Peloponnesian War Essay

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The Peloponnesian War is referred to by the Athenian Historian Thucydides as “the greatest disturbance in the history of Hellenes.” He himself even believed that it was so significant that it also affected non-Hellenistic civilizations, and thus the entirety of mankind. This, while likely overstated, represents how pivotal the Peloponnesian War was in the Hellenistic Period. The Peloponnesian War was a twenty one year long Hellenic civil war between the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League. This resulted in the fall of the Athenian Empire, a looming military power during the antebellum of the war. However, due to Athens fall despite their aforementioned power, it raises the question on what were the reasons for their defeat. This is answered…show more content…
In addition, events such as the Athenian plague and the failed Sicilian expedition also can be assumed to be factors that also heavily contributed to the Athenian Empires downfall. The latter two are only relevant however due to the establishment of the Delian League, and the Athenians’ eventually showing signs of an initial or developed undermining motive of constructing their own empire. Initially, the Delian League was established by the Athenians to provide protection to the Greek islands and the coastal towns of Asia Minor. This was due to the Athenians likely concluding that these regions and its city states acted as a cordon sanitare for inland Greece, and thus needed to be protected in order to protect Athens itself. Therefore, Athens offered protection to the ally city states in that region by recruiting them into the league and promising to protect them from threat as long as they sent offerings, referred to as phoras. The strong allied city states would send ships as phoras, while those that couldn’t do so would provide coins instead. Which overall proved to be efficient for the precipitating

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