From Hoplite to Empire: How War Remade Greek Politics, 650 to 338 BCE

The idea

The exam's Greek questions cluster on politics, and Greek politics changed each time the way Greeks fought changed. The chain runs from the phalanx to Macedon in six links. First, the hoplite. From the seventh century a free farmer who bought his own armor stood in the phalanx beside aristocrats, and the city could not fight without him. Second, tyranny. Hoplites demanded a voice, and cities appointed tyrants, aristocrats without legal right who answered to the men in the ranks, redistributed land and built public works, about six fifty to five hundred. Third, oligarchy and democracy. After five hundred most poleis settled into oligarchies under written law, and Athens went further: Solon's impersonal state, then Cleisthenes' vote for every male citizen in five oh eight, about ten percent of the population. Fourth, the fleet. Marathon in four ninety was a hoplite victory, but Themistocles answered Persia with triremes, and the men who rowed them were the poor. Salamis in four eighty was their victory, and after four seventy-nine the navy became an empire, the Delian League, whose allied tribute paid for Athens's democracy and its buildings. Fifth, the long war. The Peloponnesian War of four thirty-one to four oh four set a land power against a sea power, and ended when Persian money built Sparta a fleet and Aegospotami destroyed Athens's in four oh five. Sixth, the professionals. Victory undid Sparta's hoplite order, Thebes beat it at Leuctra in three seventy-one, and the poleis turned to paid standing armies and mercenaries. By three eighty-seven Persia held Ionia again, and by three thirty-eight a king with a professional army, Philip of Macedon, ended the age of the polis. The next unit teaches him.