Classical Principle Weekly
November 8, 2022
The Greek Revolution in Art, Science, Statecraft, and: THE MEANING OF THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE
While ancient Greece is often cited as the birthplace of Western civilization, we must clarify that there are older civilizations, such as those that existed in China, India, and Egypt, that pre-date Greek advances. Nevertheless, the role of the Greeks is critical and unique.
In this essay, we will look at the period spanning roughly one century—centered in 500 B.C.E. We shall find that military strategy, classical art, statecraft, and science all worked hand-in-hand, in an unprecedented way, to advance the cause of humanity. The battles of Marathon, Thermopylae (the 300 Spartans), and Salamis, are engraved in history, not only as military victories, but as great victories for human freedom.
THE PERSIAN WARS
Greek civilization, under the constitutional reforms of Solon (630 – 560 BC), was moving forward, but a huge problem arose. In 550 B.C., Cyrus the Great of Persia (600–530 BC) overthrew the Medes, and united several tribes to form the Persian, or Achaemenid Empire. It became the largest empire ever seen (Example 1 Map of Persian Empire), and is sometimes referred to as the world's first superpower. It established practices carried out by later global empires, such as the Roman and British. Because of its size, the Persian Empire encompassed many colonies of different languages and religions, and was obliged to tolerate them. The colonies were known as satrapies, and were ruled by appointed Satraps, who, as Viceroys, had the absolute authority of the Emperor invested in them. The satrapies were "tributaries", in that they paid "tribute" to the Emperor, both in the form of heavy taxation, and forced conscription into military service.
The Emperor was the sole sovereign authority, directly empowered by Heaven, as God's Viceroy. (ft 1)
Despite certain claims to human rights, monotheism, and multi-culturalism, the Persian Empire was a militaristic, slave society. Males were taken from their mothers from age 5 to 20 for military training, and could be conscripted until age 50 (the total size of the military is estimated at about 150,000 plus troops from the "tributaries"). Elite divisions of 10,000 were called “The Immortals”. Historian Herodotus writes of them at the Battle of Thermopylae:
“Of all the troops in Persian army, the native Persians (Immortals) were not only the best but also the most magnificently equipped; their dress and armor I have mentioned already, but I should add that every man glittered with the gold which he carried about his person in unlimited quantity. They were accompanied, moreover, by covered carriages full of their women and servants, all elaborately fitted out. Special food, separate from that of the rest of the army, was brought along for them on dromedaries and mules."
The Persians were brutal in their conquests. In countries they invaded, the cities were often sacked and burned, and most of the population deported to the Persian Gulf as slaves. Most territories just submitted to Persian demands for earth and water—meaning that the surrender to the Persians recognized the Persian authority over everything, including all rights to the land, and every product of the land. Even their lives belonged to the Persian King. Most became incorporated into the empire without a fight.
There was resistance from the Greeks though. The Ionian revolt lasted from about 499 B.C. to 493 B.C. What made that possible? We don’t know whether this affected all Greek states, but earlier, long before Democritus, the lawgiver Solon of Athens, in his 594 Constitution, legislated that all citizens participate in the Ekklesia (general assembly), and the Heliaia (court). That was revolutionary. It recognized not just the rights of the citizens, but also their duties. It started the process that saw every citizen's participation in public life as important and necessary. (Ft 2)
In 492-91 B.C., the Persians, in anger, sent emissaries to present surrender terms to the Greeks for their support of the Ionia during their revolt against the Persians.
The Spartans threw the Persian emissary down a well, and the Athenians did something similar. This led to the first invasion of Greece under "Darius the Great." A decisive battle took place at Marathon, about 25 miles outside of Athens in 490 B.C. Although badly outnumbered, Greek strategy enabled a stunning victory. Before Marathon, battlefield heroics were often characterized as the greatest warriors in one-on-one combat. However, Athenian soldiers, called Hoplites, were heavily armed, and locked themselves together in an impenetrable phalanx, enabling greater cohesion. (Example 2: Greek Hoplites in a Phalanx )
GREEK CULTURE AT THE TIME
1. At the time, Greek statuary consisted mostly of Egyptian-style Kouroi. They were meant to commemorate deceased individuals, but were very generic, and static: arms hanging straight, left foot slightly ahead, faint smile. (Examples 3, 4, and 5)
2. Not much is known about earlier Greek theater. It seems to have come out of the worship of Dionysius, and sometimes only allowed one speaking role on the stage at a time.
Great changes in art would occur during, and after the wars.
SALAMIS
The Persians withdrew after Marathon, but Darius' hot-headed son Xerxes, invaded again in 480 B.C. Two great battles occurred.
1. Thermopylae: 480 B.C. A handful of Spartan warriors held off the mighty Persian army at a narrow pass for days, and inflicted great damage on them, buying time for Athens. They were eventually, however, overwhelmed. Xerxes marched on, burning villages, sacking Athens, and capturing and burning the Acropolis (literally high city). Most Greek cities had an Acropolis at the highest point, which served as a religious, cultural, administrative, and military stronghold. The burning of the Acropolis had great symbolic value. It seemed like all was done. Many Greeks fled Athens. All that was left was a decisive naval battle.
2. Salamis: Also 480 B.C. Persia's King of Kings Xerxes, was so confident of a naval victory, that he had a sort of grandstand built, in the Athenian port, the Piraeus, to view the festivities. The Greek commander, Themistocles, a man of humble origins, laid a trap. His ships appeared to be in retreat, and the overconfident Persians, as expected, followed them in hot pursuit into an inlet by the island of Salamis. (Example 6 )
There, they found themselves unable to maneuver, and faced lines of hidden ships firing upon them, while other ships cut off their escape route. The Greeks had a very fast ship that featured triple oaring. (Example 7)
Xerxes had a front-row seat to witness an easy victory, but instead saw the very destruction of his own fleet. How must he have felt?
The battle of Salamis turned the tide in the Persian Wars, and in a final land battle, at Plataea, the Greeks mustered 110,000 soldiers from 30 cities, and dealt the decisive defeat to Persia.
Statues in Motion
It is rare that advances in art and statecraft are simultaneous. Compare the static statues from before to Zeus throwing a lightning bolt (Example 8 ). What a change! This statue was created in 480 B.C, the same year as the Greek victory at Salamis! For the first time, Greek statuary displayed not only motion, but motion with a purpose, and each statue represented not only an individual, but an important individual act! (How did Xerxes feel? Perhaps like he had been struck by a lightning bolt!!)
This revolutionary change grew and continued. There was no going back. This was a victory for civilization, and growing recognition of the importance of the individual, versus a false image of a great civilization based on sheer power, and an enslaved humanity.
The Parthenon
Although Salamis and Plataea were respectively the turning point, and the definitive defeat of the Persian Empire by the Greeks, skirmishes continued for the next 30 years until the Peace of Callias formally ended hostilities in 449 B.C., and ushered in the beginning of Greece’s "Golden Age" under Pericles (495 – 429 BC, politician and general).
It was not enough to merely rebuild the Acropolis, the heart of Athens, which had been razed in 480 B.C. as part of the attempted humiliation of the Greeks. It not only had to be rebuilt, something new and unprecedented had to be added. Two years after the final Peace of Callias, the construction of the great Parthenon, as part of the Acropolis (high city), began in 447 B.C., as a celebration of Greek society and culture. (Examples 9 and 10.)
The word “Parthenon” refers to a virgin, and the building is dedicated to Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom and War. The Parthenon follows the geometry of musical proportions, as known at the time. Most importantly, it is not a Lego set. The parts are not interchangeable. Each stone is shaped in a slightly different manner, so that each of them has only one match. Great effort is made to sand them down to create this match. It is coherent with the idea of the uniqueness and the importance of every citizen.
Aeschylus and Drama
Not much is known about previous Greek tragedy. Aeschylus was the first of the great Greek playwrights, and his first known play is "The Persians", from 472 B.C., only eight years after the Battle of Salamis. A huge amphitheater (Example 11-12) was constructed at the Parthenon, so that his plays could be presented to the entire population of Athens. Unlike today's mass-entertainment which functions as a distraction from reality, Greek plays were meant to induce a deliberative process among all attending, regarding important matters at hand. Aeschylus could have easily written cheerleading propaganda. He chose instead to examine the quality that led the seemingly invincible Persian Empire to lose: hubris. Hubris is the arrogance that one is so powerful, that there is no need to respect the laws of the universe. One can do whatever one wants. That was the potential pitfall for the Greeks, who were in danger of acting on that same sense of hubris after their tremendous victory; of thinking "we are the greatest", and losing sight of what made that victory possible.
The greatest advances in art: theater, statuary, and architecture, were born out of, and gave birth to a new type of civilization that successfully opposed tyranny to ensure that this civilization, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
On his tombstone, Aeschylus chose not to identify his legacy, not with his great plays, but only the simple words:
"Fought at the Battle of Marathon."
Ft 1. King Darius had had the following inscribed in cuneiform at Persepolis.
Darius the great king, king of kings, king of countries: This is the kingdom which I hold... what Ahuramazda, the greatest of gods, bestowed upon me.
His son, Xerxes followed suit:
“I am Xerxes, great king, king of kings, the king of all countries which speak all kinds of languages, the king of the entire big far-reaching earth.”
When Alexander the Great approached the Persian city of Persepolis, known as the "Gateway to the World", and "Capital of the Entire Orient", he encountered the elderly Greek craftsmen who had built the place. Most of them had had a hand or a foot removed to prevent their escape. Alexander called it "The most Hateful Place in Asia", and ordered his men to destroy it. Some reports say he threw the first torch himself.
2,000 years later, the great poet Percy Shelley wrote the following:
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart.[d] Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Only modern archeology restored Persepolis.
Ft 2. Solon was way ahead of his time. He outlawed most of Draco's harsh punishments, including the death penalty, and seizing the body of a debtor as your personal property. What a shame that debtors' prisons had to be outlawed again 2,400 years later in England!