When we think about Greece it is generally the Classical period upon which we focus. Most historians identify the period from about 500 to 323 B.C. as the Classical Period. This is the age of the great historians Herodotus and Thucydides, great dramatists like Sophocles, Euripides and Aeschylus, and the brilliant philosophers Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The 5th century is also regarded as the age when the Greeks embraced their brilliant experiment in direct democracy. Amazing monuments to human achievement were constructed in Athens and other Hellenic city-states. It is an age of human discovery and achievement – an age which proudly bears the name classical.
By 479 B.C., the Greek forces had all conquered the Persian army and navy. After the Persian Wars, Athens emerged as the most dominant political and economic force in the Greek world. The Athenian polis, buttressed by the strength of its Council of Five Hundred and Assembly of citizens, managed to gain control of a confederation of city-states which gradually became the Athenian Empire.
The Athenians not only had a political leadership based on the principles of direct democracy as set in motion by Cleisthenes, they also had wide trading and commercial interests in the Mediterranean world. These trading interests spread throughout the area of the Aegean Sea including Asia Minor, an area known as the Aegean Basin. Greek victories against the Persians secured mainland Greece from further invasion. There was a great sense of relief on the part of all Greeks that they had now conquered the conquerors. But, there were some citizens who argued in the Assembly that a true Greek victory would only follow from total defeat of the Persians, and this meant taking the war to Persia itself. And this is precisely what would happen in the 5th century.
The chief events of the Greek Classical Age include the rise of Athens as the central state in the Aegean. During this period Athens both perfected the democracy of the polis and created an empire that embraced much of the Aegean. As a result of Athenian imperialistic ambitions, Athens eventually provoked a response from the Spartans who feared the potential threat Athenian hegemony and became involved in power politics provoked by the ambitions of the Athenians. This is also the age of Pericles and both the growth of Athenian democracy and the beautification of the Athenian polis.
