Chapter I - HISTORICA I

This chapter describes the struggle between the Persian Empire and the Greek city-states. This is the first instalment of the dualistic phenomenon of imperialism. Many more will follow in later volumes; volumes X and XVI will be entirely devoted to it. Imperialism is a case of monism, because it attempts to subsume many political and national entities under one heading, that is, to combine them in an empire. It denies the right of independent existence to these entities, sometimes even the right of existence itself. But as I argued in the document `On dualism', the monistic ideal is an impossibility; some elements will protest and rebel.

Since the days of Cyrus II, the founder of the Persian Empire, this realm had acquired an enormous extension, reaching from the Indus to the Aegean Sea. In 547 the Greek cities along the Aegean coast of Asian Minor had also come under Persian rule. In 500 B.C. the Greeks of Asia Minor rose in revolt against their Persian masters; after hard fighting they were subjected again. However, Athens had sent some help to the rebels, for which reason King Xerxes decided to punish the Greeks.

There were three Persian expeditions against Hellas. The first, in 492 B.C., did not even reach its object; during the second attempt in 490, which was seaborn, the Persian vanguard was defeated on the beach of Marathon. During the third expedition the Persians took the landroad, broke through the Thermopylae Pass, and occupied Northern and Middle Greece, with Athens, in 480 B.C. The Greeks defeated the Persians, however, in the Battle of Plataeae in 479 B.C., after which the Persians evacuated Hellas.

During the years after this the Greeks succeeded in liberating their compatriots in Asia Minor. When peace was concluded in 448 B.C., the Greeks on both sides of the Aegean were free again. (Length of this chapter, with notes, = 38 pp.)

Chapter II - HISTORICA II

The war with Persia was not yet over, when the Greeks began to fight each other for the supremacy in Hellas. Originally, Sparta was the strongest power, but the great role Athens had played in the war against the Persians made it the supreme power. It headed a great coalition of states of which it was the undisputed and often tyrannical leader, the Sea League, the very first form of Greek unity (Hellas consisted of a great many independent city-states).

Sparta, jealous of Athens' power, waged war with Athens, called the Peloponnesian War, during the second half of the fifth century. This was a dualistic struggle: for or against Athens. Athens lost the war and only narrowly escaped total destruction. The Peace Treaty of 404 B.C. made it loose all its overseas possessions and its navy, while the Sea League was dissolved. The hegemony passed to Sparta.

During the fourth century B.C. the Greek wars went on. Athens tried to recover its position; for a short period Thebes had the hegemony. The result was that Persia could subject the Asiatic Greeks again in 386 B.C. In 346 B.C. Macedonia,. which had become a powerful state, intervened in Greek affairs for the first time. Athens attempted to organize an alliance to keep the Macedonians out, but King Philippus II defeated them at Chaeronea in 339 B.C. This was the end of Greek freedom. (Length of this chapter, with notes, = 49 pp.)

Chapter III - HELLENICA

The first part of this chapter discusses how the three Greek historians of this period, Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, described and conceived of Greek history. All three took a pessimistic view of their history, and of human history in general.

The second part discusses the relationship of Europe (i.e. Greece) and Asia, a typical case of est-west dualism, in fact the earliest phase of it.

The third part is about Greeks and barbarians. Greeks had a high idea of themselves and their civilization; they dubbed most other nations `barbarians', whom they thought inferior to themselves. The authors who are discussed are: Aeschylus - Sophocles - Thucydides - Euripides - Aristophanes - Xenophon - Plato - Aristoteles - and Isocrates. There was also the question of whether or not the Macedonians were barbarians. (Length of this chapter, with notes, = 89 pp.)

Chapter IV - POLITICA

Hellas was a deeply divided world. Yet, there were also scholars and politicians who were propagating a united Greek world. This movement, which did not meet with success, is called Panhellenism.

The second part discusses the dissensions within the city-states and describes the horrible things the parties did to each other.

The third part discusses the political and social nature of the city-state: the origin and the idea of the polis, the city-state, and were the political people and who not. The problem of being a citizen are discussed in the light of Sophocles' tragedy Antigone.

In the fourth part ample attention is paid to the position of women (in Sparta and Athens), with the question of whether the relationship between the sexes was dualistic, of homosexuals, of the slaves, and of Sparta's helots. (Length of this chapter, with notes, = 81 pp.)

This volume contains two maps, a Bibliography, and a General Index.

Published in 1987 by J.C. Gieben, Publisher.
ISBN 90 5063 004 9