alternatehistory.com

I studied Ancient History for three years of my life, but I never took a great deal of interest in the history of classical Greece, being more interested in Iranian, Hellenistic and Roman stuff. So, the contention argued in an essay by Prof. Ian Morris that I am reading quite surprised me: essentially that Athens' so called "Empire" of 479-404BC was nothing of the sort, and is best understood as the beginnings of a "national" state of Ionian Greeks, albeit one dominated strongly by Attica.

I was wondering what AH.com thinks of this proposition. Morris says that, in the absence of defeat in the late fifth century BC, Athens' state would have "undoubtedly" continued to centralise and gain more trappings of a proper nation: do we agree?
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