Delian League Essay

The besiegement of Thasos revealed Athens' true motivations behind the League and the future plans for her allies. According to _Ancient Greece Using Sources_ Thasos was one of the largest and richest members of the Delian League, and a conflict broke out between Athens and Thasos over the gold mining on the island. Thasos then attempted to withdraw from the League, as the Persians were no longer a threat in the Aegean, and Athens was demanding too much for too little in return.

The Peloponnesian war was fought between the two city states in ancient Greece, being Athens and Sparta. These two cities had alliances that, between them, included close to every Greek city-state. The Peloponnesian war was inevitable because Athens was too hungry for power, and tried to take total control of Greece. Athens’s growth in military and economic power led to the beginning of a bloody war.

The establishments of cleruchies had cause much resentment from other Greek states towards Athens. According to Plutarch, this system had relieve “the city of a large number of idlers and agitators and raise the standards of the poorest classes”, but at the same time it implanted amongst the allies “a healthy fear of rebellion”. It also allowed Athens to gain more numbers of hoplites, as only Athenian men with money can become a hoplite soldier. This had increased the military force in Athens and had strengthened Athensʼ hold on her empire, as they were located at strategic points in the Aegean. The worsening relationship between Athensʼ and her allies in the League is due to Athensʼ selfish self interest in developing her imperial power, and this had allow Athens to gradually grow into an empire. This selfish self interest can be seen after the Peace of Callias. At first the aim of the League was, according to Thucydides, ʻto compensate themselves for their losses by ravaging the territory of the King of Persiaʼ, but in 449 BC Persian lost the battle against Cimon in Cyprus and signed a peace treaty called ʻPeace of Calliasʼ. Although this meant that the Leagueʼs aim had been fulfilled, the Athenians argued that the Persians would strike again if the Greeks appeared weak. This argument from Athens had an underlying aim, that was so the Greeks states would not leave

- Athens had become an imperial power
- Delian League ask for contributions & would not let anybody leave
- Trireme – row ship used for war
- Democracy in Athens
- Athens made a form of taxes
- Sophists – traveling teachers
- Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle - Athens had become an imperial power
- Delian League ask for contributions & would not let anybody leave
- Trireme – row ship used for war
- Democracy in Athens
- Athens made a form of taxes
- Sophists – traveling teachers
- Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle - Athens had become an imperial power
- Delian League ask for contributions & would not let anybody leave
- Trireme – row ship used for war
- Democracy in Athens
- Athens made a form of taxes
- Sophists – traveling teachers
- Socrates,

Consequently, In 478 BCE on the island of Delos, a coalition of Greek states (from which Sparta resigned) came together to form the Delian League.

The Delian League was created by the Athenians, and was an alliance between the poleis in an attempt to protect themselves against the Persians. The Athenians became oppressive and began sending garrisons to the other poleis. They destroyed any allies that wanted to remove themselves from the alliance. The Athenian goal of taking control over the entire Mediterranean region made other poleis anxious, and Sparta, the only other superpower of the Greek world, now removed itself from the league in 431 BCE. This ignited the Peloponnesian War that lasted for 27 years. It was known that Sparta had the stronger army and Athens had a more advanced navy, so Pericles developed a plan for the Athenians. The Athenian population would be placed within

The Delian League was formed in 478 BC due to the Ionians asking for the Athenians to take control of the Hellenic League, as a result of Spartan commander Pausanias’ harsh treatment. According to Thucydides ‘at first the Athenians were the leaders of autonomous allies who met together to make their policy in common’ , justified by the need for protection against Barbarians such as the Persians. Most ancient sources and modern scholars believe that the hegemony soon became an Athenian empire, yet the extent to which it became a deliberately harsh and exploitative regime is debatable. Our main Ancient source for the period of the Delian League is Thucydides’ History of Peloponnesian War; the lack of many other sources causing issues when trying to provide an unbiased debate.

Member states swore a solemn oath never to desert the coalition. The members were predominantly located in northern Greece, on the islands of the Aegean Sea, and along the western coast of Anatolia-that is, in the areas most exposed to Persian attack. Most of the independent city-states of the Peloponnese, on the other hand, remained in their long-standing alliance with the Spartans, which had been in existence since well before the Persian Wars” [1]. This would be the formed of the Peloponnesian League which consisted of the Persians and Athens. However there would be a caught in just how the Peloponnesian would in fact operate.

Between the First and Second Peloponnesian Wars Pericles and Athens was involved in many conflicts. A major one of the interwar period was the Second Sacred War. The root of this short conflict was Athens desire to return control of Delphi to its ally the City-State of Phocis. control the Oracle of Delphi Pericles was involved in was the Second Sacred War. During this war Pericles led the Athenian army against Delphi and reinstated Phocis in its sovereign rights on the oracle. Another one occurred in 447 BCE Pericles engaged in his most admired excursion, the expulsion of barbarians from the Thracian peninsula of Gallipoli, in order to establish Athenian colonists in the region. At this time, however, Athens was going through internal problems.

Athens true colours begin to emerge in the following years and in my opinion their intent to become an Empire is exposed which leads to the fall of The Delean League. We have to go back to when the league was founded, originally poleis could sign up voluntarily, which means they should also be able to pull out of their own free will. 10 years later Naxos tried to do just that, and the Athenian’s literally forced them to stay in the league (Buttler, 2007, p. 6). This brutish behaviour would carry on and grow with time, causing upset among the other poleis. What were they still paying for? Persia was defeated and the Athenian Navy was well funded at that stage. They were funding Athenian projects and democracy, all made possible thanks to the League contributions, and when Pericles came along in 460BCE he knew just how to spend it. The Parthenon is a great example, funded by the League’s treasury, as well as restoring the city of Athens (Buttler, 2007,

The Peloponnesian War was the turning point in Athenian hegemony in Ancient Greece. It was fought in 431 B.C. between the Delian League, led by Athens, and the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. According to Thucydides, Athens’ imposing hegemonic status and its overwhelming quest for more power made the Peloponnesian War and Athens’s eventual fall from power inevitable. Despite the Athenians having a far more superior navy and being considerably wealthier, they were defeated and made subjects of Sparta. In this paper, I will discuss Thucydides’ and Socrates’ reasons for why

The Delian League was an alliance formed by the Ancient Greek city states to form a mutual defense against a common enemy, the Persians (www.FlowofHistory.com, n.d.). The goal of the Delian League was to fortify Greece’s defenses from its foreign enemies (mainly via a strong navy); and the League was largely successful at achieving this goal. The Delian League was predominantly maintained by Athens and was partly responsible for developing a strong mutual defense and navy; consisting of varying degrees of capital, support, and manpower from surrounding Greek city-states (especially city states near the Aegean Sea), (www.FlowofHistory.com, n.d.). Moreover, although the Delian League was successful at its goal of implementing a mutual defense strategy for Ancient Greece, it also became overwhelmingly influenced by Athens; as made evident from a quote in the assigned reading: “The Delian League was turning into an Athenian Empire” (www.FlowofHistory.com, n.d., p. FC23).

The construction of the Parthenon played a major issue regarding politic for all Greece. In 448 B.C., the death of Cimon occurred, giving a chance to Pericles, who served as a leader of the Democratic Party, to proceed a total reversal of Athenian policy. He was a prominent statesman, famous speaker, and general of Athens during the Golden Age of Athens. During this time, there was the Delian league which created as an organization (campaign), opposing Persian expansion (to go against the Ahaemenid Empire). Pericle aimed to move the headquarters and treasury to Athens and forced the other Greek cities to pay tribute to Athens (also to rebuild the Acropolis) instead of spending the treasury funds to protect and support the people of Greece.

The Grecian city states were a fractious lot with self serving alliances shifting daily. This prevented any war from engulfing all nations. Only when faced with an external threat would they combine their forces. In 446/5 that ended with a treaty splitting Greece into 2 hegemonies (Gill, 2017a). With the contentious nature of the city states (particularly Athens), war was inevitable, and when it happened, Greece was devastated, and left it ripe for external invasion. Ironically, such external threats were the original justification for the formation of the Delian League. In this regard it was an utter

In 478BC, an alliance of about 150 Ionian city-states (Martin, 2000), was formed on the island of Delos which, according to contemporary historian Thucydides, officially purported to “avenge the wrongs they suffered by ravaging the territory of the king” (Thucydides). The members of the alliance had to contribute any combination of money, warships, soldiers, and supplies; yet, most of the allies opted to contribute money and let Athens do the actual fighting. Well-funded by allied capital, Athens led the alliance against a series of campaigns against the Achaemenid Persia, clearing the Greek coasts from Persian garrisons, transplanting Athenian ideals to the liberated cities,