Misha Glenny and guests discuss the origins and evolution of an alliance which transformed the geopolitics of the classical world: the Delian League. Since the start of the 5th Century BCE, city states across Greece had been fighting a series of armed conflicts in the Greco-Persian Wars. After the defeat of a second Persian invasion in 478 BCE, a league of cities across Greece came together and formed a new alliance led by Athens. That alliance is now known as the Delian League, after the island of Delos where it was established. In the following decades, Athens used the Delian League to grow its own wealth and formidable naval power. Cities which tried to leave the alliance found themselves violently put down and their lands confiscated by the Athenians. What had begun as a cooperative alliance sworn to resist the Persian Empire gradually started to seem like it may have created another imperial power: the Athenian Empire.

With

Leah Lazar Lecturer in Hellenistic Culture at the University of Manchester

Polly Low Professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Durham

And

Paul Cartledge AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, University of Cambridge

Producer: Martha Owen

Aristophanes (trans. David Barrett and Alan H. Sommerstein), The Birds and Other Plays (Penguin Classics, 2003)

Mary Beard, The Parthenon (Profile Books, 2010)

M. Canevaro and D. M. Lewis, 'Between ‘The Character of the Athenian Empire’ and The Origins of the Peloponnesian War (and beyond): The Popularity of the Athenian Empire Revisited' (Polis 41:1, 2024)

Paul Cartledge, Ancient Greece: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2011)

Lisa Kallet and John H. Kroll, The Athenian Empire: Using Coins as Sources (Cambridge University Press, 2020)

Leah Lazar, Athenian Power in the Fifth Century BC (Oxford University Press, 2024)

Polly Low (ed.), The Athenian Empire (Edinburgh University Press, 2008)

Malcolm F. McGregor, The Athenians and their Empire (UBC Press, 1987)

Robin Osborne (ed. and trans.), The Athenian Empire (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

P. J. Rhodes, The Athenian Empire (Clarendon Press, 1985)

Thucydides (trans. Robin Waterfield, introduced by Polly Low), The History of the Peloponnesian War (Basic Books, 2025)

Thucydides (ed. Robert B Strassler), The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War (Free Press, 1998)

Thucydides (trans. Rex Warner), History of the Peloponnesian War (Penguin Books, 2000)

Thucydides (trans. Martin Hammond), The Peloponnesian War (Oxford University Press, 2009)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

The Delian League

In Our Time: History

The Delian League