Fight or Peace? Ancient
Greek Role Playing Activity
After the Persian Wars
Invasion Repelled
City-State
Sparta
Ancient Greece was not a unified
belonging to the Delian League
country, but a collection of city-
where they were forced to pay
states who operated as their own
tribute, naval boats and soldiers to
country with their own
help protect all of Greece. Later
War Hawk
government, military, and
on, Athens accepted just money
Council of Elder
economy. They traded and formed from these allies and used it to
alliances throughout their history.
help build their own city and navy.
Over 300 Greek city-states existed
This upset members of the Delian
on their own, but they did have a
League and some even tried to
few things in common including
leave. Athens responded by using
“The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which
this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.” –Thucydides
(Book I, History of the Peloponnesian War 1.22-[4])
Positions
Peace Keeper
King and General

City-State
Athens
Positions
War Hawk Peace Keeper
language, religion and cultural
their military to enforce payment
ideas. During the Persian Wars
of taxes and even implemented a
Assemblyman (woman)
they rallied together and defeated
trade embargo on some city-states.
Naval Commander
a common invader through a series Those that opposed Athens began
of wars known as the Persian
to look elsewhere for support. The
Wars. This victory led to re-
Spartans had a pre-existing alliance
establishing their independence
with city-states in Peloponnesus
and a much greater role in the
and vowed to protect one another
Mediterranean world. The
with Sparta taking the lead. Unlike
Athenians used their navy
Athens, Sparta did not force its
following the Persian Wars to
members to pay taxes! These re-
protect the people of Greece from
established alliances led to
another Persian invasion; they sent increased tension in the region and
ships to help the Egyptians revolt
the possibility of conflict was near.
against Persian control; they
Would peace win out or would
received diplomats from the King
Greece be brought into another
of the Libyans; and they helped
expensive and devastating war!
support the Greek colonists in
Ionia. Athens required city-states
-Mr. Sidler

City-State
Corinth
Positions
War Hawk Peace Keeper
Assemblyman (woman)
Military General
Role Playing Events Leading Up To the Peloponnesian War
I am from the city-state of ___________________ and a ________________________(position)
Cause # 1 of the Peloponnesian War
Cause #2 of the Peloponnesian War
Cause #3 of the Peloponnesian War
Notes:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Organize your notes in a 3 -2 -1 (3 facts, 2 ideas you found interesting, and 1 question)
The Peloponnesian War
The Peloponnesian War began in 431 BC between the Athenian Empire (or The Delian League) and
the Peloponnesian League which included Sparta and Corinth. The war was documented by Thucydides,
an Athenian general and historian, in his work History of the Peloponnesian War. The war lasted 27
years, with a 6-year truce in the middle, and ended with Athens' surrender in 404 BC.
Causes of the war
According to Thucydides, the cause of the war was the "fear of the growth of the power of Athens"
throughout the middle of the 5th century BC. After a coalition of Greek states thwarted an attempted
invasion of the Greek mainland by the Persian Empire, several of those states formed the Delian league in
478 BC in order to create and fund a standing navy which could be used against the Persians in areas
under their control. Athens, the largest member of the league and the major Greek naval power, took the
leadership of the league and appointed financial officers to oversee its treasury, which was located on the
island of Delos, the League headquarters.
Over the following decades Athens, through its great influence in the League, was able to convert
it into an Athenian empire. Though some members of the League embraced Athenian conversion, just as
many were bitterly opposed to the governments imposed upon them. Gradually League funds went more
directly into Athenian projects, rather than into defending the Aegean and Greece from Persia. Pericles
had the League treasury relocated from its home on Delos to Athens, from [where] most of the funds were
used in vast building projects such as the Parthenon. As the member states of the League gradually lost
their independence, it transformed into the Athenian Empire, whose growth Sparta watched with
concern.
The League, based around the Ionian and Aegean Sea, was by its very nature reliant on ships for
trade and to fend off pirates and Persian fleets. As the League developed into the Athenian Empire,
member states gradually lost control of their own ships, which they gave to Athens annually as tribute.
Consequently, Athens began to accumulate a huge navy. This increase in Athenian military power
allowed it to challenge the Lacedaemonians (commonly known as the Spartans), who, as leaders of the
Peloponnesian League, had long been the sole major military power in Greece.
The immediate cause of the war comprised several specific Athenian actions that affected Sparta's
allies, notably Corinth. The Athenian navy intervened in a dispute between Corinth and Corcyra,
preventing Corinth from invading Corcyra at the Battle of Sybota, and placed Potidaea, a Corinthian
colony, under siege. The Athenian Empire also levied economic sanctions against Megara, an ally of
Sparta. These sanctions, known as the Megarian decree, were largely ignored by Thucydides, but modern
economic historians have noted that forbidding Megara to trade with the prosperous Athenian empire
would have been disastrous for the Megarans. The decree was likely a greater catalyst for the war than
Thucydides and other ancient authors admitted, more so than simple fear of Athenian power.
Reference: G.L. Cawkwell, Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War (1997 London) Website: http://www.crystalinks.com/peloponnesianwar.html