King Leonidas Leonidas was the king of Sparta at one time. He is most famous for leading the three hundred Spartans against the Persian army. He lived in the Peloponnesus and the city state of Sparta. Leonidas had a major impact in his time; he led troops to eliminate Persians to defend Sparta. Doing this Sparta and Athens won the war against the Persians, but ended up losing to Rome.
The Athenian ownership of the Delos treasury, suppression of revolts as well as the challis decree marks the transformation of the delian league into the Athenian empire. The role of the delian league was to protect those Greek states which had already revolted from Persia and to liberate those still under Persian rule. The league was very active in overthrowing Persian power and consolidating the role of Athens as hegemon’s in the Greek world. It was clear that the alliance was unequal from the beginning because, the leadership was Athenian, they had the largest fleet and they were also superior in resources. This was a result from their successes in the Persian wars, in particular the battle of Salamis.
Essays xix. The Peloponnesian War started when Megara and Thebes was forced into the Confederacy of Delos. They then decided to revolt with the help of Sparta, but that ended a decisive victory for Sparta and a peace treaty with Athens. Athens chose to break the deal and they went after Potidaea, but that ended up as a draw. Pericles was a very strategic leader and they decided to start another war by going to the source, Sparta.
In Ionia and islands such as Samos and Naxos, there was a clear divide in attitude towards the Persians, Polycrates the tyrant of Samos was pro Persian like many of the tyrants in Ionia, and he sent 40 ships to help the Persian in their expedition to Egypt, as we know there was an uprising by a anti Persian party in Samos, this would show us that even before the Persian subjugation of Ionia there was a clear resentment to Persian occupation. Herodotus shows us that after the failure of the Persian expedition to Naxos, Aristagoras decided to remove all the Tyrants in Ionia, this would show that maybe at the time there was increasing unrest in the cities of Ionia and that Aristagoras had an opportunity to start the revolt.
Now just like in the first war Sparta couldn’t do it alone; so they asked the Persians to help conquer Athens. They asked their own enemy for help. This truly was a good example of history repeating itself. Mainly because Spartans defeated the Persians on land and Athenians defeated them in the sea. This time Spartans defeated the Athenians on land and the Persians defeated the Athenians in the sea.
At this time the Greek states were continually at war with one another and there was no unity between them. Athens also had a close link to the Ionian Greeks as said by Aristagoras in Herodotus who tells us that “Miletus had been founded by Athenian settlers so it was only natural that the Athenians, powerful as they were, would help her in her need” . However critics suggest that Herodotus’ writing is too anecdotal,
It is apparent on how the Ancient Athenians executed Socrates after the series of attempts of his followers to destroy Democracy. It is also a Democracy of the Sword because of the Ancient Athenians view war as a necessity to protect Democracy, which they claim to be the model government for other Greek City-States to follow but eventually these wars destroyed Democracy. The Democracy of the United States of America during the 20th century, as I see it, is a Democracy of principles in a sense that Ideologies are dominant in the United States. There are four dominant Ideologies namely: liberal, conservative, libertarian and populist. I tend to think that the United States view the world as a political area and it is just a mere battle of principles of state governance.
Sparta put a military attitude in its society and made it the first priority to have a powerful army. The Athenians type of government, might have given the society More freedom, but in my opinion I think this was not the best form of government at this time. The democratic system in Athens cannot really be called a true democracy since it had several flaws in the government and the way it worked. For the way the voting worked
The Babylonians is seen as the play which 'opens' the war against Cleon because it is the first political satire written by Aristophanes. Even though only fragments of the play remain, we know that The Babylonians centers on the criticism of Cleon due to remarks from ancient scholars including Dicaeopolis. Cleon was the Athenian statesman during the Peloponnesian War, who was strongly opposed by Aristophanes as he viewed Cleon as a warmonger and a demagogue. (Here it must be noted that contrary to Aristophanes view of Cleon many modern historian have the view that Cleon “… was a more wiser and more intelligent statesman, with a better reputation and a more just entitlement to fame and honour, than our principal authorities lead us to suppose.”) Knowledge of the context of the play, the opposing views between Aristophanes and Cleon (not to mention understanding that the most effective and appropriate way for Aristophanes to denounce Cleon was to write a satirical play) makes it obvious as to why Aristophanes has written a play to denounce Cleon. However due to only minimal fragments remaining of the original play, one cannot know exactly what
Tensions between the Peloponnesian League and the Delian League eventually led to the Peloponnesian war. Thucydides believed that Sparta was afraid of the growing power of Athens, which had essentially resulted in the creation of an Athenian empire. Sparta felt that Athens was meddling in their business, and Athens would not agree to avoid interference. After twenty-seven years of war, and the participation in one way or another of many of the city-states belonging to the two leagues, both Sparta and Athens were in ruins. Sparta claimed the victory, and the city-states continued their bickering and fighting.