David Butterfield

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739 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard May 2026 last heard 20 May

David Butterfield’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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TRIGGERnometry · How Civilisations Die - Ancient Greece Expert David Butterfield · 20 May 2026 podcast

And when that big war happened at the end of the fifth century between Athens and Sparta, big Peloponnesian war, which lasted 20, 27 years, twice, Athenian democracy completely pivots.

both times to an oligarchy or a tyranny, depending on what term you want.

So although it seemed as though it was baked into the very system and in the bloodstream of Athens to be democratic, its fragility was very real.

If the frustrations were high enough, the people would pivot and look for a strong man, a strong group who seemed to have better ideas, and the whole dream could die.

No, but it is quite a human response.

I mean, where I'm from in Cumbria, you know, two villages are rivals and they might play a derby.

but they would very much band together if Lancashire, the county next door, were fighting them.

And Cumbria and Lancashire were against each other.

But Cumbria and Lancashire would band together if it was North versus South.

And North and South would be against each other, would band together if it's England against France.

So this sort of scaling up of where the enemy is and where allegiances make sense and don't make sense is a dynamic one.

So city-states were against one another for the most part.

But in the fifth century, after this incredible and unexpected victory over the Persian invasion, Athens starts to form a bigger band of allies, which ends up running as an empire.

But it's prepared to work with its Greek enemies when the external threat becomes real.

Exactly.

So, although the Greeks are doing their things around the Greek-speaking world, there is no Greek nation, there's no Greek empire in the late 6th century BC.

The Persians are growing and growing and growing.

Darius is in charge by the early fifth century BC of not just the largest empire in the world, but the largest empire the world had ever known, perhaps having towards half of the world's population within it, within 2 million square miles.

And because various Greek states, including Athens, had come across the Aegean and defended their Greek colonies when Persia tried to take them, Persia decided that mainland Greece and Athens in particular needed punishing.

So Darius drew up an army and a navy of immense size.

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