Athens War Research Paper

Along with their personal traits, Athens had freedom. This freedom involved the individual more than the city and this made their imperialism possible. This freedom will create en energy in the city but will lead to problems and decline for Athens. Athens will have troubles with factions and the internal conflicts that come with. Pericles will be able to prolong the problems for Athens. He was able to do this by appealing to the passion and love for glory and the need for ultimate devotion. These more individualistic people will be able to connect with something other than themselves with this passion. The connection is there because it tends to be egoistic and leads to a more intense devotion and increased willingness to sacrifice. When this
Athens had certain compulsions and priorities that affected them. Athens placed great value on fear, honor, and profit. Emotions can be used as an offensive or defensive weapon. These emotions can be used to heighten the importance of your priorities and can affect the way they go about collecting information. The information then gathered will directly impact the way we form our beliefs and the need to act. Thucydides believes that fear by the Spartans played an important part in causing the war. Sparta felt threaten by the change in the power balance from Athens due to their imperialistic expansion. Fear can change over to terror, which is a more personal form and can change the way people and states think. Effective leaders can combat the fear and terror found in war and conflict. There are five major ways they can do this. (Petersen 321) The leader can use rational discourse. They will focus on the threat but are not influenced by the emotions and to focus on concrete actions. The leader can use hope as a way to help combat the fear and terror. This is the opposite and is based on a positive future and outcomes. Hope and fear cannot exist, but hope is a distortion in a positive manner. The leader can use the threat of shame by taking a single action attached to the person’s identity. This is different from guilting the person due to it being more personal and guilt can be forgiven. The use of anger can also be used. They would need to believe that a bad action has been committed against them and the focusing on the need for punishment. A final way to counter the use of fear and terror is by the use of spite. This is different than anger because of the belief that the enemy is going to receive some good that they do not deserve. They will then fight to prevent and to stop the enemy from their undeserved good. In ancient Greece and seen in Thucydides writing fear