Grand Super Cycle National Bankruptcies

Part II

Fall of the Athenian Empire

Joseph M. Miller

Daan Joubert

daanj@kingsley.co.za

Marion Butler

Chorus: “Often it has crossed my fancy, that the city loves to deal with the very best and noblest members of her commonwealth just as with our ancient coinage, and the newly minted gold. Yea for these, our sterling pieces, all of pure Athenian mold, all of perfect die and metal, all the fairest of the fair, all the workmanship unequalled, proved and valued everywhere, both amongst our own Hellenes and Barbarians far away, these we use not: but the worthless pinchbeck coins of yesterday. Vilest die and basest metal, now we always use instead.” - Aristophanes, The Frogs

The introduction to this series of articles can be accessed at Part I.

Western Civilization derives much of its cultural heritage from Classical Greece, a civilization that emerged from a long dark age sometime between 750 and 700BC, and reached its apex in the Age of Pericles (461-429) BC. Greek art, architecture, philosophy and literature reached its peak in this period. The grand public buildings of Athens, such as the Parthenon, Parthenos, and Propylaea, were constructed at this time, which was also period of Athenian political and military supremacy. By the end of the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BC) Athenian naval power collapsed, her empire was lost, her great wealth and revenue was gone, her monetary system was in shambles, and her government was reorganized under Spartan occupation. After a brief period of Spartan hegemony, Spartan power was also relegated to the dustbin of history. Therefore, we consider Classical Greece, from late in the 8^th century BC to the beginning of the Peloponnesian War in 431, to represent a Grand Super Cycle (GSC) in the Elliott Wave scheme of thinking – a 300-year economic advance that played a profound role in the history of Western Civilization.

Athenian Monetary System (1: Harl, p.3)

1 obol = 0.72 grams silver

1 drachma (4.30 grams silver) = 6 obols

1 silver talent (t.) = 6,000 drachmae = 25,800 grams silver = 829.5 troy ounces silver.

Note that a gold talent was, likewise, 829.5 ounces gold, with a gold:silver ratio of 12:1.

Establishment of the Athenian Empire

In 499 BC Athens aided Ionian Greeks in their revolt against Persia. When the revolt was crushed in 494, Persia retaliated against Athens, sending an expeditionary force to Greece in 490. Athens defeated the Persians in the Battle of Marathon, and the enraged Persians determined to invade Greece in force, and subjugate its city-states. Ten years passed while Persia mobilized a vast army for that purpose, the delay due primarily to an Egyptian revolt against Persia from 486 to 484. The Greeks, therefore, had a decade to prepare for the invasion.

In 483, a rich new vein of silver was discovered at Laurium, in Athenian territory, and the proceeds were used to build 200 warships for the defense of Greece. When the Persians invaded in 480 they were delayed for three days by a small Spartan/allied force at Thermopylae. Reaching Athens, the Persian fleet was defeated by an Athenian/allied fleet at Salamis. The Persian King Xerxes returned to Persia after the battle, leaving Mardonius in command of the war. In 479, the Greeks defeated Mardonius at the Battle of Plataea, thus ending the ill-fated Persian invasion.

The Greeks, now hoping to drive the Persians from the Aegean Sea, sent military expeditions to Cyprus and Byzantium. Initially the Spartans led the Greek alliance, but their leadership was rejected in 478, and the Spartan King Pausanias was recalled to Sparta. Athens assumed leadership of the alliance and continued the war against Persia. With the allied treasury located on the island of Delos, the alliance was known as the Delian League.

Delian League states funded their joint efforts through contributions, with the first assessment in the year July 478 to July 477 at 460 talents (t.) (4: Meiggs, p.58). Over time the assessments were reduced, and were approximately 400 t. at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. In 454 BC the League treasury, totaling 8-10,000 t. was moved from Delos to Athens (4: Meiggs, p.65). During the 440’s a substantial amount of this money was expended on public works in Athens, such as the Parthenon.

The Road to War

After the treasury was moved to Athens the Delian League took on more of the character of an Athenian Empire than an alliance of free states. League cities attempting to secede were dealt with mercilessly, and Athens used the League to further her own imperial designs, rather than the interests of the allies. These developments led to the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, which lasted 27 years from 431 to 404 BC. The immediate cause of the war was a conflict over the city of Potidea, a tributary ally of Athens and a colony of Corinth, a Peloponnesian state allied to Sparta. Athens ordered Potidea to raze its wall, send hostages to Athens, dismiss its Corinthian magistrates, and refuse to receive their successors in future. Potidea sent emissaries to Athens to plead against this demand, and also sent emissaries to Corinth and Sparta to plead for help in case Athens refused. Athens was intransigent while Sparta promised to invade Athenian territory if Athens attacked Potidea. Based on these responses to her emissaries, Potidea revolted from the League and the Peloponnesian war began.

Athenian Resources and Expenditures

At the outset of the war the Athenian treasury contained 6,000 t., of which 1,000 t. was set aside as an iron reserve in case the city of Athens was attacked. Athens also had 500 t. worth of uncoined gold and silver, and the gold plates on the statue of Athena, weighing 40 talents (worth 480 t. silver) (5: Peck, p.19). Athenian revenue was 1,000 t./year, consisting of 400 t. home revenue (court fees and fines, harbor fees, import duty, taxes, and leasing of mines and other state property), and 600 t. from its empire (roughly 400 t. in League assessments, and 200 t. from other sources) (4: Meiggs, p.258).

At the start of the Peloponnesian War, Greek craftsmen earned 1 drachma/day. Hoplites (heavy infantry) and sailors earned the same. Greek warships, triremes, contained 200 men: 170 rowers, and 30 officers, sailors, and soldiers. One trireme, therefore, cost roughly 1 talent in payroll/month (200 men X 30 days X 1 drachma), or 12 talents per year. This expense was borne by the state. Construction cost of a trireme was about 1 talent, which was usually paid by a wealthy citizen who captained the ship and was responsible for maintenance costs. This system of naval finance, called the Trierarchy, is described by Rosemary Peck in Athenian Naval Finance in the Classical Period at www.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/trireme/thesis.html .

Let us put these figures in perspective. The 1,000 t. revenue of the Athenian Empire at the start of the war was sufficient to maintain a standing fleet of 83 triremes, assuming no other state costs, such as maintaining a land army. Since the Athenian navy was larger than this, and land armies were maintained, it became necessary to increase revenue and expend treasury funds during the war.

The Peloponnesian War

A full history of this 27-year war is beyond the scope of this article. See The Peloponnesian War at http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/peloponn/ for a history of the conflict.

The Athenian siege of Potidea alone cost between 2,000 t. and 2,400 t. (5: Peck, p.19) and during the year 431/30 the Athenian treasury was reduced by over 1,300 t. (4: Meiggs, p.318). Nevertheless, during the first years of the struggle, Athens did not increase annual League assessments, which remained in the 400 t. range until 425 BC (4: Meiggs, p.311). In 428, however, after Mytilene revolted from the League, there was probably an extraordinary League assessment (4: Meiggs, p.322), and Athens imposed a 200 t. capital levy on Athenian citizens (2: Thuc. iii.19.1). We do not know if such a levy was repeated later in the war.

As the war dragged on, Athenian finances became critical, and the League assessment was targeted at 1,460 t. in 425 BC (4: Meiggs, p.331). This assessment covered approximately 400 cities, as opposed to some 180 cities before the outbreak of hostilities (4: Meiggs, p.327). By 422, in spite of increased revenues, the Athenian treasury held only 444 t. plus the 1,000 t. iron reserve (3: Kagan, p.3). In addition, “from 433 to 422, around five thousand, five hundred and ninety-nine talents were borrowed from sacred treasuries (mainly from those of Athena Nike and Athena Polias)” (5: Peck, p.19). At this point both Athens and Sparta were exhausted from the struggle, and the Peace of Nicias terminated hostilities in 421.

An uneasy peace endured from 421 to 414, but Athens and Sparta had become implacable foes, and were only marshalling their strength for renewed hostilities. In fact, the largest land battle of the war, with tens of thousands of combatants on either side, was fought at Mantinea in 418, during the middle of the peace period. Nevertheless, Athenian finances did recover, and League assessments were reduced somewhat, averaging 900 t./year from 418 to 414 (3: Kagan, p.8).

In 415 Athens conceived the plan of invading Sicily to conquer an empire in the west, and acquire the resources to defeat Sparta once and for all. An Athenian expedition besieged Syracuse, who appealed to Sparta for help. Sparta sent them Gylippus to organize the defense of the city, and this Spartan general led Syracuse to a stunning victory in 413, which annihilated the Athenian forces. 216 triremes were lost (160 Athenian and 56 allied). Athenian casualties included 3,000 hoplites (middle class), 9,000 thetes (lower class serving in navy) and thousands of metics (resident aliens) (3: Kagan, p.2).

In the midst of her grief, Athens had also to contemplate the prospect of renewed Spartan invasion, attack by Syracuse, and wholesale desertion of her allies. To face this triple threat, Athens had less than 500 t. in the treasury, plus the 1,000 t. iron reserve, which was now tapped (3: Kagan, p.3). By 411 BC these resources were consumed (4: Meiggs, p.370) and Athens began forced levies of funds including a 10% duty on all ship cargoes leaving the Euxine Sea (4: Meiggs, p. 372). As for regular League assessments, back in 414 BC Athens had replaced them with a 5% duty on sea borne traffic in all League cities (3: Kagan, p.8). This did not achieve the desired increase, and the old tribute quotas were restored in 410 BC (3: Kagan, p.259).

Amazingly, by a series of brilliant naval victories from 410 to 406, Athens recovered from the brink defeat, and seemed likely to emerge victorious in the war. In desperation, Sparta turned to Persia for financial aid, and received thousands of talents for her fleet in exchange for promising Persia some of the Ionian Greek cities. Sparta also captured the Laurium mines in 407 BC and freed over 20,000 Athenian slaves there. Athens was cut off from her money supply, and responded by producing silver plated bronze coinage in 406-405 BC, referred to by Aristophanes in The Frogs. (This clad coinage was demonetized in 393 BC, and we therefore consider 393 BC as the end of the declining wave GSC2 in Greece.) In addition, the Athenian economy was severely damaged by repeated Spartan invasion of her territory. Athenian finances were extremely desperate in the final years of the war, and naval pay was reduced to 3 obols/day (4: Meiggs, p. 427). This caused severe morale problems, and allowed Sparta to attract many allied sailors for higher pay.

In 405 BC the Spartans defeated the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami on the Chersonese peninsula, catching most of the Athenian ships on the beach. The Athenian fleet of close to 200 triremes was destroyed or captured, and 3,500 Athenians prisoners were executed. League cities, apart from Samos, opened their gates to the Spartans. Athens was besieged, her grain supply was cut off, and she surrendered in March, 404. Her government was reorganized; her long walls were demolished; and she was permitted to keep a navy of only 12 triremes.

Conclusion

Donald Kagan calls the Peloponnesian War “the end of an era of progress, prosperity, confidence and hope; and the beginning of a darker time.” (3: Kagan, p.417) Athens and her allies were largely ruined, and the Peloponnesians did not fare much better. “States like Corinth, Megara, and Aegina, once proud and prosperous places, had suffered repeated devastation of their land, destruction of their trade, civil strife, and even removal from their native soil. They emerged from the war permanently diminished.” (3: Kagan, p.394).

As for Athens, her wealth and revenue were greatly reduced and her population decimated. The low point for Athenian revenue in the century after the war was 130 t. (4: Meiggs, p.260). Regarding wealth, we know that in 377 BC total Athenian private capital was assessed at 6,000 t., which compares with 20,000 t. in 428 (4: Meiggs, p.257). To put the wealth decline on an individual scale, Nicias, one of the wealthiest Athenians during the war, had net worth approaching 100 t., yet his son, who did not waste his fortune in the succeeding generation, left only 14 t. to his heir (3: Kagan, p.111). Another Athenian claimed to have contributed 10 t. from 411/10 to 404/3 to war taxes and the trierarchy, which he claimed was four times the legal requirement for his class. Therefore we deduce that members of the Athenian elite class contributed a minimum 2.5 t. to the state over that eight-year period (3: Kagan, p.111). Note that on an individual scale, one talent represented a craftsman’s wages for about twenty years’ work.

Regarding Athenian population, at the start of the war there were 13,000 citizens hoplites of fighting age plus 16,000 available for garrison duty (8,000 above and below fighting age and 8,000 metics). In addition, there were 1,200 cavalrymen, 1,600 bowmen, and 20-25,000 thetics available for naval service. Early in the war Athens lost 1/4 to 1/3 of her population to plague, during a Spartan siege (see www.indiana.edu/~ancmed/plague.htm for more information on the plague). After the Sicilian disaster manpower was reduced to 9,000 hoplites of all ages, 3,000 metics and 11,000 thetics (3: Kagan, p.2). Athenian population by the end of the war was, of course, reduced even further.

In addition, the Peloponnesian War can be seen as a period of moral bankruptcy for the Greek states. The war with Persia was fought to preserve Greek liberty, and the Delian League was created to expand Greek liberty. The Peloponnesian War overturned all that, as Athens ruthlessly crushed recalcitrant allies, and embarked on external conquests such as the Sicily campaign. To top it off, Socrates was executed in 399 for the crime of pointing out the lack of wisdom of individual Athenians. This rankled a city that held wisdom as its genius, its guiding principle, the chief attribute of the goddess Athena.

Sparta, meanwhile, had no claim to moral ascendancy either. Before and during the Persian War, the worst crime in Sparta’s book was Medism (siding with Persia), yet Sparta stooped to taking Persian money during the Peloponnesian War, trading the liberty of some Ionian cities to Persia in the bargain. Furthermore, during the decades of Spartan hegemony, following the Peloponnesian War, Sparta did not prove to be more noble-minded leaders than the Athenians who had preceded them. Finally, Spartan did not have a money economy, and the acquisition of wealth and power during the war eroded the entire fabric of their society.

In Rise and Fall of Civilizations Part I we discussed the risks inherent in large complex systems, and used ancient Italy as an example of a region dependant on imported food to survive. Athens is another case of a state that could not feed itself, as most of its grain came from the Euxine Sea. This situation presented a grave strategic threat, since a Spartan fleet operating between the Euxine and Aegean could disrupt grain supplies to Athens. A Spartan fleet thus located could force a battle at the place of its choice, and Aegospotami was the perfect site. It held insufficient water and food for the Athenians, who were forced to forage daily for supplies, and this allowed the Spartans to catch the Athenian fleet on the beach.

Sources

1. Harl, Kenneth W. Greek Coinage and Measures. http://homeport.tcs.tulane.edu/~august/H310/handouts/Coinage.htm

2. Thucidides. The Peloponnesian War. Available on the internet at: http://classics.mit.edu/Thucydides/pelopwar.html

3. Kagan, Donald. The Fall of the Athenian Empire. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.

4. Meiggs, Russell. The Athenian Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.

5. Peck, Rosemary. Athenian Naval Finance in the Classical Period. www.atm.ox.ac.uk/rowing/trireme/thesis.html

Our discussion in Rise and Fall of Civilizations Part I of the risks inherent in large complex systems referred to The Coming Dark Age by Roberto Vacca. We said we assumed that this book, published in 1970, was long out of print. Mr. Vacca now informs us that the book has been recently updated and can be acquired at www.printandread.com.

For readers interested in Classical Greece, there are two excellent novels by Steven Pressfield. Gates of Fire relates the Persian War from the Spartan perspective, while Tides of War relates the Peloponnesian War from the Athenian perspective.

The trial of Socrates is available at www.wsu.edu:8000/~dee/GREECE/APOLOGY.HTM.

The Frogs is available at http://classics.mit.edu/Aristophanes/frogs.html.