'Athens And Its Empire' By Chester G. Jr

In Athens, the people they enslaved were their allies and covered it up by saying they were uniting them. When in reality they were truly taking advantage of them and only wanted to keep they own people safe. To keep their people safe Athens gained many Allies to protect their people. Not only did Athens use allies for protection but as source of revenue as well. Athens soon realized with out there allies they

Mythology was very huge in Ancient Greece. There are so many different folktales and myths

Action from necessity is a constantly recurring theme in Thucydides’ The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War. A sentiment used to explain the growth of the Athenian Empire which some Athenians espoused to an assembly at Sparta best quantifies necessity, “. . . we were necessarily compelled at first to advance the hegemony to where it is—especially by fear, and then by honor, and later by benefit.” (Selected Passages 1.75.3). This claim, referred to as the Athenian Thesis, is used to advance the two following implications: all states act with the motivations of fear, honor and interest and no one can condemn a state for doing so. The Athenian Thesis influences the way many of the Athenian elite structure their patterns of reasoning in both noticeable and subtle ways.

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.

A reading of Thucydides’, Pericles’ Funeral Oration and The Melian Dialogue uncovers both contrasting and comparable viewpoints on Athenian politics, power, aims of war, and empire. Thucydides presents two differing characteristics of Athens, one as the civilizer in Pericles’ funeral oration and the other as an tyrant in the Melian dialogue. In the funeral oration delivered by Pericles during the first year of the war, the Athenian leader emphasizes the idealized personal image of the Athenians in regard to their constitution and good character. Pericles goes on to praise the Athenian democratic institution of Athens that contributes to their cities greatness; in Pericles’s own words, “The Athenian administration favors the many instead of few… they afford equal justice to all of their differences” (112, 2.37). This quote emphasizes the good character of the Athens’ to coax and encourage the Athenians to preserve and better their great empire into the future. On the other hand, in the Melian dialogue, this notion of justice and equality is irrelevant; one, because Athens compared to Melos, is the stronger of the two and thus, is more powerful. Further, Athens, will continue to acquire absolute power and build its empire by conquering Melos and whomever else stands in its way. Through Pericles’ funeral oration and the Melian dialogue, the following conclusions/themes will demonstrate both the changing and somewhat stable nature of Athenian policy with regards to empire,

“The Restoration of the Athenian Empire” Our walls are crumbling and our fleet is minute. We here in Athens are unable to collect tribute from other city-states and are often in threat of being attacked. Our fleet is defenseless and weak. The Democratic fraction, propose that we spend our time and hard earned money on the rebuilding of our walls and fleet. That way Athens can dangerously collect tributes from other Greek city-states. The Democrats also would like to commence in hazardous military voyages with our insubstantial navy. Hoping the result brings forth great rewards.

The Athenian Empire was a more voluntary alliance of city-states that were impressed by the Athenian Navy's prowess in the Persian War and were willing to pay for its protection. Athens used this revenue to further improve its navy, as well as improve its own infrastructure and defenses. Included in these improvements was the construction of large walls around the city and down to the port at Piraeus, home of the Athenian Navy.

The Trojan War has long been debated on historical accuracy by experts on whether or not it actually happened. In Barry Strauss ' book, The Trojan War, he draws from multiple sources to illustrate what occurred during this time period. Strauss utilizes archeological evidence and descriptions from poets, such as Homer, surrounding the Trojan War to argue what probably happened and what was likely made up.

It is remarkable how timeless the Speech of Archidamus is. One could easily imagine the Spartan King were speaking to a modern occupied territory, itching for a revolt. King Archidamus urges the Spartans to head caution when entering war with Athens. He has “seen too many wars” [pg 25, 80] The battles he has witnessed in his lifetime have swayed him of any naive fascination with war. He has learned that violence begets violence, so one should only enter a battle they are prepared to win. Archidamus explains that Athens is stronger in terms of wealth, military might and political power. If the Spartans take the offensive route under these circumstances, they will surely loose both in combat and in terms of public relations. [pg 26, 81] Furthermore, Archidamus explains later that Athens had agreed to mediation, making any fight that Sparta were to start an unlawful preemptive attack. [pg 28, 85] The King assures his people he is not blind to their suffering, he just envisions better ways of ending it. [pg 26, 82] One of these methods would be to create partnerships with other nations who would lend armed forces and capital to the cause. To be done in tandem with confederation would be the accumulation of Sparta’s assets. Archidamus predicts that under these circumstances, Athens could be motivated to surrender. Under the very different circumstances from which he is speaking, the King pushes to avoid war at all costs citing that “complaints can be resolved, whether they are

Greece: Engineering an Empire, began with a depiction of Greece as city-states that were both self-contained and self-reliant, yet faced the issue of trying to unite disparate city-states; lacking a sense of nationalism. To address this matter, Themistocles cultivated a plan to overthrow the Persian Empire through blockading their army into the Solomon Straits. Conversely, although he made Greece a victorious nation, many viewed him as power hungry and a danger to the political process. As a result, he was exiled from Greece; where later he became an administrator for the Persian King.

Brown, Peter. The World of Late Antiquity. London: Thames & Hudson, 1971 (rpt. New York: Norton, 1989).

“I went down yesterday to the Piraeus with Glaucon…” this is the part of the first sentence from the Republic which was written as in the dialogue form by ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Through the book Plato tried to define the meaning of the justice. As Plato said in his dialogue with Adeimantus, it is better that defining the justice in the State in which we could see justice in the larger quantity: first, it is appearing in the State, and the individual comes second.

In 400 B.C, The Athenian civilization experienced a golden age. The Athens experienced a great amount of peace and prosperity due to their contact and trade with others, and rare warring. During this time, ideas and philosophies were produced. These ideas influenced western civilizations in the areas of politics, science, art and architecture.

“But we trust that the gods may grant us fortune as good as yours, since we are just men fighting against unjust, and that what we want in power will be made up by the alliance of the Lacedaemonians” (Thucydides 270). The Melians should have acted sensibly instead of being naïve and submit to the imperial power seeing that the odds were against them. The Athenians give them a choice, but they decided to act irrational and respond emotively. “They underestimated Athens’ military power, judging the issue by the clouded eye of volition rather than calculations based on security and followed the human tendency to back their desires with uncritical hope and use of sovereign reason only to reject what they find unpalatable” (Bosworth 36).

     The ancient Greek and Roman civilizations of Europe began to progress toward a more civilized order of society. As there were no previous establishment to base their ideals on, it was understandable that there were some difficulties in their progression as a society. Although the ancient Greek and Roman governments fell, both had similar paths of creation, conquest, and destruction.