Introduction to Greek and Roman History
Lecture 6
After the Persian Wars: Athens as an emerging power
Monuments of War
• The
Battle of Marathon:
Epitaph of Aeschylus; who fought at Marathon:
The glorious grove of Marathon can tell of his
Valour-as can the long haired Persian…”
(found in Gela where he died).
Date of inscription: disputed.
Herodotus Book 6. Records death of 192
Greeks, whose names were inscribed on the
Battlefield.
Battle at Salamis: Themistocles Decree
< On Troezen:
Orders evacuation of citizens of Athens &
Mobilisation of Greek forces.
> Date: Disputed 3rd century BC copy
The Battle at Thermopylae 480BC
Simonides’ epitaph for the warriors of Thermopylae:
Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδεκείμεθα,
τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.
‘Stranger, go and to the Spartans tell, that here obedient to
their laws, we fell’
Serpent Column:
Instanbul
Dedicated at Delphi
Listing the names of 31 city
states set up after the battle
Platea,
Snake Head: @ Istanbul
Archaeology Museums
History in pieces
Bronze Snake Victory
Monument
Tripod base: at Delphi
Serpentine Monument ca. 479 BC.
Commemorating the victory at Plataea (originally in Delphi,
moved by Constantine to his Hippodrome in AD 324.
Arranged by numbers of soldiers contributed to the
battle (Sparta, Athens and Corinth were first).
Numbers taken from Herodotus, Histories 9.81.
Seventh coil:
……
Tenians 200?--Sixth coil:
Naxians (unreadable)
Eretrians
300?
Chalcidians 400
Delos and the Ionian syngheneia
Homeric hymn to Apollo
(III), 146-149
Phoebus, in Delos do you
most delight your heart;
for there the long robed
Ionians gather in your
honor with their children
and shy wives: with
boxing and dancing and
song
Delos
Distirct
Polis
Aparchai
454: The new Delian League
Athens Urban Plan
Phidias showing the freeze of the Parthenon
Carytids and the Statue of Athena
Parthenos
Pericles & Athens
West & East Pediments of the Parthenon
• EE
Sculptures from the Parthenon
(now at the British Museum)
Pediment sculpture
Centuaromachy
Temple of Zeus at Olympia
Classical Architecture: Temple of Zeus Plan
Pediment of Zeus
Olympios
Urban Landscape of Zeus at Olympia
The Pythian oracle at Delphi
The Treasury at Delphi
Snake Victory
Monument
Thucydides & the Peloponnesian Wars
Allies and Allegiances in the second half of the 5th century BC
The Archidamian War, 431421
Naupactus
Corcyra
(Korfu)
Plataea
431: The Thebans take Plataea
Demosthenes Victory at Sphakteria
425 BC
Sicily, 415-413
Battle at Syracuse 415-413 BC
Alscibiades (from the Capitoline Musuem)
Tissaphernes
Thuc. VIII.6
The King had lately called upon him for the tribute from his government, for which
he was in arrears, being unable to raise it from the Hellenic towns by reason of the
Athenians; and he therefore calculated that by weakening the Athenians he should
get the tribute better paid, and should also draw the Lacedaemonians into alliance
with the King; and by this means, as the King had commanded him, take alive or
dead Amorges, the bastard son of Pissuthnes, who was in rebellion on the coast
of Caria.