Conclusion and Outlook: This short overview reveals the extremely negative impact of the Persian War on Miletos, the cultural and commercial center of East Greece in the sixth century BC, who had been pushed into the war by the tyrants...
moreConclusion and Outlook:
This short overview reveals the extremely negative impact of the Persian War on Miletos, the cultural and commercial center of East Greece in the sixth century BC, who had been pushed into the war by the tyrants Aristagoras and Histiaios. To cite Adelaide Dunham in her ground-breaking book on the history of Miletos of 1915: “with her pre-eminence in commerce had vanished her pre-eminence in mental pursuits.” It also provides evidence for the historicity of the “Oath of Plataia” and the “Oath of the Ionians,” not to restore the sanctuaries destroyed by the Persians in “barbarian impiety” during the war and following occupation of 494 to 478 BCE. Actually, this impiety had been—according to the Greek sources—a declared revenge of Dareios as well as Xerxes for the impiety committed by the Ionians under the leadership of the Milesian tyrant Aristagoras, and the allied Athenians and Eretrians, when conquering Sardis in 499 and burning the sanctuary of Lydian Kybebe/Kybele. However, it is important to note that the responding Persian destruction was selective and partial: Delos was spared out by Dareios, the oracle of Apollo of Abai in Kalapodi was plundered and destroyed by Xerxes’ troops, but several months later consulted about the outcome of his campaign in Greece, the acropolis of Athens was conquered and burnt, but Xerxes ordered sacrifices to Athena, and the oracle sanctuary in Didyma seems to have been plundered by Xerxes, and deprived of its personnel, without harming the temple.
And furthermore: not all sanctuaries destroyed were left in ruins by the Greeks. Actually, the perpetuation of destruction became the exception, especially, when the sanctuaries were of particular interest for the liberated Greek city states in the process of their reconstitution. In these cases a compromise was made: the best documented Milesian example is the Delphinion, housing the Molpon-prytaneion, the seat of the oligarchic government. It was rebuilt immediately after 478 BCE as an exact copy of the late-archaic sanctuary, ostentatiously using spolia in the outer walls as reminder of its destruction. This situation can be compared with the Themistoklean north wall of the Athenian acropolis, where architectural members of the archaic Parthenon as well as the old Athena temple were integrated, easily recognisable as such from the agora, while the destroyed cult buildings were pointedly kept in a state of ruin until Perikles. Invisible behind these walls, the leftovers of the “headless and dismembered statues destroyed by the Persians” were buried, to prevent the Athenians from this “distressing and nightmarish scene” (M. Korres).
The presented evidence also clarifies that Miletos, as with the rest of Ionia, was able to recover from the “big catastrophe” of 494 and the years of occupation (494-478 BCE) early on, re-establishing herself as a (modest) replica or “copy” of the former state. The clearest signifier is the completion of the archaic insula-street grid on a reduced scale. Another indicator for “a certain amount of prosperity” is that Miletos “is an exception to the almost universal rule that the Ionian cities ceased to issue coins during the fifth century” (A. Dunham).
The recovery is further indicated by its relatively high payments of 10 talents of annual tribute to the Delian-Attic League from the late 450’s down to 415/4 BCE. Moreover, in the summer of 424, during the “Archidamian War,” Miletos delivered the substantial number of 10 triremes and 2,000 hoplites to help Athens capture Kythera and Skandeia (Thucydides 4.53-54). The furbishing of manned war ships by the members was obligatory in the early years of the league, and it reduced the phoros payments accordingly. Likewise, the import of Attic painted pottery restarts already in the second quarter of the fifth century. All this speaks against the often repeated, but from the very outset, outdated opinion of the archaeologist J. M. Cook of 1961 that life in Miletos and Ionia declined severely starting with the Persian occupation till the end of the 5th century, forming “the Dark Age of Ionia.” This theory held a “common level of degradation” and “economic paralysis” which cannot be sustained in the face of historical and archaeological scrutiny. Cook went even so far as to misinterpret Thucydides’ phrase ἀτειχίστου οὔσης τῆς Ἰωνίας (3.33.2) in the sense that it “meant not merely that the fortifications were in disrepair, but that the Ionians were not living in regular urban conditions,” but “in the status of […] villages.”
The average amount of the Milesian phoros of 10 talents equaled the exuberant annual budget available to the architect Mnesikles to develop the very “landscape” of the Athenian acropolis. The splendor of Periklean Athens, including the Odeion, the Parthenon, the statue of Athena Parthenos, the Propylaia, and the Erechtheion, would have probably been impossible without the payments of the members of the Attic-Delian League. At every penteteric Great Panathenaia from 455/4, when the treasury had been transferred to Athens, onwards, every allied city had to sacrifice a cow and dedicate a panoply to Athena. During the annual Great Dionysia of Athens, they had to present their quota in silver coins, ca. 400 talents in total, in the procession, to deliver it in the theatre of Dionysos, where 1/60, the aparchai, “first fruits,” were symbolically subtracted for the treasure of Athena to be stored in the Parthenon.
However, it goes without saying that the cost the allies and Athens had to cover in the Peloponnesian War, were much higher, be it in money and resources, be it in human lives. This should be a warning to the warmongers of NATO and EU, to invest in peaceful culture, not in weapons!