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Contents:
Introduction to the Historical Overview in PerseusGeographical and Historical IntroductionThe Early Greek Dark Age and Revival in the Near EastRemaking Greek CivilizationThe Archaic AgeThe Late Archaic City-StateIntroduction to the Fifth CenturyClash Between Greeks and PersiansAthenian Empire in the Golden AgeAthenian Religious and Cultural Life in the Golden AgeContinuity and Change in Athenian Social and Intellectual HistoryThe Peloponnesian War and Athenian LifeIntroduction to the Fourth CenturyThe Aftermath of the Peloponnesian WarNew Directions in Philosophy and EducationThe Creation of Macedonian Power |
Thomas R. Martin, An Overview of Classical Greek History from Mycenae to Alexander
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The story of the genesis of the Athenian Golden Age begins chronologically with the history of the wars between a coalition of Greek states and the Persian Kingdom that erupted just after 500 B.C. and continued intermittently for decades. The Persian Kingdom outstripped mainland Greece in every imaginable category of material resources, from precious metals to beasts of burden. But, above all, it had a preponderance of the ancient world's most precious resource, human beings. No resource was harder to replace than people because the populations of antiquity were constantly at risk from disease and regional scarcities of food to a degree unknown in the modern Western world. Death was not a phenomenon expected under ordinary conditions to afflict only the old, as today; illness, injury, and malnutrition could and did carry off people at every age all the time. The imbalance in demographic resources made the wars between Persians and Greeks seemingly into a contest between an elephant and a mouse. No one could have reasonably expected the mouse to prevail. The unexpectedness of the result--a Greek victory--contributed mightily to the feeling of self-confidence that characterized the Athenian Golden Age, for good and for ill. 8.1. Athenian Mission for a Persian Alliance
The greatest military danger ever to threaten ancient Athens began with a diplomatic misunderstanding. In 507 B.C the Athenians sent ambassadors to ask for a protective alliance with the king of Persia, Darius I (ruler between 522-486 B.C.), because they feared that the Spartans would try to intervene in support of the Athenian aristocratic faction opposed to democracy, which opposed the political reforms of the time promoting added democracy at Athens that were the brainchild of the Athenian Cleisthenes. This ill-fated diplomatic mission unwittingly set in motion a sequence of events that culminated in invasions of mainland Greece by the huge army and navy of the king of Persia, who could summon vast numbers of fighting men from the many different peoples under his rule.
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OCLC: 33900145
ISBN: 0300069561
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