The Greek World 500-440BC - Source Bank

Rules:

  • Don’t overquote Herodotus!!
  • Use a balance of ancient/modern and archaeological sources
  • Don’t just quote sources.
  • Try to include 5-8 in your essay.

Persians Wars

‘The Persians wanted to occupy all Greece...’ (Dandamaev)

490BC Marathon

‘The Athenians on one wing and the Plataeans on the other were victorious’ – Herodotus.

‘They were the first Greeks to charge at a run...’- Herodotus

‘The Persians had perfected the bow’ – Kontorlis

2 burial mounds and discoveries e.g helmet are archaeological sources

‘If we do not attack, I expect some great conflict will arise among the Athenians....’- Miltiades (quoted in Herodotus)

‘The chief cause of their discomfort was their lack of armour’– Herodotus

‘...the horsemen are away...’ – The Suda (Persian source)

Ehrenberg also states that the horses may have been sent to graze too far away from the battlefield.

Inter-War period

‘Themistocles... believed that it [Marathon] was only a prelude to a far greater struggle’ – Plutarch

‘The wooden wall only shall not fall...but await not the horse and foot from Asia...Divine Salamis...’ – Delphi Oracle (Herodotus)

Themistocles Decree is an archaeological source – evacuation of Athens and how to man the ships. Authorship is in dispute.

‘The army [Persian] was indeed far greater than any other in recorded history...’ – Herodotus

Thermopylae

‘The early evacuation of Attica would imply that the Athenians had little confidence that the Persians could be held at Thermopylae’ – Bury & Meiggs

‘4000 here from Pelops land against 3 million once did stand’ – epitaph of the Greeks (Herodotus)

‘Go tell the Spartans...obedient to our laws we lie’ – epitaph of the Spartans

‘...he [Xerxes] had many men indeed, but few soldiers’ – (Herodotus)

Artemesium

‘Eurybiades ... was bound to stay at Artemesium so long as the land army was at Thermopylae’ – Bury & Meiggs

Salamis

Themistocles said to Eurybiades ‘...it is now in your power to save Greece...’ - Herodotus

‘Forward you sons of Hellas...’ Aeschylus

‘First we shall be fighting in narrow waters and there with our inferiors numbers we shall win’ - Plutarch

‘They are at daggers drawn with each other and will offer no opposition’ (Themistocles ruse) - Herodotus

‘The Greek fleet worked together as a whole while the Persians had lost formation’ - Herodotus

‘Themistocles had chosen the time for the battle as judiciously as he had chosen the place’ - Plutarch

Themistocles was ‘a natural genius...’ - Thucydides

‘Without a fleet the Peloponnese could not be conquered...’ - Cook

Without the fleet ‘Xerxes could not supply his large army...’ - O’Neil

Between Salamis and Plataea

‘I will make it my [Mardonius] duty...to deliver Greece to you [Xerxes] in chains’ - Herodotus

Plataea

Serpent column is archaeological evidence

‘Pausanias won the most splendid victory that history records’ - Herodotus

‘The victory at Plataea was a remarkable achievement for the Greeks’ - Fine

‘Victory was due to intelligent leadership, as well as great courage and discipline’ - Ehrenberg

Mycale

Leotychides yelled out ‘Men of Ionia...when the battle begins let each man of you remember freedom’ - Herodotus

Overall

‘The weakness {in the Persians} was in the higher command. The king had little experience of war’ - Cook

‘The lessons of Marathon had not been learnt’ - Cook

‘There is no doubt the Persians did not regard themselves as being defeated’ since their objectives had been achieved.’ - Dandamaev

Delian League

Origins

‘The object of the League was to compensate themselves for their losses...’ (Thucydides)

The alliance was made to ‘have the same friends and enemies’ (Aristotle)

Plutarch tells us they ‘cast iron bars into the sea’ – Aristotle says ‘they cast the heavy pieces of iron into the sea’

‘At first they were the leaders of autonomous allies’ (Thucydides)

‘Cimon was as brave as Miltiades and as intelligent as Themistocles...’ (Plutarch)

Development

‘Naxos was forced back into allegiance’ (Thucydides)

‘This was the first case [Naxos] when the original constitution of the League was broken’ (Thucydides)

‘Whenever the allies revolted they were ill prepared and inexperienced in war’ (Thucydides)

‘They no longer treated their allies as they had done before but ruled them violently’ (Diodorus)

Decrees are archaeological evidence – Erythrae, Clenias, Chalcis etc...

‘This [coinage decree] together with the Clenias Decree completed the subjugation of the allies... (Merritt)

‘The Delian League had long possessed the trappings of an empire...’ (Meier)

Erythrae Decree – I will not revolt from the demos of the Athenians or her allies’ (Chalcis – same but no allies)