Diogenes is famous today because of a search he undertook. He sup- posedly walked through Athens during the day holding a lit lamp. The lamp, he said, was to help him find an honest man. Diogenes was making an ironic comment. He obviously did not need the lamp during the day, and he did really not think he would ever find a truly honest man. Today, people refer to Diogenes and his lamp when they want to highlight the dif- ficulty of learning the truth, or when they embark on what seems to be a fruitless quest.
Zeno of Citium (c. 335–c. 263 B.C.E.) founded the Stoic school of
philosophy in about 300 B.C.E. Stoics taught that true wisdom came from
throwing off passions and practicing virtue, regardless of any anxiety that might result. Today, a stoic person is not affected by strong feelings and disregards personal comfort in order to achieve greater goals, such as wis- dom and integrity.
The fifth-century B.C.E. Sophists were traveling
teachers who, for a fee, gave lessons in how to use logic to win an argument. Today, the word sophisticated describes someone who is knowledgeable and clever. (For more about Greek philosophy, see chapter 6.)
City-States Jockey for Power
As Athenian philosophers pondered virtue and justice after the end of great conflict between Athens and Sparta, the Greek world was still finding reasons to make war—although that warfare was changing. As Athens, Sparta, and Thebes spent the next 60 years vying for the position of top polis, often switching al- liances, Athens and Sparta had to make do with fewer farmer-citizens filling the hoplite ranks and more mer- cenary soldiers and armed slaves. Athens had to in- crease taxes to finance the ongoing wars, and Athenian farmers were finding it harder to sell their produce as other trading partners, such as Syracuse, had their own economies disrupted by war and invasions. Hence more people left their farms to join the armies as full- time professional soldiers. In fact, Greek soldiers were much in demand because they had been proven against the Persian Empire as among the best in the world.
Looking for Honesty
Greek philosopher Diogenes, shown here in an Italian Renaissance sculpture, is famous for the search he undertook, walking through Athens with a lamp looking for an honest man.
In 401 B.C.E., thousands of men joined the army of Cyrus the
Younger (c. 424–401 B.C.E.), a Persian satrap (provincial governor) who
was trying to wrest control of the Persian Empire from his half-brother, Ar- taxerxes (r. 404–c. 358 B.C.E.). One of the Greek mercenaries, Xenophon
(c. 431–c. 352 B.C.E.), recounted in his book Anabasis how Greek merce-
naries marched 1,500 miles to Babylon, were defeated by Artaxerxes, and marched another 2,000 miles back home (as recounted in Thomas Martin’s Ancient Greece). Although the huge venture was a failure, it fea- tured some new developments in Greek warfare that proved successful. For example, hoplites began using lighter armor and the army began making more use of men in the previously low-esteemed light-armed troops (such as archers), who protected the hoplite phalanxes at their flanks, or sides. The expedition also demonstrated that troops could travel with less bag- gage on long expeditions and scavenge provisions along the way. These les- sons would be put to use when Alexander the Great crossed the same territory later in the century—with far more success.
In 395 B.C.E., Sparta began
the Corinthian War against Corinth and its allies, Athens, Thebes, and Argos. In 394 B.C.E. it won the
largest hoplite battle since Plataea in 480 B.C.E.; it was to be Sparta’s last
peak of power in Greece. Since Sparta’s army now dominated the Greek mainland, the city-state set its sights on Greek Asia Minor, which the Persian Empire also wanted to control. Unable to take on the Per- sians, Sparta withdrew in 386 B.C.E.,
leaving rule over the Greek city- states there to the Persian Empire. Although Sparta remained the dom- inant force on mainland Greece, wealthy Persia checked Spartan power by financing a new fleet of ships for Athens. When a new Athenian naval league was formed, other city-states in the league, re- Today, a spartan lifestyle means simplicity almost to the
point of deprivation. The term, of course, comes from the ancient Greek people whose citizens lived in modest homes with little difference between those who were wealthy and those who were not. In fact, there was more equality be- tween the classes in Sparta than in a large city-state like Athens because, with the enslavement of the Messenians, no Spartan citizen had to work.
Luxury and indulgence were rejected because they en- couraged weakness. The Spartans also regarded cultural pursuits such as literature, art and music, as unnecessary. Xenophon wrote that the Spartans thought of food and drink as something of which “there should be neither too much or too little” (as quoted in The Cambridge Illustrated
History of Ancient Greece). The Columbia History of the World quotes an unnamed visitor to Sparta as saying, upon
sampling the local food, “Now I know why the Spartans do not fear death.”