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Peloponnesian War
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The Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC) was an Ancient Greek military conflict, fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League, led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases. In the first, the Archidamian War, Sparta launched repeated invasions of Attica, while Athens took advantage of its naval supremacy to raid the coast of the Peloponnese, while attempting to suppress signs of unrest in its empire. This period of the war was concluded in 421 BC, with the signing of the Peace of Nicias. That treaty... was soon undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnesus. In 415 BC, Athens dispatched a massive expeditionary force to attack Syracuse in Sicily; the attack failed disastrously, with the destruction of the entire force, in 413 BC.
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The Peloponnesian War was a catastrophe not only for Athens but ... for Greece. The Athenians meant to build up a lasting power, the strongest in Hellas, to win the recognition of their political leadership for many or all the other Greeks, and to lift their race to a political destiny worthy of its civilization. Never again was Athens a first-rate power, although she remained the cultural leader of Hellas. The result of the war was the crushing defeat of Athens and the end of its empire. A more long-range result was the weakening of all the city-states. This made them vulnerable to a takeover by Macedonia several decades later.
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In the second year of the Peloponnesian War (430 B.C.), Thucydides described the coming of an epidemic disease which began in Ethiopia, passed through Egypt and Libya, and then came to the Greek world. Athens was decimated by this plague, losing a possible third of its populace, including Pericles (Speilvogal, J, 1999, pp. 56). In spite of the loss in population, this did not affect the progress and outcome of the war. This epidemic has long been considered an outbreak of bubonic plague. However, from Thucydides' description, some modern scholars dispute the assignment of plague, feeling that smallpox or measles may be better candidates.
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The Peloponnesian War began in the following way. Epidamnus was city-state that was exposed to chronic raiding. Epidamnus appealed to Corinth for assistance. Corinth was an ally of Sparta. Corcyra, another city-state, was in conflict with Epidamnus and when they Corcyreans heard of this alliance, they in turn appealed to Athens for assistance. The Athenians agreed, but if the Athenians fired on the Corinthians, they would be breaking the treaty with Sparta (because they would be firing on one of Sparta's allies).
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The Peloponnesian War is traditionally divided into three phases: the Archidamian War (431-421), the Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition (420-413), and the Ionian War (412-404). The first ten years of the war are named after the Spartan king Archidamus, who had opposed war with Athens and whose cautious policy dominated Spartan strategy at the start of the war.
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The Peloponnesian War was begun in 431 BC between the Peloponnesian League and the Athenian Empire. The war was documented by Thucydides, an Athenian general, in his history The Peloponnesian War. The war lasted 27 years, with a brief truce in the middle.
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Peloponnesian War