How Paranoia Killed The Spartan-Athenian Alliance | The Spartans | Odyssey

[Music] two thousand five hundred years ago western civilization was threatened with extinction an invader from the east the persian empire came with a huge army to enslave the independent cities of greece in the face of overwhelming odds sparta and athens led the resistance in the narrow pass of thermopylae the gates of fire 300 hoplite warriors from sparta made a heroic last stand sacrificing themselves to delay the enemy and set an example to the rest of greece within days the athenian navy took on the might of the persians they delivered a crushing blow to their fleet just a few miles from the heart of athens here in the bay of salamis in the war against the persians sparta and athens had fought as allies but these were two very different places athens a fledgling democracy could boast of being the commercial and cultural center of greece an outward-looking civilized society where power supposedly lay with the demos the people sparta was a militaristic state ruled by a warrior elite and propped up by a population of slaves its young boys if they survived a state program of infanticide were taken from the arms of their mothers at the age of seven to be indoctrinated with the spartan code of death or glory they lived mainly apart from their women who were a phenomenon in their own right independent smart physically and politically powerful these radically opposing systems were so incompatible that with no common enemy distracting them cooperation between the two most powerful city-states in greece would eventually give way to fear and paranoia and the one time allies would be driven to take up arms again this time against each other and so the stage was set for an epic struggle sparta versus athens the warrior elite versus the demos the result of that conflict would decide the fate of greece [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] for sparta and athens the experience of the persian invasion had been very different hundreds of miles from the front line in the idyllic countryside of laconia the spartan homeland had been untouched by the war whereas athens itself had been invaded and its acropolis destroyed here in sparta in the rugged enclosed peninsula of the peloponnese the war had seemed a distant affair with peace restored the spartans quickly returned to their usual routines the pursuit of physical and military perfection this society was disciplined obedient and above all willing to sacrifice the needs of the family and of the individual for the good of the state if necessary to die for the cause the cause was simple protection of the utopia the spartans thought they'd created to do that they needed to produce more of their famed hoplite warriors but beyond that the spartans had few other ambitions all they wanted was to maintain the status quo but in post-war athens things were changing fast the trauma of occupation followed by the euphoria of victory was transforming the city before the war the foundations of democracy had been laid but it was democracy in name only in reality it was men with money who had the say now a massive power shift was taking [Music] place welcome to the cradle of democracy an athenian triarine powered by nearly 200 oarsmen it was seabourn battering rams like this that had annihilated the persian fleet at salamis at the hour of crisis for greece it was the poor of athens who'd squeezed down onto these cramped rowing benches and sent the triarines smashing into the hulls of their enemies these were the have-nots of the city the bottom of the political pecking order but after salamis all that changed the oarsmen who'd endured the sweat and the stench and the terror of being down here had won a historic victory and now they wanted to have their say athenian democracy was galvanized [Music] the champion of the athenian oasman was pericles he was a wealthy aristocrat exactly the sort who'd run the so-called democracy in athens for generations he was also shrewd enough to sense that things had changed and ambitious enough to put himself at the head of that change pericles could see that in order to secure power he needed to distance himself from the nobles play to the gallery ingratiate himself with the people he was a formidable orator and his powers of argument and speech won them over but it wasn't just what pericles said that impressed the citizens of athens he designed a mass civic building program that in effect would be a job creation scheme for the city's poor all kinds of enterprises and demands will be created which will provide inspiration for every art find employment for every hand and transform the whole people into wage earners so that the city will decorate and maintain herself at the same time true to his word pericles opened the coffers of athens to pay for public festivals and grandiose monuments like the parthenon but most significantly of all he introduced state salaries for juries and war service now the oarsmen could trade in their rowing benches for seats of power in the city for the first time in athens democracy was really coming to mean government by the people and this is where its voice could be heard the athenian agora if the acropolis was the soul of athens then the agora was its beating heart it was here that the day-to-day life of athens took place artisans and lawyers shopkeepers and philosophers men from all walks of life rubbed shoulders here creating the buzz and bustle of the most democratic city in greece official posts were open to everyone irrespective of their wealth and status and you were expected to pull your weight and participate on days when speeches and debates were heard all the exits to the aggro were closed apart from the one that led up to the pnix where the athenian assembly sat slaves with ropes dipped in red paint were chivy citizens up the slope marking out for a fine any who dragged their feet or tried to slip away in athens democracy was enforced as rigorously as military discipline was in sparta but it wasn't just athenian political life that had been revolutionized after the defeat of persia everything from commerce to culture was infused with energy and new thinking although the greek alliance had emerged victorious from the war persia remained a constant threat the cities of greece needed a leader to carry on the fight against the enemy from the east sparta had no desire to take on the job so while it turned its attentions inward athens this confident outgoing democracy took the helm and set its course in a different direction unlike sparta happily landlocked in the peloponnese athens had always been half in love with the sea with the defeat of the persians that love affair was formalized when the city was physically linked to the port of pareas by defensive walls the walls meant that athens was now officially a sea power with all that implied in terms of trade the movement of people in and out and the potential for empire building the athenians devoured their own city to build their walls scavenging raw material from public monuments even using headstones from graveyards the result was 12 miles of imposing fortifications erected in record time as a statement of intent it certainly packed a punch a defensive shield designed to keep the wealth of athens in and unwanted busy bodies from neighbouring states out athens became the policeman of the eastern mediterranean its allies were expected to tow the line and foot the bill and if anyone objected they'd soon find an athenian fleet in their harbour it was trireme diplomacy this shift in the balance of power could hardly have been missed by sparta the burgeoning athenian fleet was evidence enough but when sparta discovered that athens had been building walls there was even more cause for concern [Music] the spartans disliked wolves because bulls defined cities and cities if you weren't careful encouraged other things like democracy and if there was one thing sparta distrusted more than walls it was democracy sparta famously had no walls it was said its walls were its young men and its borders the tips of their spears for the spartans it wasn't laws or walls or magnificent public buildings that made a city it was their own ideals in essence sparta was a city of the head and the heart and it existed in its purest form in the disciplined march of a hoplite phalanx on their way to war [Music] athens and sparta represented two radically different ways of being choosing between them would seem to present no difficulties sparta was militaristic and xenophobic athens was dynamic and open to the world but of course things never that simple athens could be imperialist arrogant and aggressive and its democracy excluded women foreigners and slaves but for the greeks their main problem with athenian politics was its volatility and the threat that posed to their cherished value of eunomia or good order pinder the 5th century poet called younomia the secure foundation stone of cities and the greeks knew from bitter experience what happened when this foundation was threatened civil war between the haves and the have-nots fields left unharvested blood in the streets the spartan system on the other hand with its peculiar blend of equality and elitism held many attractions for the greeks its emphasis on the common good duty and cohesion seem to guarantee good order but for the other greeks good order in sparta was compromised by its extraordinary attitude to sexual politics because when it came to women conservative sparta was positively radical if you were a woman life in 5th century athens can't have been much fun the city may have been at the cutting edge of all that was good in art architecture and democracy but these were intended for the consumption of men female achievement consisted primarily of playing the part of dutiful shadowy wife in fact in most of ancient greece women were expected to be neither seen nor heard the historian xenophon recommended that they stay indoors and for the orator pericles it was shameful if they were even mentioned in public athenian women led a very sheltered existence apart from training for domestic duties they were given as little education as possible in a society where women had no say education must have seemed at best pointless and at worst dangerous as one comic poet put it teach women letters a serious mistake like giving extra venom to a terrifying snake an athenian girl could be married off as young as 12 to a man chosen for her she'd be taken away from her family and would disappear into her husband's house a woman's role was to manage the family and do the chores grind corn wash or bake bread rich women who had slaves to take care of the drudgery would spin and sew there would be the occasional sortie outside to attend to domestic matters or go to a religious ceremony but basically life was confined within four walls in sparta by contrast women were everywhere imagine airlifting all the men between the ages of 7 and 60 out of this street and you get a feeling what it must have been like for a start there were more girls than boys because they weren't victims of a state program of infanticide and if men weren't away fighting or training they were relaxing with their male colleagues and the common messes women would have dominated the day-to-day life of the city the simple visibility of spartan women made them objects of fear and fascination to non-spartan men homer called sparta caliganaker the land of beautiful women the beauty of helen of troy originally helen of sparta was legendary of course not every spartan woman who looked at herself in a mirror like this could have lived up to her standards but they were uniquely fit spartan girls had an upbringing unparalleled anywhere else in greece for starters they were fed the same rations as boys and allowed to drink wine the state taught them how to sing and dance to wrestle to throw the javelin and discus and they were encouraged to be every bit as competitive as the boys girls and boys would exercise naked but there was nothing immodest about it nudity was the norm because it was thought to banish prudery and encourage fitness it paid off physically they were outstanding there's a great scene in the comedy lysistrata by the athenian playwright aristophanes a group of athenian women crowd around a spartan woman called lampito what a gorgeous creature they say what healthy skin what firmness of physique and one of them adds i've never seen a pair of breasts like that to which lampito proudly responds i go to the gym i make my buttocks hard when you see these lead votive offerings of dancers here in the sparta museum you can understand why spartan women were the subjects of such lurid speculation amongst athenian men one of the most important virtues for athenian women was sophrazine wise restraint well there's not much of that in evidence here in these uninhibited dances even after thousands of years you can sense the energy and almost smell the sweat [Music] spartan dances were famous for their vitality in one particularly athletic version women had to jump up and drum their buttocks with their heels as many times as possible [Music] it's incredibly difficult but most importantly for the ancients it revealed a large amount of naked thigh which is probably where spartan girls earned their nickname thigh flashes [Music] as part of their state education the thigh flashers would come down here to the banks of the eurotas in what one poet described as the nictar d ambrosias the ambrosial knight the poet goes on to evoke scenes of ritual ecstatic dances and choral contests the girls singing to each other of limb loosening desire tossing their long hair being ridden like horses and exhausted by love it's no surprise that sparta was one of the few ancient cities that had the reputation for encouraging girl on girls sex [Music] women and men in sparta were used to living separate lives at the age of seven boys would be sent away to the agogi the tough uncompromising spartan system where they'd be schooled in the art of war male bonding wasn't just encouraged it was compulsory at the age of 12 a boy was paired with an older man usually one of the unmarried warriors aged between 20 and 30 this man would have looked after the boy's material needs and was responsible for his care and conduct he was a surrogate mother and father as well as a teacher and mentor but he was also a lover for institutionalized pederasty was a part and parcel of life for the spartan warriors these intimate relationships seem to have had lasting psychological and emotional effects on the men when the time came for them to get married it must have been a difficult adjustment to make but the pragmatic spartans came up with an unusual way to help them through their wedding night the spartans practiced a custom called marriage by capture on her wedding night a bride would have her head shaved like a small boy in the agogi she'd be dressed in a man's cloak and sandals and left alone in a dark room meanwhile her husband would quietly leave the common mess come to her lay her down on a straw palette have sex with her and then slip back to sleep with his comrades as usual this wasn't just a quaint wedding night ritual it could carry on for months or even years there's much debate about the significance of this bizarre ritual but it seems obvious that it was a piece of sexual theatre designed to acclimatize men to the presence of women when up until then their only experience of sex had been with other men [Music] and yet however hard the spartans tried to make marriage more palatable to their young men persuading them to do their duty could be problematic [Music] according to one story which is probably exaggerated but too good not to repeat spartan women would beat men about the head and then drag them around an altar to get them to commit there's another more credible account that goes a bit like this unmarried men were stripped naked and forced to march around the marketplace in the middle of winter singing a humiliating song about how their punishment was just and fair because they'd flattered the laws sparta was no place for a confirmed bachelor the treatment meted out to these men may seem extreme but its severity stemmed from a very real need to produce the next generation of warriors the obsession with competition and physical fitness for girls reflected the same anxiety women were well fed and well treated because healthy women were more likely to produce healthy babies this is probably a fragment of a sculpture of alethia the goddess of childbirth what's certain is that she's in labor there are spirits either side of her clutching her belly helping her get through those terrible pains spartan women would have paid this image a lot of respect because of the constant pressure on them to keep producing sturdy male children it was a huge priority for the spartans to keep the numbers of their warrior elite high there were never that many of them at most ten thousand a number which steadily declined throughout the fifth century one reason was that spartan girls didn't get married until they were 18 and boys until they were 28 or 29 incredibly late by greek standards but spartan women weren't just baby makers at a time when greek women were expected to be invisible they had power and responsibility in their own right in fact they were so cocksure they dared to take on the men in politics on the streets and even in that most sacred bastion the sporting arena [Music] uh [Music] it wasn't just spartan women's physicality that shocked the outside world their freedom was equally notorious aristotle described the place as a guy new kratea a state run by women and he didn't mean it as a compliment in athens and other greek cities women were not allowed to own land or to control large amounts of wealth heiresses and widows married according to the wishes of fathers or brothers usually to cousins or uncles in order to keep the wealth in the family and with the exception of travelling in ox drawn cards to weddings and funerals riding would have been out of the question but in sparta women had the keys to the coffers they could be landowners and property holders in their own right they could inherit estates and even seem to have had the right to choose who or even whether to marry so you have to imagine these economically independent women riding out to oversee their states and slaves cracking the whip running things unless you believe the myth of the amazons this was a site unprecedented anywhere else in the ancient world whereas laws in athens were drawn up that restricted women's visibility in public some spartan women actually achieved the unthinkable they became celebrities the most famous example was kainiska a spartan princess and in her day a sporting legend caniska means little hound and she was obviously a tomboy from a sporty family the names of her female relations translate as things like well horst flash of lightning she who leads from the front but it would be koniska who'd go down in the history books as the owner of a champion chariot team koniska was an equestrian expert and very wealthy the perfect qualifications for a successful trainer she didn't race herself but employed men to drive and she made no secret of her ambition she entered her team at the olympic games the showcase for outstanding athletes from all over the greek world it won the men were astounded four years later she entered again she won again the bitter irony is that kaniska probably didn't see her victories at olympia the usual all-male rules applied but she made certain that the world wouldn't miss out on her success she dedicated a monument to herself right in the heart of the olympic sanctuary the inscription read i caniska victorious with a chariot of swift-footed horses have erected this statue and declare i am the only woman in all of greece to have won this crown but women weren't only powerful in the sporting arena spartan women also played a role in the political life of the city they were trained to speak in public and although they had no official place in the decision-making process they made sure their opinions were heard and it was the women who seemed to have been the most vociferous when it came to enforcing the warrior ethic sparta's unwritten laws were policed at street level by a kind of community-based rough justice women were in the forefront praising the brave and insulting cowards as they passed you get an idea of the kind of things that have called out from a collection called the sayings of the spartan women in athens silence was a mark of breeding but spartan girls were positively lippy they were masters in the art of laconic speaking named after laconia the heartland of sparta deployed properly a laconic phrase could draw blood from the skin of even the most armor-plated warrior [Music] when a warrior was describing the brave death of his comrade a woman said such a noble journey shouldn't you have gone too a man complained that his sword was too short his mother replied take a step forward and it would be long enough although spartan women enjoyed freedom of speech and financial liberty it would be a mistake to paint a picture of sparta as a kind of feminist wonderland you should think of spartan women as regimental wives the backbone of the system breeding sons and then surrendering them to the agogi when they turned seven because sparta was constantly anxious about its decline in birth rate every spartan boy must have been the apple of his mother's eye helets were there to do the domestic chores and there's plenty of time to dote on little leonidas but when the time came to send him off to the agogi though it must have been a wrench it was done without hesitation this was sparta and maternal instincts came a poor second to the interests of the state our concept of motherhood is of a tender supportive relationship between mother and child but in sparta there was little room for sentimentality in a state where unswerving obedience to the warrior code was rated more highly than life itself mothers wanted to make absolutely sure that sons did their duty their approach was more nazi than nurture when a son left for battle his mother would issue a traditional farewell with your shield or on it in other words either come back victorious or come back dead but if a son failed to live up to this injunction he could expect little sympathy from mum one story goes that a mother confronting her runaway son hitched up her skirts and asked him if he intended to crawl back where he'd come from following the defeat of persia there'd been few opportunities for spartan men to make their mothers proud but that was all about to change [Music] since the persian invasion sparta and athens had co-existed peacefully against all the odds the alliance had held firm but given the huge ideological differences between these two greek superpowers it was almost inevitable that at some point mutual mistrust would boil over into outright conflict in the end it took one catastrophic event to shake the foundations of the alliance and set sparta and athens on a collision course in the year 465 bc a series of massive earthquakes hit sparta the consequences were devastating the loss of life was immense but the earthquakes also gave a golden opportunity to sparta's enemy within the huge population of helits whose slave labor propped up the spartan system in the aftermath of the earthquakes the hellets seized their chance and revolted the rebel slaves came here to mount ethomy at the heart of masini the homeland that had been taken from them by the spartans they fortified the position and waited for the spartans to come for all its fearsome reputation sparta failed to put down the revolt and with the conflict dragging on it was forced to appeal to athens and its other allies for assistance spartan allies sent over troops to help put down the revolt and the athenians brought in siege equipment technology not developed by the hyde band spartans it was then that the spartans began to fret enslavement of the messenians had always been a slightly sticky issue as a whole the greeks had absolutely no problem with slavery but when it came to subjugating an entire native greek population it was less easy to swallow the spartans knew this and that's when paranoia set in what would happen if the athenians sided with the rebels or even worse spread the virus of democracy among spartan citizens themselves it was a risk not worth taking and they sent the athenians home athens took serious offense at its dismissal by the spartans being summarily sent home with no explanation was not the treatment they'd expected from an ally who they'd only been trying to help the athenians tore up the old treaty of allegiance and began to collude with sparta's enemies and to add insult to injury they even helped the rebels who'd managed to escape by setting them up in a new city it was the beginning of open hostilities sparta and athens would soon be at war this time with each other when the war between sparta and athens finally came it had many apparent causes but the simple truth was that over a period of 50 years sparta had allowed athens to get so powerful that its own sphere of influence on the mainland of the peloponnese was now under threat seizing upon a rather flimsy pretext sparta declared war in 431 bc it sent troops to invade athenian territory they forced their way to within seven miles of the hated city walls of athens itself the one-time allies were now mortal enemies the athenian casualties of the first year of the war were given a ceremonial burial in this graveyard outside the city here in their honor pericles delivered an impassioned speech to the crowd pericles funeral oration has gone down in history as one of the all-time great war speeches it's based on a simple and satisfying proposition everything that we the athenians do is right and everything our enemies the spartans do is wrong the spartans from their earliest boyhood are submitted to the most laborious training and courage we pass our lives without all these restrictions and yet are just as ready to face the same dangers as they are we meet danger voluntarily with natural rather than with state-induced courage [Music] pericles speech is a rallying cry in defense of a way of being a call to arms against an enemy whose social system politics and even character were so alien as to make peaceful coexistence impossible the speech set the tone for an all-out war that would be unprecedented in its scale and savagery history would know it as the peloponnesian war but in fact it would rage from sicily in the west to the hellespont in the east and would last more than two decades [Music] the vicious fighting dragged on as neither side was able to land the killer blow the war quickly became a stalemate with sparta dominant on land and athens at sea every year for five years spartan armies laid waste to athenian territory burning farms and destroying crops the athenians fled from the countryside and withdrew behind the walls that connected their city to the port of perez they became in effect islanders marooned and reliant on their fleet to keep them supplied within a year plague came to the overcrowded city corpses were piled high in the streets and almost a third of the population of athens was wiped out the historian thucydides described the sufferings of the athenian plague victims as almost beyond the capacity of human nature to endure wealth and power were no protection pericles himself succumbed to the virulent disease for sparta the decimation of athens and its leaders was proof that the gods were on their side but gods can be fickle according to thucydides he was an eyewitness to much of the war nothing shocked the greek so much as something that happened on that island in sparta's very own backyard pilos was a port on the west coast of the peloponnese and of major strategic importance to the spartans in the year 425 bc it was seized by the athenian army helped by the former slaves who'd revolted against sparta after the earthquake the spartans couldn't stomach this provocation and sent an army to retake pilos they laid siege to the athenians in the town and set up a smaller unit on the mile and a half of rock that stretches across pelos bay the islanders bacteria their plan was to blockade the athenians by land and water but i think they'd forgotten who they were dealing with the athenians were totally at home on the sea and within a few days they'd sent a large fleet into pelos bay they seized control of all of these [Music] waters the tables had been turned sparta was forced to withdraw leaving behind the 400 or so troops who'd been posted on the island of bacteria they were trapped and for 72 days there was a standoff the stalemate was finally broken when the spartans scored a spectacular own goal a group of soldiers stupidly let a campfire get out of control it raged across the island burning off all the protective cover the spartans had nowhere to hide the athenians could now see exactly how many they were and where they were the athenians decided to try and take the island with 800 archers and 800 lightly armed troops the athenians landed but they refused to fight the spartans at close quarters instead they picked them off with javelins and arrows and rocks whenever the spartan phalanx advanced the athenians retreated soon it was the spartans who were backing off leaving behind them 300 dead as the survivors headed for a defensive position at the north end of the island but an athenian commander sent a detachment of archers to cut them off from behind the spartans were surrounded it looked as if this were going to be a mini thermopylae in the making over 50 years before king leonidas and his 300 hand-picked troops had sacrificed their lives for the glory of sparta at the battle of thermopylae for the spartans on bacteria there was no higher ideal to aspire to hopelessly outnumbered by the athenians this was their chance to emulate the heroics of their grandfathers and bring honor to the state they knew exactly what was expected of them a heroic struggle a beautiful death the final test passed but that wasn't what happened at all the athenians were far too smart they held back for a while and then politely sent over a herald to ask if the spartans would like to surrender and unbelievably that's exactly what they did if we were talking about anyone other than spartans surrender wouldn't have been a surprise after all these half-starved men had been trapped on the island for more than two months and used by the athenian archers daily for target practice but these were spartans they'd spent their lives preparing to die fighting surrender shouldn't have been an option so maybe pericles had been right in his famous speech with its mockery of the spartans state-induced courage on this occasion that manufactured bravery had been undermined by the tactical mouse and mind games of the athenians first they'd refused to give the spartans what they'd wanted a stand-up fight and then they'd given them something they'd never expected an opt-out clause from their death or glory contract the myth of spartan invincibility had been comprehensively shattered for athens it was a victory to save her there's a remarkable relic from that shocking defeat here in athens it's a shield probably taken from one of the hoplites who'd thrown in the towel judging from its condition whoever it belonged to would have been put through the mill you can just about make out an inscription on its battered surface that would have been punched in at a later date it simply reads taken by the athenians from the laconians at pilos it's a terse triumphant message along with this trophy 120 spartans were brought to the city as hostages if sparta made so much as a move on athenian territory they were to be executed [Music] the spartan hostages were objects of fascination in athens where they were displayed in public like exotic animals you can imagine the athenians jostling to gorp at their strange captives sizing them up jeering facilities tells us that one of the crowd asked mockingly if the real spartans had died on the island spindles would be worth a great deal came the spartan reply if they could mark out brave men from cowards spindles was the spartan word for arrows a weapon they considered wimpy and womanish because they killed from a long distance it was meant to be a crushing response delivered in true laconic style but it comes across as plain sulky sparta was so rattled by the events on bacteria that it immediately sued for peace but athens was in no mood to be generous it capitalized on its advantage and held out for better terms it would be five years before the spartan hostages saw their home again but when they returned they suffered none of the punishments usually meted out to so-called tremblers they were not stripped of their citizenship they were not forbidden to walk around with cheerful faces and they were not beaten up in the streets for once the women kept their cutting comments to themselves spartan society was polaxed but before long the laughter and mockery of the athenians would be silenced as the final act of this bloody war was played out next week on the spartans the war between sparta and athens reaches a bloody climax in sicily and sparta finally emerges triumphant from decades of struggle but the fruits of victory will soon turn sour and it will be sparta's turn to taste the bitterness of total defeat [Music]

Channel: Odyssey - Ancient History Documentaries

Views: 98,386

Keywords: ancient history, classical history, ancient civilisations, classical antiquity, history documentary, classical documentary, athens vs sparta, spartan war, history of sparta, sparta war with athens, spartan society, spartan soldiers, ancient history documentary

Id: wn6D_aoECts

Length: 48min 42sec (2922 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 02 2021