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Peloponnesian War - 431-404 BC

The Peloponnesian War was prolonged to an immense length, and, long as it was, it was short without parallel for the misfortunes that it brought upon Hellas. Never had so many cities been taken and laid desolate, here by the barbarians, here by the parties contending (the old inhabitants being sometimes removed to make room for others); never was there so much banishing and blood-shedding, now on the field of battle, now in the strife of faction. Old stories of occurrences handed down by tradition, but scantily confirmed by experience, suddenly ceased to be incredible; there were earthquakes of unparalleled extent and violence; eclipses of the sun occurred with a frequency unrecorded in previous history; there were great droughts in sundry places and consequent famines, and that most calamitous and awfully fatal visitation, the plague. All this came upon them with the war.

By the brilliant part which the Athenians under Themistocles had played against the Persians, the influence of Athens had greatly increased throughout Greece; and this was further strengthened by the fact that the war against Persia, which still continued, was chiefly conducted by sea, where Athens was much more powerful than Sparta. From this date then begins the period of the leadership or hegemony of Athens in Greece, which continued to the close of the Peloponnesian war, 404 BC. Athens now exerted her influence to form a confederacy including the Greek islands and maritime towns as well as Athens herself, the object of which was to provide for the continuance of the war by the payment into a common treasury at Delos of a fixed sum of money, and by furnishing ships for the same purpose. In this confederacy Athens of course had the lead, and gradually was able to render tributary many of the islands and smaller maritime states.

In 469 BC the victories won by the Athenians over the Persians was crowned by the double victory' of Cimon, the son of Miltiades, over the fleet and army of the Persians on the river Eurymcdon, in the south of Asia Minor; and this victorywas followed by the Peace of Cimon, which secured the freedom and independence of all Greek towns and islands. Shortly after followed the brilliant administration of Pericles, during which Athens reached the height of her political grandeur, while at the same time she flourished in trade, in arts, in science and in literature.

The position of Athens, however, soon raised up a number of enemies. Sparta regarded her prosperity with jealousy; and the arrogance of Athens had produced a pretty general feeling of indignation and hatred. Two hostile confederacies were formed in Greece. At the head of one of these confederacies was the city of Athens, which was joined by all the Ionian states of Greece, and more or less supported by the democratic party in every state. At the head of the other confederacy stood Sparta, which was similarly joined by all the Dorian states, and supported by the aristocratic party everywhere.

At last in 431 war was declared by Sparta on the complaint of Corinth that Athens had furnished assistance to the island of Corcyra in its war against the mother city; and on that of Megara, that the Megarean ships and merchandise were excluded from all the ports and markets of Attica.

In the first part of the Peloponnesian War the Spartans had considerable successes, while a great calamity befell the Athenians, who had collected all the inhabitants of the country districts of Attica within the walls of the city; and in consequence a pestilence broke out which carried off thousands of the inhabitants, and among them Pericles himself. From this blow, however, the city soon recovered, and in 425 the early successes of the Spartans in Attica were compensated by the capture of Pylos in Messenia by the Athenian general Demosthenes, who at the same time succeeded in shutting up 400 Spartans in the small island of Sphacteria, opposite Pylos, where they were ultimately starved to surrender. The person to whom the surrender was made was the demagogue ?eon, who, in consequence of his military successes, obtained the command of an army which was sent to operate against the Spartan general Brasidas in Thrace. But in 422 he was defeated by Brasidas before the town of Amphipolis, and himself slain, after which the opposite party in Athens got the upper hand, and concluded the peace with Sparta known as the Peace of Nicias (421 BC).

The effect of this peace was to divide the Spartans and the Corinthians, who had hitherto been allies. The latter united themselves with Argos, Elis and some of the Arcadian towns to wrest from Sparta the hegemony of the Peloponnesus. In this design they were supported by Alcibiades, a nephew of Pericles, a man of handsome figure and great personal accomplishments. The war which was now waged between Sparta and Corinth with her allies resulted, however, in favor of the former, whose arms were victorious at the battle of Mantinea in 418.

Soon after this the Athenians resumed hostilities, fitting out in 415 BC a magnificent army and fleet, under the command of Alcibiades, Nicias and Lamachus, for the reduction of the Dorian city of Syracuse in Sicily. This undertaking, which renewed the race hatred between Sparta and Athens, was a complete failure. Alcibiades was accused in his absence of several offenses against religion and the constitution, and deprived of his command. Thirsting for revenge, he betook himself to Sparta, and exhorted the city to renew the war with Athens. By his advice one Spartan army was despatched 'o Attica, where it took up such a position as prevented the Athenians from obtaining supPlies from Eubcea, while another was sent under 'jylippus to assist their kindred in Sicily. These steps were ruinous to Athens. Lamachus fell ln the siege of Syracuse, and the Athenian fleet was totally destroyed. The reinforcements sent out under Nicias and Demosthenes were defeated (413 BC) by the combined Spartan and Syracusan armies. All the Athenians who escaped death were made captives and compelled to work as slaves in the quarries of Sicily, although it may be mentioned as an interesting fact that many of these captives obtained their liberty by being able to recite fragments of Euripides.

After this disaster many of the allies of Athens joined the Spartans, who now pressed on the war with greater energy. The Athenians recalled Alcibiades, who returned in 407, and was received by his fellow-citizens with enthusiasm as their expected deliverer. A few months later he was again an exile, having been deprived of the command because one of his subordinates had lost a naval battle fought off Ephesus in his absence. During the rest of the war the Athenians had only one success, the naval victory won off the islands of Arginusse over the Spartan Callicratidas in 406. In the following year (405) the Spartans made themselves masters of the whole of the Athenian fleet except nine vessels, while the majority of the crews were on shore at ^Egospotamos on the Hellespont. The Spartans now easily subdued the islands and states that still maintained their allegiance to the Athenians, and laid seige to Athens itself. In 404 B.C. the war was terminated by the Athenians' surrender. Sparta immediately imposed upon Athens an aristocratic form of government, placing the supreme power in the hands of the Thirty Tyrants. Only a year later, however, (403), Thrasybulus was able to overthrow this hated rule and reestablished the democracy.

The fall of Athens resulted in Sparta's leadership or hegemony in Greece, which lasted till the battle of Leuctra, 371 BC. The Spartans now abused their power and speedily roused the hatred and jealousy of the other states. The Greek states which had up to this time been, and still continued to be, leaders, had now lost almost entirely their manliness and independent spirit, and no longer maintained the hereditary war against Persia, but each sought the aid of that power for its own purpose. The Spartans did indeed send an expedition into Asia Minor, but it came to nothing; and the states of Greece, the Spartans included, at last, in 387, agreed to the disgraceful Peace of Antalcidas, by which the whole of the west coast of Asia Minor was ceded to the Persians, and the Greek colonies there thus deprived of the independence that had been secured to them by the Peace of Cimon.

An act of violence committed by a Spartan general in Thebes in 380 in the end led to the complete downfall of that city. The aristocratic party in Thebes, when the Spartan army happened to be in the neighborhood, prevailed upon the general to give his assistance in overthrowing their opponents and establishing an aristocratic government. A number of the less prominent members of the defeated party, among them Pelopidas, made their escape to Athens, where they got the support and assistance of the democratic party there. They soon returned in disguise to their own city, surprised and murdered the leaders of the aristocratic party, expelled the Spartan garrison, and again set up a democratic government. These circumstances give a good idea of the fury of party strife which was then general in the Greek cities. The immediate result of this counter-revolution.

Thucydides, an Athenian, wrote the history of the war between the Peloponnesians and the Athenians, beginning at the moment that it broke out, and believing that it would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it. This belief was not without its grounds.