The Structure of the System

As each city developed during its formative years in relative isolation, the system originally displayed a highly diffuse structure of influence and power. Each unit was independent. Although frequent wars over territory, personal rivalries, and frontiers ended in the total destruction of some city-states, there were few perma­nent hierarchies of dominance-dependence. Some city-states had wider-ranging interests and activities than others, and consequently gained more prestige. By the fifth century, however, the structure of the system became more stratified and rigid, with city-states such as Athens, Sparta, Acragas, Corinth, Argus, and Thebes increasingly dominating the actions and transactions of the smaller units around them. The main sources of change from a diffuse to a "polar" interna­tional system, where power and influence coagulated around two blocs of states, were the rapid growth and extension of Athenian naval and commercial strength, and the threat of Persian penetration into the Ionian islands, Thrace, and Mace-don.

As a response to this external danger, the Greeks established the Hellenic League into a military alliance and placed it under the leadership of Sparta and Athens. Despite the semblance of Greek unity during the Persian Wars . (492-477 B.C.), there were serious conflicts between members of the League, mostly occasioned by the smaller city-states' fear of Athenian imperialism and expansion. Thus, after the Greek victories over the Persians, Athens' competitors, led by Sparta, formed a rival organization, the Peloponnesian League, an intricate alliance and collective security system designed to deter further Athenian expan­sion and in some cases to "liberate" areas already under Athenian domination. A bitter competition over trade and naval supremacy between Corinth and Ath­ens led ultimately to the Peloponnesian Wars involving the two military alliances. •

By the outbreak of these wars in 431 B.C., Athens had already become an empire, ruling directly or indirectly (ostensibly through a new multilateral alliance, the Delian League) over a number of independent and tributary city-states. But this hegemony was not created solely by Athens' commercial superior­ity or even by the imperialism of Cimon and Pericles. Many city-states voluntarily accepted Athenian laws, courts, and currency simply because these Athenian institutions were more admirable than their own arrangements.³² Athens also provided many services for other city-states, such as leading the alliance against Persia, clearing the seas of pirates, and organizing trade connections with non-Hellenic peoples.

³¹ For description of some of the city-states, see Kathleen Freeman,Greek City States (Lon­don: Methuen, 1948); for the colonies, Johannes Hasebrook,Trade and Politics in Ancient Greece (Lon­don: G. Bell, 1933), pp. 106-8.

³² Adda B. Bozeman,Politics and Culture in International History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, I960), p. 86.

44 Historic International Systems

By 431 B.C., then, the Greek city-state system had become partly Polar­isл ized into two large blocs. The Athenian empire led one bloc and was followed by its voluntary or tributary allies, including the prominent city-states of Rhodes, Miletus, Corcyra (a formidable naval power), as well as other units located in the eastern Aegean and northern and western Greece. Sparta led the Peloponne-

" sian League, with Ellis, Arcadia, and Corinth as its most important allies. Unlike the Chinese system, wherein neutral status was not condoned, many city-states and colonies on the Greek peninsula and throughout the shores of the Mediterra­nean Sea remained free from direct involvement in the Peloponnesian Wars. The system was not, therefore, organized completely around the two blocs.

By the middle of the fifth century, an identifiable order of stratification had replaced the more diffuse, egalitarian distribution of power, status, and prestige found in the era when the city-states were relatively isolated from each other. The criteria according to which states were ranked during and after the 'fifth century were primarily military, commercial, and cultural. Sparta and Athens assumed leadership of the two blocs because of their military or commercial capabilities. Sparta gained respect and prestige from the fighting efficiency, brav­ery, and loyalty of its soldiers. Even those who abhorred Sparta's authoritarian political and social institutions admired the greatness of its armies.³³ Athens, on the other hand, wielded considerable influence over the other city-states

| by virtue of its citizens' aggressive commercial practices. When it had achieved a position of trading predominance, it could easily reduce smaller states to subservience by applying boycotts and embargoes on their trade. Other states moved voluntarily toward Athens, expecting profitable trade relations and pro­tection of commercial routes by the Athenian fleet. Sparta, which possessed only one colony and few commercial connections, had to rely essentially on military force to achieve its objectives.

Also contributing to Athens' prestige and status were the cultural and political contributions of its citizens. Many city-states accepted direct Athenian rule or political leadership in external affairs in order to obtain the advantages of Athenian political institutions, laws, culture, and commercial practices. Above . all, perhaps, cultural excellence was a criterion of greatness. Athens was to the Greeks what Paris was to Europe in the eighteenth century, the cultural

'» center of the system—in Pericles' words, "the educator of Hellas."³⁴

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