The Trauma of 480 BCE as an Anchor: The Destruction of the City and the Rebuilding of the Community

This chapter explores the other face of the great naval victory in 480, namely the Persian sack of Athens and the Athenians’ collective reactions to it, and proposes to read it through the lens of social trauma. Archaeological and literary evidence concerning the Persian destruction and its aftermath shows in fact traces of dramatic and problematic aspects in the Athenian post-war period, having to do especially with the destruction of the city and the high death tolls. The chapter discusses some communal actions which were undertaken by the Athenians in different fields (managing the debris, staging theatrical plays, and commemorating the war dead) as different faces of a collective response to trauma, namely different ways of coping with trauma, which in turn affected how the Athenians (and Herodotus) comprehensively narrated the events of 480/79, and conceived themselves and their history. The chapter will therefore conclude that, from that perspective, considering 480 as a true watershed and chronological anchor in Greek history might still be correct.