Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE TO VOL. V
- Contents
- PART II CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE
- CHAPTER XXXVIII From the Battle of Marathon to the March of Xerxes against Greece
- CHAPTER XXXIX Proceedings in Greece from the Battle of Marathon to the time of the Battle of Thermopylæ
- CHAPTER XL Battles of Thermopylæ and Artemisium
- CHAPTER XLI Battle of Salamis.–Retreat of Xerxes
- CHAPTER XLII Battles of Platæ and Mykalê.–Final Repulse of the Persians
- CHAPTER XLIII Events in Sicily down to the expulsion of the Gelonian Dynasty and the establishment of Popular Governments throughout the Island
- CHAPTER XLIV From the Battles of Platæa and Mykalê down to the deaths of Themistoklês and Aristeidês
- CHAPTER XLV Proceedings of the Confederacy under Athens as head.-First formation and rapid expansion of the Athenian Empire
- CHAPTER XLVI Constitutional and Judicial Changes at Athens under Periklês
- Plate section
CHAPTER XLV - Proceedings of the Confederacy under Athens as head.-First formation and rapid expansion of the Athenian Empire
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 October 2010
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE TO VOL. V
- Contents
- PART II CONTINUATION OF HISTORICAL GREECE
- CHAPTER XXXVIII From the Battle of Marathon to the March of Xerxes against Greece
- CHAPTER XXXIX Proceedings in Greece from the Battle of Marathon to the time of the Battle of Thermopylæ
- CHAPTER XL Battles of Thermopylæ and Artemisium
- CHAPTER XLI Battle of Salamis.–Retreat of Xerxes
- CHAPTER XLII Battles of Platæ and Mykalê.–Final Repulse of the Persians
- CHAPTER XLIII Events in Sicily down to the expulsion of the Gelonian Dynasty and the establishment of Popular Governments throughout the Island
- CHAPTER XLIV From the Battles of Platæa and Mykalê down to the deaths of Themistoklês and Aristeidês
- CHAPTER XLV Proceedings of the Confederacy under Athens as head.-First formation and rapid expansion of the Athenian Empire
- CHAPTER XLVI Constitutional and Judicial Changes at Athens under Periklês
- Plate section
Summary
I have already recounted, in the preceding chapter, how the Asiatic Greeks, breaking loose from the Spartan Pausanias, entreated Athens to organise a new confederacy, and to act as presiding city (Vorort) –and how this confederacy, framed not only for common and pressing objects; but also on prinsparta ciples of equal rights and constant control on the part of the members, attracted soon the spontaneous adhesion of a large proportion of Greeks, insular or maritime, near the Ægean sea. I also noticed this event as giving commencement to a new æra in Grecian politics. For whereas there had been before a tendency, not very powerful, yet on the whole steady and increasing, towards something like one Pan-hellenic league under Sparta as president– from henceforward that tendency disappears, and a bifurcation begins: Athens and Sparta divide the Grecian world between them, and bring a much larger number of its members into cooperation, either with one or the other, than had ever been so arranged before.
Thucydidês marks precisely, as far as general words can go, the character of the new confederacy during the first years after its commencement: but unhappily he gives us scarcely any particular facts, –and in the absence of such controlling evidence, a habit has grown up of describing loosely the entire period between 477 B.C. and 405 B.C. (the lat- ter date is that of the battle of Ægos-potamos) as constituting “ the Athenian empire.”
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- A History of Greece , pp. 390 - 472Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010