Makers of Ancient Strategy: From the Persian Wars to the Fall of Rome (15 page)

(even if not formal y signed by them), were of theoretical y unlimited

duration (as opposed to a specified period of time), and adhered to the

principle of
autonomia
for al Greek poleis. From this perspective, the

King’s Peace adequately meets some of these criteria, but it fails in other

regards.63 It is perhaps more accurate to view the King’s Peace as a ne-

gotiated peace that sought to respond to the shortcomings of earlier

treaties. The treaty ending the Peloponnesian War created more antago-

nism among the contestants—and thereby generated more problems

than it solved—in large measure as a result of its bilateral nature. The

Peloponnesian War was a hegemonic struggle that engulfed the entirety

of the Greek world. Sparta’s treaty with Athens put an end to the con-

flict between the two leading powers but did not address the myriad

concerns of the other participants. Bilateral negotiations were insuffi-

cient to address the complexity of fourth-century interstate relations,

which often involved numerous poleis with competing foreign policy

objectives. The King’s Peace, although it purported to involve al Greek

poleis, was nonetheless a product of similar bilateral negotiation.64

The autonomy clause of the King’s Peace (387–386 BC) precluded the

formation of an empire along the fifth-century model, but the Athenians

implemented a clever solution to the problem of how to return them-

selves to a prominent position in the Greek interstate system. Perhaps

Why Fortifications Endure 71

shortly after Sphodrias’s raid on Piraeus in 378, the Athenians founded the

Second Athenian League.65 His advance through the Attic countryside to

the Thriasian plain alerted the Athenians to his presence, and they sub-

sequently mobilized. After laying waste to the plain of Thria, Sphodrias

retreated without having gained his objective, although the Athenians

sensed their own vulnerability. They would again need to rely on the sta-

bility of the city’s network of fortifications if they hoped to restore their

former imperial glory, and they appealed to their al ies to join together

for the sake of common freedom.66 They recognized that while the King’s

Peace deprived them of overseas possessions (excluding the islands of

Lemnos, Imbros, and Skyros), it also provided them with some measure

of protection. They careful y abided by the terms of the peace settle-

ment and exploited the Spartans’ transgressions of it. In promulgating

the King’s Peace, the Athenians sought to restore their reputation among

the poleis of Greece and with Persia by serving as a counterbalance to

the tyrannical rule of Sparta. The stele of Aristoteles records the league’s

provisions and is an expression of Athenian policy. It assures both current

and future member poleis that their freedom and autonomy are guar-

anteed, that Athens wil not place garrisons or military officials in their

poleis, that Athens wil not exact tribute from them,67 and that Athens

wil restore al land, both publicly and privately held by Athenians, to the

league’s member poleis and halt the formation of cleruchies. The stele

then lists the members of the Second Athenian League.

Athens needed to distance this new league from its old empire and

to make concessions to its allies in order to acquire and subsequently

retain them. This alliance is an example of weaker states joining to-

gether to balance the power of a stronger state. It provided protec-

tion for Thebes and Athens with its deterrent force: Sparta would not

control central Greece without a major confrontation involving a large

coalition of poleis. Both the Athenians, with their bold plan to form

a new league, and the recently liberated Thebans needed to acquire

basic security from wanton Spartan encroachment if they were to re-

habilitate their respective poleis.68 The incentive for the smaller Aegean

poleis to join the league would be the grant of collective security that

the newly formed league offered and the restitution of properties

that were in Athenian hands. The stated purpose of the league was to

72 Berkey

protect the autonomy of its members from Sparta. This is somewhat

surprising given that, of the league’s first members (with the excep-

tion of Athens and Thebes), the potential threat to their freedom came

primarily from Persia and not Sparta. Athens was gaining control of

the role of
prostates
of the King’s Peace from Sparta. The seizure of the

Cadmeia and the raid of Sphodrias demonstrated to all Greek poleis,

however, that Sparta was the violator of the King’s Peace and not its

guarantor. The immediate threat to Athens and mainland Greece was

Sparta, not Persia.

The restoration of Athens as a credible naval power was signifi-

cant for the interstate system in that the poleis of Asia Minor and the

Aegean did not have to rely solely on Sparta for their safety from Persia.

Unless the Athenians were to abandon their city, any strategy empha-

sizing naval power necessitated the maintenance of the Long Walls.

Yet without a substantial fleet, there was little merit in the Athenians

depending on the defenses of Piraeus and the Long Walls to ensure

their survival. In this highly competitive multipolar environment, the

Athenians also decided to invest in the defense of their borders.69 Be-

cause of the problematic nature of dating ancient walls,70 it has not

been possible to date this array of fortifications with any great degree

of precision,71 although they are plausibly dated in general terms to the

fourth century. By enlarging their defensive works, the Athenians dis-

tinguished between their desire to exercise power over others and their

need to control their own territory.

Josiah Ober emphasizes the fourth-century Athenians’ defensive

mentality,72 and yet their fortification of the city and its frontiers co-

incided with a period during which they pursued an aggressive for-

eign policy, particularly given the limitations imposed on them by the

newly configured state system. As a result of their experiences during

the Peloponnesian War, it seems only natural that the defense of Attica

would be of importance to the Athenians.73 They were determined to

resist encroachments on their territory, such as the Spartan devastation

of the countryside of Attica at the outset of the Peloponnesian War,

the subsequent occupation of Decelea in its final phases, and the recent

raid of Sphodrias. Again, adopting an apparently defensive mentality,

the Athenians sought to establish control over their territory, and in so

Why Fortifications Endure 73

doing to position themselves as attractive allies to like-minded poleis in

the struggle first against Spartan hegemony, then that of Thebes.

In order for the Athenians to regain their security and advance their

interests, they fixed on a new strategy that required the fortification of

the polis and its surrounding territory. In this context, Aristotle’s later

description in the
Politics
of the use of walls and fortifications, while

not necessarily referring to Athens specifically, is pertinent to the men-

tality of fourth-century military planners:

The fortification of cities by walls is a matter of dispute. It is

sometimes argued that states which lay claim to military excel-

lence ought to dispense with any such aids. This is a singularly

antiquated notion—all the more as it is plain to the eye that states

which prided themselves on this point are being refuted by the

logic of fact. When the question at issue is one of coping with an

enemy state of a similar character, which is only slightly superior

in numbers, there is little honour to be got from an attempt to

attain security by the erection of a barrier of walls. But it some-

times happens—and it is always possible—that the superiority of

an assailant may be more than a match for mere courage, human

or superhuman; and then, if a state is to avoid destruction, and

to escape from suffering and humiliation, the securest possible

barrier of walls should be deemed the best of military methods—

especially to-day, when the invention of catapults and other en-

gines for the siege of cities has attained such a high degree of

precision. To demand that a city should be left undefended by

walls is much the same as to want to have the territory of the

state left open to invasion, and to lay every elevation level with

the ground. It is like refusing to have walls for the exterior of a

private house, for fear that they will make its inhabitants cowards.

We have also to remember that a people with a city defended by

walls has a choice of alternatives—to treat its city as walled [and

therefore to act on the defensive], or to treat it as if it were un-

walled [and therefore to take the offensive]—but a people with-

out any walls is a people without any choice. If this argument be

accepted, the conclusion will not only be that a city ought to be

74 Berkey

surrounded by walls; it will also be that the walls should always

be kept in good order, and be made to satisfy both the claims

of beauty and the needs of military utility—especially the needs

revealed by recent military inventions. It is always the concern of

the offensive to discover new methods by which it may seize the

advantage; but it is equally the concern of the defensive, which

has already made some inventions, to search and think out others.

An assailant will not even attempt to make an attack on men who

are well prepared.74

The fortification of the city and its borders was critical to the defense

of their polis not only against foreign enemies but also against those

within the city’s walls who might wish to breach its security through

sedition. In this vein, the fourth-century manual
Poliorcetica
by Aeneas

the Tactician urges the city’s commanders to be vigilant against treason

from within, thereby demonstrating how a city’s reliance on its walls

also necessitates the use of controls over the local population.75

The walls of Athens, always central to the city’s defense, played a

number of roles throughout the history of the polis. Beginning with

Themistocles, the construction of the city’s walls provided safety from

future invasion. This in turn helped to launch the Athenians’ path to

empire, and allowed the democracy to flourish in a particular fashion

that enhanced sea power and the thousands of poor who were essen-

tial to and benefited from it. Under Pericles, the Athenians continued

to develop their defensive works and secure their imperial power, and

the walls were integral to this strategy. During the Peloponnesian

War, Pericles’ strategy underestimated the devastation that would be

wrought by bringing thousands of its citizens behind these walls in

the abandonment of the Attic countryside, thereby fostering a viru-

lent plague that wrought havoc from within. And he seems to have dis-

counted the consequences of the loss of military deterrence—that by

de facto making it clear that there were no immediate consequences,

through armed infantry resistance, for invading the soil of Attica, a war

was more likely to follow.

After the defeat of Athens and the destruction of the city’s wal s,

these wal s were rebuilt by Conon for practical and symbolic purposes

Why Fortifications Endure 75

as wel . This strategy, however, failed as a result of the changes that had

occurred in the transition of the larger Greek state system. In response

to these changes and fighting during the Corinthian War, the Athenians

realized that their former strategy was insufficient and tried to bolster

their ability to control their territory with the construction of elaborate

border defenses that would expand their options beyond passive infantry

defense. The second half of the fourth century would usher in profound

changes in siege warfare and the use of artil ery, changes that go beyond

the scope of the present discussion.76 In Athens, the wal s of the city

and its frontier defenses were no match for Phil ip and his Macedonian

army, and the Athenians would submit to his rule without ever testing

the strength of their costly and expansive networks of border defense.

For well over a hundred years, Athenian democracy experimented

with a variety of fortifications—urban walls, long walls to the sea, net-

works of border fortifications—both to offer military utility and to ex-

press prevailing political and economic agendas. The single Athenian

constant seems to have been to construct stone ramparts of some sort

to meet almost every diverse need imaginable that arose. And in the

last half-century of the free Greek city-state, even more ambitious and

novel fortifications emerged outside Athens, as the enormous circuits

in the Peloponnese at Mantineia, Megalopolis, and Messene demon-