#aph ionia

[athensandspartaadventures]

Good news everyone! I finished that book I said I was going to finish 1000 years too late. But it's given me a lot of ideas!

Thinking of framing chapter 9 around these two, I didn't realise they were pals since the 7th-6th centuries BC so I really have to think about that

[athensandspartaadventures]

G5 for Athens and G7 for Ionia

she's definitely checking out the lost wax casting techniques that he's describing that's all

[allbeendonebefore]

Persian War Wednesdays: 1.15-1.22

Or, How the Lydians and Milesians Became BFFs

Time to dredge up some OCs I rarely draw lol

So once upon a time the Lydians who you may remember from such fun and exciting hits as “good at horse warfare” and “invented coinage” decided to siege Miletus, and this siege took a few generations of their kings.

The plan was to leave buildings and homes untouched and torch all the crops and trees so that every year just before harvest the Milesians would be demoralized enough to consider surrendering. Lydia was playing the long game.

This went on for 11 years and Miletus didn’t receive help from any of the other Ionian Greeks (save for one bit they’d helped out earlier in a different war).

In the twelfth year, the Lydians accidentally burnt down a temple to Athena of Assesos when the wind caused fire to spread from the crops they were trying to burn. Mysteriously, the King of Lydia (Alyattes) came down with an illness.

So off goes Lydia to the Oracle at Delphi which is where most people go to solve Mysteriously Coincidental Monarchical Maladies and the Oracle cleverly suggests Maybe You Should Rebuild That Temple You Burnt By Accident.

The Lydians get set to go ask the Milesians nicely if they are ok with not being sieged this year while they make reparations, they only wanted to starve them a little after all and they’re sure once this temple is fixed that they can go back to destroying their crops again!

The Milesians, hearing that the Lydians are on their way, quickly gather up every scrap of food they have and pile it up in the middle of town right where the Lydians are going to be marching through...

The Milesians threw a huge party with tons of food and drink and dancing, just like they totally, honestly, really seriously do all the time even when the Lydians have been setting fire to all their food.

And thus the Lydians and the Milesians set aside their differences and became friends and allies (until Persia noticed how shiny Lydia was anyway).

Bonus:

[acetechne]

i have no idea how to colour in this program but it seems to be working?? sort of

[acetechne]

a poor neglected girl if ever i saw one!!

a note about Ionia if I haven’t already mentioned- I’ve made a recent decision to think of her specifically as the city of Miletus, but I still use her as shorthand for the Ionian city states in Asia Minor collectively.

[athensandspartaadventures]

Athens and Sparta Adventures: Chapter 6: The First Peloponnesian War Originally posted December 22, 2013

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Quick Ref:

Thucydides: If you study ancient Greece and you’re not a fan of Herodotus (rude), Thucydides is probably your “Father of History”. If you study ancient Greece and you read Thucydides either in English or gods forbid the original Greek, gods be with you: even Cicero found reading him a pain and said he used as many words as he had thoughts after saying he “vanquished all artfulness in his style”. The dialogue here is a little inspired by Thuc. 6.82

Comments:

IT STILL LOOKS LIKE REVENGE OF THE SITH.

Original Description:

These are all actual things the Athenians did to their own allies in the Delian League. The fact that the Ionians and other Greeks like them had sailed against Athens under Persia was both used as an excuse to free them as well as an excuse to punish them. This pretense was dispensed with near the end of the wars. In retrospect this page looks a lot like Revenge of the Sith and I apologize for that. X_x Athens, just a few pages ago you said this treasury would stay neutral on Delos! D:

[athensandspartaadventures]

Athens and Sparta Adventures: Chapter 6: The First Peloponnesian War Originally posted December 15, 2013

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Quick Ref:

King’s Eye: Mentioned in Herodotus, a person who acted as the eyes and ears of the Persian King. They would keep him up to date on the exciting sights and sounds of the empire.

Comments:

I’m obnoxiously proud of the animated poses and expressions on this page, what prompted the jump in quality?

Original Description:

I had sketched out the layout of this page and had most of the text finished, but when we caught up to this bit in class I made some last minute adjustments. I rewrote the last panel and added an additional page.I keep meaning to have 'Ionia' come to represent Miletus specifically, but idk how to do that without causing confusion or rewriting the whole thing. Miletus was one of the city-states who revolted against Athens, which was quite significant because Athens was Miletus' mother city and the whole Delian league was established ostentatiously to protect Miletus and cities like her from foreign invasion. I still have a stupid headcanon that Athens calls her "Melitta" (Honeybee) as a play on "Miletus". (In the Ionian dialect "Melitta" is "Melissa") As you can guess, the next page isn't pretty. Athens did adopt a lot of policies from Persia. They may have been bitter enemies but fighting each other taught them a lot.

[athensandspartaadventures]

Athens and Sparta Adventures: Chapter 5: The Delian League and the Athenian Empire Originally posted March 3, 2012

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Quick Ref:

Apollo: God of the sun, health, the arts, and the inability to get girls. Phoebus is an epithet that means ‘shining’.

Delos: Greek island, birthplace of Apollo and Artemis, and hq of the Delian League, founded for the defense of Greece from Persia.

Comments:

Something has changed in this style but i can’t put my finger on it

Original Description:

You have no idea how much working on this again is helping me with my school work. It's a good distraction. ahfies you guys you know when you have a word limit on an essay and you've already written two paragraphs you weren't planning on and suddenly you don't have enough room for your other two required sources let alone a conclusion? ;w; I really like the Cold War okay and I'm learning a lot of cool things. I'm going to have to cut some stuff out. agleisgs I'm the same way with this comic. There's a lot I want to say and a lot I leave out and a lot more to learn. XD Which reminds me I still need to do that Plataea bonus page tgesih ANYWAY LET'S GET ON WITH THE HISTORY HERE I was trying to be super clever in the first panel but it didn't quite come out right. XD In the foreground is a statue of Apollo, and in the back is a statue of Artemis. The island of Delos was sacred to them, so I figured I should draw them somewhere. It's also symbolic of a shift that appeared in the 5th century BCE in art. Originally, the Greeks based their statues off of the Egyptians', so you get these really super stiff figures with one foot in front of the other (plus the Greeks added really creepy smiles). SUDDENLY BOOM the Greeks were like ew these look unnatural let's make statues where they place more weight on one leg because that's how normal people stand. Thus the Greeks became known for their incredibly natural and lifelike statuary. (What the Greeks aren't as known for is their garish painting of the statues. Modern people tend to ignore that for the simple beauty of austere white marble... but the Greeks actually thought that was kind of ugly.) Of course these improvements in sculpture only really applied to sculptures of men. Women were still shown as stiff and fully clothed because the Greeks thought that only the male nude could demonstrate perfection of body and character and they couldn't draw ladies right. That of course would change, but that's for another time. The sculpture of Artemis is based on an actual kore, garish colours and all. These types of sculptures were often dedicated to Artemis and Apollo. The Delian League wasn't called the Delian League by Athens, that's a modern term. I'm using it for convenience. XD It seems to be going pretty well though, eh? That sounds like a fair enough agreement, actually. Not all of the states who joined had to recognize Athens as their metropolis, of course. The Athenians founded this league for the Ionians, who they began promoting as their daughter cities that needed protection from those dastardly Persians. A lot of members of the Delian League were freshly liberated from Persia and wanted to ensure their freedom in the future... hmmm. Delos itself was a neutral island that was mostly uninhabited, a perfect spot for meetings and a treasury. After the agreement, members from each state that joined threw iron lumps into the sea to symbolize their everlasting bond and dedication to the league. Okay, back to reading about Diefenbaker I suppose. XD