History of the Golden Age of Ancient Greece

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Perspective

The history of the Golden Age of ancient Greece began when peace with Persia was concluded in the mid-5th century BCE. The Delian League grew to become the Athenian Empire when Athens seized and relocated the League’s treasury from Delos to Athens. Once there, its funds were used to build the Athenian Acropolis, place half its population on the public payroll, and create a navy that made Athenian power unrivaled in the Greek world.

Fifth-century Athens was book-ended by its Golden Age and the Age of Pericles, and buoyed by political hegemony, economic growth and a flourishing culture. Athens takes its name from its patron goddess, Athena. The period began after the defeat of the Persian Empire in 478 BCE, when an Athenian-led Delian League of independent city-states overcame the Persians to keep the liberated Anatolian Greek cities free.

Flush with money military might and guided by its statesman-orator Pericles, Athens developed some of the most influential and enduring culture of the Western tradition. During this era, the dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides all lived and wrote their plays in Athens. Herodotus and Thucydides wrote their histories, Hippocrates practiced medicine, and Plato and Socrates wrote and argued philosophy.

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