The Peloponnesian War
The Peloponnesian war is a war that occurred between 431-404 B.C. in Greece between the Spartans and the Athenians. This war was very significant to the shaping of the Greek civilization. This is the second war between the Sparta and Athens. The first war occurred in 460 B.C. all the way up until 446 B.C. The war began because Sparta and Athens were the two main powers in Greece. Sparta didn’t like the fact that Athens was growing with power, that they were planning to rebuild their long wall fortifications, and they feared that if they didn’t do anything Corinth would side with Athens.
One primary source of the Peloponnesian war is Thucydides. He was an upper-class Athenian and served as a commander. He wrote reports of his military campaigns to send back to the assembly. The Peloponnesian War was divided into three phases: the Archidamian war which was from 431-421 B.C., the Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition which was from 420-413 B.C., and the Ionian War which was from 4120-404 B.C. In the first phase the Spartans and their allies invaded Attica a few times. Their plan was to attack Athenian lands every year to create as much destruction as possible. No one is sure if that actually affected Athens but they did retaliate by landing troops by sea into Spartan territory. An outbreak
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Sparta had been defeated multiple times in naval battles but suddenly things changed in 410 B.C. They managed to build 200 war galleys using Persian money and timber. In 405 B.C. they inflicted a final defeat on the Athenians. They captured one hundred and seventy Athenian ships on the beach at Aegospotami near the Hellespont and executed up to three thousand Athenian captives. At that point the Athenians had no choice but to surrender, which they did in 404 B.C. The Spartans finally won the war and the preserved Greek
In the later cases of Corinth and Megara, it was Athens unwillingness to agree on independence that triggered the Peloponnesian War. In effect, I believe that Athens had helped to end a war, onto to start another whilst in pursuit of her personal desire for imperialism.
The Greeks, who were made up of only 300 Spartans under the rule of Leonidas and about 7000, allied Greeks these included; Arcadia, Mantineans, Arcadian Orchomenus, Orchomenians, Corinth, Phlius, Mycenae, Boeotia, Thespians and Thebans, noted by Herodotus. Persians waited 3 days to march up to the Greeks to start the battle; they opened the battle by shooting arrows. The Greeks took it in turn to be in the front line of their phalanx and fought off wave
Thucydides was right to claim that all wars can be explained by Fear, Honor, and Interest. All Wars are related to the three characteristics as stated by Dr. Nation (Dr. Nation video). The Athenians thought process was that the weak would be ruled by the strong and that was the nature of conflict (Strassler p. 43). Looking at the Peloponnesian war itself will illustrate how fear, honor and interest were involved with how this war developed. The initial unnamed Athenian that made that statement was probably using it to deter war with Sparta when it mostly incited the war (Dr. Nation Video). The Athenians wanted to maintain and sustain their city state but also expand it. They were expanding through their alliances and this is what invoked the
Sparta was a key city state which was located on the Peloponnesian Peninsula in southern Greek, which today is referred to as Laconia. Sparta is historically known for their strong military training, warfare tactics, and numerous victories. This city state included full citizens known as the Spartans, the helots, and the Perioeci. The men of Sparta had a main obligation to become strong warriors, fight with their brothers, and protect against any invasions or attacks. The helots where owned by city state of Sparta. They came from Messenia and were forced into slavery after being invaded by the Spartans in c.735. The helot’s responsibilities included farming, being of help if needed during battles, used as nurses, and for any other task that need to be accomplished. Unlike many traditional slaves, the Messenia’s were given certain leeway. They had
The new Spartan general was an artful diplomat, with a strong personal relationship with the Persian prince Cyrus. Using this to its advantage, Sparta sailed to the Hellespont, the main source of Athens' grain. Forced to follow under threat of starvation, Athens were defeated in 405BC.
The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. "Peloponnesian War (ancient Greek History)."Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 24 Dec. 2013. Web. 05 Apr. 2014
The roots of the Peloponnesian war can be traced long before 431 BCE, when it officially started. It can be traced back to as early as the Persian Wars, where the Athenians had found their home burned by the hands of the Persians. That disaster left the Athenians with no home and no sanctuary. Even though that was a defeated battle amidst a victorious war, they still had reason to believe that the Persians will come back for more. Apprehensive at the thought of having their city burned yet another time, the Athenians knew they had to do something. Naturally, they chose to get help. Gathering up the neighboring city-states around them, the Athenians formed the Delian League; an alliance working directly to defend the whole of Greece from Persian attacks (Kagan 8). In the beginning, this worked out well; everybody got their say on what went on in the league, and everybody was satisfied. However, the Athenians saw that if they were to take more power, the members of the league would not be strong enough to resist. Therefore, that was exactly what they did; they took more and more power until what was the Delian League became the Athenian Empire (Kagan 8). As they grew even more powerful and wealthy, their neighbors of Sparta and the Peloponnesian League, Sparta's alliance, could not help but notice (Kagan 13). In 431 BCE, lighted b...
The causes of the Peloponnesian War proved to be too great between the tension-filled stubborn Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta. As Thucydides says in Karl Walling’s article, “Never had so many human beings been exiled, or so much human blood been shed” (4). The three phases of the war, which again, are the Archidamian war, the Sicilian Expedition and the Decelean war, show the events that followed the causes of the war, while also showing the forthcoming detrimental effects that eventually consumed both Athens and eventually Sparta effectively reshaping Greece.
... one another until they were no more. From the Persian War to the Peloponnesian the two states had changed a lot of the years. Starting from their greatest alliance yet first moment of subtle rivalry, the Persian War. Although they were indistinctly competing against one another, without each other they could not have dominated. Then there were the two blows to the peace treaty. The first blow being the Athenian assistance in the battle between Corinth and Corycra. The second blow being the idea to burn Corinth’s town down. Although these were remarkable mistakes the Athenians saw nothing wrong with them. Lastly, was the war. In 431 B.C. the Peloponnesian War broke out between the two allies, after all they had been through, their alliance was over. War was bound to happen, although they lived in tranquility for so long, one or the other was destined to break out.
The Persian War was a war between the Greeks and the Persians. Even though the Greeks were still not united they fought to defend each territory that was theirs. The Peloponnesian war was a war among the Greek city states. That is the difference among the two; one was fought against an enemy who attacked the Greece land and the other was fought among the Greeks themselves. The Persian War begun because the Greeks made a military rebellion in Asia Minor which caused the Persians to face more conflicts themselves. This was known as the Ionian Revolt. After the Ionian Revolt, the Persians more than ever wanted to take over Greece Eventually leading to the Persian War. This was the reason why the Persian war began, basically of revenge. The major parties involved in the conflict of this war were the Persians and the Greek city states.
The Peloponnesian War and the Decline of Leadership in Athens Thucydides set out to narrate the events of what he believed would be a great war—one requiring great power amassed on both sides and great states to carry out. Greatness, for Thucydides, was measured most fundamentally in capital and military strength, but his history delves into almost every aspect of the war, including, quite prominently, its leaders. In Athens especially, leadership was vital to the war effort because the city’s leaders were chosen by its people and thus, both shaped Athens and reflected its character during their lifetimes. The leaders themselves, however, are vastly different in their abilities and their effects on the city. Thucydides featured both Pericles and Alcibiades prominently in his history, and each had a distinct place in the evolution of Athenian empire and the war it sparked between Athens and Sparta.
The Peloponnesian War (431-404 B.C.) was a conflict between the Athenian Empire and the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta that resulted in the end of the Golden Age of Athens. The events of the war were catalogued by the ancient historian Thucydides in The History of the Peloponnesian War. Thucydides’ writings showed the ancient Greek belief that there is a parallel between the city-state and the character of its citizens; in order for the city-state to be successful, its citizens must be virtuous. Thucydides did not believe that the true cause of the Peloponnesian War were the immediate policies of the Athenian Empire against the city-states in the Peloponnesian League but rather the fundamental differences in the character of the two city-states
If an enemy tried to stand up to them , they would demolish them and take over their land. They kept many different people under their control. The Spartans were part of most major battles in the Greek area during this time period. They fought the Peloponnesian Wars (5th Century BCE) and Corinthian Wars(4th Century BCE), which they mostly dominated(Wilkes, 2015). They took part of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, where they only had a few hundred Spartans fighting alongside some Greeks, to destroy the Persian’s advances into their land. In fact, there was only three-hundred Spartan men in the battle led by Leonidas. They had a few thousand Greeks that were helping them. The Persian king, Xerxes, made this attack to revenge his father’s death in an earlier war against Greece. The battle took place in Thermopylae, which means Hot Gates, because that is where the Persians were advancing and it gave the Spartans soldier better ground through the very narrow
Thucydides. "History of the Peleponnesian War." Internet Archive. Edited by Charles Forster Smith. 1956. http://archive.org/stream/thucydideswithen01thucuoft/thucydideswithen01thucuoft_djvu.txt.
However, being in a weakened state caused the Greek city- states (mainly Athens against Sparta) to fight amongst themselves in order to have more influence over the rest of the city-states. This type of war was termed the Peloponnesian War and continued from 431 B.C. to 404 B.C. in the year. History of Greece:The Golden Age of Greece and Muntone. The Peloponnesian War began around 431 B.C. and persisted for twenty-seven years.