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

The Syracusans are a very serious force, and they utterly annihilate the Athenians over in Sicily.

And as such, the money, the confidence, the momentum of the Athenians is entirely broken.

As a result of that, the democracy is overthrown in 411.

A group come in of oligarchs and say, no, let's just row it back a bit.

Let's go back to the good old days when the people with a bit of money, with a bit of class to them, could run the system.

And the Athenian people say, OK, that doesn't last long.

Back to democracy.

But then at the end of the war, the Spartans win.

The Spartans win partly because the Persians are helping them behind the scenes.

And one of the terms of the treatise at the end is that Athens has to have a tyranny.

So 30 tyrants are installed, just like as happens in the Spartan government, where there's 30 old men running the show alongside the two ceremonial kings.

And an attempt is made to make Athens Sparta.

Again, it doesn't last, but thousands of people are killed.

It's a bit like the latter days of the French Revolution when...

The expectation is it will be so easy just to have a new system, but the new system rapidly collapses and ends in bloodshed.

As to your question, how does Athens decline?

It has another 60 or 70 years of independence after 404, but ultimately,

The sense of self has gone.

The confidence in the project is over.

The innovation declines outside the philosophical schools.

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