Both these royal deaths far from home tellingly illustrate how Sparta’s involvement in the world of power-politics inevitably entailed a need for money, especially once the loss of Messenia and disintegration of her alliance after Leuktra left her isolated in the Peloponnese. Internally, however, Sparta remained much less monetarized than many poleis; even if recent scholarship (Hodkinson 2000) has demonstrated a disparity between the ideological construction of Spartan austerity and the realities of Spartan life, the retention of an iron currency and the institution of xenelasiai, periodic expulsions of foreigners, reflect a society only partially open to the wider world, at least below the level of the elite. By contrast, domestically Athens displays an extraordinarily wide range of overseas contacts apparently little constrained by the ideological divide between Greek and barbarian. The boom in Athenian overseas trade and the growth of the Piraeus as a commercial centre which resulted from the rise of Athens as an imperial power in the fifth century connected the Athenians to most of the Mediterranean world, a development beautifully exemplified by a fragment of the comic poet Hermippos (F 63 Kassel & Austin) from the early years of the Peloponnesian War, which is worth quoting in full:
Tell me now, Muses who have your home on Olympos, since Dionysos has been sailing over the wine-dark sea, how many good things he has brought here for men in his black ship. From Kyrene silphium and ox-hide, from the Hellespont mackerel and all kinds of dried fish, and from Thessaly coarse salt and sides of beef; from Sitalkes a plague for the Spartans, and from Perdikkas many shiploads of lies. Syracuse supplies pork and cheese...[1 or more lines missing] and may Poseidon obliterate the Kerkyreans in their hollow ships, because their heart is divided [i. e. they are duplicitous]. These goods [come] from there, and from Egypt rigging and papyrus, and from Syria incense. Beautiful Crete sends cypress-wood for the gods, Libya offers abundant ivory for sale, Rhodes raisins and dried figs which bring sweet dreams. Then from Euboia come pears and fat sheep, slaves from Phrygia, mercenaries from Arkadia. Pagasai provides slaves and branded runaways. Paphlagonia supplies Zeus’s acorns [filberts] and shining almonds, ornaments of the feast, Phoenicia dates and fine wheat flour, Carthage carpets and embroidered cushions.
The capacity of trade, especially in the exotic and luxurious, to cut across ideology extended even to Persian goods such as dress and the accoutrements of parasol, fan and fly-whisk, which clearly appealed to the Athenian elite, perhaps with the allure of forbidden fruit (one might perhaps compare the appeal of the Havana cigar to Americans, or Leonid Brezhnev’s collection of American cars). To a great extent this was a matter of individual indulgence among the wealthy, though pottery imitations of Persian metal drinking vessels certainly extended the social range of those following Persian fashions, and the Periklean Odeon may have been an attempt to appropriate Persian royal architecture for imperial Athens at large (see Miller 1997 for the whole phenomenon). Certainly in the fifth century Thucydides could make Perikles present the central place of the Piraeus in Mediterranean trade as a benefit of empire for Athens (Thuc. 2.38); it is a sign of the changed circumstances of the fourth century when Isokrates lauds it as a benefit for all Greece (4.42). Some realities persisted, however: Athens’ continued dependence on imported corn encouraged the continued cultivation of the Spartokid rulers of the Crimean Bosporos (R&O 64), a good instance of the way in which her commercial and political interests could require her to deal with kings, the ideological antithesis of democracy. The problem was exacerbated when the essential link relied, as it often did, on a personal relationship, as when Andokides exploited his hereditary connection with the kings of Macedon to obtain oar-timber in the crisis of 411 (Andokides 2.11; in general: Mitchell 1997; Braund 2000). Such connections might also provide a refuge for Athenians in trouble, as Euagoras did for Konon and Andokides in Cyprus or the Bosporan kingdom for Lysias’ client Mantitheos (Lysias 16.4), and perhaps for Gylon, father of Demosthenes. Iphikrates even married into a Thracian royal family in a way that harks back to a time before the citizenship law of Perikles sought to make the citizen body a closed circle of privilege. Yet insofar as the law was effective, it did not cause Athens to become exclusive as a community: the fact that trade was very largely in the hands of metics must have meant that Athens was always highly cosmopolitan, and the gravestones of non-Athenians found in Attika in this period offer a sample of the origins of those who visited Athens or chose to settle there. Almost 350 monuments (some for more than one person), dating very largely from the fourth century, cite more than 130 ethnics from a host of Greek cities and as far afield as Bithynia, Bosporos, Pontos, Cyprus (and more specifically Kition, Kourion, Salamis and Soloi), Sidon, Lykia, Phaselis, Mysia, Kilikia, Paphlagonia, Macedon, Paionia, Epeiros, Thesprotia, Sicily, Syracuse, Gela, Italy, Rhegion, Thourioi, Egypt, Naukratis, Kyrene, and even one apiece from Media and Persia. In most cases, only a few individuals are concerned, but where there are a dozen or more (e. g., Ephesos, Herakleia, Thebes, Miletos, Olynthos), one is tempted to think of an expatriate community like the Cypriot merchants from Kition (six tombstones) to whom the Athenians granted land in 333 on which to build a temple of Aphrodite (R&O 91 - the inscription also makes passing reference to a similar grant to Egyptians for a temple of Isis). Such windows on the experience of individuals remind us that relations between individual citizens were always more varied and complex than those between the states which they composed, and that to speak simply in terms of the latter is to obscure much of the subtlety and ambiguity of the topic.
Further reading
Adcock, F., & D. J. Mosley (1975) Diplomacy in ancient Greece (London: Thames & Hudson) Andrewes, A. (1978) ‘Spartan imperialism?’ in: Garnsey, P. D. A., & C. R. Whittaker (eds) (1978) Imperialism in the ancient world (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 91-102 Badian, E. (1995) ‘The ghost of empire: reflections on Athenian foreign policy in the fourth century bc’ in: Eder, W. (ed.) (1995) Die AthenischeDemokratie im 4 Jhdt. v. Chr. (Stuttgart: Steiner) 79-106
Cartledge, P. (1987) Agesilaos and the crisis of Sparta (London: Duckworth)
Finley, M. I. (1978) ‘The fifth-century Athenian empire: a balance-sheet’ in: Garnsey, P. D. A., & C. R. Whittaker (eds) (1978) Imperialism in the ancient world (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 103-26
Griffith, G. T. (1978) ‘Athens in the fourth century’ in: Garnsey, P. D. A., & C. R. Whittaker (eds) (1978) Imperialism in the ancient world (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 127-44
Herman, G. (1987) Ritualised friendship and the Greek City (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Hornblower, S. (2002) The Greek world 479-323 bc (London: Routledge 32002)
Lewis, D. M. (1997) ‘The origins of the first Peloponnesian war’ in: Shrimpton, G. S., & D. J. McCargar (eds) (1981) Classical contributions: studies in honour of Malcolm Francis McGregor (Locust Valley NY: Augustin) 71-8 = Lewis, D. M. (1997) Selected papers in Greek and near eastern history (ed. P. J. Rhodes) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 9-21 Tritle, L. A. (ed.) (1997) The Greek world in the fourth century (London: Routledge)
Two general volumes which give proper weight to the regional perspective are Hornblower (2002) and Tritle (1997). For the broad narrative, the relevant chapters below will provide pointers for further reading, though discussion of foreign policy, especially for Athens, tends to centre on the hegemonic leagues. A broader survey of Spartan foreign policy is provided by Lewis (1977) and Cartledge (1987, especially chapters 6, 11, 13); Athens is less well served, but Lewis (1981 = 1997) illuminates the mid fifth century, highlighting the role of Korinth, while Badian (1995) argues that her ambitions and actions in the fourth century were haunted by the lost empire of the fifth. Whether either should be considered truly imperialistic is discussed by Andrewes (1978), Finley (1978) and Griffith (1978). On diplomacy, Adcock & Mosley (1975) is still useful, but to be supplemented by the more recent studies by Herman (1987) and Mitchell (1997), which highlight the importance and implications of personal connections. J. Hall (1997) is the best starting-point for concepts and uses made of ethnicity.
Bibliography
Alty, J. H. M. (1982) ‘Dorians and lonians’ in: JHS 102: 1-14
Braund, D. (2000) ‘Friends and foes: monarchs and monarchy in fifth-century Athenian democracy’ in: Brock, R., & S. Hodkinson (eds) (2000) Alternatives to Athens (Oxford: Oxford University Press) 103-18
Csapo, E., & W. J. Slater (1995) The context of ancient drama (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press)
Figueira, T. J. (1991) Athens and Aegina in the age of imperial colonization (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press)
Fowler, R. L. (1998) ‘Genealogical thinking, Hesiod’s Catalogue and the creation of the Hellenes’ in: PCPhS 44: 1-19
Hall, E. (1989) Inventing the barbarian: Greek self-definition through tragedy (Oxford: Clarendon) (Oxford Classical Monographs)
Hall, J. M. (1997) Ethnic identity in Greek antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Harrell, S. (2002) ‘King or private citizen: fifth-century Sicilian tyrants at Olympia and Delphi’ in: Mnemosyne 55: 439-64
Hodkinson, S. (2000) Property and wealth in classical Sparta (London: Duckworth & The Classical Press of Wales)
Holladay, A. J. (1986) ‘The detente of Kallias?’ in: Historia 35: 503-7
Jones, C. P. (1999) Kinship diplomacy in the ancient world (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press)
Lewis, D. M. (1977) Sparta and Persia (Leiden: Brill) (Cincinnati Classical Studies 2.1)
Malkin, I. (1994) Myth and territory in the Spartan Mediterranean (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Miller, M. C. (1997) Athens and Persia in the fifth century b. c.: a study in cultural receptivity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Mitchell, L. G. (1997) Greeks bearing gifts: the public use of private relationships in the Greek world, 435-323 bc (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press)
Osborne, R. (1998) ‘Early Greek colonisation?: the nature of Greek settlement in the west’ in: Fisher, N., & H. van Wees (eds) (1998) Archaic Greece: new approaches and new evidence (London: Duckworth & The Classical Press ofWales) 251-69
Siewert, P. (1977) ‘The ephebic oath in fifth-century Athens’ in: JHS 97: 102-11
Taplin, O. (1999) ‘Spreading the word through performance’ in: Goldhill, S., & R. Osborne (eds) (1999) Performance culture and Athenian democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) 33-57
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