Email this article Secrecy Compromised: The Role of Intelligence during the Mytilenean Revolt
Abstract
ABSTRACT
In the early years of the Peloponnesian War, the Attic Confederacy faced a well-planned revolt on Lesbos, instigated by the polis of Mytilene. This article reconstructs the role of intelligence, in short, the collection, communication and application of information, in Thucydides’ narrative of the Mytilenean revolt, and aims to offer a novel perspective on the Athenian success in quelling it. The first part argues how the premature discovery of the revolutionary scheme crippled the revolt from the outset. The rebels’ subsequent need for external backing forms the starting point of the second part, in which the supportive operations and Athenian counteractions, with a focus on the intelligence underpinning them, are sketched out. In doing so, the informational advantage which the Attic Confederacy held over its adversaries is highlighted, despite the limits inherent in the unorganised nature of intelligence activity in classical Greece.
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