Antická literatura a křesťanství – kořeny evropské vzdělanosti

Second Messenian War

685 - 668 BC

Some years later Messenians revolted and their leader Aristomenes in a daring move entered Sparta at night and offered a shield in the temple of Athena. Spartans after this event went to the oracle of Delphi, which gave them the answer "to take an Athenian adviser".

Spartans asked from the Athenians a general and they sent them Tyrtaeos, who was poet and lame from the one leg. Tyrtaeos with his poems encouraged Spartans and helped them to win the war.

During the war the leader of  Messenians, Aristomenes, was made a great hero and many stories talk about him.

According to the legend three times Aristomenes sacrificed to Zeus Ithomatis, the so-called Hecatophonia, reserved only to the warrior who had killed with his own hands one hundred enemies. Three times he was captured by the Spartans but he managed to escape. His last capture  occurred in a battle between him and many Spartans, in which he was wounded all over his body, but he was still fighting, until a stone found him on the head and fell. He was captured along with fifty others and for punishment were thrown into the deep pit Kaeadas, of the mount Taygetos. All the others were killed, but Aristomenes fell upon the wings of an eagle and survived. When he realized, that there was no way to get out from this abyss, he laid down and covered himself with his cloak, waiting to die. Three days later, during the night he heard a soft sound and in the darkness show a fox eating the corpses. He managed to catch the fox from the tail and he was guided by her to a small hole, which he opened further and passed through.

Immediately he went to the city of Eira, which was besieged by Spartans. Passing from their camp, he killed many of them in their sleep and plundered the tents of the generals. 

Some time later, in a stormy night and with the help of an informer, the Spartans entered Eira. There was a hard battle, Messenians fought desperately, the women too, throwing tiles to Spartan soldiers, but at the end they were defeated.

Aristomenes with many others managed to  brake the Spartan lines and took the women and children in Arcadia. Immediately he chose five hundred men from Messenian volunteers and with the help of three hundred Arcadians decided to take Sparta by surprise, now that most of its army was away. They were ready to move, when they discovered that the king of Arcadia, Aristocrates, had sent a messenger to the Ephors, informing them about their plan. The treacherous king was killed in the square of the city by the Arcadian people with stones and his corpse was thrown out of Arcadia.

The Messenians moved then to Kyllene and from there to lower Italy, where they founded the new city of Messene. Aristomenes did not follow them and went to his brother in Rhodes, where he died from bitterness. The Messenians who did not leave, became Helots and thus ended the second Messenian war.

Argos

The war of six hundred

Around 720 BC the Spartan army under the king Nikadros with the help of township Asine, ravaged Argolis. Argives did not forget this and not much later took revenge destroying totally Asine.

In their turn the Spartans annexed Kynouria, which formed part of the dominion of Argos.

In 547 BC, the Argives attempted to recover the territory, but instead of a full combat they agreed with the Lacedaemonians, to decide the outcome of the war and the annexation of Kynouria, with three hundred men each. The conflict of the six hundred chosen soldiers was so fierce, that only two Argives   survived and one wounded Spartan. The two Argive hoplites, Alcenor and Chromios, left to give the news of their victory, but the Spartan Othryades managed to spoil the dead bodies of the enemy and then killed himself, being ashamed to return to Sparta. Both sides claimed the victory and a full battle took place not much later, in which the Argives were defeated.

Wars with Tegea

Spartans attempted various expeditions against Arcadia and after a long struggle managed to occupy the southern part of her. But they were totally unsuccessful in the wars, with the city of Tegea. They were loosing battle after battle and in the reign of the Spartan kings Leon and Agesikles (580 BC), they carried pompously chains in order to enslave the Tegeans. They met though with disaster, loosing totally the battle and their soldiers were putted in the very chains, they had brought.

Spartans in their distress asked the help of the Delphi oracle, which advised them to obtain the bones of Orestes (son of Agamemnon). The oracle even directed them to find the remains of the hero at Tegea and Spartans with a skillful stratagem succeeded to carry the holy remains home. When that happened the tide of the war turned. The proud Tegeans lost every battle and finally acknowledged the supremacy of Sparta, but they were never reduced to subjection and continued to be masters of their city, becoming only dependant allies.

Kleomenes I

Kleomenes came to the throne of Sparta around 520 BC. In a  rivalry between Kleisthenes of Athens and Isagoras, he was called by Isagoras to help. Indeed Kleomenes forced Kleisthenes and his family to leave the country, but when he expelled five hundred more families and tried to revive the constitution, the Athenians revolted and besieged Kleomenes in the Acropolis, who immediately surrendered and left from Attica. He then assembled an army from Sparta and with allies  marched toward Athens, without telling them that he wanted to install Isagoras as tyrant in Athens. But when the army came to Attica, the Corinthians learned the purpose of the expedition and abandoned the enterprise. The second king of Sparta, king Demaratos, who had joined the expedition refused also to go further and returned home and thus the expedition collapsed.

This gave the opportunity to Athens to attack the Thebans and Chalkidaeans, who were ravaging Attica and defeated them both.

In Sparta, after the kings quarrel, a new law was passed that in the future only one king would command an expedition. They also summoned the League and proposed to restore Hippias in Athens, who had been a friend of Sparta and had come from Asia for the meeting. Again Corinthians and other allies rejected the plan.

Around 505 BC, a war between Sparta and Argos took place, but the reasons are unknown.

In 499 BC, the Ionian leader Aristagoras came to Sparta to ask help in their revolt against Persia. Kleomenes refused and ordered him out of the city.

Kleomenes advanced into Argolis, but he failed to take Argos. He then asked ships from Sikyon and Aigina which unwillingly gave them and landed near Tyrinth. There he found, at a place called Sepea, which was between Argos and the sea, the Argive army. By gross carelessness of the Argives, he surprised them and defeated them. The Argives then tried to find refuge in the sacred grove of the Hero Argos. Kleomenes surrounded them and in a unthinkable for the Greek customs action, he set fire to the grove. Six thousand Argives lost their lives at that day, almost two thirds of the whole army (494 BC).    

Kleomenes instigated Leotychides, the next heir in the Prokleid line of kings, to question the legitimacy of king Demaratos. To resolve the problem the Spartans went to the Delphi oracle, which declared Demaratos as an illegitimate king.

When later was known, that Kleomenes had bribed the oracle, they ordered him home, but he fled first to Thessaly and later to Arcadia, where he worked for a Pan-Arcadian alliance.

The Spartans called him again with promises, but when he arrived, he was attacked by the people, who following their old habit, they were hitting him in his head. The Ephors pronounced him insane. He committed suicide, having mutilated himself with a knife (488 BC).

    

The Persian Wars

After the suppression of the Ionic revolt, king Darius started preparing an army to attack Greece.

The Persian expedition that followed under Mardonios ended in disaster, loosing his fleet in a terrible storm in the promontory of mount Athos. Darius was not disheartened and having in his court the tyrant Hippias, keeping alive his resentment against Athens, he started preparing a second expedition and on a larger scale. He first sent heralds to ask earth and water from the various Greek cities. The Athenians threw them in the barathron pit and the Spartans in a well, to find there their "earth and water".

For the first time the Greek cities, in the face of the imminent danger were all united, recognizing Sparta as the leader of Greece. Sparta refused to send an army to help Athens in Marathon and only arrived after the battle to find in their amazement that the Athenians had won a complete victory (490 BC). Greece was fortunate that the next invasion was led by the son of Darius, Xerxes, a much inferior man than his father.

Battle of Thermopylae

480 BC

On the arrival of Xerxes at Thermopylae, he found that the place was defended by a body of three hundred Spartans and about seven thousand hoplites from other states, commanded by the Spartan king Leonidas.

Xerxes learning about the small number of Greek forces and that several Spartans outside the walls were exercising and combing their hairs, in his perplexity, immediately called Demaratos to explain him the meaning of all these. Demaratos told him that the Spartans will defend the place to the death and it was custom to wash and dress their hairs with special care when they intended to put their lives in great danger. Xerxes who did not believe Demaratos, delayed his attack for four days, thinking that the Greeks as soon as they would realize his great forces will disperse. 

He sent also heralds asking to deliver up their arms. The answer from Leonidas was "come and take them" (Μολών λαβέ).

A Spartan, who was told about the great number of Persian soldiers, who with their arrows will conceal the sun, he answered:  "so much the better, we will fight in the shade".

At the fifth day Xerxes attacked but without any results and with heavy losses, though the Medes fought bravely. He then ordered his personal guard  the "Immortals" under Hyrdanes, a body of ten thousand consisting from the best Persian soldiers, to advance. They also failed and Xerxes was observed to jump from his throne three times in anger and agony. The following day they attacked, but again made no progress. Xerxes was desperate but his luck changed when a Malian named Ephialtes told him about a secret path across the mountain. Immediately a strong Persian force was sent with Hyrdanes, guided by the traitor. At day's break they reached the summit, where the Phokian army was stationed and who upon seeing the Persians fled.

When Leonidas learned all these incidents, he ordered the council of war to be summoned. Many were of the opinion that they should retire and find a better defendable place, but Leonidas, who was bound by the laws of Sparta and from an oracle, which had declared that either Sparta or a Spartan king must perish, refused. Three hundred Spartans and seven hundred Thespians took the decision to stay and fight. The rest were permitted to leave, with the exception of four hundred Boeotians, which were retained as hostages.

Leonidas did not wait the Persian attack, which had being delayed by Xerxes and advanced in the path, he fell upon the Persians. Thousands of them were slain, the rest were driven near the sea, but when the Spartan spears broke, they started having losses and one of the first that fell was king Leonidas. Around his body one of the fiercest battles took place. Four times the Persians attacked to obtain it and four times they were repulsed. At the end, the Spartans exhausted and wounded, carrying the body of Leonidas, retired behind the wall, but they were surrounded by the enemy, who killed them with arrows.

On the spot, a marble lion was set by the Greeks in honor of Leonidas and his men, together with two other monuments near by. On one of them, the memorable words were written:

           "Ω ξείν αγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις, ότι τήδε κείμεθα,

           τοις κείνων ρήμασι πειθόμενοι".

 

           "Oh stranger tell the Lacedaemonians, that we lie here,

            obedient to their laws".

Battle of Plataea

479 BC

The reluctance, which Sparta showed after the battle of Thermopylae until a little before the battle of Plataea, did not help the Greek cause. But when finally she took the decision to engage seriously herself in the war, it did it in a great manner.

Five thousand citizens, each one attended by seven Helots, together with five thousand Lacedaemonian Perioikoi (each one attended by one light armed Helot) marched toward the Isthmos. This was a very large army and never in the past Sparta had sent such a big force in the field. At Isthmos, she was joined with the Peloponnesian allies and marched towards Megara. The army was joined there by three thousand Megarians and finally at Plataea with eight thousand Athenian hoplites. The city of Plataea also contributed six hundred hoplites, who came from Salamis, under the command of Aristeides. The number of Greek army were now thirty eight thousand hoplites, who with light armed troops and the Helots reached one hundred and ten thousand men. This number includes the eighteen hundred badly armed Thespians. There was no cavalry and the bow men were very few.

When Mardonios learned the approach of Lacedaemonians, he left Attica and by way of Dekeleia crossed the mount Parnes and entered Boeotia. Marching two days along the Asopos river, he encamped near the town of Plataea.

The Greeks after consulting the Gods with sacrifices at Eleusis marched over the ridge of Kithairon mountain and descending from the northern side they saw the encamped Persian army in the valley of Asopos. King Pausanias who was waiting good omens from sacrifices held his troops from the attacks of the Persian cavalry, near Erythrae, where the ground is ragged and uneven, but even this did not prevent the commander Masistios to attack the Greeks. When the Megarians were in great danger suffering many losses, three hundred Athenian hoplites succeeded in repulsing the Persians, killing the tall and brave Masistios. His body was paraded in triumph, in a cart. This event encouraged Pausanias, who positioned the army on the plain, in a line at the right bank of Asopos.

When Mardonios learned the change in the position of the Greeks he ordered his army to be placed opposite to them on the other side of Asopos. Himself took the post in the left wing, facing the Lacedaemonians. The rest of his army consisting from Medized Greeks, fifty thousand strong, were opposite to Athenians. The center of Mardonios composed from Bactrians Sacae and Indians. The whole army was numbering three hundred thousand men.

For eight days the attack was delayed from both sides by unfavorable sacrifices. On the eight day Mardonios by the advice of the Theban leader Timagenidas cut off the supplies of the Greeks and captured a big supply in one of the passes of Kithaeron. Artabazos too, advised him to continue this line of harassing and wearing but Mardonios was impatient and ordered his cavalry to attack, which obtained possession of the fountain of Gargapheia.

Pausanias summoned the council of war and took the decision to retreat, to a place called the Island, which was two kilometers further and halfway between it and the town of Plataea.  When Pausanias at night gave the order of retreat, some Spartans refused to move. Threats did nothing to persuade the Spartan captain Amomferatus, who took a huge rock and threw it at the feet of Pausanias, with the words: "with this pebble I give my vote not to fly".

Pausanias who had no time to loose since daybreak was near, he left Amompheratus and his lochos behind and hurried to the island. Mardonios ordered attack when he learned that the Greeks had retreated. His army passing the waters of Asopos started to throw arrows to the Greeks, who did not engage, even in this moment, in battle until they received a good omen from the sacrifices. Mardonios at the head of his one thousand bodyguards was in the front line fighting bravely, until he was struck down by the Spartan Aimnestos. When Mardonios fell the Persian army fled to their fortified camp. But this did not save them, the Greeks managed to enter and a great massacre took place. Only three thousand Persians who escaped, from the three hundred thousand, survived. The Greeks lost only one thousand and three hundred men.    

In 464 BC, during the night, a powerful earthquake shook Sparta and the rest of Lacedaemon. The earth opened and the summits of mount Taygetos were torn. All the houses of Sparta fell down except five. This catastrophe continued for five days. At least twenty thousand Lacedaemonians lost their lives.

 

The Peloponnesian war I

431 - 421 BC

The unavoidable clash between Sparta and Athens came with an incident at the friendly to Athens city of Plataea. Archidamos invaded Attica in the spring of 431 BC without opposition, since Athens had taken the decision not to engage to a land battle with Sparta and thus started the Peloponnesian war, that lasted for 28 years. The first ten years of the war (431 - 421 BC) were named "Archidamios war" from the name of the able king of Sparta Archidamos.

On the side of Lacedaemonians were all the Peloponnesian states with the exception of Argos and Achaea which entered the war joining Sparta later. They were also the Boeotians, Megarians, Lokrians, Phokaeans, Leukadians, Ambrakiotes and Anaktorians. The coast states supplied ships, the Boeotians, Locrians and Phokians with cavarly.

On the side of Athens were the Plataeans, Chians, Lesbians, Messenians, Corkyraeans, Zakynthians, Akarnanians as well as the towns of the coast of Asia and Thrace and all the isles of Aegean, except Melos and Thera. The Athenian troops were 29,000 hoplites, 1200 horsemen and 1600 archers and her navy was 300 triremes without counting those of her allies. The Chians, Corkyraeans and Lesbians supplied shipping.

Archidamos forces which entered Attica consisted from about 60,000 to 100,000 men and at the beginning he tried unsuccessful attacks upon the fortress of Oenoe, on mount Kithairon, failing to take it. He then marched towards Eleusis, where he arrived at the middle of June 431 BC.  After ravaging the Thracian plain he encamped at Acharnae, seven miles from Athens. In the meantime the Athenians had collected the population within the walls and had sent all the animals to Euboea. Archidamos evacuated Attica at the end of July and his army was dismantled immediately. Upon his departure the Athenians at the end of September, attacked Megara which they ravaged totally.

At the spring of 430 BC, Archidamos again invaded Attica, but in the meantime the plague had broken out in Athens. The Lacedaemonians with greater force ravaged all the neighborhood  of Athens marching as far as the mines of Laurium. In their turn Athenians, with 100 triremes under the command of Knemos devastated the island of Zakynthos.

At the third year of the war (429 BC) Archidamos marched towards the city of Plataea and demanded to hand him over the city and their land properties, promising that after the war everything would be restored to them. The majority of Plataeans were in favor of the proposal, but Athenians exhorted them to hold out promising them assistance. After their refusal, Archidamos surrounded the small city of Plataea and the famous siege started. For three months Spartans tried everything to conquer the city but without success. They then decided to blockade and starve the population.

For this they surrounded Plataea with a double wall, but even this measure had no success. After two years, when the provisions  of Plataea started to run short, 212 men escaped in a stormy December night. The rest of the population surrendered in 427 BC. They were put in trial before five Spartan judges and executed. The town of Plataea was transferred to Thebes, who after a few months destroyed all the private houses to the ground.  

In the fourth and  fifth year of the war Spartans again invaded Attica. In the sixth year of the war (426 BC) the Spartans did not invade Attica. A series of severe earthquakes and floods occurred in various parts of Greece. At Athens the plaque reappeared.

During the seventh year of the war the Lacedaemonian army under the command of Agis invaded Attica, but only for the sort time of fifteen days. Agis was recalled and marched towards Pylos, because the Athenians had  established  a military post at Pylos in Messenia. The Peloponnesian fleet that was in Corkyra  under the command of Thrasymelidas, was also ordered to sail to Pylos. Thrasymelidas on arriving at Pylos with his fleet, he occupied the small but densely wooded island of Sfacteria with four hundred and twenty hoplites and their helots. Part of these men, two hundred and ninety-two, among them many belonging to chief families, were later captured by the Athenian Kleon and brought to Athens in chains, the rest had been killed after a severe conflict on the islet. The event surprised the Hellenic world who knew that Spartans never surrendered. Sparta was now in a bad position. The Messenians from Pylos together with the runaway helots were able to plunder the country, also Sparta could not invade Attica, knowing that the captured men would put immediately to death.

The eighth year of the war (424 BC) was disastrous for Athens. They defeated at the battle of Delium, by the Thebans. They also lost Thrace. After all these Athenians seriously considered the proposals for peace by Sparta.

At the same year one of the biggest crimes, committed in ancient Greece, occurred. Sparta pretending to give liberty to the most worthy Helots, who had fought bravely, selected two thousand of the best men and after honoring them and crowning them with garlands at a ceremony, slain them by secret orders from the Ephors. The reason being, that Sparta felt threatened from their increased power.

In the ninth year of the war (423 BC) a truce was signed for a year, on which a permanent peace would be prepared. But the negotiations were interrupted two days after the signing of the truce, when Athenians learned that Scione had revolted and was under the command of Brasidas. In August, an Athenian force by the command of Kleon was sent to Scione. At the battle that followed, both Kleon and Brasidas were killed and thus the obstacles for permanent peace seized to exist.

The Spartan king Pleistoanax and general Nikias of Athens, in the spring of 421 BC, signed a peace treaty for fifty years, the so-called peace of Nikias. The Spartan prisoners were returned and Athens was allowed to keep the cities of Anactorium, Sollium and Nisae. Not everybody was satisfied by the peace and the allies of Sparta, Corinth, Thebes, Megara and Eleans refused to ratify it.

During the peace between Sparta and Athens matters were far from being satisfactory. Her allies, Boeotians and Corinthians never accepted the peace and Athens refused to evacuate Pylos. Alkibiades of Athens persuaded both Achaea and Patrae to ally with Athens and helped Argos in the attack upon Epidauros, which they ravaged. Spartans could not accept all these and assembling a large army in which her allies were participating, invaded Argos and surrounded the Argive army. A battle was ready to start when two Argive oligarch leaders came to king Agis of Sparta and persuaded him to sign a truce for four months. A little later Alkibiades leading a force of one thousand hoplites and four hundred cavalry came to assist Argives and persuaded them to attack the city of Orchomenos in Arcadia. After they conquered Orchomenos they marched against Tegea. In the meantime king Agis, who had being blamed for the truce with the Argives, marched with a large force in the territory of Mantinea and positioned himself near the temple of Hercules. The Argives and their allies left the city of Mantinea  and in a well chosen ground offered battle. King Agis was ready to attack them at this advantageous for the Argives ground, but when the Spartans came close, an old Spartan warrior told him, that with his act was trying "to heal one mischief by another". These words made him to withdraw his men. After this, the  Argives took position in the plain and tried to attack them by surprise. The right section of the Argive army, which was consisted from the flower of aristocracy, a permanent body of one thousand chosen soldiers drilled and maintained by the city of Argos, were successful to route the Lacedaemonians, but Agis with the rest of his army which was more successful, he managed to win the battle (June 418 BC). Athenians lost two hundred hoplites included the generals Laches and Nikostratos, the Argives and their allies lost another nine hundred men. From the Lacedaemonian army only three hundred men lost. Even after all these, the peace of Nikias typically was still in existence.