Was The Delian League A Success Or Failure

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The Delian League, success or failure.
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 purpose of the league was to unite and fortify them from the attacks of the Persians. In this sense, they were a lot like a cartel, since they all united their production and supply of weapons, where they previously had been market rivals (Gill, 2017, para.1). Because of Athens being the biggest naval power, Athens became the leader (the ‘hegemon’) of the league. Each member paid a membership fee, and in the beginning, the …show more content…

The first ten years of the league, it's alliance was a military success as Thrace and Aegean were cleansed of pirates and Persians alike (Gill, 2017).

In 454 BCE Pericles the statesman of Athens and leader of the Delian League moved the treasury to Athens (Public Broadcasting Service, n.d.). He did this because an expedition to Egypt to aid the prince Inarus, who was anti-Persian failed and thus Pericles claimed the treasury would be safer in Athens (Cartwright, 2016).

But Athens revealed a rather imperialistic behaviour. Their economic and political influence gave them the power to continuously demand tribute from the league's member. But Athens didn't use it all for strengthening military powers, but a lot of it for building projects in Athens. For example renovating buildings and Temples such as the Parthenon that had been destroyed by the Persian invasion earlier (Gill, 2017).

Without the money from the Delian League, the Parthenon and other architecture that we consider today would have never been build. So in this sense, the League, was a cultural success as

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