ABSTRACT
The sailors of the Delian League are better candidates for identification as Athen's allies than are the men of Argos and Thessaly, traditionally land powers. Thucydides spends few words on the subject, but the action of the League now against Aigina was one of the principal steps in the downfall and annihilation of a major Greek power. Political, indeed visible, traces of that power, and of its fall, still exist today. Aigina had, to put it briefly, got far ahead of its neighbour Athens by becoming an exceptionally rich trading power with a potent navy to protect its merchant shipping. Athen's use of the Delian League to fight Greeks who themselves had impressive records of opposition to Persia marks an important step in the development of the League into an empire. In the Peloponnesian War of 431 onwards, states of the Empire provided a large part of Athen's forces, used for whatever purposes the Athenians chose.
