Pericles Impact Of War On Athens During The Peloponnesian War

Thucydides begins his historical narrative by stating that both Sparta and Athens were at the height of their powers, meaning a war between the two city states was inevitable (Thuc. 1.1). All of Greece was picking sides for the upcoming conflict, until it was the secondary powers that provoked the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta (Lecture 11). The Peloponnesian war is characterized by a system of alliances, the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League, meaning the whole of Greece felt the impact of the conflict between Athens and Sparta (Lecture 10). However, Thucydides particularly focuses on the impact of war on Athens in his narrative of Greek history. According to Thucydides, the concurrent conquests, revolts, and battles that Athens dealt with during the Peloponnesian war impacted Athens socially, morally, financially, and politically. Thucydides describes the social impact of warfare on Athens through the description of Pericles’ second speech, the funeral oration. Pericles delivered the funeral oration after the first wave of death had resulted from the Peloponnesian war. In Pericles’ speech, Thucydides is able to show that many individuals have lost their lives in the fight against Sparta and that many more will die in the future. But they

It is the fall of the Athenian Empire, which is a result of the social, moral, financial, and political impacts of war. By the end of the Peloponnesian war, both Sparta and Athens had suffered considerable losses. Although the outcome of the Peloponnesian war may be called a Spartan victory, the main consequence of the war was the end of Greek power dominating the ancient world. Neither Sparta nor Athens fully recovered to its original height of power that it held before the Peloponnesian war (Lecture 13). The absence of the Greek superpower opened the door for a new dominating force to rise in the ancient