the negative that's
important.
More important than honor is
dishonor;
people hate to be dishonored.
They hate--there is a wonderful
slang word that now tells the
story.
It wasn't available when I was
a kid.
The thing was available,
but the word wasn't available.
If I say to you, he dissed me;
do you know what I mean?
Do you think there's a danger
to your teeth if you dissed the
wrong guy?
Do you doubt that that sort of
thing motivates individual
people constantly?
I can show you,
and I've already shown the
world that it motivates nations
constantly today,
not only twenty years ago or
500 years ago,
2000 years ago;
that's what Thucydides is
showing us here.
This is a very important
permanent truth.
This is why Thucydides is so
superior to modern political
scientists studying
international relations.
They don't understand these
things and Thucydides did.
So, that I think is what is
happening and when it becomes
clear to Corcyra that Corinth is
involved,
that they are looking for a
fight, and that they have
dishonored Corcyra by taking
over one of their colonies,
the Corcyraeans are on the one
hand angered,
but on the other hand they're
frightened because Corinth is a
great powerful state,
and more important than that,
Corinth is one of the most
significant allies of Sparta.
If the Corinthians are
giving us grief the Corcyraeans
could think this is a prelude to
having the Peloponnesian League
come after us and that is not
something you want to happen.
So, the Corcyrians ask for a
conference with the Corinthians,
and they come and say,
let us find a way to make peace
over this issue,
let's see how we can negotiate
a peace.
Corinthians are adamant.
They say you want peace;
this is what you got to do.
You have got to withdraw your
forces from the city;
here you are besieging the
city, because the Corcyraeans
have come with their fleet,
they have defeated--I always
get this so backwards,
let me see if I've got this
right.
What are the Corcyrians doing?
Their armies are in the field
and their navy is at sea against
the opposition to the folks who
are inside the city,
and so the Corinthians say,
you were fighting these people
and you're asking us to talk
peace while you're fighting
these people,
you withdraw your people and
then we'll talk peace.
Well, of course,
that would give the advantage
to the other side,
and the Corcyraeans said no
way,
and said tell you what we'll
withdraw our people,
if you withdraw your people.
Corinthians said no way.
I think what comes out of this
back and forth is important;
it is that the Corcyraeans are
not looking to expand this
fight;
they want to end it.
Not because they are peaceful
and loveable fellows,
but because they're afraid of
where this thing will go.
We are now dealing with another
term that came into fruition in
the twentieth century;
escalation is what these guys
were afraid of.
We got this little fight going
on here but next thing you know
we may find the Peloponnesian
League involved.
But the Corinthians clearly
aren't worried about that and
that's going to be a point we
have to cope with.
The Corcyraeans say,
look if you don't work this out
with us now, we may have to seek
allies, other allies besides
those we already have.
Well, Thucydides has told us
they don't have any other
allies.
But who are these allies that
they're going to seek?
That's a real question;
somebody tell me.
Athens, of course,
I wanted you to tell me,
because I want to emphasize how
obvious it is.
Nobody could have missed the
signal.
This is a threat.
We know you Corinthians are
playing as tough as you are
because you're counting on the
Spartans to assist you.
Well, if you do,
we will ask the Athenians to
help us and then what.
And so the situation goes
forward.
The Corinthians are not
bluffed, if it was really a
bluff and on they go.
I should point out that at this
meeting, the Corcyraeans said
they were willing to submit this
quarrel to arbitration.
I remind you again,
not mediation,
to turn it over to a third
party and have them settle the
question, but the Corinthians
turned that down.
I think that alone indicates
who wanted war and who wanted
peace at this point.
The other thing is that it
should be remembered that the
thirty-years peace provided that
neutrals were free to join
either side that had signed the
thirty-years peace.
So that, when they were
implying and threatening an
alliance with Athens,
they understood that the
Athenians were free to accept
them into the alliance without
breaking the thirty-years peace.
That would be a considerable
issue as the problem grows more
difficult.
Well, there is no peace and
so the two sides organized their
navies.
The Corinthians did not have a
large standing navy in peace
time and they set to work to put
one together.
In 435 there is the Battle of
Leucimne which takes place
between the Corinthians and the
Corcyraeans and the Corcyraeans
win.
Corinth is not deterred;
now they really go to work and
they build for them a vast
fleet, consisting of ninety
ships,
unprecedented outside of Athens
and they do turn,
not in an official way,
but unofficially to their
Peloponnesian allies asking them
to contribute help too and their
Peloponnesian allies send
another sixty ships,
and so the Corinthians have
available a total of one hundred
fifty ships.
The Corcyrian fleet consisted
of one hundred and twenty ships;
they did have a fleet that they
kept at all times and that had
given them the confidence in
advance to do what they had
done,
but here was Corinth suddenly
outnumbering them in this way.
Corcyra was now thoroughly
frightened.
They knew that Corinthians
would be coming after them again
with a fleet that was bigger
than theirs, so they went to
Athens in September of 433.
Now, I ask you again to imagine
yourself sitting there on the
Pynx in Athens,
in September of 433 as the
Corcyraean ambassadors have come
to your town.
They're going to ask you to
join in an alliance with them
for the purpose of fighting the
Corinthians and their friends.
The Corinthians who have heard
about this sent ambassadors of
their own to Athens,
they are present on that same
hill, and they will make their
case as to why the Athenians
should say "no" to that request.
Thucydides reports his version
of both speeches.
There is every reason to think
he was sitting there in the
Athenian assembly on the days in
which these discussions took
place.
The essence of the
Corcyraean argument is
that--well, here are the points
they make.
Corinth is wrong,
it is not a breach of the
thirty-years peace for Athens to
accept the Corcyraeans into
their alliance because neutrals
are permitted.
Then they go through a lot of
stuff to show that the
Corinthians are bad guys,
making arguments on the grounds
of morality and virtue and
decency and obeying the law and
all kinds of stuff,
but it's clear that that's not
what's on their minds.
They are talking
about--basically they try to
convince the Athenians on the
grounds of the significance of
their decision for the balance
of power,
and essentially the balance of
naval power in the Greek world.
In passing,
they make the point that
Corcyra is very well situated
for a naval--I should--for a sea
voyage to Sicily and Italy,
where the Athenians and others
are always wanting to go.
So, you want to be on our side.
That's not really a very potent
argument, because no town,
no polis shuts its ports
to any other polis except
in war time.
So, it's only when they mention
it, they only have to be talking
about why it's valuable to be
allied with Corcyra,
because and this is their most
powerful underlying argument,
there's going to be a war.
Don't kid yourself Athenians is
what they are saying,
and when that war comes you're
going to want to be us.
You're going to want to have us
on your side,
in part because of our
convenience, our strategic
location.
On the other hand,
more powerful is the fact--we
have a hundred twenty ships.
If we lose, if you let the
Corinthians beat us,
our ships will fall into their
hands,
and then they will have a much
mightier fleet than even the one
they have put together,
and now your unquestioned
dominance of the sea will be
challenged.
That's what's at issue.
Don't imagine that this is just
anybody's imagination.
This is going to happen.
The war is coming;
an enormous amount of what's
happening here has to do with
your perception of whether the
war is now inevitable or whether
by restraint you can preserve
the peace.
That's the problem that the
Athenians face.
It's a terribly interesting
one, because it happened so very
often on the brinks of wars,
when that's the issue that
determines what people will do
and how they react.
If they don't think that taking
a certain action--I'm sorry,
if they don't think the war is
coming anyway,
they may very well decide to
refrain from an action that
might provoke a war.
If, on the other hand,
they think war is coming they
feel that it's too dangerous not
to make our capacity to win the
war more likely and so they may
well take a step which makes the
war more likely,
and they're both gambles.
Nobody knows for sure one way
or another;
you have to make an estimate
and that's always the way it is,
unless you are simply an
aggressive state and all you
want to do is conquer,
and you don't care about
anything else.
You're always trying to figure
out will it be safer to fight or
not to fight,
will it be safer to try to make
a concession or will that make
it more dangerous.
Those are always the issues,
always the problems.
One of the great
imbecilities that I discovered
all through my life is people
will contemplate going to war at
different times in our time,
is the quiet assumption,
unquestioned,
unexamined that restraint,
the failure to take action is
safe;
taking action is dangerous.
Whereas, our experience,
even in my lifetime,
has demonstrated that's often
wrong.
Nothing could be clearer to me
and I think to most people who
studied the subject that not
acting against Hitler as he took
one step after another to rip up
a piece of Europe was the most
dangerous thing they could
possibly do,
far more dangerous than
confronting him as early as 1936
when he invaded the Rhineland.
That's not the only case of it.
There's no simple rule.
Sometimes it's wiser not to
act and sometimes it's wiser to
act, but it's never clear which
one is more likely to produce
peace and safety,
and that's what the Athenians
had to wrestle with on that day.
The Corinthians responded to
the argument of the Corcyraeans
denying their picture of things.
They said, in fact if you sign
up with the Corcyraeans now,
you will be in violation of the
thirty-years peace.
What they were saying I guess
in the abstract was,
don't worry about the letter of
the law of the treaty;
because that clearly permits an
alliance;
it's the spirit that counts.
They said, surely nobody
imagined that this decision
would be made at a time when the
neutral is asking you to join in
was already at war with one of
us;
surely nobody had that in mind.
They're certainly right.
Nobody did.
The question is,
on the legal point,
my guess is the Athenians had
the better of the argument.
It says in black letter law;
it says you may take a neutral
if a neutral asks you for an
alliance.
There's nothing that says,
except that when that neutral's
attacking us;
it doesn't say that.
On the other hand,
who in his right mind could
imagine it would be okay to do
that?
So, that was one issue that the
Corinthians spoke to.
But they made another point
that was legalistic as well and
this one I think in the case of
the Corinthians is much worse.
They said the principle
established in the thirty-years
peace was that each side could
punish its own allies without
the interference of the other
side.
Now, as a matter of fact,
it didn't say that,
but the other thing that's
wrong with that statement is,
it's one thing for Athens to
punish Samos,
which is an ally and the
Corinthians saying fine,
that's your business,
we won't intervene.
But Corcyra is not the ally of
Corinth.
In fact, they are bitter
enemies of yester year.
There's no part of that treaty
that protects the Corinthian
right to attack Corcyra.
So, it's a great argument if
you don't look at the validity
of the facts that are alleged.
Corinth has got a very bad case
here.
But their really important
argument is this.
The Corcyraeans say the war
is inevitable;
well, it isn't.
The fact is they tell the
Athenians, if you were smart the
thing you would do would be to
join us,
and together we'll smash the
Corcyraeans and then there's no
more problem.
But if you don't do that,
at the very least,
refrain from joining them
because then we will be friends,
and then we will have peace in
the future.
But make no mistake about it,
if you do accept the
Corcyraeans into your alliance
now, then there will be war.
War is not inevitable,
but your action can make it
inevitable.
So, that's what the Athenians
confront when they have to make
their decision.
Again, the drama of this is so
striking I want to be sure you
conceive of it.
They are sitting there;
everything I've told you so far
has been said on the same day
and now the Athenians start
talking about what should we do;
it's the same day.
The people who are sitting
on the Pnyx, if the day is clear
as they used to be in Athens
just about everyday,
can look out across Attica to
the north and they can see that
area into which the Spartan and
Peloponnesian army will march
and start destroying their farms
three days from now possibly,
if a war starts.
Who is going to be doing that
fighting out there?
We will;
those of us who are sitting
here voting whether to go to war
or not.
I'm always struck by the
immediacy and the significance
of what these guys are doing.
Somebody tell me this is not a
democracy, please.
So, it is of course the same
kind of thing they faced back in
461, when they had to decide
whether to take Megara into the
alliance, again.
There are significant
differences, but the issue is
very much the same.
They can't be sure.
Maybe if they back off and
refuse the alliance,
maybe that will be the end of
the problem and they'll live
happily ever after.
On the other hand,
if they're wrong about that and
the Corinthians take over this
fleet,
suddenly they will find
themselves vulnerable in a way
they have not been,
since they put their empire
together.
I always find it illuminating
to me anyway,
and I hope to you as well,
to make an analogy to Great
Britain at the end of the
nineteenth and the beginning of
the twentieth century.
Great Britain,
at the beginning of the
nineteenth, sort of the middle
and after the nineteenth century
came--had the greatest navy in
the world without question.
It was the greatest power in
the world.
It had this enormous empire
that it ruled and its
vulnerabilities were mainly
against France and Russia,
who were two imperial rivals in
the areas that the British cared
about most.
At a certain point they decided
to make their fleet to be the
size of the next two fleets put
together,
in order to feel secure in case
a war broke out,
and that's what they did.
Everything was fine until
Kaiser William becomes the
Emperor of Germany and towards
the end of the nineteenth
century decides that Germany
must be a great naval power.
It must be a world empire,
it must challenge Britain for
that opportunity and they begin
to build a fleet of battleships
whose only purpose can be to
destroy the British fleet and to
allow the Germans to invade
Britain,
or best of all to intimidate
the British into stepping aside
and allowing the Germans to do
what they want to do.
As soon as this becomes clear
to the British,
as soon as the Germans start
building that fleet,
it is not yet strong enough to
defeat the British fleet,
and the British enter into a
naval race to see to it that
they don't get to be big enough
to take out the British fleet.
But it's very costly,
the British don't like it,
they try to find every way,
and what they do is completely
flip their diplomacy which has
dominated their behavior for
over a hundred years and they
make an alliance with France and
Russia to see to it that the
Germans are checked and
prevented from doing what
they're planning to do.
I think that does help to
understand what the Athenians
are doing.
When you are,
as in the case of Britain,
an island state and as in the
case of Athens you might as well
be an island state,
because you are dependent on
imports for your food supply and
the command of the sea is
essential for acquiring that,
in such a case it is not a
light thing to permit a change
in the naval balance of power,
which may make you seriously
vulnerable in case of war.
The point I want to make is
that the British didn't wait
until the Germans had equaled
their force;
they changed their policy and
ultimately moved into war to
prevent it and that's where the
Athenians I think found
themselves.
It was something they were not
willing to do,
but it was a very hard call,
and we are told that they
argued so long that it got dark
before the decision could be
made.
Thucydides says,
it was thought that they were
inclining against the alliance
when it got dark.
They met again the next day and
this time they voted for
something a bit different from
what they had been talking about
the day before.
What the Corcyrians had been
requesting was a typical
alliance, the only kind we know
of between Greeks,
a symmachia,
an offensive and defensive
alliance.
It would have required the
Athenians to go out and fight
the Corinthians,
even if the Corinthians didn't
attack Corcyra.
It would have put them fully at
war against the Corinthians.
That's not what the Athenians
voted.
On the second day they voted on
the proposition that they
established something called an
epimachia,
which means a defensive
alliance only.
They would only fight against
an enemy, if that enemy had
attacked Corcyra and was in the
process of landing on their
territory,
and so that's finally what the
Athenians did.
That was the vote they took.
Once again, we have something
unheard of before,
a device which is in a way
largely a diplomatic device
meant to have consequences on
thinking rather than immediate
military results.
So, I say it's got to be
Pericles, but I feel better this
time, because Plutarch says,
it was Pericles even though
Thucydides doesn't say who made
that proposal.
It was clearly what Pericles
wanted because he holds to it
very, very firmly,
in both directions,
both in terms of the limits
that this puts on Athenian
action,
but on the determination to
take that action no matter what.
What I suggest to you is that
we are going to be dealing from
here on in--we have been dealing
with in a general way anyway,
but now it's very clear,
this is Pericles' policy.
I assert it is a policy
intended to keep the peace,
and here again,
we run into a problem in our
own time in which sort of the
normal reaction of people is,
if you want to keep the peace
,what you want to do is to be a
nice guy.
What you want to do is to make
concessions, you want not to
frighten the potential enemy,
you want to show that you have
no ill-will towards him,
and then reason will prevail
and you can all have a nice chat
and go off for tea.
Of course,
that's not the way it is at
all.
One way always that has been
used by nations in the hope of
keeping peace is through the
opposite device,
of deterrence where there isn't
any hope of coming to a happy
agreement.
Of course, if there had been
you wouldn't be in the spot
you're in now.
All you can do is try to
indicate to your opponent that
he will not achieve the goals he
seeks,
if he launches a war against
you, and so that requires that
you be very strong,
militarily strong and strong in
the way in which you negotiate.
On the other hand,
if that is your goal,
deterrence, then you also want
to be very careful not to behave
in such a way that it's too
frightening.
That indicates to your opponent
that you are likely to defeat
him, if he allows you to be as
strong as you would like to be.
You want to avoid taking an
action that will make him lose
his rationality,
that will make him so angry
that he will forget about these
questions of success and
failure,
he'll just say I'm going to get
that son of a gun and that,
I argue, is the policy that
Pericles pursued.
An attempt at deterrence
and moderation at the same time,
to frighten the opponent by his
determination out of thinking
they can do what they want
without a danger of war,
but also to avoid inflaming his
anger.
In the short run,
what happens is that the
Athenians send to assist their
Corcyrian allies a fleet of only
ten triremes.
This is inexplicable in my
view, except in terms of the
strategy that I have suggested.
What he's doing is sending
really not a force but a
diplomatic message.
He is telling the Corinthians,
you have been counting on the
fact that we would stay out of
this, well you were wrong.
We will not allow you to defeat
the Corcyraean navy,
because we find that
unacceptable and dangerous.
So, we're sending this force to
help the Corcyraeans not because
we want to fight you but because
we want you to see that we're
serious about this;
don't start the fight.
Well, the Corinthians sail
their fleet against Corcyra and
there follows a battle at sea
called the Battle of Sybota,
and Thucydides describes the
battle itself,
very tough battle.
The Athenians are--I'm sorry I
haven't told you one thing you
need to know.
The Athenians will line up at
one end of the Corcyraean line
with their ten ships.
The commanders of that fleet
are determined as well.
Those ten ships are commanded
by three generals;
that's a lot of generals for
ten ships, but one of them who
is the chief figure there is
Lacedaemonius,
the son of Cimon.
Well, of course,
he is clearly seen by everybody
else as not one of the Pericles'
boys, not a stooge of Pericles.
He's an independent and what's
his name mean?
Mr. Spartan.
Now, if the Athenians get
drawn into that battle and the
command that we should do so is
done by Lacedaemonius then,
of course, that will not have
the effect of dividing the
Athenians but it will make it
much harder to divide the
Athenians.
It would be much easier to say
all Athenians,
even those who have the kindest
attitude towards Sparta thought
that this was a necessary step,
which I think was aimed not at
Corinthians so much.
It was aimed,
of course, at Athenian
politics, but I think it was
aimed at the Spartans too
because then if the Spartans
were then asked by the
Corinthians,
so look what happened,
come in and help us against the
Athenians, they would have to
face the fact that even
Lacedaemonius thought this was
necessary.
It's the same game.
All of these are cagey moves by
Pericles to pursue his extremely
complicated, tricky,
kind of a strategy,
and I see that I have run over
my time.
So I'll pick up the tale next
time.
