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.
The Persians ran out of supplies and returned after the defeat of Marathon. The second invasion of Greece by the Persians happened in the year 480 BC. Xerxes was the Persian King at this time. He gathered a huge army. This army attacked the Greeks at Thermopylae, a town just north of
This led to constant warfare between the leagues formed by the Greek city-states and Macedon. Around 221 BCE, Phillip V of Macedon took power of the Macedonian throne. He was considered to be the last Greek ruler who was militaristically and politically capable of uniting all of Greece. However, in 218 BCE, he allied with Carthage, which was a big mistake to his plans. This led to the breakout of wars between Rome and Macedon in a series of skirmishes.
The Peloponnesian War erupted from 431-404 BCE between the Spartans and the empire of the Athenians. Prior to this war the two enemies were allies against the Persians, but turned on each other. Reasons for this war were, power, greed, and treason between the two armies. Both of these powers wanted to be the most powerful and this caused a conflict amongst themselves. Athenians had been in previous wars and as time progressed it was clear that Athens had to be rebuilt, as the reconstruction process proceeded the Athenian empire began to dominate their allies politically and economically.
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.
This means that the gods had key roles in the fates of mankind, an idea which is hinted heavily upon during the course of the play. The title character of Aeschylus’ production, Agamemnon, faces various challenges which ultimately end rather poorly with Clytaemnestra organising his assassination. It could be argued that this was destined to happen from the very beginning of the sequence of events due to the family curse that circles his house. Atreus’s house was known for the curse that seemed to pass down through the generations of his sons which involved terrible things, ie murder happening between the children and the fathers. Atreus himself was involved in the tragedy in which he murdered his brother’s children and served them up as a dish to eat.
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.
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.
Aristagoras, tyrant of Miletus, persuaded the Persians to assist him in overtaking the whole Cycladic island chain and possibly mainland Greece. When that plan failed to come to fruition, Aristagoras convinced the Ionian Greeks to unite in revolt. After resigning from his tyranny, Aristagoras set out to overthrow all of the other Ionian tyrants, and even attempted to seek help from the Spartans, who rejected his proposal. He moved on to Athens, who were more receptive to his plans, out of fear of the return of exiled leader Hippias, who had found his way to Persia. The Athenians agreed to send twenty ships to the shores of the island of Lade near Miletus in 494 BCE.