Ancient Greece 2
Unit 11 -- Delian League
Historians routinely refer to the "Greco-Persian) wars as only including Persian invasions of the Greece between 500 and 480 BC. By doing so, they ignore the aftermath of those invasions, the Greek campaigns against the Persians in Thrace and Asia Minor until 450 BC. The campaigns against Persia were initially led by the Spartans, who had also led the anti-Persian coalition in the "Second Persian War" sparked by the Xerxes-led invasion of 480 BC, and later were carried out by the Delian League, which was dominated by Athens (and which eventually became the "Athenian Empire").
Xerxes went home to Persia after watching the destruction of his fleet at Salamis in 480 BC, but he left behind a large land force. In 479, the Persian land force was put to flight after a decisive defeat by the Spartan-led Greek coalition at Plataea. Meanwhile (and traditionally said to be on the same day) the demoralized remnant of the Persian fleet was defeated of the coast of Asia Minor at Mycale by the Athenian dominated Greek naval forces. For good measure, the Athenians then put marines ashore to destroy the large Persian garrison near the Panionium, a religious/sports complex sacred to Poseidon of Helicon on the northern slope of Mt. Mycale. The Greek allied fleet then sailed to Thracian Chersonese (now Gallipoli), still held by the Persians and captured the town of Sestos.
In 478, the Greek allies sent a Spartan led force to capture Byzantion. The city was captured, but the high handed behavior of the Spartan Genera, Prince Pausanias, led to his recall, and he was replaced by an Athenian. At about that time, Spartan withdrew from anti-Persian activities leaving the field open to Athens. Various reasons for the Spartan withdrawal have been given: they thought that driving off the Persians had settled the affair (and suggested evacuating Greek colonists from Asia Minor -- an idea strongly opposed by Athens); they feared that any Spartan leader (and especially "royal" leaders, who had been exempt from the normal rigorous Spartan upbringing) would be temped to corruption as had been Pausanias; and, perhaps most plausibly, they worried that sending Spartan forces to far afield, like to Asia Minor, would leave the Spartan core vulnerable to Helot revolts -- there were only about 10,000 Spartan warriors, and they had to be near Sparta to keep more than 100,000 helots subjugated. (You can review the Persian wars at http://www.mmdtkw.org/GR-Unit10-Greco-PersianWars.html.)
After the departure of the Spartans and their "Peloponnesian League" subsidiaries, the Athenians convoked a meeting on the holy island of Delos to form a new alliance to continue the fight against the Persians. The new alliance is called the "Delian League" by modern historians.
(The quotation marks around "Peloponnesian League","Delian League" and around other entities and events mentioned above indicate that these are modern English-speaking historians' designations rather than ancient Greek terminology. Of course the words "Greece" and "Greek" should also be enclosed in quotation marks for the same reason.)
Users will notice a change in format on pages for this course: instead of thumbnail images as links to larger images (which were used in previous courses), the larger images are displayed, and instead of text below the images, more extensive text will be included in the images. Internet links to web locations with more information will be shown below images.
The Delian League
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delian_League
and http://www.livius.org/articles/concept/delian-league/
and https://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/eb11-delianleague.asp
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delos
and http://www.sacred-destinations.com/greece/delos
and http://ancient-greece.org/archaeology/delos.html -- many site photos
c.f., http://ancient-greece.org/museum/delos.html -- many images from the Museum collection
c.f., http://romeartlover.tripod.com/Delo2.html
and http://romeartlover.tripod.com/Delo1.html
c.f., http://ancient-greece.org/archaeology/delos.html
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venetian_Arsenal
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Salamis
(You can review the Persian wars at http://www.mmdtkw.org/GR-Unit10-Greco-PersianWars.html.)
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Persian_invasion_of_Greece
(You can review the Persian wars at http://www.mmdtkw.org/GR-Unit10-Greco-PersianWars.html.)
c.f.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Persian_invasion_of_Greece
(You can review the Persian wars at http://www.mmdtkw.org/GR-Unit10-Greco-PersianWars.html.)
For Pausanias, c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pausanias_(general)
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantium
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peloponnesian_League
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristides
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delian_League
and http://www.livius.org/articles/concept/delian-league/
and http://ancienthistory.about.com/cs/greecehellas1/a/delianleague.htm
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cimon
c.f., http://www.augie.edu/dept/history/athe.htm
and http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0009%3Achapter%3D9
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephialtes
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pericles
n.b., This is not the same Pericles written about (in part) by Shakespeare
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthippus
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megara
c.f., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Walls
and http://www.livius.org/articles/place/athens/athens-long-walls/
and https://lessonsofthephoenix.wordpress.com/athens/the-long-walls-symbols-of-a-defiant-city/
