Athenian Golden Age Summary

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HIST1421 - AY2018-T2

Learning Journal - Unit 3

Discuss one circumstance that led to the end of the Athenian Golden Age.

Good evening Trico,

The ‘Golden Age’ of Athenian culture usually refers to the era of Pericles (495-429 BCE). Pericles was a great military general, promoter of the arts, orator and politician. It has been most interesting to read accounts its rise and fall, and to ponder why, and what might have been.

Pericles reorganized the economy of Athens (Brand, 2017) to take advantage of it’s natural resources, and to trade with neighboring states for those commodities, particularly staple foods, which it could not produce efficiently. This was far ahead of its time – we have carried this idea to absurdity in …show more content…

As first created, the League gave its members the protection of numbers, and particularly of the strength of Athens’s wealth and naval power. This provided security in the face of a common enemy in Persia.

The long history of the Greek Polis however, had been turbulent, and there existed a resentment of states which became too big, and a constant evolution of intrigue and opposition. Alliances of small states constantly evolved to protect against large and powerful neighbors. So it was with the first Delian League. Despite all of its learning, its philosophy and culture, the citizens of Athens seemed not to have realized this would happen again, or to work to prevent it.

As time progressed, Athens come to dominate and even to oppress its Delian allies. The reaction of Athens when Naxos (469 B.C.) and Thasos (465 B.C) tried to withdraw from the League is ample illustration. This was bound to cause the other members of the league to grow in intrigue and resentment. The extravagant use of the Delian treasury to glorify Athens was further fuel to the fire. The original creation of a military able resist Persia eventually came to see this very military used to oppress the members of the League, and to engage in Athens’ military adventures against neighboring Greek states. Surely a ‘bridge too

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