Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome

by Victor Davis Hanson

  justification for consolidating the empire. On the other hand, Pericles

  could honestly have been trying to achieve Greek freedom, security,

  and unity by this device. The cynical view ignores the facts of Pericles’

  recall of and rapprochement with Cimon, and the truce with Sparta,

  plainly intended to be a preliminary to a new policy of lasting peace. But

  the picture of Pericles as a disinterested devotee of pan-Hellenic coop-

  eration neglects the great advantages to Athens if the congress should

  meet and approve his proposals. Pericles could well have thought there

  was a chance the Spartans would accept the invitation. The policy of

  its militant faction had brought disaster to Sparta and raised Athens to

  new heights. Sparta’s agreement to the Five Years’ Peace of 451 shows

  that this faction had been discredited. It was not unreasonable to expect

  that the peace faction, impressed by Pericles’ unexpected alliance with

  Cimon and his apparent conversion to a new foreign policy, might take

  advantage of the troubles in Athens’s maritime empire to negotiate a

  lasting peace, as in Cimon’s time. Such a development would achieve

  Pericles’ goals and represent a diplomatic victory for his new policy of

  pacific imperialism.

  If Sparta refused, nothing would have been lost and much gained.

  Athens would have shown its pan-Hellenic spirit, its religious devotion,

  and its willingness to lead the Greeks for the common benefit; it would

  thus have gained a clear moral basis for pursuing its own goals without

  hindrance or complaint from others.

  The Spartans declined the invitation to participate in the new plan

  for international cooperation, and the congress did not go forward.

  This episode announced to the Greek world that Athens was ready to

  take the lead in carrying out a sacred responsibility. It also provided

  44 Kagan

  Athens with a justification for rebuilding its own temples. Pericles was

  now free to restore order to the empire, to continue collecting tribute

  on a new basis, and to use the revenue for the projects he had in mind.

  A mutilated papyrus now located in Strasbourg provides a good idea

  of these plans. The papyrus apparently reports a decree that Pericles

  proposed in the summer of 449, soon after the failure of the congress.

  Five thousand talents were to be taken from the treasury at once to

  be used for the construction of new temples on the Acropolis, with

  another two hundred transferred annually for the next fifteen years to

  complete the work. The building program, however, would not inter-

  fere with the maintenance of the fleet, which justified the payment of

  tribute. The council would see to it that the old ships would be kept in

  good repair and ten new ships added annually. If there had been any

  question before, there could be none now: the Delian League, the al-

  liance ( symmachia) of autonomous states, had become what the Athe-

  nians themselves were increasingly willing to call an empire ( archê), an

  organization that still produced common benefits but was dominated

  by the Athenians and brought them unique advantages.

  A few years after the new program had begun, Pericles found him-

  self challenged by a formidable political faction led by Thucydides, son

  of Melesias, a brilliant orator and political organizer. He used the usual

  personal attacks to win support, alleging that Pericles was trying to es-

  tablish himself as tyrant. This he cleverly combined with an assault on

  the use of imperial funds for the Periclean building program. Plutarch

  reports the essence of the complaints that were made in the assembly:

  The people is dishonored and in bad repute because it has removed

  the common money of the Hellenes from Delos to Athens. Peri-

  cles has deprived it of the most fitting excuse that it was possible

  to offer to its accusers, that it removed the common funds to this

  place out of fear of the barbarian and in order to protect it. Hellas

  certainly is outraged by a terrible arrogance [ hubris] and is mani-

  festly tyrannized when it sees that we are gilding and adorning

  our city like a wanton woman, dressing it with expensive stones

  and statues and temples worth millions, with money extorted

  from them for fighting a war.15

  Pericles and the Defense of Empire 45

  The attack was shrewd, subtle, and broad in its appeal. It was not

  against the empire itself or the tribute derived from it, which would

  have alienated most Athenians. Instead it complained, on the one hand,

  about the misdirection of funds to the domestic program of Pericles.

  This reminded the friends of Cimon who were now part of the Peri-

  clean coalition that the original Cimonian policy had been abandoned

  and perverted. On the other hand, it reached out to a broader constitu-

  ency by taking a high moral tone. Employing the language of tradi-

  tional religion and old-fashioned morality, it played on the ambiguity

  many Athenians felt toward their rule over fellow Greeks.

  Thucydides’ attacks forced Pericles to defend the empire and his

  new imperial policy before the Athenians themselves. In answer to the

  main complaint he offered no apology. The Athenians, he said, need

  make no account of the money they received from their allies so long

  as they protected them from the barbarian:

  They furnish no horse, no ship, no hoplite, but only money,

  which does not belong to the giver but to the receiver if he car-

  ries out his part of the bargain. But now that the city has prepared

  itself sufficiently with the things necessary for war, it is proper to

  employ its resources for such works as will bring it eternal fame

  when they are completed, and while they are being completed

  will maintain its prosperity, for all kinds of industries and a vari-

  ety of demands will arise which will waken every art, put in mo-

  tion every hand, provide a salary for almost the entire city from

  which at the same time it may be beautified and nourished.16

  The first part of this rebuttal answered the moral attack. The use of

  imperial funds for Athenian purposes was not analogous to tyranny,

  Pericles asserted, but to the untrammeled use of wages or profits by a

  man who has entered a contract. If there was any moral breach, it must

  be on the part of any allies that shrank from paying the tribute while

  Athens continued to provide protection. The second part was aimed

  especially at the lower classes, who benefited from the empire most di-

  rectly, and reminded them in the plainest terms what it meant to them.

  The Athenians understood Pericles well, and in 443 he called for an

  ostracism that served both as a vote of confidence in his leadership and

  46 Kagan

  as a referendum on his policies. Thucydides was expelled, and Pericles

  reached new heights of political influence. The people supported him

  not least because of the powerful stake they had in the empire.

  The concept of empire does not win favor in the world today, and

  the word “imperialism” derived from it has carried a powerfully pejo-

  rative meaning from its very invent
ion in the nineteenth century. Both

  words imply domination imposed by force or the threat of force over

  an alien people in a system that exploits the ruled for the benefit of

  the rulers. Although tendentious attempts are made to apply the term

  “imperialism” to any large and powerful nation that is able to influence

  weaker ones, a more neutral definition based on historical experience

  requires political and military control to justify its use.

  In holding such views, the people of our time are unique among

  those who have lived since the birth of civilization. If, however, we are

  to understand the empire ruled by the Athenians of Pericles’ time and

  their attitudes toward it, we must be alert to the great gap that separates

  their views from the opinions of our own time. These developments

  were a source of pride and gratification, but in some respects they also

  caused embarrassment and, at least to some Athenians, shame. Peri-

  cles himself confronted the problem more than once and addressed it

  with extraordinary honesty and directness, although neither he nor the

  Athenians were ever able to resolve its ambiguities.

  The Athenians repeatedly acknowledged the unpopularity of their

  rule, and the historian Thucydides, a contemporary of outstanding

  perceptiveness, makes the point in his own voice. At the beginning of

  the war, he tells us,

  Good wil was thoroughly on the side of the Spartans, especial y

  since they proclaimed that they were liberating Greece. Every in-

  dividual and every state was powerful y moved to help them by

  word or deed in any way they could. . . . So great was the anger of

  the majority against the Athenians, some wanting to be liberated

  from their rule, the others fearing that they would come under it.17

  Pericles was fully aware of these feelings, and he understood both

  the ethical problems and practical dangers they presented. Yet he never

  wavered in his defense of the empire.

  Pericles and the Defense of Empire 47

  In 432, when the threat of war was imminent, an Athenian embassy

  arrived at Sparta, ostensibly “on other business,” but really to present

  Athens’s position to the Spartans and their assembled allies. Their ar-

  guments were fully in accord with those of Pericles. The ambassadors

  argued that the Athenians acquired their empire as a result of circum-

  stances they did not set in motion and of the natural workings of hu-

  man nature. On the one hand, they pointed out,

  We did not acquire this empire by force, but only after you [Spar-

  tans] refused to stand your ground against what was left of the

  barbarian, and the allies came to us and begged us to become

  their leaders. It was the course of events that forced us to develop

  our empire to its present status, moved chiefly by fear, then by

  honor, and later by advantage. Then, when we had become hated

  by most of the allies and some of them had rebelled and been

  subdued, and you were no longer as friendly to us as you had

  been but were suspicious and at odds with us, it was no longer

  safe to let go, for all rebels would go over to your side. And no

  one can be blamed for looking to his own advantage in the face

  of the greatest dangers.18

  On the contrary, they continued, the Athenians had only done as the

  Spartans would have had to do had they maintained their leadership. In

  that case, they would have become equally hated. “Thus we have done

  nothing remarkable or contrary to human nature in accepting the em-

  pire when it was offered to us and then refusing to give it up, conquered

  by the greatest motives, honor, fear, and advantage.”19

  Pericles certainly thought that circumstances had made the empire

  inevitable, and the mainspring of Athenian action after Plataea and My-

  cale had been the general fear that the Persians would return. As the

  league achieved success and the allies’ commitment waned, the Athe-

  nians feared the dissolution of the league and the return of the Per-

  sians. When the Spartans became hostile, the Athenians feared allied

  defections to the new enemy. The compulsion that was needed to deal

  with these problems created a degree of hatred that made it too dan-

  gerous to give up control, as Pericles would explain to the Athenians

  later on:

  48 Kagan

  Do not think that we are fighting only over the question of free-

  dom or slavery; on the contrary, the loss of our empire is also at

  stake and the danger from those in the empire who hate us. And

  it is no longer possible to give it up, if any among you, moved

  in the panic of the moment to the abandonment of responsible

  action, wants to put on the trappings of virtue. For by now you

  hold this empire as a tyranny, which it may have been wrong to

  acquire but is too dangerous to let go.20

  Pericles clearly saw the dangers that argued for the maintenance of

  the empire, but he was moved by the claims of honor and advantage,

  as well. In the great Funeral Oration of 431, he called attention to the

  tangible advantages brought by the empire and its revenues:

  We have provided for the spirit many relaxations from labor with

  games and festivals regularly throughout the year, and our homes

  are furnished with beauty and good taste, and our enjoyment of

  them drives away care. All the good things of the earth flow into

  our city because of its greatness, and we are blessed with the op-

  portunity to enjoy products from the rest of the world no less

  than those we harvest here at home.21

  But these pleasures and advantages were far less important to Pericles

  than the honor and glory the Athenians derived from the empire, re-

  wards that justified the risk of their lives. He asked his fel ow citizens

  “every day to look upon the power of our city and become lovers

  [ erastai] of her, and when you have appreciated her greatness consider

  that al this has been established by brave men who knew their duty and

  were moved to great deeds by a sense of honor.”22 At a darker moment,

  in the next year, when the possibility of ultimate defeat could not be

  ignored, Pericles once again cal ed the Athenians’ attention to the power

  and glory of their imperial achievement and to its lasting value:

  To be sure, the man who does not like our activities will find fault

  with all this, but the man who, like us, wants to accomplish some-

  thing will make it his goal, and those who do not achieve it will

  be jealous of us. To be hated and unpopular for the time being

  has always been the fate of those who have undertaken to rule

  Pericles and the Defense of Empire 49

  over others, but whoever aims at the greatest goals must accept

  the ill-will and is right to do so. For hatred does not last long,

  but the brilliance of the present moment is also the glory of the

  future passed on in everlasting memory. With this foreknowledge

  of future glory you must behave with honor at this time and by

  the zeal of your efforts obtain both now.23

  Such arguments were not mere rhetoric. Pericles spoke at critical mo-

  ments in Athen
ian history, reaching out to the deepest and most impor-

  tant values cherished by his fel ow citizens, and everything we know of

  him indicates that he cherished them too. But he also valued the empire

  for reasons that were not so important and appealing to the average

  Athenian. He wanted to create a new kind of state, a place for the devel-

  opment of the aesthetic and intel ectual greatness inherent in human-

  ity and especial y in Greek culture. Athens was to be the “education of

  Greece,” and toward that end the city had to attract the greatest poets,

  painters, sculptors, philosophers, artists, and teachers of every kind.

  The power and wealth brought by empire was needed for that purpose

  and also to pay for the staging and performance of the great poems and

  plays they wrote, the magnificent buildings they erected, and the beauti-

  ful paintings and sculptures with which they enriched the city.

  This was a vision that required an empire, but an empire different

  from any that had ever existed, even from the one created by Cimon.

  This new kind of empire needed the security and income for nonmili-

  tary purposes that could only come in time of peace. Yet the Athenian

  Empire, like all its predecessors, had been achieved by war, and many

  people could not conceive of one without the other. The problem was

  intensified by the character of the Athenian empire, a power based not

  on a great army dominating vast stretches of land but on a navy that

  dominated the sea. This unusual empire dazzled perceptive contem-

  poraries. The Old Oligarch pointed out some of its special advantages:

  It is possible for small subject cities on the mainland to unite and

  form a single army, but in a sea empire it is not possible for island-

  ers to combine their forces, for the sea divides them, and their rul-

  ers control the sea. Even if it is possible for islanders to assemble

  unnoticed on one island, they will die of starvation. Of the main-

  50 Kagan

  land cities which Athens controls, the large ones are ruled by fear,

  the small by sheer necessity; there is no city which does not need

  to import or export something, but this will not be possible un-

  less they submit to those who control the sea.24

  Naval powers, moreover, can make hit-and-run raids on enemy ter-

  ritory, doing damage without many casualties; they can travel distances