Polly Low
speaker
117 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 16 Jul
Polly Low’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
They lost their self-control.
And therefore, it was a thing that the Athenians were wrong to have done and that they should never attempt to do.
And no other Greek state should attempt to get this sort of power in the future.
One of my favourite bits of inscribed evidence from the ancient world, from the 370s BCE,
When the Athenians decide to have another go and set up another alliance, which we now call the Second Athenian League, and we do have the foundation documents of this organisation.
And what's really interesting is that it includes a long list of things the Athenians promised not to do this time around.
which maps almost directly onto the terrible things we know they did the first time around.
So they say, we won't levy tribute, we won't impose garrisons, we won't send out governors, we won't confiscate land, we won't meddle in your internal political affairs.
Yes, it's a fascinating document in all sorts of ways.
The other thing, though, I mean, in spite of this...
What the document also reveals is that a large number of Greek communities joined the League because their names are included on this inscription.
So either the Athenians were very persuasive when they promised not to do any of this stuff again, or the Greek communities were very naive, or there's enough positive stuff that comes out of this sort of alliance that Greek communities thought, or at least some Greek communities thought, well, the risk is worth taking to sign up for a second go around.
I think I'm closer to Lear in that I think, yes, we absolutely can't sanitise the Dealing League, but we have to find a way to square that with the fact that
Some people, including non-Athenians, did quite well out of this.
So some people benefited from this alliance at the same time as it was doing absolutely unspeakable things.
And that sort of complexity of how imperial power works, I think, is something that we have to grapple with in this league, but also in empires of other periods.
There's a slight chicken and egg question.
I mean, the fleet was built originally... Well, to go back a little bit, the Athenians find silver at Laurion in Assica, and they have this money.
And according to Herodotus, they have a debate.
What should we do with the money?
Showing 81–100 of 117 · page 5 of 6
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