Peloponnesian War, short summary: causes, consequences and phases of the conflict that broke out between Athens and Sparta in 431 BC.
The Peloponnesian War was a conflict that broke out in 431 BC between Athens and Sparta .Thucydides, who was the main historian, indicated the main cause, that is, the excessive power of Athens and the fear that it aroused.But both Sparta and Athens had different reasons for waging a war to establish supremacy in Greece .
On the one hand, Sparta was annoyed by the enormous territorial, cultural and political expansion that Athens was also exercising in the Peloponnese, and Sparta had always been a society based on war and therefore the Spartiates needed new lands to cultivate.
On the other hand, there was Athens, which arose in a region, Attica, which offered only a limited agriculture and was therefore always a society based on transformation and trade and which therefore needed new raw materials and consequently new lands.
Athens could count on all the allies of the Delian League (Athens and various Greek city-states), on impressive financial resources and on a fleet which numbered 300 triremes and was the most powerful in the world.
Athens’ weak point was its land army. Sparta, on the other hand , could count on all its allies in the Peloponnesian League and Boeotia, including Thebes, but it did not have many financial resources since its allies did not pay tribute.
It had a naval fleet of 300 triremes but the real Spartan strength was the powerful land army.
Peloponnesian War: Causes
Obviously the plan of attack was clear: the Spartans sought a clash on land while the Athenians sought a clash at sea.
The spark that ignited the war was Pericles’ provocation against Megara , a flourishing commercial city allied to Sparta.
In 432 BC Pericles had it banned from all the ports of the cities of the Delian League and this would have meant ruin for Megara and furthermore it was a clear violation of the peace treaty, stipulated in 446 BC which provided for freedom of trade between the cities of the Delian League and the Peloponnesian League.
Sparta invited Athens to back down from its positions but the silence of the Athenians forced it to declare war in 431 BC. The Thebans and the Spartans burst into Attica and devastated it. Meanwhile, an epidemic had broken out in Athens which caused a wave of deaths; Pericles himself was a victim and died in 429 BC.
After Pericles’ death, Cleon and Nicias fought for the leadership. Cleon had always been a rival of Pericles in the democratic party and, by many writers of the time such as Thucydides, was described as a rough and unscrupulous man.
Nicias was the leader of the conservatives who represented the upper classes. Power was assumed by Cleon and in the meantime the city of Mytilene rebelled against the league, in Athens there was a discussion about whether or not to continue the war.
In 427 BC Cleon ordered the reconquest of the city of Mytilene and in 425 BC the Athenians landed in the Peloponnese in the bay of Pylos, with the aim of devastating Messenia and raising a revolt of the helots against the Spartiates.
But then in 423 BC a one-year truce was established which however was not kept because the Spartan general Brasidas occupied part of Thrace and almost all the cities in the region abandoned the Delian League and sided with the Spartans.
Cleon organized an expedition to liberate the city of Amphipolis but, surprised by the enemies, he was assassinated and in the clash seven Spartans died, including Brasidas.
Thus, with both Athens and Sparta losing their most important supporters of the war, in 421 BC the two cities signed a peace treaty ( Peace of Nicias ): for the Athenians it meant a diplomatic victory but one which lasted only for a short time.
In Athens, Alcibiades , nephew of Pericles, was elected as the new leader. He was described by all as a handsome man, rich in intelligence and without moral scruples. In 420 BC he was elected strategos and made an alliance with Argos, the main city of the Peloponnese.
In 418 BC the Spartans marched against Argos and the Athenians sent a contingent to Argos but Sparta obtained a crushing victory and meanwhile throughout Greece an oligarchic reaction occurred and Argos finally made peace with Sparta.
The Athenians then besieged the small island of Melos, the only one of the Cyclades that had always refused to ally with Athens. It was eventually conquered, the men killed and the children sold into slavery, and this increased Greece’s deep hatred towards Athens.
After the defeat at Mantinea, Athens’ imperialistic aims turned towards Magna Graecia. The expedition was entrusted to three strategists: Alcibiades, Nicias and Lamachus .
Alcibiades was tried on an anonymous complaint and so instead of returning to Athens to appear before the tribunal, fearing a severe sentence, he fled to Sparta.
Nicias and Lamachus, the two Athenian commanders who remained after the flight of Alcibiades, reached the gates of Syracuse and defeated the troops sent to hinder them.
In 414 BC the Spartans came to the aid of the Syracusans and a year later the Syracusans bombarded the Athenian ships and it was a terrible massacre and all the Athenian ships were sunk and conquered by the enemy.
Afterwards the Carthaginians took advantage of the Athenian defeat to gain supremacy over the seas and between 413 and 405 there was a furious clash between the Sicilian and Carthaginian forces with the victory of the latter which razed Agrigento to the ground.
Numerous battles ensued between Syracuse and Carthage and the latter was driven to the borders of western Sicily.
After the war in Sicily the Athenians assembled a new fleet and Alcibiades was recalled from exile to defend the city in case of attack.
The Athenians wanted to regain hegemony and defeat Sparta, which however was supported by the Persians. In the end, in the Hellespont, there was another naval battle at Aegospotami : the battle marked the defeat of Athens.
In 404 BC a peace was signed with very harsh conditions for Athens which had to give up all its possessions, tear down its walls and enter the Peloponnesian League, abandoning democracy and therefore submitting to the power of Sparta which also included being controlled by Thirty Tyrants led by Critias.
Critias’ policy created a climate of dark terror: every day there were death sentences and exile etc. but this situation was short-lived.
A group of opponents formed, led by Thrasybulus, who occupied the port of Piraeus and then Critias went into battle with his men against this improvised army but was killed and the democratic constitution was restored and Sparta decided to do nothing.
The Persian king Artaxerxes II had understood that to re-impose his dominion over the cities of Asia Minor he had to defeat Sparta and so there was a clash between the Persian fleet led by the Athenian Conon and the Spartan one until in 394 BC Sparta was defeated by Conon.
Meanwhile, Athens wanted to renew its power which obviously was not appreciated by Sparta or Persia and so they decided to sign a peace treaty with the Greek cities. In 386 BC the Treaty of Antalcidas was signed in which the Greek cities of Asia Minor returned under Persian rule and all the leagues between the cities were dissolved with the exception of the Peloponnesian one.
Sparta’s power was collapsing so in 382 a Spartan contingent occupied Thebes and imposed an oligarchic regime but this condition lasted only for three years until in 379 Pelopidas and Epaminondas drove out the Spartans and re-established democracy.
Furthermore, Thebes founded a league with the cities of Boeotia and consequently Athens also re-established a second Delian League.
Peloponnesian War: End
Sparta, worried by the growing power of Thebes, moved an army against it but in the battle of Leuctra (371 BC) Epaminondas won a crushing victory thanks to the new oblique phalanx (a particular form of fighting in which the army advanced by holding the right wing back and pushing the left wing forward) and it was the first time that the Spartan land army was defeated.
Thebes thus assumed hegemony for a short time and Epaminondas, to complete his plan of hegemony, built a fleet which he was unable to complete because in 362 BC the greatest battle of all time took place in Mantinea where Epaminondas was killed and then in 362 BC a general peace was stipulated where Sparta disappeared, Thebes lost hegemony and Athens survived but was seriously weakened .
