GRANT PETER KOJO T.

Several, if not many, scholars and historians have written about the exploits of the Athenian Navy during the 5th century BC, especially, during the Persian Wars, (480-479) the pentekontaetia period (478-432) through to the Peloponnesian War period (431-404), until the destruction of the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami (405 BC). This interest in the Athenian Navy and its achievements in the Classical period has led to the writing of several specialist works on that phenomenon; and we note that no general work on Greek history is deemed complete without an excursus on the Athenian Navy and how it helped save Greece from the tyranny of Persia. Our intention in this paper is not to trod the same path and recount the exploits of the Athenian navy, but rather to attempt to account for the transformation of the Athenian navy from a minnow to a leviathan within a twenty year period. We shall, through a critical examination of extant primary sources, primarily Herodotus and, to a lesser extent, Plutarch, argue, firstly, that in terms of naval strength and sea power, Athens was a minnow as at 499 BC, and secondly that it was through a recognition of this deficiency and at the urging of Themistocles that Athens commissioned a fleet to bolster its sea power and naval strength, and thus became a leviathan as at 480 BC when the Persian Wars broke out in earnest in main land Greece. Keywords: minnow, leviathan, pentekonter, trireme, Themistocles, Persian Wars, Athenian Navy

Generally, historians who deal with ancient Greek history and thereby tackle the Peloponnesian War have mostly failed to recognize the full significance or import of the Epiteichismos (Greek: “to build upon”) strategy and its contribution to the rise and the imperialistic ambition of Athens, and Athens‟ subsequent defeat during the Peloponnesian War, due, perhaps, to their different motives, orientations, philosophy, targeted audience and aims for writing. Such accounts include those of De Ste. Croix (1972), Robinson (1962), Westlake (1969), Powell (1988) and Pomeroy et al. (1999) and others. Notwithstanding the fact that Thucydides is the primary source with respect to the account of the Peloponnesian War, traits of the intendment of the Epiteichismos strategy are equally scattered throughout the history of antediluvian warfare. Using a critical analysis of primary and secondary sources and noting the deficiencies in existing secondary sources, this paper makes an attempt to give n...

Most modern scholarship on clientship or patronage system simply construe the concept as an
exchange relationship between a socio-politically influential man (patron) and a free inferior client.
In ancient times, however, the system (clientela) was a special case of dyadic ties in which a person
of privileged socio-economic and political eminence (patronus) used his influence and resources to
provide security, legal protection or material benefits for a person of lower social status (cliens)
who, for his part, reciprocated by offering wide-ranging services to the patron as needed. Patronclient relationship was uniquely Roman in origin; but over the centuries, the practice
metamorphosed in varying measures, motives and methods across different climes and societies.
Approached chronologically through a method of content analysis of relevant archival materials,
this paper reviewed the basic principles and practice of patron-client relationship in ancient Roman
Republic with a view to showing how the Roman phenomenon has, indeed, mutated in time and
space. To prop the foregoing claim, the paper focused on how the patron-client relationship
resonates in the socio-economic and political dynamics of African societies, especially of Ghana
and perhaps Nigeria. It concluded that clientship relationship is a transcultural phenomenon that has
penetrated deeply into the fabrics of many contemporary societies just as it did in classical antiquity.
Key Words: ancient Rome, Ghana, Nigeria, clientship, patronage, patron-client

Several, if not many, scholars and historians have written about the exploits of the Athenian Navy during the 5th century BC, especially, during the Persian Wars, (480-479) the pentekontaetia period (478-432) through to the Peloponnesian War period (431-404), until the destruction of the Athenian fleet at Aegospotami (405 BC). This interest in the Athenian Navy and its achievements in the Classical period has led to the writing of several specialist works on that phenomenon; and we note that no general work on Greek history is deemed complete without an excursus on the Athenian Navy and how it helped save Greece from the tyranny of Persia. Our intention in this paper is not to trod the same path and recount the exploits of the Athenian navy, but rather to attempt to account for the transformation of the Athenian navy from a minnow to a leviathan within a twenty year period. We shall, through a critical examination of extant primary sources, primarily Herodotus and, to a lesser extent, Plutarch, argue, firstly, that in terms of naval strength and sea power, Athens was a minnow as at 499 BC, and secondly that it was through a recognition of this deficiency and at the urging of Themistocles that Athens commissioned a fleet to bolster its sea power and naval strength, and thus became a leviathan as at 480 BC when the Persian Wars broke out in earnest in main land Greece.

Keywords: minnow, leviathan, pentekonter, trireme, Themistocles, Persian Wars, Athenian Navy