Civilization #8: Rat Utopia and the Peloponnesian War

Okay, so, um, we are starting an overview of Greek history. We remember the story so far. We talked about the Bronze Age, um, and where Mycenaean Greece was trading and fighting with the rest of the world. And then the Bronze Age collapse happened, and Mycenaean Greece came to an end. And because of its destruction, this allowed for massive innovation throughout Greece. So we saw the introduction of the polis, the city-state. Okay, um, we saw the beginning of the use of the alphabet, and so literacy rates increased radically, uh, throughout, uh, Greece. And we saw Homer, uh, who gave us the Iliad and the Odyssey. Um, so today I'm just going to go over, um, the overview of, um, Greek history, mainly focusing on the polis.

Okay, um, so one thing to understand about the polis is that geography is destiny. Okay, geography is destiny. And this basically means that your geography will determine the culture, the economy, and the political structure of your society. And we see that, um, with the Greek polis. Uh, the Greek geography is very diverse. There are mountains, there are rivers, there are plains, and there are coastlines. Okay. And this, and depending on where you are geographically in Greece, you will have a different type of polis. And so the two classic examples are Sparta and Athens. Uh, Sparta and Athens are the two most dominant poleis in about the year 500 BC.

Okay, so let's first talk about Sparta. So Sparta is located on the Peloponnese. Uh, this is Sparta, and the land around Sparta, it's basically plains, which makes it, makes it ideal for agriculture. Okay. So for most of its history, Sparta, Sparta was an agricultural, uh, nation. And because it, uh, is ideal for agriculture, it needs people to work the land. And through its, um, conquest, Sparta developed a slave system. Okay. And these people are called helots. And helots are just slaves, um, in Sparta that work the land. They're farmers. And these are people who have been conquered by Sparta. And because there are so many helots, okay, the ratio is about 10 to one. So for every one helot, sorry, for every one Spartan, there are 10 helots. Spartan had to become a military society in order to control the helots. So it created, um, an education, education system in order to train its citizens to be soldiers.

So, so the system worked like this. Um, about age seven, about age seven, you left your family and you were put into a boarding school where you were watched over by kids who are older than you, okay, maybe 11 or 12. And obviously, you put young kids with older kids. The older kids will beat the crap out of these young kids who are about seven, seven or eight. And this instills the idea of emotional discipline into the children. Now, when these children became teenagers, they were paired with a mentor who was maybe 25 to about 30, okay, an older adult. And they became lovers. Um, the Spartans do not consider this homosexuality. We would consider it homosexuality, but they themselves do not consider this homosexuality. Okay, they just considered this as a way to build emotional cohesion, uh, love among its soldiers. And about age 18 or 19, the students would graduate and they would go on to marry and have their own families. But the Spartan soldiers were all required to eat together. Okay. So the soldiers, even though they had families, they were still required to train together and to eat together.

Sparta, Sparta had no private property. Everything, including the helots, belonged to everyone. Okay. So it's basically communism or proto-communism. They had no money system, they had no wealth. Everything belonged to, uh, everyone. And it was a brutal state. Okay. The Spartans were notorious for being brutal people. So an example is, uh, the helots. So they had a, they had a campaign of terror to maintain control over the helots. So, um, young soldiers would often be required to, uh, patrol at night. Okay. They would, they would maybe lie in the field because now and then some helots would break curfew. They would at midnight try to sneak out and have some fun. And, and if you, as a Spartan young man, saw a helot be, uh, out at night, well, they would kill you. They would take on a knife and stab you in the neck. Okay. And this was meant to instill terror in the helots to prevent them from rebelling. Okay. But the, the problem is, because there were so many helots and the Spartans were so brutal, rebellions and revolutions would break out often. Okay. So this created a society, um, which focused on maintaining control in the Peloponnese. So the Spartans were not at all interested in foreign policy. Okay. They had absolutely no interest in, in the world outside Sparta. The foreign policy was, was as a culture, very conservative. Okay. They liked the way that they liked the way they wanted things to stay the way, uh, they, they are. Okay. Um, so it was a very conformist culture. Now and then you had some kings, um, or individuals who tried to change society, and the Spartans would kill those people. Okay. You were not allowed to question, uh, authority. You were not allowed to promote change in Sparta.

The Spartans were also isolationists. Okay. Their entire policy was, if you leave us alone, we'll leave you alone. Okay. And so that was the, um, society of Sparta. If you think about it, in many ways, it's very much like China throughout its history. Okay. So the analogy is China, which China has always been throughout its history, very conservative and very isolationist. China is just not interested in the outside world. Why? Because it's focused on maintaining control over, um, its peasantry. Okay. There's too much internal chaos. China just is not interested in the outside world. So China, for its history, has both both been conservative, does not like change, okay, and very isolationist. Is that concerning about the outside world? Does that make sense, guys? Any questions so far about Sparta before I move on to Athens?

Okay, so Athens was a completely opposite society to Sparta. And the reason why, again, it's geography. This is Sparta. Sorry, this is Athens, and Athens is in Attica, um, and it's by the coast. And Athens, the countryside is very hilly, so it's bad for growing crops. But Athens has two major advantages. The first major advantage is it has a very good harbor. Okay. And also, it's, um, it's hilly, but the hilly terrain is actually good for growing olive trees. Okay. Olives. Um, it's also very good at pottery. So because of this, Athens, for most of its history, focused on trade. Right? It was a trading nation. And because they are traders and merchants, they have a very different culture to the, uh, Spartans. Okay. So the first thing is they're very expansionist. Okay. They're aggressive. And the idea here is the Athenians will go and seek out new markets. They also, uh, plant new colonies throughout the, uh, Aegean. This is to the west is the Aegean Sea. To the south is the Mediterranean. Okay. And they will plant colonies, um, throughout this area. Um, and they have to encourage their citizens to go out and explore the world in order to find new markets, in order to get to bring goods and ideas back to, um, Athens.

Okay, um, because Athens was expansionist, its cultural system, its cultural beliefs were very different from the Spartans. Okay. So whereas the Spartans were very conservative, the, uh, Athenians had a policy, had a belief in the idea of eudaimonia. Eudaimonia. So eudaimonia is a Greek word, and it means human flourishing, flourishing. And the idea here is to be the best that you can be. All right? So the example of eudaimonia, the most famous example of eudaimonia is this: in Homer's Iliad, the main character is Achilles. And Achilles is the best warrior, uh, of the Greeks against Troy. And Achilles says this in the book. He says, "Before I came to Troy, I saw a prophet, I saw a fortune teller, and he told me my fortune. He said, 'I could choose to not come to Troy and live to be a live a very long, healthy life, but I'd be a nobody. If I came to Troy, I would die young, but I would die as a hero. I would be remembered by everyone. Everyone would sing of my glory and my triumph.' So that was my choice. I could live further a long time and just be a nobody, or I could be a hero and die young." And he said, "Well, for me, that's not a choice. Okay. For me to be alive means to achieve eudaimonia. I have to be the best I can be. And therefore, my only option is to come to Troy and die a hero." And that's the mentality in Athens. It is much better to die young as a hero than to live a long time as a nobody. Whereas in Sparta, it was the complete opposite. Okay. It's just better to be a nobody, uh, and get along with everyone than it is to die as a hero. Okay. So very, so very opposite societies.

Um, but, and what this did, this idea of eudaimonia, it made Athens into a very competitive society. Okay. Because if everyone's trying to achieve eudaimonia, then you're going to have a lot of competition. Okay. Because they, they're going to be one hero. Everyone cannot be a hero. There can only be one hero. So again, the example is, um, Homer's Iliad. And when Achilles got into a fight with Agamemnon, okay, Achilles basically says, "I don't like you. You're a dog. I'm not going to fight for you again." Says, "I don't need you." What Achilles did was he went to his mother, who was a goddess, and Achilles said to Thetis, um, his mother, "Could you please get the gods to help the Trojans so that Agamemnon would have to come beg for my help again against the Trojans?" Okay. He was basically committing treason. And in the Greek world, you're allowed to do that because the most important thing is eudaimonia, to achieve eudaimonia. Okay. Does that make sense? It's a very weird world, but in Athens, it's extremely competitive where everyone's trying to backstab each other in order to become the hero. And because of this, because there's so much competition, Athens created a new system called ostracized. Okay. So the idea here is, because the Athenians were so at each other's throats, if someone was breaking the rules, or if someone was being too competitive in the pursuit of eudaimonia, the Athenian people could choose to ostracize this person. And what this meant was you'd be banished, okay, banished or exiled from Athens for 10 years. And this was considered even worse than death. Okay. This punishment was worse than death. The reason why is in the polis system, the only people that mattered were citizens. Okay. And the Greek world was very chauvinistic or close, which meant that you could not be, you, you could not earn the right to be a citizen. You had to be born to become a citizen. You understand? You have to be born into, into citizenship. You cannot become a citizen for your own hard work and for your merit. Okay. Does that make sense? So in other words, if you were banished from your polis, you became a nobody. You were basically dead to everyone because only citizens had rights in the Greek world. If you were a slave or you were a foreigner, you had absolutely no rights. You could not own land. You could not even speak in public. Okay. Does that make sense?

All right. Um, so Athens was a democracy where everyone had the right to speak and to vote. Okay. But really, when we talk about democracy in this world, we're not saying that everyone could become president or everyone could become a leader. Really, political power can only be held by people of, um, nobility. Okay. So democracy, democracy usually was a battle between different factions of the nobility, usually between the upper nobility and then lower nobility. Okay. And this is a lesson that's true throughout history. Okay. So remember, usually we think history, societies, um, the conflict is between the haves and the have-nots, right? The poor and the rich. All right, haves versus have-nots. What I would teach you in this class, one important thing I would teach you in this class is this is not true. Okay. If you look at history, the conflicts in society are usually between the have-a-lot and have-somewhat-more. Does that make sense? Okay. It's usually between the have-a-lot versus the have-somewhat-more, but I want more. Okay. And throughout history, we call these people different names. So, um, in this society, these are basically the lower nobility. Okay. These are people, the nobility who have money, but they want more. Okay. And, um, in the French Revolution, we will call them the petite bourgeoisie. And today, we call them the middle class. Okay. Does that make sense? The poor people do not rebel. They might riot, but they do not revolt. It's usually the middle class or the lower nobility or the petite bourgeoisie that revolt. Does that make sense? All right. So Athens is a democracy, and it's usually conflict between the upper nobility and the lower nobility.

Sparta is anarchy, okay, which is basically means rule by the few. And they hate democracy. So, so these systems, these cultures, Spartan and Athens, are diametrically opposed to each other. They hate each other. Uh, they're always in conflict with each other. Okay. Does that make sense? Any questions so far about Spartan and Athens? Are you guys clear about these two different cultures? All right.

So this is about the year 500 BC. Um, around this time, the Greeks are colonizing, uh, the Mediterranean and the Aegean. Okay. And this territory belongs to Persia. The Persian Empire is considered one of the greatest empires ever in human history. We will do the Persian Empire, uh, later this semester. Okay. But I want to focus on the Greeks for now. All you need to know is the Persian Empire spread throughout most of the world, including Egypt, uh, Mesopotamia, um, and what we call Iran today. Okay. It was a huge, huge empire that was extremely enlightened for its age. Okay. It was really considered, um, the best empire at that time. Um, and there were Greeks who lived in, uh, Anatolia, or what they called Asia Minor back then. The thing about the Persian Empire is, if you were a subject city, you could do whatever you want, but you have to pay taxes. And these people did not like to pay taxes. So they revolted. And in their revolt, they went to Sparta and to Athens and sought help. Okay. They basically said, "Look, we're all Greeks. Uh, we're being oppressed by the Persians. Could you please help us?" What did the Spartans say? What was the Spartan response? "No, because we don't care. Okay. Your problem, not my problem." What, and what did the Athenians say? "Yeah, sure. Let's achieve eudaimonia, man. Let's be Achilles. Let's go over and help them and maybe make a lot of money for ourselves." Okay.

So because of the Persian Empire being so powerful, they destroyed the rebellion. And in 490 BC, uh, the Persians decided to attack Greece to teach the Athenians a lesson. And this was called the Battle of Marathon. And in the Battle of Marathon, um, we actually don't know that much about it. Okay. The sourcing is very limited. But what they say, okay, is in the Battle of Marathon, there were about 10,000 Athenians versus 25,000 Persians. That's a huge advantage for the Persians, right? Well, the Athenians destroyed the Persians. Okay. The Athenians lost about 192 men. The Persians lost about 5,000. It was a slaughter. And a lot of the reason why is in military tactics. So the Persian Empire is huge, okay, lots of flat land. And in this geography, your main advantage is cavalry, right? Horse archers. That's what the Persians were known for. Men on horses who would run around and shoot arrows at you. Okay. The geography of Greece was different. It was hilly. So you didn't really use cavalry. It was more mainly infantry fighting against each other. And what the Greeks did over hundreds of years was develop a new military tactic called hoplites. Hoplites. So hoplite comes from the word hoplon, hoplon is Greek for shield. So these are men with large shields and spears. Okay. The way they fought was using the phalanx formation. Phalanx. And the innovation of the phalanx, um, innovation was it was basically a wall. Okay. So men would stand together and behind each other so that they made a wall. And because they have the shield and spears, it was a moving wall. Okay. And the Persians didn't have armor. So when men of armor went to battle with with men without armor, usually armor wins. Okay. So the Greeks, the Athenians destroyed the Persians at the Battle of Marathon. That made the Persians even more angry.

So in about 480 BCE, Persia organized a massive invasion force against Greece. And this massive invasion force, again, um, the numbers, the data we can't confirm it, but we think it's, it's about half a million people, half a million soldiers. That's huge. Okay. But not only that, you had a huge navy. And basically, uh, Persia called on every nation of its empire to fight against Greece, which included Egypt, okay, which included the Phoenicians, which also included Greeks who lived in the territory of Persia. Okay. And these Greeks are called the Ionian, uh, Greeks. Okay. So it was a massive invasion force. And Sparta and Athens became allies to resist the Persian invasion. But there were also some Greek poleis that sided with, uh, the Persians, including, uh, Thebes. Okay. The Macedonians to the north were also siding with the Persians. So the invasion came north from Macedonia, down here. And you may have heard of the Battle of Thermopylae. Okay. The Thermopylae. This was made famous by a movie called 300. I'm not sure if you've seen the movie 300. Okay. But basically, it was about 300 Spartans, uh, and about 5,000 other Greeks who tried to make a stand against the Persian invasion. And they got destroyed. Okay. They, so the Spartans, so, so the Persians came in, and the Greeks decided, "Okay, you know what? Uh, their numbers are so much bigger than ours. Let's retreat." Okay. Back to Sparta. And here at Corinth, they decided to build a wall to stop the, uh, Persian advance. The problem, though, is Athens is here. Okay. So the Persians came in and burned down Athens.

Now, what's important to understand is the Greeks have the, the concept of polis. It's not a place. It's a community. Okay. Polis is wherever the Greeks choose to be. So what happened that's very interesting is even though the Athenians came, destroyed, sorry, even though Persia came to destroy Athens, the Athenians just got into their ships. Okay. They just boarded their ships because Athens is a naval power. And they just sailed away. Okay. Do you understand? So Athens was not destroyed. The city of Athens was destroyed, but not the community, the polis of Athens. And so, um, but now the Greeks are in a lot of trouble, okay, because the, what the Persians can now do is, um, basically take their ships and sail around and attack Sparta from behind. This is a huge problem for Sparta because why? What is Sparta's ultimate weakness? Why is it so easy to defeat Sparta in a war? What's the problem? Do you guys remember? What are, what are the Spartans really afraid of? The helots, right? Okay. The helots. Remember, there are 10 helots for every one Spartan. And the helots hate the Spartans because the Spartans have terrorized, have terrorized them for centuries. So all the Persians have to do now, okay, very easy, is take their ships, land at Sparta, and build forts, defenses, and the helots would run into, run to them. Then the King, King Xerxes of Persia says, "I, the benevolent King of Persia, declare the helots to be free people. Now, now you have a revolution." Okay. The helots now are now armed by the Persians. And then guess what? The helots are going to go kill the Spartans. Game over. Okay. You understand? The war is over. That's all the Persians have to do. Take their ships, sail around to the coast of Sparta, build forts and defenses, so the helots can run to them, give the helots weapons, and then let the helots run loose against the Spartans. And the war is over. Greece is forever destroyed. Okay. You understand? Very simple, right?

The Persians did not do that. Okay. The Persian king, King Xerxes, had a war council. And there were a lot of generals who said to King Xerxes, "King, we've won the war. Okay. We're over Greece. We have half a million men in Greece. There's nothing the Greeks can do about this." Okay. So the Persians were feeling very confident. And the Greeks, uh, the Greek navy was on an island called Salamis. Okay. Salamis. And everyone was freaking out. Okay. And what the Spartans wanted to do was say, "Let's take our Navy and defend the coastline of Sparta because we know the Persians are going to invade Sparta at some point. They're going to land their ships on Sparta. Let's sail our Navy and defend, um, Sparta." There's one Athenian general, okay, his name is Themistocles. And he said, "You know what? That's great for you guys. Okay. But remember, our city, Athens, has been destroyed. We need to take on the Persians head-on. We can't wait." And the Spartans are like, "Yeah, that's fine. But they outnumber us three to one. They have three more ships. They have three ships for every one ship we have. There's no way we can beat them in a naval battle." And Themistocles says, "We either fight the Persians now and achieve eudaimonia, or we, Athens, we'll be like, 'Screw you, Spartans. We're going to go take our ships and sail off west to Sicily or Africa. Who cares?' Okay. But we're going to go away, and we're going to leave the Persians to kill you guys." Okay. So Sparta, saying that, we have a choice but to listen to the Athenians and fight.

Then what Themistocles did was he sent a spy to King Xerxes. And King Xerxes was having this war council about what to do. And most of his generals were like, "My great king, we've won the war. Let's just take our ships and attack Sparta, and the war is over." Then a spy sent by Themistocles says to King Xerxes, "Oh, great king, the entire Greek navy is stuck in Salamis. But they want, they want to run away. Now's the chance to attack them and destroy the Greek navy once and for all." Okay. And at this point, King Xerxes made the decision to send his entire Navy, okay, to destroy the Greek Navy at Salamis. And his generals were like, "Don't do that, man. That's a risk you don't have to take. Why do that? Why take the Greeks on? Why, why fight the Greeks, uh, head-on when we can just starve them out?" And the King said, "No, I, I came to defeat the Greeks. Okay. I'm the great king. I want to defeat the barbarians and build a monument to celebrate my great victory over the Greeks. My father, King Darius, set an army in 490 BC, and the Athenians killed or destroyed his army at Marathon. I'm going to prove I'm a greater king than my father by defeating the Greeks at Salamis. Okay. I don't want this war of attrition, this long war. I want one great battle so that history will remember me forever." Okay. So he sends his entire force, about a thousand ships, to Salamis. And Salamis, it's a strait, okay. It's very narrow, so the ships have to line up and attack the Greeks one by one. Okay. And, and at Salamis, in a headlong battle, the Greek ships were heavier, and the Greek ships were manned by hoplites with armor. And in this Battle of Salamis, the Greeks destroyed the Persian navy. Okay. Do you understand? The Persian army had won the war, and at Salamis, they lost the war.

Okay. Now the problem is, when, now that the Persian Navy has been destroyed, supply lines are in trouble. Okay. You understand? Because Greece is, Greece is very poor. Greece is a very poor nation. You cannot resupply yourself in Greece. How do you feel? What, half a million people? Well, you need to bring in supplies from Persia. But now your Navy has been destroyed. So now King Xerxes freaks out and he goes home. He's like, "You know what? I burned down Athens. That's good enough for me." Okay. And he leaves his cousin, General Mardonius, to fight the, um, Greeks. And at this point, Mardonius could have chosen to not fight the Greeks, right? Because, because Athens has been destroyed and Sparta is still under threat. So all Mardonius had to do was, he was in Thebes. He was in Thebes. All he had to do was stay in Thebes and wait out the war. This is what we call a war of attrition, where you wait out the other enemy because the other enemy has basically less resources than you. Does that make sense? Again, really easy for the Persians to win. But, um, Mardonius chose to fight the Greeks at the Battle of Plataea. And here it was about equal forces, 100,000 Greeks versus 100,000 Persians. And the Greeks destroyed the Persians. The Persians lost five times more men than the, uh, Greeks. Okay. And General Mardonius was killed in this battle. So this war that the Persians should have won very easily, the Persians, uh, lost and were completely destroyed. Does that make sense? Okay. Any questions so far about the Persian invasion?

Okay. And because of this war, Greece now became extremely wealthy. The reason why is Persia is forced to retreat from Asia Minor, and the Greeks were able to capture a lot of treasure. Now, um, after this, Persia switches strategies. Okay. Persia never again invades Greece because they think this is stupid to invade Greece. Okay. But the Greeks don't know this. The Greeks think, "Okay, the Persians will come back at any point." So the Athenians say, "Let's take the battle to Persia." And what do the Spartans say? "Say no. We're going to go home, and that's it." Okay. So to, to battle against the Persians, the Athenians create something called the Delian League. The Delian League is a defensive alliance between Athens and these colonies and islands in the Aegean. The idea is, if the Persians come back, we will muster forces and fight the Persians at sea. The problem is that only Athens had a navy. Everyone else, we have a navy, so everyone else is like, "We don't have a navy, but we'll contribute money." Okay. And they agreed that this money, this treasury would be, could be only be used against Persia if Persia invades. Okay. So they put all this money on a place called Delos, an island called Delos, that's why it's called the Delian League. Okay. Does that make sense? So basically, Athens would put up a navy, and everyone else would put up money, and this money, this treasury of the Delian League can only be used in a war against Persia. Okay. Does that make sense?

Okay. So while this is happening, Athens is the rising power in this world. And in 461 BCE, a new political leader called Pericles comes into power. And as you should know from your research, Pericles is considered, um, the father of Athenian democracy. He is the one who spreads democracy throughout Athens. And historians today worship, uh, Pericles. Pericles is considered one of the greatest leaders ever in Western, in Western history. Okay. Um, I'll talk more about Pericles and democracy in future classes. Okay. But I want to show you that Pericles was first and foremost a politician who was concerned about amassing and keeping power. Does that make sense? So he did a lot of wonderful things for, uh, Athens, but I want to show you these things that he did, even though they seemed great, they really were about him amassing power for himself. Okay.

So, um, the first thing he did was he spread democracy to everyone. Okay. He basically gave every citizen the right to vote. And you're like, "Okay, that's great. Direct democracy. Athens creates democracy. This is great, right?" But the reason why he did that was to change the balance of power in Athens. So he basically represented the lower nobility versus the upper nobility, right? Usually, upper nobility has more power because it has more money. Okay. It has more prestige. So the way for the lower nobility to defeat the no, the upper nobility is by aligning itself with the people. Doesn't make sense? You do that by giving people the right to vote. And so by doing this, Pericles basically made himself king of Athens. Does that make sense? In fact, he stayed in power from 461 to 429. Doesn't make sense? All right. And to please the people even more, he basically made corruption official. What he did that was very important was he basically took the money from Delos and brought it to Athens. Basically, Pericles said to the Delian League, "You know what? This money in Delos, it's a lot of money. I'm afraid that the Persians will come and steal it. So let's take it to Athens." Okay. When he brought it to Athens, the next thing he did was he spent all of it. Okay. He built a lot of really impressive buildings, including something called the Parthenon. Um, the Parthenon is this great temple to Athena, which is the patron goddess of Athens. They made, uh, the Athenian statue out of gold. Okay. They spent billions and billions of dollars on this temple. The reason why is when you do that, right, you give people jobs and you give, uh, people who support you money. Okay. So this is basically official corruption.

Now, there are people in the upper nobility who thought what Pericles was doing was terrible for Athens. And basically, uh, in meetings, they want to ostracize Pericles. Right? They want to, they accuse Pericles of corruption, of basically bribing the city of Athens. And they said, "You are corrupting our morals. Okay. You are hurting our democracy. Therefore, we want to ostracize you." And there was this vote against Pericles. And what happens? You guys know the people voted to exile Pericles' opponents. Those who criticized Pericles were now exiled from Athens. Therefore, Pericles no longer has any political opponents. And Pericles can do whatever he wants. And so the two big innovations of Pericles is democracy, okay, right, let's give people the right to vote. And let's give people more money. But also empire. The reason why is after Pericles basically stole the money from the Delian League, the allies were obviously angry, right? You stole money. So we are out of this league. And Pericles said, "Well, if you leave our league, we're going to come and invade you." So Athens started this expansionist campaign in order to maintain its empire. So the Delian League basically became the Athenian Empire. And now Athens got basically 20% of its revenue from its allies. Doesn't make sense? So that's, that's what Pericles was doing. He was promoting democracy in order to make sure people voted for him. He was promoting empire in order to maintain the easy money flow into Athens. Empire is important because remember, um, Athens has a culture of eudaimonia. So empire makes the rich extremely wealthy. You understand? Empire makes everyone rich, but it makes the wealthy even more so. And so the lower nobility, okay, the lower nobility became very jealous. And so the way to resolve this issue is the lower nobility could choose to, uh, invade other places. Okay. And if they win, they could make a lot of money for themselves. So one place they chose to invade was, um, Egypt, but that failed. Okay. So throughout this time, you had a lot of Athenian expeditions throughout the world in looking to conquer new territory. And sometimes they succeeded, but some, but a lot of times they failed as well. Does that make sense?

All right. So as Athens is expanding and becoming much wealthier, other Greek, uh, colonies, other Greek poleis start to get angry at Athens. And Athens is basically the big bully. They were afraid of Persia before, but Persia didn't really bother the Greeks. Whereas Athens, um, was a big bully. They wanted to control all of Greece. They basically were a mafia organization that, um, was forcing these islands in the Aegean Sea to pay tribute to Athens. They were trying to take more territory from other Greek poleis. So in 431, the Greek poleis united around Sparta and started something called the Peloponnesian War. Okay. And historians, what most historians will tell you is this war was started because Sparta was afraid of an emerging Athens. Sparta was the hegemon, Sparta was the most dominant power, uh, in Greece at that time. And now that Athens was rising, Sparta felt threatened by Athens and therefore declared war on Athens. That's not true. Okay. That's not the reason. The reason why is because Athens was an empire, and they were going around and bullying everyone. And so you didn't have a choice in the matter. You got either fight Athens now, or wait for Athens to invade you. Okay. So it was because Athens was an imperial power. And so other nations had to, other Greek poleis had no choice but to stand against, um, Athens. Okay. And Athens was an imperial power because of its theory of eudaimonia. Okay. So the great irony here, and you will see this pattern, um, repeat itself throughout history, is the thing, the culture that allows a nation to rise, okay, in this eudaimonia, will also cause it to decline. Does it make sense? Okay. Because it's because of the Peloponnesian War, which lasts from about 431 BC to 404 BCE, 27 years, that Athens loses its empire. Okay. So the culture, eudaimonia, that causes Athens to rise, will ultimately lead to its decline as well. All right. So are you guys clear so far? Please let me know if this is clear to you if you have any questions before I continue.

Okay. So even though Sparta and Athens are now at war with each other, um, this war, again, should have been pretty easy won by Athens. Why? What can Athens do to destroy Sparta? Do you guys know? What can Athens do really easily? They destroy Sparta's helots, right? The Athenians have ships. They can choose to do what the Persians should have done, but they didn't do, which is to basically take its Navy, land its Navy on the coast, and support the helots in a rebellion. Okay. If that would have happened, Sparta would have been destroyed very quickly. The Athenians didn't do that, right? Do you understand? The Athenians didn't do that. Now, Sparta, to counter this threat against Athens, what should it have done to counter this threat against, um, from, um, Athens? Exactly. Thank you. Okay. Its only option in this scenario is to free the helots and say to the helots, "If you fight for us against the Athenians, we will give you your liberty." Okay. And the helots would have been, "Yeah, let's go fight for the, for, for the Spartans." Okay. So Sparta would have increased its army 10 times, and it could have destroyed Athens. Sparta didn't do this either, okay? You understand? So from a military strategy perspective, the way the Peloponnesian War didn't make any sense. The only way to understand what happened is to understand that the very basis of conflict in society is between the upper nobility and the lower nobility. Okay. Do you understand? The upper nobility is only interested in maintaining the status quo. They're very conservative. They don't like wars because you could lose wars, and also because if you win wars, you have people who are now richer than you are. Okay. Do you understand? So nobility is very conservative in both Athens and Sparta. The lower nobility can only become upper nobility through war or revolution. Okay. So they're always looking to upset the status quo. So even though this war is going on, internally, there's still conflict between the upper nobility and the lower nobility. Okay. And that's why you look at the Peloponnesian War, a lot of the military strategy doesn't make any sense because Sparta isn't really trying to win a war against Athens. Sparta is trying to maintain the status quo in Sparta. Okay. Athens is not really trying to win a war against Sparta. Athens is trying to maintain the status quo within Athens.

All right. An example is Pericles. The war starts in 431 BC, and a lot of people are saying, "Pericles, hey, let's go invade Sparta." And what Pericles says instead is, "Oh, no, no, no. The Spartans are the greatest warriors in the world. We have no chance against Sparta. So what we'll do is we have these walls. Okay. We have these walls. We'll, we'll hide behind our walls and let our Navy protect us in the sea." Okay. That was the defensive strategy of Pericles. And so what the Spartans could do was they could come to Attica and destroy all the farmland. And the Athenians could only watch as the Spartans destroy the farmland. This was, this was a disaster for the Athenians because if you think about it, over time, the Spartans could starve out the Athenians, right? The other problem is, you have too many people in one place. What happens? You have too many people living in, in a city. What happens? Usually disease, right? Disease. So because of the overpopulation in Athens, they had the plague, which killed one-third of the Athenian population. Okay. You understand? One-third of the Athenian population. If the Athenians went to war against Sparta, um, and they lost, they would have at least lost about 10% of the population. Okay. But because they chose not to fight and hide behind the walls, not only did they lose their farmland, but they lost a third of their population, including Pericles, who died because of the plague. Pericles died, as well as his two sons. Okay. Doesn't make sense, right? So again, the strategy makes no sense if you think of from a military perspective. It only makes sense if you understand there's an internal conflict in Athens between the upper nobility and the lower nobility. Okay. Pericles represents the upper nobility. He wants to maintain the status quo. There's a war going on, but he doesn't really want to fight this war. Okay. He just, he just wants to wait it out because he does not want to change the status quo. Does that make sense?

So after, um, Pericles dies, the lower nobility become ascendant. Okay. And because of this war, they proposed an aggressive strategy against the Spartans. Basically, it's like, "Let's go attack, um, the Spartans and cause a revolution in Sparta." Okay. And this was the, um, this was proposed by Cleon, who after, um, Pericles died, became, uh, basically the de facto leader of Athens. And he was considered a demagogue. Okay. If you look at the history, um, everyone says bad things about this guy. Okay. But really, what he is, he's lower nobility who's trying to achieve eudaimonia. Okay. And he's basically like Themistocles. Okay. All right. And he's a great military strategist as well. So Cleon proposes this aggressive strategy against Sparta. And guess what happens? Athens is now destroying Sparta. Okay. Now Sparta is under, under a lot of pressure. It's losing the war. So now what Spar, um, what Sparta does is it picks a new general, Brasidas, and says to Brasidas, "Listen, we're losing a war. What can we do?" So Brasidas, um, goes north and he starts to win these victories against Athens. And his policy is this: "Listen, um, we need to change our social structure in order to win against Athens." So, so what he does is he tells the helots, "If you fight for me, I'm gonna give you your freedom." And so, so a lot of helots fight for Brasidas, and Brasidas wins a lot of wars. And this is, and how do the Spartans feel about this? Brasidas, who's a Spartan, is now winning wars against Athens. And so how do the Spartans feel about this? Are they happy about this? No, they're really unhappy about this. Okay. Because it's changing their social structure. You understand? They don't want this crap. They want the helots to be slaves. They don't want the helots to be free citizens who help them win wars. Okay. So what ultimately happens is even though Cleon and Brasidas have both proposed both strategies that allow Athens and Sparta to win the war, ultimately what happens is Cleon and Brasidas get into a battle with each other, and they both die in this battle. That's extremely convenient, guys. Okay. That's really, really convenient. So I'd be very surprised if they actually did both die in battle. My guess is what happened is they were both assassinated during the battle against each other. Does that make sense? Because ultimately, um, both were the bigger threats to the social structure of Sparta and Athens than losing the war itself. Does that make sense, guys? Okay. Any questions so far?

Okay. Doesn't make sense? Okay. Okay. So, um, now, so this war keeps on going, and then what happens is Persia gets involved and gives Sparta a navy. Basically, Persia gives Sparta a blank check. And because Sparta is so conservative and insular, it doesn't really know how to, um, how a navy. Okay. It doesn't know how to fight with a navy. In fact, Sparta is militarily, like, in terms of strategy, it's actually very weak. Okay. If it's like, Spartan soldiers by themselves are very strong, but in terms of like, overall military strategy, Sparta, because it's so conservative and insular, it's very weak against, it's very weak compared with Athens. But Persia has a lot of money, and Persia is bankrolling Sparta. Okay. And eventually, Persia says to Sparta, "Hey guys, what are you trying a new strategy? The strategy is this: if a general is winning against the Athenians, promote the guy." Okay. And you're like, "Okay, well, that makes total sense." The Spartans didn't do that. Okay. The Spartans were not concerned about winning the war. They were concerned about maintaining their social order. Do you understand? There's a social hierarchy in Sparta. That's what's important, not winning the war. And then there was this Spartan commander, Lysander. And he was really the only Spartan who knew how to win naval battles. The problem with Lysander was he was a half-citizen, which meant that his, his father was a Spartan, but not the mother. You understand? Only if both your parents are citizens are you allowed to be a citizen. So Lysander was really looked up, looked down upon in Sparta, but he could win naval battles. So he wasn't promoted. The Persians said to the Spartans, "Listen, this is stupid. Okay. Lysander is a great commander. You have to promote him." The Spartans didn't really have a choice in the matter. And so Lysander, after he was promoted, single-handedly won the war against Athens. He laid siege to Athens in 404 BCE, and then, um, Athens had no choice but to surrender because they were out of food. Okay. Does that make sense?

Now, for 27, for 27 years, Sparta and Athens were at war with each other. They were killing each other. Now Athens had finally been defeated. So what do you think should happen now? What should be, what should happen to Athens now? Okay. The answer is, nothing happened to Athens. Okay. Usually, if you lose the war in this world, what happens is they come and kill all the men and enslave all the women. And that's what the Persians wanted. Okay. That's what that's what the other Greek cities wanted to happen to Athens. The Spartans didn't do anything to Athens. They left Athens alone. Okay. And there are many different explanations for this. One explanation is Sparta wanted to maintain a balance of power in the Greek world. Okay. If they destroyed Athens, then Persia could come back and destroy Sparta. Okay. Um, but another explanation is, well, guess what, guys? The upper nobility of Sparta and the upper nobility of Athens, they're good friends with each other. Okay. Do you understand? Rich people tend to marry each other. They tend to be good friends with each other. Okay. So Athens and Sparta weren't really enemies. Do you understand? They had to fight this war because of the internal pressures from the lower nobility, but because this war is killing off so much lower nobility, it maintained a status quo. Does that make sense? All right. You guys understand so far? Any questions?

All right. So I'm going to conclude with evidence for this theory. So, uh, what, what I just said, like war is really about, um, killing off internal dissent, not really about beating another enemy, that's very controversial. Okay. So I will give you some evidence for this theory. And it's called Rat Utopia. So in, in the 1960s and 70s, there was an American researcher, American scientist, his name is James B. Calhoun. Okay. And he was interested in the question, what would it be like for humans to live in a world of abundance? What would it mean for humans to live in a world where everything was perfect, where you didn't have to fight for food, where food was just given to you? Okay. A utopia. What, what would it be like? Well, he couldn't really experiment on humans, so he decided to experiment on rats instead. Okay. So he built this universe, okay, basically this big house, and food was plentiful for rats. The food, the water was plentiful for rats. So rats can just play all day. Okay. Now, I'm not sure if you know anything about rats, but

The thing about animals, and this is a very important idea, is that animals live in a heavily ritualized and rules-based world. It doesn't make sense, guys. We think of animals as chaotic. No, no, no. If you actually study their societies, ants, monkeys, rats, they live in an extremely rule-based, heavily ritualized world.

Okay, so let me, let me give you an example of this. So, uh, rats, when they meet with each other, what happens is this. Um, a female rat is interested in having sex, okay? So she's going out, and then, and then a male rat spots this. He sees the female rat in heat. So what he does is he gets on a, he gets on a mount, okay, where she can see him, and he starts to dance, okay? He starts to dance, and the female rat becomes interested. And he sees she's interested, so he comes down, and they start chasing each other, okay? They're having fun together. And, and then what she does is she runs home and hides. She hides herself in her burrow. The male rat just stands outside and waits for her to come out. After some time, she comes up, and they run again, run together again, and then she runs back again. They do this many, many times until finally she lets him catch her, and then they have sex, okay? And then, and then after they have sex, they have children, and they start a family together, okay? Does that make sense? Okay, that's how rats usually behave. When they, they often like to play with each other, and they fight, but it's very playful, okay? So there's lots of rules, there's lots of rituals in this rat society.

But that's out in nature. In the world of James B. Calhoun, he creates rat utopia, okay, where everyone has enough to eat. And at some point, the society breaks down, okay? These, these rituals, these rules, all break down. What happens is male rats, when they start fighting each other, they become very violent. They're no, they're no longer playing. They're actually trying to kill each other, and some actually die, okay? And this, like mating ritual, it breaks down. So the male rats don't even try to dance, okay? They're not dancing. They just see a, a female, and they rape her, okay? And it's like gang rape. It's not one male, it's like lots of males raping her. These gangs of rats, they try to break into burrows, homes, and try to rape the wife, okay, the mother. And at first, the husband is fighting off these other rats, right? But eventually, what happens is he gets tired, and he just runs away, okay? He just abandons the family. Now the female rat is responsible for fighting off, now the other rats, but she becomes so traumatized, she starts to beat everyone up, including her own children. So she kicks her children out of the house. It is a complete social breakdown. And after a few more months of this crap, the entire colony of rats dies. The entire society collapses. Does that make sense?

All right, this, so this is what we call utopia. It's been done many times, and each time they do this, this happens. At some point, the society will collapse, okay? And this makes no sense to us. Everyone has enough food to eat, everyone should be happy, okay? Why does, why does society collapse?

So there are different explanations for this. Um, James Calhoun, his argument is, if there's too much food, there's overpopulation. There's over, overpopulation, then that creates conflict. Then the conflict causes the rules to collapse, okay? The problem, though, with this theory is the colony never became overpopulated, okay? There was space for everyone, but at some point, everyone started to fight each other.

All right, so this is my theory. And this, and this goes back to the Peloponnesian War. It has to do with the idea of status. So if, in a world of abundance, in a world of wealth, who benefits the most? It's the elderly, old people, okay? Old people can live a lot longer in a society that is wealthy and abundant, an abundant, okay? Doesn't make sense, okay? But then what happens is the status becomes locked in, which prevents younger rats, younger people, from ascending into power and status. Does that make sense?

Okay, so the idea is, the metaphor is, these rats are online. I'm, I'm waiting for to climb the mountain, okay? This is the mountain top. You're waiting and waiting to climb the mountain, and eventually moving along, it's slow, but you're still moving along, okay? And eventually you will reach the mountain top, which is where you want to be. But let's just say for whatever reason, the line stops moving, okay? Everyone's stuck in place. Well, then you get very anxious, you get very stressed out, you get very agitated. You're like, when is my turn? And it's never going to come because the people at the top won't leave, okay? So what do you do? Well, you start kicking the people behind you, right? You start fighting with, with, with, with each other. You understand? That's, this is what we call rat utopia. In a world of abundance, in a world of extreme wealth, old people do not die. If they do not die, it is impossible for young people to ascend into power and status. And so they have all these energies, and because they cannot reach their potential, they become violent and start attacking each other, okay? So that's rat utopia. That's what rats do.

But if you look at the Peloponnesian War, and what happened between Athens and Sparta, it's really no different, okay? It's really no different. They were killing each other for no reason, extreme violence, which led to nothing, okay? 431 BCE, the political world was no different from 404 BC. The only difference is a lot of young people died, okay? And wars against each other. So that's my argument to you. If societies become too wealthy, you have a problem of rat utopia, okay? If rat utopia societies will then engage in wars that will lead eventually to its collapse. That's what happened to Athens. Does that make sense, guys?

All right, any questions about this? Does it make sense to you guys? All right, any questions? Yeah, okay. So, um, the question is, in the rat utopia, why do the mothers want to start attacking the kids? Okay, um, okay, so this is actually a complicated question. The answer is this: humans are different from rats, okay? So humans have the ability to reason and to, uh, adapt to new circumstances, okay? Does that make sense? Rats don't. These, there are these rules in place, okay? And if these rules are broken, then the rats don't know how to adapt. So if you're a rat mother, you have a husband, okay? Your understanding is the husband will protect you from strangers, okay? Your also your understanding is if some, if someone is violent towards you, you to be violent against that person, okay? So in a situation where the husband leaves, the husband runs away, or is dead, the mother does not understand this new order anymore. So the mother becomes, the word we use is traumatized. If you're traumatized, you can no longer reason, okay? You're so focused on protecting yourself, you attack everything and everyone, including your own children. Does that make sense?

Yeah, this is an experiment because obviously this would not happen in real life, okay? There's no way the rats get free food in real life. So they have this experiment where the experimenters gave the rats free food every day, and this is what happened. No, no. So the experiment is, the rats were left by themselves, okay? The rats could do whatever they wanted. The only thing the experimenters did was feed them every day, okay? If you do that, if there's abundance and there's wealth there, then you have complete social collapse, okay?

Um, okay, okay, all right. So, okay, all you need to understand is this, okay? The entire society collapses, okay? How it collapses can be different from family to family, but the entire collapses. Everyone dies at the end, okay? Do you understand? Okay, okay. Any more questions? Any more questions? So I, I know this is a lot to take in, okay? This is very confusing, and this is very hard, but it's okay. Just ask any questions or points where you want me to clarify, okay? So next class, we will do Greek Theater, and then after that, we'll do Greek philosophy, which includes Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, okay?