The Athenian navy: an investigation into the operations, politics and ideology of the Athenian fleet between 480 and 322 BC

This investigation focuses on the Athenian navy, by which I mean the state-owned fleet of triremes. The study covers the years between 480 and 322 BC while Athens did possess a fleet in earlier years, it was in this period that it became an institution of the highest importance. The work is divided into three parts. Firstly, a systematic review of the operations of the Athenian navy, along with case study of naval activity around Naupactos, which brings up general debates regarding the nature of Athenian imperialism, the scale and nature of naval activity, and the experiences of the crew. Also in this first part, the diversity amongst the crew in terms of both social and professional status will receive attention. The second section seeks to explore the extent and nature of the link between the navy and the democracy. I shall look at the evidence for the participation of naval people in democratic politics at Athens, and the extent to which the policies and decisions of the Assembly can be viewed as favouring the trireme crews. One particularly important example of the trireme crews playing an active political role concerns the events on the island of Samos in 411 BC, when the men of the fleet constituted themselves as a democracy, independent of the oligarchy that had recently taken over in Athens. The third part of the study concerns the ideology of the navy. The first task will be to investigate whether the crewman can be fairly described as staunch democrats, and then to tackle the wider ideology and characteristics of the navy. It is preferable to speak of intersecting ideologies within the navy, an institution manned by slaves, foreigners, citizens and mercenaries, accompanied by armed men and all led by wealthy liturgist captains.

[1]  Tønnes Bekker-Nielsen,et al.  War as a Cultural and Social Force: Essays on Warfare in Antiquity , 2000 .

[2]  E. Hall,et al.  Cultural responses to the Persian Wars : antiquity to the third millennium , 2007 .

[3]  D. J. Mosley.  Envoys and diplomacy in ancient Greece , 1973 .

[4]  M. Hansen,et al.  The Athenian Democracy in the Age of Demosthenes: Structure, Principles, and Ideology , 1974 .

[5]  G. Nussbaum.  The ten thousand : a study in social organization and action in Xenophon's Anabasis , 1968 .

[6]  S. Lambert.  The Attic Genos Salaminioi and the island of Salamis , 1997 .

[7]  J. Salmon,et al.  Wealthy Corinth: A History of the City to 338 B.C. , 1985 .

[8]  Plutarch,et al.  A commentary on Plutarch's Pericles , 1989 .

[9]  Louis Rawlings,et al.  Alternative agonies: hoplite martial and combat experiences beyond the phalanx , 2000 .

[10]  Cynthia M. Harrison.  Triremes at rest: On the beach or in the water? , 1999, The Journal of Hellenic Studies.

[11]  S. Lambert.  Athenian State Laws and Decrees, 352/1-322/1: III Decrees Honouring Foreigners. B. Other Awards , 2007 .

[12]  R. Osborne.  Demos, the discovery of classical Attika , 1985 .

[13]  R. Meiggs.  The Athenian Empire , 1972 .

[14]  J. Davies.  Athenian propertied families, 600-300 B.C , 1971 .

[15]  W. T. Loomis.  Wages, Welfare Costs and Inflation in Classical Athens , 1999 .

[16]  C. Falkner.  Astyochus, Sparta's Incompetent Navarch? , 1999 .

[17]  P. Ceccarelli.  Sans thalassocratie, pas de démocratie? , 1993 .

[18]  G. Cawkwell.  Athenian Naval Power in The Fourth Century , 1984, The Classical Quarterly.

[19]  J. Davies.  Wealth and the power of wealth in classical Athens , 1981 .

[20]  Victor Davis Hanson,et al.  The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece , 1991 .

[21]  P. Rhodes.  Ancient Democracy and Modern Ideology , 2003 .

[22]  J. Morrison.  Hyperesia in naval contexts in the fifth and fourth centuries BC , 1984, The Journal of Hellenic Studies.

[23]  M. Tod.  A selection of Greek historical inscriptions , 1948 .

[24]  I. Lada-Richards.  Initiating Dionysus: Ritual and Theatre in Aristophanes' Frogs , 1998 .

[25]  Hans van Wees.  POLITICS AND THE BATTLEFIELD : Ideology in Greek warfare , 2002 .

[26]  B. Jordan.  The Athenian navy in the classical period : a study of Athenian naval administration and military organization in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. , 1975 .

[27]  Martha C. Taylor.  Salamis and the Salaminioi , 1997 .

[28]  S. Hornblower.  Sticks, Stones and Spartans: The Sociology of Spartan Violence , 2000 .

[29]  A. Holladay.  Further Thoughts on Trireme Tactics , 1988, Greece and Rome.

[30]  S. Flory,et al.  Slaves, Warfare, and Ideology in the Greek Historians , 1998 .

[31]  J. Lazenby.  Naval Warfare in the Ancient World: Myths and Realities , 1987 .

[32]  A. Graham,et al.  Colony And Mother City In Ancient Greece , 1964 .

[33]  G. D. Wilcoxon,et al.  War in the Ancient World: A Social History , 1975 .

[34]  M. Amit,et al.  Athens and the Sea: A Study in Athenian Sea-Power , 1965 .

[35]  H. Wallinga.  Ships and Sea-Power Before the Great Persian War: The Ancestry of the Ancient Trireme , 1992 .

[36]  B. Strauss,et al.  Athens After the Peloponnesian War: Class, Faction and Policy, 403-386 Bc , 1986 .

[37]  J. K. Evans.  Political Dissent in Democratic Athens: Intellectual Critics of Popular Rule , 1999 .

[38]  A. Momigliano.  Sea-Power in Greek Thought , 1944, The Classical Review.

[39]  A. Andrewes.  The generals in The Hellespont, 410–407 B.C. , 1953, The Journal of Hellenic Studies.

[40]  C. W. Morris.  Imagined communities: Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism , 1995 .

[41]  L. Casson.  Ancient Trade And Society , 1984 .

[42]  T. Figueira.  Athens and Aigina in the Age of Imperial Colonization , 1991 .

[43]  Hans van Wees.  Greeks bearing arms: the state, the leisure class and the display of weapons in Archaic Greece , 1998 .

[44]  L. Casson.  Book Reviews: The Ancient Mariners. Seafarers and Sea Fighters of the Mediterranean in Ancient Times , 1959 .

[45]  S. Hornblower.  The Greek world, 479-323 BC , 1986 .

[46]  A. J. Graham.  Thucydides 7.13.2 and the Crews of Athenian Triremes , 1992 .

[47]  S. Hornblower.  The Old Oligarch (Pseudo-Xenophon's Athenaion Politeia) and Thucydides. A Fourth-Century Date for the Old Oligarch? , 2000 .

[48]  D. Macdowell.  Aristophanes and Athens: An Introduction to the Plays , 1995 .

[49]  S. Tracy.  Athenian Democracy in Transition: Attic Letter-Cutters of 340 to 290 B.C. , 1996 .

[50]  John Marincola,et al.  The Persian Wars in Fourth-Century Oratory and Historiography , 2007 .

[51]  Sara Forsdyke.  Exile, ostracism, and democracy , 2005 .

[52]  M. Trundle.  Greek Mercenaries: From the Late Archaic Period to Alexander , 2004 .

[53]  R. Garland.  The Piraeus: From the Fifth to the First Century B.C. , 1987 .

[54]  L. B. Carter,et al.  The quiet Athenian , 1986 .

[55]  Josiah Ober,et al.  The Athenian Revolution , 2020 .

[56]  J. Keaney,et al.  A commentary on the Aristotelian Athenaion politeia , 1981 .

[57]  V. Gabrielsen.  Financing the Athenian Fleet: Public Taxation and Social Relations , 1994 .