Not to mention the increasing clashing of commercial spheres of influence. Athens had - and continued to have - a large and, to Persia, rather unhealthy interest in northern Anatolian and Phoenician "business routes" (for lack of a better description). Athens growing activities in the Aegean will not have passed unnoticed. One needs only to follow the caches of Attic pottery to see where her interests ran.marcus wrote:What ruler would not want to punish those who had behaved aggressively against him and his possessions?
Indeed, it was Delian League post war that enabled Athens to take a stranglehold on the Black Sea corn routes and severely curtail or compete with Phoenician interests. And, once the eastern Aegean was "secured" what was next? That supermarket of the ancient world that exacted an ongoing toll on Persian resources via regular invasions, Egypt. Athens, like Persia occasionally, found this the province too far and suffered its calamitous operation "Market Garden" in the 450s.
A practice run for Sicily in 415-13.