Carystus

Transcription

Well, let us turn then to the Persian invasion that culminates in the battle of Marathon. The purpose is very simple, to punish those cities that have insulted and damaged the great king, Athens and Eretria, to restore Hippeis to the tyranny in Athens from where he can serve as the king's satrap, and surely also, to gain a foothold in Greece on the way to conquering all of Greece. Why should he want to conquer all of Greece? Herodotus tells the story about his relative, he tells him, for God's sake why do you want to go Greece? There's nothing there but a lot rocks. What is the point of conquering the place? It's one thing to conquer all of these rich places Egypt, Babylonia--that's fine, there's wealth there, there's huge populations, there's a lot of good stuff. It's just Greeks and rocks, why in the world do you want to go there? The answer, I think in part, would be Sir Edmund Hilary's answer, because they're there, and that's part of the answer, because we must understand that the ancient idea--in fact, I'm willing to say, the idea that dominated thinking about such matters right down probably into the nineteenth century in many cases, but certainly before the advent of Christianity was this. That conquest is good. It's good to be strong, it's good to be rich, it's good to be powerful. Therefore, it's good to be stronger, richer, and more powerful. If there's somebody on your frontier, take them over, and that by the way will make you still more glorious, because conquest is glory. Now, we in the west--that's not our natural attitude; our natural attitude is shaped in considerable part, whatever your religious association may be, by Christianity, which has been the dominant force in shaping people's thinking in the west, as I say, whatever religion you belong to, and that aspect of Christianity that it violates is the one that's increasingly the one that's emphasized by Christians, and that is the Sermon on the Mount. The one that says the meek shall inherit the earth, not the strong, and the tough, and so on. The one that says if your enemy strikes you, turn the other cheek so he can strike you there too. Now, if the Greeks had heard that, they would have said these people are lunatics. Send them away. Greek morality said, be good to your friend, do good to your friend and harm to your enemies and the second part is just as important as the first part. So, you need to understand that the sort of the ethical underpinnings to all of our natural thinking in the west are as odd and strange, and crazy as they can be for everybody else in the human race, so far as I can see. There are exceptions. I am missing some eastern religions which have ideas that are not altogether in anathema to what I am saying, but what I'm trying to say is nobody in the ancient would have ever had such an idea. Of course, if you can conquer somebody who's your neighbor, you do and so there was every reason to know that the Persians were coming. How many? We don't know. The estimate that most people would accept is somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 infantrymen. So, for the sake of splitting the difference I always assume something like 25,000 infantrymen, and some cavalry. That's very important even though the cavalry does not play any part in the actual battle of Marathon, but Herodotus makes it very clear that there was a Persian cavalry, that the Persians picked the site of Marathon to fight in, in part, because it was a good place for cavalry to fight. So, there is Persian cavalry on board the ships anyway, alongside the infantry. The two Persian generals are Datis and Artaphernes. They have with them Hippeis. Hippeis, of course, must have been all these years urging the great king to make some such campaign, and he probably would have said, Marathon is the place to land. You remember that's the territory of the Peisistratids, that's where Peisistratus landed on his last return to Athens when he made himself tyrant, that's where his people were; that's where his forces would gather. I'm sure Hippeis said what all such exiles always say. All I need do is set foot on the beach at Marathon, and my people will rise up as one and join me. You won't even have to fight in Athens, because they'll be so glad to see me back. This is what King James, I'm sure, told Louis the XIV about getting back to England. One hears that all the time, but it's a very important part of this story. I don't think we can understand what happens at Marathon, if we don't know that everybody thought it was highly possible that there were Athenians, who were eager to restore Hippeis to the throne, and would be willing to engage in treasonous activities, or to defect from the democracy, and join Hippeis, if the circumstances were appropriate. So, that's in the back of everybody's mind or in the front. I think when the Persians got there, their strategy included the belief that there would be treason in Athens that would turn the city over to them if the circumstances were right. So, that force starts this time, not along the coast, as I told you last time. It takes the shortest route, directly across the Aegean Sea, hopping from island to island. Stops at Naxos, remember Naxos annoyed the king by successfully resisting Aristagoras' invasion and they destroy Naxos. Next they come to the island of Delos in the middle of the Aegean, the islands sacred to Apollo and his sister Artemis, a very sacred place indeed for the Greeks. What do the Persians do? They treat the Delians and the priests of Apollo at Delos with great respect, do them no harm; this is typical Persian conquests. They do not impose religions. Their religion is different from that of most of the others in this area. They are Zoroastrians; they are sun worshippers of a certain kind, but they don't impose their religion. They don't interfere with the religion. They get a very nice write up in the Old Testament, if you remember, because they don't mistreat the Hebrews, and they particularly don't compel them to abandon their own religious practices as the other invaders do. So, what are the Persians saying by these actions? They are saying we are not at war with the Greek gods, we're not even at war with the Greeks, we are simply punishing these two miscreant towns that have attacked us. They then turn to the southern tip of the island of Euboea, to the town of Carystus; the Persians may be not at war with the Greeks but they expect all Greeks who are along the way to behave the way they're supposed too to the great king, and so they asked the Carystians to give earth and water, the Carystians refuse and the Persians obliterate their city, and take their people into slavery. Now, they push their way, take their sail along the coast of Euboea to Eretria in the north, and now here are 4,000 Athenians settled there, you remember in a cleruchy. So, they get their armor on and they stand in front and prepare to die fighting for the freedom of Eretria, because of their wonderful friendship to Athens. Wrong. The 4,000 Athenians go home to Attica. Why? Well, I suppose the immediate answer is why not. But it's an embarrassment, and Herodotus, I think we have to realize, is very friendly to Athens all throughout his own history. I mean, there's no doubt that he spent time in Athens; he seems to have been a friend of Pericles in later years. He was kindly, although he himself comes from Halicarnassus in Asia Minor, but he did spend a lot of time in Athens and there seems to be a pro-Athenian cast. One thing also, is that many of his sources were Athenians, who told the story their way. So, their answer was the Athenians were ready to fight to save Eretria but the Eretrians said there's no point. Why should you get killed too; it's not your town. Why don't you go home. If you can believe that, you can believe anything, but I don't. I think the Athenians realized there was nothing but disaster, if they stayed, and they could believe if we get back to Attica, we might be able to make contribution to defending our city. Okay, so now here they are at Eretria, the Athenians are gone; it's time for the invasion. The site of the battle, where did they go? Well, they picked Marathon, as they say in part, because it's very near Eretria. Secondly, as Herodotus says, because it's a good place for cavalry; thirdly, as I've already told you, because it's the stronghold of Peisistratus, the place which would be natural for an army trying to establish Hippeis on the throne of Athens; that's why they're there. Their plan, I think, is to go to Marathon. If the Athenians come out and challenge them to a fight, they will crush the Athenians. But they didn't expect that. They thought the Athenians would be afraid, and that what would happen is they would stay there in Marathon, until they got the news that there was a revolution in Athens prepared to turn the city over to them. That's what Hippeis, I think, led them to believe, and that's what they hoped for. They were prepared to fight, of course, but they thought it wouldn't be necessary. So, on August 4^(th), they land in the year 490 at Marathon. We know these dates, because there is an eclipse associated with this, which allows astronomers to fix it pretty precisely. The Athenians, of course, when they knew that the Persians were coming and that news would have come to them the minute they got to Naxos. Ships would have come to Athens, so the Athenians were well warned; they went to their new friends Sparta to ask them for help of course. This is where there are wonderful stories; they sent the great runner whose name comes down to us in the manuscripts as Pheidippides, chances are his real name was probably Philippides, but there was an error in the manuscript. But we'll call him Pheidippides, because that's what the manuscripts say. He races to Sparta as fast as he could go; it took him less than two days, where he came to the Spartans and he said, the Persians are coming, the Persians are coming, please help us. The Spartans said we would love to come and help you, nothing would please us more, unfortunately, we are in the midst of our holy religious ceremony the Carnea, and we are not allowed to leave our hometown until the next full moon, which is a matter of fact, the night of August 11^(th), 12^(th), in other words, a whole week after the Persians are going to land. I can't go speculating as to what are we to make of this. Is this just an excuse? Are the Spartans serious about this? Our tendency I suppose, being modern and cynical, would be to say it's only an excuse. I'm more inclined to think that they were sincere about it. It's not that they couldn't find ways to get round such things, but they really took their religion quite seriously, and it may be that that did play a role. Be that as it may, two things that the Athenians now know. They know the Spartans have promised to come but not for another week. Both of those things should be on your minds as you try to understand. Now, Herodotus says that the Athenian army marched out from Athens and went to Marathon, and then they had an argument about what they should do, but I don't think that's right. There must have been a debate. There had to be a debate in Athens. You couldn't take an army out of town without having an assembly to argue the question, should we send an army, and if we should send an army how big should the army be, and having decided that, who should be in command. All those things had to be settled by the assembly in Athens; so, that is where the debate took place. Some favored defending the city of Athens. Now, we don't know how well the city of Athens was walled, defended by fortification at this time in its history. It may not have had any walls, but I would be surprised. But it certainly did not have a wall that was guaranteed to be effective against an attack, and so I think we should understand that is not going to be successful. To stay home and defend Athens means to allow the Persians to run all around Attica doing anything they want, causing all the harm they could, remember something over seventy five percent, maybe as many as ninety percent of the Athenians had farms out in the country, had houses out in the country that would have been exposed to the Persians and so there was good reason for them not to think that was a great idea. The alternative was to send an army out to allow the Persians to land, because they couldn't stop it; they didn't know where the Persians were going to come, but as they heard that the Persians had landed, just send an army there and meet them at the place of landing. Miltiades emerges as the leading figure here. I mean, he is a general, but that's not the only reason; it's because everybody knows Miltiades is the resident Persian expert. He has been a general in the Persian army, and so that gives him a reason to be listened to, but he's obviously also a person of great merit and quality, and proves it at the Battle of Marathon. He must have been an impressive fellow. So, for all these reasons whatever his formal position was, and I think it was simply one of the generals, de facto he had much more influence than others for these reasons, and his argument was let us go out and meet the Persians where they land. Other reasons were we don't want them to be able to get to the Spartans, but beyond that, there was fear that if we stay home and wait, and let the Persians do whatever they're going to do, every day that passes, it increases the danger of treason from those people who want to turn the city over. It's also so completely against the ethic of the Greek warrior, and I would say more specifically, the hoplite warrior. You don't let your enemy ravage your countryside. You don't let them destroy your farms. This in a way goes all the way back to Homer, the notion of ar�te, a man must have courage, you must stand up against an enemy who invades his country, and then again, beyond that you move to the world of the hoplite and you're talking about defending your homestead; all of that argued for going out there. So, the modern terminology I would use to explain what the Athenian strategy was to go out and to contain the beachhead, go out confront the Persians where they are, don't let them get inland from where they land. So, they do land at Marathon with about 25,000 infantry.