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In what ways was the delian league unsuccessful
In what ways was the delian league unsuccessful
Explain how successful the Delian League was
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After the establishment of Delian League, Athens had immediately attain its status as super-power and the richest city-state in ancient Greek. As the head of the league, Athens had able to rake an enormous wealth more than they can imagine. It was the height of its power. Right after it had successfully expelled, along with its allies the Persian forces in 470s and 460s in Greek (Martin, n.d). Indeed, the Delian league is a a huge success. However, who really benefited from it most?
Delian League had instituted immediately after the victory of Athens and its ardent allies in the battle of Salamis with Persians. Its primary purpose is to forge "mutual protection." It was an alliance among city-states along Aegean islands and coast. Athens was the head of the league for her "naval supremacy" (Gill, n.d). We can compare this league to the present Group of eight (G8) or the Group of twenty (G20). Where the United States is the supreme among them because of its military might. On other hand, Sparta did not want to be left behind and it also set up a separate league and they called it the Peloponnesian league.
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After they had formed the Delian League it was the beginning of their back to back success in their battles with the Persians.
And it was the most successful alliance during that period because they successfully overthrown their enemy. Since then, Persia had stop threatening the entire Greek peninsula. For the next fifty years Athens did experience peace and prosperity in the absence of threat from external forces (Gill, n.d) During this period Athens had started to accumulate tremendous wealth. Part of those were precious possessions they had collected from the fallen Persian outposts. In addition it continue to receive dues from members of the Delian League, despite there was no war anymore (Gill,
n.d). It was thought that Athens had able to bag an estimated amount "equivalent to perhaps $200,000,000 in contemporary terms" (Martin,n.d). There was a great surplus of money at that time and people in Athens had experience an unprecedented economic boom. They started building imposing and elegant structures and beautify its city. While Athen was enjoying its wealth, its allies, on other hand, had suffer the burden of paying their dues, which Athens continue to impose. Until they became "poorer" (Gill,n.d). Many of these allies wanted to "secede," however Athens did not grant it. Instead in 454, the the treasury has transferred to Athens. (Gill, n.d). In conclusion, I think the Delian League was the most successful alliance in the history of ancient Greece. In terms of leadership, Athens had successfully demonstrated its ability to govern because of their huge success in driven back their enemies. Athens and its allies had experienced many years of peace and free from any threats of invasion. However, it was clear that Athens had used its power to take advantage from inferior members of the league. Athens has used them as mere instruments for its own advancement. Yes, they became greed. Nevertheless, I believe that this greed had taken them to its own fall and destruction
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.
In early fifth century BC Greece, the Greeks consistently suffered from the threat of being conquered by the Persian Empire. Between the years 500-479 BC, the Greeks and the Persians fought two wars. Although the Persian power vastly surpassed the Greeks, the Greeks unexpectedly triumphed. In this Goliath versus David scenario, the Greeks as the underdog, defeated the Persians due to their heroic action, divine support, and Greek unity. The threat of the Persian Empire's expansion into Greece and the imminent possibility that they would lose their freedom and become subservient to the Persians, so horrified the Greeks that they united together and risked their lives in order to preserve the one thing they all shared in common, their "Greekness".
As much as one would want to take a definite stance and either condemn completely or support the formation of the Delian League as a Greek success story of ancient history, I really have to pause and consider both the pros and cons. I really do believe that there are both good sides to its formation and also bad sides, and even to the extent of holding the view that the cons outweigh the pros in the formation of the Delian Leagues ultimately. The Delian League has its mission and goals for which it was formed. It was formed as a direct response to the Persian threat of invasion of Greek territory. Its goals were to ward off Persian threat of invasion in the sense of defense, go ahead to attack and punish Persian for its aggression in the sense of offensive warfare and of course to unite and organize the Greeks.
... one another until they were no more. From the Persian War to the Peloponnesian the two states had changed a lot of the years. Starting from their greatest alliance yet first moment of subtle rivalry, the Persian War. Although they were indistinctly competing against one another, without each other they could not have dominated. Then there were the two blows to the peace treaty. The first blow being the Athenian assistance in the battle between Corinth and Corycra. The second blow being the idea to burn Corinth’s town down. Although these were remarkable mistakes the Athenians saw nothing wrong with them. Lastly, was the war. In 431 B.C. the Peloponnesian War broke out between the two allies, after all they had been through, their alliance was over. War was bound to happen, although they lived in tranquility for so long, one or the other was destined to break out.
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 development of an empire is a change strongly emphasized in the Archeology as a radical departure from the Hellenic tradition, and consequently a major source of conflict among the Greeks.
When two great and powerful city-states ban together for a common cause the results will in turn will have great expectations. Those expectations were met when an undermanned Greek army defeated the large Persian Army throughout the course of the Persian War. The problem occurs when each of the city-states’ own ego gets in the way of the cause. They handily defeated the Persians, but the Athenians took the credit for it, and paid homage to themselves, through elaborate celebrations of victory. In their minds, they were at the head of Hellas. The Spartans took exception to this and rightfully so. The credit has to go to them as well, for the large part that they played in the victory over Persia. This dissension in the end had a lot to do with the Peloponnesian War. Never mind the military structures and governments that each set up, which made their differences clear cut. There was no way to avoid the war between these two great powers, it was inevitable, just as Thucydides had predicted.
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.
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.
The roots of the Peloponnesian war can be traced long before 431 BCE, when it officially started. It can be traced back to as early as the Persian Wars, where the Athenians had found their home burned by the hands of the Persians. That disaster left the Athenians with no home and no sanctuary. Even though that was a defeated battle amidst a victorious war, they still had reason to believe that the Persians will come back for more. Apprehensive at the thought of having their city burned yet another time, the Athenians knew they had to do something. Naturally, they chose to get help. Gathering up the neighboring city-states around them, the Athenians formed the Delian League; an alliance working directly to defend the whole of Greece from Persian attacks (Kagan 8). In the beginning, this worked out well; everybody got their say on what went on in the league, and everybody was satisfied. However, the Athenians saw that if they were to take more power, the members of the league would not be strong enough to resist. Therefore, that was exactly what they did; they took more and more power until what was the Delian League became the Athenian Empire (Kagan 8). As they grew even more powerful and wealthy, their neighbors of Sparta and the Peloponnesian League, Sparta's alliance, could not help but notice (Kagan 13). In 431 BCE, lighted b...
Most people provided for themselves and did not engage in any sort of trade. Most Greeks had small plots of land, and even the wealthy Greeks had a small amount of land compared to today. But the wealth and monetary value of Greeks was not based on size, but it was a relative spectrum. Where your “value” was compared to others. This is a phenomenon known as relative wealth, and was seen throughout Greek, Sparta and especially Athens. The economy of Sparta and Athens however had many resources, and impacted and reflected the fundamental institutions of their culture. The Spartan economy was mostly government controlled entity. With most of it’s productivity coming from the Helots and from military conquest. Free trade was also banned and not feasible as most men worked in the military or government. Athens had a sort of free-market and free-trade system, though they did have things socialised by the state. Athens was near the sea and traded very frequently with neighboring regions. It was not only the state that traded but the Athenian citizens, whom were free to become merchants. The economies of both Athens and Sparta reflected upon the essence of freedom and tradition which they both had liked. One economy was built on freedom and trade. The other based on tradition and military venture. These economies expressed the virtues that the two cities
The Delian league was a confederation of ancient Greek cities founded in 478 B.C after the Persian wars (Gill, 2017, para.1). The League's headquarters were located on the island of Delos ( Δήλος ) were the League met in the Temple of Apollo (Cartwright, 2013, para.6).
The goal of the Delian League was to build alliances with other city-states so those city-states would to have to face war on their own. But what was once meant as an alliance against Persia became a war against each other. Both Sparta and Athens experiences crippling defeat with and against each other, but I can’t help but wonder how great Athens would be today had their imperialist and aristocratic behaviors had been put to better use, such as writing plays, or building more great structures like the
Beginning in 492 B.C., a series of wars erupted, appropriately entitled the Persian Wars, which lasted around thirteen years. Because of the constant battles between the Persians, led by Xerxes, and Greece, both civilization started growing weaker and weaker. When the wars ended, the Greeks were successful at defeating the Persians. However, being in a weakened state caused the Greek city- states (mainly Athens against Sparta) to fight amongst themselves in order to have more influence over the rest of the city-states. This type of war was termed the Peloponnesian War and continued from 431B.C. to 404 B.C. (History of Greece:The Golden Age of Greece) and