The Greek World 500–440 BC

The Greek World 500–440 BC is one of the Historical Periods options in Section IV (25 marks). You write one extended response (one of two alternatives), about 1,000 words. Study the period through the written and archaeological evidence, organised around:

• Historical context: the geography of the Greek world and the Persian Empire; Athens and Sparta around 500 BC.
• The Persian Wars: the Ionian Revolt, Marathon, Xerxes' invasion (Thermopylae, Artemisium, Salamis, Plataea, Mycale) and the reasons for Greek victory.
• The nature of power and authority: the Delian League and its development into an Athenian empire; the leadership of Sparta and its alliance; Athenian democracy (Ephialtes, Pericles).
• Relations between Greek states: Athens and Sparta from alliance to the First Peloponnesian War and the Thirty Years' Peace (446/5 BC); the revolt of Samos (440–439 BC).
• Evidence and interpretations: Herodotus, Thucydides, Plutarch, Aeschylus, inscriptions such as the Athenian Tribute Lists, and monuments.

All dates are BC.

• The Persian Empire under Darius I stretched from the Aegean to India and ruled the Greek cities of Ionia (western Asia Minor) through tyrants and satraps.
• Sparta led the Peloponnesian League and had the strongest hoplite army; its system depended on controlling the helots.
• Athens had become a democracy after the reforms of Cleisthenes (508/7); the former tyrant Hippias had fled to Persia.

Reasons for Greek victory: the alliance under Spartan command; the Athenian fleet and Themistocles' strategy in the narrows; hoplites in close combat; Persian problems of supply and dependence on the fleet; storms; Xerxes' decision to fight at Salamis; the morale of citizens defending their cities. Herodotus exaggerates Persian numbers (he gives over five million in all).

The Delian League

• 478/7: after the arrogance of the Spartan regent Pausanias at Byzantium, the Ionians and islanders ask Athens to lead them. The league's treasury and meetings are at Delos; Aristides assesses contributions in ships or money (first total 460 talents, Thucydides 1.96); Athenian hellenotamiai collect it.
• Purpose: revenge on Persia by ravaging the king's territory (and protection of the Aegean).
• Cimon's campaigns: Eion (476/5), Scyros, and the great victory at the Eurymedon (about 466).

Steps towards empire

• Naxos (about 470) forced back after trying to leave — ‘the first allied city enslaved contrary to custom’ (Thucydides 1.98).
• Thasos revolts (465–463) over its mines and trading posts; loses walls, fleet and pays tribute.
• Ships to money: most allies chose to pay money, so Athens' fleet grew while theirs disappeared (Thucydides 1.99).
• 454/3: the treasury moves to Athens; a sixtieth of the tribute goes to Athena, recorded on the tribute quota lists (the first surviving stone record).
• Control: cleruchies (Athenian settlers on allied land), garrisons, officials, decrees on coinage and tribute (dates debated), and cases sent to Athenian courts.
• Peace of Callias (about 449): a peace with Persia, mentioned by later writers but not by Thucydides — its existence is debated.
• Revolts: Euboea (446) and Samos (440–439), both crushed.

Athenian democracy

• 462/1: the reforms of Ephialtes remove most powers of the Areopagus and give them to the Council of 500, the Assembly and the people's courts; Ephialtes is murdered.
• Pericles: pay for jurors (about the 450s); the citizenship law (451/0: both parents Athenian); leadership as general; the building programme (Parthenon begun 447).
• Link to empire: the thetes rowed the fleet; tribute paid for the navy and public works.

• Herodotus (Histories, written in the later 5th century): the main source for the Persian Wars; a Greek perspective, theme of freedom against despotism, dramatised stories, impossible numbers, but wide inquiry.
• Thucydides (book 1.89–118, the ‘Pentecontaetia’): brief and selective on 479–435; interested in the growth of Athenian power and Spartan fear; omits the Peace of Callias.
• Plutarch (Lives of Themistocles, Aristides, Cimon, Pericles; about AD 100): late and moralising, but uses lost contemporary sources (e.g. Ion of Chios).
• Aeschylus' Persians (472): a contemporary Athenian view of Salamis.
• Material evidence: the Serpent Column (31 states that fought), the Athenian Tribute Lists, the Marathon burial mound, ostraka (e.g. with the names of Themistocles and Cimon).
• Modern views (credited if used): historians debate when the league became an empire, the dating of imperial decrees (e.g. the Coinage Decree) and whether the Peace of Callias existed (e.g. Russell Meiggs, The Athenian Empire, 1972).

1. Unpack the question: the command verb and the focus (the Persian Wars, the empire, Athens and Sparta, democracy).
2. Thesis: a clear judgement in the first paragraph.
3. Paragraphs by argument, each with dated evidence and analysis.
4. Sources: use Herodotus and Thucydides as evidence and as interpretations (when, why and how they wrote).
5. Conclusion: answer the question.

• Confusing the Hellenic League (481, against Xerxes) with the Delian League (478/7, led by Athens).
• Stating the Peace of Callias as certain fact.
• Running the period past 440 into the Peloponnesian War of 431.
• Treating Herodotus' numbers as reliable.
• Narrating campaigns without linking them to the question.

• Anchor dates: 499, 490, 480, 479, 478/7, about 466, 462/1, 454/3, 446/5, 440.
• Use terms accurately: hoplite, trireme, thetes, hegemony, tribute (phoros), cleruchy, hellenotamiai, ostracism, medism.
• Questions on the empire reward evidence from inscriptions as well as Thucydides.

• Athenian society in the time of Pericles and Pericles (Personalities): Athens' democracy and leadership in the same period.
• Xerxes and Persian society options: the Persian side of the wars.
• Spartan society: the helots, the army and Spartan caution.