Beginnings of the Athenian Empire (c. 499-478 BCE)

[@MLaserHistory]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Extra Information and Corrections !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 0:23 The Assembly and in fact the entire Athenian democracy at this point even though far more democratic than any other ancient democracy of the time still wasn't at it's height. Meaning at the time of 478 the Assembly and the government of Athens was still partially controlled by rich oligarchs, but this would change over the course of the 5th century and we will touch upon it in later videos. 0:32 We are not sure whether Ionian in this context means the Ionian ethnicity or the Ionians in Asia minor. Thucydides is unclear on this. In the video I am going with the interpretation of Ionian as the ones in Asia minor but as I stated most likely other city states where part of this embassy as well. 1:55 Callimachus died during the battle. 2:02 It is debated whether Themistocles was a strategoi during the battle of Marathon or just a high ranking soldier. 2:06 Remember those names. The same names have the tendency to come up a lot in classical history. 3:03 Today's marathon is 42.195 km long due to modern reasons. Google it if you want to know more. 3:11 They went to Paros because it was said they supported the Persians during their invasion. 3:20 It is said Miltiades lead the Athenians on the offensive only to settle a personal grudge. Plus he was a very opportunistic character so there was a lot of hatred against him in Athens. 3:44 The person retained his property when they where exiled but they couldn't manage it since they couldn't be in Athens so they usually had to have a third party manage their property. 4:17 Aelian, Varia historia 13.24 5:34 Plutarch mentions their rivalry goes all the way back to their youth when both of them had a crush on the same boy. It's hard to say if they were gay or not. Either way it doesn't matter that much as sexuality in Ancient Greece was far more loosely defined then as compared to today. Plut. Them. 3 5:45 Themistocles already convinced Athens to build a small navy in 493 but now he was petitioning to have the entire city focus much more on naval power. 5:53 It is debated whether Aristides proposed the dividing up of silver among the people or if that was just a normal way the Athenians divided up new gotten state wealth and Aristides was just championing that idea in contrast to the alternative. 5:57 The compromise was that Themistocles was going to get his fleet but instead of 200 ships that he wanted only 100 would be build and the rest of the money would go towards public projects. 6:12 Pottery shards known as ostracon where used as ballots during ostracisms. 6:42 They learned of the invasion because Persia send envoys to various Greek city states to ask for submission before the invasion. Contrary to popular believe envoys where not send to Athens nor Sparta. 7:38 Even though the first invasion was to Punish the Athenians and Eretrians the second invasion by Persia was planned to subdue the whole of Greece and add it into the Empire. 7:38 Some Theben loyalist (loyalist because Thebes was divided at the time between the supporters of Persians and supporters of the Greeks) soldiers remained behind (also some slaves) with the Spartans to cover the retreat of the remaining Greek army. All of them where killed. 8:44 There where ancient walls around the Acropolis but old writings also mention normal walls around Athens. This however doesn't seem to be supported by archaeological records of the wall which date only back to the 478 Themistoclean walls. It is still very much debated whether Athens had walls around the city prior to 478. 8:50 Spartans didn't actually say this. They said they didn't want Athens or any city north of the Isthmus of Corinth to rebuild its walls because if the Persians return they could use such cities as easily defensible military bases. However the reasoning behind this was obviously the one I stated in the video. 10:08 I don't really have the time to try to keep track of all the changes to major buildings in Athens during the classical period, it's already hard enough trying to keep track of the many buildings that shouldn't be there because they where build later by the Romans or the buildings that I need to add through out the series due to the Cimon and Periclean building projects. Hence this is really just an "artistic representation" of Athens that I will try to make the most accurate but am aware of certain problems with it that I simply don't have the time to address. I am going with the version that the Oath of Plataea didn't happen or at least wasn't followed. 10:12 Athenians also had a small port called Phalerum that they used before building up Piraeus. Phalerum is the port you can see east of Piraeus on the map. 10:50 I try my best to pin point what Greek cities where part of the Alliance and later the League and which weren't and also when certain Greek cities joined and left during the course of the 5th century. However with that said the Delian League was large and changed over time this combined with a lot of uncertainty about the league and specially its members means I will make mistakes. My mistake in this video is that I had Magnesia as part of the league which is wrong. Magnesia was always under the Persian control. 11:53 Hammond is just one interpretation of how the league was run. For a different interpretation see Hornblower, Simon. The Greek World, 479-323 BC. 4th ed. Routledge History of the Ancient World. London: Routledge, 2011. p. 13. 11:57 This is a very hard thing to pin point because according to the stele (marbled decrees that have laws on them) that have survived until now the Athenians sometimes force the ally to swear an oath just to her while other times to her and the allies and lastly sometimes just to the alliance itself. But it is largely believed that all allies had an alliance with Athens her self as the hegemon while some allies had an alliance with Athens and the alliance. Basically not all allies had the same kind of deal with Athens and the alliance and the deal probably changed from ally to ally. 12:39 It was specially an important pilgrimage place for the Ionians who made up the bulk of the Allies at the start of the League, hence Athens was A. placating the bulk of the allies for making the meeting place such an important place to them. B. A lot of the Greeks where going to Delos for pilgrimage anyways so having a meeting there just made sense. C. Athens was starting to build up its imperial ambition and just as any good empire they wanted the empire to seem to have grace from the gods and what better way to do that than to associate the meeting place of the league with one of the most holy sites in the Greek mythology. 13:23 I show the Peloponnesian League as we believed it to look like in 480-70 however that changed later in the century just as the Delian league changed over time.

[@ChrisDyn1]

New to your channel, (Roman Pannonia drew my attention), it's good that you focus on interesting content that others haven't covered, whereas most history channels just copy each other with the same old battles that we've seen animated 10 times.

[@MLaserHistory]

@@ChrisDyn1 Sadly animating those battles we have seen 10 times is what gets views on KZbin that's why so many people do it.

[@TheBearGrappler]

Please pick a food or a famous dish of a country, and do a history of it. PLEASE 🙏 I thought that Italy got much of its food ideas from China, but I could be wrong....

[@ConnorQuimby]

There’s a whole new meaning to Big Stick Diplomacy, Sparta

[@Sandra.Molchanova]

I actually like the 'real' story of Marathon even better than the romantic one. It wasn't just one dude running in full armour, it was the whole army! Ain't that awesome?!

[@geordiejones5618]

Way more badass. If they hadn't made it in time, the Persians could have made the Greek victory into a strategic defeat for Athens.

[@papapok13]

All right, historical square videos are officially a genre now.

[@MLaserHistory]

I think they where a genre for a while now. All hail creator Civlis!

[@papapok13]

@@MLaserHistory I'm not sure if he was the first, but he definitely made it popular.

[@pierresihite8854]

Were you inspired by Historia Civillis?

[@MLaserHistory]

Yes very much so. After my Hansa video I decided squares and geographical shapes where much easier to animated and edit than actually drawing people. Specially since this is going to be a series of videos and there will be a lot of people coming in and going as the series goes along.

[@lucber75]

@@MLaserHistory I think a part of what made the hansa video great was the drawings of the people. It made it a lot more personal in a way.

[@MLaserHistory]

@@lucber75 Yeah I understand but it took me like 5 months to make that video and for that much work it really didn't do all too well, so it's kind of hard to justify that much work. Thankfully I had the raid sponsorship which helped a lot but yeah. Considering the Czechoslovakia video took me 1/5 of the time to make than the Hansa video and got triple the amount of views, you as a creator really need to think about how much work is actually worth putting in. Hence why for this series I decided to stick to the Civilis animation style, it seems to have worked out well for him anyways.

[@pierresihite8854]

@@MLaserHistory nice im diggin this new style

[@lucber75]

@@MLaserHistory I get the time-views part of it. I also think it works good, especially with the time aspect I would imagine. Just wanted to acknowledge the very good video, I liked it a lot.

[@Sleepy_zx]

This helps me understand everything that happened in assassins creed odyssey

[@MLaserHistory]

Ou in future videos we'll delve deeper in to the time when Odyssey actually took place. Everything will make even more sense then.

[@Sleepy_zx]

M. Laser History very exciting

[@dazzer3795]

Great video as always. Is there a chance you might cover the Slovak uprising of 1848-49 at some point?

[@MLaserHistory]

Uff probably at some point, specially if I get an excuse to talk about it like Project Homing gave me an excuse to talk about the formation of Czechoslovakia but over all honestly it wasn't really that big of a deal historically speaking so if I where going to talk about it, it would most likely be in a general context of all the ethnic tensions and uprising happening in AH (well just called Austria actually but whatever) during that time.

[@dazzer3795]

@@MLaserHistory Understood, thanks for the answer. Very happy to see Slovak youtube historians with professional videos.

[@ArchaiaHistoria]

What’s going on here? Get outta my turf!

[@MLaserHistory]

Muhahahaha

[@Armorius2199]

You guys should do a collab one day.

[@ArchaiaHistoria]

Wouldn’t that be a crazy idea

[@charlesbaker7703]

It's said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

[@MLaserHistory]

@@ArchaiaHistoria I don't know ... have you ever meat Archaia, he's kind of a diva to work with. :D

[@realkekz]

Severely underwatched video for such a good youtuber

[@MLaserHistory]

Yeah I did think this one would get more views than it actually did but ou well.

[@realkekz]

@@MLaserHistory Well, ya can't win em all! I personally have much enjoyed your many series on the Balkans and Eastern Europe. The videos about Hungary and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were great!

[@asinicalnarcissist9520]

thanks heaps, learning about this in Uni as an elective :D

[@ThistlewickTheGhost]

just so you know, this Athens playlist is backwards! They have to go in descending order if you want them to be watchable in order

[@Lord_Lambert]

fantastic video, thank you for making it :)

[@Lingist081]

Good video

[@MLaserHistory]

Thank you.

[@KHK001]

Great video!

[@matthewd.d238]

2:37 Let’s just say they did a Marathon

[@liamvervecken3231]

I see you took the Historia Civilis route and just made people into squares. Gotta say I prefer the style from your last video, still very much enjoyed this though.

[@MLaserHistory]

Yeah I hear you. I am talking about it in this comment thread. kzbin.info/www/bejne/sHeZkJJvn6edabc&lc=UgwcJZRuukkIDNWsQCx4AaABAg

[@xoumpasaxos4887]

Very good video. Keep up the good work

[@B3ni4mjn]

Wuuhhhhhh Your the best

[@balsakovacevic8423]

I feel sad that I can only subscribe to you once per account.

[@MLaserHistory]

I am not supporting any bad behavior ... but botnets exist, wink wink nudge nudge :D

[@konstantinosmas3950]

It’s Miltiades not militiadis.

[@alexiossauromates7017]

Any plans on doing a vid on the diadochi topic? there are enough vids about athens and sparta on youtube but only few on the hellenistic period.

[@MLaserHistory]

Ahh no Kings and Generals did that much better than I ever could. Also I don't think I ever saw any good video on the Athenian Empire. That's why I am making this series. That and the fact that I have been encouraged to do it by my former classics professor who I really admire. I also find classical Athens interesting, specially because everyone gets ostracized :D and the democracy/empire theme is very interesting as you would think it would be a giant contrast.

[@alexiossauromates7017]

@@MLaserHistory Yes they do a good job but they focus more on the military and not so much on econemy, dynastic problems and in general about the typical life in that time. But ya u are right about the athenai empire. it is a giant contrast and is interesting.

[@yng_jngwn4031]

awesome video. i want ask if where do you agree? In the establishment of delian league or peloponnesian league?and why tho? waiting for your answer☺️

[@MLaserHistory]

I am sorry I don't think I understand your question.

[@yng_jngwn4031]

uhm lets says if you're gonna choose between these two league what would you choose and why?

[@MLaserHistory]

@@yng_jngwn4031 Even though both leagues where very imperialistic the Spartans where far more controlling when it came to their allies than Athens was. Don't get me wrong Athens did definetly strong armed their allies on many occasions but there was always at least some kind of a bureaucratic system set up in which you could appeal your case in front of the Athenian people. Spartans had nothing like this. What they said was final. So to answer, I would say Athens.

[@yng_jngwn4031]

okay thanks :)

[@onbedoeldekut1515]

What was happening at the same time elsewhere?

[@panagiotismagos3649]

Incredible video

[@MLaserHistory]

Thanks, sadly this video didn't really do that well.

[@panagiotismagos3649]

@@MLaserHistory And its a shame, too. Sometimes the algorithm just doesnt like the video for whatever reason. Although the quality is unquestionably incredible and even I as a greek learnt new stuff about it (despite the fact we learn about the time period three times in total at elementary-middle school-high school) I suppose there isnt going to be a part 2, is there?

[@MLaserHistory]

@@panagiotismagos3649 ou there is don't worry. My schedule is just always packed with other stuff since I don't do KZbin full time so it takes a while for me to get around to doing follow up videos. I will, however, promise you that there will be at least another follow up video to this one in 2021, when exactly this year though, I can't say. Release date < 12 months :D

[@panagiotismagos3649]

@@MLaserHistory Nice! Although make sure not to pressure yourself too much :)

[@juulianhilser2563]

The Boule presents Cereal

[@rivets3259]

“I don’t even know when the next video in this series will be!!” 1 year later and it’s still the first

[@MLaserHistory]

At least you can't say I was lying ;D But you'll be happy to know I am finally working on the sequel.

[@paulus121212]

except for the London marathon which is 42.195 kilometres (26.219 miles)

[@MLaserHistory]

cough cough pinned comment cough cough

[@paulus121212]

@@MLaserHistory yes I saw but thought I would add name and distance in miles too

[@charlesbaker7703]

Is there a link to the Athenian government chart at 0:25?

[@MLaserHistory]

It's on wikipedia, although the chart shows Athenian government in the 4th century so there are some differences from that in how the government looked and worked in the 5th century which is where we are now in the video. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athenian_democracy

[@dr_lubaba]

Can u make videos about history of indian subcontinent? (please make it happen🥺)

[@MLaserHistory]

Ufff I am very sorry but I know as much Indian and sub Saharan Africa history as the next guy. Not really areas I am particularly interested in to be honest. I am sure they have amazing history to tell and learn about it's just personally not for me. The closest I would ever get would maybe be talking about the Indus Valley Civilisation but that's a long way away with my upload schedule.

[@salter429]

don't mind the persian leaving a like and comment over here.

[@siechamontillado]

Love all the information, however, it would be great if you could slow down just a little bit or put in a few real pauses, not just a quick breath and then another sprint thru a sentence.

[@MLaserHistory]

I agree this video could have been paced a bit better but I was a bit tied since I really needed to condense entire herodotus in to one video. Next video should be slowed down and better paced.

[@siechamontillado]

@@MLaserHistory Oh man, that's a lot of ground to cover in one video! Looking forward to the next vid!

[@victorstroganov8135]

It seems you have a sort of Swedish accent. Similar to Lemino

[@MLaserHistory]

NEXT UP on Lemino M. Laser channel we will look at in excruciating detail the Eleusinian Mysteries. How mysterious were they? Were any drugs involved? Is this ever actually going to happen? Find out more in the FUTURE!

[@victorstroganov8135]

M. Laser History exactly!

[@history.mp4993]

Swear to God I thought you were the istoria Greek history guy

[@MLaserHistory]

sssssssssssssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh we do not speak his name in these parts :D

[@chickenusgoddus464]

Are people from euboe (chalcis?) Called eritrean?

[@MLaserHistory]

Eretria and Czhalcis where city states on Euboea. Euboea is the name of the island.

[@chickenusgoddus464]

@@MLaserHistory oh thank you for clearing that up

[@apostolispouliakis7401]

Euboea is the island anyone from there is Eubean and the island has many cities including Chalcis and Eretria but also many others and hence if you are from Eretria you are an Eretrian, and a Eubean