In the study of history there are quite a number of places and times which ‘stick out’. There are some dates which seem to ‘stick out’…1066, 1215, 1492, 1776, 1941, and 2001, etc. There are places which are associated with particular actions… Waterloo, Auschwitz, Normandy, and Gettysburg (i.e. not everything and every place in history is a battle site, but there are many…). There are some era’s which are associated with particular events…late 19th century Paris with Impressionism, the swinging London of the 1960’s with the ‘youth movement’, and so on.
There are, however, only a few points in time, eras which seem to sparkle from their places in the past. Florence in the late 15th century, Rome near the end of the Republic, and for western history, the most important would easily be Athens in the fifth century before the Common Era.
This era was bracketed by bookends of Wars, first the two Persian Wars (essentially in 490, and 480 BCE). Even for those who don’t study military history, the names of Marathon (in 490BCE) and Thermopylae (in 480BCE) are still known by many. Both of these actions along with the sea battle at Salamis, and the final outcome of this conflict at Plataea were, for the Greeks, something akin to the 20th century British perspective of the Battle of Britain. Their real chances against the Persian Empire were, from the stand point of resources, laughable. The end result to the Athenian character (as well as most Greeks) was one of a deep sense of Exceptionalism.
In this post war era in Athens, the first real democracy grew into a fundamental model for modern democracies, along with some role models for effective politicians, ward heelers, lobbyists, and power brokers. Some things don’t change that much…
Athenians were very civil minded, at least the Athenians who were citizens, and even more exclusively, those Athenians who we voters. It should be mentioned that the main reason that Athens was capable of sustaining an effective democracy, of creating festivals, civic architecture, and supported playwrights and philosophers was that they were supported by a greater number of slaves. One needed to be propertied to some degree to be a citizen, as well as native born. All in all, the reality of Athenian democracy would seem far too exclusive to our more modern thoughts, but it was still a democracy.
This period of the Golden Age of Athens under the leadership of Pericles is a worthwhile place to start a study of politics. There were some fundamental arguments put forth by opposing groups, there were democrats and demagogues who saw power coming from the mob, there were oligarchs who wanted to limit power to the wealthy few. All in all, this small period of time is almost an encyclopedia of the fundamentals of democratic politics.
Golden ages never last. Athens power, which was much the result of its primacy in the Persian wars, had grown in such a manner that Athens effectively became the most influential power in the Aegean Sea. It was an Empire, and acted in that manner. Over time frictions grew in other areas of Greece. Sparta (the great land power, and military stronghold which served as a model for military dictatorships for millennia…), which led the Peloponnesian League, finally went to War with Athens, and her Empire. This war, which lasted for nearly thirty years, pitted the great sea power (Athens) against the great land power (Sparta).
As with the study of how democracies worked in Athens Golden age, during the Peloponnesian War, there were many cases of Byzantine treachery and Machiavellian intrigue amongst the Athenian politicians. Interestingly enough, both of these two terms were coined over a thousand years later…
For many Americans of a certain age, the notion of a time bracketed by a ‘just war’ and another more complex war where showcased civic virtue, and the other showing the dissolution of their democratic ideals seems to be eerily prescient…
