What was the effect of Pericles' plan to protect Athens from Sparta with the use of a large wall?

Answer 1

Pericles (ca 490-429 BC) is the most famous statesman of Athens. His years of leadership eventually came to be labeled "Periclean Athens" to represent how he dominated politics, the arts, and how he effectively turned the Athenian empire into the richest and most powerful state in Greece. He was born to a rich and famous father Xanthippus, who was the victor over the Persian fleet at Mycale, the final battle of the Persian Wars. His mother was a niece of the famous Athenian Cleisthenes who was the leader of the Alcmeonidae, one of the most powerful families in Athens. Cleisthenes is responsible for removing the tyrant Hippias from Athens in 508 BC and then reformed their constitution. So Pericles came from a powerful background.

Pericles came to power in Athens based mostly on his wits and his oratory. He was a Strategos and lead Athenian armies to victories, notably at Sicyon, and he fought alongside his political enemy Cimon at Tanagra. At one time Athenian armies held large parts of Boeotian territory. Eventually the Athenians could not hold onto their land gains in Greece and Pericles made peace and redirected his efforts to naval domination of the Aegean. His policies turned the Delian League formed against Persia into an Athenian "Thalassocracy" (Sea Empire). The Athenians built their long walls from Athens to the port of Piraeus and decided to rest their major strategy in war on Naval power. When the 2nd Peloponnesian War broke out between the Athenian Empire and a fearful Sparta, Corinth, and Thebes, Pericles trusted in a strategy of attrition against the enemies on land, and naval domination on sea.

Neither the Spartans or the Athenians understood the war that they started in 431 BC, or that it would drag on for 27 years and bleed Greece dry, and rage over lands as far away as Sicily to the shores of the Bosphorus. The Spartans invaded Attica and ravaged the farms as the Athenians from the countryside huddled inside the long walls to Piraeus. Athenian fleets raided the coast of Sparta with impunity, but could not goad the Messenians or allies to rebel from Sparta. The Spartan army was unstoppable but the Athenian cavalry harassed the raiders as they spread out to ineffectively destroy Athenian farmlands. The Athenian fleet prevented any assault on Athens, and kept the food flowing in. In effect the war was a stalemate.

After a number of invasions the worst happened to Athens delaying strategy as the city was hit by plague as the huddled masses were crammed into the open spaces between the walls. Pericles lost two sons and a sister to the plague, then succumbed himself to the disease. His greatest moments are remembered by Thucydides in his great funeral oration, where his commentary on war and sacrifice is still one of the great discourses on the subject of how people bury their dead in war and resonates today as effectively as 2400 years ago. Sadly there are few great orators today of the likes of Pericles.

Pericles' death actually gained the Athenians some success in the war, as the new crop of leaders were more aggressive in carrying the war to Sparta. Eventually these successes caused the Athenians to pursue the grandiose plan to conquer Sicily. The disaster there led ultimately to the end of the Athenian Empire.