Everyone did rather better on this week’s quiz, although it appears a few people may have dropped out of the reading program. Overall, everyone did pretty well, but the three questions that most people got wrong were the following:
What was the principle military advantage of Athens over the Peloponnesian League according to Pericles.
What was the one demand in the ultimatum that was delivered by Sparta’s third pre-war embassy to Athens?
What did Pericles fear would cause Athens to lose its allies?
While these weren’t trick questions, all three do tend to fly somewhat in the face of the most basic understanding of the Peloponnesian War. It’s true that Athens was heavily reliant upon sea power and that their navy was both the foundation of the empire and always played the primary role in their strategic thinking, but nevertheless it merely allowed them to counter Spartan land supremacy. Without the annual tribute of 550,000 ounces of silver from their so-called allies flowing into their coffers, that naval supremacy would have disappeared in a hurry.
This ties in to both the first the third questions listed above; Pericles knew that the Athenian allies were mostly tied to them by fear, not by loyalty. He also knew that should Athens lose a single infantry battle to the assembled Peloponnesians, there would be many more rebellions like the one at Potidaea and the flow of silver would rapidly come to a close. After all, the Persian War was over and there was really no justification to continue to fund a navy that nominally belonged to the Delian League but instead had been used for Athenian expeditions ranging across Greece and from Egypt to Byzantium.
So, it was their wealth, both generated by their mercantile activities as well as the massive tribute from their allies that was their primary advantage over the Peloponnesians. However, this advantage was not secure and would be significantly reduced if Athens lost its ability to threaten its allies. Thucydides tells us that Pericles recognized these things, what the Athenian leader apparently did not recognize is that while Athens held a militarily advantageous position at the start, it was actually at a strategic disadvantage. To eliminate that military advantage, all the Spartans had to do was methodically peel away allies; this is why the single demand in their ultimatum was for Hellenic independence. Granting that would have spelled the death knell for both the Athenian empire and its military advantage versus the Peloponnesian League.
More later….
Next week’s reading is from 2.47 through 2.143, the end of Book Two. That’s from page 118 to page 156 in the Landmark edition.