During the amazing class I am in for my Masters in Military Strategy, I was asked to write a paper about how I viewed the importance of maritime power in Ancient Greece. This is what I wrote:
"I have Themistocles the Athenian."
When thinking about the importance of maritime power in ancient Greece, this historic exclamation from the Great King Xerxes repeats over and over again in my head. It is of course a reference to the citation in Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks. Themistocles is often referred to as the most famous maritime Greek in history. He is largely credited for using his political prowess and ability to convince the Athenians to invest in naval power which ultimately aided in driving the Persians out of Greece.
Themistocles understood early on that would never be as dominate by land as the Spartans and that the their true opportunity was to rule the sea. Since Sparta held dominance by land and the Persians held the sea, he recognized that filling this strategic gap would keep Athens a relevant power. However, this conviction was not held by all, especially during a time when war with Persia was not perceived to be imminent. So, to break this stalemate and turn the tides of public opinion in his favor, the Athenians consulted the Oracle Delphi. As was the nature of the Oracle, a cryptic response was returned indicating that, “Safe shall the wooden wall continue for thee and thy children”. This was the opportunity Themistocles was looking for.
As many great leaders in ancient Greece did, Themistocles interpreted this as a sign from the gods that Athens must act in haste to build a “wooden wall” of ships to repel the Persian invaders and convinced the Athenian society to forego the profits from their lucrative Laureium mines and shunt these resources into building the finest navy in the Aegean.
This maritime build up not only made the Athenians a relevant player in the Aegean, but it filled a critical defensive gap for the Greeks. Sparta, who had risen to be the dominate land based force, severely lacked a naval presence and felt it less critical given their geographical location. Since Sparta predominately played an isolationist role when it came to the military affairs and was land locked, a strong navy was a very low priority and only became a priority as a reaction to Athenian naval supremacy during the Peloponnesian war.
The Athenians, now filling a relevant strategic gap in Greek affairs, reached out to the Spartans to negotiate a joint operation to defend against the Persians, Leonidas on land and Themistocles by sea. Now, history focuses on the Spartans stand at Thermopylae and leaves out the significance of naval power throughout the Persian campaign. For it was Themistocles that not only defended the Spartan flank at Thermopylae but through naval might, drove the fear into Xerxes prompting a retreat back to Persia.
Themistocles like many great Athenian generals was exiled from Athens and embraced by Xerxes for his historic achievements. Ultimately Themistocles met his death by his own hands refusing the Great Kings request to attack the Egyptians fearing he would have to fight his native countrymen. Plutarch writes this only made the Great King admire him more.
The buildup of maritime power did not always have the desired outcome for a city state and in some cases lead to disastrous results. Another famous Athenian maritime commander showed the ancient world that great power can lead to profit, victory and disaster. His name was Alcibiades.
I write about Alcibiades as not only is he a personal hero of mine but by many accounts one of the most dynamic figures of the ancient world. Alcibiades was an articulate politician and heroic military commander both on land and sea. It was Alcibiades who maneuvered Athens from the Peace of Nicias and it was Alcibiades who planned one of the most disastrous maritime expeditions in antiquity, the siege of Syracuse.
The Sicilian Expedition was a bold venture messaged as a strategic opportunity to cut off logistical supply to Sparta, however the pot was brewing for an attack on the Sicilians for some time. Alcibiades fought boldly defending the expedition demanding that such a victory would not only cut off the supply to the Spartan army but show Athens had a far reaching naval footprint.
One of the chief opponents of the expedition was the tempered and seasoned general Nicias, of whom the post Pericles era peace was brokered. Nicias contended that such a large expedition would not only be costly but had a low probability of succeeding given the current size of the Athenian naval force[3]. This was the exact opportunity Alcibiades was looking for pushing back on Nicias to build a fleet that could accomplish the mission. The Sicilian Expedition was approved and Nicias granted the resources to build a massive armada.
It will never be known if the Sicilian Expedition would have been a success had conspirators not destroyed the busts of Hermes, framing Alcibiades[4]. An interesting historical “what if” was immediately created by this event. Had Alcibiades actually been allowed to lead the expedition the probability of it succeeding (in my humble opinion) would have significantly increased. Had the invasion of Syracuse succeeded, it could have led to an earlier and different end to the Peloponnesian war and potentially changed the Western form of democracy that we know today. Let me elaborate on this rather hypothetical outcome. The end of the Peloponnesian war was completely determined by naval power and chiefly by one of my least favorite figures in history, Lysander.
I consider Lysander the catalyst for the downfall of Sparta and the impetus for Western Democracy. This is not because he was a great leader, a wise politician or amazing statesmen it was because of his act of installing the thirty Tyrants to rule Athens after the war. Xenophon speaks of the ruthless rule in which Athenians were forced to live, fearing death and having no voice in their own affairs. This horrible period was forever imprinted on the minds of the citizens who vowed for a better democracy, one that evolved into the democracy we know today.
Understanding that such a causal loop is very hypothetical, it definitely paints a fragile timeline where every event in that critical period of time had dramatic impacts on our daily lives. It was Lysander who broke the rhetras of Lycurgus accepting currency from a foreign power to build a strong navy to win the war. It was this win that transitioned Sparta from an isolationist power into an empire building state, exhausting its resources, eroding its base and eventually descending from the position of complete Aegean and mainland Greece dominance to a historical museum of past glories. All of this can be directly tied to the pursuit of naval power, the success and defeat of naval incursions and the pursuit of resources to maintain dominance of the sea.
As mentioned above, so much focus has been placed on the great land battles of ancient Greece but one can truly tie the victories and defeats at sea in ancient Greece to the evolution of both Western and Eastern societies and the current dynamics we feel across the globe.