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What Were the Reasons for the Greek Cities to Make an Alliance Against Athens

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What were the reasons for the Greek cities to make an alliance against Athens?

First of all, to answer this question of this work, it is needed to be displayed when and where did the events happen. In V century BC, the territory of today’s Greece was divided between several polices or city-states. The most powerful amongst them were Athens (which was seen as a democracy in the meaning that Ancient Greeks gave to this word), Sparta (a military oligarchy), Corinth, Megara, and Argos.

After the battle for Byzantium, won by the Greeks in 478 BC, Spartans didn’t want to continue participate in military operations. They reckoned that the Greeks in Asia Minor could not be given a reliable security against the Persians, the Hellespont, where the Persians had come in Europe was in Greek hands and they had alienated their allies because of the cruel actions of the commander Pausanias. From then on the anti-Persian forces were led by Athens. Athenians had the largest interest continuing the operations – most of the colonies in Asia Minor and on the costs of the Black sea were Athenian. Having them and the Hellespont secured would give Athens a great boom in trade and economic growth.

After being united against the barbarian aggressor – the Persians – the Greek polices started being suspicious of each other. Athens, the undisputable leader, was to build walls, surrounding it and protecting it from any aggression. Other cities were uneasy of the advantage that these walls would give the city which had most of the gains of the war against the Persians. The Spartans, incited by the other city-states on the peninsula urged Athens to abandon the building of walls. Athenians succeeded protract the negotiations with the Spartans and managed to build the walls not only encircling a big area around Athens, but also securing an outlet on the sea, crucial for the trade and

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