The Delian League navy crushed the Persian navy so badly, that some of the Delian league members thought the threat by Persia was gone, and the league was no longer necessary. Some of the islands in the Aegean wanted to leave the league, they no longer wanted to pay money and provide ships.
Athens stepped in and did not permit these Greeks to leave the league. Athens treated these city-states harshly by tearing down their walls, taking their fleet of ships, and insisting they continue to pay the league taxes.
Apparently is was easy to join the Delian League, but impossible to back out, and the league was beginning to look more like an Athenian empire. Thucydides tells us that this was a time of distrust between Athens and Sparta. Thucydides tells us that Athens greatness during this period brought fear to Sparta.
What is interesting about that statement is that for the first time in history, emotion is said to be the cause of a war. Let me give you one example of the distrust between the two city-states. As you read in the last chapter, a great earthquake rocked Sparta in BC. The desperate Spartans asked Athens for help, but when the Athenians sent hoplites to Sparta, the Spartans, having second thoughts, sent them back to Athens. The Spartans put down the helot rebellion on their own, but could not remove a band of helots from high on a mountain top fortress.
A deal was struck where the Spartans promised the helots they could leave the citadel peacefully, if the helots promised to move outside of Spartan territory. Thinking that the helots would scatter, the Spartans were alarmed to find out that the Athenians allowed all of these helots to settle in Naupactus, an Athenian controlled harbor city on the Corinthian gulf, directly across from Peloponnese. Here, the helots were free to do great harm to Sparta and her allies by controlling the gulf.
Athens had everything going for it before the outbreak of the "Great War. The Athenians had allies all around them by land, including an alliance with Megara, a former Peloponnesian League friend of Sparta. Athens also and controlled the seas. The Peloponnesian League met in BC. Corinth, a city-state in that league, complained that Sparta was not doing enough to control Athens.
Sparta decided to go to war with Athens. Pericles, whom we read about in the last chapter, was the clear leader of Athens at this point, replacing Cimon, who had been ostracized, and later, after returning to Athens, had died fighting the Persians. Pericles was confident in a quick Athenian victory.
If the Spartans and their allies should invade Athenian territory, the Athenians could hide behind the Long Walls. Pericles knew that the Spartans had no knowledge of siege warfare, or destroying walls. The Spartans could destroy the farmland of Attica Athenian territory , but grain would continue to flow from the Black Sea to the port of Piraeus, and then into Athens. The Spartans only stayed for a few months, cut down some olive trees, and then headed back to the Peloponnese.
They repeated this in BC. In that same year, Pericles gave his famous "Funeral Oration," in which he praised the dead Athenian soldiers for giving their lives for Athens. Pericles went on to say that Athens would win, because Athens' way of life was clearly better than Sparta's. Pericles felt Athens would win a quick victory over Sparta. Pericles felt that after a few years of raiding the Athenian countryside, the Spartans would eventually become frustrated by the Long Walls and agree to peace on Athens' terms.
But then, something went terribly wrong for Athens. In BC, a plague hit Athens. Some of the grain coming into Piraeus was tainted , and people started to die in the streets. Athens had become over-crowded as all of the people of Attica were now cramped into the city, fearful of the Spartans.
Disease spread quickly, and the Long Walls became a prison, rather than a fortress. Around 30, Athenians died, including Pericles, the Athenian leader.
Spartan culture was centered on loyalty to the state and military service. At age 7, Spartan boys entered a Viewed by many as the founding figure of Western philosophy, Socrates B.
Live TV. This Day In History. History Vault. The War Begins In B. Athens vs. Recommended for you. How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland. Peloponnesian War. Trojan War. Gorilla War. French and Indian War. Trojan War The story of the Trojan War—the Bronze Age conflict between the kingdoms of Troy and Mycenaean Greece—straddles the history and mythology of ancient Greece and inspired the greatest writers of antiquity, from Homer, Herodotus and Sophocles to Virgil.
Pericles The so-called golden age of Athenian culture flourished under the leadership of Pericles B. However, the Spartans, along with the rest of the Peloponnesian League, agreed the Athenians had already broken the peace and that war was once again necessary. In Athens, politicians would claim the Spartans had refused to arbitrate, which would have positioned Sparta as the aggressor and made the war more popular.
However, most historians agree this was merely propaganda designed to win support for a war Athenian leadership wanted in its quest to expand its power. At the end of this conference held among the major Greek city-states, it was clear that war between Athens and Sparta was going to happen, and just one year later, in BCE, fighting between the two Greek powers resumed.
The scene was the city of Plataea, famous for the Battle of Plataea in which the Greeks won a decisive victory over the Persians. However, this time, there would be no major battle. Instead, a sneak attack by the citizens of Plataea would set in motion arguably the greatest war of Greek history. In short, an envoy of Thebans went to Plataea to help a group of elites overthrow the leadership in Plataea. They were granted access to the city, but once inside, a group of Plataean citizens rose up and killed nearly the entire envoy.
This set off a rebellion inside the city of Plataea, and the Thebans, along with their allies the Spartans, sent troops to support those who had been trying to seize power in the first place. The Athenians supported the government in power, and this meant the Athenians and the Spartans were fighting once again. This event, while somewhat random, help set into motion 27 years of conflict that we now understand as the Peloponnesian War.
Because The Peloponnesian War was such a long conflict, most historians break it up into three parts, with the first being called the Archidamian War. The name comes from the Spartan king at the time, Archidamus II.
The Archidamian War did not start without serious disturbances in the Greek balance of power. This initial chapter lasted for ten years, and its events help show just how difficult it was for either side to gain an advantage of the other. More specifically, the impasse between the two sides was largely the result of Sparta having a strong ground force but weak navy and Athens having a powerful navy but less effective ground force. Other things, such as restrictions on how long Spartan soldiers could be away at war, also contributed to the lack of a decisive result from this initial part of the Peloponnesian war.
As mentioned, the Archidamian war officially broke out after the Plataea sneak attack in BCE, and the city remained under siege by the Spartans. The Athenians committed a small defense force, and it proved to be rather effective, as Spartan soldiers were not able to break through until BCE.
When they did, they burned the city to the ground and killed the surviving citizens. They would use their naval supremacy to attack strategic ports along the Peloponnese while relying on the high city-walls of Athens to keep the Spartans out.
However, this strategy left much of Attica, the peninsula on which Athens is located, completely exposed. As a result, Athens opened its city walls to all residents of Attica, which caused the population of Athens to swell considerably during the early stages of the Peloponnesian War. This strategy ended up backfiring slightly as a plague broke out in Athens in BCE that devastated the city.
The plague also claimed the life of Pericles, and this passive, defensive strategy died with him, which opened the door to a wave of Athenian aggression on the Peloponnese. Because the Athenians had left Attica almost entirely undefended, and also because the Spartans knew they had a significant advantage in land battles, the Spartan strategy was to raid the land surrounding Athens so as to cut off the food supply to the city.
This worked in the sense that the Spartans burned considerable swaths of territory around Athens, but they never dealt a decisive blow because Spartan tradition required soldiers, mainly the helot soldiers, to return home for the harvest each year.
This prevented Spartan forces from getting deep enough into Attica to threaten Athens. After Pericles died, Athenian leadership came under the control of a man named Cleon.
As a member of political factions within Athens that most desired war and expansion, he almost immediately changed the defensive strategy Pericles had devised. However, helot rebellions were frequent and they were a significant source of political instability within Sparta, which presented Athens with a prime opportunity to hit their enemy where it would hurt the most. Before too long, Athens would be encouraging the helots to revolt so as to weaken Sparta and pressure them into surrendering.
Before this, though, Cleon wanted to remove the Spartan threat from other parts of Greece. He ran campaigns in Boeotia and Aetolia to drive back the Spartan forces stationed there, and he was able to have some success. With these issues under his control, Cleon then moved to attack the Spartans on their home territory, a move which would prove to be rather significant not only in this part of the conflict but also in the entire Peloponnesian War.
Throughout the early years of the Peloponnesian war, Athenians, under the leadership of the naval commander Demosthenes, had been attacking strategic ports on the Peloponnesian coast. Due to the relative weakness of the Spartan navy, the Athenian fleet was met with little resistance as it raided smaller communities along the coast. However, as the Athenians made their way around the coast, helots frequently ran to meet the Athenians, as this would have meant freedom from their destitute existence.
Pylos, which is located on the southwestern coast of the Peloponnese, became an Athenian stronghold after the Athenians won a decisive battle there in BCE. Once under Athenian control, helots began flocking to the coastal stronghold, putting further strain on the Spartan way of life. To make things worse, of these soldiers were Spartiates, elite Spartan soldiers who were both an important part of the Spartan military and society.
As a result, Spartan leadership sent an envoy to Pylos to negotiate an armistice that would secure the release of these soldiers, and to show they were negotiating in good faith, this envoy surrendered the entire Spartan fleet at Pylos.
However, these negotiations failed, and fighting resumed. Athens then won a decisive victory and the captured Spartan soldiers were taken back to Athens as prisoners of war. The Athenian victory at Pylos gave them an important stronghold in the Peloponnese, and the Spartans knew they were in trouble.
If they did not act quickly, the Athenians could send reinforcements and use Pylos as a base to run raids throughout the Peloponnese, as well as to house helots who decided to flee and defect to Athens. Under the command of the well-respected general Brasidas, the Spartans launched a large-scale attack in the northern Aegean.
However, in addition to winning territory by force, Brasidas was also able to win the hearts of the people. Interestingly, at this point, Sparta had freed helots throughout the Peloponnese to both stop them from running to the Athenians and also to make it easier to build their armies. As a result, he was not able to start his campaign until BCE, and when he arrived near Amphipolis, he was met with a Spartan force that was much larger than his, as well as a population that was not interested in returning to a life governed by Athens.
Cleon was killed during this campaign, which led to a dramatic change in the course of events in the Peloponnesian War. After Cleon died, he was replaced by a man named Nicias, and he rose to power on the idea that he would sue for peace with Sparta. The plague that struck the city at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war, combined with the fact that a decisive victory appeared nowhere in sight, created an appetite for peace in Athens. By this point, Sparta had been suing for peace for some time, and when Nicias approached Spartan leadership, he was able to negotiate an end to this part of the conflict.
The peace treaty, known as the Peace of Nicias, was meant to establish peace between Athens and Sparta for fifty years, and it was designed to restore things to the way they were before the Peloponnesian war broke out. Some territory changed hands, and many of the lands conquered by Brasidas were returned to Athens, although some were able to maintain a level of political autonomy.
Furthermore, the Peace of Nicias treaty stated that each side needed to impose the terms on its allies so as to prevent conflicts that could restart fighting between Athens and Sparta.
However, this peace treaty was signed in BCE, just ten years after the start of the year Peloponnesian War, meaning it would also fail and fighting would soon resume. During this chapter of the conflict, there was little direct fighting between Athens and Sparta, but tensions remained high, and it was clear almost immediately that the Peace of Nicias would not last. The first conflict to arise during The Interlude actually came from within the Peloponnesian League.
The terms of the Peace of Nicias stipulated that both Athens and Sparta were responsible for containing their allies so as to prevent further conflict. However, this did not sit well with some of the more powerful city-states that were not Athens or Sparta, the most significant being Corinth. Located between Athens and Sparta on the Isthmus of Corinth, the Corinthians had a powerful fleet and a vibrant economy, which meant they were often able to challenge Sparta for control of the Peloponnesian League.
One of the few major cities located on the Peloponnese that was not part of the Peloponnesian League, Argos had a long-standing rivalry with Sparta, but during The Interlude they had been subjected to a non-aggression pact with Sparta. And while some spoke in opposition to him, a far greater number supported him, and it was voted to accept the peace.
The leading citizens of Athens voted, and the twenty-seven year old war ended. Both nations were devastated — neither was ever the same. The military might of Sparta was at its height, but soon began a slow decline, and in the mountainous areas of northern Greece, a new power was just beginning its rise. The defeat of Athens and the weakening of Sparta during the Peloponnesian War assured it.
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