The History Room
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Moderator: so it's my pleasure to um to introduce and moderate this conversation with with uh with dr hansen on on why did the free city state disappear so thank you so much for being here dr hansen thank you for having me
Victor Davis Hanson: uh i understand that it's not popular in scholarship in general and classical studies in particular to make sweeping generalizations about uh that at any particular point in society collapses because when we talk about the end of the free city states we're not talking about their complete obliteration they continue um after the battle of karenia if we want to take that point in their loss of autonomy in 338 bc or if you prefer the lamian war on the death of alexander in their brief revolt which was put down they continued under the successor kingdoms until their absorption by rome but and they're not certainly they didn't uh all the city-states didn't suffer the fate of classical thieves in 330 uh five that was destroyed by alexander the great and the entire population enslavement the city leveled with exception supposedly of pandora's house and so they're not like they're not like the the fate of knee loss or thieves so there is a continuation and then these questions of why these major major historical developments happen they really don't have simple answers we don't know why for example the western empire fell in the last portion of the fifth century a.d but the byzantine eastern empire continued for a thousand years gibbons said christianity remember 200 years ago was the cause of western fall but it was even more uh orthodox if you make can use that word in the east maybe it was geography maybe it was a difference in provincial administration maybe it was a difference in the enemies but it's very hard to chart these sweeping questions and we don't know why all of a sudden the aztec empire in 521 was destroyed by cortes with a frac with probably no more than 3 500 spanish conquistadors and then 60 or 70 thousand indigenous allies you can make the argument there's difference in technology or the presence of horses or the peculiar nature of aztec warfare but it's so it's very difficult uh to to ask yourself why did these 1500 city states i'm just taking a pretty accepted figure for how many greek city states there were from roughly 800 bc down to the incorporation and by rome why were they able uh why was alexander the great at 18 and his father philip the second the battle of carrington 338 essentially to terminate why were they able to terminate greek autonomy and freedom this was an army from the north and 150 years earlier roughly in a series of battles at salamis and plateau a much larger army from the north xerxes 250 000 combined naval and land troops were not able to conquer conquer greece and yet you could make the argument that if you look at the archaeological remains or literary descriptions or epigraphical evidence that the city-state in the latter part of the fourth century was materially wealthier than it had been in 480. and whatever we think of alexander the great his army and philip ii's army was much smaller than than king xerxes so we're left with a dilemma
And so we have the topic.
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Originally Posted by Peter1469
