On the basis of these considerations we can also determine the chronological boundaries of the Classical Period, for which I would like to set different dates from the ones separating the ‘Blackwell Companion’ volumes on the Archaic and Classical Ages. The military conflict between the Greeks and the Persian empire began with the Ionian revolt, 499-494 (Murray 1988). The first direct attack on the Greek mainland occurred in 490: the Persians were defeated in the battle of Marathon by the Athenians and the Plataians. The Persian wars reached their climax in the invasion of the Great King, Xerxes, but he was decisively defeated in the naval battle of Salamis in 480 (Strauss 2004). In 479 the Persian army was defeated in the land battle at Plataiai, and driven out of Greece (Lazenby 1993; Green 1996). At the same time, the Persian wars formed the catalyst for Athens’ rise to become a great power. As rowers, it was broad sectors of the poorer population that made possible the victory of the Greek ships. As a consequence, they gained self-confidence and an interest in politics. to Athens’ position as a great power, there were now substantially more things to discuss and decide in the Athenian assembly: politics became much more important and much more interesting than hitherto. These were the reasons why the citizen-state of Athens, whose intellectual founder was Solon and institutional creator was Kleisthenes, could now, within a short time, become an egalitarian democracy - thanks to intensive participation on the part of virtually every citizen. Consequently, there are many grounds for regarding the sixth and fifth centuries as a unit, at least in the case of Athens (Stahl 2003a: 228-66; 2003b: 13-63; for a summary of Archaic Athens, Stahl & Walter (forthcoming)). Apart from this, there was much afoot in Greece at the latest by the time of the Persian wars, but in fact already in the previous decade, as is also attested by a decisive break in sculpture: the Critian Boy (Figure 1.2) dates from before the great Persian War of 480/79.
The battle of Chaironeia in 338, in which a coalition led by Athens and Thebes was crushed by the Macedonian king, Philip II, is a reasonable date for the lower limit of the Classical Period. The Hellenistic Period began with the conquest of Asia by Philip’s son, Alexander III (beginning in 334). George Grote’s arguments for placing the break at this point in his monumental History of Greece (1846-56) have therefore not been superseded:
Even in 334 b. c., when Alexander first entered upon his Asiatic campaigns, the Grecian cities, great as well as small, had been robbed of all their free agency, and existed only as appendages of the kingdom of Macedonia. Several of them were occupied by Macedonian garrisons, or governed by local despots who leaned upon such armed force for support. There existed among them no common idea or public sentiment, formally proclaimed and acted on, except such as it suited Alexander’s purpose to encourage. The miso-Persian sentiment - once a genuine expression of Hellenic patriotism... - had been converted by Alexander to his own purposes, as a pretext for headship, and a help for ensuring submission during his absence in Asia. (Grote 1907, vol. 12: 199)
By comparison, the subdivisions within the Classical Period are less controversial. The Persian wars (499 or 490-479) were followed by the Pentekontaetia (the period of ‘fifty years’ between the two great wars, i. e., 478-431) (Badian 1993). The Pentekontaetia was followed by the Peloponnesian War (431-404). The fourth century was characterized by attempts on the part of various Greek states to establish or re-establish separate hegemonies, by renewed Persian influence on Greek affairs, and by the rise of Macedonia as the dominating power (cf. Tritle 1997; Buckler 2003). The major turning points in the political culture of democratic Athens are disputed. Did the so-called fall of Kimon and the reforms of Ephialtes in 462/1 constitute a revolution that resulted in radical democracy (Stahl 2003b: 64-86; bibliography Boedeker & Raaflaub 1998: 349 n. 36)? Was Athenian fourth-century democracy qualitatively different from that of the fifth century, as a consequence of both the changes in its laws and constitution, and because it could no longer call on the imperial resources of its first (the ‘Delian’) naval alliance (bibliography Boedeker & Raaflaub 1998: 345 n. 4)?
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