Research In The Athens-persia Military Relations Of The Classical Period

Looking mainly from the perspective of military conflict,thisdissertation studies the Athens-Persian relations from499to330BC.According to military contacts between Athens and Persia, I dividedthe Athens-Persian relations during this period into three stages:Persian war, the Cold war period and the city-state melee period. Onaccount of Persia Invasion of Greece, Athens and other Greekcity-states formed an alliance to resist of invasion of Persia. LeadingDelian League against Persia offered an opportunity to Athens makeits strength growing enormously, and finally built an sea-empire.TheCallias Peace was concluded in499BC, which marked Athens-Persianrelations developed into a new phase. They do not have thelarge-scale direct military confrontation with each other In the stageof the Cold war, but they both incite rebellion of the other’s allies toweaken the enemy. The Persian openly align with Sparta againstAthens marked the end of the Cold war. In the third stage， thesuccessful intervention of conflict of Greek city-states andimplementation of the limit policies, Persia has prevented the Athens,Sparta and Thebes to seize the hegemony of Greece.The confrontation or alliance between Athens and Persian are based ontheir own national interests, relations between Athens and Persiantypically representative of the international relations of early historyof the world.Through the study of the military relationship between Athens andPersia of the classical age, we can find that the sovereignty of Greeksof Asia Minor was one of the main conflicts between Greece andPersia, and joined them together.At the same time, militaryconfrontation between the two sides hastened the each other’sdecline process.Additionally this paper shows the typical hegemonyand balance phenomenon in international relations. Alliance is animportant way to fight against hegemony, but also may be a form ofpursuing hegemony. At any stage of development in the internationalrelations, the international political community should be justified inpursuit of national interests, oppose hegemony, and promote commonpeace.