This is a survey of ancient Greek history from the Bronze Age to the death of Socrates in 399 BCE. Along with studying the most important events and personalities, we will consider broader issues such as political and cultural values and methods of historical interpretation.
Athens 3 - Peisistratos: Tyranny and Civic Identity
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From the course by Wesleyan University
The Ancient Greeks
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From the lesson
Two City-States: Sparta and Athens
In Module 3 we will analyze some major political developments in the Archaic Age, which were largely responses to the huge societal changes discussed in Module 2. We will focus on Sparta and Athens. Sparta evolved into a unique hoplite-polis, famed for strict discipline and military prowess. Athens followed a very different path, showing the first traces of democracy. We will also observe how tyrannies arose in many poleis, often, paradoxically, to the community’s benefit. In fact we can now consider the historical effect of individual leaders, like the renowned lawgivers, Lycurgus of Sparta and Solon of Athens. Both men came to be revered as the “founding fathers” of their poleis. Both men also belonged to the legendary Seven Sages, who were famed for their wisdom. The module concludes with a consideration of Peisistratos, who ruled Athens as a tyrant in the mid-6th-century BCE and led the Athenians to new levels of power and prosperity.
Meet the Instructors
Andrew Szegedy-Maszak, PhDProfessor
Classical Studies
We've seen how Solan's reforms addressed some of the economic problems, some of the
political issues of his time. While allowing, as we see, for some, for a
great deal of additional mobility. It nonetheless, didn't really overturn the
underlying inequalities in Athenian society, how could it?
And shortly after Solon's reforms, there is evidence of continuing tension and
trouble. About four years after, that is in the
year 590, 589. There's what called, anarkhia our word
anarchy, comes from it. This is a year without an archon.
And somewhat later than that, there's a record that one archon named Damasias,
stayed in office, refused to leave office for over 2 years, although his term was to
last only for 1. It's clear that he probably wanted to make
himself tyrant. In the meantime down in the south, the
Spartans had tried to expand a little bit more, we saw how they conquered Messenia.
And now they undertook some kind of campaign against the neighboring state of
Tegea, it didn't work. And they started instead to form
alliances, first with Tegea, and then with the other states around them, so there is
an informal kind of Peloponnesian league coming together.
Returning to Athens, still more indications of trouble.
There was a brief experiment with a so called, a sort of board of governors,
replacing the archons. This was quickly abandoned, but there is
clearly some kind of upheaval in the works.
The form it took was not of regional factions.
The coast, the plain, and the so called over the hill.
These are lead by, well it's a technical term, big men.
This was coined by an American anthropologist, Marshall Sollins who was
working in the south east pacific and big men are informal leaders of groups who
maintain their power through a combination of having a group of military supporters.
And by competitive generosity, by giving out gifts to their followers and by
engaging in competitions both of generosity and of more violent forms with
other big men. The regional factions as I said were
three. The coast was lead by one Lykourgos, the
plain one Megakles and the Beyond The Hills group by Peisistratos.
This is, it's rough to say, but let's say the coast was probably merchants.
The plain was probably the, primarily the old land holders.
And Megakles, you might recognize his name, is an Alchemean.
He's a member of one of the great old Eupatric clans.
And Peistratos is then the leader of the Beyond The Hills group which probably
comprised small farmers and perhaps the urban poor.
Now Peisistratos had already made a name for himself.
He had participated in the war with Megara over the island of Salamis.
He had some sort of public presence. And, he clearly had ambitions to rule
Athens. So far as we know, he made three attempts
to establish himself as tyrant. The first one, and as you can see, the
dates for this, the early part of Peistratos' history are very, very
uncertain so these are as unreliable as anything.
First the story is, that he wounded himself and came into the agora, then came
downtown saying he had been attacked, and asked for a, for a civic grant of armed
guards. Which you, the assembly gave to him.
At this point, incidentally, the now quite old Solon is said to have taken his armor
outside of his house and placed it outside, saying, I'm not going to fight
this one. And there is a Celonian poem in which he
talks about a wily man that will deceive the minds of the people, and it may be
Peisistratos that he's talking about. It lasted a very short time.
An alliance of the other two big men, Megakles and Lykourgos, drove him out.
Shortly thereafter, he did, tried something else.
He married Megagles' daughter. The sort of alliance among big men by
marriage is another common feature. And it's here that Herodotus tells us the
wonderful story that Peisistratos found a tall, beautiful young woman from the
country named Phye, dressed her up as Athena, got in a chariot that she was
driving and it was announced that Athena was bringing Peisistratos back to Athens.
Herodotus treats this as a great good joke, he said the Greeks fancy themselves
the smartest of all people. The Athenians fancy themselves the
smartest of all Greeks, and they fell for this?
There's a much, I think there's a better way to think about this, which is not that
Peisistratos was somehow duping a credulous populous but instead he was
staging a pageant. He was doing something for the
entertainment, the amusement of his fellow citizens.
And they were all participating in it together as a kind of civic gesture.
It was, Peisistratos was very good at a sort of, what we might think of as
political theater. Nonetheless, the marriage with Megagles'
daughter was unsuccessful, Megagles once again got very angry and Peisistratos was
driven out again. This time we know where he went, he went
up north to trace where he established some gold mines, became seriously wealthy.
And then returned to Athens with a mercenary force.
Landed at Marathon, and then there was some kind of skirmish.
I don't think it even deserves the title of battle, at a place called Pallene in
547-6. But let's think about this for a second.
You have a big man with a troop of warriors around him.
As a friend of mine has said, we're not that far from the world of the Iliad, are
we?Agamemnon and troops surround him. At any rate, we're going to take a brief
break here to look at a statue. This is a Kouros.
Clearly modeled on Egyptian predecessors. But unlike the Egyptian models, nude and
striding with one foot forward. These were the characteristic markers of
the elite at this time. The Kouro began earlier than this, this is
a very well developed one. From the late 6th century.
And there's attached to it a, an inscription that says, stop and mourn
beside the memorial of dead Croesus, whom fierce Aries cut down in the front ranks
of battle. It has been quite plausibly suggested that
Croesus was a soldier fighting against Peisistratus, who died in that battle of
Pallene. There's also one other thing that we can
note here, which was his name, it had been thought that perhaps he was some sort of
mercenary from Asia Minor. And that's where Lidia is and that's where
King Croesus ruled. But he seems likelier to have been a Greek
member of an elite family which may have had some sort of friendly relations with
the Lydian king. Peisistratus established his rule very
quickly. And seemingly without resorting to
violence, there must have been a lot of popular support.
He levied a small tax on agricultural produce, and from that he started a set of
public works, among them improving the water supply to Athens.
By installing public fountains, as in this wonderful, black-figure, vase painting,
with women carrying jugs to and from a fountain.
He allowed for state-supported agricultural loans to small farmers.
He set up circuit judges. That is, judges who would go out into the
countryside. And hear cases, and we are told that he
preserved Solon's constitution. Except that he took care that his own
followers hold the highest offices. We know that he also cleared the agora of
private dwellings, and began to make it a place for the gathering, the truly
gathering of the citizens for the major kind of public buildings and the like.
And major public construction also took the form, and now I'm just showing a
little bit anachronistically, because this we think was actually started by his sons.
But this massive temple of Zeus olympias down next to the Acropolis.
You can see it there in the background. Which was begun by the Peisistratus but
wasn't really completed until the reign of the roman emperor Hadrian some 6 centuries
later. And here is a wonderful 19th century
photograph by the French photographer Baltese.
And you can see that some enterprising restaurateur has established a cafe among
the columns. But monumental building as a sign of
individual pride and of civic identity is something that the Peisistratus clearly
understood. Also civic religion and especially cults
in honor of Athena. It was the Peisistratus who seemed to, it
was Peisistratus who seems to have established the Panathenain games.
These are the games for all of Athens. And among the evidence we have for them
are these extraordinary, huge, they're called the Panathenaic amphora.
These big vases, which held the, the victor's share, and a lot of olive oil, a
very valuable commodity. And on one side, they would depict the
event, that the competitor had taken part in.
And on the other side our patron Godess, Athena.
You just saw some runners, there's also the extremely prestigious chariot race.
There's wonderful depiction here of a 2 horse Chariot, and again with Athena on
the reverse. If this weren't enough, Peisistratus also
bit[UNKNOWN]. A festival in honor of Dionysus, the
Dionysia. Seems to have taken the form of
competitions of choruses and eventually it evolved into the great tragic and conic
festivals in honor of Dionysus, the city Dionysia.
And the Lenaia. And it was also under Peisistratus that
the Athenians seem to have issued their first coinage with Athena on one side.
You can see her initials here, or the first letters of her name Athe here, and
her owl on the other. First these would have circulated only
within Athens and eventually they came to be used as currency throughout the Greek
world. What were seeing here is an extremely
ambitious capable, and I might say, ethical ruler.
A sign of his popularity is that he died in 5287 of a peaceful old age.
We're told that he never had to use a bodyguard.
And one of the things that he left as his legacy, is Athenian civic identity in the
form of buildings, ceremonies, coinage, the circuit-riding judges.
All of these things together now were seeing Athens growing a sense of itself
and the Athenians as a special people. I'm not saying we have to accept this, I'm
saying that this was how they felt. And yet when a tyrant dies there is, as we
have seen, often some problem afterward and that's what we will go on to.
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