Greece preserved its independence from Asia, allowing Athenian civilization to flower.
Date: 499-449 b. c.e.
Category: Wars and battles Locale: Greece
Summary War between the independent Greek states and the growing Persian Empire was perhaps inevitable because Persia wished to expand its empire into Europe. The Ionian Greeks of the eastern Aegean, conquered in the first half century of the sixth century b. c.e. by Cyrus the Great, rebelled in 499 b. c.e. and enlisted Athens and Eretria as allies. In a swift raid inland, the Athenians burned Sardis (498 b. c.e.), a Persian provincial capital. Darius the Great demanded from Greece “earth and water” as symbols of submission. In 495 b. c.e., Persia sacked Miletus, the most important Greek city in Asia. The psychological effect of the loss of Miletus was immense and perhaps inspired the independent Greeks to cooperate against Persia. The Persian expeditionary force took Eretria and expelled its population to Persia. When, with help from only Plataea, Athens defeated the Persian army at Marathon (490 b. c.e.), Darius determined to return with a much larger force.
Rebellions in Egypt and Babylonia distracted Persia from executing an immediate assault on Greece, as did Darius’s death in 486 b. c.e. In 481 b. c.e., his successor, Xerxes I, organized a large attack on Greece. After building a pontoon bridge over the Hellespont, he led an immense land force into Europe and also sent a huge fleet.
Athens was led by Themistocles, who had persuaded Athens to use new wealth from its silver mines at Laurium to construct a fleet of warships. An indecisive naval battle at Artemesium (480 b. c.e.) showed that although Persia might have a vast number of ships, it lacked the skill to use them effectively. At the Battle of Thermopylae, a small band of Spartans under King Leonidas retarded the advance of the Persian infantry. However, in a
Major Greek Battles Against Darius and Xerxes,
490-479 b. c.e.
Decisive naval battle at Salamis, the Greeks destroyed most of the Persian fleet and forced the remnant to withdraw to Asia. A final land battle in Greece, the Battle of Plataea (479 b. c.e.), ended the hopes of Persia for victory in Europe, and a final Persian naval defeat at Mycale foreshadowed the dominance of the Athenian navy.
Significance Fear of another attack from Persia dominated Greek politics for the next half century. Athens organized the Delian League to protect the island states. In 466 b. c.e., Athens won the Battle of Eurymedon,
Liberating the remaining Asiatic Greeks from Persia. The relative amity among the Greek cities, a result of their fear of the common enemy Persia, lasted until a general peace with Persia was negotiated by Callias in 449 b. c.e.
In the fifty years following the war, a period celebrated as the Pente-contaetia, democracy, tragedy, comedy, rhetoric, history, philosophy, and medical science all came into their own. Had Greece succumbed to Persia, it is doubtful that any of these accomplishments would have occurred.
Further Reading
Belcer, Jack Martin. The Persian Conquest of the Greeks. Konstanz, Germany: Universitatsverlag Konstanz, 1995.
De Souza, Philip. The Greek and Persian Wars, 499-386 B. C. New York: Routledge, 2003.
Lazenby, John Francis. The Defence of Greece, 490-479 B. C. Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips, 1993.
Sekunda, Nicholas. Marathon, 490 B. C.: The First Persian Invasion of Greece. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2005.
Wallinga, H. T. Xerxes’ Greek Adventure: The Naval Perspective. Boston: Brill, 2005.
James A. Arieti
See also: Athenian Empire; Athens; Marathon, Battle of; Military History of Athens; Plataea, Battle of; Salamis, Battle of; Themistocles; Thermopylae, Battle of; Xerxes I.
This collection of poetry spanning more than one thousand years records in minute detail the life and spirit of the Greek world.
Date: Fourth or fifth century b. c.e.-tenth century c. e.
Also known as: Palatine Anthology Category: Literature; poetry
Summary The Greek Anthology is a collection of about 4,500 short Greek poems in a variety of meters written by hundreds of different authors. The earliest poems contained in the Anthology were probably composed in the fourth or fifth century b. c.e., while the latest date from the tenth century c. e. Included among these poems are some of the finest examples of poetic expression in the Greek language, quite a few that shed light on the Greek character and experience in antiquity, and some that are of little literary interest. Best understood as a collection of collections, the contents of the Anthology are known to modern readers primarily through one manuscript found in the Palatine Library in Heidelberg, hence known as the Palatine manuscript. The Palatine manuscript, based upon a collection of poems by the Byzantine scholar Constantine Cephalas, was unknown to modern classical scholars until 1606. Since that time, papyri have provided further evidence for some poems. Additionally, poems quoted in other sources have helped textual critics to establish the text with increasing certainty.
The title Anthology or Greek Anthology usually refers to the contents of the Palatine manuscript with the addition of the Planudean Anthology, which was completed in 1301 by Maximus Planudes, a Christian scholar and monk. Also based upon Cephalas’s work, the Planudean Anthology contains poems not included in the Palatine manuscript. Unfortunately, Planudes altered many of the poems from their form in Cephalas’s work to accord with his tastes and style. The poems in the Planudean Anthology that are not found in the Palatine manuscript are appended after the fifteen
Books of the Anthology and occupy the position of a sixteenth book, by which name they are often called.
The fifteen books of the Anthology (the name comes from the Greek for “bouquet of flowers”) are arranged by theme, such as epitaphs in book 7 and moral poems in book 10. Of these, the fourth book provides the most insight into the history of the collection, for it contains the prefaces to three of the earlier collections (those of Meleager, Philippus, and Agathias) from which Cephalus made his collection at the start of the tenth century c. e. The earliest collection was that of Meleager of Gadara, which dates from the first century b. c.e. Meleager calls each of the authors in his collection by the name of a flower and so names the whole of the collection a “crown” (of flowers). The poems from Meleager’s original “crown” are preserved in several books of the Anthology as it is known today, especially books 5 through 7. In the middle of the first century c. e., Philippus of Thessalonica added poems of more recent date to this collection, arranging them by the first letter of the first word of each poem. Then, in the mid-sixth century, Agathias “Scholasticus” from Myrina, a lawyer in Constantinople, arranged poems, mainly composed by the intellectual elite of Constantinople, into a “circle” or “cycle” that subsequently became part of the Anthology.
Groups of poems collected by Meleager, Philippus, Agathias, and Cephalus himself are woven together in the Anthology. Additionally, other poems came into the Anthology from a variety of other collections and sources. Most prominent of these are the additions of Straton of Sardis (many of whose poems appear in books 11 and 12), Diogenianus, and St. Gregory the Theologian (book 8).
Significance One of the world’s greatest literary treasures, the Greek Anthology is filled with priceless insights into the daily life, concerns, and the philosophical views of the eastern Mediterranean world in antiquity.
Further Reading
Cameron, Alan. The Greek Anthology: From Meleager to Planudes. New York: Oxford Univesity Press, 1993.
Gow, A. S. F., and D. L. Page. The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1965.
Hadas, Moses. A History of Greek Literature. New York: Columbia University Press, 1950.
Paton, W. R., trans. The Greek Anthology. 5 vols. Reprint. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993.
Wells S. Hansen
See also: Bucolic Poetry; Elegiac Poetry; Iambic Poetry; Literature; Lyric Poetry; Meleager of Gadara.
World History
