Greek War Vs Persian War Essay

1.
The struggle against the Persian invasion had occasioned a rare interval of inter-state cooperation in ancient Greek history. The two most powerful city-states, Athens and Sparta, had put aside their mutual suspicions stemming from their clash at the time of Cleisthenes’ reforms in order to share the leadership of the united Greek military forces. Their attempt to continue this cooperation after the repulse of the Persians, however, ended in failure. Out of this failure arose the so-called Athenian Empire, a modern label invented to point out the political and economic dominance Athens came to exercise over other Greek states in an alliance originally set up as voluntary association of its members against Persia.

2. The conflict between Athens and Sparta had its roots in the Persian Wars earlier in the
The first of these began as a dispute between Corinth and its colony of Corcyra. When the Corinthians began assembling a fleet to crush Corcyra, the Corcyrans appealed to Athens for assistance. By this point, war between Athens and the Spartan-led alliance was regarded as inevitable by both sides; since the Athenians were unwilling to let the large Corcyran fleet fall into the hands of future enemies, they chose instead to augment their naval strength by signing a defensive alliance with Corcyra. On the other end, the Corinthians, no friends of Athens in the best of times, now sought to bring the Spartans into war against the Athenian empire. The following year, the Athenians, anticipating that the Corinthians might induce the Potidaeans to lead a general revolt of the cities in the region, demanded that Potidaea expel its Corinthian magistrates and tear down its walls. This Athenian ultimatum triggered the revolt. The Spartans decided that Athens had finally gone too far. In the spring of 431, the Spartan alliance formally voted for war against