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I found some study questions at this site and I've decided to take some of them from time to time and ask a question I know not the answer to. I'm going to invite others to join in the answering, and I'll do some research myself to get a good idea of the answer. Without further adieau…
Show how Athens rose to power in the fifth century, and how the Delian League became the Athenian Empire.
I found some study questions at this site and I've decided to take some of them from time to time and ask a question I know not the answer to. I'm going to invite others to join in the answering, and I'll do some research myself to get a good idea of the answer. Without further adieau...
Oh this is a good one. It's been a while since I had this question. I'll have to look through my college notes, but I'll take a stab at it later. What I do remember is that Athens began a confederation based on trade and defense partly for security from Asiatic threats such as the Persians, and also to rival the confederation run by Sparta. Athens became the first among peers and then eventually came to dominate her allies completely.
What you said sounds exactly right. I did a little reading on it and what I came up with was that it began after Xerxes was defeated by the Greeks. The city-states of Greece were initially led by a Spartan when the league was formed in 477 B.C. as an “alliance”, but the leadership reigns were quickly handed over to Athens. Many of the smaller city-states were unable to defend themselves from invasion, so they instead paid the tax to Athens to provide for the common navy/military (it appears that at the beginning, city-states were required to contribute men or ships to the cause of the league, rather than just money). The league appears to have gotten its name from the place of Delos, where the league treasury was stationed. Eventually by the 460s and 450s B.C. Athens was able to build itself militarily while the smaller city-states became weaker. Thucydides tells us that these smaller city-states were unable to revolt because of the lost resources they were paying to Athens, so they were essentially hurting themselves; the fact that Athens began to accept contributions entirely in money, rather than men or ships, worked to help finance Athens' projects. Eventually Athens began to use this league money for purposes other than things military-related; the Acropolis was built using this tax money. By 454 B.C. the treasury was moved from Delos to Athens, and around this time the league more or less was changed from being an alliance to become the Athenian Empire.I got this from the Wikipedia article on the Delian League. I should ready my Thucydides for more insight.
The city-states of Greece were initially led by a Spartan when the league was formed in 477 B.C. as an "alliance", but the leadership reigns were quickly handed over to Athens.
I agree with the first part but not so sure I agree with the second. The Hellenic League was always led by a Spartan who acted as commander-in-chief, Eurybiades, Pausanias, Leotychides. Athens was in full agreement with this (according to Herodotus 8.2) as most Greeks wanted Sparta in command because of their reputation and the fact that, at that time, they were the most powerful state.
Seeing how the major issue with the Delian League was how Athens rose as an economic power because of the situation, I think the suggestion is still there that Athens must have taken on a leadership role at some point in time. The Parthenon, bankrolled by funds from the league, had construction begin shortly after 450 B.C. so it could not have been too long after the league formed in the 470s B.C. However, seeing how I last partook of this thread in 2006, I will have to do some more research to retrace my line of thought for a better answer. 🙂
I'll have to read more books about the Deliean League. I just think that during the Persian Wars, Sparta was in the role of leadership. Even though Herodotus was biased towards Athens, he still did give a lot of mention to Sparta's leadership. The more I think about it, the more I think Sparta's contributions to the wars are very much underestimated by many historians. Wondering as well how much that earthquake in Sparta in 460-something BC had to do with the rise of Athens. I'm aware of some of the basics of the causes of the Peloponnesian War, but I'm really curious as to the precise whens and whys of the Athens-Sparta "split" after the Persian wars.
