The Great Courses

Lecture 11: With the victory over the Persian fleet at Mount Mycale, the Athenians, commanded by the aristocratic Xanthippus, took control of the Hellespont; the bonfire created from the hulls of Persian ships became a beacon that announced to the Ionian Greeks their freedom from Persian control. Victorious, Xanthippus and his army returned home to rebuild Athens and join in the celebrations taking place throughout the Greek world. Various monuments—the Spartan burial mound at Thermopylae, the dedication of triremes at Sounion, the construction of new temples to the gods—served to commemorate the fallen soldiers and memorialize the tremendous military achievements of the Persian wars. In addition, a new art form—tragedy—received a great impetus from such playwrights as Phrynichus and Aeschylus, whose respective plays The Phoenician Women and The Persians were inspired by the horrors of Salamis. These various forms of commemoration ensured that knowledge of the Greek victories would pass down to subsequent generations. Recommended Reading: Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound and Other Plays. Rosenbloom, Aeschylus: Persians.

Lecture 12: Impressed by the honorable conduct of Aristides the Just, the Ionians formally allied themselves with Athens and vowed to maintain everlasting enmity with Persia. Under the leadership of Cimon, the Delian League began its operations with seasonal campaigns against Persian positions, proving wildly successful and ultimately enrolling some 150 cities and islands as members. The league’s campaigns reached a high point in 466 B.C., when the Greeks squelched Persian hopes for recovery by defeating a large army and fleet at the Eurymedon River. Following the Battle of Salamis, the Ionian Greeks, those from Asia and the Aegean Islands, saw a chance to ensure their permanent freedom from the Persians with the sworn protection of the mainland Greeks. Rebuffed in this appeal by the Spartans, the Ionians turned to the Athenians, led by Aristides the Just, to serve as their hegemon. In 478 B.C., the Athenians and Ionians met on the island of Delos and created the Delian League. Under the leadership of Cimon, the league began its operations with seasonal campaigns against Persian positions, liberating Greek cities that remained in Persian hands and adding to its own treasury with captured booty. The campaigns of the league reached a high point in 466 B.C., when the Greeks squelched Persian hopes for recovery by defeating a large army and fleet at the Eurymedon River. Recommended Reading: Bengtson, The Greeks and the Persians: From the Sixth to the Fourth Centuries. Blamire, Plutarch: Life of Kimon.

Lecture 13: The democratic assembly of Athens launched an unprecedented series of wars and campaigns on many fronts; the most spectacular of these was an invasion of the Persian satrapy of Egypt. The Egyptian king shared rule with Athens for six years, until the relentless Persians took back the territory. In 449 B.C., King Artaxerxes I (the son of Xerxes) negotiated a peace with Cimon’s brother-in-law, Callias, and established a new status quo: the traditional land empire of the Persians on one side and the new Athenian maritime empire on the other. Though still a democracy at home, Athens had, of necessity, become an oppressive imperialistic power abroad and demanded an annual tribute from its allies. These tributes enabled Athens to inaugurate its famous Golden Age under the leadership of Pericles, thereby resurrecting the spirit of Ionia in Athens. Recommended Reading: Camp and Fisher, The World of the Ancient Greeks. Tuplin, Persian Responses: Political and Cultural Interaction with(in) the Achaemenid Empire.

Lecture 14: The historian Herodotus of Halicarnassus is often referred to as the “father of history.” His Histories sets out to record the Greek and Persian wars and is considered the first example of modern historical writing; it contains some fascinating accounts, including the strange world of the Scythians, the Phoenician circumnavigation of Africa, and the silent trading practices with Africans. Herodotus’s greatness as a historian lies in his balanced view of both the Greeks and the Persians, his insight in identifying the overarching conflict between East and West (still an element of history in the modern world), and his willingness to record multiple accounts of events and to identify his sources. Endlessly fascinated by people and their stories and optimistic about the human condition, Herodotus was hopeful that an account of the Greek and Persian wars would renew feelings of unity among the feuding Greeks of his own time. Recommended Reading: De Sélincourt, The World of Herodotus. Myres, Herodotus: Father of History.

Lecture 6: Darius died before he could complete his mission to punish Athens, and the task fell to his son and successor, Xerxes. For his invasion of Greece, Xerxes planned a strategy of shock and awe that would harness the enormous power and resources of the Persian king to terrify the Greeks into submission. In 483 B.C., Xerxes used his empire’s engineering skills to dig a canal across the Mount Athos peninsula and build pontoon bridges across the Hellespont so that his grand armada could enter Greek waters without having to round the peninsula’s dangerous tip. To the Greeks, such re-engineering of nature was an act of hubris, violent arrogance, for which the Persians would earn the enmity of the gods. In 481 B.C., accompanied by an army of men from every satrapy in the Persian Empire—the largest force ever assembled in the ancient world—Xerxes set out for Sardis. Recommended Reading: Burn, Persia and the Greeks: The Defense of the West, c. 546–478 B.C. Farrokh, Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War.

Lecture 7: Well aware that they were Xerxes’s prime target, the Athenians (persuaded by a farsighted citizen named Themistocles) created a Greek navy of 200 triremes. In the autumn of 481 B.C., a Greek city-state convention at the Isthmus of Corinth sent spies to Sardis to uncover the Persian army’s strength. Themistocles, who proved to be the most persuasive voice at the convention, convinced his fellow Athenians to evacuate their families to offshore islands or to the Peloponnese and urged the delegates to confront Xerxes as far forward as possible to slow his progress into central Greece. When the Greeks learned of Xerxes’s success crossing into Europe, they took Themistocles’s advice and set out to bar the Great King’s path. Recommended Reading: Lazenby, The Defence of Greece, 490–479 B.C. Lenardon, The Saga of Themistocles.

Lecture 8: Because the other Greeks refused to follow the Athenians, the Spartans organized the forces designed to resist the Persian advance. The Spartan officer Eurybiades was sent to the Artemision Channel to lead the Greek naval forces; we will look at the sea battles in the next lecture. On land, the Spartan king Leonidas led 300 Spartan hoplites and several thousand Greek allied troops to hold the pass at Thermopylae against Xerxes’s army. When the Persian army negotiated a hidden mountain track around the pass, Leonidas and his 300 hoplites defended the pass to the last man. Though the way into Greece was now open to Xerxes, the Greek resistance had found both its first martyr and an inspirational story of defiant opposition. Recommended Reading: Cartledge, Thermopylae: The Battle That Changed the World. Fitzhardinge, The Spartans.

Lecture 9: While the Spartans and other Greeks fought valiantly at the pass at Thermopylae, the Greek fleet held the Persian line of ships at Artemision. On the third day of fighting, battered but victorious, the Greek fleet escaped in the night, the island of Salamis their ultimate destination. At the same time, Xerxes led his army through Greece and into the evacuated city of Athens; there, he burned the old temples on the Acropolis, finally avenging the Athenian destruction of Sardis two decades earlier. Meanwhile, the Persian armada and the Greek fleets met in the straits of Salamis for what would prove to be the most crucial battle in the entire epic of the Greek and Persian wars. Many Greeks believed the straits to be a deathtrap, but the Athenians were convinced the Persians could be defeated. Though the Persians outnumbered the Greeks three to one, the constricted fighting space (as at Thermopylae) negated the Persian advantage of numbers. Thanks to recorded eyewitness accounts of the battle, it is possible to follow the course of this day-long battle—from the first clash of the fleets at dawn to the final Greek massacre of stranded Persian troops in the evening light. Recommended Reading: Green, The Year of Salamis, 480–479 B.C. Morrison, Coates, and Rankov, The Athenian Trireme: The History and Reconstruction of an Ancient Greek Warship.

Lecture 10: Having captured Athens and having burned the temples on the Acropolis, Xerxes returned to Asia a conqueror of sorts and left subsequent operations to his general, Mardonius. Despite the Persian departure, the Greeks remained somewhat divided among themselves. The next spring opened with the Greeks aware of two campaigns ahead of them: The Spartan king Leotychidas mustered the Greek fleet to guard the seaways around Greece, while the Athenians (led by Aristides the Just) sent the bulk of their forces to join the main allied army opposing Mardonius. Under the leadership of the Spartan regent Pausanias, the Greek land army defeated Mardonius near the town of Plataea in a tense battle, thanks in part to the cunning of Pausanias. News of the victory soon reached the Greek naval forces, which had sailed to the island of Samos and were preparing to confront the Persian fleet that had drawn up onto the Asiatic coast of Mount Mycale. Recommended Reading: How and Wells, A Commentary on Herodotus. Warry, Warfare in the Classical World.

24 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture Taught by John R. Hale Ph.D. Professor, University of Louisville This course presents a rare opportunity to survey the entirety of the two centuries-long conflict between the Greeks and the Persians: the greatest military contest in antiquity and one that forever changed the patterns of human history. Ruled by such Great Kings as Cyrus II (known as Cyrus the Great), Darius III, and Xerxes, the Persian Empire’s extraordinary military might, bottomless treasury, and innovative engineering skills made it seem almost inconceivable that any nation could long resist conquest. Resilient opposition, however, came from the Greek - first from the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, then from the leagues of city-states led by Sparta and Athens, and finally, from the kingdom of Macedon under its fabled rulers King Philip II and his son Alexander III (better known as Alexander the Great). Beginning with the first Persian capture of Greek cities in the mid-6th century B.C. and concluding with the burning of the Persian royal city of Persepolis in 331 B.C., this tumultuous period was punctuated with some of history’s most dramatic battles: the violent clash of soldiers on the plains at Marathon, the defiant last stand of 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, the crucial naval battle in the straits of Salamis, the march of the Ten Thousand under Xenophon, and the astonishing victories of Alexander at Granicus River, Issos, and Gaugamela that finally brought the wars to an end. Ultimately, this period set the stage not only for the immediate future of the Classical age but for the perpetual collision between East and West; many subsequent clashes—between Rome and Parthia, Christian Crusaders and Muslim Saracens, Byzantines and Ottomans—have been fought along this same fundamental fault line. A comprehensive study of the Greek and Persian wars, one that takes into account a view of the hostilities from both sides and augments the historical narrative with explorations of emergent cultural and political traditions, remains crucial to understanding the complex issues that still beset our modern world. Lecture 1: The two centuries of hostilities that encompass the Greek and Persian wars saw numerous political, social, economic, and cultural developments. More importantly, however, this archetypal war between East and West prefigured all later conflicts along the cultural fault line running through the eastern Mediterranean. The first encounter between these two disparate civilizations occurred around 546 B.C., with King Croesus of Lydia’s preemptive attack against the emerging Persian Empire and its ruler, King Cyrus II (known as Cyrus the Great). With the aid of Greek hoplite mercenaries from the Peloponnese, Croesus crossed the Halys River and fought the Persians to a standstill, until a lightning-like attack turned the battle in favor of the Persian Empire. The Lydians’ subsequent defeat cemented Cyrus’s role as the new lord of Asia Minor and alerted mainland Greece to the Persian menace. Thus was a spark ignited that would, in the time of Cyrus’s successors, be fanned into a conflagration. Recommended Reading: Allen, The Persian Empire. Herodotus, The Histories.

Lecture 2: Modern scholars have learned about the Persians in their own language thanks largely to the translation of the inscription at Behistun rock by Henry Rawlinson in the 1830s. That inscription tells the story of the accession of King Darius to the throne of the Persian Empire. Other Old Persian texts give us a sense of what the Persians were like both before and after they became the dominant power in the ancient world. It was Cyrus who initiated the drive to dominance, uniting the formerly tribal Persian people and leading them to expansion through the conquest of Media, Lydia, and other Greek city-states. Cyrus’s son Cambyses organized the ever-widening empire into provinces and continued the tradition of engineering projects begun by his father. One such project, the Royal Road, typifies the qualities of relentlessness, duty, and achievement that made the Persian Empire a force to be reckoned with. Recommended Reading: Kuhrt, The Persian Empire: A Corpus of Sources from the Achaemenid Period. Lyle, The Search for the Royal Road.

Lecture 3: Though the Greeks did not leave exact historical records about the Bronze Age period in which their culture and civilization developed, the myths and epics they left behind offer key insights into their origin and their establishment of great cities along the coast of Asia. By the end of the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greeks were using their knowledge of shipbuilding and navigation to launch expeditions into Asia. As more Greeks headed east, they used Athens as a starting point for the foundation of such cities as Ephesus and Miletus; Rhodes and Halicarnassus were colonized by Dorian Greeks related to the Spartans. In time, these colonies far outshone their mother country in terms of population and cultural advancement. These Ionian Greeks were heavily influenced by the older cultures of Asia and Egypt, but they added their own distinctive skeptical rationalism to the mix. It was this unique world that Cyrus encountered as a result of his conquest of Lydia. Recommended Reading: Camp and Fisher, The World of the Ancient Greeks. Hanson, The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece.

Lecture 4: By about 500 B.C., the Greeks of Ionia decided to revolt from Persian rule and regain their freedom. Aristagoras, an emissary from Miletus, appealed to the democratic assembly of the Athenians for help in the wake of a Spartan refusal for aid. Landing at Ephesus, an Athenian army joined the rebellious Ionians and took the city of Sardis by surprise, burning it to the ground and destroying a temple of the goddess Cybele. Suffering a defeat after their withdrawal from Sardis, the Athenians refused to involve themselves further in the Ionian revolt. One by one, the Persians recaptured the rebellious Ionian cities, and the revolt ended with the Battle of Lade. King Darius, learning of the Athenian complicity in the burning of Sardis, vowed revenge for what the Persian Empire considered an act of unprovoked terror. Recommended Reading: Miller, Bridge to Asia: The Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean. Stark, Ionia: A Quest.

Lecture 5: Seeking revenge against Athens, the Persian Empire made two attempts to reach the city, which was separated from the Great King’s territories by the wide moat of the Aegean Sea. The first attempt involved a massive Persian fleet traveling parallel to a troop march around the northern end of the Aegean; the ships were caught by a violent gale and wrecked on the coast of the Mount Athos peninsula. The second involved the dispatch of a large fleet directly across the Aegean, which landed at Marathon in 490 B.C. and clashed with the Athenians in one of the most famous battles in history. The confrontation resulted in the resounding defeat of the Great King’s seemingly invincible army and the death of the Persian mystique; the Greeks must have believed that the threat had been averted, but they could not have been more wrong. Recommended Reading: Pritchett, Marathon. Time-Life Books, Persians: Masters of Empire.

Lecture 21: My main purpose in discussing Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories is to demonstrate that many of the ideas he put forth in The Prince and Discourses are developed and applied in his most important work of history. Machiavelli writes his history as a commission from the Medici. However, he is not afraid to criticize Medici rule of Florence between 1434 and 1494. I will not attempt to be as methodical here as I was with the two works of Machiavelli discussed in previous lectures. After a glimpse of how Machiavelli approaches the writing of history, I will turn to specific sections that have importance for the understanding of Machiavelli as a political thinker. At the beginning of Book III of the Florentine Histories, for example, Machiavelli takes up a theme from the Discourses: While division in the Roman Republic was a good thing, Florence has suffered from the evils of division. Recommended Readings: Harvey Mansfield, “Introduction,” in Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories, translated by Laura Banfield and Harvey Mansfield, pp. vii–xv. Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, translated by Laura Banfield and Harvey Mansfield, preface and Books I–IV.

Lecture 22: Machiavelli considers the purposes and nature of war in his Florentine Histories. This is perhaps a natural thing to do because Florence was almost always at war, and Machiavelli more thoroughly documents those wars than he does the development of political institutions and the narration of internal political struggles. He also speaks admiringly of Cosimo de’Medici. The principal focus of this lecture, however, will be the famous attempt to overthrow Medici rule by assassinating Lorenzo de’Medici and his brother Giuliano, the so-called Pazzi conspiracy of 1478. Machiavelli wrote about conspiracies and the dangers intrinsic to them. For Machiavelli, the Pazzi conspiracy becomes a case study that not only illuminates the particular issue of conspiracies but also shows us more generally how we learn from history. Recommended Readings: Machiavelli, Florentine Histories, translated by Laura Banfield and Harvey Mansfield, Books V–VIII.

Lecture 23: The Prince and Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy were privately circulated but not published in Machiavelli’s lifetime. When they were printed in the years following his death in 1527, they soon found themselves on the papacy’s Index of Prohibited Books. Later in the 16th century, the principal works were translated into French. Machiavelli became known in England largely through the writings of French political thinkers who had access to his works. Lecture 23: The Prince and Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy were privately circulated but not published in Machiavelli’s lifetime. When they were printed in the years following his death in 1527, they soon found themselves on the papacy’s Index of Prohibited Books. Later in the 16th century, the principal works were translated into French. Machiavelli became known in England largely through the writings of French political thinkers who had access to his works. In the 17th century, Machiavelli’s works were translated into English and, thus, directly entered into the political writings of the era of the crises and temporary destruction of the English monarchy. The ongoing political discourse from England later entered the thoughts and works of writers in the American colonies. Hence, at least indirectly, Machiavelli’s republican thought contributed to the development of an American republican tradition. Recommended Readings: J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment, chapters 11, 12, 15, pp. 361–422 and 506–552.

Lecture 24: The title question sounds like a silly tautology. However, given what the word Machiavellian has often come to mean in American political discourse, it is an important question. Some important points to consider after having examined the life and writings of Machiavelli are the following: (1) Is the way people commonly think of Machiavelli today fair? If not, then what is the value in trying to reread and rethink what he wrote? (2) Beyond the oft-perceived legacy of Machiavelli as a counselor to dictators, how has the thought of Machiavelli contributed to the development of republican theory and practice? (3) If indeed Machiavelli is an important republican thinker, how can the study of his works today further our understanding of mixed and balanced government? (4) Why is Machiavelli such a vital model, even after five centuries? Recommended Readings: Article by Quentin Skinner, in Machiavelli and Republicanism, Gisela Bock, Quentin Skinner, and Maurizio Viroli, et al., eds., pp. 293–309.

Lecture 17: Although Machiavelli dealt with the role of Fortune in The Prince, he takes up the issue again at the beginning of his second discourse. He considers claims that Rome was more lucky than skilled or virtuous in its stability and growth during several republican centuries. Machiavelli then considers Rome’s enemies and how their love of liberty is different from that of Christians of his day. Then, in his typical systematic way, he lists three ways to treat conquered people and contrasts how the Romans did this with how Italian cities like Florence acted in his own time. Recommended Readings: Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, translated by Julia Bondanella and Peter Bondanella, Discourse II, preface–chapter 5.

Lecture 18: One of Machiavelli’s most quoted lines is that “wealth is the sinews of war.” This thought leads to a long discussion of the organization and practice of warfare in ancient Rome. He concludes that it is better to use fraud than force. When Machiavelli gets fairly technical about certain tactics of war and defense, it is more important for us to see what general lessons we can draw from his analysis than to work through details of a kind of warfare no longer practiced in our time. When dealing with the use of artillery in the wars of his own time, he concludes that technological changes do not invalidate principles of warfare established in a different time. Recommended Readings: Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, translated by Julia Bondanella and Peter Bondanella, Discourse II, chapters 6–21.

Lecture 19: Machiavelli again discusses Italy’s invaders, beginning with the French in 1494. From his concern for war-torn Italy, he takes up several important issues that Livy dealt with in his History of Rome. Machiavelli condemns indecisive leaders. He also takes up a somewhat technical discussion of fortresses and their value in defense. He states that nations make mistakes when they attack enemies who are divided because such an attack will unite those who were divided. He adds that exiles are untrustworthy and often mislead those who try to help them. In the third discourse, Machiavelli worries about how nations, especially republics, and religions can survive in a dangerous and unpredictable world. Recommended Readings: Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, translated by Julia Bondanella and Peter Bondanella, Discourse II, chapter 22–Discourse III, chapter 1.

Lecture 20: After using some famous historical examples to emphasize the importance of taking action against opposition when a change of government occurs, Machiavelli writes at great length about the nature of conspiracies. Although they are dangerous, they are quite difficult to execute successfully. He uses ancient examples but is particularly interested in the Pazzi conspiracy against the Medici in 1478. Although Machiavelli respected the leader of the Florentine Republic, Piero Soderini, he realizes that different qualities are needed in leaders in different historical circumstances. Hence, while some cautious leaders like Soderini are successful sometimes, it was Soderini’s timidity at a time when boldness was needed that led to the fall of the republic. In the final sections of his Discourses, Machiavelli returns to and reiterates several of the central themes of the book—for example, the need for a well-trained army and the collective wisdom of the people. At the end, Machiavelli points out that customs have a great power in societies and that changes are made only with some difficulty. Continuity, however, is more the product of education than of a conservative aristocracy. Recommended Readings: Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, translated by Julia Bondanella and Peter Bondanella, Discourse III, chapters 2–49.

Lecture 16: After contrasting a virtuous republic with a city without virtue, Machiavelli writes about his beliefs in signs and prophecies, a reminder to us that Machiavelli is both a man of his time and a “modern man.” In the last sections of his first discourse on Livy, Machiavelli makes the strong case for the superiority of a republican form of government. The people are more stable than princes, and although princes are better than the people in establishing republics, the people are superior to princes in maintaining them. He even criticizes what Livy seems to have said about the fickleness of crowds, pointing out that the great historian of Rome was referring only to an uncontrolled multitude. It is in these direct comparisons of princes and the people that Machiavelli’s deeply held republicanism is powerfully demonstrated. Recommended Readings: Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, translated by Julia Bondanella and Peter Bondanella, Discourse I, chapters 55–60.

Lecture 13: Machiavelli begins with a systematic look at republics, including an examination of the importance of geography to history. He then lays out the forms of government—a categorization that can be traced to Aristotle—and gives the classic definition of a republic. It is a form of government that combines elements of monarchy, aristocracy (i.e., government by the best), and democracy. Of the world’s republics, Rome was the greatest. Machiavelli, in opposition to received thought, argues that it was conflict between the traditional rulers (patricians) and the people (plebeians) that led to the full development of Rome’s republican constitution. Hence, conflict is not in and of itself bad. Rather, conflict can be either destructive or positive in a nation. Although it was good for Rome, it was bad for Florence. It is worthwhile to note that Machiavelli both employs classical thought and corrects it. The past may be a model, but it is never an exact model, nor is it one without flaws and errors. Recommended Readings: Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, translated by Julia Bondanella and Peter Bondanella, Discourse I, preface–chapter 6.

Lecture 14: As Machiavelli looks at the Roman Republic, he sees that it emerged out of a monarchical state that he traces back to Romulus. Machiavelli does not think that a republic can simply spring up or be a creation of a committee. It takes a strong man who is unafraid to act boldly. To dramatize this point, he even praises Romulus for killing his brother Remus. Machiavelli also has high praise for Rome’s second king, Numa. It was he who established a moral structure by appealing to and manipulating religion. In fact, having a code to discipline individuals’ conduct is perhaps more important than laws and institutions. While looking back at this earliest period of Rome’s history, Machiavelli also looks forward. He asks what will happen to a republic when its citizens become morally corrupted. He contrasts Numa’s “good” way of using religion with the way the leaders of the Catholic Church use it in his day. Recommended Readings: Machiavelli, Discourses on Livy, translated by Julia Bondanella and Peter Bondanella, Discourse I, chapters 7–33.