During the Persian Wars, the city-states of Greece were forced to come together in a military alliance against Persia. It is from these roots that the idea of pan-Hellenism that would lead to the age of empire came about. The small, weak states clung to the strong military and naval powers of Sparta and Athens respectively. After the success of the battle of Salamis, more states asked for the protection of Athens, who had built up a formidable navy through Themistocles’ deployment of the new silver mines, leading to the establishment after the Persian Wars of the Delian League. The Delian League began as a completely democratic body in which every city-state had a vote. At first, donations of ships were given to Athens, the head of the League, to build and maintain the navy with which she would defend the other members of the League.
However, it was not to remain a democratic body. Many of the Greek states in Asia Minor liberated from Persian rule by the League were persuaded to join the League under threat of destruction. As time went by and no retaliation from the Persians came, the donations were changed from ships to money, and the Athenians began to use to proceeds of the Delian League to fund theatrical and architectural projects such as the Acropolis. The donations to Athens became a kind of tax on which she became prosperous and powerful. More decisive steps towards empire were taken when the state of Thasos rebelled against Athens’ influence. The rebellion was crushed, showing other states belonging to the Delian League that Athens was now in control.
After the First Peloponnesian War, the Athenian Empire was now official. With the concept of Empire now firmly established, the way was clear for the hegemonies of Sparta and Thebes and finally the great empires of Philip of Macedon and Alexander. In Philip and Alexander’s empires, there was no more emphasis on city-states. The effects of the Persian Wars had changed the face of Greece.
The ascendancy of Athens due to the Persian Wars created tension with Sparta, the traditional Greek military power, leading to the Peloponnesian Wars and the fall of Athens. Initial Spartan jealousy over attribution of the victory over the Persians to Athens despite Sparta’s input to the Wars, and suspicions over Athens’ eagerness to replace her walls so soon after the victory led to a rivalry between the two powers. Athens’ alliances with Argos and Megara led to even more suspicions and the first open hostilities between Athens and Sparta, the first Peloponnesian War. Although a peace was signed between the two powers, continuing suspicions over Athens’ imperial intentions on mainland Greece led to the Peloponnesian Wars, and, the memory of their humiliation in the Persian Wars still smarting, Persia joined forces with Sparta to defeat Athens.
With the change to an emphasis on empire came a change in Greek identity, particularly in the way they saw themselves in relation to the Eastern influences that they had come into contact with. The different cultures of the East were not completely new to the Greeks before the Persian Wars. Homer had written of the Trojans in The Iliad. However, his treatment of the Trojans differs from Aeschylus’ treatment of the Persians in his Persae. Homer does not refer to the Trojans pejoratively, unlike Aeschylus, who portrays them as barbarians.
The establishment in the Athenian mindset of the Eastern invaders as barbarians encouraged them to think of themselves as the pinnacle of culture and sophistication. With the money that came from her empire, Athens was able to flourish even more culturally. She now had the means to demonstrate her superior wealth, culture and power. Drama, unseen before the Persian wars, began to thrive in the festivals of Athens, and it is in this half century that we see the great plays of Aeschylus, Euripides, Sophocles and Aristophanes.
Athenian democracy also developed as a result of the Persian Wars. Emphasis was placed even more firmly on citizenship with the increasing use of ostracism for those who had betrayed the community. This device had seen its first mainstream usage on those who had become informers to the Persians. The focus on citizenship continued into the age of Pericles. Much of the new democracy was based on what it was to be a citizen, and tighter rules about who could be considered a citizen were put into place. For example, the law on citizenship before Pericles stated that anyone (women, slaves and freedmen were not considered) with at least one Athenian parent was a citizen. With the more patriotic view that was developed, only men whose parents were both Athenians could be citizens. Athens now saw herself as superior and so a degree of exclusivity maintained this identity.
The Persian Wars were important in shaping new Greek ideas of Empire, and in facilitating the growth of Athens as leader of the Greeks. It also led to the fall of Athens, by creating tensions with Sparta, exercising too much control over the smaller city states, and humiliating the Persians, who then united against Athens. However, much of Athenian culture and greatness was born from the proceeds of the Persian war, both from spoils of war and from the new empire that it created.
“The rebuilding of the walls of Athens, devastated by the Persian sack, is said by Thucydides to have been unwelcome to Sparta: an assertive act”- S. Hornblower, The Greek World
