John Fredrick Parker
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If so, it's within the OP so long as said marginal state is a democracy, as Athens...
WI Athenian Democracy Rules Classical World
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If so, it's within the OP so long as said marginal state is a democracy, as Athens...
Any serious reading of history shows it to be so. Even after the (minor, as it turned out from the Persian perspective) defeats in the first half of the fifth century, the Achaemenids were able to effectively dominate most of Greece by adept deployment of gold for generations afterward. I find your ideas about Athens having that much gold deeply problematic, to be honest. If such a small Empire can be so wealthy, then how on Earth did Athens manage to lose the war against Sparta? Why was it worth Alexander and Philip bothering to conquer Persia- or the Romans, for that matter? Speaking of Romans, why did the Byzantines suffer economic collapse when reduced to a state in the seventh century that was considerably larger than that controlled by fifth century BC Athens?
I'm afraid I think you're suffering from something of a nationalistic pro-Greek bias, here...
Max,
When Aristides drew the charter of the League and the respective contribution of the member states in ships and men and none complained,and great victories followed,there was no cause of friction between the allies;after some time many allies asked if it would have been
acceptable to the Athenians to contribute money instead of ships and men;
They either were tired of the war or thought that now that the immediate danger was gone,the Athenians could continue with the allied financial support and their own fleets and men.
The Athenians knew better
ersia,would not abandon its attempts to subjugate Greece having conducted a war for almost 40 years and having seen the reversal of fortunes against it,had on top of all that,to add salt to injury, the crushing defeat on its own soil at the hands of Cimon and the Delian league in the land and sea battle of Euremedon river which had shaken Persian boots,but on the other hand made Persia realise the extend of the Greek danger and resolved to eliminate it in every possible manner.
The case of Themistocles and his escape from Greece to the Persian court and the manner of his reception there convinced the Athenian leadership that 1) Athens should force Persia to realise the extend of its defeat and ask for peace and 2) Athens to remain on full alert since Persia would wait for the chance to jump again into the fray.
Now Athens had to increase its ships and find men to serve them;the Athenian proletarians were readily available:they could not stand in the phalanx since they had not any property qualifications, but they could row the Athenian triremes for two obols a day,the long fighting arm of the Athenian State and their numbers were adequate and if they were lucky they could become cleruchs which would elevate their status to hoplite class.Having achieved their victories against the Persians that led to the peace of Callias(449 BC) they were occupied for some time with the great works of Pericles in the Akropolis(Parthenon etc) and continued to row the fleet until the 30 years peace between Sparta and Athens.
Now Athens found itself with a body of citizens who needed the two obols a day and were controlling the best fighting machine in Greece which,as opposed to the land army,could enforce imperial policy in all corners of the Mediterranean if need be and 'a priori' the most warmongering body in Greece whose collective voice would be expressed in Pnyx,enforcing by their 'legitimate' vote the uncompromising dictates of an empire instead of a more diplomatic road that could perhaps have avoided certain discontent that lead unavoidably to uprisings,war,proletarian cleruchs(!) and more war...
Thanks Max for giving me the chance to explain the ailment of the Athenian
Democracy as it was finally formed by the amendments of Ephialtes and Pericles in 458 BC. see "Burry&Meiggs :"History of Greece to 323 BC" and especially "The Athenian Empire" by Russel Meiggs.For further analytical spacific points read:"The Athenian Constitution" by Hignett.
All "serious"reading of history shows the contrary to what you write and if you insinuate something which is obvious,and you ask these questions obviously you should read more seriously standard texts that students have assessed for many years in their Academic endeavours.
The facts(gold etc) about the Athenian Empire are given by Bury&Meiggs in his introduction to the Peloponnesian War,comparing the resources of the combatants for which he devotes no less than seventy seven pages that will answer to you how the war was lost for Athens(unless you consider the authors biased!) coupled with Thucidides analysis in his book Peloponnesian war regarding the Sicilian expedition
and why it could not have failed,but for the selection of one general(Nicias)
and the disasterous recall of Alkibiades,unless he is also 'biased';you can then proceed with Meiggs monumental work :"The Athenian Empire"based on on sources and mainly the Tribute Lists in Athenian Agora.
That would be enough to solve your questions.
Phillip's and later Alexander's reasons for the war against Persia was not the gold in the Persian Treasury of 14000 talents which they new nothing about,but first the elimination of a danger to their kingdom by Persian policies and the expansion of their kingdom to include the rich western Asia Minor Greek cities,but the death of Phillip altered Alexander's intentions.
Phillip wanted the greek cities as allies if possible since he was on a tight schedule and wanted to protect his back and if you insinuate that 'if gold existed in Athens why go to Persia' that would be irresponsible
hillip could neither storm the long walls of Athens nor could he blockade the city after Cheronea since the city might not have been in its previous glory but with its navy it could dominate the Aegean;for a start you could read Bury&Meiggs'reasoning about Phillip's reasons for avoiding war with Athens.As for any bias on my part,don't accuse someone of bias when you are not erudite on a subject:These sources are from the standard 'A' Level Ancient History books list in the London board and the A&B board in England and taught in the International Colleges and in the Classics syllabus of universities in the UK,and,consequently not intended for the use of Greek students in any of their Institutions.
I don't think that collapse is the appropriate word about the Byzantines but the answer is again simple and I wonder why you are asking the question since it doesn't belong to this topic in this thread,bu given the chance and the time I will give you an answer if you so wish elsewhere.
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This is not very accurate I believe, the mission was a long shot, many non-Athenians were surprised how long they lasted, the Greeks of the mainland did not understand that Siciliy is big they did not understand how much territory there was (the mission if I remember correctly, was to eliminate Syracuse and use that as a starting point to conquer Sicily).
Alcibiades may have had some level of tactical genious, to the level you propose I doubt, I bet he may have pulled off a victory if he had kept on it but I doubt it considering that other than the big two cities, Sicily probably came in third, it was better off than Thebes and Thessaly even in this time period.
If you doubt Thucudides say so since he is aknowledged as exceptionally clear analytic and accurate historian able to stand among the best modern historians.
where did you see that the Athenians were surprised? Gylippos was surprised when he was told that Syracusae was still standing and when he saw the wall that the Athenians had build around.....he didn't believe his eyes...you don't want me to tell you what the Historians say,I have sited
enough authorities available in Libraries or in homes make an effort please to at least read the relevant chapters.We cannot make a discussion on real history only on opinions....
20 million for 5th century Greece+colonies sounds extremely optimistic, I agree.
Probably!why not? the Western Asia Minor cities in their majority exceeded that number.Don't forget that these cities raised a revolt against the Persian empire and nearly succeeded! ditto for Corfu,Amphipolis,Lesbos,Chios,Samos,
Thassos etc most of them maintaining fleets exceeding 100 triremes.
Not only opinions. In this era the population of Egypt was 8-ish mln., Balkans - 5-ish mln. , Italy - 4-ish mln. ...
If Athenian empire of 200-ish polises = 20 000 000 people, than the whole system of greek colonization of 1000-1500 polices must number 100-150 million people,( which rivals the modern day Mediterranean population ) even WITHOUT to count in the other colonial systems and the inland populations...
100 mln. was the TOTAL world population in the late Roman era - 700-1000 years after the era of these bravest among all men greek generals and admirals.
Flubber
Banned
Sorry, but this one's off the rails permanently.
Write this thread off, rephrase your question in light of the few on-topic responses, and try again in a few weeks.
I'll try my hand at answering this.
First off, it's my opinion that a supposed Athenian Hegemony would fall fairly quickly after a victorious Peloponnesian War (whether due to a victorious Sicilian Campaign, or luckier breaks in either Mantinea or Delium, or no plague, or something else), fairly quickly meaning not more than 50-60 years (though I do think it would last longer than Sparta's Hegemony IOTL), and certainly not the four hundred you desire. Athens was too heavy handed in how it dealt with its allies/subjects. They were already widely considered "the bad guys" in the war in large part because of how large their indemnities were upon the League, that largely went to make Athens better rather than improve the standing of the League or democracies in general. Trying to maintain this would have been futile over the long term; there'd be a large (and probably oligarchic and Theban-led) uprising against the Athenians, that would have the full support of the Achaemenids, and would be too big for Athens to contain.
As for how things would work... certainly, I think under Athenian rule, you'd see the subjects divided into poleis, but once Athens falls from power (or whenever a Greek polis cannot assert its hegemony across the Greek world), I think you start seeing Leagues more like those of the third century BC... stronger and more regional leagues, like the Achaean and Aetolian Leagues, that I guess could be considered sort of proto-states. I hope I answered that... wasn't quite sure how to answer it.
Culturally... I do think you'll see more great writers and philosophers, and I think you'll see more great architecture and whatnot like the Parthenon in an Athenian-dominated post-Peloponnesian War classical world. Democracies do tend to produce great philosophers/art/theater/whatever at a higher rate than the alternatives; the Italian renaissance and OTL's Athenian Golden age being the classic examples for those believing in that sort of thing (which, obviously, I myself am with, albeit somewhat tentatively). I have a harder time seeing voting roles increased (in part because they were pretty radical for the standards of the day already), especially for citizen women - seriously, ancient Athens wasn't exactly kind to women, even for the standards of its time.
As for how western civilization might fundamentally be changed... I'm not sure. Democracy might be even more discredited for even longer if Athens is seen as a really terrible and despotic empire, that takes from those it can to build itself up (this being the view of the states that defeated the hypothetical Athenian Hegemony); but, on the other hand, it might be more readily accepted earlier in history, due to Athens' greater direct influence on the world. It certainly doesn't mean that liberal democracy is going to do better though.
I don't think anyone would argue that there were several cities/communities within the Delian Empire whose population numbered over 100,000, or even a few significantly over that mark. However, to say that the average population for all of the states of the Delian League was over that mark... is frankly absurd. I would believe that the total population of the Delian League's members is somewhere between 10 and 12 million people, considering how large some of the Ionian cities and Athens itself was. But 20 million is an extremely high number. Consider that all of France only reached 20 million people in the 17th century; consider that the United States currently has 285 cities populated over 100,000 people, the level at which you argue that 176 ancient Greek city states averaged over 2500 years ago. It seems very unlikely without a lot more evidence to back that up.
EDIT: Sharkani Rend did a much better job countering this than I did.
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Feminism? women's vote? that appeared as an idea in late 19th century...why you criticise a state of things in the ancient word with today's standards? doesn't that offend your sense of rational probability?
Do you really compare medieval state of affairs where average span of life was 25 years to the ancient word where the span of life was 45 years? with the one's in the ancient word? where is the surprise on that when the population of England at the time of Elizabeth the first was approximately 3 million?
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There's heaps and heaps of scholarship based on the Athenian tribute lists; none of those lists suggest that the poleis Athens was taxing were particularly large or wealthy or well-armed for that matter (which is why Athens started collecting money).
100,000 in the entire hinterland with the slaves included AND all the citizens in posts abroad...maybe that could have been Athens. 20 million is just completely off the usual population estimates to a dramatic degree.
I'm not; in all honesty, I generally prefer moral relativism. However, he asked if women might be enfranchised over time in the Athenian system of democracy, upon which I commented that that wasn't ever going to happen, given the Athenian view of women. And I commented on how the Athenian system was very far from being liberal, because I think there is a tendency today to assume that because Athens was a democracy (indeed, in many ways far moreso than our democracies today), it was liberal. I'm not faulting the Athenians for having an illiberal democracy, or for not enfranchising women, I'm just stating the reality of the time and culture, and applying it to the OP's questions.
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Weren't a couple of the Ionian cities around to that size though? That's what I had in mind, anyways, for cities that numbered over 100,000 besides Athens; there's a good chance I'm wrong, but I had that impression....
Um... yes, considering that, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, the average life expectancy of someone in Classical Greece was around 28 years, and the average life expectancy of someone living somewhere between the medieval and early modern eras in Britain was around 35 (which is presumably fairly comparable to France in that same era). They seem fairly comparable to me....
Well. Athens at the height of the grain trade could have been a lot larger than 100K (with all of Attica included), but it was singular in that respect (and dropped to whatever numbers were sustainable after the grain trade was cut). There were very few other cities that could put out more than 10K men, so that's say 30K citizens, 60-70K with the slaves and foreign residents.
That's still very high numbers, even somewhat high for modern Peloponnese and the Aegean. Higher than the middle ages too. And even with such optimistic numbers, 20 million is completely out of reach.