Abstract
An early success in business through the foresight of a brilliant individual created the foundation of a city state under a newly founded democracy, and the brilliant “marriage” of private initiative to a state mechanism created a new form of a state which went on to become the foundation of western civilization. This early form of primitive socialism under the guidance of enlightened individuals further created the first notable sea empire in Europe; but its origins went back to the policies of an individual who achieved a successful formula balancing wisely private and state finances, which ensured the employment of most of the city state’s poor citizens by guaranteeing an annual state salary through the state employment of the free but financially underprivileged citizens in the business of the state. The dawn of the classical age was thus based on a happy balance between the private individual and state employment.
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References
The literature and scholarship on the battle of Marathon and its aftermath are vast. The best summary is provided in the old, yet still reliable work, by Burn A. R. (1984). Persia and the Greeks. Stanford: Stanford University Press. For a more recent assessment and for an up-to- date bibliography, cf. Lacey, J. (2011). The first clash: The miraculous Greek victory at Marathon and its impact on western civilization. New York: Bantam Books; Buraselis, K., & Meidani, K. (Eds.). (2010). Marathon: The battle and the Ancient Deme. Athens: Institut du Livre A. Kardamitsa; and Krentz, P. (2010). The battle of Marathon. New Haven/London: Yale University Press.
The Greeks were first exposed to large amounts luxurious items from Persia at this time; cf., e.g., the case of Kallias Hipponikou, who became a wealthy man through the spoils won at Marathon and his hidden store there, out which he derived his comic nickname Lakkoploutos (“Pit rich”). On these and other Persian spoils that came into the possession of the Greeks, cf. Miller, M. C. (1997). Athens and Persia in the fifth century BC: A study in cultural receptivity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. For Persia’s economy and finances which tended to hoard gold, in spite of the famous gold daric coins, cf., in general, Boardman, J. (2000). Persia and the west: An archaeological investigation of the genesis of Achaemenid art. London: Thames & Hudson.
It should be stressed that archaeologically speaking no trireme has been discovered, as timber deteriorates in water; thus only the evidence from metal rams and one particular marble relief in Acropolis Museum (inventory number: 1339) can be used to reconstruct a trireme nowadays; nevertheless the scholarship that has led to the reconstruction of the modern trireme named Olympias (which has been commissioned in the Greek navy) has been gathered by Morrison, J. S., Coates, J. F., & Rankov, N. B. (2000). The Athenian trireme: The history and reconstruction of an Ancient Greek warship. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
For the trireme in action, and specifically during the battle of Salamis, cf. Strauss, B. (2005). The battle of Salamis: The naval encounter that saved Greece – and western civilization. New York: Simon & Schuster.
The best scholarly biography of Themistokles remains that of Podlecki, A. j. (1975). The life of Themistocles: A critical survey of the literary and archaeological evidence. Montreal/London: McGill-Queen’s University Press.
“Byzantine” is a term that should be strictly employed to designate the inhabitants of the ancient Greek colony of Megara, Byzantium. The application of this adjective to the Greeks of the Middle Ages dates back to the seventeenth century, when French antiquarians first coined it. It is further unfortunate that Gibbon’s towering influence has colored “Byzantine” with its familiar pejorative dimension. The term “Greek” might not be deemed inappropriate if language and religion were to count as criteria for ethnicity. After all, the language of the average Greek of the quattrocento did not differ radically from the spoken idiom of the nineteenth century and citizens of the modern Hellenic Republic could have understood the spoken idiom of Constantine’s subjects with relative ease. Moreover, the religion of the vast majority of modern Greek-speakers is still Orthodox Christianity which has miraculously survived organized Islamic persecution, forced conversions, and the brutal policies of Ottoman masters throughout “the Dark Age” of modern Greece. Thus, while one may be charged with anachronism if one were to maintain that the Palaiologan coda of the Greek empire was the seminal form of the modern Greek nation, I believe that it is neither anachronistic nor unnatural to employ the term “Greek” for the Christian Greek-speakers of the late medieval Balkans and of Constantinople in the fifteenth century.
On these events and the historical background, cf. Philippides, M., & Hanak, W. K. (2011). The siege and fall of Constantinople in 1453: Historiography, topography, and military studies. Farnham Surrey: Ashgate.
I analyze the finances of the Constantinopolitan court in Philippides M. (forthcoming). Constantine XI Palaeologus (1404–1453): A biography of the last Greek emperor. New York/Athens: Melissa International Ltd.
On this sultan, cf. Philippides, M. (2007). Mehmed II the conqueror and the fall of the Franco-Byzantine Levant to the Ottoman Turks: Some western views and testimonies. Tempe: Arizona State University Press.
English translation of this work by Philippides M. (1990). Byzantium, Europe, and the Early Ottoman Sultans 1373–1513: An anonymous Greek chronicle of the seventeenth century (Codex Barberinus Graecus 111). New Rochelle/New York: Aristide D. Caratzas.
Ibid.
Composed by the eyewitness physician Niccolo Barbaro on duty aboard the Venetian galleys guarding the Golden Horn and the Constantinopolitan harbor. For a modern edition of his text cf. Pertusi, A. (1976). La Caduta di Costantinopoli 1: Le Testimonianze dei Contemporanei. Verona: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla.
On this controversial figure, cf. Philippides, M., & Hanak, W. K. (2011). The siege and fall of Constantinople in 1453: Historiography, topography, and military studies. Farnham Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited, Chapter 4 and Appendix 2.
For an edition and English translation, with discussion, of this neglected text, cf. Philippides, M. (forthcoming). Constantine XI Palaeologus (1404–1453): A biography of the last Greek emperor. New York/Athens: Melissa International Ltd, Appendix 5; for survivors of this family in Italy, cf. ibid., Appendix 6.
For the text and its background, cf. Philippides, M. (1980). The fall of the Byzantine empire: A chronicle by George Sphrantzes 1401–1477. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press.
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Philippides, M. (2012). An Ancient Business Success and a Medieval Business Failure: Lessons in Ethics from Old Business Approaches and Practices. In: Prastacos, G., Wang, F., Soderquist, K. (eds) Leadership through the Classics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-32445-1_23
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