THE Peace of Callias (aka Kallias) refers to a possible peace treaty made in the mid-5th century BCE between Athens and Persia following the Persian Wars. The existence of such a treaty is not agreed upon by all historians, and if it did exist, its precise terms are also disputed. Even the possible date of such a treaty continues to be debated amongst scholars, with either the 460s BCE or c. 449 BCE being the most popular suggestions. The treaty is named after the wealthy Athenian statesman Callias who may have led the Athenian ambassadors during the peace discussions. Even if a treaty by this name was never drawn up, it is true that there was an end to the hostilities between Athens and Persia in the mid-5th century BCE.
The existence of a peace treaty between The Achaemenid Empire of Persia and the Greekcity-state of Athens called the ‘Peace of Callias’ is not known for certain, primarily because the Greek historian Herodotus (c. 484 - c. 413 BCE) does not mention it and, more significantly, Thucydides (c. 460 - c. 398 BCE), who is our principal contemporary source on the end of the Persian Wars, does not mention it explicitly either. However, scholars point out that neither author gave very much attention to the precise period in question and suggest that certain passages in Thucydides’ work do constitute indirect evidence that there was such a treaty between the two powers.
Even so, doubts have existed going all the way back to Theopompos in the 4th century BCE. That Greek historian had perhaps seen a copy of the treaty but, because he thought it an original and it was written in the more recently used Ionic alphabet, did not think it genuine (although Ionic Greek was used on occasion in 5th-century BCE documents). On the other hand, the existence of some sort of agreement between Athens and Persia is noted by such ancient figures as the Athenian orators Demosthenes and Lycurgus in the 4th century BCE, as well as later authors like Plutarch and Aelius Aristides writing in the 2nd century CE.
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