Was it ever possible to have a united Greece in ancient times? If so, how? I don't count Philip nor Alexander because the country was actually Macedon.
United ancient Greece
- Thread starter FernandoPerla
- Start date
-
- Tags
- greece unification united
Maybe If they had a Bismarck or Carvour statesman. Also they have to overcome their local ,nationalism' and infighting. Problem ist the Persianer Empire at the door.
It still unified ancient Greece.
Plus, there is the Antipatrid dynasty, that ruled the region after the collapse of Alexander's empire (minus Epirus, but there is still the option of vassalage or even outright conquest if the Antipatrids survive longer).
If you are insistent on excluding greater Macedonia, then maybe a collapsed Roman Empire results in an independent Greek state?
Are Thessalians Greek enough for you? If so, Iason of Pherae was pretty powerful after he was elected Tagos of Thessaly, boasting a large mercenary army and apparently a good track record as a warlord if Xenophon is to be believed. By that point, Spartan power had already been broken, and the Peloponnesian League no longer functional. Countering Iason would probably require the combined strength of Thebes and Athens, which was not terribly likely I think.
What do you mean by winning?
Also Peloponnesian war? Sparta and Athens were engaged in a long but often interrupted struggle, from the First Peloponnesian war, the Archidamian War, the campaign of Mantinea, the Sicilian expedition (both of these took place during the Peace of Nicias), the Dekelian War, and the Corinthian War. These conflicts stretched from 446 BC to 387 BC, and swung back and forth several times. The inescapable strategic reality, though, is that Athens can't fight Sparta (or any major Greek state) and Persia at the same time, and Athenian expansion in mainland Greece ensures a community of interest between the two.
We recently had a thread about the Persian conquest of Greece and if that would have unintentionally lead to a united Greece.
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/could-the-achaemenids-have-conquered-greece.465041/
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/could-the-achaemenids-have-conquered-greece.465041/
I was saying Peloponnesian wars, specially the last one who destroyed Athens’ power
It didn't destroy Athens' power though, since they rebounded quite well not long after and had many notable successes in the Corinthian war.
Athens rebounded sure but after that was never again able to impose its will on the rest of Greece as before and Sparta was unable to keep that power for long.
Athens never really imposed its will on the rest of Greece; in the Archidamian war, they really wanted to be considered Sparta's equals, rather than hegemons of Greece. If anything, Sparta filled that role, as their Peloponnesian league represented the largest single army in Greece against which Athens could never contend on land.
Technically, Athens could, but she ruined it by making tactical and strategic blunders over and over again.
I also doubt Athens was simply fighting to be considered “equal”. She wanted to become as hegemon on the mainlad as she was on the islands, or at least there was a party of Athenians who wanted that, such as Alcibiades.
By the time Jason died, it wasn’t too late for such an alliance, which wouldn’t have been that unlikely considering they did ally several times.
Athens was the bully-boy of the Aegean. They acted like a hegemon when they wanted to.
It was simply a matter of time once Persia was involved on the Spartan side; with Persia's financial and shipbuilding resources, Athens would lose its fleet eventually, and that would be the end of that.
Pericles clearly states that they rejected the Spartan demands like the Megara decree during the siege of Potidaea so that the Spartans would have to treat them as equals, instead of trying to order them around.
Yes, that’s what Perikles said, and maybe even what he actually wanted (I mean, he was a politician through and through) but Kleon, Alkibiades? Had they had it their way, Athens would have ruled over all of Greece.
You’re right on Persia inevitably siding with Athens, but I wouldn’t take Athens losing such a conflict for granted. Persia had its own issues, in theory she did have enough resources to build fleet after fleet, but most of the subjects making those weren’t that receptive of Persian domination, and Athens in her prime had just enough of a fleet to hold her off. As for Sparta, it’d have taken just one or two serious victories on land to humble her, which wasn’t impossible at all for Athens.
Athens relied on grain shipments from the Black Sea because they knew they had no chance against the Peloponnesians in pitched battle, nor could they even successfully attack the Spartan camp at Dekelia. Once Persia is in the war, they can simply occupy the Eastern side of the Hellespont with an army and support it with a fleet; right off the bat, their reconquest of Ionia would deny Athens much of the Delian league revenue they relied on to keep in the war. Even if they didn't commit any forces of their own, the sheer amount of money they could provide their Greek allies meant that as in OTL they could continually rebound from one defeat after another.