Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome (11 page)

cale had been the general fear that the Persians would return. As the

league achieved success and the allies’ commitment waned, the Athe-

nians feared the dissolution of the league and the return of the Per-

sians. When the Spartans became hostile, the Athenians feared allied

defections to the new enemy. The compulsion that was needed to deal

with these problems created a degree of hatred that made it too dan-

gerous to give up control, as Pericles would explain to the Athenians

later on:

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Do not think that we are fighting only over the question of free-

dom or slavery; on the contrary, the loss of our empire is also at

stake and the danger from those in the empire who hate us. And

it is no longer possible to give it up, if any among you, moved

in the panic of the moment to the abandonment of responsible

action, wants to put on the trappings of virtue. For by now you

hold this empire as a tyranny, which it may have been wrong to

acquire but is too dangerous to let go.20

Pericles clearly saw the dangers that argued for the maintenance of

the empire, but he was moved by the claims of honor and advantage,

as well. In the great Funeral Oration of 431, he called attention to the

tangible advantages brought by the empire and its revenues:

We have provided for the spirit many relaxations from labor with

games and festivals regularly throughout the year, and our homes

are furnished with beauty and good taste, and our enjoyment of

them drives away care. All the good things of the earth flow into

our city because of its greatness, and we are blessed with the op-

portunity to enjoy products from the rest of the world no less

than those we harvest here at home.21

But these pleasures and advantages were far less important to Pericles

than the honor and glory the Athenians derived from the empire, re-

wards that justified the risk of their lives. He asked his fel ow citizens

“every day to look upon the power of our city and become lovers

[
erastai
] of her, and when you have appreciated her greatness consider

that al this has been established by brave men who knew their duty and

were moved to great deeds by a sense of honor.”22 At a darker moment,

in the next year, when the possibility of ultimate defeat could not be

ignored, Pericles once again cal ed the Athenians’ attention to the power

and glory of their imperial achievement and to its lasting value:

To be sure, the man who does not like our activities will find fault

with all this, but the man who, like us, wants to accomplish some-

thing will make it his goal, and those who do not achieve it will

be jealous of us. To be hated and unpopular for the time being

has always been the fate of those who have undertaken to rule

Pericles and the Defense of Empire 49

over others, but whoever aims at the greatest goals must accept

the ill-will and is right to do so. For hatred does not last long,

but the brilliance of the present moment is also the glory of the

future passed on in everlasting memory. With this foreknowledge

of future glory you must behave with honor at this time and by

the zeal of your efforts obtain both now.23

Such arguments were not mere rhetoric. Pericles spoke at critical mo-

ments in Athenian history, reaching out to the deepest and most impor-

tant values cherished by his fel ow citizens, and everything we know of

him indicates that he cherished them too. But he also valued the empire

for reasons that were not so important and appealing to the average

Athenian. He wanted to create a new kind of state, a place for the devel-

opment of the aesthetic and intel ectual greatness inherent in human-

ity and especial y in Greek culture. Athens was to be the “education of

Greece,” and toward that end the city had to attract the greatest poets,

painters, sculptors, philosophers, artists, and teachers of every kind.

The power and wealth brought by empire was needed for that purpose

and also to pay for the staging and performance of the great poems and

plays they wrote, the magnificent buildings they erected, and the beauti-

ful paintings and sculptures with which they enriched the city.

This was a vision that required an empire, but an empire different

from any that had ever existed, even from the one created by Cimon.

This new kind of empire needed the security and income for nonmili-

tary purposes that could only come in time of peace. Yet the Athenian

Empire, like all its predecessors, had been achieved by war, and many

people could not conceive of one without the other. The problem was

intensified by the character of the Athenian empire, a power based not

on a great army dominating vast stretches of land but on a navy that

dominated the sea. This unusual empire dazzled perceptive contem-

poraries. The Old Oligarch pointed out some of its special advantages:

It is possible for small subject cities on the mainland to unite and

form a single army, but in a sea empire it is not possible for island-

ers to combine their forces, for the sea divides them, and their rul-

ers control the sea. Even if it is possible for islanders to assemble

unnoticed on one island, they will die of starvation. Of the main-

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land cities which Athens controls, the large ones are ruled by fear,

the small by sheer necessity; there is no city which does not need

to import or export something, but this will not be possible un-

less they submit to those who control the sea.24

Naval powers, moreover, can make hit-and-run raids on enemy ter-

ritory, doing damage without many casualties; they can travel distances

impossible for armies; they can sail past hostile territory safely, while

armies must fight their way through; they need not fear crop failure,

for they can import what they need. In the Greek world, besides, all

their enemies were vulnerable: “every mainland state has either a pro-

jecting headland or an offshore island or a narrow strait where it is

possible for those who control the sea to put in and harm those who

dwell there.”25

Thucydides admired sea power no less and depicted its importance

more profoundly. His reconstruction of early Greek history, describing

the ascent of civilization, makes naval power the dynamic, vital element.

First comes a navy, then suppression of piracy and safety for commerce.

The resulting security permits the accumulation of wealth, which al-

lows the emergence of wal ed cities. This in turn al ows the acquisition

of greater wealth and the growth of empire, as the weaker cities trade

independence for security and prosperity. The wealth and power so ob-

tained permit the expansion of the imperial city’s power. This paradigm

perfectly describes the rise of the Athenian Empire. Yet Thucydides

presents it as a natural development, inherent in the character of naval

power and realized for the first time in the Athens of his day.26

Pericles himself fully understood the unique character of the naval

empire as the instrument of Athenian greatness, and on the eve of the

great Peloponnesian War he encouraged the Athenians with an analy-

sis of its advantages. The war would be won by reserves of money

and control of the sea, where the empire gave Athens unquestioned

superiority.

If they march against our land with an army, we shall sail against

theirs; and the damage we do to the Peloponnesus will be some-

thing very different from their devastation of Attica. For they can

not get other land in its place without fighting, while we have

Pericles and the Defense of Empire 51

plenty of land on the islands and the mainland; yes, command of

the sea is a great thing.27

In the second year of the war, Pericles made the point even more

strongly, as he tried to restore the fighting spirit of the discouraged

Athenians:

I want to explain this point to you, which I think you have never

yet thought about; it is about the greatness of your empire. I have

not mentioned it in my previous speeches, nor would I speak of

it now, since it sounds rather like boasting, if I did not see that

you are discouraged beyond reason. You think you rule only over

your allies, but I assert that of the two spheres that are open to

man’s use, the land and the sea, you are the absolute master of all

of one, not only of as much as you now control but of as much

more as you like. And there is no one who can prevent you from

sailing where you like with the naval force you now have, neither

the Great King, nor any nation on earth.28

This unprecedented power, however, could be threatened by two

weaknesses. The first resulted from an intractable geographic fact: the

home of this great naval empire was a city located on the mainland and

subject to attacks from land armies. Since they were not islanders, their

location was a point of vulnerability, for the landed classes are reluctant

to see their houses and estates destroyed.

Pericles made the same point: “Command of the sea is a great

thing,” he said. “Just think; if we were islanders, who could be less

exposed to conquest?”29 But Pericles was not one to allow problems

presented by nature to stand in the way of his goals. Since the Athe-

nians would be invulnerable as islanders, they must become islanders.

Accordingly, he asked the Athenians to abandon their fields and homes

in the country and move into the city. In the space between the Long

Walls they could be fed and supplied from the empire, and could deny

a land battle to the enemy. In a particularly stirring speech, Pericles

said, “We must not grieve for our homes and land, but for human lives,

for they do not make men, but men make them. And if I thought I

could persuade you I would ask you to go out and lay waste to them

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yourselves and show the Peloponnesians that you will not yield to

them because of such things.”30

But not even Pericles could persuade the Athenians to do that in

mid-century. The employment of such a strategy based on cold in-

telligence and reason, flying in the face of tradition and the normal

passions of human beings, would require the kind of extraordinary

leadership that only he could hope to exercise, and even in the face of

a Spartan invasion in 465–446, Pericles was not able to persuade the

Athenians to abandon their farms. In 431 he imposed his strategy, and

held to it only with great difficulty. But by then he had become strong

enough to make it the strategy of Athens.

The second major weakness was less tangible but no less serious,

arising from the very dynamism that had brought the naval empire

into being. Shrewd observers, both Athenians and foreigners, recog-

nized this characteristic of imperial exuberance and the opportunities

and dangers it presented. Many years after Pericles’ death, his ward,

Alcibiades, arguing for an imperial adventure against Sicily, painted the

picture of an empire whose natural dynamism could only be tamed

at the cost of its own destruction. Athens should respond to all op-

portunities for expanding its influence, he said, “for that is the way we

obtained our empire, . . . eagerly coming to the aid of those who call

on us, whether barbarians or Greeks; if, on the other hand, we keep

our peace and draw fine distinctions as to whom we should help, we

would add little to what we already have and run the risk of losing the

empire itself.”31 Like Pericles, he warned that it was too late for Athens

to change its policies; having launched upon the course of empire,

the city could not safely give it up: it must rule or be ruled. But Alcibi-

ades went further, asserting that the Athenian Empire had acquired a

character that did not permit it to stop expanding—an inner, dynamic

force that did not allow for limits or stability: “A State that is naturally

active will quickly be destroyed by changing to inactivity, and people

live most safely when they accept the character and institutions they

already have, even if they are not perfect, and try to differ from them

as little as possible.”32

In 432, when they tried to persuade the Spartans to declare war on

Athens, the Corinthians made a similar point from a hostile perspective,

Pericles and the Defense of Empire 53

connecting the dynamic nature of the empire with the similar nature

of the Athenians themselves. They drew a sharp contrast between the

placid, immobile, defensive character of the Spartans and the danger-

ous and aggressive character of the Athenians:

When they have thought of a plan and failed to carry it through

to full success, they think they have been deprived of their own

property; when they have acquired what they aimed at, they

think it only a small thing compared with what they will acquire

in the future. If it happens that an attempt fails, they form a new