from PART II - THE GREEK STATES
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
This chapter concerns the general situation in Greece (apart from Attica and Ionia) during the last quarter of the sixth century and the start of the fifth: the years when Persia's defeat and annexation of the non-Greek kingdoms which bordered the Aegean to east and south, with their various Greek settlements, brought the power of her empire significantly near to the Greeks of the Aegean and the mainland itself. For those on both sides who would be thinking in terms of land engagements by hoplites – the standard Greek system of fighting at that period – the focal point in Greece was Sparta. From the mid-sixth century onwards her military League had been developing within the Peloponnese, and even tried to influence states outside it such as Athens; but, since Sparta herself did not produce historians or orators, we are left to infer from the patchwork of surviving evidence firstly, how far her policy-makers were foreseeing and trying to guard against any coming danger to Greece herself, and how far they were merely making ad hoc decisions to protect or increase the image of Spartan power; and secondly, what was the general situation elsewhere, in the Aegean islands and the mainland north of Attica. The Historiai (‘Enquiries’) of Herodotus, collected and compiled by him within the years c. 465–430 B.C., are the main and best source for the events. Modern strategists and diplomatists sometimes criticize his reconstructions of battles and councils (for, holding no resident citizenship of any city during his prime, the crucial period of his travels, he could get no personal experience of military command or service on city-councils and embassies); but the insight overall of this widely-travelled reporter of mixed Greek and Asiatic (Carian) ancestry remains unsurpassed.
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