Aftermath of the Persian Wars

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Aftermath of the Persian Wars

• Psycho-Cultural History and the Classical Moment?

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Western Thinkers on Persian Wars

• The Persian Wars live immortal not in the
  historical records of Nations only, but also of
  Science and of Art--of the Noble and the Moral
  generally. For these are World-Historical
  Victories they were the salvation of culture and
  spiritual vigor and they rendered the Asiatic
  principle powerless.
• G.W.F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History
• trans. Sibree (New York 1956) pg. 257
• The battle of Marathon, even as an event in
  English history, is more important than the
  battle of Hastings. If the issue of that day had
  been different, the Britons and the Saxons might
  still have been wandering in the woods.
• J.S. Mill, Discussions and Dissertations
• Vol. 2 (London 1859) pg. 283

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Persian Invasions and Evolution of Historical
Consciousness

• Aeschylus Persians (472 BCE)
• Commemoration of the Dead at Marathon
• Herodotus Histories
• Later Historical Memories and Associations
• The Galatian Invasions of 280-279 BCE
• See Polybius, Histories, 2.35

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Athens Role in Persian WarsMarathonomachoi

• Herodotus, Histories, 7.139

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Marathon Tumulus
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At this point I am forced to declare an opinion
that most people will find offensive yet,
because I think it is true, I will not hold back.
If the Athenians had taken fright at the
approaching danger and had left their own
country, or even if they had not left it but had
remained and surrendered to Xerxes, no one would
have tried to oppose the King at sea. If there
had been no opposition to the King at sea, what
happened on land would have been this even if
the Peloponnesians had drawn many walls around
the Isthmus for their defense, the Spartans would
have been betrayed by their allies, not because
the allies chose to do so but out of necessity as
they were taken, polis by polis, by the fleet of
the barbarian thus the Spartans would have been
isolated and, though isolated, would have done
deeds of the greatest valor and died nobly. That
would have been what happened or else they
would, before this end, have seen that all the
other Greeks had Medized and so themselves would
have come to an agreement with Xerxes. In both
these cases, all of Greece would have been
subdued by the Persians.So, as it stands now, a
man who declares that the Athenians were the
saviors of Greece would hit the very truth.
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Legends of Divine Intervention

• Herodotus 6.105 (Pan)
• Plutarch, Theseus, 35
• Theseus emerges from the Underworld
• Pausanias 1.15.3
• Theseus emerges from Underworld
• Addition of Marathon, Athena, Echetlus, and
  Heracles

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• First of all, when the generals were still
  within the city, they sent a herald to Sparta,
  one Philippides, an Athenian, who was a day-long
  runner and a professional. According to the story
  of Philippides himself, and what he told the
  Athenians, Pan met him on Mount Parthenium, above
  Tegea. Pan shouted his name, Philippides, and
  commanded him to say this to the Athenians Why
  do you pay no heed to Pan, who is a good friend
  to the Athenian people, has been many times of
  use to you, and will be so again? This story the
  Athenians were convinced was true, and when the
  Athenian fortunes had again settled for the good,
  they set up a shrine for Pan under the Acropolis
  and propitiated the god himself with sacrifices
  and torch races, in accord with the message he
  had sent them.
• Herodotus, Histories, 6.105

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• In after timesthe Athenians moved to honor
  Theseus as a demi-god, especially by the fact
  that many of those who fought at Marathon against
  the Persians thought they saw an apparition of
  Theseus in arms rushing on in front of them
  against the barbarians.
• Plutarch, Life of Theseus, 35

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• At the end of the painting are those who fought
  at Marathon the Boeotians of Plataea and the
  attic contingent are coming to blows with the
  barbarians. In this place neither side has the
  advantage, but the center of the fighting shows
  the barbarians in flight and pushing one another
  into the morass, while at the end of the painting
  are the Phoenician ships, and the Greeks killing
  the barbarians who are scrambling into them. Here
  is also a portrait of the hero Marathon, after
  whom the plain is named, of Theseus represented
  as coming up from the Underworld, of Athena and
  of Heracles.
• Pausanias, 1.15.3

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Second Persian InvasionBattle at Salamis
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Divine Intervention at Salamis

• Herodotus, 7.189-193
• Boreas works against Xerxes fleet
• Poseidon destroys Persian ships off Cape
  Artemisium
• Pausanias, 1.36.1-2
• Hero Cychrius appears as sea-serpent at Salamis
• Plutarch, Moralia, 349f-350a
• Artemis Mounychia (full moon) at Salamis

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Herodotus, Histories, 7.189 (Boreas)
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• It is said that the Athenians had summoned
  Boreas, the North Wind, to help them, being so
  bidden to do so by a prophecy, there having been
  another oracle given them to call in their
  son-in-law to help them. Now, according to the
  Greek story, Boreas married an Attic wife,
  Orithyia, daughter of Erectheus. The Athenians
  construed this in terms of a marriage connection
  with themselves, so the tale goes, and saw Boreas
  as their son-in-law. They were at their station
  in Chalchis in Euboea when they saw that the
  storm was rising, and then, or even before then,
  they sacrificed to Boreas and Orithyia and called
  on them to come to their help and to destroy the
  ships of the barbarians, even as before, at Athos
  see 6.44. Now, whether this was why Boreas fell
  upon the barbarians as they anchored there, I
  cannot say. But the Athenians say that Boreas
  came to their help before and now again, and that
  this action was his and so, when they came home,
  they built a shrine to Boreas by the river
  Ilissus.

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Pausanias, 1.36.1 (Cychreus)
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• In Salamis is a sanctuary of Artemis, and also a
  trophy erected in honor of the victory which
  Themistocles the son of Neocles won for the
  Greeks. There is also a sanctuary of Cychreus.
  When the Athenians were fighting the Persians at
  sea, a serpent is said to have appeared in the
  fleet, and the god in an oracle told the
  Athenians that it was Cychreus the hero.

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Herodotus 7.192 (Poseidon)
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• Anyway, on the fourth day the storm ceased with
  Persian fleet severely damaged off the Sepiad
  headland. The day-watchers on the Euboean
  heights ran down from their positions on the
  second day after the storms commencement and
  told the Greeks of all that had happened in the
  shipwrecking. Then the Greeks, when they learned
  this, made prayers to Poseidon the Savior and,
  having poured libations, hastened back with all
  possible speed to Artemisium, having formed the
  expectation that there would be very few ships
  left to oppose them.

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Artemision Zeus (or Poseidon?)Life-Size Bronze
Statue, ca. 460-450 BCE
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Historical Events and Artistic Innovations

• A Problem of Causality

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Pollitt, Classical Art and the Persian War
Experience

• What factors were there which might be said to
  have brought into being this new analysis of
  consciousness in Early Classical art? It seems
  something more than a natural evolution from what
  had gone on in the Archaic period and should
  perhaps be ascribed to both a new self-confidence
  and a new uneasiness which arose among many
  thoughtful Greeks in the wake of the Persian
  Wars.
• Art and Experience in Classical Greece

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New York Kourosca. 600 BCE
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Anavysos Kourosca. 530 BCE
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Peplos Koreca. 530 BCE
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Strangford Apolloca. 490 BCE (Lemnos?)
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Critias Boy (Athens) ca. 480-475 BCE
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Mourning Athena, Athens, ca. 470 BCE
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Charioteer of Delphica. 478 or 474 BCE
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Temple of Olympia, East Pediment, Seer, ca.
460 BCE
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Riace Bronze ca. 450 BCE
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Greek Victory and Greek Collective Identities

• Centripetal Forces (Panhellenism)
• Validation of Greek Way of Life
• Articulation of to Hellenikon (see especially
  Herodotus, 8.144)
• Centrifugal Forces
• Athens and Sparta as Leaders
• Medizing States
• Athenian Growth and Spartan Suspicion