His decision for expressing these words is mainly based on historical facts. King Archidamus claims that if their unprepared population decides to ignore these facts, it will bring a greater harm to their population. In contrast, their foe, the Athenians have access to a variety of essential resources such as, a strong navy and their numerous tax-paying allies allows them to achieve a higher chance of victory at war. (1.80). Therefrom, due to these important facts, the wise king Archidamus strongly encourages their population to postpone their attack and to prepare their army instead.
In 331 B.C 1 Alexander defeated the Persian king at the battle of Gaugamela. Discuss the preparations made by Darius and Alexander before the battle, the tactics used by each commander and the reasons for Alexander’s success. What were the immediate outcomes for Alexander? The Battle of Gaugemela was ultimately one of the turning events in Alexander the Great’s short but tumultuous life. His decisive victory did not just come down to pure luck, however; both Alexander and his Persian opponent Darius had painstakingly made preparations in order to ensure that his numerical superiority could be used to its full advantage.
The first of Alexander’s motivations is that of his “inheritance”. We know from Arrian (1971, p.42), that Phillip had already set out his campaign against Persia and that he was not just after land, but was after retribution. His campaign slogan of “freeing the Greeks” and “punishing the Persians” (Lane Fox, 1974) highlights not only his desire to appear the hero, but to also seek revenge for what had previously been done to his people at the hands of Xerxes. As Tarn (1948) writes, Alexander believed that the campaign and the conquering of Persia was his inheritance. Just as his father had begun the campaign, Alexander would see to it that it was completed.
Both Lysander and King Pausanias actions demonstrated their incapability to lead Sparta which consequently resulted in the ineffective leadership of Sparta as hegemon of Greece. Lysander was the dominant figure in Spartan politics presiding the fall of the Athenian Empire in 404 BC, and his and Sparta’s aim was a far as possible to secure Greek hegemony allowing for Spartan Imperial expansion. The ‘anomaly’ of Lysander’s dominance within Sparta’s military and political enterprises, traditionally governed by the Kingships, saw him exploit his foreign policy across the populas of the Aegean much to their discontent “The Spartans reckoned that they themselves, having defeated the Athenians, would now securely dominate the whole of Greece” (Thucydides 8.2.4). Lysander installed a brutal pro-Spartan oligarchy (known as ‘The Thirty Tyrants’) on Athens, reciprocating this system of government in other Greek states in order to suppress prevailing democracies. Installed to govern were pro-Spartan Harmosts, all supported by a garrison of troops who served under the orders of Lysander.
Ionian Revolt Assess the significance of the Ionian Revolt. The Ionian Revolt may be considered one of the monumental moments which eventually acted as a catalyst for the Persian War. Thus, the significance of the Ionian Revolt may also be described as crucial. Some would argue that although the Ionian Revolt had some weight in sparking the Persian War, it was ultimately inevitable because of the expansion of the Persian Empire. The significance of the Ionian Revolt also dictated and contributed to the course of other battles that followed the revolt due to the new discoveries the states made of their opposing armies.
Assess the contribution of speeches in Thucydides’ work. Thucydides’ introduces his work by presenting it as a “history of the war fought against each other by the Peloponnesians and the Athenians”. However his work was not a simple narrative of the events that unfolded, Thucydides wanted his work to be judged as useful because he believed that history repeats itself. He wrote his work largely to explain the fall of the Athenian empire. Thucydides’ work, however, was not simply a book written about Athens as the protagonist which was defeated by its foolish over-ambition, he wrote about the Athenians and Spartans with similar objectivity, acknowledging both their weaknesses and virtues.
Leonidas was another leader who contributed greatly to the eventual outcome of the Persian wars. Again, the Greeks were outnumbered and the choice was made to leave Athens and fight at another more suitable location. Although it was not Leonidas who chose the location of the battle, and although the battle of Thermopylae was a subsequent failure (Greek loss), the actions of Leonidas allowed for the success at the battle to come. As the Greek forces had been betrayed by a local sheep-herder (Ephialtes), Leonidas made the remarkable decision to stay with his 300 Spartan soldiers and fight at a wall remaining from a previous battle. Leonidas’ valour and courage is legendary.
Although, trade and financial advantages were often the most prominent, yet hidden cause of conflict in the Greek World. The Sicilian Expedition overwhelmingly demonstrates that the Economy was of major importance to Athens, which directly led to a large scale conflict. Athens sailed Thousands of miles to Sicily as they misbelieved the Island was full of treasures which the local towns possessed. Also, Sicily was in a advantageous position, being close to the African and Italian coast, which would help enhance Athens’s wealth. Although it can be argued that Alcibiades initiated the invasion, Athens’s would not have led a costly campaign to Sicily just because of one man.
But all in all what most historians debate is not why Leonidas stayed but whether or not his decision to stay was the overall right choice. My perspective on the situation is that Leonidas’ decision to stay was not the right choice. I postulate this because the whole goal was to protect the pass so that the Persians could not reach Athens, but after the defeat of the Spartans the Persians pushed forward and burned Athens to the ground. So in essence the last stand of the Spartans was pointless because the Persians completed their goal of the ransacking of Athens. Themistocles was the true hero; he evacuated Athens before the Persians came and defeated the Persians in a naval battle at Salamis, which forced the Persians to flee back to Asia.
This is Thucydides' own final judgment. Peloponnesian War: Phase 1 (431-427) In a war between the main military and main naval powers in Greece a decisive result was unlikely to occur quickly. When the Spartans invaded, the rural population of Attica moved into the city. Athens became an island impregnable to attack. Its great fleet would secure the empire against revolts from within and attacks from without and take the offensive to raid the Peloponnesian coast.