Hellenes – Ancient Greek Mythology

In the year 437 the Parthenon, which had been begun ten years before, was far enough advanced to contain a gigantic statue of Athena by the sculptor Pheidias. Enough of the Parthenon still survives to give an idea of how it must have looked when it was new and a visit to the British Museum will fill in the details. Here some of the sculptured figures which adorned the temple may be seen. They are known as the ‘Elgin Marbles’ because Lord Elgin brought them back from Greece in 1802-4 to save them from Turks, who then ruled the Greeks. Now that the danger is past, the Greeks would like them back. Pheidias, who supervised their construction, would not necessarily have regretted that Athens had lost them. The Athenians treated him very badly. After his work was finished he constructed the statue of Zeus at Olympia (one of the ‘seven wonders of the world’) and thereafter returned to Athens. Enemies of Pericles, whose friend Pheidias was, then tried to attack Pericles through him. He was accused of impiety. It was alleged that he had introduced his own likeness and that of Pericles into the scene of Athenians fighting Amazons (tough mythical women) with which the shield of Athena’s statue was decorated. It was not a flattering portrait. He had represented himself as a bald old man about to heave a stone. He was put in prison and died of disease there in 432, the year in which the Parthenon was finished. The name ‘Parthenon’, by which Pericles’s famous temple later came to be called, is derived from a Greek word meaning ‘maiden’. It was dedicated to the Maiden Goddess, Athena and the gigantic statue of her was its greatest treasure. No trace of this statue now remains, and perhaps this is …

In 445, if tradition can be trusted, the Athenians must have felt more self-confident than ever; for it was then that Herodotus came to Athens, read aloud his history of the Persian wars and was given a reward. That the Athenians should have listened with interest as well as gratification is not surprising. The historian had done full justice to their distinguished part in the Persian Wars and in addition his work (9 books in all) contained all sorts of interesting details about countries like Egypt and Scythia (south Russia) which were only remotely connected with the war. Herodotus had travelled widely and produced a combined guide book and history covering most of the known world. No one had ever done anything of this sort before.  “My duty is to report all that is said”, wrote Herodotus, “but I am not obliged to believe it all alike.” There is no doubt that people told him some odd stories, but the bulk of Herodotus is reliable. His History ends in the year 478. We have no detailed continuous account of the period 478-432.  In 443 the Athenians founded a colony at Thurii in southern Italy and there Herodotus ended his days. Just when he went there is uncertain. We do not know whether he was still at Athens in 441 when a new dramatist, Euripides, won his first success, or in 440 when his friend Sophocles won a prize for his play Antigone (the name of the heroine).  The Antigone is a tender play, which sets the audience worrying about how difficult it is to do one’s duty — loyalty to a friend may mean disloyalty to one’s country. This is a very real problem, though one best not pondered by soldiers. Their first duty must be unquestioning obedience to orders. …

Cimon was rich and pro-Spartan, but generous. He kept open house and invited the public to make use of his garden and grounds. It was said that he got riches that he might use them and used them that he might get honour by them. This was in fact the course which Athenian Empire herself now began to adopt; but Cimon was not destined to steer her along it.  He had a rival, Pericles. In 461 the queer process of ostracism was once again brought into operation. (For the events leading up to this see) Every citizen scratched a name on a piece of broken pottery. When the count was made it became clear that fear of Sparta meant more to the Athenians than the use of Cimon’s garden. Cimon had to go. For the next thirty years Athenian Empire was guided by Pericles.  Pericles. He wears the ‘Corinthian’ type of helmet, which could be pulled down to cover the whole face for fighting. In 454 things went badly for Athens. She lost 200 ships which had been sent on an expedition as far afield as Egypt. What if the Phoenician vassals of Persia should choose this moment to raid Delos and rob the treasury of the League? They must not be given the chance. Once again, just as at the time when she had prevented the secession of Naxos, the action taken by Athens was very reasonable and at the same time very advantageous to herself. She removed the League’s accumulated wealth from Delos to Athens. Finally, in 451, rights of citizenship were restricted to men whose father and mother were Athenian born. This limited the number of those who were entitled to share in the spoils of what could now be called, not a confederacy, but an empire.  While …

Delos a Greek island in the Cyclades archipelago was an important religious centre in the Archaic and Classical periods. The island was also a major commercial and trading centre in the 2nd and 1st centuries CE. About the same time as the land victory at Plataea (479) the Greek fleet had beaten the Persians at Mycale on the coast of Asia Minor (478) and now that they were absolutely sure which was the winning side the Ionian Greeks of the coast and the islands gradually decided to change sides again, but they needed help. Persian garrisons had to be driven out.  The Spartans might have undertaken this. They had been the acknowledged leaders of Greece on land and during the campaign against Xerxes, but the Spartans were not enterprising enough and they were always afraid that the downtrodden Helots might revolt, while their masters were campaigning outside the Peloponnese. So it was Athens which seized the opportunity and formed a confederacy of Aegean towns and islands for defence against Persia. Some larger islands such as Chios, Lesbos and Samos provided ships, but most members of the league contributed money.  Aristides, old now but still renowned for honesty, decided how much each of the confederates should pay and the money was kept in earthenware jars at Apollo’s shrine on the island of Delos. From the first Athens was very much the leading partner and imposed strict discipline. When in 467, the year after the triumphant return of Theseus in his coffin, the island of Naxos tried to leave the Confederacy, it was forced to continue as a contributor. Athens insisted that since no Aegean city-state could help benefiting from the league’s activities, no state should be allowed to stay out of it. This is a reasonable enough argument, but one might have expected it to be used by …

The annual festival of the Great Dionysia, in March of the year 468, was not only remarkable for the victory of twenty-seven year old Sophocles over the honoured and battle-scarred Aeschylus, who was now approaching sixty. There was something else. Owing to the excitement which the competition between youth and age had aroused, the official whose duty it was to appoint the judges had not yet dared to do so. He was about to solve the problem in the way Athens solved many problems — by drawing lots — when Cimon, an aristocrat, politician and admiral, entered the great open-air theatre with nine of his senior officers. They had just returned from a naval expedition, during which they had subdued the island of Scyros, the supposed burial place of Theseus. An oracle had said that the body of Theseus should be brought back to Athens and Cimon had brought it (or someone else’s; there were no archaeologists to put awkward questions). Cimon was therefore the hero of the hour.  The official in charge stood by the altar. (These drama festivals, were religious ceremonies, the god on this occasion being Dionysus.) With relief the official saw Cimon and his officers come in. Certain that his choice would be popular he led them to the altar and administered the judges’ oath. It was their decision which sent Aeschylus off to Sicily in a rage.  For our present purpose the point of interest in this story is the huge coffin, alleged to contain the body of the mighty Theseus, which the Athenians had greeted with such rejoicing. That sort of demonstration over a legendary hero takes place either when a people is in great danger, or when they become ambitious. Now although Athens was still at war with Persia, the Persians had left …