Athens defeats Sparta... and Alexander?

To my knowledge, there is no AH timeline or even post of a more successful athenian confederation; is easy to find a POD in the Peloponnesian War, since two years after the fall of Athens the Spartiates were asking for a cease of hostilities and the Sicilian expedition was seen as a total waste of men, ships and money. It´s easy to imaginate an athenian victory... in fact, it would be more plausible than OTL alternative. The cuestion, for me, is if that Athenian empire would develop strong institutions and resist the macedonians with more success than they did in OTL. The Sparta and Macedonia monarchies were a step back in politics development, as the Hellenistic Kingdoms. Would be possible a "democratic" (even in a limited way) confederation in such time and place? What do you think?

And of course, sorry for my english, I read it well and enjoyed your works for years and don´t like to be a leech, but I am a writer in spanish and is very frustrating doing that in another idiom, always feel without the word I need...
 
I'm actually in the mist of planning a TL on Athens in the Peloponnesian Wars. (Yes, I know, I've been promising this for a while now, but, really, it'll come).

I think the question turns on three parts, first can the Athenians improve their finances, second can they improve their tactics and logistics, and third can they develop political institutions to unify their empire?

The first depends upon which lands the Athenians control: the key is probably not to lose control (or to regain it) of Amphipolis and the Northern Aegean. This gives Athens more preciuos metals and more naval stores. Financial solvency also entails developing a dependable tax basis. The tribute of Delian League probably was patterned on the Persian style of tax assessment, assigning a set value for each community to contribute. The difficulty is that the ease or harshness of collecting that tax might vary with the success of each community over time.

Historically, it seems that the Athenians ability even to collect this tax was uncertain. In the later years of the Peloponesian war, the Athenians changed a fixed-amount tribute system to a 5% tax on all trade in the Empire's ports. The change occurred when Athens was in dire straits, so presumably this change was intended to collect more revenue in an easier manner. Such a tax is easier because it probably shifted the tax burden onto merchants more than landowners. In the same period, Athens also began to institute a direct tax on its own citizens in times of direst need. Obviously, at some point that's going to need to become more regular.

Furthermore, if Athens avoids the Decelean War (the final phase of the Peloponnesian War), it likely avoids a massive transfer of wealth (slaves) to Thebes. Doing so will bolster Athens' domestic productivity for a long time. Other economic issues will be the divide between the metic and citizen economies as well as the development of commerce and small-scale manufacture. In short, Athens has the potential to create something of a commercial revolution in a way that Rome did not. I can elaborate further if folks want.

The ultimate insurance for tax revenue is ultimately going to be the loyalty of the subject-allies. Here I think the reforms of the 4th century are instructive: in 378-5, Athens organized a new naval league, called the Second Athenian Confederacy/League/Empire (depending on your point of view). At its core was the Decree of Aristoteles which from what we can tell constituted a Bill of Rights for the new organization: these rights included bans on Athenians holding property in allied states and on garrisons in allied states (without their permission). The Decree also created a council (synedrion) of the Allies, which seems to have had co-equal authority over League affairs. By 357, the League was broken by a revolt of the allies. Scholars are divided over why: some blame a resurgent imperial arrogance in Athens, which began to amass an Empire outside the context of the League. In the course of these conquests, Athens violated the rights guaranteed members of the Leauge. Other scholars (the ones I agree with) point to the fact that the poleis whose "rights" Athens "violated" were not members of the League. Furthermore, Athens probably consulted the Leauge members in taking those actions. Rather than fearing Athenian aggression, I beleive it's more correct that the allies were no longer convinced that Athens could protect them: Athens had failed to re-conquer Amphipolis. Thebes had grown more powerful. And Sparta--the main aggressor the League formed to fight--had been destroyed as a threat. All of this makes me think that if the Athenians can devise something like a Bill of Rights for their subjects and if they're successful, the Athenian Empire will endure.

A key test of this endurance will be whether the revenues of the Empire will ever return to the subjects. OTL the Empire spent money either on wars or on public works in Athens. Both ensured the loyalty of the demos by offering them employment. A possible route to ensure the loyalty of the allies is to involve them in this process. They probably were involved in rowing for the Athenian fleet, but public works in the Aegean and other states were unknown. They might be key to holding on to posessions in the Greek mainland.

The issue of tactics and logistics is probably a matter of leadership. OTL Epaminondas and Philip II are the military genius of Greece in the 4th century, ushering in the transformations that saw hoplite warfare evolve into a doctrine of combined arms and professionalism. Certainly, Athens has the potential to create a professional army since it will create a new source of paying jobs for the Athenian demos. The doctrine of combined arms probably depends on leadership, but might be encouraged if Athens finds itself fighting in more varied terrain, specifically in Thessaly, Thrace or Sicily all of conduce to cavalry warfare.

There are several limitations to all this. First, the Greeks concept of League and the autonomy of a polis is entirely at odds with the Roman / Latin concept. In the Latin League, citizens seems to have transferable rights between cities--a revolutionary concept in Greece (though not unheard of, cf. the union of Corinth and Argos in 392-385). These differences made it easier for the Romans to rule Italy as a united political unit and in turn taught them how to conquer and absorb far away cultures. [Note: the Greeks can still learn. In fact, the increased concern about autonomy may force more mature political institutions to develop.] Second, the Athenians aren't nearly as bloodthirsty as the Macedonians or the Romans. Their empire is likely to be smaller. The Athenian will probably also have a large informal area of influence rather than a conquest driven empire. This means that the Athenian will either fall victim to another conquering power or have to develop to resist them. This actually might create an interesting opportuinit for an earlier state system in the Mediterranean. Third, as a part of the Romans gift for Empire, they had a highly codified legal system. Greeks do not seem to have had one (or at least it's not as systematized), but I think something could be developed.

Whether the Athenians Empire ever develops into a truly "democratic confederation" depends on whether they ever develop an equivalent of representative government. The direct democracy of Athens quite simply can't become a democratic Empire, since even if the Athenians can overcome their jealousy of their ethnic citizenship, the right to influence the government will still be limited by those residing near enough to Athens to attend assembly meetings and sit on juries.
 
For the first confederation we don´t need an Athenian victory, only a sensible peace before the last years of the war, Sparta was asking for that in 406 BC. The stability of the confederation is another question, I don´t see the athenians as "long-time-thinkers-imperialist" or even strategic thinkers like the Romans or Macedonians. And the concept of isopoliteia? Could be applied here?
 
For the first confederation we don´t need an Athenian victory, only a sensible peace before the last years of the war, Sparta was asking for that in 406 BC. The stability of the confederation is another question, I don´t see the athenians as "long-time-thinkers-imperialist" or even strategic thinkers like the Romans or Macedonians. And the concept of isopoliteia? Could be applied here?

1) Yes, all Athens needs to win the Peloponnesian War (strategically) is not to lose. A true win would be to undo the Peloponnesian League.

2) Evidence of Athenians as long term strategic thinkers: 1) building a navy in the 480s. 2) building the Long Walls. The hard part about the Athenians is that they often make the right call...and then lose anyway because of chance and bad luck. Add these events to the times where they do have bad judgment (not opposing Philip of Macedon earlier) and they seem silly.

3) Isopoliteia (evidence by the union of Argos and Corinth) is indeed the path to a stable political union. However, it'll get more complicated, I think. If anything the fact that one will need isopoliteia will reinforce a federal system (even if not a representative democracy we would recognize as such) which might be more stable than Republican Rome (though perhaps not as militarily potent).
 
Furthermore, if Athens avoids the Decelean War (the final phase of the Peloponnesian War), it likely avoids a massive transfer of wealth (slaves) to Thebes. Doing so will bolster Athens' domestic productivity for a long time. Other economic issues will be the divide between the metic and citizen economies as well as the development of commerce and small-scale manufacture. In short, Athens has the potential to create something of a commercial revolution in a way that Rome did not. I can elaborate further if folks want.

Please do.
 
Me. too

I've also been working on a related ATL. I've always been fascinated in alternate timeline ideas that allow democracy to persist unbroken til today. I believe the world would've been a far, far better place.

The POD I'm working on is IMHO heartbreakingly plausible and also involves Athens.

Maybe I've been too occupied trying to project the TL forward. I think I need to get it out the door by fleshing out the Peloponnesian War bit and getting it out the door.
 
I'm actually in the mist of planning a TL on Athens in the Peloponnesian Wars. (Yes, I know, I've been promising this for a while now, but, really, it'll come).

I think the question turns on three parts, first can the Athenians improve their finances, second can they improve their tactics and logistics, and third can they develop political institutions to unify their empire?

The first depends upon which lands the Athenians control: the key is probably not to lose control (or to regain it) of Amphipolis and the Northern Aegean. This gives Athens more preciuos metals and more naval stores. Financial solvency also entails developing a dependable tax basis. The tribute of Delian League probably was patterned on the Persian style of tax assessment, assigning a set value for each community to contribute. The difficulty is that the ease or harshness of collecting that tax might vary with the success of each community over time.

Historically, it seems that the Athenians ability even to collect this tax was uncertain. In the later years of the Peloponesian war, the Athenians changed a fixed-amount tribute system to a 5% tax on all trade in the Empire's ports. The change occurred when Athens was in dire straits, so presumably this change was intended to collect more revenue in an easier manner. Such a tax is easier because it probably shifted the tax burden onto merchants more than landowners. In the same period, Athens also began to institute a direct tax on its own citizens in times of direst need. Obviously, at some point that's going to need to become more regular.

Furthermore, if Athens avoids the Decelean War (the final phase of the Peloponnesian War), it likely avoids a massive transfer of wealth (slaves) to Thebes. Doing so will bolster Athens' domestic productivity for a long time. Other economic issues will be the divide between the metic and citizen economies as well as the development of commerce and small-scale manufacture. In short, Athens has the potential to create something of a commercial revolution in a way that Rome did not. I can elaborate further if folks want.

The ultimate insurance for tax revenue is ultimately going to be the loyalty of the subject-allies. Here I think the reforms of the 4th century are instructive: in 378-5, Athens organized a new naval league, called the Second Athenian Confederacy/League/Empire (depending on your point of view). At its core was the Decree of Aristoteles which from what we can tell constituted a Bill of Rights for the new organization: these rights included bans on Athenians holding property in allied states and on garrisons in allied states (without their permission). The Decree also created a council (synedrion) of the Allies, which seems to have had co-equal authority over League affairs. By 357, the League was broken by a revolt of the allies. Scholars are divided over why: some blame a resurgent imperial arrogance in Athens, which began to amass an Empire outside the context of the League. In the course of these conquests, Athens violated the rights guaranteed members of the Leauge. Other scholars (the ones I agree with) point to the fact that the poleis whose "rights" Athens "violated" were not members of the League. Furthermore, Athens probably consulted the Leauge members in taking those actions. Rather than fearing Athenian aggression, I beleive it's more correct that the allies were no longer convinced that Athens could protect them: Athens had failed to re-conquer Amphipolis. Thebes had grown more powerful. And Sparta--the main aggressor the League formed to fight--had been destroyed as a threat. All of this makes me think that if the Athenians can devise something like a Bill of Rights for their subjects and if they're successful, the Athenian Empire will endure.

A key test of this endurance will be whether the revenues of the Empire will ever return to the subjects. OTL the Empire spent money either on wars or on public works in Athens. Both ensured the loyalty of the demos by offering them employment. A possible route to ensure the loyalty of the allies is to involve them in this process. They probably were involved in rowing for the Athenian fleet, but public works in the Aegean and other states were unknown. They might be key to holding on to posessions in the Greek mainland.

The issue of tactics and logistics is probably a matter of leadership. OTL Epaminondas and Philip II are the military genius of Greece in the 4th century, ushering in the transformations that saw hoplite warfare evolve into a doctrine of combined arms and professionalism. Certainly, Athens has the potential to create a professional army since it will create a new source of paying jobs for the Athenian demos. The doctrine of combined arms probably depends on leadership, but might be encouraged if Athens finds itself fighting in more varied terrain, specifically in Thessaly, Thrace or Sicily all of conduce to cavalry warfare.

There are several limitations to all this. First, the Greeks concept of League and the autonomy of a polis is entirely at odds with the Roman / Latin concept. In the Latin League, citizens seems to have transferable rights between cities--a revolutionary concept in Greece (though not unheard of, cf. the union of Corinth and Argos in 392-385). These differences made it easier for the Romans to rule Italy as a united political unit and in turn taught them how to conquer and absorb far away cultures. [Note: the Greeks can still learn. In fact, the increased concern about autonomy may force more mature political institutions to develop.] Second, the Athenians aren't nearly as bloodthirsty as the Macedonians or the Romans. Their empire is likely to be smaller. The Athenian will probably also have a large informal area of influence rather than a conquest driven empire. This means that the Athenian will either fall victim to another conquering power or have to develop to resist them. This actually might create an interesting opportuinit for an earlier state system in the Mediterranean. Third, as a part of the Romans gift for Empire, they had a highly codified legal system. Greeks do not seem to have had one (or at least it's not as systematized), but I think something could be developed.

Whether the Athenians Empire ever develops into a truly "democratic confederation" depends on whether they ever develop an equivalent of representative government. The direct democracy of Athens quite simply can't become a democratic Empire, since even if the Athenians can overcome their jealousy of their ethnic citizenship, the right to influence the government will still be limited by those residing near enough to Athens to attend assembly meetings and sit on juries.


Wow Nick, you seemed to have put alot of thought into this and I definatley waiting to see the TL actually come to fruition. But I am wondering with a stronger Athenian "Empire" to actually give Phillip a run for his money, might they adopt the tatctics and formations of the Macedonian Phalanx? Might Athens still want to conquer Persia? And what of Carthage?
 
Wow Nick, you seemed to have put alot of thought into this and I definatley waiting to see the TL actually come to fruition. But I am wondering with a stronger Athenian "Empire" to actually give Phillip a run for his money, might they adopt the tatctics and formations of the Macedonian Phalanx? Might Athens still want to conquer Persia? And what of Carthage?

Thanks. I'm in the midst of doing some research so I won't make any predictions about the TL itself. It will come, though.

On the question of Philip and the Athenian Empire, an Athenian victory in the Peloponnesian War probably precludes the rise of Philip II as we know it. Philip learned a lot about Greek politics and tactical innovation from Epaminondas when Philip was a hostage at Thebes as a youth. Thebes / Boeotia is certainly going to need dealing with, but without the overstretch of the Spartan hegemony, its OTL rise is out the window.

That being said, the basic question of whether the Athenians will adopt new tactics is a good one. To be more sucessful, the simple answer is yes. There will be a couple competing innovations. First is the use of light troops, usually peltasts but also slingers and javelineers and archers. OTL Isocrates scored the first victory over a Spartan hoplite force by another Greek force when his peltasts defeated a mora of Spartans at Lechaeum during the Corinthian War. These troops benefit from being more mobile than hoplites and were usually cheaper; mercenaries in the 4th century seemed to have preferred to arm themselves as peltasts.

Next is the use of cavalry. OTL Thucydides most stringent critique of the Athenians' force in Sicily seems to be that it lacked a sufficient force of cavalry. Some scholars seem to think that Athens held back what cavalry it had, but one might also conclude that Athens didn't have a very large cavalry force to begin with. In order to have a chance of subduing Sicily or the tribes of the Northern Aegean coast (Thrace and Macedon), Athens will need a substantial cavarly. I plan to have some fun with Xenophon in this regard.

The final component is a twofold change in mentality: professionalism and a doctrine of combined arms. I feel that given the example of the Athenian navy, with paid rowers, a professional standing army (drilled and paid for their service) has a good chance of growing up. The crucial battle will be with the upper clases, since a change away from hoplite militias will probably be seen as a complete class revolution, both in terms of the prestige of bearing hoplite arms and in terms of an potential for an increased tax burden. By a doctrine of combined arms, I mean two things really: armies comprising different kinds of troops rather than formed around one group and the coordination of tactical movement on the battlefield. In a classical hoplite battle, there might be a cavalry skirmish before the battle as the armies approach one another, but funadmentally, the two armies line up across from each other and begin shoving in a homicidal version of a rugby scrum. Epaminondas signalled a change as he began to use different formations (a column en masse) deployed with particular tactical targets. Epmainondas didn't invent this so much as combine a number of different practices. Philip did the same while also pioneering a cavalry force, a professional army, and a reliable logistics operation. Philip and Alexander's battles also involve a good deal more movement and command on the battlefield itself, particularly because of the need to time a cavalry charge and position the infantry to be "the anvil" for it. I think it's pretty clear that this development will continge on military leadership at the time; I could see things evolving a little more piecemeal for Athens.

On the future conquest of an Athenian Empire, Persia is an obvious candidate. First, though, will probably come its role in the Peloponnesian Wars. There's no guarantee that they will break from their neutrality and ally with the Spartans, but it might be a convienient occurence. Persian involvement will break the Peace of Callias that had held since the 450s and ended the Persian Wars. It also gives the islanders something to fear (making them cling to Athens if she's smart). The Persian also made a habit in the 4th century of dominating Greece by dictating the terms of peace settlements: indeed, the dictum of autonomy incoporated in the King's Peace became a way for the Artaxerxes to ensure that if Persia couldn't conquer the Greeks, the Greeks would remain divided. Add to these calculations the frequent calls by 4th century orators (particularly Isocrates) for a pan-hellenic crusade against the Persian (to enrich the Greece due to the poverty betokened by decades of constant warfare) and I think some kind of reckoning is coming. I doubt the Athenians pull off an Alexandrian scale conquest, if only for the simple reason that their general will be more subordinated to Greek views by necessity. No guarantee that a rogue general doesn't plunge into a rump Persian Empire to forge his own kingdom, however. Most likely, there will be some kind of rump state. Egypt is probably freed in a revolt, but only under in formal influence of Athens. Athens probably acquires the coast of Asia Minor (on both the Mediterranean and Black Seas) and perhaps the interior.

Sicily is the key to any conflict with either Carthage or Rome. The easiest way for Athens to win the Peloponnesian Wars might be to engineer a victory at Syracuse in 415, but that's a little too wankish. The POD I'm working on will probably entail a very different kind of expedition (much smaller and only Alcibiades); I'm still not sure how things will work out. I'm think, though, that the Athenians organize some kind of league for the Sicels and those Greeks seeking to resist the power of Syracuse. I'm not sure if the Carthaginians invade in 408(ish) per OTL, since I feel that invasion was betokened by the failed Athenian attempt. I think the Carthaginians do come at some point soon; the Athenians probably are called in to help at just the point that the might finish up the conflict in Greece herself. I'm optimistic that Athenian naval strength could keep the Carthaginians at bay; I'm also toying with the Athenians moving into Syrasue to overthrow a tyrant there. In short, Sicily will end up under Athenian protection, but probably not Athenian rule. This ensures Athenian merchants have access to Sicilian, Egyptian, and Black Sea grains--the three major breadbaskets.

The probelm is that early on Carthage and Rome (the latter taking the place of the Etruscans) allied to contest powers to the east in the Western Med (and Sicily). Hence, there will be some interesting showdowns. Athens will probably grow to have prestige invested in the fate of Sicily, but the long term future of its Empire is its ability to incorporate the mainland Greeks and to expand into the Balkans. The latter is to me the hardest part, since it will entail discovering something about the tribes living there and how willing they might be the Hellenize. I think these are probably eastern Celts, so there's all kinds of interesting possibilities. In short, though, a Mediterranean with a powerful Athenian Empire heading an amalgated Greek Confederacy is probably going to develop into an early state system. (Sort of like Robert's Ancient Egypt TL).
 
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Furthermore, if Athens avoids the Decelean War (the final phase of the Peloponnesian War), it likely avoids a massive transfer of wealth (slaves) to Thebes. Doing so will bolster Athens' domestic productivity for a long time. Other economic issues will be the divide between the metic and citizen economies as well as the development of commerce and small-scale manufacture. In short, Athens has the potential to create something of a commercial revolution in a way that Rome did not. I can elaborate further if folks want.Please do.

I will, but I hate to by subsuming the entirety of someone else's threads with my own ramblings. If anyone objects, I'll cut back.

The difference begins in the differing political climates of Athens and Rome. As the senatorial class gained prominence in Rome, the political elites of Rome considered any kind of mercantile or manufacturing activity as mean employment. Wealthy Romans were almost always landholders, even those plebians and equites riches. Wealthy Athenians also tended to be aristocratic landholders, but in different ways. As a key example, most doctors in the Roman world were slaves or freedmen or thought of as lowly, but in the Greek world they were esteemed. Nicias owned 1,000 slaves which he lased out to mining concessions in the silver mines at Laurium. Cleon, Hyperbolus and other "leaders of the people" are commonly describe as having amassed wealth by some kind of manufacture. I think it's Cleon (need my full library to provide the reference, which I'm away from at the moment) whose describe as a tanner, mostly for the urine references. While many of the authors of Greek history seem to describe such men as "mean" and "demogogue" certainly has negative connotations to us, there seems to be a different relationship between the Athenian polity and these politicians and the Romans and their novi homines.

There are important impediments to a Greek commercial revolution, however. Most importantly, that Greeks restricted the right to own land to citizens of a particular poleis and that a slave freed by a citizen did not receive citizenship, but instead became a metic. Indeed, the metic class will probably become a crucial problem for any successful Greek state, but particularly Athens. Roman conceptions of law and citizenship, fundamentally more fungible and open, accomodated a profusion of citizens more easily--helped by the fact that the Senators did not need to feel jealous of the new citizens and the new citizens usually meant an extended class from which to recruit soldiers. In Athens, the demos will jealously guard its rights of citizenship, both to guard their political influence and the economic benefits of public pay.

Nonetheless, the Athenians were fundamentally a trading power, their wealth deriving from their trade in olive oil and the subsequent commerce. The Athenians new the grain trade with the Black Sea was critical to their survival and took steps to protect it. Pericles even experimented with economic warfare in ennacting the Megarian Decree (one of the casus belli of the Peloponnesian War, it forbade Megara from trading at any port in the Athenian Empire). Also, the Athenians in my rough sketch of conquest will probably colonize more than they conquer: that is, they will either conquer other Greeks (in Ionia, Sicily, an exception is a potential conqest of the interior of Asia Minor) or will colonize areas populated with Barbarians (the Balkans and Thrace). This means that the Athenians will probably not inherit the land tenancy systems of the Near East but will spread Greek style citizen farming and mercantile networks.

Quite simply, to many generalizations possible of most of antiquity (from 500 bc to 500 AD), democratic Athens is the exception. Those exceptions subsided after 338 BC and Athens' conquest by imperial powers.
 
About an Athenian victory in Sicily, there is a short novel "Daimon" by the big T. (well, the second one, being Thande the first), with Sokrates and Alkybiades as characters. I think the Athenian idea of citizenship could have evolved by the circunstances like the Roman one, or the Hellenistic Kingoms... but the key is the democracy; by the time of Caracalla decree the citizenship was meaningless. Here a citizen means a voice and a vote.
 
About an Athenian victory in Sicily, there is a short novel "Daimon" by the big T. (well, the second one, being Thande the first), with Sokrates and Alkybiades as characters. I think the Athenian idea of citizenship could have evolved by the circunstances like the Roman one, or the Hellenistic Kingoms... but the key is the democracy; by the time of Caracalla decree the citizenship was meaningless. Here a citizen means a voice and a vote.

It's an interesting story, the POD being that Socrates accompanies Alcibiades on the Sicilian expedition, which leads Alcibiades to refuse the order to return to Athens. Alcibiades then leads the Athenians to conquer Syracuse. He leads his victorious troops on a daring raid into Laconia, burning Sparta itself. Alcibiades caps off these victories by sailing into the Piraeus. He begins killing his enemies, those who had attempted to recall him. As his rule becomes more tyrannical (both in the Greek sense and in our own), Socrates begins to protest, and so Alcibiades has the great thinker killed. A good story and a good example of HT's occaisional non-parallelism in his AH.

It also ignores the fact that Alcibiades didn't have sole command of the expedition. The tactic employed to defeat Syracuse in the story is actually that advocated by Lamachus (a surprise descent on Syracuse), not the diplomatic intrigue more typical of Alcibiades. Socrates' countenancing Alcibiades' refusal to obey Athenian law flies in the face of what we seem to know of his character (in Plato's dialogues at least, Socrates believes he cannot flee the city of his birth and so defy its law).

I agree with you, Juanpi, that the evolution of Athenian citizenship will be very different from that of Roman citizenship. Whether it means that any Greek can vote in the Athenian assembly is uncertain, but the need to work that problem out may the catalyst for very interesting reforms.
 
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