Prayer To Athena Goes Unanswered Quiz

Answer: Delian League and Peloponnesian League

Athens became the leader of the Delian League in 487 BC. after persuading 350 city-states to form a military alliance that would protect Greece from any future Persian attack. It did not take long, however, for the members of the Delian League to see that Athens intended to lead a group of sub-ordinates, rather than a group of equals. Members who wanted to leave the League were not permitted to do so; in fact, all members had to use Athens' coinage and the Athenian Assembly became the final court of appeal for every citizen within the League.

There was also an attempt (unsuccessful) to force Athenian democracy on all the member city-states. Although Athens and Sparta had signed a nonaggression pact, Athens especially seemed to have violated the spirit of the agreement several times.

Answer: Thucydides

Thucydides is the most important source of information about the Peloponnesian War. He is known to be the first critical historian because he took great care (unlike Herodotus) to give his sources and assess their reliability. A general who lost the Battle of Amphipolis, Thucydides was ostracized for twenty years; he spent the time traveling and gathering information about the struggle between the two city-states.

Answer: False

According to Thucydides, the immediate cause of the Peloponnesian War was Athens' violation of the spirit of the nonaggression pact signed with Sparta. For example, Athens took the side of Corcyra, which was at war with Corinth. Filled with deep resentment due to Athens' meddling, the Corinthians persuaded Sparta to prepare for war against Athens.

Answer: True

Thucydides says, "The real cause I consider to be the one which was formally most kept out of sight. The growth of the power of Athens and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war inevitable." In other words, Sparta would never admit that they feared Athens' power, but they did.

When the Spartan ultimatums were delivered to Athens, demands were made that Athens stay out of affairs in the Peloponnesus.

Answer: Sparta's army would be easily defeated.

Having been given the ultimatums by Sparta, Pericles believed it would make Athens look weak if they gave into the demands. When the war broke out in 431 BC, Pericles convinced the Athenians that it would be best to rely on the power of their navy, and avoid a battle between the two armies. Too proud to negotiate, the Athenians made a very reckless decision.

Answer: Plague

A great plague (which had been prevalent throughout the ancient world at the time) came to Athens and because all the Athenians had gathered within the walls of the city, it was especially deadly. Thucydides said that victims had "violent heats in the heads, and redness and inflammation in the eyes".

The ill sought refuge in the temples, splashing in the water to try to find relief from the high fever. The dead were taken to the temples; hundred of people, including Pericles, died. Where was Athena?

Answer: Cleon

Cleon was known to be more uncompromising and belligerent than Pericles. The great comedy writer Aristophanes spoke of Cleon in his play, "Knights", and called him the "filthiest, most blatant, lowest-down liar of all time". When Mytilene wanted to withdraw from the Delian League, Cleon persuaded the Assembly to carry out the death penalty on all the men and to sell the women and children into slavery.

The next day the decision was reconsidered, however, and the Assembly reversed their decision. Thucydides used this instance to illustrate that the Athens had become too aggressive and too competitive.

The spirit that had made them great had begun to deteriorate. The picture was taken from a marble found on the Acropolis in Athens in 1888.

It is called "Mourning Athena". Is she sad or just pensive? Opinions vary.

Answer: Alcibiades

Alcibiades belonged to an ancient Athenian noble family. His family status, coupled with generous political gifts, allowed him to become a prominent politician during the Peloponnesian War. He became part of a force that was sent to make Sicily part of the Athenian Empire. Apparently people believed that Alcibiades defaced the statues of Hermes that guarded temples and homes throughout the city before leaving. Upon hearing that charges had been brought against him, Alcibiades fled to Sparta, telling the king of Sparta how he could defeat the Athenian forces in Sicily.

Unfortunately, Socrates ended up being the one hurt most by these actions. The charges against him during his trial were misleading the youth and blaspheming the gods. Alcibiades? He had quite an adventure which took him to Sparta, Persia, and eventually back to Athens.

Answer: Oligarchy

By the terms of the treaty with Sparta that ended the war, Athens had to become a member of the Peloponnesian League, relinquish its navy, tear down the city walls, and institute a government of thirty oligarchs. With the help of the city-state of Thebes, the Athenians were able to overthrow the oligarchs within eight months, but the democracy of the Golden Age was never reinstated.

Answer: Macedonia

Philip II had spent three years as a political hostage in the city-state of Thebes; he gained an appreciation of Greek culture, but also a very thorough understanding of the Greeks' lack of unity. His army also was organized along the same lines of the Greek phalanx.

The proud, independent Greeks would fall to the Macedonians, the Romans, the Byzantine Empire, and the Ottoman Empire, before regaining independence again in the 1800s.