Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome (14 page)

tans, whose incursions into Attica had sought to compel the Athenians

into an infantry battle. For all their utility, the Long Walls contributed

to a diminution of traditional notions of deterrence; the Spartans knew

in spring 431 that their hoplites would pay no immediate or great price

for their violation of Athenian sovereignty. Once the fear of reprisals

was removed, the invasions became chronic rather than exceptional,

until either the plague or the capture of Spartan prisoners on Sphacte-

ria reestablished the notion of deleterious consequences.34

During the Peloponnesian War, Athens had encouraged other dem-

ocratic poleis to join with them in extending their fortifications from

the city to the harbor, as seen, for example, in 417, when Thucydides

relates that the Argives renewed their alliance with the Athenians and

began construction of long walls to link their city to the sea.35 This oc-

curred after Argive democrats had already either killed or expelled the

leading oligarchs of the city. The walls were built so that “in case of a

blockade by land, with the help of the Athenians, they might have the

advantage of importing what they wanted by sea. Some of the cities

in the Peloponnesus were also privy to the building of these walls; and

the Argives with all their people, women and slaves not excepted, ap-

plied themselves to the work, while carpenters and masons came to

them from Athens.”36 The Athenians provided a manner of support

that was familiar to them, helping the Argive democrats to consolidate

their leadership and facilitating the alliance between the two poleis.

The walls that connected Argos with the coast were designed to permit

the city to be supplied in times of siege, and not to serve as the founda-

tion for imperial power. As a corollary, the ruling democrats in Argos

granted the Athenians access to their polis. Perhaps most important,

however, is the symbolic nature of this action. The walls were synony-

mous with the Athenian democracy and a symbol of Athenian power.

For the Argives to undertake the construction of these walls was for

them to reject Sparta.

The recognition of the centrality of the Long Walls to Athenian

strategy and their symbolic association with the democracy is perhaps

most clearly articulated in the Spartan insistence on destroying them at

66 Berkey

the conclusion of the Peloponnesian War (404 BC). The terms of sur-

render levied against the Athenians mandated the destruction of the

Long Walls, the reduction of the Athenian fleet to twelve triremes, and

the installation of pro-Spartan oligarchs, the Thirty Tyrants, to gov-

ern the city. Lysander’s victory in the preceding year at the Battle of

Aegospotami (405 BC) had elevated Sparta to the height of its power.37

Xenophon describes the panic of the Athenians when the news of the

disaster reached them:

It was at night that the Paralus arrived at Athens. As the news

of the disaster was told, one man passed it on to another, and

a sound of wailing arose and extended first from Piraeus, then

along the Long Walls until it reached the city. That night no one

slept. They mourned for the lost, but still more for their own

fate. They thought that they themselves would now be dealt

with as they had dealt with others—with the Melians, colonists

of Sparta, after they had besieged and conquered Melos, with the

people of Histiaea, of Scione, of Torone, of Aegina and many

other states. . . . They could see no future for themselves except

to suffer what they had made others suffer, people of small states

whom they had injured not in retaliation for anything they had

done but out of arrogance of power and for no reason except that

they were in the Spartan alliance.38

Lysander’s next action was to complete the encirclement of Athens

already achieved on land by now controlling its harbor as well. With

their grain supply dwindling, the besieged Athenians recognized that

the time for negotiation had arrived.39 The initial proposal was to join

the Spartan alliance on the condition that the treaty permit them to

retain their Long Walls and the walls of Piraeus intact. When Athenian

ambassadors arrived at Sellasia on the border of Laconia, the ephors

refused them entry to Sparta and rejected their terms.40 A later delega-

tion led by Theramenes would listen to the debate among the victors

as to the fate of the vanquished Athenians:

On their [Theramenes’ and the other Athenian ambassadors’] ar-

rival the ephors called an assembly at which many Greek states,

Why Fortifications Endure 67

and in particular the Corinthians and the Thebans, opposed mak-

ing any peace with Athens. The Athenians, they said, should be

destroyed. The Spartans, however, said they would not enslave

a Greek city which had done such great things for Greece at the

time of her supreme danger. They offered to make peace on the

following terms: the Long Walls and the fortifications of the Pi-

raeus must be destroyed; all ships except twelve surrendered; the

exiles to be recalled; Athens to have the same enemies and the

same friends as Sparta had and to follow Spartan leadership in any

expedition Sparta might make either by land or sea.41

Unwalled, oligarchic Sparta insisted that the walls of Athens be

destroyed. Following the Ecclesia’s acceptance of the Spartan offer,

“Lysander sailed into Piraeus, the exiles returned and the walls were

pulled down among scenes of great enthusiasm and to the music of

flute girls. It was thought that this day was the beginning of freedom

for Greece.”42 This scene of jubilation recalls the celebrations that at-

tended the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, at which joyous crowds

gathered both to witness and to participate in the symbolic dismantling

of the Iron Curtain, although the Athenian walls were designed to keep

enemies out, not citizens in.

Xenophon’s account of the fall of Athens marks the end of the po-

litical alignment of the Greek poleis that had been in existence during

the Peloponnesian War and, in many instances, for decades prior.43 The

Spartans’ decision to spare Athens from annihilation was a tribute to

the Athenians’ service to Greece during the Persian War. It appears to

have been especially magnanimous considering the severity and dura-

tion of the Peloponnesian War. Perhaps most significant, Sparta chose

to ignore the recommendation of its principal allies, Corinth and The-

bes, in favor of preserving Athens. Nonetheless, Sparta tried to cripple

Athenian democracy by destroying the city’s fleet and its walls and rul-

ing the city in a manner that resembled Lysander’s model of decarchies,

with harmosts and armed garrisons. By having a military presence in

Attica, the Spartans could curtail the expansion of Thebes in central

Greece, and perhaps some Spartans hoped to employ the Athenians’

frontier fortresses for this purpose.44

68 Berkey

Sparta’s victory over Athens changed the structure of the interstate

system.45 The absence of Athenian leadership from what had been a

bipolar state system encouraged Sparta to enlarge its ambitions as the

leader of the victorious coalition of states. Instead of establishing Sparta

as the exclusive leader, however, the years 404–395 produced an uneasy

transition from bipolarity to multipolarity. During this period of transi-

tion, the structure of the interstate system, being neither bipolar nor

multipolar, was inherently unstable. This instability resulted from the

elimination of Athens as a major power and the uncertainty of what

power or col ection of powers would take its place. Fol owing its defeat

in the Peloponnesian War, Athens’s recovery in part depended on the

Athenians’ ability to acquire financial resources to refortify their city.46

Fortunately for the Athenians, they had a wil ing financier with comple-

mentary strategic interests. When the Persian satrap Pharnabazus met

with representatives from Thebes, Corinth, and Argos and the Athenian

general Conon, whom the Persian king Artaxerxes had appointed to

command his fleet in 397,47 at the Isthmus of Corinth, he supplied them

with encouragement and financial support, and (according to Diodorus)

formed an al iance with them.48 Xenophon records Conon’s argument

to Pharnabazus and the satrap’s subsequent actions:

Conon, however, asked to be allowed to keep the fleet. He said

that he could support it by contributions from the islands, and

that he proposed to sail to Athens and to help his countrymen

rebuild the Long Walls and the walls of the Piraeus. “I can think

of no action,” he said, “which would hurt the Spartans more. By

doing this you will not only have given the Athenians something

for which they will be grateful but will have really made the

Spartans suffer. You will make null and void that achievement

of theirs which cost them more toil and trouble than anything

else.” This proposal was welcomed by Pharnabazus. He not only

sent Conon to Athens but gave him additional money for the

rebuilding of the walls. And Conon, when he arrived, erected

a great part of the fortifications, using his crews for the work,

hiring carpenters and masons and meeting all other necessary

expenses.49

Why Fortifications Endure 69

Pharnabazus thereafter returned to Persia, leaving Conon in com-

mand of the fleet. Conon himself returned to Athens, where he un-

dertook the task of rebuilding Athens’s fortifications. Ancient sources

generally recognize Conon’s objectives to have been the overthrow of

the Spartan Empire and, in the process, to reestablish Athenian power.50

Without the support of Persia, it would have been virtually impossible

for the Athenians to finance a war against Sparta, the defeat of which

reemerged as the primary objective of Athenian foreign policy.51 The

Athenians had already begun to rebuild the walls of Piraeus, and work

now proceeded on the Long Walls in earnest.52

Amid the rubble of defeat, ancient Athenians sought to reconstitute

both their power and their image. Unlike the victors who had constructed

the Themistoclean wal s at the end of the Persian War, the Athenians

who built these wal s were the vanquished. This onerous task, which

represented continuity with Athens’s former military strategy, was not

a work of innovation. As a way to project “soft power,”53 however, the

rebuilding of the Long Wal s, the symbol of Athens’s fifth-century em-

pire, demonstrated the Athenians’ urge to restore the status of their polis

in the eyes of neighboring city-states that might look for an attractive

al y against Sparta.54 The completed fortifications signaled to other Greek

poleis the return of Athenian autonomy and its vibrant democracy.

The desire to revive their empire was alive in Athens, but whether or

not this was a realistic goal for the Athenians is another matter. Athens

and the other major Greek poleis had failed to wrest hegemony from

the Spartans during the Corinthian War. To outfit a fleet to a size com-

mensurate with their past imperial power had proven to be beyond the

Athenians’ reach. The vital role played by Persia was clear for all to see:

the King’s Peace contained provisions for an end to hostilities on the

basis of Artaxerxes’ terms. The treaty stipulated that all the poleis of

Asia Minor, as well as the islands of Clazomenae55 and Cyprus, were

to be Persian possessions.56 All other poleis—with the exception of

the Athenian possessions of Lemnos, Imbros, and Skyros, which were

strategically vital in their efforts to protect grain shipments destined

for Piraeus57—were to be autonomous.58 Any polis that did not accept

these terms would be an enemy of the Persian king and subject to at-

tack by Persia and whoever else was willing to join forces.59

70 Berkey

The conclusion of the war was a Spartan victory. Sparta dissolved

the Boeotian League, broke apart the union of Corinth and Argos, re-

gained Corinth as an ally, and halted Athens’s expansion. Xenophon

recognized that Sparta’s victory in the Corinthian War was a diplo-

matic victory and not a military victory: “In the actual fighting the

Spartans had just about held their own, but now, as a result of what is

known as ‘The Peace of Antalcidas,’ they appeared in a much more dis-

tinguished light.”60 The fact that the leading Greek poleis accepted the

conditions set forth in 387 provides important indications about shifts

in the relative power of those states under consideration, and hence in

the balance of power.61

The King’s Peace is considered the first example of the fourth-cen-

tury phenomenon of common peace treaties.62 In comparison with

their fifth-century predecessors, these treaties were general y multilat-

eral (as opposed to bilateral), were accepted by the leading Greek poleis