Histroy 101 Western Civ - Essay Example

The role of the Persian Wars in shaping the relationship between Athens and the other Greek city states First of all, the Persian Wars helped Athens to be a remarkable naval power within the Greek city-states. The Greek attempt to be free from the authoritarian rule of Persian rulers resulted in Persian Wars and the Greek victory in the end. Lim makes clear that “With Athens at the helm, the city-states brought under Persian control began to rebel, beginning a conflict known as the Persian Wars (circa 499-479 BC)” (41).

Within this context, the Persians considered the Greek victory as insignificant. On the other side, the Greek city-states under Athens and Sparta considered that the victory in Persian Wars helped them to enjoy liberty. One can easily identify that the Persian influence among the Greek city-states, before the Persian Wars, was based upon despotism. But the Greek city-states were not ready to be under the Persian rule. To be specific, the Persian Wars can be evaluated as the Greek attempt to be independent and democratic.

Within this scenario, the role of the Persian Wars in shaping the relationship between Athens and the other Greek city states is significant. . But this cohesion was not long lasting because Sparta was against the ultimate control of Athens over the Greek city-states. But the military and maritime supremacy acquired by Athens helped her to emerge as the most powerful city-state. For instance, the victories in Marathon, Plataea etc, helped Athens to be most powerful and influential. To be specific, the Athenian supremacy in land and water forced the Greek city-states to accept Athens as their leader.

But this did not help much to reduce the scope of future conflict between Athens and Sparta. Later, the Persians made use of Sparta as a tool to destroy the unity among Greek city-states. In short, Persian Wars united the Greek city-states under Athens. Moreover, the Persian Wars paved the way for the formation of Delian League (alliance of Greek city-states against Persian invasion) under Athens. Why did the Persian Wars lead to the Peloponnesian War? As pointed out, Sparta was not ready to accept the leadership of Athens among the Greek city-states.

This eventually led to the Peloponnesian War, which was fought between Athens and Sparta (say, Peloponnesian League). The victory in the Persian Wars did not extinguish the Spartan jealousy over Athenian supremacy. Within this scenario, the Persians considered the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta as a golden chance to instill hatred among the Greek city-states. Their idea proved to be successful because the Peloponnesian War wiped out the unity among the Greek city-states. The Persian camp exploited the conflict between Athens and Sparta to destroy the cohesion among the Greek city-states.

To an extent, the Persian idea became successful because Athens and Sparta were never able to regain their previous status.