Archaic Greece, Persia, and the Greek Wars

This is Unit Three of Western Civilization One, part two of two: how Persia ruled, the Persian Wars, the Athenian empire and its fall, and the five procedures the exam tests on Greece. Part one ended with Darius holding one state from the Nile to the Indus while Athens had given the vote to every male citizen. Carry one idea through this part. Greek politics changed every time the way Greeks fought changed. The hoplite made the tyrant and the oligarchy; the fleet that beat Persia at Salamis made the rowers a political force and turned a defensive league into an empire; the long war against Sparta ended when Persian money built a fleet; and the professional armies that followed ended the age of the polis. Persia is the constant against which all of it is measured: an absolute king of kings who ruled by leniency, the opposite of participation. By the end you will be able to describe how Persia ruled and contrast it with Greek participation. To tell the Persian Wars and say why the Greeks won. To explain how the Delian League became an empire and why Athens lost. To read the map, sequence the unit, classify a government, compare Sparta with Athens, and read the Cyrus Cylinder. And to state the six-link chain from hoplite to Macedon.

Three entries on how Persia ruled: satraps and the Royal Road, leniency against Greek participation, and the religion of Ahura Mazda.

Twenty satrapies and the king's eyes and ears.

WC1 0218 Satraps, the Royal Road, and the King of Kings

Darius divided the empire into twenty satrapies, each satrap paired with a general and watched by the king's eyes and ears. The Royal Road ran from western Anatolia to Susa, the anchor's sixteen hundred miles in a week. He standardized coins, weights and law, built Susa and Persepolis, and kept the Immortals as his only standing force; mobilizing the levies could take two years.

Three ways to rule, and the one the exam tests.

WC1 0219 Persian Leniency Against Greek Participation

Persia's innovation was leniency: subjects kept religion, language and custom in exchange for loyalty, taxes and troops under an absolute king of kings. The poleis were the opposite: citizens voting, holding office, fighting as equals. Assyrian terror, Persian leniency, Greek participation are three ways to rule, and the exam's second sample question tests the last contrast. Slavery was not outlawed in the poleis; the Greeks kept more slaves than Persia.

A struggle between good and evil, ending in judgment.

WC1 0220 Zoroastrianism: Ahura Mazda, Ahriman, Truth

Zoroaster, placed by the anchor between thirteen hundred and one thousand B.C.E., taught a struggle between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman ending in judgment. Every righteous act was a victory for good, and truth was the cardinal virtue. The magi were its priests, and from Darius the Persian kings ruled as Ahura Mazda's agents. The anchor's claim that Satan and the last judgment are Zoroastrian in origin is its own, attributed.

Four entries on the Persian Wars: the revolt that brought Persia to Greece, Marathon and the navy it prompted, Xerxes' invasion, and the year the Greeks won.

A revolt in Ionia, and Athens's costly help.

WC1 0221 The Ionian Revolt and the Road to Marathon

The Anatolian Greeks under Persia rose in four ninety-nine with Athenian help. Darius crushed the revolt by four ninety-four and deported rebels to India, and Athens's aid gave him his reason to invade Greece. The revolt began the Persian Wars: Persia came to Greece, not the reverse. The anchor warns against reading the war as the West against barbarism.

A hoplite victory, and the ships that mattered more.

WC1 0222 Marathon, 490, and Themistocles' Navy

At Marathon in four ninety Miltiades led about ten thousand hoplites against a Persian force the anchor puts at twenty-five thousand; Sparta arrived late. The anchor's dead are sixty-four hundred Persians to one hundred ninety-two Greeks. Afterward Themistocles spent Athens's silver on triremes rowed by the poor. The runner's death is almost certainly fabricated, the anchor says, and the fleet mattered more.

A defeat that bought time, and a victory at sea.

WC1 0223 Xerxes, Thermopylae, and Salamis, 480

In four eighty Xerxes invaded with a force the anchor puts at two hundred thousand and twelve hundred ships, and about six percent of poleis resisted. Leonidas held Thermopylae until betrayed. Athens was evacuated, and its navy crushed the Persian fleet at Salamis, a name the witnesses supply where the anchor leaves the battle unnamed. Thermopylae bought time; Salamis was the victory.

Why every man in a phalanx was a real soldier.

WC1 0224 479: Plataea, Mycale, and Why the Greeks Won

In four seventy-nine a Spartan-led army won at Plataea and an Athenian-led fleet at Mycale, names the witnesses supply, and Persia abandoned the invasion. The Greek sources' explanation is that every man in a phalanx was a real soldier while Persia's mass was unwilling conscripts. Four seventy-nine opens the Classical Age, but fighting continued for twenty years: Persia lost the invasion, not the war.

Four entries on the empire and the war: a league that became an empire, a stalemate between land and sea, the errors that ended it, and the professionals who followed.

Members paid, and Athens kept the ships.

WC1 0225 The Delian League Becomes an Empire

The Delian League formed to keep Persia out and free Ionia. In practice members paid, Athens fielded the ships, forbade resignation, garrisoned allies and imposed laws, and the treasury moved from Delos to Athens, which built on allied money. Peace with Persia in four forty-eight, the Peace of Callias on the witness, ended the League's purpose. No witness dates the treasury's move.

A land power against a sea power.

WC1 0226 The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404

Sparta's Peloponnesian League, with Corinth and Thebes, feared Athens, and war came in four thirty-one: Sparta supreme on land, Athens at sea, supplied by ship through the long walls to its harbor. For decades Athens lived under near-siege while its fleet raided, and later a Spartan garrison sat in sight of the city. Neither side could reach the other's strength: stalemate, and then error.

Sicily, the mines, and a fleet lost in a day.

WC1 0227 Sicily, the Mines, and Aegospotami

In four fifteen Athens sent an expedition against Syracuse and lost it entirely, and the anchor's twenty thousand slaves fled the silver mines. In four oh five the fleet was destroyed at Aegospotami, a witness name, and Athens surrendered: walls razed, city spared, a new government within a year. Sparta won with Persian money. The victor of Salamis lost to a Persian-funded fleet.

Victory undoes Sparta.

WC1 0228 The Aftermath: Leuctra, Mercenaries, and Persia Returns

Victory undid Sparta: Spartans bought their sons out of the barracks, and Thebes beat them at Leuctra in three seventy-one, a witness name. The poleis turned to paid armies and mercenaries, and by three eighty-seven Persia held the Ionian Greeks again. After four oh five the hoplite republics give way to councils, tyrants and taxes. King's Peace is the conventional name for three eighty-seven, and it is unwitnessed.

Five procedures: reading the map at the right scale, building the sequence on a Persian spine, naming a Greek government, comparing Sparta with Athens, and reading the Cyrus Cylinder for what it assumes.

Scale first, then three Greek zones.

WC1 0229 Reading a Map of the Persian Empire and the Greek World

The map for this period shows the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia and asks what a shaded empire is or where an event happened. Check the scale first: shading from the Aegean to the Indus is Persia, and everything Greek is a fringe of coast and islands on its western edge. Then place three Greek zones, the mainland with Athens and Sparta, the islands, and Ionia on Anatolia's west coast inside Persian territory. The revolt of four ninety-nine began in Ionia. The region Cyrus took in five forty-six, bringing Persia to the Aegean, is Lydia. The Royal Road ran from Sardis in Lydia to Susa. Colonies dot the coasts of Sicily, Italy, the Black Sea and Gaul, never the interior. Ionia is Greek in culture and Persian in rule from five forty-six to four seventy-nine.

Build the Persian spine, then hang the Greek events.

WC1 0230 Sequencing Greece and Persia, 776 to 371 BCE

Ordering questions on this unit interleave Greek and Persian events. Build the Persian spine first: Cyrus five fifty, Babylon five thirty-nine, Darius five twenty-two, Marathon four ninety, Xerxes four eighty, Plataea four seventy-nine. Then hang the Greek events: the Olympics in seven seventy-six before any Persian date, Solon about five ninety-four before Cyrus, Cleisthenes in five oh eight after Darius's accession and before Marathon, the Ionian Revolt in four ninety-nine between them, the Delian League after four seventy-nine, the Peloponnesian War from four thirty-one to four oh four, and Leuctra in three seventy-one last. Two pairs are close enough to test. Cleisthenes comes after Darius's accession, and the revolt comes before Marathon because it caused the invasion. Any answer that puts Athens's democracy before Persia's empire is wrong: Cyrus preceded Cleisthenes by forty years.

Who holds office, and by what right.

WC1 0231 Classifying a Greek Government: Aristocracy, Tyranny, Oligarchy, Democracy

When the exam describes a polis's government, ask two questions: who holds office, and by what right. Aristocracy is the best families by birth. Tyranny is one man by appointment or seizure without legal right. Oligarchy is the wealthy by property qualification under written law. Democracy is all male citizens by citizenship, with offices by lot or election. A council of elders from old families making law while commoners watch is aristocracy. A popular aristocrat installed by hoplites to redistribute land, ruling without a title, is a Greek tyrant. A city after five hundred where office requires wealth and the poor vote yes or no is oligarchy. A city where a farmer too poor for armor may be chosen by lot to make law is democracy, Athens after five oh eight. Sparta fits none: two kings, a council, an approving assembly, and a citizen body that is itself a tiny elite over helots. Call it mixed, and expect the exam to ask why.

Six features, six paired answers.

WC1 0232 Sparta and Athens Compared on Six Features

The exam's commonest Greek comparison sets Sparta against Athens, and six paired features sort the statements. Economy: Sparta agrarian on helot labor, Athens trade and silver. Constitution: Sparta's two kings, council and approving assembly, Athens's voting assembly with offices by lot. Army: Sparta's full-time hoplite elite, Athens's citizen hoplites and a navy rowed by the poor. Citizen body: a few thousand Equals against about ten percent of a large population. Women: Spartan women with land and a public voice, Athenian women increasingly restricted. Slaves: helots as a conquered people held by terror, Athenian slaves bought and captured and worst off in the mines. Women athletes with property is Sparta; a fleet as the poor's political weapon is Athens; an annual declaration of war on one's own laborers is Sparta. Both were slave societies and both were hoplite societies, so the contrasts are of degree and form. Frost's elitist communism and the anchor's Attica figure are attributed, not facts of your own.

Who speaks, to whom, and what must be true.

WC1 0233 Reading a Primary Source: The Cyrus Cylinder's Claims

The exam's fifth ability is reading a passage for its author's assumptions, and the method is three questions: who is speaking, to whom, and what must be true for the claims to persuade. The Cyrus Cylinder, a clay record in Akkadian from Babylon after five thirty-nine, read from a modern translation, is the case. Cyrus speaks in the first person through Babylonian scribes, to Babylon's priests and people in their own religious idiom. For it to persuade, Marduk must choose kings, the last king must have offended him, and a foreign conqueror must be able to be Marduk's choice. From those follow the claims: Cyrus entered as liberator, restored the cult, and let deported peoples go home, the policy behind the Hebrews' return in five thirty-eight. What the text assumes about legitimate rule is that it comes from the gods and from royal descent, never from the consent of the ruled. It does not say Cyrus valued tolerance; leniency was a claim to legitimacy and a method of rule, and a modern reading is the distractor.

One capstone entry: six links by which each change in how Greeks fought changed how they were governed, from the hoplite to Philip of Macedon.

Six links, six dates, one pattern.

WC1 0234 From Hoplite to Empire: How War Remade Greek Politics, 650 to 338 BCE

The exam's Greek questions cluster on politics, and Greek politics changed each time the way Greeks fought changed. Six links run from the phalanx to Macedon. First, the hoplite: from the seventh century a free farmer who bought his own armor stood beside aristocrats, and the city could not fight without him. Second, tyranny: hoplites demanded a voice, and cities appointed aristocrats without legal right who answered to the ranks, 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 and then Cleisthenes' vote in five oh eight. Fourth, the fleet: Marathon was a hoplite victory, but Themistocles answered Persia with triremes rowed by the poor, Salamis was their victory, and after four seventy-nine the navy became the Delian League, whose tribute paid for Athens's democracy and buildings. Fifth, the long war: a land power against a sea power from four thirty-one, ended when Persian money built Sparta a fleet and Aegospotami destroyed Athens's in four oh five. Sixth, the professionals: victory undid Sparta, Thebes won at Leuctra in three seventy-one, the poleis hired mercenaries, Persia held Ionia again by three eighty-seven, and in three thirty-eight Philip of Macedon's professional army ended the age of the polis. The chain is a pattern the course draws from the anchor's two chapters, not a law the anchor states. Each link is a fact the exam tests on its own, and the anchor's figures along the way are attributed. Never write that democracy caused the navy or the navy caused democracy: the anchor says each strengthened the other, and stops there.

Look at what you can now do. You can describe Persia's twenty satrapies, its Royal Road, and its rule by leniency, set that against Greek participation, and state Zoroaster's struggle between Ahura Mazda and Ahriman. You can tell the Persian Wars from the Ionian Revolt through Marathon, Thermopylae and Salamis to Plataea and Mycale, and give the Greek sources' reason: real soldiers against unwilling conscripts. You can explain how the Delian League became an empire built on allied money, why a land power and a sea power stalemated until Sicily and Aegospotami, and how victory undid Sparta at Leuctra. You can read the map at the right scale, sequence the unit on a Persian spine, classify a government by who holds office and by what right, compare Sparta with Athens on six features, and read the Cylinder for what it assumes. And you can state the six-link chain from the hoplite to Macedon, which is this part's one idea. Unit four opens on the Classical Age those wars began: Athens under Pericles, its drama, its philosophers, and the historians who invented the method.