For some reason (I really can't think why this has just popped into my head) I'd like to share with you today the story of how, in 403 BC, the tyrannical Thirty were overthrown and Athenian democracy was restored.

In 404 BC, the Athenians lost the Peloponnesian War. The victorious Spartans refused to raze Athens to the ground, but they did install a new regime - a very narrow oligarchy in which the power lay with a small council of thirty men. These rulers were given the imaginative name "the Thirty."

The Thirty were Spartan puppets, but that was not the worst of their crimes. Officially given legislative power to draft a new constitution, they soon gave up all pretense of being anything but absolute rulers, and began to abuse their power with abandon. Propped up by the Athenian cavalry (which was drafted from the richest men) and by a Spartan garrison, they seized the property of other citizens at will, exiling or executing its owners and taking the loot for themselves. Their secret police created a climate of universal suspicion, and death struck swiftly and seemingly at random. Some 1,500 citizens (out of perhaps 25,000 who survived the war) were murdered by the Thirty. Neighbouring states filled up with refugees.

Not all men of means, however, were on the side of the Thirty. One of their enemies was Thrasyboulos, a commander who had earned his stripes leading the Athenian fleet in the war. Thrasyboulos now decided it was time to lead the resistance. He fled Athens, gathered a band of exiles, and then marched back into Athenian territory, occupying the hill fort of Phyle. His men were determined to defeat the forces of the Thirty, take back Athens, and restore the democracy. They were ready to fight. All seventy of them.

The Thirty were understandably unimpressed. They sent the full hoplite and cavalry levy of Athens against Phyle, thinking they would easily nip the rebellion in the bud. But the fortress proved too strong, Thrasyboulos' harrying tactics too unbearable, and a freak snowstorm prevented the troops of the Thirty from investing the fort. They were forced to withdraw to the city.

Thrasybouls' early success gave hope to many, and soon his ranks began to swell. Within days a force of 700 was assembled at Phyle. But most of them had no equipment, and Thrasyboulos still had no horsemen. The Thirty sent out the Spartan garrison and the cavalry to deal with them, thinking they would be easy prey when they came down from Phyle to gather supplies to feed their growing numbers.

Thrasyboulos, however, knew where they were encamped. Familiar with the Attic countryside, he led his forces to a nearby hiding spot at night. When dawn broke, and the Spartans went about making breakfast and tending their horses and answering calls of nature, Thrasyboulos charged. More than 120 men of the Spartan garrison were butchered. The rest fled back to the city.

The next move of the pro-democratic rebels was to take their full force - now over 1,000 strong and growing daily - and sneak into the Peiraieus, the harbor of Athens, under cover of night. The threat they posed to the Thirty was now very real. They were close to the city, controlled the port, and gathered ever more support from the people living at Peiraieus. The Thirty could no longer stand by and let this happen. They marched out in full force - all their hoplites, the remains of the Spartan garrison, and the cavalry - to dislodge Thrasyboulos from the harbour.

Thrasyboulos understood that his force, which contained barely a few hundred hoplites, would never be able to defeat the army of the Thirty in the open. So he retreated to the top of the hill of Mounychia. The road up was narrow, taking away the Thirty's numerical advantage. It was also steep, allowing Thrasyboulos to make use of the many light-armed troops who had joined his uprising.

Forced by the width of the road, the Thirty advanced into battle with a phalanx fifty ranks deep. Thrasyboulos could muster no more than a ten-deep line to hold them. But behind them were his javelin men; behind them, his slingers. As soon as the Thirty came into range, these missile troops unleashed hell. With their shields held high to protect themselves from the barrage, the hoplites of the Thirty were helpless when Thrasyboulos charged. Kritias, most prominent among the Thirty, was killed, along with more than 70 others. The Thirty were again forced to flee.

Terror now contained the Thirty in Eleusis; they were formally deposed, and a new council called the Ten took over at Athens. But the Thirty had one more card to play. As they left the city behind, they sent out a message for the Spartans to come to their aid.

Thrasyboulos' rabble of democratic insurgents were no match for the Spartan army commanded by king Pausanias, who quickly defeated them in battle outside Peiraieus, charging a deep column of hoplites into the thin rebel line. But Pausanias could see that there was little hope of their puppet regime keeping the democrats down. He therefore told Thrasyboulos, in effect, to have his democracy, if he was so keen on it. After some negotiations, the rebels marched from Peiraieus into Athens to sacrifice on the Akropolis. Athens formally returned to the form of government it had enjoyed for a century. Then, in an unprecedented move, Thrasyboulos declared all past wrongs forgotten - preventing reprisals against the deposed Thirty, healing the state of Athens at a deeper level, and earning the praise of commentators for centuries to come.

I cannot explain why Thrasyboulos does not loom large in our textbooks on Classical Greece. To me, he seems the paragon of the underdog hero, ready to fight against evil regardless of the odds, and finally freeing his country from a dreadful, oppressive regime imposed by meddlesome outsiders. There are few occasions in Greek history where it is so clear who the good guys and the bad guys are; few occasions where we can be genuinely delighted that the good guys won, through luck, shrewd tactics, and sheer determination. If we wish to admire any character from Greek history, let it be Thrasyboulos, who took on the thousands of the Thirty Tyrants with a band of seventy men, and saved the most famous democracy of the Ancient world.

I just got the word that I graduated Cum Laude from San Jose State with my BA in History, AND I've been accepted into their Grad program for Early American History!!! This seemed like the only time on here I could celebrate this. Hopefully in four semesters I'll be able to add more in depth analysis on 19th century America.

Do any of you study organic chemistry? Or know someone who studies organic chemistry/is an organic chemist? A friend of mine is wondering if there is any sort of database containing biomarkers from plants that you could look for in a residue analysis test. Like how you would look for theobromine for evidence of chocolate. He's specifically looking for squash, beans, manioc, vanilla, and honey.

Somewhat related, Patrick McGovern from UPenn has been accused (Spanish, lo siento) of plagiarism, breach of contract, and a violation of the code of ethics on some work related to Capacha vessels by Patricia Colunga, Daniel Zizumbo-Villarreal, and Fernando González. I guess McGovern gave the details of a residue analysis to some brewers who wanted to recreate the 3,500 year old distilled drink and this action was a big no-no. I have written about Daniel Zizumbo-Villarreal et. al.'s 2009 study here and here if you are interested. While I found the experimentation fascinating, I was hesitant to charge forth proclaiming that the Capacha culture actually had distilled spirits without any sort of residue analysis. But if McGovern, Colunga, Zizumbo-Villarreal, and González did do the tests and did find evidence, this does change our understanding of alcoholic beverages in Mesoamerica. And it makes me question whether the claims of distillation by two researchers working in Oaxaca are not so far-fetched as I first thought. Hopefully when all this mess between McGovern, Colunga, Zizumbo-Villarreal, and González is sorted out, we can get our hands on a published article of the results to judge for ourselves whether the claim for distillation holds true or not.

Any chance we could do a historical mistakes in modern media thing? Maybe for a trivia tuesday? I mean, I know there are some movies, TV shows, books, etc that I just can't handle because I can see the glaring mistakes and can't get past them (like I enjoyed the Gospel according to Biff which I absolutely know was humorous and not at all historically accurate, but I was so annoyed by the depiction of first century Jews as iconoclasts).

Anyway, I would love to know what things I have glibly absorbed from the media are totally false (I would especially love to hear from a korean historian because I watch way too many korean dramas and have absolutely no other information on korean history).

What's up with the flairs? I like /u/commiespaceinvader 's most I think.

Edit: This is, get ready, unexpected.

Since raids were a main source of warfare in western European in the middle ages has anyone done anything remotely like applying stats to the raids? For example, was there a big difference in the median & mean of the loot? What would be considered a "normal" haul for a raiding party in food, coin, horses, etc.? What was the "success" rate? How many raiders were in a party and did they raid mostly towns or just pillage farm estates?

I'm aware of the empirical problems with getting the data, I am just curious if anyone has attempted anything like this.

Somehow, in clearing my schedule for this semester (and throwing all of my other teaching into the other), I'm left with one course--my research seminar--and it's under-enrolled. There are seven out of a maximum of fifteen. Instead of just going on autopilot, though, I'm intensifying the mentorship aspect; the fact that several of these are top performing honors students has steeled that resolve. It already feels more like a workshop than a class.

I've been reading The Imperial Harem as /u/yodatsracist recommended, and it's so good! So good. Not only is it a great read in and of itself, it's interesting to compare the reality to Magnificent Century, which took a lot of liberties - the most notable to me (and highly relevant to my question) is that Mahidevran, during the time of the soap opera, wouldn't be battling with Hürrem for Süleyman's sexual attentions, because she'd borne her one allotted son and was not allowed to conceive any more. Even though Hürrem's brood was highly atypical and her being allowed to have several sons despite royal protocol could have been a pretty good plot point, they've completely ignored that whole custom in favor of the ol' stable of women image of the harem.

Like /u/Iphikrates, this is just a story that popped into my head for no particular reason.

With the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, the territories named (Kansas basically in its modern borders, but extending out to the Rockies, Nebraska everything north of that to the mountains and up to Canada) became potentially open to slavery. They would have it or keep it out based on the vote of the white settler colonialists. This was supposed apolitical and uncontroversial, despite a bit more than the usual amount of skullduggery in getting the law passed.

Kansas, as the maps tell us, is right next to Missouri and Missouri has been slave country for as long as it's been Missouri. Its slaves and plantations (hemp, mostly) were concentrated on the Missouri river in the central and western part of the state...the part adjacent to Kansas. They don't want a bunch of slave-stealing abolitionists living next door for a tangle of reasons that amount to a free Kansas making Missouri's slavery regime insecure. They would entice slaves to run, shelter fugitives, all the usual stuff.

All of that means that Missourians aren't going to do something insane like let the people decide to vote in freedom, or even laws indifferent to slavery. They want Kansas, whole and complete for themselves. The law says that only people residing in the territory can vote, but the Missourians interpret "residing" to mean "physically present in the territory on election day". Organized out of a network of masonic lodges and with major planters subsidizing the expenses, thousands of Missourians declare themselves one-day Kansans and go to vote in the first legislative elections in March of 1855. They turned out to the tune of thousands more than the total eligible voters counted in Kansas by a census that winter, which itself may have been inflated by proslavery tabulators.

The Missourians came across the border well-armed and well-lubricated. They had recognized leaders, including a future state governor, former state attorney general, and sitting United States senator. The last, David Rice Atchison, had largely masterminded the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act to start with. His group moved into a district and forced the local proslavery Kansans to set aside their preferred proslavery ticket in favor of one chosen by the Missourians. He gave a neat little speech about how he and his boys would kill every "goddamned Abolitionist" in Kansas if they needed to.

For the most part, numbers do the job. There are so many proslavery men and they're so clearly belligerent that Kansans stay away or give up on voting when first confronted. Some knives and guns are brandished. A few people are shown a pair of cannons brought in for the occasion. Shouts and threats go a long way.

Against this kind of invasion, Kansas has the judges of election. Appointed by the governor, these are a panel of three men who have the right to scrutinize voters and judge their credentials. The governor, Andrew Reeder, tries to split the panels but there are still a lot of them with two proslavery guys and one anti. You can guess how votes between them went. When panels with more scruples show up, the crowd gets hostile. At least one guy was intimidated out of serving before the election even started. Some others resigned in protest.

This story plays out all over Kansas, but for brevity I'll focus on the polls at Bloomington, in the second district. Harrison Burson told it to a congressional committee that came out to investigate things a year later that they opened their polls about eight thirty in the morning. For fifteen votes, all went well. Then some three hundred men marched into town, flags waving and guns a-toting. They go to the polling place, a log cabin, and offer to vote.

Ok, that's fine. Burson will let them vote...if they have the legal right to it. Since he doesn't know them, they will have to swear a legally-binding oath that they do have that right and were legitimate residents of Kansas. Their leader, Samuel Jones, resided then at Westport, Missouri. He's not having any of that crap. He would not be sworn to anything, end of story.

Burson reminded Jones of the law: They must swear the oath to cast the vote. At this point, Jones dispenses with the pretense and outright tells Burson that they came from Missouri to vote to make Kansas a slave territory which would grow up into a slave state.

They stated, also, that if they could not vote by fear means, they would by foul. Jones, and others of the party, whose names I do not know, said this. They also stated that no man should vote there that day that would take the oath.

That sounds promising enough. At the time, a few other men were about who wanted to vote and had been about before the Missourians arrived. If Jones and company didn't want to vote, then they'd like their turn. Instead they "were taken up and carried back by the mob." You might want to read that carried back literally. There's another district where the mob actually lifted people over their heads and moved them around, basically crowd-surfing without consent.

Ok then, Door Number Two. Jones says the judges should just resign. By the law, the people then present would have the authority to appoint a new panel by acclamation. The judges, in the face of an armed mob they had every reason to believe inclined to violence, refused. They were only outnumbered a hundred to one.

Door Number Three:

They then stated that if we did not do so they would tear down the house and kill us.

The house in question was a log cabin and probably quite new. Picture it sitting anchored by its own weight on the ground, dirt floor, that kind of thing. Votes are being taken through a window and so far all the conversation has gone on through the same. When they threaten housebreaking, they literally mean to break the house:

They made a rush, and stove in the window and sash together, fixed pries to the two corners of the house, and pried up the building some distance and let it fall back.

That's enough for one judge, who tells the others they need to close up shop or they're going to be killed. He takes the ballot box and bolts into the crowd, where he "hurrahed for Missouri." According to another witness with the profoundly unhelpful name of Samuel Jones (not the same guy), the business of jacking the house only stopped because the mob got news they had a proslavery guy inside. Based on that, I take the fled judge, Ellison's, hurrah as a sincere expression of allegiance rather than a mere plea not to be murdered.

Ellison left the door open, at which point the dam truly broke. "Numbers" burst in "with revolvers drawn and bowie-knives in their hands." Jones (the proslavery one) led the charge. The mob filled up the cabin and he repeated his gentle, polite, totally non-confrontational request that the other two judges resign their posts. If they didn't then the mob would kill them.

Jones drew from his pocket his watch, and gave us five minutes in which to resign or die.

No pressure or anything. He just held the watch and time passed. Five minutes came and he gave them a one-minute extension. During that minute, an antislavery Kansan called Burson out and promised Jones that he would come back with an answer. Burson went out, putting the poll books in his pocket on the way. His friends and a good look at the crowd convinced him that he'd best get out of there while he was still breathing.

Jones thought he had the poll books, but Burson had passed blanks to him. That did not go over well and the mob came after the judge. This matters because the poll books have to be turned in with the returns and they have potential evidence of who voted and didn't. The judges or their clerks (it seems that some places had them, others not) recorded the names and votes of everyone. Burson passed the books on to a friend who hadn't been in the cabin and they split up. He ditched the mob, but his friend was not so lucky. Burson hid in a thicket and watched as they relieved his friend of the books. The friend was then taken up behind Jones on his horse and they went back into town.

For his services, the legislature that Jones helped elect appointed him sheriff of Douglas County. He took this as occasion to move to Kansas. He remained there for a few years, serving as the chief instigator of two proslavery invasions aimed at the destruction of the antislavery town of Lawrence, the latter of which involved his being shot in the back. He didn't die, but decades later he was back in Kansas -he removed to Texas in 1858- and crossed paths with one of the men suspected of shooting him at the time.

They had an awkward moment and the suspect asked him if Jones believed that he authored that particular gunpowder serenade. Jones insisted that he had never thought that; he had always known the suspect as a gentleman. Things settled down and they had a pleasant chat. By then north of seven hundred thousand Americans were dead. So was the slavery of four million, which half of them had fought to preserve.

Sources

The quotes are all from Burson's testimony to the Howard Committee. The not-the-same-Jones Samuel Jones referenced is there too.

I posted this last night but i was a little ahead of myself as such a post is not normally proper for this subreddit, but here goes again!

To be clear this is not a very serious event and is just a bunch of amateur historians debating who they thought displayed the best leadership skills in their own opinions, and I have been asked to moderate the event by our class teacher who was thrilled we came up with this ourselves.

Since this sub-reddit has been my heart and joy for years now, I could not help but to share this and to ask this groups opinions from here as well.

The three candidates that have been selected are Barack Obama, Winston Churchill, and FDR. The three groups are being given ten minutes to use any video they choose or make to support their arguments, with five minutes allowed for a question period.

During the question period the other groups are allowed thirty seconds to ask any questions of the presenting group, and the presenting group is then allowed thirty seconds to answer back.

Being a passionate lover of history myself, I hold all three of these figures in high regards, their accomplishments and their failings included. I myself and making some questions to ask each of the groups, but seeing as this sub reddit loves a good debate, I was wondering if there was any that you guys think I should ask in particular in regards to the leadership capabilities of these three great men.

It’s difficult for me to visualize a Romanized Britain. I know it is there, with the villas and towns you dream of, but I’ve always instinctively connected myself with the untamed tribes of the West, or those of the heather. The great oak forests are friendly to me, in my dreams, giving me shelter, food and hiding-place. And it’s almost impossible for me to visualize a Druid as anything but a tall, stately old man, white robed, having golden buckled sandals to his feet and a staff to his hand, with a long white beard and very kindly, very wise eyes. I’ve never been able to think of the cult as any other than white bearded sages, wise in astronomy and agriculture, very close to Nature. It’s difficult for me to think of them in connection with human sacrifices and I’ve never been able to lend in writing an air of mysterious horror to Druidic worship. I may some day, but it will be in direct violation to my instincts on the matter. My sense of somber mystery and elderworld horror centers on the worship and priest-craft of the little dark people who came before — the Mediterranean race which preceded the Celts into Britain. I can experience a real shuddery sense of black magic and devil-worship when I contemplate these little stone age men, with their dark spirits and their bright spirits, their human sacrifice and their polished weapons and implements, the uses for some of which are not now known.

• Robert E. Howard to H. P. Lovecraft, Feb 1931, Collected Letters of Robert E. Howard 2.183-184

Been meditating on druids in pulp fiction this week, comparing and contrasting passages like this one with Ronald Hutton's Blood and Mistletoe: the History of the Druids in Britain. The 20s and 30s were a period of resurgent interest in druids, whose scant historical record left a great deal of room for popular re-imagination, among other things. Lovecraft of course identified with Roman Britain, which combined two of his personal interests (ancient Rome and England), and Howard contrastingly identified with the Celtic "barbarians" who opposed the Romans, leading to a part of their ongoing argument-in-letters!

Howard did eventually write a bit about druids in his fiction. In "The Little People" he wrote:

The foremost of the Things were almost upon the prostrate girl; their hands were clutching for her, when suddenly beside her a form stood. There was no gradual materializing. The figure leaped suddenly into being, etched bold and clear in the moonlight. A tall white bearded man, clad in long robes - the man I had seen in my dream! A druid, answering once more the desperate need of people of his race. His brow was high and noble, his eyes mystic and far-seeing - so much I could see, even from where I ran. His arm rose in an imperious gesture and the Things shrank back - back - back - They broke and fled, vanishing suddenly, and I sank to my knees beside my sister, gathering the child into my arms. A moment I looked up at the man, sword and shield against the powers of darkness, protecting helpless tribes as in the world's youth, who raised his hand above us as if in benediction, then he too vanished suddenly and the more lay bare and silent.

The date of "The Little People" (unnamed in the typescript) is unknown, but another, subtly different interpretation of the druid also appears in "Kings of the Night" (Weird Tales Nov 1930):

The dagger flashed downward. A sharp cry broke in a gasp. The form on the rough altar twitched convulsively an lay still. The jagged flint edge sawed at the crimsoned breast, and thin bony fingers, ghastly dyed, tore out the still- twitching heart. Under matted white brows, sharp eyes gleamed with a ferocious intensity.

Besides the slayer, four men stood about the crude pile of stones that formed the altar of the God of Shadows. One was of medium height, lithely built, scantily clad, whose black hair was confined by a narrow iron band in the center of which gleamed a single red jewel. Of the others, two were dark like the first. But where he was lithe, they were stocky and misshapen, with knotted limbs, and tangled hair falling over sloping brows. His face denoted intelligence and implacable will; theirs merely a beast-like ferocity. The fourth man had little in common with the rest. Nearly a head taller, though his hair was black as theirs, his skin was comparatively light and he was gray- eyed. He eyed the proceedings with little favor.

And, in truth, Cormac of Connacht was little at ease. The Druids of his own isle of Erin had strange dark rites of worship, but nothing like this. Dark trees shut in this grim scene, lit by a single torch. Through the branches moaned an eerie night-wind. Cormac was alone among men of a strange race and he had just seen the heart of a man ripped from his still pulsing body. Now the ancient priest, who looked scarcely human, was glaring at the throbbing thing. Cormac shuddered, glancing at him who wore the jewel. Did Bran Mak Morn, king of the Picts, believe that this white-bearded old butcher could foretell events by scanning a bleeding human heart? The dark eyes of the king were inscrutable. There were strange depths to the man that Cormac could not fathom, nor any other man.

"The portents are good!" exclaimed the priest wildly, speaking more to the two chieftains than to Bran. "Here from the pulsing heart of a captive Roman I read—defeat for the arms of Rome! Triumph for the sons of the heather!"

My attempt to provide a resource to find new history podcasts continues. I've branched out from /r/historypodcasting to twitter at https://twitter.com/historypodlist

currently set to auto-update/post for ~115 currently active history podcasts. [nearly complete list on that subreddit's wiki].

Give me the coolest fact from your area of expertise!

Hmm...still grinding away at my dissertation. I'll definitely have to put the pedal to the metal, as I have 9 days before the deadline of the 29th, but that deadline is sorta self-imposed, so my profs may give me an extension if I need it. But hopefully not. The lowdown, along with food I've been eating:

https://gunlord500.wordpress.com/2017/01/20/gunlords-dissertation-saga-episode-31-season-2-grinding-my-gears/

I'm looking for a DETAILED map of the Byzantine Empire at its height (around Justinian's era). Specifically I want as accurate as possibe, the provincial divisions and their capitals. I'd greatly appreciate any help. Can be in Greek, Latin or English.

Tell us about some big historical myths that everyone seems to repeat and how it actually happened!