Why Did Athens Become An Imperial Power-Trireme

If you had the choice to live in Athens or Sparta, which one would you choose and why?

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 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.

Explain the methods used by the Athenians to transform the Delian League into the Athenian Empire. (25 marks) There is certainty no evidence to suggest that the Athenians had any long-term plans, in the years 479-470 BC, to change the Delian League into an empire, although from the beginning the potential to develop into an imperial power were there. Because from the beginning, Athens had considerable power as she was the permanent hegemon.The most important aspects involving the transformation of League into empire was the changing relationships between Athens and her allies, Periclesʼ imperial policy, Athensʼ selfish self interest in gaining more power by using the Leagueʼs power and establishing laws onto her allies such as the Coinage

During the Fifth century, Greece was controlled by two main powers; Athens and Sparta. These city-states were very different. Sparta was known for their strength, discipline, individuality, beauty, sports, and learning (Beck et al. 131). Athens was known for education, fitness, art, literature, and wealth. Not to overlook the rights of women, which were a little elevated in Sparta, the city that had an overall greater respect for human rights, would be Athens.

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.

After the onset of the Persian War most Greek city states chose to submit to Persia save for a few including Athens and Sparta. The city-states that did choose to agree to a Persian rule did so because of the damage they faced during the first Persian invasion. The other city-states that chose to resist joined Athens in 478 B.C. and formed what is known as the Delian League. The purpose of the Delian League was to defend city-states from invasions and to get revenge against Persia. City-states could gain membership to this league by means of paying a tax or offering its military to fight for the League. The leader of this group of city-states quickly became Athens due to the money it was receiving in the form of a tax from the other city-states to build its already massive navy.

One Greek named Themistocles had been preparing for that moment for years. Although all the city-states of ancient Greece spoke the same language and worshiped the same gods, they were not united. Themistocles who came from the aristocratic ranks was the only man who could unite Greece. He knew how to make a city great and free. Themistocles wanted to build a navy that the world has never seen before. He built the Trireme, the deadliest warship of the ancient world. Greeks wanted to win battles by force, unlike the Persians who preferred to win battles through diplomacy, intimidation, and traders. Athens at that time had a practice called ostracism in which an individual is exile for ten years annually by an unpopularity contest. People would vote for a politician who

Ancient empire uses their political power in different way. The empire use their political powers to rule the societies and run there people. In advance to 600 BCE ancient empire exerted there political power in various ways; which included promotion of ideologies, promotion of good government officials, and creating legal systems. Greek and Persians political power where fairly different but both of them were great empires. In document two it state that the Greek empire was a democracy and believed in morals and good deeds with “laws secures equal rights” say that every is treat fairly.

Athens was a great city of the Fifth century from Greece. They flourished during that time and were at the height of their power. They were also a very smart people, and some of their ideas have lasted all the way until present day. Perhaps one of the most important is democracy. Athens is one of the earliest civilizations that use this form of government and it nearly lasted two hundred years. Its hard to become as powerful as Athens did without making enemies or people that you rubbed the wrong way. Some people will say that Athens was a just civilization and others will say that they just looked out for themselves and attacked whoever would be of benefit to them. I think that Athens was a just civilization, especially of their time, nobody is perfect.

The Athenians used the Delian League to enhance their prestige. They bettered themselves by strengthening their army and weakened other by taking resources for them. The Delian League gave Athens

After holding back the second Persian invasion during the Greco-Persian war, the Spartan king Pausanias was disgraced, and Sparta withdrew from the war (Thuc.1.95). This allowed Athens to gain leadership in the war, and several years later, establish themselves as leaders within the Delian League (Holland 2005: 362). Throughout the age of the Pentecontaetia (period of fifty years), the League continued its attacks on the Persians. It is during this period that Athens established itself as an empire. As time wore on, the Athenian Empire became more and more powerful, and it is here that they made their first blunder, setting themselves up for a disadvantage in the Peloponnesian War: by extending its power and subjected most of her allies in the Delian

On the topic of governmental standpoints Sparta was an oligarchy whereas Athens was a democracy. An oligarchy is a form of government in which all power is vested in a few persons or in a dominant class or clique (Dictionary.com). Sparta’s government was set up into four branches: two co-kings, Gerontes or Gerousia, Ephors, and Appella or Demos. The co-kings were of two different family lines of limited hereditary monarchs who were kept in check by the other parts of government as well as by each other. One of the two kings was the commander in chief of the army. Gerontes were a council of 30 consisting of the 2 co-kings plus 28 others each were rich elders of noble birth. They would hold office for the rest of their life after being elected by the people. Gerontes acted as advising body and court of criminal justice in which

Ancient Greece is known for its two rival city-states, Athens and Sparta. It was the strengths of these two societies that brought the ancient world to its heights in art, culture and with the defeat of the Persians, warfare. With Athens and Sparta fighting for power and territory, it brought about the Peloponnesian wars that lasted thirty years, leaving the two city-states in their own shadows. The classical era was helped shaped from the works of Homer, The Illiad and The Odyssey, that in a way, created a set of rules and an ethnic identity for the Greeks. The heroic achievements of Odysseus and the other Achaeans served as role models for the Greeks which told them how to behave and how not to behave in many situations, especially on the battle field and in competition.

Very few civilizations have had as profound an influence on the world as those of ancient Greece. The Greeks laid the foundations for fields varying from philosophy to political theory to war tactics. However, this influence was not just due to their intelligence or success, but their widespread presence in the Mediterranean. Greek culture was spread throughout their known world in two distinct manners, the foundation of apoikia in the Archaic Age (8th century to 500 B.C. ) and imperialists by poleis, primarily Athens of the Classical Age (490 - 323 B.C ). Though the culture of a mother city (mētropolis) may have spread through two very different manners of “colonization.” The word is not used in the literal sense, but rather hereafter used to mean “spreading of culture”, as the former can hardly be described using the contemporary definition of colonization and the latter was through Athenian empire-building. These developments had a significant impact on ancient Greece and our modern perception thereof. Like most of the ancient world, we can best analyze these methods of colonialism through extant artifacts. I will analyze an inscription of the foundation oath of Cyrene, which recounts the decision and manner in which the island of Thera sent its citizens to the form a new polis, and the fragments of the Lapis Primus, a marble monolith that documented tributes to Athens when the city was at the peak of its imperial age, evidencing the magnitude of their power and influence in the Greek region.