Words for Board: Nicias, Alcibiades

So–now we have a war going. 431 BC was the first year of the war. First years of wars are always fun cuz everybody wants to get out there and fight and whip up on the enemy and in general have a good time. Sparta put 60,000 men in the field cuz everyone wanted to fight. Athens pulled all their people (including civilians) back behind the walls and shipped the stock off to the islands. The Spartans came to deserted territory. They burned off the crops and stuff and waited for the Athenians to come out from behind the walls to fight. In the mean time, Athens loaded up an army on ships and sailed down to Sparta and started liberating Helots left and right, burning off crops and in general raising hell. The Spartans found out and came screaming home so Athens loaded up and went home. That was the first year. Fun, huh.

The second year of the war (430 BC) saw one of the unpredictable weirdies happen. The grain ships from Egypt brought a special shipment as well as the grain–they brought the bubonic plague. It hit Athens really bad cuz all the people were packed in the city. In a couple of years, 1/4 of the population of Athens was dead, including Pericles, the great leader. After a time the plague died out but Athens never got as good a leader and somehow never got their act together. If you lived through the plague, you could get fits of depression and then be wild. The plague also hurt Athenian morale cuz a plague is a baddie from the gods.

As the war went on, it got more brutal. That happens with wars–the first couple years everyone is gung-ho but after that, people are tired and want to go home. They tend to get more mean so it will end faster. Besides, after years of war, your sensitivity level tends to shrink. You've seen so much blood and gore that being cruel to the enemy seems natural. Besides so many of your friends have been killed off that you want to avenge them. **This is a personal note from me, your little note taker. I am a pacifist in general. I don't like cruelty in any form, let alone wars. One of the best things I've ever read on war is a very short book called The War Prayer by Mark Twain. If you have a spare 5 minutes some time, go to the library and read it. It's really neat.** Back to the Peloponnesian War. After a time, Athens completely knocked off Potidaea and Sparta had slaughtered Plataea. Everybody is getting war-weary. In 421 BC, a truce was arranged. Greeks don't make peace like we do. It was supposed to be a 50-year truce to get new people bred up cuz the Greeks knew the war would continue at a later date. The truce only actually lasted 7 years.

In Athens, the truce was argued over by the conservative and liberal factions. The leader of the conservatives was Nicias. He was old, rich (that's no big thing cuz all big politicians need lots of money to get elected), cautious (his enemies called him timid), and very religious (or superstitious, if you are his enemy). The liberal leader was Alcibiades. He was rich, young, bold (or foolhardy), and a relative of Pericles. He was educated with the new type of education, a student of Socrates (you'll hear about him next lecture), a relativist in philosophy, not religious, a great speaker, and he thought he'd be a great general but he needed a war to prove it. The Sicilian ambassador came to Athens asking for aid to fight her enemy Syracuse, which was a colony of Corinth. Alcibiades said they should attack Syracuse to punish them for building triremes for Corinth in the last war. He said if they could take Syracuse, they could take Sparta and Corinth. (That's stupid logic–if you can beat one guy, you can beat 2 of his biggest friends??) Anyway, he caught Athens at a time when people wanted to star the war up again. But Athens decided to have 2 generals–Nicias (who doesn't want war at all) and Alcibiades (who wants to show his stuff). But the night before the navy sailed, a weirdie happened. There were lots of drunk parties and stuff. Somebody went along and busted the heads off of the Hermes statues in everybody's front yards. (Hermes was the god of travel and the statues were there to protect people from falling in your front yard so they wouldn't sue you.) It's' pretty tacky to break off the heads of the god of travel the night before the fleet sails. According to public opinion, it was probably Alcibiades and his bunch of non-religious rabble rousers that did it. But he wasn't accused until after he sailed off. They sent a state trireme after the fleet to bring him home to stand trial. Alcibiades heard they were coming to get him and jumped ship to avoid trial. That sounds chicken, but, you see, it would have been a trial by jury. The only people left in Athens are the old folks cuz all the youngsters are sailing with the fleet, and Alcibiades knew he'd be nailed. (Come to think of it, it could have actually been the conservatives who knocked off the statue heads, knowing Alcibiades would get the blame.) Now, if you were Alcibiades and you knew you were a great general but you'd been forced to leave the fleet before you got a chance to lead it, what would you do? He went to Sparta to offer his services as a general and admiral cuz he wanted to play war and he didn't care whose side he was on. The Spartans accepted him willingly cuz he'd been the one to draw up the battle plans and he knew what was happening. Sparta sent reinforcements to Syracuse to last til they could get more help. In the meantime, you have Nicias leading a war he didn't want to fight in the first place. Athens couldn't take Syracuse since it had the reinforcements and they should have gone home. They were stuck in the harbor while, behind them, Corinth was sending over ships as fast as they could be built to block Athens in the harbor. Nicias was trying to decide what to do when another weirdie happened. There was an eclipse of the moon and Nicias, the religious type, couldn't get a straight version on it from the soothsayers. So, he did what conservatives do best, he sat and waited. He waited for a month which was just long enough for Corinth to seal off the harbor. (The eclipse obviously meant "get the hell out of there.") There were two big sea battles in the harbor and Athens lost both. Athenian ships are lighter and more maneuverable on the high seas, but they were fighting in the harbor where everybody was packed in and the heavier ships lasted better. Plan A was to row home and it failed. Now, on to Plan B to get the Athenians home. They decided to march through Syracuse, up through Rome and the Alps, through barbarian country and back down home. (Plan B is never as good as Plan A.) They got as far as Northern Sicily and were cut down. Athens lost almost all its navy and a lot of men. But, don't despair–they have all that money in the treasury!!

Athens had lost control of the sea and therefore control of its food supply. But it was only for a year. Alcibiades is now the leader of Sparta. He sailed over and took all the islands away from Athens' control. But he'd about worn out his welcome at Sparta. One of the generals' wives at home was pregnant and the general hadn't been home in a long time and Alcibiades was a close friend (and I mean close friend) of the wife, so Alcibiades was afraid to sail back to the paternity suit at Sparta. He sent a note to Athens to offer his services. They eventually agreed to take him back (under close watch, no doubt) cuz he was the leading general of the day. Now he was leading the new navy against Corinth and Sparta. One of the first things he did was go back and recapture all the islands and put them under Athenian control again. (Must have been confusion on the islands–one minute here's Alcibiades liberating them and the next he's conquering them again!)

The war had changed ground. Sparta was up around Thrace trying to stop the grain ships from coming down the Black Sea to Athens. Alcibiades had property in Thrace so he put the ships in a safe harbor up there and told the second in command not to move while he checked on his property. As soon as he left, the 2nd put out to sea (there's no glory sitting in the harbor). There was a sea battle and Athens lost under the 2nd's leadership. The people back home at Athens heard that Alcibiades had left the ships and the navy had lost, so they summoned him home to stand trial. Instead, he retired up on his farm in Thrace. (Someone ought to get the hint, Alcibiades doesn't like trials!)

He was replaced with 12 generals to lead the Athenians. (Stockmyer said that's about fair, cuz he was that good.) In 406 BC, the navy was out sailing when a big wind came up and some of the ships had to get into harbor, leaving some of the other ships to drown. Athens summoned the generals home to a trial for abandoning some of the ship on open sea. Some of the generals even went home, were found guilty, and killed. (No wonder Alcibiades never showed up!)

The war, in 404 BC, is still up by the Hellespont, up by Thrace. The Athenians would row across the Hellespont and taunt the Spartans, who were harbored, to come out and play. Then the Athenians would row back to their side and get rip-roaring drunk. They were located on a beach and not harbored very well. One day, Alcibiades showed up and mentioned that they weren't in a good location, that they shouldn't be getting drunk cuz what would happen if the Spartans followed them back?? The Athenians told him to get lost and guess what happened. The Spartans came over late in the afternoon one day and squashed the Athenians and destroyed the navy. Sparta rowed down and put a block on the harbor at Athens and laid siege to the walls. 8 months later Athens was starved into submission.

Now that the Spartans won (as predicted), what do they do with Athens? Corinth wanted to totally wipe out the whole city and all the people. But going around the world had broadened the Spartans a little and they weren't as dumb as they used to be. They realized that if Athens was gone totally, that Corinth would get all their old trade back as well as the Athenian trade and then Corinth would become as obnoxious as Athens had been. So they kept the Athenians around as a counterbalance to Corinth. They punched holes in the long walls and allowed Athens a navy of 12 triremes (harbor patrol). The Athenian government was changed to an oligarchy with a Spartan patrol left in the city to keep charge. Now, Sparta was the obnoxious one and telling everyone what to do. But it won't last. What happened?? READ THE SYLLABUS! (It tells what happens for the end of the war and after.)

What ever happened to Alcibiades? Well, everyone decided he was too dangerous so an assassination team was sent up and he was killed on his farm in Thrace.