Assess the contributions and impact of Athens and its leaders during the Persian wars?

Answer 1

Athens, together with its ally Eretria, brought the attention of Persia towards mainland Greece by intervening in the Ionian revolt of Greek cities in Asia Minor against their Persian overlords. Persia attemped to stop this intervention into its empire by raiding Athens and Eretria, intending to instal friendly governments to keep them quiet. Athens' repulsion of this at Marathon both encouraged Athens and convinced Persia that it would only get peace amongst its hundreds of Greek cities by taking the Greek mainland cities into its imperial boundaries and so creating an ethnic frontier.

Many of these mainland Greek cities were induced by pressure and bribery to join Persia in achieving this. Athens and the Peloponnesian states determined to oppose this takeover, inspired by Athens' Marathon success to believe that Persia was beatable. They repelled a full scale invasion led by King Xerxes a decade later.

Sparta's attitude to this success was to evacuate the Greek cities within the Persian empire back to mainland Greece and so put an end to the problem (this was actually done over two thousand years later in 1923 CE when the evacuation of Greeks from Turkey put an end to the problems which had continued all that time).

Adventurous Athens saw another way - to establish an anti-Persian league to marshal the Greek cities around the Aegean and Black Seas to oppose Persia under its leadership. Sparta withdrew from the anti-Persian scene to its usual stance of looking after its interests at home. This Delian League was so successful in opposing Persian efforts that it resulted in Persia agreeing to recognise the independence of the Greek cities in 449 BCE, ending fifty years of sporadic uprisings and warfare.

Afternote: This did not end Athens' adventurism - it continued to levy the funds of the Delian League and apply them to its own purposes, collecting the annual contribution by force where necessary, and interfered in Greek cities outside its league. To counter this Sparta headed a Peloponnesian leage to contain Athenian dominance, and the resulting clashes brought on the devastating 27-year Peloponnesian War between the two Greek leagues. Ironically Athens lost when Persia returned to the scene to finance a Peloponnesian navy which could match Athens, and the resulting defeat stripped Athens of the empire and power it had gained from the anti-Persian league.