Leah Lazar

speaker

97 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 16 Jul

Leah Lazar’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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In Our Time · The Delian League · 16 Jul 2026 podcast

I think the way that we talk about past empires matters for how we understand empire now.

And it's important to understand the Delian League as it was.

It's certainly, I think, Thucydides' answer.

So I think he sees this expedition to Sicily in 415 BC as a major turning point, an overexpansion of Athenian ambition.

And also he tells us about how it brought political instability at home.

So the democracy which had been ruling the empire was really shaken by this expansion.

And

at the end of the 5th century, there were two moments when it was actually overturned by violent oligarchic coups.

So a combination of overexpansion abroad, the instability of the political situation within Athens, and also, as we've heard from Paul, I think, the Persians deciding to get financially involved on the Spartan side and the Spartan development of a navy that could...

And the Spartans even have their own ultimately unsuccessful attempt at maybe empire building.

It's certainly seen as a very serious moment in the history of Athenian power.

I think that its consequences in our eyes is certainly also down to the construction of Thucydides' narrative and the fact that we actually don't get the end of his narrative because he doesn't get to describe the end of the war.

But there are certainly other moments later which are also considered really significant.

For example, the nearby island of Euboea, now Evia, which had been another major source of Athenian grain.

When the Spartans conquered that, that's really serious for the Athenians.

But as Paul described, they carry on fighting right down to 404-403.

So the Sicilian expedition ending in 413 did not see the end of the empire or of the war.

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