Latest / Ancient Greece: Philosophy, Democracy, and Endless War — Fexingo History / The Oath of Plataea and the Destruction of Athens
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about the Persian Wars — Salamis, Plataea, all that. But one thing I've always found fascinating is what happened right after the Greeks won. The Persians had sacked Athens, burned the Acropolis, destroyed all the temples. Luna: Right, I remember that from the episode on Salamis — Xerxes' retreat left Athens in ruins. Lucas: Exactly. And for a generation, the Athenians left those ruins exactly as they were. They didn't rebuild the temples for nearly thirty years. And there's a famous ancient document that supposedly explains why — the Oath of Plataea. Luna: I've heard of that — wasn't it an oath the Greeks swore before the battle of Plataea? Lucas: That's the tradition. According to the fourth-century BC Athenian orator Lycurgus, and later Diodorus Siculus, the Greek allies swore an oath before the battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Among its provisions, they vowed not to rebuild any of the temples that the Persians had destroyed, but to leave them as 'monuments of the barbarians' impiety'. Luna: That would explain the long delay — but is it real? Lucas: That's the million-dollar question. The Oath of Plataea survives in a third-century AD inscription from Acharnae, and it's also quoted by later writers. But many historians doubt its authenticity. For one thing, it includes anachronisms — like a reference to a military formation that didn't exist in 479. And Herodotus, our main source for the Persian Wars, never mentions any such oath. He does say the Greeks swore an oath before Plataea, but he doesn't give the text. Luna: So it might have been invented later, maybe to justify something? Lucas: Exactly. The most popular theory is that it was a fourth-century invention, possibly by the Athenians themselves, to explain why the old temples hadn't been rebuilt — or to score political points against someone. But if it's a forgery, it's a very old one. The inscription from Acharnae dates to around 330 BC, so within fifty years of Lycurgus' speech. And the text itself is remarkably consistent with other fourth-century documents. Luna: But if the oath was real, then Pericles broke it when he built the Parthenon, right? Lucas: That's the tension. The Parthenon was built between 447 and 438 BC, on top of the ruins of an older temple that the Persians had destroyed. If the oath was binding, then Pericles and his generation were violating a sacred vow. And some ancient critics did accuse Pericles of impiety — or at least of hubris — for using Delian League funds to build the Parthenon. But the Athenians themselves apparently didn't see it that way. They considered the new temple a victory monument, not a reconstruction. Luna: Huh — so the Parthenon was more like a trophy than a replacement? Lucas: In a way, yes. The old temple, which we sometimes call the Older Parthenon or the Hekatompedon, was still in ruins on the Acropolis. The new one was built on a different alignment, using a different design. And the sculptural program — the metopes, the frieze — deliberately evoked the Persian Wars. The centaurs and Amazons on the metopes were allegories for the Greeks vs. barbarians. The frieze shows the Panathenaic procession, which was a festival that had been expanded after the Persian Wars. So the Parthenon was very much a monument to victory, not just a temple. Luna: But if the oath was a later invention, then the delay in rebuilding might have had other reasons. What are the alternatives? Lucas: For one thing, the Athenians were exhausted. Their city was destroyed, their population was displaced, and they spent the first few years just rebuilding houses and walls. Themistocles famously rushed to rebuild the city walls before the Spartans could stop them. Temples were a lower priority. Also, there was a religious taboo — you couldn't just rebuild a temple on the same spot if the old one had been 'killed' by impious hands. You had to perform purification rituals, and maybe the Athenians were waiting for the right time. Luna: That's a fascinating detail — a temple could be 'killed'? Lucas: The Greeks believed that a temple was the house of a god, and if it was violated, it became polluted. The Persians had not only burned the temples but also looted the cult statues. So the site was considered ritually unclean. There's a story that when the Athenians finally did rebuild, they used the same foundation stones but only after a great purification. And the new temple, the Parthenon, was dedicated to Athena Parthenos — Athena the Virgin — which might have been a way of starting fresh. Luna: So the oath might not have been necessary — the religious scruples alone could explain the delay. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why the debate over the Oath of Plataea is so interesting. It's not just a yes/no question about whether a document is authentic. It's about how the Athenians themselves thought about the past, how they used memory and ritual to shape their identity. The oath, whether real or invented, became a powerful symbol of Greek unity and piety. And even if it was a fourth-century creation, it tells us a lot about how later Greeks imagined the Persian Wars. Luna: This reminds me of something — we've been talking about the Oath of Plataea and the rebuilding of temples, and I realize we haven't mentioned how this show itself works. We put a lot of time into researching these details, and we keep the show completely ad-free. No commercials, no sponsors. If that kind of deep-dive history matters to you, and you want to support us keeping it that way, there's a simple way to do it. Lucas: Yeah, it's at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Just a small contribution helps us keep the research going and the show independent. No pressure, but if you enjoy these conversations, it's a great way to be part of it. Luna: Alright, back to the ruins. So the Parthenon eventually got built, but what about the other temples on the Acropolis? Lucas: The Erechtheion, for example, wasn't built until the 420s BC, during the Peloponnesian War. That was the temple dedicated to Athena and Poseidon, and it housed the sacred olive wood statue of Athena — the one that supposedly fell from the sky. The Athenians deliberately built it on the site of the old temple that the Persians had burned, and they even incorporated the scorched ruins into the new structure. You can still see the marks of the fire. So in a way, they kept the memory of the Persian destruction alive. Luna: That's almost the opposite of what the oath demanded — they preserved the ruins as a reminder. Lucas: Exactly. And that's the paradox. The Oath of Plataea said to leave the ruins as monuments of impiety. But the Athenians eventually rebuilt, and when they did, they incorporated the old ruins into the new temples. So they were both honoring the oath and breaking it at the same time. Or maybe the oath was never intended to apply to the Acropolis. The original oath might have only covered temples in the countryside. We just don't know. Luna: So for a listener trying to make sense of this, what's the bottom line? Was the oath real or not? Lucas: Most modern scholars lean toward 'not real' — at least not in the form we have it. The anachronisms and the silence of Herodotus are strong evidence. But the idea of the oath — that the Greeks made a collective vow to leave the Persian destruction as a warning — that idea was very real to later Greeks. And it shaped how they remembered the war. So even if the document is a forgery, the sentiment behind it is historically important. Luna: It's like a myth that became more powerful than any fact. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a theme that runs through all of Greek history — the way myth and history intertwine. The Oath of Plataea is just one example. But it's a good one, because it forces us to ask: what do we really know about the past, and how much of what we think we know is actually a story we tell ourselves?