The Greco-Persian Wars And The Peloponnesian War

University of the People

HIST 1421-01 Greek and Roman Civilization - AY2023-T3

Week 3: Learning Journal

There were the two most famous wars in Greek history, The Greco-Persian wars and The Peloponnesian war. The Greco-Persian wars was the war between Greece and the Persian Empire. Athens, alongside its political rival, Sparta, and many other Greek city-states formed an alliance in order to fight against the invasion of the Persian Empire. After the victory of the second Persian invasion, Sparta withdrew from the Delian League, which was the association of the Greek city-states led by Athens, and reformed the Peloponnesian League with its former subject allies (Boundless, 2022). This gave a chance for Athens to uphold more power and control

Bit by bit, Athens' hunger to uphold more power turned the transformation of the League from an alliance into a hegemony (Boundless, 2022). In the meanwhile, the naval power of Athens kept growing, and the strong power of the Athenian fleet challenged the military power of Sparta. The growing tension between these most powerful and influential Greek city-states, Athens and Sparta, led to the renowned Peloponnesian war. In my opinion, I think Athens could handle the first phase of the Peloponnesian war, known as the Archidamian War, before the deadly plague hit Athens. During the first phase, Athens took advantage of its naval power as guided by Pericles, to avoid direct contact with Spartan soldiers who had more advantage on land battles (Boundless, 2022). Instead, Athens focused on their fleet and took an offensive strategy at sea. This strategy gave Athens' fleet a victory at first until the plague hit Athens and took the lives of 30,000 Athenian citizens including Pericles and his sons (Boundless, 2022). The war was

Citizens also condemned the weak handling of the Athenian democratic politicians for their defeat in the Peloponnesian war. During the time of the Thirty Tyrants government, democratic supporters were exiled and citizens lost their former right to serve the judicial functions (Boundless, 2022). Athens struggled with the violence and arbitrary actions of the Thirty Tyrants, which caused a revolution led by the exiled politicians that could finally overthrow the Thirty Tyrants (Boundless, 2022). Later, under the rule of the king Alexander the Great, the democracy of Greece was said to really come to an end (Scaliger,