HISTORY
WAR & CONQUEST
399 BC
S o c r a t e s s t a n d s t r i a l ,
accused of corrupting
the young with peda-
gogical speeches. A
jury condemns him
to death. Rather than
appeal ing for voluntary
exile, Socrates
defi antly accepts a
cup of hemlock.371–62 BC
Thiva (Thebes), a
small city-state, is
in ascendancy and
gains control after it
wins against Sparta.
But nine years of
Theban dominance
ends at the hands of
a Spartan-Athenian
alliance.third of the population – including Pericles – but the defences held fi rm.
The blockade of the Peloponnese eventually began to hurt and the two
cities negotiated an uneasy truce.Second Peloponnesian War
The truce lasted until 413 BC, when the Spartans went to the aid of the
Sicilian city of Syracuse, which the Athenians had been besieging for
three years. The Spartans ended the siege, and destroyed the Athenian
fl eet and army in the process.
Despite this, Athens fought on for a further nine years before it fi nally
surrendered to Sparta in 404 BC. Corinth urged the total destruction of
Athens, but the Spartans felt honour-bound to spare the city that had
saved Greece from the Persians. Instead, they crippled it by confi scat-
ing its fl eet, abolishing the Delian League and tearing down the walls
between the city and Piraeus.The Hellenistic Age
In the century following the Peloponnesian Wars (431–404 BC) between
Athens and Sparta, the battle-weary city-states came under the rule of
the Macedonian warrior king, Philip II. But it would be his extraordinary
young son and successor, Alexander the Great, who would extend the
Hellenistic idea across a vast empire. Alexander was obsessed with carry-
ing the ideal of Hellenism to as far a horizon as his genius and his horse,
Bucephalus, would take him. However, in Alexander’s unstoppable blaze
of glory, Athens and its counterparts began to feel they were again ruled
by a king. The city-states felt disempowered by the loss of autonomy
under the monarch. The Greeks now perceived themselves as part of a
larger empire, and it is this concept that characterises the Hellenistic
society. Contemporary arts, drama, sculpture and philosophy refl ected
growing awareness of a new defi nition of Greek identity.
Hellenism would continue to prosper even under Roman rule. As the
Roman province of Achaea, Greece experienced an unprecedented period
of peace for almost 300 years, known as the Pax Romana. The Romans
had always venerated Greek art, literature and philosophy, and aristo-
cratic Romans sent their off spring to the many schools in Athens. Indeed,
the Romans adopted most aspects of Hellenistic culture, from its dress to
its gods, spreading its unifying traditions throughout their empire.
The Romans were also the fi rst to refer to the Hellenes as Greeks, de-
rived from the word graikos – the name of a prehistoric tribe.The Rise of Macedon & Alexander the Great
By the late 4th century BC, the Greeks were engineering their own de-
cline. Sparta began a doomed campaign to reclaim the cities of Asia Mi-Philip II engaged
the philosopher
Aristotle to tutor
the teenage Alex-
ander, who was
greatly inspired
by Homer’s
‘ Iliad’. Alexander
retained a strong
interest in the
arts and culture
throughout his
life.KRZYSZTOF DYDYNSKI / LONELY PLANET IMAGES ©» Statue of Socrates