unify the Greek poleis. That alliance was successful in its primary aim of forestalling a possible further
invasion by the Persians, but its result was that the Athenians began to run the affairs of their “allies”
while the Spartans felt that it was their responsibility to “liberate” those poleis from Athenian
domination. Eventually the Persians recognized that they could benefit from this situation, by helping to
ensure that neither side in the Peloponnesian War became too dominant: They used funding, and even the
mere promise of funding, in creative ways to prolong the war and to encourage disunity among the Greek
poleis. Many poleis saw their form of government fluctuate between oligarchy and democracy depending
on external circumstances, with Sparta promoting oligarchy among the poleis that it “liberated” and
Athens promoting or even imposing democracy among its “allies.” Even Athens itself briefly adopted an
oligarchic government on two occasions, first in 411 BC and then, under the Thirty Tyrants, in 404. The
war had polarized the Greek cities; the experience of Melos (p. 177) revealed the danger of attempting to
remain neutral, and cities found that they had to align themselves with one side or the other to retain any
hope of security. And the population of each polis was often polarized between oligarchs, who favored
alignment with Sparta, and democrats, who naturally inclined toward Athens.
The fate of Socrates illustrates the effect that these tensions could have even on a citizen who had not
committed himself to a life of political activity. Like other citizens of democratic Athens, Socrates had
performed the civic functions expected of him, serving in the army and, on at least one occasion, being
selected by lot to a one-year term on the Council of 500, but he did not seek to make a name for himself in
the political sphere. In this regard, he was somewhat unusual, since political ambition was generally
characteristic of men of his level of education and intellectual accomplishment. But in the changed
circumstances that emerged from the Peloponnesian War, a number of intellectuals began to follow in
Socrates’ footsteps, forsaking the political life for the life of the mind, either because of the perils
inherent in politics or because the affairs of the polis (which is what the word “politics” means) no longer
seemed to be under the control of its citizens. One of those intellectuals who retreated from politics was
the philosopher Plato, whose works we will consider in this chapter. By contrast, we will also examine
the writings of some of his Athenian contemporaries who did not remove themselves from public view
and who developed the art of oratory into a powerful instrument of literary expression. Finally, we will
discuss the careers of King Philip II of Macedon and his son Alexander, who took advantage of the
unstable situation in fourth-century Greece and changed irrevocably the world of the Greek polis.