Thucydides writes that the “truest cause” of the great war between Athens and Sparta was “the growth of Athenian power and the fear which this caused in Sparta” (Thuc. I 23). His judgment in the matter has impressed modern scholars since he uses genuinely historical analysis in seeking the roots of the war deep in the past. Evaluating Thucydides’ judgment, however, causes difficulties - how, after two and a half millennia, can one estimate to what degree fear determined Sparta’s politics? Athenian power is a different matter; and here one can
The contemporary playwright Aristophanes, on the other hand, saw Pericles’ difficulties in Athenian politics (Peace, 603-611) and his personal involvement in a dispute with Megara (allegedly Megarians had kidnapped two prostitutes owned by Aspasia, Pericles’ influential mistress [Ach. 515-539]) as the causes of the war. The late fourth-century BC historian Ephorus found this general view more convincing than Thucydides’ and, quoting various passages from Aristophanes, elaborated on them (while deleting the material regarding Aspasia and the prostitutes). According to Ephorus, Pericles drove Athens into war simply to escape from political problems (his enemies’ prosecution of his friends; a looming audit of his accounts which was likely to show misuse of funds) because he felt that in wartime the Athenians would focus on his competence - as opposed to worrying about details in a financial audit (Ephorus, BNJ 70, Fr. 196). Even if most scholars have looked down on Ephorus’ discussion, one needs to remember that enough modern leaders have sought through sabre-rattling to distract public attention from their domestic difficulties. His contemporary Aristophanes would have placed Pericles among them.
Finally, Thucydides includes a long discussion of disputes which diplomatic negotiations failed to resolve and which - in his view: proximately - led to the outbreak of the war. This discussion, interestingly, shows how much influence on events second-tier states such as Corinth could have and in the end calls into question the accuracy of conventional presentations of Greece as polarized between the two “superpowers” Athens and Sparta. Despite Thucydides, one could suggest that the war’s ultimate causes lay in disputes away from Athens and Sparta.
The spark which would kindle the war came from civil strife between democrats and oligarchs (see Box 13.1) in Epidamnus, a Corcyraean colony on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. The losers in this conflict, the oligarchs, had gone into exile and made common cause with non-Greek peoples living in the interior. Together they made an attack on Epidamnus, which did what any Greek colony did when it felt itself threatened: it appealed to its mother-city for aid (Thuc. I 24; see also chap. 5). The Corcyraeans, however, turned the Epidamnians down - Thucydides does not explain why, but perhaps the Cor-cyraeans had been backing the exiled oligarchic party in the Epidamnian civil war. An oligarchy governed Corcyra at the time (Thuc. III 72), and the exiled Epidamnian oligarchs and the Corcyraeans did fight side by side later on (Thuc. I 26). Corcyra was itself a colony of Corinth’s; and in accordance with ancient custom, as Thucydides says, the oecist of Epidamnus had actually come from Corinth (Thuc. I 25 - see also chap. 5). So, from a certain point of view, Epi-damnus was a Corinthian colony. Accordingly, Epidamnus appealed next to Corinth. Corinth always took its responsibilities as a mother-city seriously (cf. its aid to Syracuse in the 344 - see chap. 17) and promptly sent aid to Epidam-nus; settlers from Corinth and two Corinthian colonies on the Ionian Sea, Ambracia and Leucas, went overland to Epidamnus by way of yet another Corinthian colony, Apollonia (Thuc. I 26).
Box 13.1 Oligarchy
Although the Greek form of government most often discussed is democracy (i. e., "rule by the people"), the most common form of government at any point in time during the classical period was probably the much less discussed oligarchy - "rule by a few." Oligarchies could be defined officially by the number of people who held political rights. Thus, the four oligarchies which governed Athens in the last years of the fifth century were known as the "400," the "5,000" (both in 411-410 - see chap. 14), the "30," and the "3,000" (both just after the Peloponnesian War ended - see chap. 15). Often enough, however, no number was specified. The government of Sparta may justly be deemed an oligarchy since adult male Spartiates, who in 479 made up about a ninth of the adult male population overall (Hdt. IX 28), reserved political rights for themselves. Yet there never was a set number of Spartiates.
Even when a number was specified, it could be an approximation. Thus, membership in the "5,000" in Athens depended on ownership of hoplite arms (Thuc. VIII 97; [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 33). But the registrar charged with enrolling those who had them later on claimed to have enrolled a full 9,000: [Lysias], XX 13). In other words, a specific criterion - ownership of hoplite arms - determined the issue.
Two constitutional features characterized an oligarchy: absence of pay for office and the use of elections to fill office. Absence of pay appears with the "5,000" in Athens (Thuc. VIII 97). In an oligarchy the holding of office was the preserve of those with substantial means. Elections - and not the lot - were the rule in Sparta (Arist., Pol. 1265b and 1271a). Elections, too, favored the wealthy since they alone possessed the means to organize and to canvass for votes.
The sources repeatedly speak of civil conflict between oligarchic and democratic factions in various cities (see, e. g., Thuc. III 69-85 - the long and justly famous description of the civil war between oligarchs and democrats on Corcyra in 427); and such strife was so common that normally no details needed to be given - the author simply expected his readers to understand. Thus Thucydides mentions not one single constitutional detail in his account of the conflict.
Even if the sources routinely present such conflict as clear-cut, often enough a given constitution was a "blend" of democratic and oligarchic elements on a broad spectrum, the difference between a democracy and an oligarchy residing in the position at which a given constitution sat on that spectrum. Thus in the constitution of the Boeotian League before 386 bc, arrangements are made for the pay of the councilmen (democratic), but not for the highest-ranking officials, the Boeotarchs, who were presumably unpaid (oligarchic) (Hellenica Oxyrhynchia, XVI 3, BNJ 66). Assuming that [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 30 describes the constitution of the "5,000" in Athens, then in this government the higher offices were filled by election (oligarchic), but the lot was used for the lower ones (democratic). Even the Athenian "democracy" contained oligarchic elements: the generals were elected, and the archonship was the preserve of the three wealthiest classes.
The participation of three Corinthian colonies in this venture emphasizes, first, the location of all these events within a Corinthian colonial “sphere of influence” - away from Athens and Sparta. Second, it shows the spectrum of relations between states within that area. Corinth and its colony Corcyra had a strained and difficult history - Corcyra had been founded in the time of the Bacchiads, the other colonies in the time of the tyrants who envisaged their colonies as having closer links to the mother-city (on all this, see chap. 5). When Corinth responded to Epidamnus’ appeal, Corcyra reacted badly and Thucydides actually states that one of the Corinthians’ chief motives in aiding Epidamnus was hatred of the Corcyraeans (Thuc. I 25). The historical bad blood between Corinth and Corcyra soon boiled over into open war. Corcyra possessed a larger fleet than Corinth (120 triremes to 30 - Thuc. I 25 and 27), so the Corinthians organized a combined fleet to which Megara, Epidaurus, Hermione, Troezen, Leucas, Ambracia, and Pale on the island of Cephallenia contributed a total of 38 ships with additional funds coming from Thebes, Phleius, and Elis (Thuc. I 27). Corinth managed this impressive alliance on its own and without any recourse to Sparta. Unfortunately for Corinth, the Cor-cyraeans easily defeated this hastily cobbled together fleet and, in a separate action, captured Epidamnus itself (Thuc. I 29).
The Corinthians now redoubled their efforts. They built new ships for a total of ninety; and their allies contributed even more ships than the last time. The new combined fleet would reach 150 ships in all (Thuc. I 46). The Corcyraeans, in alarm at the preparations in Corinth, sought an alliance with Athens (Thuc. I 31). At this point events which had been taking place entirely within Corinth’s sizable colonial “sphere of influence” intruded into the affairs of one of Greece’s two alleged “superpowers.”
The Athenians could have let the Corcyraeans and Corinthians sort out their own problems, but made an alliance with Corcyra instead. The Thirty Years’ Peace (see chap. 12) self-evidently allowed either Sparta or Athens to make an alliance with a state which hitherto had been neutral, and advantages of an alliance with Corcyra were obvious: it had a sizable fleet (some 110 triremes at this point - Thuc. I 47) and lay at a strategic point on the trade-route which led from Greece to Italy (Thuc. I 44; see chap. 5). The disadvantage of such an alliance was a breakdown in relations between Athens and Corinth, and this the Athenians accepted.
In the ensuing sea battle, near an island group called Sybota, the combined fleet of Corinth and its allies fought the Corcyraean fleet, supported by an Athenian contingent, to an effective draw. However, the Corinthians did capture a fair number of influential Corcyraeans and held them as hostages (Thuc. I 48-55). Thereafter hostilities between Corinth and Corcyra died down; the hostages would later return to Corcyra and agitate for the nullification of Cor-cyra’s alliance with Athens (Thuc. III 70). Indeed Athens never had much benefit from that alliance since civil war - between democrats supported by Athens and oligarchs supported by Corinth - was soon roiling Corcyra (Thuc.
III 70-85). But the disadvantage of the alliance - hostility between Corinth and Athens - would linger.
The Athenians took the next step in aggravating that hostility. Up until now, the Athenians had allowed the city of Potidaea - a small Corinthian colony on Pallene, the westernmost of the Chalcidice’s three prongs - a fair degree of autonomy, especially as regards the practice of receiving its annual magistrates from its mother-city Corinth. This, the Athenians now demanded, had to cease (Thuc. I 56). The Potidaeans, with full backing from Corinth, refused. Meanwhile the Corinthians and Perdiccas II, the Macedonian king, entered into negotiations which involved other Athenian allies in the Chalcidice as well. The result was a full-blown revolt on the Chalcidice against Athens (Thuc. I 57-60). Corinth actually sent troops to Potidaea to assist the Potidaeans in their revolt. Corinth was going head-to-head with Athens in the northern Aegean. Moreover Corinth, keen to make matters worse for Athens, sent ambassadors to Sparta to argue that the Athenians were in violation of the Thirty Years’ Peace (Thuc. I 67), thus drawing Sparta into the conflict.
The long, tortuous chain which leads from a civil war in Epidamnus to a conflict between Athens and Sparta demonstrates just how unlikely an event the Peloponnesian War really was. Slightly different decisions at any point, such as an Athenian refusal to make an alliance with Corcyra, or slightly different outcomes, such as a Corinthian victory in the initial encounter with the Cor-cyraeans, in all likelihood would have kept the chain from ever reaching as far as Sparta. If Corinth - which on any interpretation emerges as a fiercely independent state with interests and policies fully its own and with an iron will to implement those policies - had not approached Sparta, the conflict might have remained one between an Athenian alliance and a Corinthian one. And Corinth’s ability to go up against Athens shows, finally, how heavily qualified a status as “superpower” Athens had.
In 432, then, the Corinthians succeeded in persuading the Lacedaemonians to vote that the Athenians had, prima facie, violated the Thirty Years’ Peace treaty: the exact wording of the motion ran “that the treaty had been broken and that the Athenians were in the wrong” (Thuc. I 87). The ThirtyYears’ Treaty under such circumstances enjoined “arbitration,” but Thucydides never states what “arbitration” entailed concretely (see Box 12.2).
The first Lacedaemonian embassy soon went to Athens. In accordance with Greek diplomatic protocol, it simply sought to gain the moral high ground for Sparta by asserting that Athens was guilty of religious impropriety. The Athenians countered this by calling attention to corresponding Lacedaemonian sacrileges (Thuc. I 126-138). This over, the negotiations on the substantive issues could begin. Embassies from Sparta traveled back and forth to Athens (Thuc. I 126 and 139) and focused on three demands: that the Athenians lift the siege of Potidaea (alleged violation of the treaty’s autonomy clause - see Box 12.2); that the Athenians grant Aegina autonomy; and that the Athenians rescind the second Megarian decree (alleged violation of the treaty’s free-access clause - see Box 12.2). During the negotiations the Lacedaemonians backed down from the first two demands, but insisted on the third. The Athenians, however, remained unyielding (Thuc. I 139; Aristoph. Ach. 538). Pericles, in particular, was adamant, and he bore the chief responsibility for the Athenians’ refusal to rescind the Megarian decree (see esp. Plut. Per. 31). Frustrated by the Athenians’ absolute inflexibility, the Lacedaemonians sent one last embassy which merely delivered an ultimatum designed to be unacceptable (Thuc. I 139). In the next spring, the war began.
World History
