The Peloponnesian Wars

	Schematic of the Peloponnesian Wars
	Alliances of the Peloponnesian Wars

After the defeat of the Persians the leading Greek city-states were clearly Athens and Sparta. Their interests were soon to come into conflict. Between 460 and 446 Athens had won over as allies or subdued many cities in the Peloponnese and central Greece, and although she had been forced to give up these gains under the Thirty Years' Peace of 446, she was regarded as a perpetual threat by the cities in the Peloponnese.

Under the threat of eventual Athenian revenge the city-states of the Peloponnese looked to Sparta for protection. As the most efficient military power on land in Greece Sparta was the natural counterbalancing force to Athenian sea power. By 431 almost all the Peloponnesian cities except Argos and the Boeotian League and others in central Greece had joined the Spartan confederacy.

The first move of the war which then began was made by the Spartans and their allies, who invaded Attica in 431 and laid siege to Athens. Pericles, the Athenian leader, countered by sending a hundred ships to ravage the coast of the Peloponnese, and the invaders were forced to withdraw from Attica when their provisions were exhausted. The following summer they returned but this time they were aided by an outbreak of plague in Athens. Already overcrowded with refugees from the outlying areas, the city suffered severely but once again the advice of Pericles proved sound, and the invaders withdrew from the plain of Attica for lack of supplies.

Under Phormio the Athenian fleet won a surprising victory at Naupactus in the Gulf of Corinth in 430, defeating 47 Corinthian ships with only 20 by superior seamanship. A second action at nearby Rhium in 429 caught Phormio at a disadvantage, with 77 ships ranged against the same 20 which had fought at Naupactus. At first the Spartans prevailed, capturing nine ships but the Athenians rallied and recaptured all but one of their own ships and captured six more.

The defection of Mytilene from the Athenian cause in the early summer of 428 was a serious blow, for it was the only city among Athens' allies which still possessed a large fleet. The Athenians reacted promptly by investing the rebel city, and when its citizens tried to negotiate terms, executed their envoys to crush the rebellion. The effects of the plague were now being shaken off by the Athenians, and by 425 they were able to take the offensive against the Spartans and their allies.

The first step was to occupy and fortify Pylos. The Spartans were slow to counterattack, and at Sphacteria their attempt to recapture Pylos by land and sea was defeated by Demosthenes. Athens was now in the ascendant, but in the winter of 424 her army suffered a disastrous defeat at Delium. The Spartans then attacked Thessaly and Thrace, and an Athenian naval expedition under Thucydides failed to relieve Amphipolis. Peace was concluded in 421 but neither side was keen to preserve it.

In the winter of 416-415 a larger expedition was planned by the Athenians against the cities in Sicily allied with Corinth and Sparta. It was ultimately to prove a disaster, when in 413 BC the Athenian commander Nicias and the defenders of Syracuse (which Nicias and his army had captured the previous year) surrendered. The expedition had been undertaken for gain, not strategic advantage, and the loss of an entire army was a deadly blow to Athenian morale. Nor did her allies fail to infer that Athens would no longer be able to coerce them into remaining within the empire. Defections weakened the financial position of Athens, as the flow of tribute and taxes slackened. The growth of the Peloponnesian allies' fleet could not be countered as rapidly as it should, especially as the Spartans were being subsidised by the Persians.

By 411 BC Athens was in desperate straits, and it was clear that her democratic institutions were not suited to the pressures of defeat. Off the harbour of Eretria the Athenians were defeated by a Peloponnesian fleet under Agesandridas, and shortly afterwards the province of Euboea broke into open revolt. The Athenian fleet at Samos had mutinied, and Athens now had neither ships nor crews to man them. The result was revolution, and the oligarchs were expelled from the city.

The recall of Alcibiades did much to retrieve some gains from the disaster. In the spring of 410 he destroyed the main Peloponnesian fleet off Cyzicus in the Sea of Marmora after luring them out of harbor by pretending to retreat, freeing the grain route from the Black Sea from interference. That fleet would take years to rebuild, and Alcibiades used the time to consolidate the Athenian hold on the cities of Thrace and the Hellespont, and thereby to raise much needed revenue.

Sadly these victories were thrown away by the misbehavior of the democrats. They abolished the moderate government and sub-stituted 'popular' rule. The citizens of Athens unwisely rejected a Spartan peace offer, which would have retained much of the old empire. Then in 406 they removed Alcibiades from command after a minor defeat.

With Persian subsidies the Peloponnesian fleet now re-emerged as a major force, and it was only defeated with great difficulty at the Battle of Arginusae in 406, said to be the bloodiest battle of the war. Persia now determined to help the Spartans bring the war to a close. The Spartan admiral Lysander was given a large subsidy to build up his strength, but in 405 the bulk of the Athenian fleet was destroyed at Angospotami in the Hellespont by incompetence or treachery.

The result was inevitable: Athens was surrounded by land and sea and starved into submission in 404. Despite the bitterness of the 27-year-long war Sparta was magnanimous in victory. Instead of being razed to the ground as Sparta's allies, the Corinthians and Thebans wanted, Athens was made a satellite state under an oligarchy. Within a decade Athens had recovered her independence and some of her old strength.