Lesson 3: Pericles and the Athenian Empire
The Delian League
With the final defeat of the Persians, mainland Greece was safe from invasion.
But now a most extraordinary thing happened.
In the winter of 478/7 a meeting was held at the island of Delos. Here, a group of independent Greek city-states, including Athens, decided to form a voluntary organisation called the League of Delos. The League was so named because its treasury was originally located on the island of the same name.
The objective of this league was to ‘compensate themselves for losses by ravaging the territory of the King of Persia’.
The Spartans decided not to join the Delian League, partly because they were not keen on waging a continual war against the Persian Empire, and partly out of a suspicion that this was only part of a greater design to set up an area of Athenian influence in the Aegean area.
With the Spartans out of the picture, leadership of the league naturally fell to the Athenians.
The Delian League pursued the conflict against the Persian Empire into Asia Minor, and later throughout the Eastern Mediterranean area.
The most influential Athenian leader in the immediate aftermath of the Persian Wars was the son of Miltiades – Cimon.
Plutarch tells us that ‘no man did more than Cimon to humble the pride of the Great King’. Plutarch actually wrote his biography of Cimon more than six hundred years after the actual events, and we should take his remarks with some caution. However, there is no good reason to doubt that there was some truth in what he says.
In 476 BC, Cimon led the forces of the Delian League to a major victory by capturing Eion, the last major Persian stronghold on the Hellespont.
Then, some years later, he scored his most spectacular success at the Battle of the Eurymedon, where he defeated the Persians both at sea and on land on the same day.
In 459, the Egyptians revolted against their Persian masters. The Delian League sent a force of 200 ships to assist the Egyptian rebels. Initially, the joint Greco-Egyptian forces managed to score some successes but this did not last for long.
Finally in 454 BC, the Persians managed to destroy the entire Greek fleet.
After this, no further major battles seem to have been fought between the forces of the Delian League and the Persian Empire. Some scholars have suggested that there may have actually been a Peace Treaty agreed upon by both sides.
