Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy by John R. Hale

Shvoong (that's really what it says) ^ | May 19, 2010 | reviewed by Lukas Dieter (et al; and 'Civ)

[SunkenCiv]

When the Persians decided to add Greece to their already enormous Empire at the beginning of the fifth century BC, the Greek city states obviously objected violently. They formed an alliance under the double leadership of Sparta and Athens. The Spartans led operations on land while Athens did the same on sea...

At the time, Herodotus wrote down the deeds of the Athenians and Spartans, making sure that Themistocles and Leonidas remained in people's memory. Themistocles had pounded Athenian heads until they built the navy that would defeat the Persians at Salamis under his command; King Leonidas of Sparta held the passes at Thermopylae long enough to allow the Greeks to organize their armies.

Hale's writing is highly biased in favour of the Athenians while he takes you through the Persian invasion and through the following war between Sparta and Athens for hegemony in Greece. I found myself disagreeing with many of his conclusions, but his bias makes the book interesting and riveting...

Hale's bias makes him ascertain the sea battle of Salamis as the turning point to the Persian war, while others might claim the same for the victory on land in Plataea...

While his main theme is the naval history of Athens, he follows Athenian politics in a sideline. This part of his retelling shows that democracy wasn't an invention of the Athenians; it was something that evolved out of the situation while Athens reeled from crisis to crisis like a drunken sailor. The combination of external threats with internal social upheaval brought forth the unique form of government while at the same time showing up its shortcomings in the likes of Pericles and Demosthenes.

[SunkenCiv]

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Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy by John R. Hale LotS 'blog Kindle Bargain Hardcover Paperback Unabridged MP3 CD Audiobook Audible.com download

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[SunkenCiv]

• Donald Kagan, Author of 'The Peloponnesian War': "Nobody knows more about the history of oared ships around the world than John Hale, and he combines with it a knowledge of and love for the ancient Athenians that helps explain their achievement. To provide a new angle from which to view and understand the experience of the Athenians of the Classical age is a remarkable feat, but Lords of the Sea accomplishes just that. It tells the story of the central role played by the great navy in shaping the government, politics, economy and culture in the years of the greatness of Athens in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C.E. The writing is utterly captivating and makes the reader feel he is back in ancient Athens among the great poets, historians, sculptors, architects, soldiers and sailors, all of whom were connected in important ways to the Athenian navy."
• Excerpt (August 7, 2009), Chapter 1: One Man, One Vision by John R. Hale
• NY Times review, Rowing to Democracy by Dwight Garner
• Bryn Mawr Classical Review, Rowing to Democracy by John Lewis
• Cleveland Plain Dealer review, Rowing to Democracy August 02, 2009
• Cleveland Plain Dealer review, Rowing to Democracy August 02, 2009

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	I picekd this book up in softbound (which is a more durable, larger format paperback) for $10 at Costco, night before last, and uncharacteristically ordered some takeout, and cracked this new book while waiting for the food to cook. I've not even gotten out of the author's preface and have to tell you I haven't been excited like this (about a book anyway) in a long time. I think we've got us a winner for summer reading. John R. Hale also helped crack the secret of the Delphic oracle -- that, just as the ancient descriptions all said, the pythoness sat in a cloud of gas that seeped out of cracks in the temple floor -- despite a French joker a century ago who claimed there were no such cracks. The freakin' cracks (there are two of them) cross at right angles right under where that moistened bink used to prophesy. No one bothered to check the original debunker's work, because, well, that's because debunkers are merely true believers. related topics: Questioning the Delphic Oracle Vast and Deadly Fleets May Yield Secrets at Last (re-post) Tracking Myth to Geological Reality Questioning the Delphic Oracle (re-post) To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
·Dogpile · Archaeologica · LiveScience · Archaeology · Biblical Archaeology Society · · Discover · Nat Geographic · Texas AM Anthro News · Yahoo Anthro & Archaeo · Google · · The Archaeology Channel · Excerpt, or Link only? · cgk's list of ping lists ·

[Betis70]

Sounds interesting. Might be a good gift for my brother—he is a serious ancient Greece hound (more Sparta than Athens though).

After watching some of the riots in Greece, it makes me wonder how far they have fallen. They went from independent city-states that could take on a world superpower to people who need the government to coddle them cradle to grave.

[GeronL]

That sounds very interesting to me.

[Sherman Logan]

When the Persians decided to add Greece to their already enormous Empire at the beginning of the fifth century BC, the Greek city states obviously objected violently. They formed an alliance under the double leadership of Sparta and Athens.

Not hardly. Essentially all the Greek states north of Athens collaborated, even fighting for the Medes.

[SunkenCiv]

One thing not widely taught is that the Greek Golden Age coincided / overlapped with the Golden Age of the Persian Empire. The Persians twice bridged the strait into Europe by building pontoon bridges to enable a massive movement of land forces, and maintained a substantial presence in the north of Greece; meanwhile it occupied Anatolia, which had a large Ionian Greek population. Sparta has been made much of in recent years, but it never worked for the good of Greece until it was humiliated by its failure to join the Greek effort at Marathon; the lame excuse (still given by advocates today) about some otherwise unknown ceremony masked the true intent, which was to act as the proxy for Persian rule in the Pelopponnese. During the next invasion it sent a whopping force of 300 (which fought alongside a force of 700 Thespians, soldiers from a city Persia had sacked) as a PR move, then again let the brunt of the invasion fall on Athens. Again, Athens prevailed, and again Spartan plans were thwarted. The final victory for Sparta came as a result of AGAIN taking Persian money during the Pelopponnesian War, using the money to build a fleet, hiring away the best Athenian rowers, and defeating the Athenian navy. Then, within a generation, most of what was left of the Spartan pedophiles were destroyed by the Thebans at Leuctra, thousands upon thousands of enslaved Greeks were freed in the valley of the Eurotas and freed the Messenians, ending Sparta’s ability to maintain its sick, depraved, revolting, elitist system.

[SunkenCiv]

I plan to try to make time to read it, bumping it ahead of the, uh, other five or so books I’ve been reading these past months. :’)

[GeronL]

If you finish it, write a review.

[Sherman Logan]

Not a fan of Sparta?

I’ve never seen any real evidence the Spartans were trying to get Persia to smash Athens for them. I would assume even the Spartans were smart enough to realize the Persians would see them as at least as big a threat and would leave them no independence.

The Spartans were already quite predominant in the Pelopponnese and had been for a long time, it’s not like this was some long-thwarted ambition.

I’m no expert on Sparta, but from what I’ve read I think they weren’t much interested in the outside world until the Persian War dragged them into it. They just wanted to stay home, dominate the Pelopponnese, bully and murder helots and bugger little boys.

You are absolutely right about this myth that the Greeks united in resistance to the Persians. Probably a good many more Greeks supported the Persians, although perhaps sometimes unwillingly, than supported the “Greek resistance.” Come to think of it, much like the famous “French Resistance.”

[SunkenCiv]

Greece wasn’t a unified country in Mycenaean times, or in classical times, until united by foreign rule, beginning with Phillip of Macedon and his son Alexander the Great. The successor kingdom was around a hundred or two years, conquered by Rome, and eventually ruled from Constantinople by the eastern Roman emperors. The last of those worthy of the name was Boris “the Bulgar Slayer”, but they managed to totter on until the Turks blasted in. The Turks ruled Greece for centuries (1453-1829); the British, French, and Germans brought in a Bavarian to rule, didn’t like him, replaced him, various attempts at democratic self-rule followed, and in the 20th century a civil war of sorts broke out between factions that supported the opposing sides of WWI; in WWII Italy and Germany invaded and occupied Greece. As in Spain, Communist forces tried to take over and were defeated by patriotic (and royalist) Greek forces. Some other stuff followed. The second Greek republic was established in 1973, as a consequence of a coup d’etat that removed the king; the officers involved in the coup ushered in democracy, then were removed by it. :’)

[SunkenCiv]

Not a fan. Check out “The Spartans” — not least because Bettany Hughes is the host and narrator, and wears tight jeans, *and* walks away from the camera a lot. ;’) The Spartans were a creepy bunch of assholes. And there’s no doubt about Sparta’s taking money from the Persians, a quick search will turn it up.

I’m not particularly a fan of Periclean Athens, either; the wonderful Age of Pericles gave us at least four monumentally great playwrites — but much of their work overlapped the Pelopponnesian War, and was written and acted during the time when the walls were closing in on the city; the plays wouldn’t have been great had it not been for the stress. Equating something more with something less, it’s akin to the Big Band era which corresponds with WWII.

Athens could have spent its time productively, but nooooo. Athens could even have acted militarily during the long truce that followed its defeat (on land, btw, contrary to the usual idea still taught that the war was stalemated because Athens couldn’t face Sparta on the land, and Sparta couldn’t face Athens on the sea) of Sparta at Pylos, to (for example) free the Messenians and thus deprive the Spartans of a big source of ill-gotten gain.

Sparta couldn’t deal with walls, had no siegecraft, and during the long truce Athens would have done well to wall off Sparta from the northern parts of Greece, and confine it to a small area. But, the Athenians were not too bright. They launched a massively difficult invasion of Sicily instead, lost a large force of men and most of the ships, and par for the course, the joker who hatched the scheme was basically ostracized (not through the official process) and fled to Sparta before the ships even launched.

[Cincinna]

Thanks, Civ. Sounds like your summer reading is getting off to a great start.

[GenXteacher]

Sounds like a good book- thanks for passing along the info!

[colorado tanker]

The Athenian attack on Syracuse was one of the great strategic blunders in history, IMHO.

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure! Instead of catching up a couple days of FR, I should be reading it. :’)

[SunkenCiv]

I wholeheartedly agree. It shows to go ya how easily led into stupidity the Athenians were. After years of suffering from the Spartan siege (they just didn’t dare go beyond their walls), plague, the death of Pericles and his whore by that very plague, and an unexpected tactical victory over the Spartans at Sphacteria, the “Athenian republic” didn’t bother to expand its walled-in territory, didn’t work to win over the goodwill of other cities, didn’t even try to liberate Greek brethren living under Persian rule. Nope, let’s send a huge force a quarter of the length of the Mediterranean to attack a neutral town which had very little going for it.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, I just hope it gets off to a great finish too. :’) Not that I don’t enjoy FR of course...

[colorado tanker]

There's even a documentary out about the battle:

[colorado tanker]

The fleet and army at Syracuse were almost all lost. It was blow Athens never recovered from.