As the Greeks finally semi-defeated the Persians, their war machine begins to turn on itself, in the form of the Peloponnesian War. One of the fascinating things about the Greeks is how similar, yet different they are simply due to the miscommunication between them. In reading the article on the war between the Greek states, personally I think too much of modern Greece, as it is now unified under one flag. Of course this was not the case, they were just as much at odds with one another as in our own civil war, the north was against the south. They did not see eye to eye at all on how to run a civilization. Nor did they care about the prosperity of the local economies, and the out reaching effect that may have on their own states. This dog eat dog mentality comes to mind when I read about the Peloponnesian war, especially when Alcibiades takes the charge to the Athenian war effort. On the verge of a great battle, Alcibiades is taken under custody only to rat out the Athenians true plan to the Spartans, who originally put themselves in this position due to their half-hearted foreign policy efforts, which lead to Athens becoming the super power it was to begin with. As many twists and turns that there were in this battle, it seems to me that all of this could have been resolved with a little communication amongst leaders of the Greek territories.
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It's interesting how much this struggle in other cultures even today carries on so prevalently. It seems we will forever be a race at odds against each other based on differences and our own personal desires. The struggles of ancient Greece are no different than the visible struggles over land, governments, et cetera that we see on the news today and also the personal battles fought on lesser scales between enemies, rivals, coworkers, even friends, and so on. Life will be a constant struggle until we can learn to put others first above our own wants and goals.
I agree with Kenneth, it seems like not much has changed between now and then when it comes to the 'powers that be'. Generally speaking, people in charge of people, land, and/or money tend to put themselves first regardless of what the people may want or what would be the greater good for everyone involved. It seems like personal gain or pride come first a lot of times and it's quite sad. Our states, towns, country, and even the entire globe have the potential be more prosperous and healthy all around if we could all just work together if there were nothing materialistic to gain.
What was their driving force at that time in history - simply power. What type of forward planning were they thinking about when choosing who to fight. We have history to look at and decide where we want to go - what did they have? The other thing that struck me was how fickled some were at that time. If one side was winning - switch sides, like Aristagoras did. How prevalent was this betrayal. And, is it betrayal? Who or what were they fighting for or against?
I would say they fought for the preservation of their culture. As we have been reading Greeks viewed everyone outside of Greek culture to be barbarians, or outside Greek rule. The more land you conquer the more land that is Greece. I suppose for them this type of deductive reasoning just seemed to make sense... the only way to win is to take more land. The more land you take the more Greeks there are, so the more Greeks there are, the more you preserve your country, and develop a name for yourself through your legacy. As Alexander the Great achieved.
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