Book 13: Athens, Christian Meier

Undated. Began transcribing June 21, 2024.

Athens
Christian Meier

Fifth-century Athens: 480 - 404 BC:

• two parts
• Golden Age of Athens
• The Age of Pericles

487:

• Delian League -- led by Athens
• defeats Persian invasion

404:

• ends with the end of the 27-year Peloponnesian War (431 - 404)
• between Sparta and Athens
  

Fifth century Athens:

• the playwrights (Sophocles, Euripedes)
• historians: Herodotus, Thucydides
• physician: Hippocrates
• philosophers: Socrates, Plato
• notable leaders: Themistocles

Noble family of the Alcmaeonids: 

• father: Xanthippus
• son: Pericles

Hellespont: Greek pond

• connects Aegean Sea (Mediterranean) with Propontis (Sea of Marmara) with Black Sea -- through the Bosphorus.

480 BC:

• Persians -- Xerxes

Athens / Attica

• flee to the islands and Troezen on east coast of Peloponnesus
• 500 BC: 20 years earlier -- Greek tradition -- assisted by Athenians. Greeks were Persian subjects.
• 490 BC: Athenians defeated Persia at Marathon.
• 480 BC: Xerxes -- Persians again. Xerxes had cut a canal across the ATHOS peninsula
• Xerxes: two bridges of boats across the Hellespont -- connected Sestos (west, European side) with Abydo (east, Asian side)

481 BC: Persians assemble at Sardia; Sardia -- in-land Lydia (modern Turkey); three-day march from port city of Ephesus.

Persian Empire

• Aegean Sea <-> Indus
• Eyupt <-> Caspian Sea

(same as Alexander's Empire some centuries later)

• Persians: 100,000+ men; 1200+ ships
• Greeks: at best, 30,000 / far fewer ships

480 BC: Persians cross the Dardanelles

Spartans: narrow pass at Thermopylae

Athens: main body of ships nearby at Artemisium -- northwest coast of Euboea

Greeks defeated on land; a draw at sea.

Athens' allies --> the sound south of Salamis
Attic ships --> Piraeus (port)

Battle of Thermopylae: Sparta's loss a foregone conclusion -- a ploy to buy time.

Family tree:

• Neocles: father
• Themistocles: son -- naval battle conceived; 40 years old

Miltiades, father, successful at Marathon
Cimon, son -- to Piraeus with Athens' ships

***Sea Battle conceived by  Themistoles; novel idea ***** p. 10

" a shield of a hoplite" -- p. 12

Hoplites: wealthy; needed to afford their own weapons, supplies;

Wow -- hoplites alongside slaves, poor on the triremes

Herodotus: Themistocles transformed the Athenians into thalassioi -- a sea-faring nation.

Warfare transformed by the Athenians!

Entire city of Athens sailed into Saronic Bay.

Military -- professional -- "the entire citizenry" -- the entire Athenian citizenry would be needed to man all the triremes.

Events in Athens and Attica ultimately obeyed the dictates of one man.

Greek history unimaginable without Salamis.

480: Greeks defeat the Persians at Salamis.

480 BC: 

Aeschylus, 45 y/o
Sophocles: 16 y/o
Euripedes: newborn

Pericles: 15 y/o

And as of June 22, 2024, that's all that's in that journal.