For me, I see The Delian League as a legend that ancient Athenians pioneered the use of allying their poleis with many others, in order to against Persian aggression and create a military monolithic in Greece. Further, according to study.com, "The group of city-states who sided with Athens met at the sacred island of Delos to form a new alliance. This was the Delian League. The League had three goals: to prepare for the risk of future invasions, to get revenge on Persia, and to form a way to divide the spoils of war evenly amongst the members of the Delian League."(n.d.). In my view, the league was on the basis of 'in search of safety, equality, mutual benefits, and area military superiority', which these noble intentions brought hopes, obligations, …show more content…
"Annual contributions of money and ships poured in, which made Athens richer and more powerful as time progressed. The league pushed the Persians out of Europe and back from Ionia"(Oziah, 2013, p. 4). On the strength of those tributes, along with the manpower from member states, the league was invincible in battle, and an economic boom followed, soon the leading Athens became a flourishing hub of the whole area. As Thomas Martin indicated, "The Athenian-dominated Delian League enjoyed success after success against the Persian in the 470s and 460s...almost all Persian garrisons had been expelled from the Greek world and the Persian fleet driven from the Aegean...Persia ceased to be a threat to Greeks for the next fifty …show more content…
On the one hand, different city-states uniformly agreed on the necessity of military action in concert which they repelled their common enemy time after time. Gradually, an enlarged coalition of about 150 city-states held a clear majority that was in a strong position to defeat Persia. On the other hand, part of the secret is Athens had a lot going for it, such as disposal of people and material resources. What's more, it had enormous financial firepower to sustain the fighting for long in the time of war. Most significantly, the ruler of Athens had an ability to work a crowd, in a way every member of the Delian League pulled together, therefore success would be certain, though it exploited people's natural fears as well. To sum up, the Delian League was of unquestionable importance as the greatest economic and political union in the annals of Greek history, that the formation of a powerful military force was not only sending reverberations through liaison between Athens and many city-states, but also turning the region into an intellectually, artistically, architecturally effervescent center on
There is no coincidence that the rise of Athenian Democracy goes chronologically hand in hand with the rise of the Athenian Navy. Following the defeat of the Persians by the Greeks, Athens’ naval successes allow it to surpass the previous naval power of Corinth; create the Delian league to fund and support this navy; and eventually ruffle enough feathers with their fellow Hellenic neighbours that they inspire the Peloponnesian war. Overall their naval reputation and intimidation comes from the skill of the men who maneuver and command the ships, and the tool they use to wield their power, the Athenian trireme. By looking at the design of the trireme, and the work and numbers put both into the ship and the men that drive it, hopefully both the wealth and skill of the Athenian navy can be appropriately highlighted. In the end, it is this immense power and resources that allow the Athenians to overstep their limits and caused such demoralizing defeats such as the expedition at Syracuse and the eventual loss of the Peloponnesian war, after which they prove unable to grow to the same undefeated sea power they were.
Investigating Athens' Treatment of Her Allies During the period of 478-431, Athens’ treatment of her allies changed dramatically as she rose to become the leader of an empire. The establishment of the Delian League marked the beginning of a significant series of events, which lead to Athens’ rise to extreme power. From the evidence of Thucydides and the inscriptions, it is possible to track the progress of these events and the rapidly changing treatment that Athens enforced upon her allies. The Delian League was an establishment formed in 478 BC. A large number of Greek cities formed an alliance under this league and together aimed to provide a strong defence against Persia, under the leadership of Athens.
"It might be suggested the ability of the allies to pay tribute is the strength of Athens" (The Old Oligarch, I, 15). Indeed. It is this characteristic in particular of the Delian League that leads it to be rightfully called the Athenian Empire. If each state had maintained its own fleet, and sent it to join the League in its expeditions, they would have held on to a significant measure of independence. Instead, a critically large enough portion of the league members abdicated control over their own military (by their own choice or by force) and simply paid cash to Athens, giving that city the ability to maintain an empire through the use of military might.
Although the Ionian revolt was ultimately unsuccessful, it sparked the anger of Darius, the King of Persia, that the Athenians dared to interfere with his vast empire. Herodotus writes he was so angry that he "ordered one of his servants to say to him three times every day before dinner, 'Sire, remember the Athenians" (Hdt. 5.105.2). Whether Darius really said this is questionable, but it is clear that either to exact venge... ... middle of paper ... ... reeks won a war of unbeatable odds because they had both everything to lose and everything to gain - their very survival.
Thucydides sets down the development of the relationship between the power of Athens and Sparta in the Archeology. Athens emerges from the Persian Wars as the undisputed commercial superpower in Greece. Where Sparta is located in the fertile Peloponnesus, and is thus able to sustain itself on agriculture alone, making trade unnecessary and allowing it to maintain its own laws and customs for “more than four hundred years” (I.18.1), Athens’ infertile land forces it to turn to olive oil for revenue, and it consequently develops a flourishing trade economy even before the Darius set his sights on Greece. The Persian invasion itself makes a sea power out of Athens, allowing it to establish a Mediterranean empire, and export its culture and government to the rest of Greece (I.18.2, I.6.3). This serves to unify the scattered Ionian and Doric cities under the umbrella of the Hellenes culturally where the Spartan campaign to remove tyrants unifies it politically by giving Greeks relative freedom and subordinating it uniformly to the law, and the joint coalition against the Persians ultimately secured it militarily (I.
Of all the history of the Ancient Greece, there were two events that showed really well how disunity among the Greeks highly contributed to its downfall, which were the Peloponnesian War and Successors’ War. Interestingly, both wars occurred after a unity and followed by a unity that was carried out by “outsiders”. This may have actually shown that the Greeks had never learned from their past
The Delian League was an empire that included most of the island and coastal states around the northern and eastern shores of the Aegean Sea. As a result of this, Athens had a strong navy. Athens was also financially prepared for war, owning a large fund they had amassed from the regular tribute paid to them from their empire.
Both Sparta and Athens were Greek city-states. Sparta was a strict military ruled city-state where the people established themselves as a military power early. However Athens was more of a political city-state that was more involved with their economical stature than their military forces. Still changes from the Persian wars would change the powers of the city-state and somewhat unite them.
When examining the causes for the Peloponnesian War, which was between 431-404 B.C., there are a number of causes that factored into the cause of this war. However, one of the most important causes to this war was largely due to the fact that the Spartans feared the growing power and success of Athens. The Spartans were “particularly alarmed at the growing power of Athens” (Cartwright, “Peloponnesian War”). During the Persian war in 479 BC, Athens grew fiercely strong with power with help of its many allies and continued with their no mercy attacks on Persian territories. When the Persians left Greece, Athens further enraged Sparta when they built large and tall walls around its empire in the event of an attack, which was mostly thought to be from Sparta if it happened.
The Peloponnesian War is the conflict between the pelopoponesians league led by Sparta and the Delian league, led by Athens. Much of our knowledge on the causes and events of the Peloponnesian War, depends on the Athenian Thucydides 460-400 BC, writer of the History of the Peloponessian War. He servd as an Athenian commander in Northern Greece during the early years of the war until the assembly exiled him as he lost an outpost to the enemy. During this exile, he was able to interview witnesses on both sides of the conflicted. Unlike Heredotus he concentrated on contemporary history and presented his account of the war in an annalistic framework that only occasionally diverts from chronological order. In his account, he discuses the precursors to the war, including the 30 years truce and revolutions, such as the stasis in Corcyra. When looking at wars, the primary focus is normally the fighting itself, such as what we see for World War II. However, it is important to look at the anatomy of war, meaning what effect the war has on the people who are experiencing it first hand, and the consquences that the conflict has on the rest of the world. Therefore in this essay I shall discuss, drawing directly from Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, how the civilians reacted to the war, their involvement and socio economic factors. Furthermore, the first section of my essay shall focus on the direct effect of war on the people, regarding the plague, and violence and hopelessness that was experienced. Then I shall go on to discuss more general effects of the war and how it affected the Greek world, discussing the social and economic losses that occurred such as the cost of the war in attica, the coup d’etat that occurred in gove...
The League of Nations has been seen as a seriously flawed international organisation and its failure to prevent World War Two has been well documented. Provide something of an alternative perspective by identifying and highlighting important policy-areas in which the League made valuable progress.
If you think about it, throughout the course of several years a country could possibly run into hundreds of disputes and small wars. If America had to come to that country’s aid time and time again, it could get very draining on the population, economy, and government. Joining The League may also have allowed foreign hands to grasp hold of America and possibly try to take over. If one of the countries had tried this, there would have been another, very large war much sooner than
Athens was a much more superior polis compared to Sparta because the Athenians invented new ideas and creations that supported the people, such as democracy, the Athenians led the Delian League, and Sparta created the Peloponnesian League after the Athenians created their alliance, and the Athenians changed the ways of their government many times to suit the people, and the Spartans did not.
Thucydides set out to narrate the events of what he believed would be a great war—one requiring great power amassed on both sides and great states to carry out. Greatness, for Thucydides, was measured most fundamentally in capital and military strength, but his history delves into almost every aspect of the war, including, quite prominently, its leaders. In Athens especially, leadership was vital to the war effort because the city’s leaders were chosen by its people and thus, both shaped Athens and reflected its character during their lifetimes. The leaders themselves, however, are vastly different in their abilities and their effects on the city. Thucydides featured both Pericles and Alcibiades prominently in his history, and each had a distinct place in the evolution of Athenian empire and the war it sparked between Athens and Sparta. Pericles ascended to power at the empire’s height and was, according to Thucydides, the city’s most capable politician, a man who understood fully the nature of his city and its political institutions and used his understanding to further its interests in tandem with his own. After Pericles, however, Thucydides notes a drastic decline in the quality of Athenian leaders, culminating in Alcibiades, the last major general to be described in The Peloponnesian War. While he is explicit in this conclusion, he is much more reticent regarding its cause. What changed in Athens to produce the decline in the quality of its leadership?
The main reason that the Greeks were able to win the Second Greco-Persian War was the fact that their victory on the sea dealt a crippling blow to the land army. The Greeks owe their naval success to a man named Themistocles. If it had not been for him then Athens would have not used some newly found silver to build 200 new ships for their navy. These ships were later used in the war against the Persians. The two forces were working in unison and they were dependent upon each other for victory. The Persian naval forces were there in order to protect the flank of the army's advance. If the Persian navy were not present then the Greeks would have been able to get on ships and sail to a spot behind the Persian lines and outflank them. They also delivered supplies to the armies that were necessary for its survival.