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Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy, by John R. Hale
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A stirring history of the world's first dominant navy and the towering empire it built
The navy created by the people of Athens in ancient Greece was one of the finest fighting forces in the history of the world and the model for all other national navies to come. The Athenian navy built a civilization, empowered the world's first democracy, and led a band of ordinary citizens on a voyage of discovery that altered the course of history. Its defeat of the Persian fleet at Salamis in 480 BCE launched the Athenian Golden Age and preserved Greek freedom and culture for centuries. With Lords of the Sea, renowned archaeologist John Hale presents, for the first time, the definitive history of the epic battles, the indomitable ships, and the men-from extraordinary leaders to seductive rogues-who established Athens's supremacy. With a scholar's insight and a storyteller's flair, Hale takes us on an illustrated tour of the heroes and their turbulent careers and far-flung expeditions and brings back to light a forgotten maritime empire and its majestic legacy.
- Sales Rank: #766875 in Books
- Published on: 2009-05-14
- Released on: 2009-05-14
- Format: Bargain Price
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.60" h x 1.38" w x 6.38" l, 1.41 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 432 pages
From Publishers Weekly
Historian and archeologist Hale brings both skill sets to bear in this account of an Athens whose golden age and democratic institutions depended on its navy. Between 489 and 322 B.C., Athens built, ruled and lost an empire extending from the Aegean to the Black Sea. The sea permeated every sphere of Athenian life, and most well-known Athenians were identified with sea power: Thucydides and Sophocles commanded fleets. The fleets were based on triremes, reflecting a doctrine favoring the craft and cunning of the steersman and rowers over brute force. Those skills were a product of the commitment and cooperation of free men who played an increasing role in Athenian politics at the expense of those better off and higher born. In times of crisis, all free adult males were expected to board the triremes. Athens's rule of the sea came to an end when a cabal of aristocrats betrayed the fleet to the Macedonians. And that was possible only because the mysterious spiritual essence sustaining Athenian effort and sacrifice had been lost as well. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Hale has enjoyed a career as an archaeologist, including underwater searches for ancient warships. Here he examines the origins, growth, and campaigns of the great Athenian fleet, which helped make Athens the most powerful polis in Greece for most of the fifth century BC. After the defeat of the Persian army at Marathon in 490 BC., the Archon Themistocles urged his fellow citizens to build a large fleet to counter further Persian invasions. Financed by the windfall of silver from the nearby mines at Laurium, the Athenians soon constructed a fleet of over 300 triremes, the most advanced naval vessels in the eastern Mediterranean. Athenian naval supremacy held the Persians at bay and formed the basis for the Delian League, used by Athens to build a maritime empire. Hale follows the campaigns of the fleet through the Peloponnesian War and the supremacy of the Macedonians under Alexander the Great. His efforts to link Athenian naval growth to the growth of democratic institutions will be disputed by many historians. Still, this is a well-written, stirring chronicle. --Jay Freeman
Review
"Nobody knows more about the history of oared ships around the world than John Hale, and he combines with it a knowledge of and love for the ancient Athenians that helps explain their achievement. To provide a new angle from which to view and understand the experience of the Athenians of the Classical age is a remarkable feat, but Lords of the Sea accomplishes just that. The writing is utterly captivating and makes the reader feel he is back in ancient Athens among the great poets, historians, sculptors, architects, soldiers and sailors, all of whom were connected in important ways to the Athenian navy."
- Donald Kagan, author of The Peloponnesian War
"The dazzling moment of Golden Age Athens was built on democracy, silver, reason and power. It was arguably the most creative moment in history, when western architecture, philosophy, drama and politics were all given their fundamental form. Behind it all was the Athenian navy, its life and fortunes described here with exemplary clarity and a vivid engagement with the visceral realities of battle and the sea. John Hale combines fluent readability with up-to-date scholarship and a sense that in these pages you are witnessing not only a driving collective enterprise but the foundation-level struggles of our own world. This is tour de force of historical imagination."
- Adam Nicolson Author of the New York Times bestsellers God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible and Seize the Fire: Heroism, Duty, and Nelson's Battle of Trafalgar
"Hale's simple but vigorous sentences prick up your ears from the first page... one hopes to hear more from him."
-New York Times (Dwight Garner)
"Compulsively readable...history so brilliantly told that, like the Athenian democracy, it is truly for all people."
-Louisville Courier-Journal (David Jones)
"Absorbing reading for those interested in either Greek or naval history...well- documented, with numerous maps, a chronology and glossary."
-Charleston Post and Courier (Lisa Isringhausen)
"You'd have to be half asleep to not become hooked by the first few paragraphs of Hale's Lords of the Sea."
-Cleveland Plain Dealer (Jean Dubail)
Most helpful customer reviews
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful.
A book which will entrance some but tax others
By Marc E. Nicholson
John Hale is among the world's leading authorities on the ancient Athenian navy. He also is a straightforward and clear writer whose narratives move swiftly. But his book raises question as to just how much the average lay reader needs to know about that navy. The first 100 (in particular the first 40) pages of his book are fascinating in describing ancient warship designs, exactly how the ships were built, basic ancient naval tactics, the origin of Athens' fundamental decision to rest its future on naval power, and how that decision may have influenced Athenian politics. In the latter regard, Hale argues that Athens' switch to reliance on naval power, which depended on its lower class citizens to row those ships--as vs. previous reliance on infantry and cavalry manned by the upper classes who could afford body armor and horses--moved Athens towards a more genuine democracy by imbuing its more humble citizens with a spirit of reform and greater participation. It's a tantalizing and persuasive theory, though at a distance of 2500 years it's difficult conclusively to link institutional developments to political sociology or to apportion causation as between the masses and the great leaders (Pericles and others) who actually initiated and led the reform process.
After those first 50-100 pages, the 318 page book (not including footnotes and bibliography) becomes primarily a campaign/battle history of the Athenian Navy over the 150 year period from the Persian Wars through the Peloponessian Wars and the Macedonian conquest of Greece. Hale does a very good job of describing the campaigns and major battles, and the book contains excellent maps illustrating a number of them. But for the average layman, this "one battle after another" narrative may prove tedious. Occasionally, it is enlivened by tales of the clever wiles of commanders who deceived their opponents...in an age when such tactics made a difference before our modern era of battle outcomes largely determined by meat-grinder logistics. It also occasionally offers interesting illustrations of the inclusion of naval themes and issues in the writings of the major Greek philosophers and playwrights. Still, if you are not a battle "buff," the lengthy combat narrative--however well done--will tax your patience.
So how one responds to this book will depend considerably on what he is seeking. If you want a general view of the Athenian Navy and how it influenced Athenian society, you can confine yourself to about the first 50-100 pages. If you are a military history fan who wants a blow-by-blow account of the major Athenian naval campaigns during the era of Athens' naval supremacy, then you will enjoy the entire book. It's either a 3-star or a 5-star rating depending on one's interests. Mine led me to rate the book as 3 stars, but afficionados of fine-grain battle history will--with justice--give it 5 stars.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful.
Athens: Good. Sparta: Bad. Navy = Democracy: good!
By Ramesh Gopal
Discussions of Athens and Sparta in the Classical Greek era tend to be ideological. In the 19th century scholars compared the conflict to that between Britain and Napoleonic France. In the 20th it was the West vs. the Soviet Union. The fact is that Athens left us monuments and literature, while Sparta left only memories of stern, military men. In this book John Hale basically offers a selective reading of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon and some others focusing on naval affairs. The premise that enrolling lower class Athenians as rowers in the navy made them hungry for political power and so led to democracy is not a new one. Hale describes key moments in naval history in almost novelized form. The egalitarian navy was the basis of Athenian power, led to democracy, which in turn paved the way for the glories of the Classical Golden Age. This is a simple story, with an obvious appeal to modern western sensibility.
Readers can enjoy this story but should also be aware of some uncomfortable issues: Democratic reforms began in Athens well before the glory days of the navy and many other poleis had navies without becoming democracies. If Spartans were all brawn and no brain, slow to adapt and in Thucydides words 'the perfect enemies' because of their bumbling, then how to explain that they WON the war? Moreover, they did it by adapting and building a navy, not having had one before, and winning the so called Ionian phase of the war at sea. Their navy did not lead to democracy either. Hale gets around this problem by extending his scope beyond our traditional understanding of the Peloponnesian War to Athens' eventual (but brief) resurgence and Sparta's decline. This is like saying that in our own times Germany really won WWII because if we merge WWII with the Cold War we can claim that Germany eventually became the powerhouse of Europe while Britain lost its Empire and dwindled away.
The other subtle problem is that Athenian democracy was not an unalloyed good. The concept of `democracy at home, but dictatorship abroad' was first used to describe Athens' behavior in the 5th century BCE towards its so-called allies. It is clear from Thucydides that the Athenians were rash, bellicose and inconsistent. The stability of the Spartan government begins to look more admirable. Finally, Socrates' death sentence was probably the last straw that turned thinkers like Thucydides, Plato and Aristotle away from democracy. Turning the argument on its head, Plato perceived the navy as the enemy of peace and good government and used his story of Atlantis as a cautionary allegorical tale about the pitfalls of naval power. Finally, neither democracy nor the navy proved much use against Philip and Alexander of Macedon.
So, readers should enjoy the survey of Classical Greek history but take with a pinch of salt the paean to the Athenian Navy and democracy.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful.
A gem for Christmas!
By JPS
First posted on Amazon.co.uk on 29 November 2011
This book was first published in October 2010 and, as another reviewer mentioned, it made an excellent Christmas present. It still does this year. The author is an archeologist specialised in underwater searches for ancient warships. His story of the "rise and fall" of the Athenian Navy is outstanding, compelling, fascinating and backed by flawless research (or, more modestly, I should say that I didn't find any!).
Although this is NOT a historical novel, you sometimes have the impression it is, given the way it is written. Another huge plus in favour of this book is that it is written in such a way that you are reading a story rather than digesting the history of one of the first major naval powers. In addition, John Hale manages the rare feat of explaining technicalities, such as the conception of Athenian trirèmes, how they were built to emphasize speed and swiftness, how the favorite Athenian battle tactics made the maximum use of the ships' design, what this implied in terms of training, maintainance and organization and how some of the ships could be adapted and converted into troop or horse transports to carry expeditionary forces overseas.
But, above everything else, and while following a chronological order, the author presents those that, in his mind, were the real "heroes" that, in addition to finance, organization and ship building skills, allowed Athens to "rule the waves" for most of the 5th century and restablish most of their city's dominance through most of the next century: these were the crews (rowers and sailors) that came from the lower classes which could not afford to fight as hoplites and even less as horsemen. While some might find that John Hale tends to "wax lyrical" on these, they -
and the fleet that they manned and which could not exist without them, were clearly the mainstay of Athens democracy. The economic impact of paying for their very valuable services -unlike what some still believe, they were full citizens - integrated them and allowed to effectively participate in Athens' political life. The importance of the ship crews was clearly shown when, during the last years of the Long War against Sparta, the latter managed to challenge Athens at sea thanks to Persian gold which allowed Sparta to outbid Athens by offering higher pay. At this point, however, losses on both sides had been such that a large portion of rowers were hired men (or mercenaries, if you prefer) rather than the poorest citizens of Athens.
The last strong point I want to emphasize is the story of Athens' decline. As the last section of the book makes clear, this started by a "Rebirth" as Athens recovered most (but not all) of its naval supremacy and strived to maintain it after having lost the Pelopenisian War against Sparta and its allies. However, Athens had become much more vulnerable in the long-run. Despite its efforts, it could no longer draw the same level of resources from what had been its "allies" of the First Delian League. In fact, it could no longer stop LIgue members from quitting the Alliance if they saw fit to do so. In additional to financial strains, and as Athens' population had increased considerably since 480, it had had to increasingly import most of its grain from overseas. This was probably one of the main reasons for the expeditions to help Egypt's revolt against the Persian Empire in the early 460s and for the expedition to Sicily between 415 and 413, both of which were disasters. This left Athens having to import most of its grain from the Bosphoros which became its main lifeline.
"The Last Battle", as the last chapter is entitled, tells the story of the Athenian fleet, and its weaknesses, in the revolt against the Macedonians just after the death of Alexander. This was indeed the last battle (in fact, they were at least two, both defeats) and the author clearly explains why. Although Athens would still be dragged into a number of conflicts between Alexander's Successors and would even wage wars of its own against Macedonia, these would essentially take place on land for there was no more a large fleet.
This is fantastic book that I can only urge you to read, once again. If not quite the best book I have read over the last twelve months (and I read a lot), then it is a very close second.
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