The purpose of this page is to give you a brief lookon major war in ancient Greece. Many historians wrote books onthe subject, most sourcefull one was Thucydides. I will try togive you some reasons for surtain actions taken by Athens andSparta and their allies and explain them.
Background Information
As unfortunate as it may seem, war has played a largepart in history. In classical Greek Civilization
this view remains consistent. This difference inexploring the wars of the Greeks is that many of
them were fought against one another. Greek vs. Greek.this is because, unlike many other
cultures, the Greeks did not first consider themselvesGreeks as we consider ourselves Americans. They associated themselvesmore closely with the city-state in which they lived. They werefirst Athenians, Spartans, or Corinthians and they consideredeach of their city-states much like separate countries. If wecan imagine being a Portlander, a New Yorker, or a Los Angelenoand that these cities were separate countries, then we can beginto understand how the Greeks thought of each other.
Of the Greek City-States, Athens and Sparta werethe classic rivalry. Other city-states made war
with one another, but none equaled the scale of thosefought between Athens and Sparta and each
others colonies. Each were considered leading City-Statesamong all of the Greeks. Like other
city-states, they founded colonies across the Mediterraneanand for the most part these colonies
remained loyal to their mother city-states.
The dominance of Athens and Sparta came to a climaxduring the Peloponnesian Wars.