1 00:00:00,420 --> 00:00:07,799 Hello and welcome. Today we are going to be looking at the second interpretation question the causes of the Peloponnesian War. 2 00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:14,460 And I'm really pleased to be able to welcome two academics to join us discussing this. 3 00:00:14,790 --> 00:00:22,649 From Durham University, we have Professor Polly Low and from Exeter University we have Professor Neville Morley, 4 00:00:22,650 --> 00:00:28,830 both of whom has spent a lot of time with Thucydides and with fifth century Greek history. 5 00:00:28,830 --> 00:00:33,390 So perhaps let's meet them briefly and introduce themselves. 6 00:00:33,420 --> 00:00:37,770 Polly, welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself and the work you do up in Durham. 7 00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:41,840 Hello and thanks for having me on the podcast. 8 00:00:42,290 --> 00:00:50,749 I'm Polly as James has just said I work in on Greek history, Greek political history in particular, also on the inscriptions, 9 00:00:50,750 --> 00:00:56,870 which are another important source of evidence for alpha, for everything but including including Greek history. 10 00:00:56,900 --> 00:01:01,150 I might try and sneak some inscriptions into our discussion today. Fantastic. 11 00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:05,160 Thank you. And Neville? Yes, I am Neville Morley. 12 00:01:05,180 --> 00:01:09,200 I teach down in Exeter. All sorts of ancient history. 13 00:01:09,380 --> 00:01:20,180 I'm kind of a bit of a generalist. My particular interest in this area is actually very much focussed on Thucydides as the 14 00:01:20,180 --> 00:01:26,210 main chronicler of the Peloponnesian War and even more on what people do with Thucydides, 15 00:01:26,270 --> 00:01:31,220 how they interpret him, how they argue about his ideas and so forth. 16 00:01:32,030 --> 00:01:40,730 Okay, great. Well, let's dive in and we'll see if we can come up with an answer, a set of answers about the causes of the Peloponnesian War. 17 00:01:41,240 --> 00:01:47,780 So I think the first thing I want to think about is how far can we actually establish the causes? 18 00:01:48,260 --> 00:01:52,310 Can we really come up with a clear answer about why the Peloponnesian War happened? 19 00:01:52,700 --> 00:01:57,620 And in particular, what are the problems with the sources so poorly? 20 00:01:57,620 --> 00:02:01,639 Perhaps you'd like to tell us what you think a little bit about that. Okay. 21 00:02:01,640 --> 00:02:03,440 So our main source, of course, 22 00:02:03,440 --> 00:02:10,459 is Thucydides who said that he was going to explain the causes in such a way that no one would ever need to worry about this problem again, 23 00:02:10,460 --> 00:02:14,870 which is one of the great unfulfilled promises of his history. 24 00:02:15,430 --> 00:02:21,260 Thucydides has a quite a clear model for what he thinks the causes of the Peloponnesian War are. 25 00:02:21,830 --> 00:02:26,540 But the problem that we have to confront and one of the problems is how far we want to accept what 26 00:02:26,540 --> 00:02:32,150 Thucydides is telling us and that sort of too loud a problem or two but two strands to that problem. 27 00:02:32,160 --> 00:02:39,650 One is, do we accept his interpretation of what was of the most important causes and what are the subsidiary causes? 28 00:02:40,280 --> 00:02:46,130 And another, in many ways, a more fundamental problem is whether he's telling us, giving us all the information that we need to know. 29 00:02:46,820 --> 00:02:50,899 Is he missing some things out of his account? Is he de-emphasising some things? 30 00:02:50,900 --> 00:02:53,130 Is he giving too much emphasis to some things? 31 00:02:53,150 --> 00:03:00,320 So we have a problem sort of establishing the facts that are problematic, whether we accept the interpretation. 32 00:03:00,560 --> 00:03:07,219 In Thucydides one reason why that problem is quite acute is because we don't have many other sources, 33 00:03:07,220 --> 00:03:13,280 we do have other sources, but they tend to be seen as less reliable than Thucydides. 34 00:03:13,280 --> 00:03:23,389 So we have Aristophanes we'll talk about a bit later on, I think, and Plutarch touches on aspects of the causes of the war that again, 35 00:03:23,390 --> 00:03:29,720 Plutarch writing a long time after the event, he's not really writing history is writing a different sort of thing. 36 00:03:29,810 --> 00:03:38,300 So how it how we use those other sources in how far we can check what Thucydides is telling us, we can contradict what Thucydides is telling us. 37 00:03:39,830 --> 00:03:46,250 So what I'm hearing there, I think, is it really is hard to come up with a clear answer here, 38 00:03:46,250 --> 00:03:55,550 which is perhaps why it is an academic debate still that we have to work with unclear sources or sources which which don't give us definitive answers. 39 00:03:56,090 --> 00:04:03,590 Yes, I think that that that's right. A lot of the disagreements between between scholars on this comes down to how they want to use the sources, 40 00:04:03,590 --> 00:04:07,910 which sources they want to trust, which sources they they would give less less credence to. 41 00:04:08,330 --> 00:04:14,440 There's also, I guess, a bigger sort of more slightly more philosophical question of how we how we explain anything and what. 42 00:04:14,960 --> 00:04:25,490 What do you think are the causes of any war? What factors do you think are likely to cause a war, are wars inevitable in some sort of political systems? 43 00:04:26,150 --> 00:04:31,670 Should we think that it's to do with stuff going on in domestic politics, how important are the economic factors? 44 00:04:31,670 --> 00:04:36,320 So there's wider sort of methodological issues that have a bearing on the question as well. 45 00:04:37,190 --> 00:04:45,560 Okay. Thank you. Well, Neville, if I can come across to you, this debate has a long history in academic circles, I think. 46 00:04:45,890 --> 00:04:49,280 So perhaps you could tell us a little bit about that. Yes. 47 00:04:49,280 --> 00:04:59,810 I mean, I think there are several different reasons why people have argued about the origins of the Peloponnesian War and continue to argue about it. 48 00:05:00,680 --> 00:05:05,150 I mean, Polly's touched on a couple of the really important ones already. 49 00:05:05,900 --> 00:05:10,250 There's the question of, well, actually, what question do we ask? 50 00:05:10,970 --> 00:05:16,220 Do we think this is about whose fault it is? Who's to blame, who's in the wrong? 51 00:05:17,150 --> 00:05:20,520 And I mean, that's been an important question over the years. 52 00:05:20,540 --> 00:05:24,860 Is it Athens fault? Is it sparta's fault that the war happens? 53 00:05:25,520 --> 00:05:32,990 But you can also put the question differently, which is rather in the way that you did it, which, okay, why did the war happen? 54 00:05:33,710 --> 00:05:38,240 And that gives you a different set of questions and a different set of arguments. 55 00:05:38,240 --> 00:05:44,510 That then becomes much more about, well, is this about people making mistakes? 56 00:05:44,540 --> 00:05:52,610 Is it about a sort of a structural tendency that means war becomes almost inevitable? 57 00:05:52,730 --> 00:06:00,920 Is it about kind of a balance between chance on the one hand and a kind of inexorable tendency on the other? 58 00:06:01,130 --> 00:06:07,340 And different historians have different theories about why wars happen. 59 00:06:07,370 --> 00:06:15,430 I mean, if our listeners have studied any war, they'll be familiar with these different kinds of debate. 60 00:06:15,740 --> 00:06:22,460 So that's a big issue. The issue of how do we make sense of Thucydides is is a massive one. 61 00:06:22,490 --> 00:06:27,870 As Polly says, Thucydides is kind of looms over everything as our key source. 62 00:06:28,400 --> 00:06:32,060 And the thing is, he doesn't write like a modern historian. 63 00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:40,810 A modern historian would offer an argument. They would set out their ideas about why did the war recur, 64 00:06:40,820 --> 00:06:48,740 and they would then bring in evidence in order to support their argument. Thucydides gives us an account of events. 65 00:06:49,010 --> 00:06:59,060 We have a really powerful sense that he's giving us this narrative with his own ideas about what happened, 66 00:06:59,570 --> 00:07:03,260 that he doesn't just kind of give us all of the events he knows about. 67 00:07:03,270 --> 00:07:12,860 He selects the events, he puts them together in a sort of meaningful way, but he doesn't tell us what he thinks. 68 00:07:13,070 --> 00:07:18,979 He gives us the story and leaves us to think about it and argue about it, which means, 69 00:07:18,980 --> 00:07:26,840 of course, people are dying endlessly, arguing what might through cities really mean. 70 00:07:27,110 --> 00:07:33,830 Does he pass over such and such an event relatively briefly because he doesn't think it's important? 71 00:07:34,040 --> 00:07:41,600 Does he do that because he wants to make a particular sort of old event about why the war happened and that doesn't fit? 72 00:07:42,020 --> 00:07:50,630 Is he being completely honest with us or is he actually really sort of supporting his great hero, 73 00:07:50,690 --> 00:07:54,530 Pericles, and trying to say, well, whatever happened, it wasn't Pericles fault. 74 00:07:54,560 --> 00:08:01,880 So you get long debates about that. And of course, ultimately, you can never come up with a conclusive answer. 75 00:08:02,270 --> 00:08:10,940 You can just offer different interpretations of what we think Thucydides meant or what was his idea. 76 00:08:11,090 --> 00:08:21,110 And I suppose the third factor is that time and again, people make a connection between Thucydides' accounts and their own time. 77 00:08:21,140 --> 00:08:30,800 I mean, one of the reasons people argue about the Peloponnesian War is they think it tells us something about other wars as well. 78 00:08:30,980 --> 00:08:39,270 And this is Thucydides' big claim, not just that we will understand the Peloponnesian War by reading his account, but. 79 00:08:39,580 --> 00:08:46,000 That will then help us understand present events and future events as well. 80 00:08:46,600 --> 00:08:53,079 Because I mean, it's one of these bits which is horrible to translate and you kind of argue about what exactly he says. 81 00:08:53,080 --> 00:09:00,790 But essentially in some way, events of the present and future tend to resemble events of the past. 82 00:09:00,820 --> 00:09:08,200 Therefore, if we understand the Peloponnesian War, this might help us understand later wars. 83 00:09:08,350 --> 00:09:15,640 And time and again, readers and scholars have sort of looked at this and thought, well, yes, I can see my own times in this. 84 00:09:15,910 --> 00:09:24,070 So almost every time there is another conflict or potential conflict, there's an argument about Thucydides. 85 00:09:24,910 --> 00:09:32,980 And certainly people read Thucydides' arguments with at least kind of half an eye on their own time. 86 00:09:33,040 --> 00:09:37,090 So, for example, around the First World War, 87 00:09:37,420 --> 00:09:43,780 there were debates about Thucydides' interpretation of the Peloponnesian War precisely because 88 00:09:43,780 --> 00:09:51,640 people thought that would help make sense of events and it would help determine whose fault it was. 89 00:09:51,910 --> 00:09:57,850 You know, First World War, you could say you've got a big maritime empire, i.e. the British. 90 00:09:58,150 --> 00:10:01,810 You've got a powerful land power, i.e. the Germans. 91 00:10:02,080 --> 00:10:08,440 This looks like the Peloponnesian War. If you on a squint at it and ignore lots of stuff, 92 00:10:08,590 --> 00:10:15,460 which means then the debate about was part of the blame for the Peloponnesian War, or was it just seen in aggression? 93 00:10:15,820 --> 00:10:22,090 CONAN looked like a way of talking about was Germany to blame for the First World War or was it Britain? 94 00:10:22,370 --> 00:10:31,209 And, I mean, that repeats itself. People have looked at the Peloponnesian War and thought this resembles the First World War, 95 00:10:31,210 --> 00:10:36,910 the Cold War, the confrontation between the United States and China. 96 00:10:37,330 --> 00:10:45,460 And that then feeds back into how they argue about Thucydides and try to interpret what he has to say as well. 97 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:52,870 Brilliant. Thank you. That's very, very interesting for our students to think about and to realise that when they're studying this debate, 98 00:10:53,470 --> 00:10:58,720 the debate itself has such a long history and presumably has been significant down the ages. 99 00:10:59,140 --> 00:11:05,590 Okay. Well, what we'll do, I think, is we'll look, first of all, at the years four seven, 82446, which, you know, 100 00:11:05,590 --> 00:11:15,400 sort of historical time span to now you see that this says, I think three times in book one that the war has an underlying cause. 101 00:11:15,820 --> 00:11:19,690 Again, I think a debate about how to translate that Greek word, the prophasis. 102 00:11:20,140 --> 00:11:27,430 But the idea is that there's something all the way along which is leading to war, making war inevitable, 103 00:11:27,580 --> 00:11:34,270 and that is the growth of Athenian power and the fear that this generates in Sparta. 104 00:11:34,720 --> 00:11:43,870 So perhaps with that in mind, let's just explore these 30 years or so and just see where the sides start to move apart. 105 00:11:44,230 --> 00:11:52,540 So, Neville, could you just take us through the years, let's say four, seven, eight to four, six one and how things start to hot up there. 106 00:11:53,550 --> 00:11:58,260 Okay. I mean, 478, we're looking at the aftermath of the Persian wars. 107 00:11:58,500 --> 00:12:04,410 The Greeks have fought off the second great Persian attempt at conquering them. 108 00:12:04,800 --> 00:12:10,260 I mean, it's not all Greeks. There are those who stay neutral, there are those who are actually on the Persian side. 109 00:12:10,260 --> 00:12:15,540 But it's arguably most Greeks and certainly it's Athens and Sparta. 110 00:12:16,050 --> 00:12:23,910 Sparta had been the established power, the the fearsome armies and so forth. 111 00:12:24,150 --> 00:12:27,120 Athens was much more on the rise. 112 00:12:27,540 --> 00:12:39,990 And you can even say it's the Persian wars where Athens really appears as a major player through Athenian victories against the Persians. 113 00:12:40,290 --> 00:12:50,100 And the way in which the Athenians become the significant naval force relative to the other Greeks. 114 00:12:50,520 --> 00:12:54,300 So it's really a question of, okay, what happens now? The Persians have gone. 115 00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:57,570 How is the Greek world going to go forwards? 116 00:12:57,570 --> 00:13:02,280 And, you know, what's what's the approach of these sort of these different players? 117 00:13:02,670 --> 00:13:03,800 And as you say, 118 00:13:03,810 --> 00:13:13,770 the way that Thucydides kind of encapsulates this period is that it is about sort of the different the different destinies of Athens and Sparta, 119 00:13:13,770 --> 00:13:19,470 all their different attitudes and the way the rest of the Greeks respond. 120 00:13:20,310 --> 00:13:23,370 Sparta has got a certain tendency to pull back, 121 00:13:23,760 --> 00:13:33,390 not invariably there are certain Spartan sort of generals and commanders who are actually very keen on the idea of heading out there, 122 00:13:33,570 --> 00:13:39,000 leading the rest of the Greeks in the campaign of further attacks on the Persian Empire. 123 00:13:39,390 --> 00:13:44,880 At any rate, Sparta wants to be recognised as a dominant force. 124 00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:53,910 And also there's a tradition where Sparta stands for the freedom of the Greeks against tyranny, against oppression and so forth. 125 00:13:54,270 --> 00:14:03,220 On the other hand, the sort of Spartan society is heavily suspicious of generals who go off and become too individually powerful, 126 00:14:03,240 --> 00:14:15,330 and every so often recalls them. Spartan society is always dominated by a fear of the revolt of the Helots. 127 00:14:15,360 --> 00:14:22,350 So it's always very wary about overextending itself abroad, sending too many troops elsewhere. 128 00:14:22,830 --> 00:14:25,160 And finally, the Spartans have a tendency towards arrogance. 129 00:14:25,200 --> 00:14:32,160 So there are points where the Spartans thoroughly alienate the other Greeks in their attempt at leadership. 130 00:14:32,340 --> 00:14:36,750 And the other Greeks then basically turn to Athens and say, Look, we think you're much nicer. 131 00:14:37,140 --> 00:14:43,770 We look to you for leadership instead. But overall, Sparta tends to pull back. 132 00:14:44,310 --> 00:14:48,090 And you can say Athens to some extent fills a vacuum. Equally, 133 00:14:48,120 --> 00:14:55,859 Athens can be seen as really quite ambitious and aggressive and therefore takes 134 00:14:55,860 --> 00:15:01,110 the opportunity that the Spartans aren't going to command the rest of the Greeks. 135 00:15:01,110 --> 00:15:09,360 Then the Athenians will. So the Athenians take the opportunity to rebuild their city walls, 136 00:15:09,570 --> 00:15:16,530 and then later on they construct what are known as the long walls to connect the city to the sea, 137 00:15:17,190 --> 00:15:25,889 which makes them really powerfully defended and to some extent sort of undermines the spartan advantage 138 00:15:25,890 --> 00:15:33,960 of land power that potentially Athens puts itself in a position where it could withstand a siege. 139 00:15:34,200 --> 00:15:36,380 And the Spartans aren't terribly happy about this. 140 00:15:36,390 --> 00:15:43,290 There's even the suggestion that, well, everyone should tear down their city walls, but, you know, they let that go. 141 00:15:44,190 --> 00:15:56,430 Athens founds what we know is the Delian League, which starts off as simply an alliance of Greek allies against Persia. 142 00:15:56,940 --> 00:16:00,000 Athens is the most important player. 143 00:16:00,270 --> 00:16:05,639 But know arguably, at least initially. This is a voluntary alliance. 144 00:16:05,640 --> 00:16:10,290 It's just that gradually Athens becomes more and more dominant. 145 00:16:11,070 --> 00:16:19,290 The smaller members of the alliance increasingly decide that actually they have an easier life if they pay some 146 00:16:19,290 --> 00:16:28,620 money to the Athenians for running the kind of Greek defence rather than contributing troops or contributing ships. 147 00:16:29,070 --> 00:16:34,490 But of course, this means, you know, Athens starts to pull in these contributions. 148 00:16:34,500 --> 00:16:37,500 They start to look a bit like tribute. 149 00:16:37,710 --> 00:16:43,900 Athens funds its own navy rather than having to rely on allies. 150 00:16:43,920 --> 00:16:50,880 So the Delian League starts to look more and more like what we sometimes call an empire. 151 00:16:51,330 --> 00:16:54,850 And we can see this. Polly will have things to say about this, 152 00:16:54,850 --> 00:17:04,450 but we can see this in some of the inscriptions we get recording the business of the Delian League and the way in which contributions are managed. 153 00:17:04,990 --> 00:17:15,820 There's a suggestion in the historian Diodorus Siculus, a much later source that some time in the mid 470s, 154 00:17:16,150 --> 00:17:22,900 Sparta actually had a debate as to whether they should launch a war against Athens because Athens is 155 00:17:22,900 --> 00:17:30,340 becoming too powerful and they are persuaded by a figure who is otherwise unknown that they shouldn't. 156 00:17:31,130 --> 00:17:37,180 And it's not that Athens and Sparta are absolutely opposed during this period, 157 00:17:38,410 --> 00:17:44,620 except in so far as every Greek polis is sort of fiercely independent and is therefore has lots of 158 00:17:44,620 --> 00:17:50,500 alliances but spends a lot of time sort of feeling a bit suspicious of all potential rivals. 159 00:17:50,830 --> 00:18:04,420 It is the case that one of the allies within the Delian League Thassos revolted in 465 and appealed to Sparta for assistance. 160 00:18:04,570 --> 00:18:11,860 And it suggested that the Spartans agreed that they would invade Attica as a way of distracting the Athenians, 161 00:18:12,130 --> 00:18:21,940 which would of course have been a complete breach of the terms agreed after the Persian War. 162 00:18:22,120 --> 00:18:27,879 But it doesn't happen because there's a big earthquake and the Helots Revolt. 163 00:18:27,880 --> 00:18:32,940 So suddenly Sparta faces significant problems at home. 164 00:18:33,580 --> 00:18:35,290 Yeah, if I can come in there. Thank you, Neville. 165 00:18:35,600 --> 00:18:44,200 It's probably a good moment to remind students that the Athenians and the Spartans are still bound by the treaty that they had signed. 166 00:18:44,530 --> 00:18:50,050 And in 481 just before the Persian invasion, which we sometimes called the Hellenic League. 167 00:18:50,470 --> 00:18:57,280 And so they're still bound by an alliance. And Sparta shouldn't be invading Athens's territory. 168 00:18:57,280 --> 00:19:02,170 Therefore, is it a helpful way of thinking about this that within Sparta 169 00:19:02,470 --> 00:19:07,860 There's more of a peace party and a war party and perhaps also in Athens that both cities, 170 00:19:08,320 --> 00:19:11,860 you can't think of them as having just one foreign policy view. 171 00:19:13,440 --> 00:19:21,930 As the general principle? Absolutely. I mean, it's always difficult with Sparta because we don't have Spartan sources. 172 00:19:21,990 --> 00:19:24,570 I mean, this is true for the history of Sparta in general. 173 00:19:24,930 --> 00:19:32,610 What we have other Greeks looking in from the outside, reporting what information they have, 174 00:19:32,910 --> 00:19:38,610 also reporting or any amount of, you know, myth and fantasy and so forth. 175 00:19:39,210 --> 00:19:43,440 But we do get a pretty clear impression. They're all debates in Sparta. 176 00:19:44,190 --> 00:19:54,749 There is clearly disagreement between different parts of the Spartan ruling class, between the kings and the Genesia there. 177 00:19:54,750 --> 00:20:06,450 And the sort of the ethos is one reason why the Spartans ended up being accused by their allies of being ridiculously overcautious, 178 00:20:06,900 --> 00:20:11,430 of completely failing to do anything about the Athenian threat. 179 00:20:11,910 --> 00:20:21,300 And a major part of that is plainly because there's no agreement in Sparta as to whether at any point they should be going off to fight or not, 180 00:20:21,810 --> 00:20:30,170 what's their best interest. And so it's even more obvious in Athens, where we do get much more detail about debate. 181 00:20:30,420 --> 00:20:38,310 So, I mean, I mentioned, you know, there is this earthquake as a result of the disruption in Sparta, the Helots Revolt. 182 00:20:38,370 --> 00:20:46,229 So this you know, this subject population, which essentially does a lot of the work that supports Spartan Society. 183 00:20:46,230 --> 00:20:52,560 So the Spartans are suddenly facing a major threat to their entire way of life. 184 00:20:52,830 --> 00:20:55,770 And in fact they appeal to Athens for help. 185 00:20:56,070 --> 00:21:04,050 They can expect help because the dominant figure in Athenian politics at this point is a guy called Kimon, 186 00:21:04,650 --> 00:21:11,850 who is basically pro Spartan or is any rate friendly towards Sparta, you could say. 187 00:21:12,120 --> 00:21:19,499 He's of the sort of the Athenian sort of aristocratic party, where we get the impression, you know, 188 00:21:19,500 --> 00:21:28,140 other people in Athens are definitely less pro spartan, more more democratic, so to speak. 189 00:21:28,500 --> 00:21:36,380 So the Athenians actually do send a load of troops to Sparta to assist them against battles. 190 00:21:36,630 --> 00:21:45,930 At which point the Spartans or another group in Spartan society suddenly get cold feet and think when you're, Can we trust the Athenians? 191 00:21:46,410 --> 00:21:51,090 Maybe actually what they will do is sort of support the Helots against us. 192 00:21:51,510 --> 00:22:01,530 So in the end they say to the Athenians, thank you, but no thanks, and send them back, which is, you know, it's a tremendous insult. 193 00:22:02,190 --> 00:22:09,600 And what happens in Athens is then kimon falls out of favour with the rest of the citizens. 194 00:22:09,990 --> 00:22:14,940 There's an ostracism vote. He gets sent off into exile for ten years. 195 00:22:15,150 --> 00:22:19,860 And Athenian politics is dominated by some new figures. 196 00:22:20,130 --> 00:22:32,040 A man called Ephialtes, who was very much a sort of a man of the people, who introduces various reforms to give more power to ordinary citizens. 197 00:22:32,490 --> 00:22:41,400 He is assassinated very early on and his place is then taken by his second in command or sidekick, 198 00:22:41,550 --> 00:22:49,290 Pericles, who becomes the dominant Athenian politician for the next couple of decades. 199 00:22:49,620 --> 00:22:59,130 And Pericles is definitely not any particular friend of Sparta or at any rate, Pericles, 200 00:22:59,460 --> 00:23:07,950 as far as we can see, has much bigger ambitions for Athens to become a really some serious power. 201 00:23:08,670 --> 00:23:13,320 And Sparta is potentially an abstraction. 202 00:23:13,530 --> 00:23:17,900 So at this point, yeah, notionally, they're still bound by the treaty. 203 00:23:17,910 --> 00:23:19,830 They shouldn't make war on one another. 204 00:23:20,700 --> 00:23:28,470 But you've already got a sense that there are people in each city looking at the other and seeing a potential threat. 205 00:23:29,550 --> 00:23:34,440 Thank you. Yeah. And I think that the years sort of 461-460 are really important. 206 00:23:34,440 --> 00:23:37,660 I think Thucydides said that at that point. 207 00:23:38,070 --> 00:23:44,430 Athens broke off from the Hellenic League, so it essentially ended its treaty with sponsor at that point. 208 00:23:44,820 --> 00:23:52,860 And then a very significant other thing happens, which is that Megara bordering both Attica and the Peloponnese switches sides. 209 00:23:52,910 --> 00:23:58,379 It comes to Athens. We don't we're not told why and says to Athens, can we join your team, please? 210 00:23:58,380 --> 00:24:05,430 Your league, having been a loyal member of the Peloponnesian League before that and polly, 211 00:24:05,430 --> 00:24:11,580 those two things have created a very different context for the next 15 years or so, haven't they? 212 00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:20,340 Yes. I mean, it's among the frustrations. So can you just mentions is that we know very little about people's motivations or status, 213 00:24:20,340 --> 00:24:25,139 motivations for what's happening in the late 4 sixties and into the 4 fifties. 214 00:24:25,140 --> 00:24:28,410 But we can see enough to see that something is definitely changing. 215 00:24:28,650 --> 00:24:39,210 So this is megara swapping sides, joining the Athenian alliance rather than the Peloponnesian one, which is significant because of where Megara is. 216 00:24:40,200 --> 00:24:43,679 At this point, I would encourage your listeners to take to Google Megara. 217 00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:50,970 It's still in the same place now, so you could just use Google Maps once Athens has control over or has megara in its camp. 218 00:24:51,120 --> 00:25:00,360 That opens up more of the Greek world to Athens because Megara has control of a port on to its north, 219 00:25:00,630 --> 00:25:08,310 which gives access to the Corinthian Gulf and therefore to the top end of the Peloponnese and to the West, 220 00:25:08,730 --> 00:25:12,240 without Athens having to sail all the way round the bottom of the Peloponnese. 221 00:25:12,360 --> 00:25:19,110 So if we're taking the view that that Naples just hinted at, that Athens is starting to become maybe more aggressive, 222 00:25:19,110 --> 00:25:26,849 more expansionist in the late sixties into the fifties, then having control of Megara would be very important. 223 00:25:26,850 --> 00:25:31,950 And if if we're thinking still about, you know, why would the Spartans be getting scared, 224 00:25:31,950 --> 00:25:39,960 then there's more reason maybe to be scared of Athens because they can now get out of the Peloponnese much more easily once makers is in their camp. 225 00:25:40,380 --> 00:25:44,040 So that that changing sides you saw with Megara is really important. 226 00:25:44,670 --> 00:25:50,700 Although it would be nice to know how spontaneous that was or whether the Athenians had sort of have deliberately, 227 00:25:50,820 --> 00:25:54,240 you know, encouraged the Megarians to to jump ship in that way. 228 00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:59,580 But we just we just don't know. Athens also makes an alliance with Argos again. 229 00:26:00,120 --> 00:26:03,899 We don't know what provokes this. Is this pre-emptive by the Athenians? 230 00:26:03,900 --> 00:26:10,740 Are they worried about that the Spartans are going to get up to something or should it be seen as a more aggressive move? 231 00:26:11,430 --> 00:26:16,470 And it's worth saying, isn't it, that Argos is the bitter rival of Sparta in the Palestinians? 232 00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:23,399 Yes, that's absolutely right. So there's a long history going back before the Persian wars of August and spot of being rivals. 233 00:26:23,400 --> 00:26:26,639 So it could indeed be seen as very provocative move by it, 234 00:26:26,640 --> 00:26:32,490 by Athens to form this alliance with Argos and if he is also make an alliance with Thessaly up in 235 00:26:32,490 --> 00:26:38,940 the north so you can see how it would be possible for the Spartans to be getting quite worried. 236 00:26:39,300 --> 00:26:44,459 What results from this or what happens after this is that outright warfare breaks 237 00:26:44,460 --> 00:26:49,590 out between Athens and Sparta and other members of the Peloponnesian League. 238 00:26:49,590 --> 00:26:56,040 So there are more than a couple of pitched battles in the early four fifties which the Athenians lose, 239 00:26:56,520 --> 00:27:03,239 but which we're told inflict enough damage on Sparta to increase sort of Spartan nervousness 240 00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:09,300 and encourage the Spartans to to want to avoid maybe further direct conflict with Athens. 241 00:27:10,260 --> 00:27:12,180 And then later in the four fifties, 242 00:27:12,180 --> 00:27:20,220 the Athenians sort of recover from those early defeats and further expand their power up to their northern neighbours of Boeotia, 243 00:27:20,460 --> 00:27:25,980 which have been part of the Peloponnesian League and also to the island of Aegina, 244 00:27:26,610 --> 00:27:31,920 which is in the Saronic Gulf between Athens and the Peloponnese, a very, very rich island. 245 00:27:32,400 --> 00:27:37,920 Again, quite a long standing rivalry with Athens. If we see this from the Spartan perspective, you could see how again, 246 00:27:37,920 --> 00:27:42,389 this could be seen as something threatening, because Aegina is a jumping off point. 247 00:27:42,390 --> 00:27:44,940 It's not far from of the coast of the Peloponnese. 248 00:27:44,970 --> 00:27:52,830 So that's another way in which Athens might be seen to be encroaching or getting dangerously close to the Spartan sphere of influence. 249 00:27:53,490 --> 00:27:57,270 So those events, that's what we call the first Peloponnesian War, 250 00:27:57,300 --> 00:28:03,600 those without long series of slightly disconnected battles and conflicts in in the four fifties. 251 00:28:04,590 --> 00:28:09,629 It's maybe a slightly misleading label because it makes it sound a bit more coherent than it really is. 252 00:28:09,630 --> 00:28:13,800 It's it's that set of slightly disconnected events. 253 00:28:14,250 --> 00:28:15,059 And that's, I suppose, 254 00:28:15,060 --> 00:28:22,740 one of the interpretive challenges or places where people might disagree is whether we want to see some sort of driving policy behind that, 255 00:28:22,740 --> 00:28:29,000 particularly on the Athenian side. Should we see, say, Pericles as having a very consistent cohort? 256 00:28:29,250 --> 00:28:37,979 Policy of Athenian expansion in this period? Or is everything just a bit more of a mess and people reacting to fairly random events like Megara for 257 00:28:37,980 --> 00:28:43,530 some reason deciding to change sides and being a bit more opportunistic in their actions in the fifties. 258 00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:49,150 Okay. And let's bring it then to the year four for six, which is a crucial year. 259 00:28:49,270 --> 00:28:50,380 Two things happen. 260 00:28:50,740 --> 00:29:00,100 One is that the islands, if you buoy in revolts and that's a really important Athenian base for cattle, I think, and agriculture as well. 261 00:29:00,310 --> 00:29:02,260 And so they have to go and sort that out. 262 00:29:02,830 --> 00:29:10,690 And in another podcast, we've talked with Professor Peter Liddel about the Calchis decree, which may have been an outworking of that. 263 00:29:11,380 --> 00:29:17,560 And at the same time, and again, we are not told winemaker defects back, we don't know why it defects to Athens in the first place. 264 00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:25,870 We're not told why it's effects. But again, this is part of the the weakness of this period of features of these accounts, but it defects back. 265 00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:29,950 And as a result the Spartans march into Attica I think. 266 00:29:29,950 --> 00:29:39,250 And Pericles has to sort of rival spartan king down into withdrawing so he can go and sort out Euboea. 267 00:29:39,550 --> 00:29:46,150 So that brings us then to this 30 years piece, which lasts for 15 of those years potentially. 268 00:29:46,150 --> 00:29:49,990 It was quite a sophisticated agreement. 269 00:29:50,620 --> 00:29:52,359 Let's think a little bit, Neville, perhaps. 270 00:29:52,360 --> 00:29:59,200 Tell us a little bit about what you think of this piece, what concessions each side makes, what do they gain? 271 00:29:59,500 --> 00:30:06,159 There's a bit of Plutarch when he says that Pericles actually he wanted war all along, but not yet. 272 00:30:06,160 --> 00:30:09,790 And so the piece was just a ruse. So, Neville, what do you think about this piece? 273 00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:14,709 He's basically, to some extent, simply an attempt at a reset. 274 00:30:14,710 --> 00:30:23,410 Athens is expected to hand back various cities in the Peloponnese that it had taken into its alliance. 275 00:30:24,130 --> 00:30:28,540 It's allowed to keep Naupactus of the leagues. 276 00:30:28,540 --> 00:30:39,399 So both the Delian League under Athens and the Peloponnesian League under Sparta recognise one another as legitimate. 277 00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:49,030 And the importance of that means that essentially the membership of those leagues is seen to be something not quite fixed, 278 00:30:49,390 --> 00:30:54,190 but that you're then not supposed to mess with the member of another league. 279 00:30:54,190 --> 00:31:03,579 So this is clearly an idea that, you know, Sparta should stop sending aid to Athenian allies slash subjects. 280 00:31:03,580 --> 00:31:13,330 It is that revolt. Membership of the Delian League is something which is a matter for Athens and the other members and vice versa. 281 00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:21,250 So you know, that one is just kind of recognised as fixed elements of the geopolitical scene. 282 00:31:21,670 --> 00:31:28,959 According to the treaty, neutral cities can choose to join one or the other if they wish. 283 00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:38,380 They don't have to. But Sparta will not stop such and such a city going off to join Athens and vice versa. 284 00:31:38,650 --> 00:31:42,160 Which is also interesting because it means on the one hand, 285 00:31:42,250 --> 00:31:55,540 it's the nature of the sort of the Greek scene that we have these hundreds of independent cities, each one to some extent wanting to do its own thing. 286 00:31:55,780 --> 00:32:00,399 And we should make clear that when we're talking about cities, we're not talking about the modern sense of a city. 287 00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:03,400 We're talking about a small town. What we really. Yes. 288 00:32:03,670 --> 00:32:11,860 So it's the distinctive thing about the Greek political scene that we have hundreds of these little cities or city states. 289 00:32:11,860 --> 00:32:19,150 I mean, it's not just the city, it's the city and the surrounding territory, and that's your political unit. 290 00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:22,870 And these are fiercely independent. 291 00:32:23,140 --> 00:32:32,500 They just want to do their own thing. They've got squabbles with their neighbours, but these are then caught up in these much bigger alliances. 292 00:32:32,560 --> 00:32:39,700 They're always, to some extent, at the mercy of the bigger powers, at least most of the time. 293 00:32:39,700 --> 00:32:47,020 They always have a sort of a fairly realistic sense of how much independence can they exercise. 294 00:32:47,410 --> 00:32:53,229 They clearly are some advantages from joining an alliance of a bigger power in terms of, you know, 295 00:32:53,230 --> 00:33:00,550 if your neighbour then attacks you, potentially you can call in the whole alliance to defend you. 296 00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:08,229 So for all of these little city states, only four, they're a member member of an alliance, 297 00:33:08,230 --> 00:33:14,050 and they give up some independence in return for a degree of security. 298 00:33:14,830 --> 00:33:19,570 Or they you decide they want to try and be genuinely neutral and just stay out of things. 299 00:33:19,780 --> 00:33:23,080 But that's always a kind of risky strategy. 300 00:33:23,620 --> 00:33:35,410 But it does also mean that, you know, when one of these cities decides it wants to join alliance A, Alliance B might be quite unhappy about that. 301 00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:39,790 They would rather see it neutral than become an ally of the other lot. 302 00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:44,320 But the treaty says that's fine. You know, neutral cities can choose. 303 00:33:44,530 --> 00:33:55,630 To join a Labour alliance. So in that sense, it's not a reset, it's not an attempt at stopping either of these big alliances getting bigger. 304 00:33:56,200 --> 00:33:59,530 It's rather almost an attempt to regulate it a bit. 305 00:34:00,010 --> 00:34:07,660 The treaty does recognise that conflict is likely, if not inevitable. 306 00:34:07,900 --> 00:34:11,800 So it does attempt to set up an arbitration mechanism. 307 00:34:11,830 --> 00:34:21,400 The idea is if either of the sides is willing to go to arbitration to sort out whatever their current dispute is, 308 00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:26,000 then they agree that they should not proceed to armed conflict. 309 00:34:26,020 --> 00:34:34,870 It's only if both sides declare that arbitration is pointless, that actual war becomes legitimate. 310 00:34:35,080 --> 00:34:41,590 At any rate, that's the theory. So in one sense, you could say, okay, it's either realistic or pessimistic. 311 00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:47,140 It's expecting there to be any number of continuing disputes. 312 00:34:47,860 --> 00:34:56,200 On the other hand, it's trying to set up a mechanism for resolving these rather than things immediately heading into all out war. 313 00:34:57,140 --> 00:35:02,330 I mean, what? What either the Athenians or the Spartans really think. 314 00:35:02,990 --> 00:35:10,400 We don't know. Did they genuinely think this would last for 30 years and would solve everything? 315 00:35:10,880 --> 00:35:22,140 Not clear. There is this suggestion, as you've mentioned, that Plutarch makes that Pericles at least was always planning for war, 316 00:35:22,140 --> 00:35:27,920 or in other words, that for him, the peace is simply an opportunity to kind of, you know, regroup. 317 00:35:28,400 --> 00:35:38,360 And, you know, there are all sorts of things that Athens can do to expand its well, what we increasingly call its empire. 318 00:35:38,780 --> 00:35:47,059 There are all sorts of things they can do as a naval power to be active all round the Aegean, send off expeditions, 319 00:35:47,060 --> 00:35:49,070 sort of, you know, here, there and everywhere. 320 00:35:49,760 --> 00:36:03,230 Athens can do a lot to continue expansion within the terms of the treaty and maybe all the while preparing for an inevitable conflict with Sparta. 321 00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:14,990 But we don't know. I mean, it's entirely possible, I suppose, particularly given how full Athenian strategy is driven by. 322 00:36:15,410 --> 00:36:19,190 Well, what does the Assembly feel like this morning? 323 00:36:19,460 --> 00:36:25,190 How far can Pericles persuade them to sign up for such and such an expedition? 324 00:36:25,520 --> 00:36:33,920 Mean, you know, Pericles is seen to be the dominant figure in Athens, the person who can get the assembly to do what he wants them to do. 325 00:36:34,520 --> 00:36:40,210 But he's got no actual executive authority to establish Athenian foreign policy. 326 00:36:40,220 --> 00:36:45,320 It's all about what can he get the Athenians to sign up for? 327 00:36:46,250 --> 00:36:50,660 So how far there really is a kind of a coherent strategy? 328 00:36:50,930 --> 00:36:59,600 Goodness only knows. This is slightly tangential, but it's a bit relevant to this question of policy and how far there's a coherent policy. 329 00:37:00,050 --> 00:37:04,260 One question that might be in people's minds is why is it a 30 year piece? 330 00:37:04,280 --> 00:37:13,220 Why is it time limited? And does that imply that this is a recognition that this is sort of a stopgap, albeit quite a long stopgap? 331 00:37:13,790 --> 00:37:22,040 I think one way of understanding that is that 30 years is sort of a generation in terms of ancient Greek demographics. 332 00:37:22,040 --> 00:37:29,330 And so the Athenian assembly is committing itself on the things and Spartans committing themselves to policy for their lifetime, 333 00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:37,430 but not necessarily for eternity. It's possible in this period to make a treaty that would last notionally forever. 334 00:37:37,970 --> 00:37:44,660 So that choice of a 30 year time span and we don't quite know why they went for that, but it's worth maybe bearing in mind, 335 00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:51,080 in trying to think about how this fits into into policy and into the longer term goals of both sides. 336 00:37:51,300 --> 00:37:56,840 And keep on a yes. And it's worth mentioning for students as well that we know that in four, five, 337 00:37:56,840 --> 00:38:04,100 one Sparta in Argos also signed a 30 year peace, which obviously expired then in 421. 338 00:38:04,100 --> 00:38:09,590 And that's very much wrapped in with the peace of Nicias. Yes and what was going on there, because that was a factor. 339 00:38:10,580 --> 00:38:13,640 Okay. Well, so we've got this piece in four, four, six, 340 00:38:13,910 --> 00:38:20,420 but we're hoping that we're going to have peace and that they found a way to have a balance of power, if you like. 341 00:38:21,110 --> 00:38:24,739 But things go wrong pretty quickly in terms of the peace. 342 00:38:24,740 --> 00:38:33,799 And we come to the famous episode on Samos in 440 where the simians revolts or some of their leading figures, 343 00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:43,070 aristocrats revolt with some Persian backing, I think. And the Athenians go and crush that revolt, take some time, but they do it very briefly. 344 00:38:43,250 --> 00:38:47,480 But in amongst all of this, the Spartans vote to go to war. 345 00:38:47,870 --> 00:38:53,170 But the Peloponnesian league led by the Corinthians, vetoes that. 346 00:38:53,300 --> 00:38:54,740 What is going on here? 347 00:38:55,040 --> 00:39:04,670 We've just signed a peace and six years later we've got the Spartans looking to get involved in a Delian league and Athenian Empire situation. 348 00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:08,570 Yeah. Good question. What's going on? 349 00:39:08,590 --> 00:39:16,870 It's very hard to know because the Samian Revolt is one of the places where I think Thucydides' account is really, really lacking. 350 00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:20,500 He mentions it, but he passes over it very speedily. 351 00:39:21,070 --> 00:39:25,840 And this if we're being suspicious of, you know, things he's just choosing not to mention. 352 00:39:25,840 --> 00:39:30,400 I think the lack of emphasis on the same in revolt is a place where we should be quite suspicious. 353 00:39:30,760 --> 00:39:39,430 So the short answer to your question is we don't really know why the Spartans think that they want to get involved in this speculation, 354 00:39:39,640 --> 00:39:48,670 saying this is a big place, it's a powerful place. It's been an important part of the Athenian alliance from quite shortly after the Persian Wars. 355 00:39:48,670 --> 00:39:55,600 It's it's been very involved in Athenian exploits, like the Egyptian expedition, for example. 356 00:39:56,230 --> 00:40:02,160 So. If Samos left the alliance, that would weaken it quite significantly. 357 00:40:02,180 --> 00:40:07,220 So we could might be the Spartans just saw an opportunity. 358 00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:15,040 There is some evidence, particularly in her oldest sources, market logical evidence of quite long standing links between Sparta and Samos. 359 00:40:15,050 --> 00:40:20,600 So it might be that's a place that the Spartans have to take more responsibility for maybe than some other Greek states. 360 00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:24,120 Maybe there's some personal politics going on within Sparta. 361 00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:29,899 We know that there's some evidence for ties between specific families in small perhaps. 362 00:40:29,900 --> 00:40:38,150 I've seen links, so that might be part of this. But really, we're very much in the talk about why the Spartans even contemplate this. 363 00:40:38,600 --> 00:40:44,620 I think if they, if they come through that then. That surely would have sparked. 364 00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:51,519 Wow, I don't know. It's counterfactual history, I suppose, but it seems likely that would have sparked some quite violent to even more violence. 365 00:40:51,520 --> 00:40:52,360 Athenian response. 366 00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:59,170 The Corinthians, actually, and I think is more comprehensible, is their initial action, which is to encourage to to stay out of it. 367 00:40:59,710 --> 00:41:06,010 And that maybe helps us understand how radical a move thought an intervention would have been, 368 00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:10,260 that this would have ended the 30 year peace pretty immediately, I think. 369 00:41:11,330 --> 00:41:16,610 Yes. It's worth explaining for students that they should notice that by the terms of the Peloponnesian League, 370 00:41:16,700 --> 00:41:24,739 the Spartans would vote to go to war, for example. But then that has to then go through the Congress of Allies and then a majority 371 00:41:24,740 --> 00:41:30,830 vote there is needed to agree to that vote by the Spartans or to veto it. 372 00:41:31,130 --> 00:41:36,210 So Corinth says that it persuaded the Congress of Allies to veto it. 373 00:41:36,230 --> 00:41:40,760 We don't know what the voting pattern was there, but it was a majority against going to war. 374 00:41:41,300 --> 00:41:46,610 Now, this is really interesting because in a few years time, a decade, less than a decade later, 375 00:41:46,790 --> 00:41:50,540 it's the Corinthians who are going to be trying to drag the Spartans into war. 376 00:41:50,540 --> 00:41:58,759 So we get a complete role reversal. And the Corinthians complain to the Spartans that, oh, you're, you're so defensive. 377 00:41:58,760 --> 00:42:05,690 You never, you know, you're not prepared to go to war. So what's going on there with this complete flipping within a few years? 378 00:42:06,380 --> 00:42:10,970 Yeah. I mean, one possibility is that Thucydides is making it up and he's trying to. 379 00:42:11,870 --> 00:42:15,920 He composes this speech for the Corinthians. We don't know that they actually said that. 380 00:42:15,930 --> 00:42:21,050 So so maybe that reversal is less extreme than it seems from the pages of facilities. 381 00:42:22,070 --> 00:42:26,719 I think it's not impossible that the what happens the same as what the Athenians do to Samos, 382 00:42:26,720 --> 00:42:34,580 which is even by Athenian standards, quite violence and brutal the suppression of Samos after the revolt, 383 00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:41,180 especially if we if we accept some of the stories that were reported by Plutarch in his life, 384 00:42:41,180 --> 00:42:48,140 apparently not recorded by Sicilians, about the atrocities carried out by the Athenians, by Pericles after the revolt. 385 00:42:48,920 --> 00:42:52,100 Maybe that makes the Corinthians think, hang on. 386 00:42:52,100 --> 00:42:54,920 We can't keep going along with with Athenian growth. 387 00:42:55,460 --> 00:43:00,220 Now's the point where they've gone too far and we have to now resist any further Athenian expansion. 388 00:43:00,230 --> 00:43:09,380 So that might be what happens. But it's a it's certainly worth noting, even if we can't really explain the apparent U-turn in Corinthian policy. 389 00:43:10,380 --> 00:43:20,970 I mean, one of the reasons this is complicated is, yeah, we're trying to divine what might have been the thinking of these different cities. 390 00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:31,420 And part of that is, I think, what are our assumptions about how they might be thinking about these sorts of issues? 391 00:43:31,450 --> 00:43:35,819 So an awful lot of the debate tends to focus on, I suppose you could say, 392 00:43:35,820 --> 00:43:42,600 kind of the pragmatic question, why would it be in the interests of the Spartans to get involved? 393 00:43:42,900 --> 00:43:47,010 Why would the Corinthians decide that this is kind of a bad idea? 394 00:43:47,460 --> 00:43:52,620 So, you know, really quite down to earth, practical issues. 395 00:43:53,490 --> 00:43:59,970 But we also have to think, okay, how far might they be taking sort of the spirit of the treaty seriously? 396 00:44:00,060 --> 00:44:11,190 How far might they be genuinely concerned about the consequences of breaking a treaty that they've signed up for? 397 00:44:11,400 --> 00:44:13,800 Or, you know, how this will be seen more generally. 398 00:44:14,400 --> 00:44:21,720 You can make your case in terms of the letter of the treaty that Samos is none of sparta's business and actually can think, 399 00:44:21,750 --> 00:44:31,530 okay, what grounds could Sparta have offered for intervening in the business of the Delian League? 400 00:44:32,250 --> 00:44:38,880 You could imagine the argument saying, okay, actually look, we may not like it, but Samos is Athens business. 401 00:44:39,210 --> 00:44:44,360 Whereas their later objections to Athenian behaviour. 402 00:44:44,370 --> 00:44:45,740 Well, partly it's self-interested. 403 00:44:45,940 --> 00:44:55,230 the Athenians start intervening in cities which Corinth sees as its dependents, or places where it's got an interest. 404 00:44:56,070 --> 00:45:08,730 But also a case can be made that the Athenian interference is maybe more questionable than a Spartan intervention in Samuel's would have been. 405 00:45:09,180 --> 00:45:19,260 But it's really, really open. We can see the sorts of arguments that through sedatives put into the mouths of some imaginary Corinthians. 406 00:45:19,590 --> 00:45:25,020 And I mean, how far those are in any way genuine currency and arguments, 407 00:45:25,020 --> 00:45:29,700 how far they are completely Thucydides imagining what they might have said. 408 00:45:30,060 --> 00:45:33,810 We can argue about endlessly, but I do think it's important to think, you know, 409 00:45:34,230 --> 00:45:41,970 these decisions are not necessarily based just on realist, great power politics. 410 00:45:42,150 --> 00:45:45,720 What is my material advantage? 411 00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:55,650 It can also be, at least to some extent, how is this going to look to the rest of Greece if we blatantly ignore the terms of a treaty? 412 00:45:56,340 --> 00:46:06,990 And maybe genuinely, how far will the gods be angry if we blatantly ignore the terms of a treaty where we sworn solemn oath and so forth? 413 00:46:07,020 --> 00:46:10,409 I mean, there's always enormous room for argument and negotiation, 414 00:46:10,410 --> 00:46:17,250 but actually Spartan intervention in some ways would have been a really dramatic step, 415 00:46:17,460 --> 00:46:21,120 essentially saying, okay, we think the treaty is a dead letter and we don't care. 416 00:46:21,930 --> 00:46:27,569 Okay. Well, yes, the plenty I'm not sure we've we've got to the bottom of that, but it's very difficult. 417 00:46:27,570 --> 00:46:34,830 So isn't it really? It's. And that's something that the students need to weigh up for themselves, that we just look at it from different angles.