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RELIGION & POLITICS IN ANCIENT GREECE.
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Examines influence of religion on politics from 478 B.C.to 399 B.C. during Peloponnesian War between Athens & Sparta.... More...
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Paper Abstract:
Examines influence of religion on politics from 478 B.C.to 399 B.C. during Peloponnesian War between Athens & Sparta.
Paper Introduction:
The purpose of this research is to examine the influence of religion on politics from 478 to 399 B.C., the period of the Peloponnesian War in Greece between Athens and Sparta. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which religion intersected with Athenian public policy during that period and then to discuss specific features of such policy that reflect or that seem predicated of religious praxis or belief.
The principal historical point to be derived from the course of the Peloponnesian War is that by the time it ended, the political hegemony and leading cultural status of Athens were by and large in the past, absorbed by the ethos and governmental form of Sparta. But the war depleted both Athens and Sparta and ended the Golden Age of Greece. It cannot be said that religious belief and worship somehow "caused" the decline of Gr
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The content of Socrates'svirtue is his statement that "the greatest good of man is daily to converseabout virtue" and that (most famously) "the life which is unexamined is notworth living" (Apology 26). Crito. Pericles's oration to Athens includes areference to the possibility that the Spartans would use money on depositat Olympia or Delphi "to seduce our foreign sailors by the temptation ofhigher pay" (Thucydides 81) to prosecute a mercenary sea war againstAthens. But concentration of people andgoods in the city made it easy for the Spartans to lay siege to the city. Thucydides's account of the fate of the Athenian naval commandersNicias and Alcibiades illustrates the role that religion played in thelives of individuals concerned in the war. While Alcibiades's elitism isconsistent with an attempt to overthrow Athenian democracy, his protest ofinnocence plus departure for Sicily diffused the controversy. John H. . Aubrey de Selincourt. The texts of various treaties and truces made throughout the courseof the war provide for safe passage to and from "national temples" atDelphi (e.g., Thucydides 292). Gods were repeatedly invoked throughout the war as afeature of debate, though power repeatedly overtook pleas made in the nameof the gods. . Meletus has accused him ofatheism on one hand yet of belief in rival deities on the other. Trans. The Histories. . Herodotus's conception of history appears to have been built aroundthe idea of explaining how Greek society in general and Athenian society inparticular caused the Persians to retreat from Greece. His method of defense is to exposethe slanderous motives of the accusers. However, Thucydides places a secular or rational interpretation oncertain features of religious influence on public policy. Ed. . The context for the Apology is theanticipation of Socrates's execution owing to accusations that he "corruptsthe youth . . At the time of the Congress of the Spartanconfederation, when the Athenians were just on the point of seeking tomanipulate a variety of city-states into alliances with Athens on thestrength of Athens's reputation in the Persian war, the Athenian delegatesheld forth about Athens's legitimate interest in empire. New York: Walter J. vii-xvii.Herodotus. if I had been like other men, Ishould not have . He cites thecurse said to have been placed on the Pelasgian portion of the Acropolis inthe event the grounds were used to for residential purposes, a conditionthat obtained when, during the war, the Attic countryside was depopulatedand refugees poured into Athens; only the Acropolis had the space toaccommodate people. Meanwhile Alcibiades, who had never been quite accepted by theSpartans, retreated to the island Chios, under Persian/Medean control. In other words, he is not a threat but rather "a sort ofgadfly, given to the State by the God . Five Great Dialogues. Alcibiades was implicated bypolitical rivals because he was associated with oligarchic instead ofdemocratic politics. Finley, Jr. Thoseoccupiers not starved had been executed or banished and cursed through thegenerations for heresy and impiety. In that regard, theCorinthian delegates to the second Lacedaemonian congress refer to warfunds to be raised partly from "the monies at Olympia and Delphi"(Thucydides 67). Socrates takes the view that only by enacting theconsequences of betrayed justice in the form of absolute piety before thedivinely sanctioned state, thus exposing injustice, can the will of God befulfilled (79). . Crawley. Trans. In any case,in and around Syracuse, Sicily's major city, Alcibiades proved a fairlyinept military commander but a master of political intrigue, shiftingloyalty to Sparta after being convicted for the vandalism of the Hermae.Nicias did the best he could both on his own and in concert with the naval-reinforcement commander Demosthenes and the Athenian generals besiegingSyracuse. The irony ofSocrates's case is that the divine sanction of country authority has beenbefouled by the trial. By Thucydides. . . The plan of the research will be to setforth the context in which religion intersected with Athenian public policyduring that period and then to discuss specific features of such policythat reflect or that seem predicated of religious praxis or belief. The role of the Delphic oracle in the policy decisions of both Athensand Sparta appears to have been instrumental as to form. Black, 1942. Specifically--and in an assertion of the aristocracy of mindagainst what could be called the mind of the democratic multitude--herejects the idea that the opinion of the many is relevant to an individualopinion of justice. Thucydides explains that democracy was formally reinstated thereafter.But in retrospect it can be seen that the damage had been done. The instrumental use of religion to explain public policy can beformulated as a battle cry of the main opponents that the gods--the samegods in the Greek pantheon that Athens and Sparta shared--were on theirside. Thiswas done, and although the newly elected oligarchs, called the FourHundred, piously offered sacrifices to the gods upon their attaining powerthey also proceeded to "rule[] the city by force" (Thucydides 491) and suefor peace with Sparta, using democracy's end as a reason. Ed. Ed. Five Great Dialogues. Thefragility of Athenian democracy prefigured the eventual victory of Spartain the Peloponnesian War and the victory of an authoritarian ethos inpolitics that can be observed in the fate of Socrates, who died shortlyafter the Peloponnesian War ended. Sparta's specious pretext for warappears to have had the effect of allowing Athens to prosecute itsobjectives in a defensive rather than offensive posture, although thisattitude changed as the war continued (Finley xv). Athens, in turn, cited the Persian War treacheryof the Spartan general Pausanias, who had enriched himself with the spoilsof war and even schemed with the Persian king Xerxes to share politicalpower--compounding this by erecting a monument to himself at Delphi. Apology. Benjamin Jowett. Socrates isobedient to the laws of Athens per se. New York: Modern Library, 1951. Nicias, Pericles's protégé,discouraged an invasion but agreed to command an invasion force; hisattempt to dissuade the Athenians by amplifying the cost of warpreparations backfired when the full amount was provided (Thucydides 352).Alcibiades forcefully advocated invasion all along, but for personalreasons: "to thwart Nicias both as his political opponent . . The purpose of this research is to examine the influence of religionon politics from 478 to 399 B.C., the period of the Peloponnesian War inGreece between Athens and Sparta. .thought that his banishment would materially advance their designs onAthens" (Thucydides 71). The Complete Writings of Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War. does not believe in the gods of the State, and has othernew divinities of his own" (Apology 12). . Byturning Chios's king (Tissaphernes) toward Athens, Alcibiades talked hisway back into an Athenian command, promising great deeds as well if onlyAthens would reject democracy and favor an oligarchy (Thucydides 479). But Nicias's piety betrayed him: The Athenians were on the pointof attack when an eclipse of the moon took place. Finley, Jr. . . The Atheniandelegates warned that "the gods who heard the oaths to witness [that] ifyou begin hostilities, whatever line of action you choose, we will try notto be behindhand in repelling you" (Thucydides 45-6). Thoughaccused of treason, Pausanias was eventually buried with Spartan honors, anaffront to the gods (Thucydides 75ff). "Woe the day that men inhabit it," the curse said, butThucydides's interpretation is that the truth of the oracle lay, not in thegod's punishment for blasphemy, but rather in the oracle's prescience inseeing that only in times of crisis and misfortune for Athens would theland likely be inhabited (Thucydides 94-5). The weight ofevidence is that religion was not least an instrument of policy and, asrequired, of populace mobilization. Ed. Introduction. and who wasexceedingly ambitious of a command by which he hoped to . . Trans. Trans. At thesecond congress of Spartan allies, the Spartans cited a curse that had beenplaced on one Cylon and his followers, who in previous generations hadoccupied the altar at the Acropolis in a bid for political power. gain inwealth and reputation by means of his successes" (Thucydides 346). This explains whythe Lacedaemonoians, who once having decided to go to war against Athens,sought confirmation from the universe, "inquir[ing] of the god whether itwould be well with them if they went to war; and . and more to be regardedin the eyes of the gods and men of understanding" (Crito 75). The efficacy of curses and the import of blasphemy or heresy appear tohave been embedded into cultural consciousness of ancient Greece. If Athens had had a chance of taking Syracuse before the eclipse, itwas gone by the time Nicias roused himself from his 27-day meditation.Nicias and Demosthenes were captured and executed by the Spartan generalGlyppius. . The principal historical point to be derived from the course of thePeloponnesian War is that by the time it ended, the political hegemony andleading cultural status of Athens were by and large in the past, absorbedby the ethos and governmental form of Sparta. Ed. The oracle of Delphi appears to have functioned not only as a locus ofprophecy and fortune but also as the de facto locus of state treasuries,with riches deposited there either for safekeeping or as sacrifices toApollo and in temples allocated to city-state donors. With regard to the influence ofreligion on individuals, the evidence is that it proved decisive but notalways beneficial to both the pious and impious. . New York: Walter J. The second congress took the view thatthe Athenian demands for empire were a legacy of that heresy and tantamountto blasphemy: Pericles, ruler of Athens and an imperialist, was adescendant of the occupiers of the temple, thus legatee of the curse. In that regard, the impiety "was thought to be ominousfor the expedition, and part of a conspiracy to bring about a revolutionand to upset the democracy" (Thucydides 353). The consensus for war at thesecond congress was strong enough to persuade Sparta and her allies to goon the offensive against Athens and her allies. Trans. Thucydides explains: Athenians, deeply impressed by this occurrence, now urged the generals to wait; and Nicias, who was somewhat overaddicted to divination and practices of that kind, refused from that moment even to take the question of departure into consideration, until they had waited the thrice nine days prescribed by the soothsayers (Thucydides 43 ). received from himthe answer that if they put their whole strength into the war, victorywould be theirs, and the promise that he himself would be with them,whether invoked or uninvoked" (Thucydides 66). Indeed, in Thucydides's formulation, the principal voices in variousdebates or exhortations of the war seem no more than conventionally pious.This did not prevent anyone in the case from invoking divine sanction whenit might benefit the invokers. Thesuffering will not arise because Socrates is special but because Athens hasbetrayed what could be called the better angels of its nature. The instrumental use of religion is presented, on the whole withoutcomment or evaluation, throughout Thucydides's history of the PeloponnesianWar. When the Spartans brought their erstwhile allies the Plataeansto trial for aligning with Athens--mainly because of bullying at the handsof the Thebans, also aligned with Sparta--the Plataean advocates cited notonly the Persian War alliance but also the "gods who once presided over ourconfederacy" (Thucydides 177) to support their plea for mercy; the Spartansslaughtered the Plataean men and enslaved the Plataean women. Works CitedFinley, John H. Thucydides favorably comparesNicias to Alcibiades, though the latter engaged in a series of major andminor betrayals of Athens before being hailed as an Athenian while formerbasically died disgraced in the service of his country. . Herodotus refers as well to the "Corinthian treasure-houseat Delphi" (Herodotus 326). to invade Sicily,made a year after the Athenian massacre of the inhabitants of the island ofMelos, and at the time that Finley says Athens's war objectives changedfrom defensive to offensive (xv-xvi). Meletus, the main accuser, Socratessays "is a doer of evil . The Complete Writings of Thucydides: The Peloponnesian War. . Thiscontradiction, says Socrates, "surely is a piece of fun" (Apology 15), andhe deliberately invokes the divine to assert as a positive, rare virtueexactly what provokes the comfortable self-image and stability of postwarAthenian society. . . The background ofthe comparison is the Athenian resolution in 416 B.C. AsThucydides explains, the Spartans "were actuated primarily, as theypretended, by a care for the honour of the gods; but they also . But the war depleted bothAthens and Sparta and ended the Golden Age of Greece. 61-79.Thucydides. Burn. but with the gods let us advance against the aggressors"(Thucydides 49). London: Penguin, 1972.Plato. John H. Benjamin Jowett. The Lacedaemonian(Spartan) king, bristling at Athens's imperial plans, replied in kind,calling on Sparta's allies not to "allow the further aggrandisement ofAthens . Thus in the Crito he refuses toescape to Thessaly, partly as an (ironic) exercise in good citizenship andpartly because he insists that the injustice and false piety of the verdictbe exposed. 29-6 .---. It cannot be saidthat religious belief and worship somehow "caused" the decline of Greece.But uses to which religion was put in regard to the general population andthe religious affinities that informed behavior of individual militaryleaders appear to have had a role in the course of the war. In themidst of all of this, Thucydides explains, religious stone icons known asHermae were vandalized throughout Athens. In Thucydides can beseen the consequences to Greece of believing its own publicity, and in theApology and the Crito, as in the fates of Nicias and Alcibiades, who waseventually assassinated, can be seen the consequences of thoughtlessadherence to conventional ideas about how the world should work and wherepower should lie. This cry was taken up asApollo's command and advice to go to war inasmuch as Athens's power playhad broken previous treaties (Thucydides 69). Black, 1942. Louise Ropes Loomis. Socrates predicts--accurately--that both Athens and accusers willsuffer by his death, which will expose their injustice just as hisquestions always exposed weak arguments and opinions (Apology 58). A.R. and is too ready at bringing other men totrial from a pretended zeal and interest about matters in which he reallynever had the smallest interest" (Apology 12). New York: Modern Library, 1951. He also cites the value assigned to the country,"higher and holier far than mother or father . Louise Ropes Loomis. com[] to you individually, like a father or elderbrother, exhorting you to regard virtue" (19-2 ). Crawley.
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