Professor Polly Lowe

We could, if we were cynical, as I often am, question what the Athenians' motivations are.

Are they actually really very bothered about the Persians?

Or is this...

a way for the Athenians to cement their own power.

Aeon, as I've just mentioned, is strategically extremely important, especially if you want to head further east.

If you want to go down into the Black Sea, which is a very important lucrative grain route, that's a good place to have a foothold.

And the Athenians, they're liberating, in scare quotes, Greek cities from the Persian Empire, but then the Athenians become

the people who are in charge of those cities.

So they are doing what they've said.

They're fighting the Persians, but it's not wholly altruistic, I would suggest.

Yes, exactly that.

And if we look back to going even further back before the Persian invasions, there's signs that already, even in the 6th century, the Athenians were aware of the potential to expand their power out into the east.

So this isn't a wholly new idea that they've had.

Yes, almost certainly.

Again, it's very hard to pin down from Thucydides' account.

What he does tell us is about cities who decide that they would quite like to leave and aren't allowed to leave.

So two really important cases that Thucydides mentions.

One is the island of Thassos up in the north.

So quite close to Aeon and in that strategically very important region in terms of controlling trade routes, controlling access to the valuable resources on the mainland up there.

Thassos tries to leave and the Athenians by force prevent it from doing so and forcibly reincorporate it.