J Magnus,
The Daimon and Alkibiades?stylistic connection,unless you would like to speak about Alkibiades daimonion which is even more apt...
Let's deal with some peripheral matters first:Athens a 'colonial superpower'
I would agree with that just to put it mildly,despite Elfwine's misgivings;why?
Many of the renowned historians place the beginning of the Peloponnesian war actually in 460 BC and not in 431 BC because the hostilities started then and with few intervals continued until 404 BC.Between 460 and and 445 the Athenian supremacy was so evident, despite fighting on three fronts at the same time, after the operation of landing in Spartan soil and burning of the Spartan shipyards,that Sparta requested armistice and the 30 year peace was signed.The Athenian Empire then had 178 cities(the last was Semeli in Frygia) and apopulation of 20000000 people,and the Athenian sheds in Munichia/Piraeus port had space for 300 triremes without counting the various squadrons on duty in all points of the Aegean.Taking into account the population of the time in eastern Mediterannean(the most advanced part of the Mediterannean)it was an enormous power.
Sources for perusal:"The Athenian Empire" by Russel Meiggs
" History of Ancient Greece" by Bury&Meiggs
About "Persian far Greater Power" as Elfwine claims:
In the offensive war against Persia carried out by Athens and her First allies under Cimon,Persians suffered such humiliating defeats and the destruction of The Phoenician Navy so total after the double battles of Euremedon(467 BC) and Cyprus near Kition(by land and sea) that the Phoenician navy disappears from history until the time of Alexander.
The Persians asked for peace that was signed by Callias(the richest Athenian ctizen) with very humiliating terms;apart from idemnity,the Persian army was forced to retire 20 klms from the sea along the entire coast of Asia minor thus securing the independence of the Greek cities of Asia Minor and the Levantine fleets were prohibited in entering the Aegean.The Persians didn't want any further entanglements with the Athenians and their navy in the Aegean especially Euremedon which was the first enemy landing on Persian soil...that is about the greater power status of the Persians;
the Athenians started the peloponnesian war with 9.500 talents in their treasury( see Bury&Meiggs) compare that with the 14000 talents that Alexander found in the Persian treasury and you understand the power of Athens.
(see also "Persia and the Greeks" by A.R.Burn-the formost authority in Ancient Greece)
...to be continued later-)
OK,a short answer about Rome:At the time of the Peloponnesian War Rome was still a searching republic,in 432 BC they had sent representatives to Athens who requested to study the Athenian system of Government and the Athenian body of laws which after careful analysis they took as much as it was needed and they adapted it to the needs of the Roman state and created the law of the twelve tables.militarily Rome was an insignificant quantity in comparison to Athens or Sparta and they didn't even measure up to the first rate states of Magna Grecia like Syracusae or Taras etc.See the treaty signed by Rome out of fear not to raise the Greeks of Magna Grecia in 303 BC.
see Plutarch "Parallel Lifes" and Scullard "History of Rome"