Sparta and Athens; The Cold War For Ancient Greece

Some of the most impactful wars in ancient Greek history were the Greco-Persian wars between the Greeks and the Persians and then right after the Peloponnesian war amongst the Greeks themselves. What I want to discuss today, however, is the period in between. I want to discuss the most prominent entities around ancient Greece right after the Greco-Persian war, discussing their governance structures, national characters, and geopolitical goals in the lead up to the Peloponnesian war without actually focusing on this Peloponnesian war. But to start off with, we need to quickly discuss the Greco-Persian wars, which set up the time period we will be discussing. So the Greco- Actually, you won't need to waste time doing that. Who are you? Yo, I'm XFRA in exile and I've just released a video about the roots and course of the first Greco-Persian war on my channel. Uh, okay. And where could they find your channel? The search bar. I mean, in the description, of course. Alright, very interesting. Go to the link in the description to find XFRA's video on the Greco-Persian war. He's an upcoming history YouTuber with a very nice distinct and comedic style of videos and I highly encourage you to check him out. But quick, before you go, can you explain the Greco-Persian war in like, two sentences? Make it three. Around 550 BC, the Achaemenid Persians conquered some Greek city-states in Asia Minor, which rebelled 50 years later and were crushed. Persia then chose to just conquer all of Greece to punish them but were promptly kicked out. And now the Greeks need to find out where to go from here. Thank you very much and I hope to see you later. So yeah, the Greco-Persian wars had seen the Greeks invaded by the Persians twice. The traditional great power of Greece and the city-state with the manliest men on the block, Sparta, had led the pan-Greek land armies to victory while the naval power of Athens had achieved naval supremacy over the Persians, devastating crucial Persian naval supply routes. This led Athens to get an insane boost of confidence and after the Persian wars ended, the Athenians began to assert themselves as a rival power to Sparta for the top spot among the Greek city-states. The power plays between these two powers would be the defining factor in the Greek world going forward. But who are these city-states? We all know the basics, but can we get more specific? Yes, we can. Let's begin with Sparta. We all know the basics of Sparta. Strong, masculine men who are great at fighting. But what's beneath the surface? The Spartan political system was absolutely fascinating. While we today drool at the idea that those enlightened Athenians had already invented democracy, this wasn't always the case. In ancient Greek times, many philosophers thought democracy was an overhyped concept, allowing for the arbitrary will of the masses to dominate and divide the nation. With many philosophers preferring oligarchies where, preferably, the philosophers were in charge, and many had a particular fondness towards the Spartan political system. This would continue in later times with many Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers being fascinated by the Spartan political system as much as, if not more so, than the Athenian one. So, what did the Spartan system look like? First off, Sparta was a monarchy. There were two kings in Sparta from two different royal lines, the Aegean and the Eurypontid. Both of these kings were, according to legend, descended from Heracles himself. These two kings were equal in power to each other to prevent Aether from becoming too powerful. In the time period we're discussing, however, these kings had lost most of their political power. The king's main roles were military as both kings commanded half of the Spartan army and the king also had some important religious functions. So, Sparta was a kingdom, but Sparta was also a democracy. That's right, all Spartan citizens could vote for the five ephors. These ephors were the executive power in Sparta and despite me portraying them as some nerds, these ephors were essentially the most powerful political force within Sparta. Their functions included keeping the kings in check and making sure that the decisions made by the legislature were followed. A powerful check on these ephors came in the form of them only having single-year terms with no option for re-election, meaning that any ephor abuse of power could be swiftly dealt with when their term ends. To add another institution, Sparta was also an oligarchy, with the gerousia, the council of elders, serving as the legislative branch of Sparta. This gerousia was made up of 30 men, two of which were the two kings and the other 28 were Spartan citizens over 60, elected by the Spartan citizenry. They thought up of law proposals which they would then present to the ecclesia, the final institution in the totally not complicated Spartan political system. This ecclesia was a body made up of the Spartan citizenry and here it's important to explore what that meant. Because in Sparta and in most other Greek cities, not every inhabitant was a citizen, as foreigners, slaves, children and females were prohibited from being a citizen, leaving only adult male Spartans as citizens. These citizens would thus make up the ecclesia, which would be presented with law options from the gerousia and they would have no opportunity to discuss, change, criticize or debate the options, only choose. Sparta was also very strict in shielding itself to foreign interference, especially their democratic elements, with the Spartan population being restricted from communication with the outside and foreign embassies only addressing the gerousia or the kings. The Spartan geopolitical situation is also very fascinating. The Spartans had a very peculiar way of fueling their masculine way of life. Have you ever wondered how the Spartans could manage to devote so much time towards being a perfect soldier? Well, it's quite simple. The average Spartan didn't really have to work in the way that most others at the time did. Why not? Because the Spartans had a very intense system of practically slavery. The Spartans, when they came to the island, had constructed their city in a very defensive location in the southern Peloponnese, carving out what would be the limits of Sparta proper. You may notice that Sparta, on all the other maps I've showed, is significantly larger than on this map. What gives? Well, Sparta did expand significantly more, encompassing the southern half of the Peloponnesian island, but these conquered territories weren't made apart of Sparta, instead becoming something like mass enslaved lands with the people becoming helots, the backbone of the Spartan agriculture in a self-fueling system. The helots would work the land and as such provide food for the Spartans. But because there were significantly more helots than there were Spartans, there was always fear and paranoia that the helots may just revolt. This meant that Sparta needed to be militarily powerful to ensure that they could always keep the helots down. Luckily, the Spartans could focus most of their efforts on their military as they didn't need to care much about their food supply, giving them the ability to train their citizens from a young age to be the perfect soldier. Across Greece, Sparta would build up a string of alliances. This entire string of alliances is often called the Peloponnesian League since that name contrasts nicely to the Athenian Delian League, but this name is a later invention and it was not at all used during ancient times. Despite this, I will still use it since branding wasn't invented yet in the ancient era and the only alternative contemporary name I could find was Delecamodemians and their allies, which just isn't as catchy. For that reason, I will keep using the name Peloponnesian League. The league itself is also much smaller than what you often see displayed, as maps like this count all Spartan allies as league members while in reality many Spartan allies lay outside of the league. The actual league is displayed here in pink as a collection of city-states on the Peloponnesian island. This was the core of the Spartan alliance, a league of city-states wherein Sparta was clearly the most powerful and important. Very interestingly, none of the league members technically had an alliance with the other members, they just all happened to be jointly allied to the Spartans. This string of Spartan alliances, both within the league and outside of it, was held together for two main reasons. The first reason is simple. Sparta holds the most powerful army in Greece, having them on your side in conflicts, kinda nice. The second reason is also simple. Sparta didn't like those pesty democrats in Athens so the elites of the oligarchic city-states could count on Spartan support against democratic revolts. But Sparta was not all-powerful within the league and by the time of the Peloponnesian war, the league worked like this. The Spartan ecclesia, so the Spartan citizenry, would decide amongst themselves about the Spartan stance on a certain war or peace. The Spartans would then inform the league about their decision and the league members would vote yes or no. If a majority was reached, all league members, even those who voted against the war, would put their army under Spartan control and join the war. This meant that the league was not necessarily just a Spartan tool for war. Especially this city-state, Corinth, had a habit of blocking Spartan plans. Corinth is this city-state marked in purple and it was located on a crucial spot blocking all entry in and out of the Peloponnesian island. Corinth would on multiple occasions manage to convince the league to vote against Spartan plans. Besides that, Sparta was a very religious society and telling the Spartans, oh no, sorry, we just had a bad omen, we won't come, has been known to work. That's a short recap of Sparta, the oligarchic land-based traditional great power of Greece. In opposition, we have the Athenians, the rising force in Greek politics. After the Greco-Persian wars, Athens would spread their influence far and wide across the Aegean sea, which makes sense considering their naval prowess. The Athenians would build themselves up as the protector of the Greek city-states against further Persian attacks, mainly by building up their navy to such insane levels to keep everybody safe. In this process, they created a massive sphere of influence, although a better name might be a massive empire, as we'll soon see. In this process, the Athenians made many powerful enemies, most notably Persia and Sparta. But who is Athens? Athens had an interesting political history, full of tyrants and oligarchies, but in the time period we're discussing, Athens had established their famous democracy. How does this democracy work though? Again, like with Sparta, only the free, adult male Athenians were considered citizens, and as a result, only about 10% of the up to 300,000 Athenians could actually participate in this democracy. This population base forms the core of the Athenian political system. Furthermore, Athens was divided into 10 tribes. Each of these tribes would, via lottery, send 50 citizens to the bull, creating 500 bulletae in total. These bulletae would have the responsibility to prepare laws and proposals which the ecclesia, the gathering of Athenian citizens, would then debate and vote on. Importantly, in contrast to the Spartan system, the Athenians could debate and change these proposals if they wanted to. The 500 bulletae essentially acted as the political class of the Athenians, and apart from preparing laws, there were many other jobs they filled. One of these was the committees of the council, which were responsible for hearing proposals from ordinary Athenian citizens. There were also the praetani, which would be made up of a rotating 50 bulletae from the same tribe. Among these praetani was the epistatus, chosen by lottery amongst the praetani, and this epistatus would for 24 hours act as a sort of head of state for Athens, guarding the keys to Athenian funds and documents, and receiving foreign ambassadors and messages. Then the bull have one more organization, which for the life of me I cannot pronounce. 9 prudra are elected by lottery from the 450 non-praetani bulletae. They would be the ones to actually prepare the proposals thought up by the bull to present to the ecclesia for the vote. They would also be the ones to lead the gatherings of the ecclesia and they would supervise and keep in check the other Athenian officials. So, that's the bull, essentially the political class of Athens. But the core of the Athenian politics are still the people who gathered in the ecclesia. Now, I tried to count the amount of people at this gathering, but I got distracted by this dog. From what I could count, however, it seems impossible that the up to 30.000 Athenian citizens could actually gather and discuss policy. Instead, the amount of people that you can expect at one of these gatherings hovered around 6.000 Athenians. And sometimes, the people participating are counted to ensure that there are no more than 6.000. This makes sense. Have you ever done a group project? Yeah, even with like 3-6 people, it's a drag. Now imagine a group project with 6.000 participants. It's incredibly impressive that the Athenians even managed to get a working, direct democracy with 6.000 participants, but at some point, it's just not practical to add more and more people. So, the bull would prepare laws which would then be debated on and voted on in a session of the ecclesia. There were no official parties or even politicians and everyone was free to speak, debate, and propose counter-proposals during the gathering, although, naturally, you would get figures which would come out to lead the conversations. There were also the archons, a leftover from the oligarchic days of Athens who now lacked any real political power. The military structure of Athens was also created with elections in mind as Athenian generals and those serving below them were all elected via the ecclesia as well. Much influence was also put into a type of judiciary, the heliaia. 6.000 citizens would become heliasts, chosen by lottery from a pool of volunteers. For each committed crime, a new jury from this pool of heliasts would be created. But perhaps the most interesting quirk from the Athenian system would come from their fear of a return of a tyrant. We don't know how often this was used exactly, but the Athenians had a system called ostracism, which would allow the Athenians to write a name on a piece of a jug and the person with the most votes would be expelled from the city. No reason had to be given and via this method, unwanted or too powerful Athenians could be expelled. Finally, while the Athenian system is incredibly impressive, it's important to note that while Athenian democracy is the most famous and influential, Athens was by no means the only democracy in Greece and depending on which historian you ask, hundreds to thousands of Greek city-states were at some point in their life-cycle democracies. Thanks to their immense wealth, Athens would become the center for the Greek arts, learning, and philosophy and many of the philosophers you've heard of probably came from Athens. This is somewhat ironic considering the mass criticism that many of these philosophers had of Athens in favour of Sparta. Situated here on the Attica plains, Athens was massively into both. They loved them. Athens sported an impressive trading network across the Mediterranean focusing on the Greek colonies founded across the ocean. This would also be the main source of Athenian wealth. Their main source of military power, likewise, originated from their massive fleet, number one across the Greek lands, managing to rival and defeat even the Persians in naval combat. During the Greco-Persian wars, Athens would start to levy this naval power to further Athenian interests, creating this Delian League as shown in blue. Much like the Peloponnesian League, this name was not actually in use during the time period. The name comes from this island of Delos, now shown in pink. You can't see it? Fine, I'll zoom in. On this island, the Delian League would, for a while, keep its treasury and it's where the League would meet up. The League would start as a military alliance against Persia with members paying for a common defence fund with which Athens could build more boats to protect everyone with. In contrast to the Spartan League, however, where Sparta was the hegemon but not all-powerful, Athens very quickly began to see the Delian League as an Athenian empire instead. The League treasury was moved from Delos to Athens and Athens began to use the money for other means, like building very pretty buildings, which greatly annoyed the other League members. This had essentially turned the Delian League into a series of alliances into a series of states paying tribute to the Athenians. This was made even worse by the fact that leaving was no longer an option. Out of the entire Delian League, only 4 city-states, one of which was Athens, still had their own navy. All the others had deferred their naval protection to Athens. Trying to leave the League would often result in Athens sailing up to your cities to force compliance. Athens and her empire would come into direct conflict with the Spartans during this struggle for power, as Sparta attempted to defend the status quo of oligarchic city-states, while Athens would attempt to assert more control, even robbing allies from the Spartans at times, and allying with city-states like Argos on the Peloponnesian island, antagonizing Sparta even further. These would be the two main sides in the upcoming war in Greece, Athens with their informal empire and Sparta as the informal hegemon of old. The third and final significant Greek city-states I want to discuss is Thebes, the city colored in yellow here. The Thebans were the leader in a Boethian confederation located in a crucial location in Greece, on the crossroads of any expansion over land. Due to their location, the Thebans had sided with the Persians during the Greco-Persian wars, leading to Thebes becoming relatively isolated for a little while as the other Greeks, mainly Sparta, were angered by the Theban betrayal. But once the Greco-Persian wars were decidedly over, the Thebans managed to recover in their standing, finding themselves allied with the Spartans. This alliance was very natural, Thebes was an oligarchy, which made them fall in favor with the Spartans, but perhaps more importantly, their location meant that Sparta had surrounded Athens, allowing the Spartans to raid into Athenian farmland. For Thebes itself, the alliance was built on a simple promise, they would be able to expand as a result of Athenian defeats. In this Greek game of power, Thebes would be a massive kickmaker, but it was after the Peloponnesian war, where Sparta had managed to defeat Athens, that Thebes really peaked in power. Sparta had, in the aftermath of the conflict, mishandled their geopolitical situation. They had failed to reward major allies like Thebes and had, through the expansion of their sphere, built up a massive coalition against them. Despite how it may look on the map, this war would be a where Sparta would lose much influence across Greece, but also, Thebes would be decimated. It would appear that all hope was lost for a Theban revival. But then, out of the blue, the Theban warband would manage to destroy the Spartans at the battle of Leuctria. This accidental Theban victory would shatter Spartan influence over Greece and set up Thebes as the next great power of Greece, eclipsing both Athens and Sparta in power. But, it's time to get some perspective. We have been hyper zoomed in on the Greeks, making them seem super large and influential. But here is the same map, but zoomed out a little bit more. Suddenly, the Greeks look quite tiny, they are barely large enough for me to even draw their internal borders. Now, let's insert the Persians and… yeah. Essentially, despite the very impressive Greek defences against the Persians, the Greeks were, at the end of the day, still a sideshow, a plaything for the Persians. After the Persians had been defeated in the Greco-Persian wars, they had largely given up on the idea of conquering Greece directly, but they hadn't given up on influencing Greece. After all, Persia was the largest empire the world had ever seen up to that point and they were quite bitter about their defeats. This would result in the Persians constantly interfering with Greece, sometimes directly, but most often by providing gold to the side that they wanted to win. The Peloponnesian war is often compared to the Cold War, one side with a coalition of willing allies fighting for the old world order, while the other is a rising power with a radical ideology and is a lot more hands on enforcing their will upon their allies. If this comparison is true, Persia is to Greece what our secret alien overlords are to us, not directly intervening, but still influencing all events. The Peloponnesian war would eventually be won by Sparta only after Persia provided them gold to build a navy with, for example. The Persian empire is also one of the most underrated empires of all time, at least in the western world. Before the rise of the Persians, the Assyrian empire was dominant in the middle east. This Assyrian empire would rule with a simple motto, if it isn't loyal, kill it. This Assyrian domination lasted for centuries, until it collapsed through internal revolt and external invasion. This post-Assyrian world order didn't last long, however, as this man, Cyrus the Great, would take charge of the Median empire, the green nation on the right there. From there, he would found the largest empire the world had ever seen. Because we in the west are influenced a lot by the Greeks, who considered the Persians the enemies, our common perception of the Persians is quite negative. The Greeks are the good democratic boys fighting for independence, while the Persians are the evil imperialists. This does a massive disservice to the Persian empire. The Persians were, in contrast to the Assyrians, extremely tolerant towards their conquered people. Self-rule was common and permitted, there was a large respect for other cultures and religions, and the emperor of the Persians took on not just the titles, but often the religious and cultural roles of the other monarchs he conquered. The Persian emperors didn't rule over Egypt as a Persian conqueror, but as an Egyptian pharaoh. The Persians also built out an impressive road network, had a standardized imperial language for administration, and were generally just quite chill rulers. Pay your taxes and you're good. This is also why quite a few Greek city-states joined the Persians during the war. If you were conquered by the Persians, you would be destroyed, but if you joined the Persians, you could keep self-rule and would even see your territory expanded. One of these states that sided with Persia was Macedonia, the final entity that I want to discuss. The Macedonians weren't a Greek city-state, but more like a pseudo-Greek kingdom. The Macedonians were Greek in many ways and considered themselves Greek, but other Greek city-states didn't recognize them as such. Before the Persian conquests, the Macedonian state was relatively weak, but thanks to their subjugation to the Persians, the Persians would influence them and give them a much stronger and more unified state. In the post-Greco-Persian war world, Macedonia would continue to consolidate their kingdom into a strong and cohesive whole, but still mostly remain on the sidelines of Greek politics. This would change when Philip II of Macedon would manage to take Macedonia to the next level. He would implement to great effects the phalanx, a highly effective military strategy where you would have lines of spearmen behind each other. Extremely deadly, but also extremely defensive with their shields and their walls of spears. To make things even better for Philip, this is the state he found Greece in, the post-Peloponnesian world where Athens and Sparta had collapsed and Thebes was now the most powerful state. Philip would first manage to subjugate Thrace, after which he could turn his attention south. In a series of battles, he would eventually manage to subjugate all of Greece under his control, all apart from Sparta. Philip would send an envoy to Sparta, demanding their subjugation, informing them, if we invade Laconia, I shall turn you out. Sparta, in a very chad move, simply responded with, if. While a very badass remark by the Spartans, Philip would put deeds to words and invade Sparta, devastating the Spartan lands and leaving it a shell of its former self. Under Philip's son, whose name I've accidentally forgotten, I'm sure he wasn't that important, Macedon would strike into and conquer the Persian empire. All of this only made possible by administrative reforms made, thanks to Persia, centuries ago. But, rewinding time to before we discussed Macedon and Thebes, this is the balance of power between the Greco-Persian war and the Peloponnesian war. An ambitious Thebes, seeking to expand their borders. A hegemonic Athens, controlling the seas and keeping their empire together with their powerful navy. A conservative Sparta, seeking to keep the old order of Olargese, led by, of course, themselves, intact. Then finally, the giant empire of Persia, their prestige hurt by previous defeats, still interested in keeping Greece divided and weak. The story of the Peloponnesian war will be for another time, but this is the status quo as it stands before the Peloponnesian war. With that, I will thank you all for watching. Consider checking out Extra and Exile's video, thumbnail on the screen now and link in the description below. If you enjoyed the content, consider subscribing and leaving a like and a comment to help out against the algorithm. A special thanks to Lord Atlantean, Yoshi, Jonathan White, Greyshot151, Alexander Brown, John, Przemek Petrotsky, Firelord Marklin, Dingleburg and Slayer for supporting me on Patreon. Consider supporting me there for 2 weeks of early access to videos and a shoutout at the end of every video. Again, thank you all for watching and goodbye!