Survey of the Greek world and the Persian Empire c. 500 BC, the geographical setting, the polis system, the Spartan and Athenian constitutions, the Cleisthenic reforms, and the rise of Achaemenid Persia under Darius I

What this dot point is asking

NESA expects you to survey the Greek mainland and the Persian Empire at the start of the fifth century BC: the geographical setting, the polis system, the constitutions of Athens (after Cleisthenes) and Sparta, the major leagues and alliances, and the Achaemenid Persian Empire under Darius I that would soon collide with the mainland Greek world.

The answer

The geographical setting

Mainland Greece is mountainous and broken into small fertile plains separated by ranges. The Aegean is studded with islands. This geography produced the polis system: hundreds of small independent city-states, each with its own constitution, army, coinage, and patron god. The major regions of 500 BC were Attica (with Athens), the Peloponnese (with Sparta, Corinth, Argos), Boeotia (with Thebes), Thessaly, and the islands. Greek poleis also dotted the coastlines of Asia Minor (Ionia), Sicily, southern Italy, and the Black Sea.

The polis as the basic unit

A polis was a self-governing community of citizens (politai) with a defined territory, an urban centre, and shared religious institutions. By 500 BC there were perhaps 1,000 poleis in the Greek world. They shared a common Greek identity (language, gods, panhellenic sanctuaries at Olympia and Delphi) but no political unity.

Athens after Cleisthenes

In 508/7 BC the aristocrat Cleisthenes had reformed the Athenian constitution after the fall of the Peisistratid tyranny in 510 BC.

Ten new tribes. Each citizen was assigned to one of ten new tribes (named after Attic heroes), made up of three trittyes (thirds) drawn from coast, plain, and city. This cut across the old regional and aristocratic loyalties.

The deme. The local village (deme) was the basic administrative unit. Around 139 demes registered the citizens of Attica. Citizenship was hereditary through the deme.

The Council of 500 (boule). Fifty councillors from each tribe, chosen by lot annually from those over thirty, prepared business for the Assembly. The boule sat in the bouleuterion in the agora.

The Assembly (ekklesia). All adult male citizens could attend, debate, and vote. The Assembly met on the Pnyx hill.

Ostracism. A procedure by which the Assembly could exile a citizen for ten years without loss of property or status. Introduced around 508 BC and first used in 487 BC against Hipparchus son of Charmus, a relative of the Peisistratids.

Herodotus (5.66) credits Cleisthenes with the foundation of Athenian democracy. The political system was still developing: archons were elected (not yet selected by lot), and the Areopagus retained extensive powers until Ephialtes reformed it in 462 BC.

Sparta

Sparta was the leading military power on the mainland in 500 BC.

Dual kingship. Two hereditary kings, one from the Agiad house and one from the Eurypontid, commanded the army and held religious functions.

The gerousia. A council of 28 elders (over sixty) plus the two kings. Members served for life. The gerousia prepared business for the assembly.

The ephors. Five magistrates elected annually by the assembly. The ephors had broad powers including supervision of the kings and the management of foreign policy.

The assembly (apella). All Spartiate citizens could attend; voting was by acclamation.

The helots. Sparta's economy rested on an enslaved population of Messenians (conquered c. 715 to 668 BC) and Laconians. The helots farmed the land while the Spartiates trained for war. The agoge, the state education system, produced full-time soldier-citizens (homoioi, "the equals").

The Peloponnesian League. A network of alliances binding most of the Peloponnese (except Argos and Achaea) to Sparta as hegemon. The League met when Sparta convened it.

Other major mainland states

Thebes. The leading Boeotian polis, dominant in the Boeotian League.

Corinth. A commercial and naval power on the isthmus.

Argos. A traditional rival of Sparta in the Peloponnese.

Thessaly. A confederation of aristocratic states in the north.

The Greek east: Ionia and the islands

The Greek cities of Asia Minor (Ionia) had been founded in the migrations of the eleventh and tenth centuries BC. By 500 BC they were the most prosperous and culturally advanced part of the Greek world: home to the philosophers (Thales, Anaximander, Heraclitus), the historians (Hecataeus, later Herodotus from Halicarnassus), and the major poets. Miletus was the largest. The Ionian cities had been subjects of Lydia under Croesus, then of Persia after Cyrus's conquest of Lydia in 546 BC.

The Achaemenid Persian Empire

Persia was the largest empire the ancient world had seen. Founded by Cyrus the Great (559 to 530 BC), expanded by Cambyses (530 to 522 BC, who conquered Egypt), and organised by Darius I (522 to 486 BC), the empire ran from the Indus valley to the Aegean coast and from the Caucasus to Nubia.

The satrapies. Darius divided the empire into about 20 provinces (satrapies), each under a satrap (governor) who collected tribute, raised troops, and administered justice.

The royal road. A 2,500 km network of posting stations from Susa to Sardis allowed rapid royal communication. Herodotus (8.98) describes the angareion (royal courier system).

The army. A combined-arms force of Persian and Median infantry (including the elite "Immortals," 10,000 strong), Median and Persian cavalry, and subject contingents. The Persians also developed a fleet from the Phoenician and Greek cities they controlled.

Religion. The Persian kings were Zoroastrian in outlook (worshipping Ahura Mazda) but tolerated and used local cults. Darius's Behistun inscription (c. 520 BC) presents him as the chosen of Ahura Mazda.

Court culture. The royal capitals at Persepolis (founded by Darius), Susa, Pasargadae, and Ecbadana housed an elaborate court. The Apadana reliefs at Persepolis show subject peoples bringing tribute.

Greek and Persian first contact

Persian expansion reached the Aegean in 546 BC when Cyrus conquered Lydia and inherited the Greek cities of Ionia. By 513 BC Darius had crossed the Bosphorus and campaigned in Thrace and Scythia, bringing Persian power to the edges of Europe. Athens and Eretria sent envoys to Persia around 507 BC seeking an alliance against Sparta; the envoys offered "earth and water" (tokens of submission). On their return the Athenians repudiated the gift, but Persia regarded Athens as a subject.

The sources

Herodotus, Histories. Books 1 and 5 cover the rise of Persia and the Cleisthenic reforms. Herodotus (born at Halicarnassus c. 484 BC) is the dominant source for the period.

Thucydides, Pentecontaetia (Histories 1.89 to 117). A digression on the period from 478 to 432 BC.

The Athenian Constitution (Aristotelian school, c. 330s BC). Chapters 20 to 22 cover the Cleisthenic reforms.

Inscriptions. Ostraka (potsherds bearing names) from the Athenian agora; the Behistun inscription of Darius; Persepolis fortification tablets.

Archaeology. The Acropolis and Agora at Athens; Persepolis; Sardis; the Athenian deme sites.

How to read a source on this topic

Section IV background sources typically include extracts from Herodotus on the Cleisthenic reforms, the Athenian Constitution on the Council of 500, or Persian royal inscriptions. Three reading habits.

First, distinguish the structural background from the narrative. The period 500 to 440 BC is shaped by Athens, Sparta, and Persia as institutions; do not collapse the survey into "the wars started in 490 BC."

Second, watch for Herodotus's Athenian sympathies. He grew up in Persian Halicarnassus but wrote in Athens; the Cleisthenic reforms are presented positively.

Third, integrate the Persian side. Persian sources (Behistun, the Persepolis tablets) describe a confident world empire for which Greece was peripheral.

Common exam traps

Treating "Greece" as a single state. It was not. The polis system was the structural reality.

Underestimating Persia. Persia was the largest, richest, and most administratively sophisticated state of the time.

Confusing Cleisthenes with Pericles. Cleisthenes founded the institutional democracy (508/7 BC); Pericles broadened it after Ephialtes's reforms of 462 BC.

Forgetting Ionia. The wars began with the Ionian Revolt; Ionia was already the cultural heart of the Greek world.

In one sentence

By 500 BC the Greek mainland was divided into around 1,000 independent poleis dominated by a newly democratic Athens (after Cleisthenes's reforms of 508/7 BC) and an oligarchic, militarised Sparta (at the head of the Peloponnesian League), while Achaemenid Persia under Darius I controlled an empire from the Indus to the Aegean, including the Greek cities of Ionia, setting the stage for the Persian Wars and the rise of Athens that the period 500 to 440 BC would deliver.