Athenian City State

City States and Territory

  • Most city states, except Sparta, fit the pattern of a city with surrounding countryside.
  • Unlike Sparta and Athens, most city-states controlled little territory beyond the city itself.
  • Some exceptions existed, but generally, city-states controlled only a few nearby villages.

Population and Citizenship in Athens

  • Athens, a larger city-state, had a substantial population, including slaves, foreigners, and citizens.
  • During its peak, Athens likely had 200,000 to 400,000 people.
  • Citizenship in Athens was exclusionary; non-citizens couldn't easily become citizens.
  • Around 20-25% of the population were non-citizen resident foreigners (metics).
  • Solon liberalized citizenship laws in the early 6th century, but citizenship remained relatively exclusionary by modern standards.
  • Clisthenes expanded citizenship to include all permanent resident free people, increasing citizenship in the late 6th century.
  • Pericles later restricted citizenship in the mid-5th century, requiring both parents to be citizens.

Economic Crisis and Debt Slavery

  • Wealthy landowners dominated the political, judicial, and economic systems, leading to an economic crisis.
  • Small farmers became indebted to wealthy landlords and were sold into debt slavery along with their families.
  • Debt slavery was a common way people became slaves in the ancient world, along with capture in foreign wars and sale by poor parents.

Solon's Reforms

  • Solon ended debt slavery, prohibiting free citizens from being sold off for debts.
  • He began efforts to repurchase citizens sold abroad as slaves.
  • Solon implemented political reforms, including the creation of the Council of Four Hundred.
  • Athens had an assembly of male citizens, but it was weakened by the Council of the Areopagus, dominated by wealthy landowners.
  • Solon changed the ranking system based on wealth, allowing wealthier individuals to hold office or move up politically.
  • Even free laborers could participate in the assembly and vote.
  • The archons, nine officials with one-year terms, ran the political system.
  • Solon made it so the assembly could review the actions of the archons during their term.
  • Ex-archons would only move up to the Areopagus Council if their actions were approved by the assembly.
  • Solon's reforms moved Athens towards democracy, but the wealthy still dominated the system.
  • Offices such as the Arcons positions were unpaid, limiting participation to the upper ranks.

Judicial Reforms

  • Solon implemented judicial reforms, allowing any citizen to initiate prosecution on behalf of another.
  • Judgments of the six archons could be appealed to the assembly.
  • These reforms moved Athens towards democracy.
  • Solon did not engage in land redistribution, so the competition between wealthy landowners and small farmers continued.

Rise of Tyranny

  • Tyranny typically arose because political systems failed to address critical issues.
  • Pisistratus emerged as a champion of small tenant farmers, addressing the competition between wealthy landowners and poor farmers.
  • Tyrants came to power in nonconstitutional ways and addressed unresolved issues.
  • Pisistratus imposed a tax on farm produce, using the revenue to provide loans to small farms.
  • He also provided jobs for urban workers through public works projects, such as constructing roads and fountains.
  • Even though democracy was halted, the economy continued to grow under Pisistratus.

Economic Developments Under Pisistratus

  • Planting olive trees was a significant long-term investment, indicating confidence in the agricultural economy.
  • Olive oil became a major export of Southern Europe.
  • Pottery became a major industry in Greece, with potters producing storage containers for olive oil, wine, and water.
  • Athens's main rival in the pottery industry was Corinth.

Persian Expansion and Greek City-State Divisions

  • By the late 6th century, the Persians had extended their rule into Thrace, causing concern among Greek city-states.
  • Greek city-states were divided on how to respond to the Persian Empire.
  • Some favored cooperation with the Persian Empire, which was unpopular with Athenian citizens.
  • After the assassination of his brother, Hippias, the brother of Pisistratus, began cracking down on perceived opposition.
  • Clisthenes, leader of the Alcmaeonid faction, favored greater democracy and expanding citizenship.
  • Clisthenes went into exile.

Spartan Intervention and Clisthenes' Return

  • The Spartans, led by Cleomenes, intervened in Athens, driving out Hippias.
  • Clisthenes and his supporters returned to Athens.
  • After Hippias was removed, Clisthenes came back, but he was unable to assume political leadership.
  • In May, a man named Zacharias became the archon, who did not favor the kind of democracy that Clisthenes supported.

Clisthenes' Reforms

  • Under Solon, people felt threatened by the expansion of the Persian Empire and came back to Athens.
  • Conservative politicians restricted citizenship, preventing people who had gains in the war beforehand and ended up losing their citizenship.
  • Clisthenes aimed to expand citizenship.
  • Clisthenes' citizenship proposal was passed by the assembly, but it provoked a reaction from his address.
  • Zacharias dissolved the Council of Four Hundred with the backing of King Cleomenes, leading to a citizen revolt.
  • The revolt forced Zacharias and his supporters to leave Athens allowing his citizenship proposal that had been passed by the assembly to be implemented.
  • Because of the way this did, he was the person who moved Athens on the next step towards democracy.

Definition of Citizenship

  • Citizenship meant being a permanent resident and a free person in a deme (village or electoral district).
  • Representatives from these demes would be elected to the new Council of Five Hundred, replacing Solon's Council of Four Hundred.

Electoral Reform

  • Clisthenes aimed to make demes more representative, similar to addressing gerrymandering.
  • He included dissimilar regions within each deme, such as coastal and inland areas, to avoid factionalism.

Term Limits and Participation

  • To encourage participation, no person could serve more than two one-year terms in the Council of Five Hundred, not in successive years.
  • The system still favored people from the upper two ranks who could afford to take time off.

The First Persian Invasion

  • After Zagros and Klimid and Sikin as part of their supporters.
  • Zagros supported even so the Persians offered this to atheist on a standard term.
  • They acknowledged that the superiority they are seeking to dominate more big city states because their trade and growing well with the desirable prices.
  • The voters of the Athenian Democratic Assembly rejected the deal.
  • The Ionia Ionia was the territory of what today is Southwestern Turkey.
  • Eventually, the Persians sent a large force, and then the Ionian revolt was defeated.
  • Persians made efforts to reinstall Hippias as a ruler.

The Battle of Marathon

  • The Spartans were waiting for the full moon, and invaders of Hippias, the son of Bicistratus, is their guide to Marathon.

  • Hippias dreamt that he had slept with his own mother.

  • As a Persian guy, first, loaded the retreat prisoners on a shield down the one to steer them, and then he reached the ships in Marasol, maid them faster, and disposed the Persian troops once they were on dry land.

  • Since he was fairly old, most of his teeth were loose, and the force of his sneezing caused one of them to fall off into the sand.

  • The Kazim commanders were in two minds, such as how to see.

  • Some said they should avoid fighting on the grounds that they are offloaded by the Persian army.

  • Others, including militia, were in favor.

  • Now there was another person who could cast a vote of the war arbond as you read about in Jackson chapter three, Athens had a board of ten generals, the board of generals.

  • They had financial and military command responsibilities, the board of general.

  • So we say we're 10. So as the Paratas has pointed out, you evenly divide it into five apiece.

    Rivalry Between Themistocles and Aristides

    • This period was marked by a rivalry between two politicians, Themistocles and Aristides.
    • Aristides was known for his honesty.
    • Themistocles was described as more of a modern politician who tried to tell the people what they wanted to hear rather than what he really thought.

    Athenian Naval Buildup

    • Some proposed that the wealth from the silver mines should be used to make payouts to the citizens.
    • Themistocles proposed that the Athenians build more triremes.
    • Athens increased its fleet from 100 to 200 triremes (ancient warships).

The Second Persian Invasion

  • The reservation was much larger, as you can see in your map, and it's all both, like, a contingent one by land and by the sea.
  • Athens, and Athens out there.
  • So you want you wanted to bring about some battle at this point.
  • Now they went you know, eventually, you went inside the the new we got our studies report, and, eventually, some other someone someone about. And so we're drone off with the Athenians in the direction of Heraeus, Gionians, who only went east to where he's facing foxes.
  • However, only war most of the Persians shipped to Salamo to destroy these Athenians or the Ancient Egyptians, the sailors from the island of China.
  • This happened because the Greeks fought a disciplined tactical manner.
  • Every single one of them fought with determination spurred on by his fear of Xerxes, was then the ruler, placed in Darius, each of them imagined the king's eyes were on him.
  • So the battle of Salamis ended up being a victory for the Athenians.
  • The Persians then withdrew back to the north back, but that's the one you can see there.
  • And then you see the other barrel heading southward.
  • After we moved south again, there was a Battle of Plataea.
  • And so that ended the threat of the Persian invasion.
  • Athens was the state that played the greatest role, frankly, in terms of sea battles.

Formation of the Delian League

* After the Persian Wars, the Athenians built an empire or an alliance system that turned into an empire.
* During the cold war, they created (beginning of April), the Delian league.
* It started out as an alliance system but ended up being a kind of imperialistic force.

# Operation of the Delian League
* Aristides determined the member states' contributions to the league.
* Most of the smaller cities could not afford to contribute ships, so they made a treasury at Delos instead.
* League members were forcibly prevented from leaving (like Naxos).
* Athens attempted to make some league members as much like Athens as possible.
* Silver coins were introduced as a league-wide currency.
* The league benefited Athens economically.

The Peloponnesian War

* Sparta and its allies believed that Athens violated the terms of a thirty-year peace, which led to the Peloponnesian War.
* This war marked the beginning of the end of the city-state era.

Pericles' Reforms

* Pericles continued the work of Phalexicities.
* He paid for office holders and for jury service so that poor people could afford to serve.

# Citizenship Restrictions Under Pericles
* restricted citizenship to those whose mother and father was Athenian by birth
* Previously, wealthy demanded often married foreign women from elite families.
* This change increased the status of Athenian women & made Athenian citizens more valuable than the people offered for legal and financial benefits.

# Judicial System Changes Under Pericles
* In April, he was at the office in the assembly to establish a new system, taking jurisdiction away from the archives and giving it to court manned by citizen juries.
* To increase participation and prevent bribery, jurors were selected by law and would sit with over 30 or so.
* As in the assembly, a majority vote decided no appeals of verdicts were allowed. Some may not like this system.