page_title: Wars of the Delian League
section_title: Delian League
hierarchical_section_title: Wars of the Delian League / Delian League
context_page_description: The Wars of the Delian League were a series of campaigns fought between the Delian League of Athens and her allies, and the Achaemenid Empire of Persia. These conflicts represent a continuation of the Greco-Persian Wars, after the Ionian Revolt and the first and second Persian invasions of Greece.
  The Greek alliance, centred on Sparta and Athens, that had defeated the second Persian invasion had initially followed up this success by capturing the Persian garrisons of Sestos and Byzantium, both in Thrace, in 479 and 478 BC respectively. After the capture of Byzantium, the Spartans elected not to continue the war effort, and a new alliance, commonly known as the Delian League, was formed, with Athens very much the dominant power. Over the next 30 years, Athens would gradually assume a more hegemonic position over the league, which gradually evolved into the Athenian Empire.
  Throughout the 470s BC, the Delian League campaigned in Thrace and the Aegean to remove the remaining Persian garrisons from the region, primarily under the command of the Athenian politician Cimon.
context_section_description: After Byzantium, Sparta was eager to end her involvement in the war. The Spartans were of the view that, with the liberation of mainland Greece, and the Greek cities of Asia Minor, the war's purpose had already been reached. There was also perhaps a feeling that obtaining long-term security for the Asian Greeks would prove impossible. In the aftermath of Mycale, the Spartan king Leotychides had proposed transplanting all the Greeks from Asia Minor to Europe as the only method of permanently freeing them from Persian dominion. Xanthippus, the Athenian commander at Mycale, had furiously rejected this; the Ionian cities were originally Athenian colonies, and the Athenians, if no one else, would protect the Ionians. This marked the point at which the leadership of the Hellenic alliance effectively passed to the Athenians; with the Spartan withdrawal after Byzantium, the leadership of the Athenians became explicit.
  The loose alliance of city states which had fought against Xerxes's invasion had been dominated by Sparta and the Peloponnesian league. With the withdrawal of these states, a congress was called on the holy island of Delos to institute a new alliance to continue the fight against the Persians. This alliance, now including many of the Aegean islands, was formally constituted as the 'First Athenian Alliance', commonly known as the Delian League. According to Thucydides, the official aim of the League was to "avenge the wrongs they suffered by ravaging the territory of the king." In reality, this goal was divided into three main efforts - to prepare against any future invasion, to seek revenge against Persia, and to organize a means of dividing spoils of war. The members were given a choice of either offering armed forces or paying a tax to the joint treasury; most states chose the tax. League members swore to have the same friends and enemies, and dropped ingots of iron into the sea to symbolize the permanence of their alliance. The ingots of iron were cast into the ocean because the oath the league members swore stipulated that their allegiance would not end, or be otherwise broken, until the iron floated to the surface. In other words, that they had made a pact perceived to be eternal. The Athenian politician Aristides would spend the rest of his life occupied in the affairs of the alliance, dying (according to Plutarch) a few years later in Pontus, whilst determining what the tax of new members was to be.
caption: Athens and her empire in 431 BC. The Athenian Empire was the direct descendant of the Delian League