Book contents
- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture
- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustration and Tables
- Places of Original Publication
- Preface
- Editions and Abbreviations
- Introduction to Volume 1: Greek Poetry before 400 BC
- 1 Early Greek Elegy, Symposium and Public Festival (1986)
- 2 One That Got Away: Archilochus frr. 188–92 and Horace Odes 1.4 and 5 (1987)
- 3 Miles ludens? The Problem of Martial Exhortation in Early Greek Elegy ()
- 4 Lies, Fiction and Slander in Early Greek Poetry (1993)
- 5 Greek Table-Talk before Plato (1993)
- 6 The Theognidea: a Step towards a Collection of Fragments? (1997)
- 7 Early Greek Iambic Poetry: the Importance of Narrative (2001)
- 8 Ancestors of Historiography in Early Greek Elegiac and Iambic Poetry? ()
- 9 Sympotic Praise (2002)
- 10 Early Expatriates: Displacement and Exile in Archaic Poetry ()
- 11 From Archaic Elegy to Hellenistic Sympotic Epigram? (2007)
- 12 Sex and Politics in Archilochus’ Poetry (2008)
- 13 Wandering Poets, Archaic Style (2009)
- 14 Epigram as Narration (2010)
- 15 Historical Narrative in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Elegy (2010)
- 16 Stobaeus and Early Greek Melic, Elegiac and Iambic Poetry (2010)
- 17 Marathon in Fifth-Century Epigram (2010)
- 18 The Trojan War in Early Greek Melic, Iambic and Elegiac Poetry (2010)
- 19 Performing and Re-performing Helen:Stesichorus’ Palinode (2010)
- 20 Simonides of Eretria (redivivus?) (2010)
- 21 Alcman’s First Partheneion and the Song the Sirens sang (2011)
- 22 An Early Chapter in the History of the Theognidea (2012)
- 23 Stesichorus and Ibycus: Plain Tales from the Western Front (2012)
- 24 Epinicians and ‘Patrons’ (2012)
- 25 Unnatural Selection: Expurgation of Greek Melic, Elegiac and Iambic Poetry (2012)
- 26 Marathon, the 1500 Days after: Culture and Politics (2013)
- 27 The Sympotic Tease (2013)
- 28 Rediscovering Sacadas (2014)
- 29 Stesichorus’ Geryoneis and Greeks in the West (2014)
- 30 Stesichorus at Athens (2015)
- 31 Cultic Contexts for Elegiac Performance? (2016)
- 32 Quo usque tandem? How long were Sympotic Songs? (2016)
- 33 How did Sappho’s Songs get into the Male Sympotic Repertoire? (2016)
- 34 The Performance Contexts of Trochaic Tetrameters Catalectic (2018)
- 35 Alcaeus’ stasiotica: Catullan and Horatian Readings (2019)
- 36 Reconfiguring Archilochus: How have Papyri and Inscriptions changed Perceptions of Archilochus’ Iambic and Elegiac Poetry? (2020)
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index of Greek Terms
- General Index
26 - Marathon, the 1500 Days after: Culture and Politics (2013)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 December 2021
- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture
- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustration and Tables
- Places of Original Publication
- Preface
- Editions and Abbreviations
- Introduction to Volume 1: Greek Poetry before 400 BC
- 1 Early Greek Elegy, Symposium and Public Festival (1986)
- 2 One That Got Away: Archilochus frr. 188–92 and Horace Odes 1.4 and 5 (1987)
- 3 Miles ludens? The Problem of Martial Exhortation in Early Greek Elegy ()
- 4 Lies, Fiction and Slander in Early Greek Poetry (1993)
- 5 Greek Table-Talk before Plato (1993)
- 6 The Theognidea: a Step towards a Collection of Fragments? (1997)
- 7 Early Greek Iambic Poetry: the Importance of Narrative (2001)
- 8 Ancestors of Historiography in Early Greek Elegiac and Iambic Poetry? ()
- 9 Sympotic Praise (2002)
- 10 Early Expatriates: Displacement and Exile in Archaic Poetry ()
- 11 From Archaic Elegy to Hellenistic Sympotic Epigram? (2007)
- 12 Sex and Politics in Archilochus’ Poetry (2008)
- 13 Wandering Poets, Archaic Style (2009)
- 14 Epigram as Narration (2010)
- 15 Historical Narrative in Archaic and Early Classical Greek Elegy (2010)
- 16 Stobaeus and Early Greek Melic, Elegiac and Iambic Poetry (2010)
- 17 Marathon in Fifth-Century Epigram (2010)
- 18 The Trojan War in Early Greek Melic, Iambic and Elegiac Poetry (2010)
- 19 Performing and Re-performing Helen:Stesichorus’ Palinode (2010)
- 20 Simonides of Eretria (redivivus?) (2010)
- 21 Alcman’s First Partheneion and the Song the Sirens sang (2011)
- 22 An Early Chapter in the History of the Theognidea (2012)
- 23 Stesichorus and Ibycus: Plain Tales from the Western Front (2012)
- 24 Epinicians and ‘Patrons’ (2012)
- 25 Unnatural Selection: Expurgation of Greek Melic, Elegiac and Iambic Poetry (2012)
- 26 Marathon, the 1500 Days after: Culture and Politics (2013)
- 27 The Sympotic Tease (2013)
- 28 Rediscovering Sacadas (2014)
- 29 Stesichorus’ Geryoneis and Greeks in the West (2014)
- 30 Stesichorus at Athens (2015)
- 31 Cultic Contexts for Elegiac Performance? (2016)
- 32 Quo usque tandem? How long were Sympotic Songs? (2016)
- 33 How did Sappho’s Songs get into the Male Sympotic Repertoire? (2016)
- 34 The Performance Contexts of Trochaic Tetrameters Catalectic (2018)
- 35 Alcaeus’ stasiotica: Catullan and Horatian Readings (2019)
- 36 Reconfiguring Archilochus: How have Papyri and Inscriptions changed Perceptions of Archilochus’ Iambic and Elegiac Poetry? (2020)
- Bibliography
- Index Locorum
- Index of Greek Terms
- General Index
Summary
My choice of title, with its ‘1500 days’, may misleadingly have raised hopes of a precision that is of course unattainable for the years from 490 to 485 BC, as Thucydides would have been quick to remind us. It was partly intended to recall the targets and boasts of some modern governments, which have presented their entering upon office as a turning point in their nation’s policies. But that intention was ill-conceived: ancient Greek poleis with anything resembling a democratic system had no ‘government’ in the modern sense of the term, so Athens of the 480s was saved from such dreams. One question, however, that can and should be asked about the immediate aftermath of the battle of Marathon in 490 BC is whether we have evidence that the Athenians felt a that new chapter in their history was opening – in the way, for example, that many British citizens felt was the case in the summer of 1945, and I believe that many Greeks did in 1974. The straight answer, I think, is ‘no!’, but this is partly because we have so little evidence for the politics of Athens in these years. These politics, like the battle of Marathon itself, get a much more cursory treatment from Herodotus and Thucydides than the battles of 480 and 479 and the rapid development of Athens’ μεγάλη ἰδέα, ‘great idea’, a μεγάλη ἰδέα that sailed more or less triumphantly for seventy-five years before foundering in 404 BC. On the basis of what little evidence we have, however, my sense is that in the early 480s the chattering classes of Athens would have seen the battle of Marathon as a less significant landmark than the expulsion of Hippias and some of his friends in 511/510, twenty years before; than the extensive restructuring of the Athenian system of administration by Cleisthenes, perhaps chiefly enacted in 508/7; or than the adventure of aiding Ionians in their attempt to throw off Persian control, initially exhilarating but ultimately disastrous, and the prime cause of Darius’ expedition that sacked Naxos and Eretria and must have seemed to some to have come very near to sacking Athens.
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- Essays on Ancient Greek Literature and Culture , pp. 622 - 634Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021