Peace and Conflict

• Peace and Conflict 446-431
• Revolt of Samos in 440
• Revolt of Samos

  • Samos vs Miletus
  • Samos stronger
  • Miletus get Athens help
  • Athens replaces Samos’ democracy with a oligarchy and install a garrison
  • Samos use Persian help to remove the garrison
  • Athen eventually suppress Samos
• Thucydides; Miletus go to Athens for help with Samos: “The Milesians being put to the worst, came to Athenian exclaimed against the Samians”
• Plutarch; Samos surrender: “after eight months the Samians surrendered, and Pericles tore down their walls, took away their ships of war and laid a heavy fine upon them”
• Plutarch; Pericles‘ cruel treatment of the Samians: “Pericles had the Samian treitarchs and marines brought into the market place of Miletus and crucified”
• Epidamnus, Corcyra and Corinth 435
• Epidamnus asked Corcyra for help- they denied

  Epidamnus then asked Corinth for help-they agree

  Corcyra then ask Athens for help
• Thucydides; Corcyra asking Athens for help: “Corinth has attacked us first in. order to attack you afterwards“
• Thucydides; Corinth appeal to Athens to not get involved with Corcyra: “we were not one of those who voted against you“ “every power should have the right to control its own allies“
• Thucydides; Athens side with Corcyra defensively: “if anyone shoud invade Corcyra or Athens… they were then mutually to assist one another“
• Thucydides; Corinth angry at Athens for getting involved with Corcyra: “the first cause that the Corinthians had of war against the Athenians“
• Revolt of Potidaea in 432
• Thucydides; Athens get Potidaea to take down the walls and give over hostages: “pull down part of that wall“ “give them hostages and no more receive the Epidemiguri”
• Thucydides; Athens are worried that Potidaea will revolt: “revolt and draw to revolt with them the other cconfederates in Thrace”
• Potidaea ask Sparta for help who agree. Corinth send an army but Spartan help never arrives. Athens besiege the city for 3 years.
• Thucydides; Athen annoyed at the Peloponnese for getting involved with Potidaea: “the Athenians quarrelled the Peloponnesians for causing their confederacy and tributary city to revolt”
• Megarian Decree in 432
• Thucydides; Megarian Decree: “they were excluded from all the ports in the Athenian empire“
• Plutarch; reason for the Megarian Deree: “it is not easy to discover what the original reason was for the proposal being accepted, but everyone blames Pericles for the fact that it was not overturned“
• Aristophanes; Megarian decree: “begining to die of hunger“ “for three gay women, Greece was set ablaze“
• Plutarch; Pericles at fault for the Megarian decree: “private grudge“
• Plutarch; Pericles’ reasoning for the Megarian decree: “appropriating to their own profane uses the sacred territory of Elesis”
• Thucydides; Pericles vouching for the necessity of war: “let none of you coneive that we shall go to war for a trifle“ “they (Sparta) prefer to settle their complaints by war rather than peaceful negotiation, and now they come here not even making protests, but trying to give us orders”
• Ambracian gulf late 430s
• Ambracian Gulf

  • Corinth supporting one side (Ambracia)
  • Athens supporting the other (Amphilochians & Acarnians)
  • makes it a proxy war
• The Corinthian Complaint 432: Cornith and other Peloponnesian states go to Sparta
• Thucydides; Corinth angry about Potidaea: “the Corinthians quarrelled the Athenians for besieging Potidaea and in it the men of Corinth and Peloponnessus“
• Thucydides; Corinth confronts Sparta: “one who had the power to prevent him, but did not use it… glorious reputation of having been the liberator of Hellas“
• Thucydides; Sparta only promises help and dont follow up: “defend others, not with your forces but with promises“
• Thucydides; Athens defend their empire instead of their actions: “we did not gain this empire by force. it came to us at a time when you were unwilling to fight on the to the end against the Persians“
• Thucydides; Athens about strength in Greece: “it has always been a rule that the week should be subjected to the strong“
• Thucydides; King Archidamus cautions Sparta against war with Athens: “unless we have the better of them in shipping or take from them their revenue whereby their navy is maintained, we shall do the most hurt to ourselves“
• Thucydides; Sparta wants to cause Athenian allies to revolt: “we can foster revolts among their allies- and thiis is the best means of depriving them of the revenues on which their strength depends“
• Thucydides; Sparta’s attitude towards being defeated by Athens: “defeat, terriblle as it may sound, could mean nothing else but total slavery“
• Thucydides; Sparta send a peace offer to Athens: “the war should not be made in the case they would abrogate the act concerning the Megarians” “the Lacedaemonians desire that there should be peace, which may be had its you will suffer the Grecians to be governed by their own laws“
• Aristophanes 

  • 427-386
  • athenian 
  • alive during peloponnesian war, plague 
  • political criticism 
  • made to win at festivals 
  • parodies political figures
• Plutarch 

  • Literary 
  • 45-120AD 
  • wealthy family 
  • priest at Delphi 
  • roman citizen 
  • comparison of lives 
  • biographies 
  • moralist 
  • relies on other sources 
  • “Chance remark or joke” 
  • “writing lives not history”
  • focus on personality 
• Thucydides

  • Literary 
  • 450-390 
  • Royal blood/upperclass 
  • athenian 
  • general/strategos 
  • monograph 
  • wanted his history to be useful for future generations 
• Chalkis decree 

  • Epigraphic