The ''Paralus'' or ''Paralos'' (, "sea-side"; named after a mythological son of
Poseidon
Poseidon (; ) is one of the twelve Olympians in ancient Greek religion and mythology, presiding over the sea, storms, earthquakes and horses.Burkert 1985pp. 136–139 He was the protector of seafarers and the guardian of many Hellenic cit ...
), was an Athenian
sacred ship and a messenger
trireme
A trireme ( ; ; cf. ) was an ancient navies and vessels, ancient vessel and a type of galley that was used by the ancient maritime civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea, especially the Phoenicians, ancient Greece, ancient Greeks and ancient R ...
of the
Athenian
Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...
navy during the late 5th century BC. Its crew were known for their vehement pro-
democracy
Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...
views. It played a notable role in several episodes of the
Peloponnesian War
The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War (), was an Ancient Greece, ancient Greek war fought between Classical Athens, Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Ancien ...
.
The ''Paralus'' appears more often in the literary and
epigraphical
Epigraphy () is the study of inscriptions, or epigraphs, as writing; it is the science of identifying graphemes, clarifying their meanings, classifying their uses according to dates and cultural contexts, and drawing conclusions about the wr ...
sources for the classical period than any other individual ship;
[Jordan, ''Athenian Navy'', 172] it carried almost all recorded Athenian
diplomatic mission
A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually denotes ...
s in the 5th and 4th centuries, and it appears that on most of these missions the treasurer (''tamias'') of Paralus acted as the chief ambassador.
The crew of the ''Paralus'' (the ''Paraloi'') was known for its exceptionally strong pro-democracy views; its remarkable unity on this matter may indicate that it was composed of the members of a single ''
genos
In ancient Greece, a ''genos'' (Greek: γένος, "race, stock, kin", plural γένη ''genē'') was a social group claiming common descent, referred to by a single name (see also Sanskrit "Gana"). Most ''gene'' were composed of noble families&m ...
'' of the name ''Paraloi''. This crew was instrumental in preventing an
oligarchic
Oligarchy (; ) is a form of government in which power rests with a small number of people. Members of this group, called oligarchs, generally hold usually hard, but sometimes soft power through nobility, fame, wealth, or education; or throug ...
coup at
Samos
Samos (, also ; , ) is a Greek island in the eastern Aegean Sea, south of Chios, north of Patmos and the Dodecanese archipelago, and off the coast of western Turkey, from which it is separated by the Mycale Strait. It is also a separate reg ...
in 411 BC. On bringing the news of this event to Athens, however, they found that a successful oligarchic coup had taken place there, and were interned; one crew member, escaping, brought the news of this event to the fleet at Samos, beginning the period of open division between the city and the fleet.
In 405 BC, the ''Paralus'' was one of ten ships that escaped from the Athenian disaster at
Aegospotami with
Conon
Conon () (before 443 BC – ) was an Athenian general at the end of the Peloponnesian War, who led the Athenian naval forces when they were defeated by a Peloponnesian fleet in the crucial Battle of Aegospotami; later he contributed significantly ...
; it was then dispatched to inform Athens of the defeat, its arrival setting off a citywide panic.
[Xenophon, ''Hellenica'' 2.2.3]
See also
*
Salaminia
References
Other sources
*
Kagan, Donald. ''The Peloponnesian War'' (Penguin Books, 2003).
*Jordan, Borimir, ''The Athenian Navy in the Classical Period''. (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1975) {{ISBN, 0-520-09482-4
*Xenophon, ''
Hellenica
''Hellenica'' () simply means writings on Greek (Hellenic) subjects. Several histories of the 4th-century BC Greece have borne the conventional Latin title ''Hellenica'', of which very few survive.Murray, Oswyn, "Greek Historians", in John Boardma ...
''
Peloponnesian War
Ships of ancient Greece
Navy of ancient Athens