Athens support of Corcyra had seen hostilities once again develop with Corinth who had been engaged in a dispute with the island polis. Athens would send ships to support Corcyra, as the Corinthian set sail to impose their will. Out of this affair would see the battle of Sybota take place and with it the first engagement seeing Athenian and Corinthian ships openly fight one another. This would see tension raised further and questions around the official statue between the two. Once the Athenians had learnt of what had taken place around Corcyra, they saw that war with Corinth was likely. They ..read more

Athens had now taken the decision to send aide to Corcyra after having swayed from one side of the argument to the other. However, the assistance would be limited, with it being defensive in nature. Athens would send a small force of 10 triremes to Corcyra to lend their support with the commanders being instructed they were to only engage the Corinthians if Corcyrean territory was directly threatened. This decision taken by Athens did not deter the Corinthians however, they would still set in motion the fleet that had been assembled. This would end up seeing the Corcyrean and Corinthian fleets ..read more

The analogy of a powder keg in historical events it often used to describe a volatile situation that is waiting to explode into something larger. The most famous example of this is the events leading up to the breakout of World War 1. A seemingly remote region in the Balkans would see an act of violence take place that would end up embroiling all the empires within Europe in the most destructive war to that time. A similar powder keg situation would develop in the ancient Greek world just before the breakout of the Peloponnesian War. This would be in a region north of Greece on the Albanian co ..read more

Athens had extinguished another fire in the Aegean when the island of Samos and Miletus, both Delian League members had gone to war with each other. Athens would assist Miletus seeing Samos revolt, though after a couple years Samos was back in the league. However, this had highlighted weaknesses in Athens control around its empire as other areas had also followed Samos’ example, including the important city of Byzantium. With the major threats dealt with, Athens now turned to securing the edges of its empire to see their interests were better protected. This would see three major areas focused ..read more

This is a teaser of the bonus episode, Contact n the East, found over on Patreon. We are now moving on with our bonus episode out of the early development of Athens and Sparta. This will now see us focuing on the theme of the Greek and Persian War. We had covered this period over quite a number of episodes in the series previously, though from a narrative perspective. This time around I want to go back and put certain topics in the spot light, allowing us to explore them a little deeper. For our first episode around the Greco-Persian War theme I want to look at where the Greeks and Persians f ..read more

Links: https://www.odysseus-unbound.org/  Faceook  YouTube  Book: Odysseus Unbound: The Search for Homer's Ithaca  In the series we have look at some elements within Greek history that have connections to traditional tales and mythology. Some big examples of these were when we looked at the Trojan War, Mycenae and the Minoans. Well once again we are looking at historical connections to what can be found within the ancient writings of Homer, this time with a focus on the Odyssey. This episode will be focused around the idea of locating the island of Ithaca that Homer describ ..read more

We continue our look at the development of Corinth in the series. Last episode we ended with the period of tyranny that had lasted two generations and ended with the assassination of the third. However, Corinth would continue to flourish, with cultural and economic advances taking place. Corinth would end up hosting one of the Pan Hellenic games, being one of the first mainland cities to mint their own coins, while large public building would begin to dot the Acropolis. The mid-6th century would also see Corinth become part of a larger collection of city states, through the establishment of th ..read more

This is a teaser of the bonus episode, Ostracism found over on Patreon. We now continue our look at the systems and institutions that would develop in early Athens and Sparta. For this episode we will now turn the the political mechanism of Ostracism that would develop in Athens after the period of tyranny that had existed there in the last half of the 6th century BC. We will look at what Ostracism was and what its purpose was. We will look at why it would develop, by understanding the pervious phase of Athenian politics. Then we will look at examples of ostracism being used into the Classica ..read more

The polis of Corinth has remained in the background of events as we have travelled through the narrative of the series so far. Now though, we have reached a point, the years leading to the break out of the Peloponnesian War, where Corinth starts to feature in the ancient sources on a more regular basis. This would be through diplomatic dealings, both within the Peloponnesian league and on larger Greek matters involving Athens. For this reason, we are going to take a short break in the narrative to properly acquaint ourselves with this city state that would become more important in affaires goi ..read more

Athens and Sparta had now entered into an agreement known as the 30 years’ peace, seeing the first Peloponnesian come to an end. This would see the creation of two spheres of influence within Greek lands that they would now turn their attention to. In Athens, Pericles would now also see a challenge to his influence within the Athenian political system. All accounts in the sources indicate that the rise of the conservative faction would be the toughest fight Pericles would have to endure to date. Revolts within the Athenian Empire would continue through the 440’s, though we would not get any ac ..read more