Peloponnesian Wars (military history)

At issue: Supremacy of the eastern Mediterranean

Date: 460-446, 431-404 b.c.e.

Location: Greece and the surrounding area

Combatants: Athenian and Delian League forces vs. Spartan and Peloponnesian League forces

Principal commanders:Athenian, Pericles (495-429 b.c.e.); Spartan, Lysander (d. 395 b.c.e.)

Principal battles: Oenophyta, Sphacteria, Amphipolis, Syracuse, Aegospotami

Result: Spartan victory; end of Athenian political hegemony

Background

By the fifth century b.c.e., Athens and Sparta were the two leading city-states of Greece. The two powers generally cooperated when they shared the common goal of stopping a Persian invasion (499-448 b.c.e.). During these years, Sparta was the dominant power because of its leadership of the Peloponnesian League, which included most Greek city-states on the Peloponnesian peninsula and central Greece. A 481 b.c.e. agreement providing that Sparta would direct the land war and Athens the naval war produced the decisive Greek victory at Plataea (479 b.c.e.).

In 478 b.c.e., the Athenians organized the Delian League, which was really an Athenian empire containing most of the islands and coastal regions around the northern and eastern Aegean Sea. Although the ostensible purpose of the league was to fight the Persians, Sparta resented and distrusted the rival empire from its inception. The Spartans had mixed feelings as they observed the Delian League liberating Greek-speaking communities from Persian control on the coast of Anatolia (later Turkey). Spartan resentment grew when Athens suppressed anti-Athenian movements on the islands of Naxos (470 b.c.e.) and Thasos (463 b.c.e.).

Competition for trade and imperial influence was the main source of conflict between the two powers. Because of its large navy, Athens had a distinct advantage in promoting its commercial interests. While sharing a common Greek culture, Athens and Sparta had different political systems that intensified their rivalry. Athens was developing into a limited democracy, with widespread participation of its male citizens. Sparta was a monarchic oligarchy, with less emphasis on individualism and intellectual pursuits.

Action

The First Peloponnesian War (460-446 b.c.e.) was precipitated by the withdrawal of Megara, a small city-state near Corinth, from the Peloponnesian League. When Athens welcomed the strategically located city as a member of the Delian League, Corinth attacked Athens, and the fighting soon spread to the other members of the two leagues.

In Athens, Pericles, then a young general, was the chief political leader and also the commander of the fleets and armies. Because of the superiority of Sparta’s heavily armed infantry, the hoplite phalanx, Pericles’ strategy was based on Athenian naval power, which meant concentrating on coastal cities such as Argos. When the Spartans crossed the isthmus to invade Boetha, Pericles won a great victory at Oenophyta (457 b.c.e.). Overconfident, Pericles then made the mistake of attacking the Persians in Egypt, where the Athenian forces were decimated (454 b.c.e.). After the superior Peloponnesian army, led by the young king Pleistoanax, defeated general Tolmides’ forces in Boeotia (446 b.c.e.), the Spartan king inexplicably decided to return home.

In 446 b.c.e., Sparta and Athens agreed to a truce that was supposed to last thirty years. Athens agreed to give up her land possessions in the Peloponnese and central Greece. Sparta agreed to recognize Athenian hegemony over the sea. However, neither side fully carried out the terms of the truce. When Athens allied itself with the Corinthian colony of Corcyra (433 b.c.e.), Corinth and Athens fought proxy battles through their allies and colonies.

The Second Peloponnesian War (431-404 b.c.e.) began when Thebes, an ally of Sparta, attacked Plataea, a close ally of Athens. Athens declared war on Thebes, and the two leagues were again at war. When King Archidamus led the Spartan army into Attica, Pericles’ policy was to avoid fighting the superior Spartan army and instead to stay within the city walls and to use Athenian naval superiority to harass the ships and coasts of the Peloponnesian League. With so many people crowded into the city, a terrible plague (430-426 b.c.e.) killed perhaps a third of the city’s population, including Pericles himself.

In spite of the plague, the Athenians usually prevailed during the early years of the war. Pericles’ successor, Cleon, won a great victory at Sphacteria (425 b.c.e.), and he refused a Spartan offer of peace. However, Spartan leader Brasidas surprised Athens in an attack on northeastern Greece, culminating in a decisive Spartan victory at Amphipolis (422 b.c.e.), in which Brasidas and Cleon were both killed. The new Athenian leader Nicias persuaded the Athenians to accept Sparta’s offer of peace. The so-called Peace of Nicias (421 b.c.e.) only lasted six years.

In 415 b.c.e., the Athenians were persuaded by Alcibiades to invade Syracuse, and they assembled some 35,000 troops, the largest Greek expeditionary force until that time. Just before the fighting, Alcibiades was removed on charges of sacrilege, and he deserted to the Spartan side. Nicias, an incompetent strategist, assumed command of the invasion. In 413 b.c.e., Nicias hesitated and was surprised by a Spartan attack. Badly defeated, the Athenian army was forced into a disastrous retreat, losing almost the entire expeditionary force. That same year, Alcibiades, with the aid of the Persians, put together a large Spartan fleet and badly defeated the Athenian navy. Many of Athens’s allies left the Delian League.

In 411 b.c.e., a civil war between proponents of oligarchy and supporters of democracy further weakened Athens. Despite this internal conflict, the Athenian navy managed to prevail at Cyzicus (410 b.c.e.) and Arginusae (406 b.c.e.). The Athenians, nevertheless, were in a desperate situation, and the talented naval commander Lysander destroyed the Athenian navy at Aegospotami (405 b.c.e.). Because the starving Athenians could no longer obtain grain through the Hellespont, they were forced to surrender in April, 404 b.c.e.

Aftermath

Athens lost its empire and never regained its dominant political influence. Lysander installed an oligarchic government in Athens, but a democratic system was restored within a few years. Although Sparta won the war, its heavy-handed policies brought forth new rebellions, and Spartan power declined after the defeat at Leuctra (371 b.c.e.).

There are two interpretations concerning the results of Athens’s defeat. Some scholars have argued that Athenian hegemony, without defeat, might have promoted the cause of democracy and united the Greeks so that they would have later been in a stronger position to fight Alexander the Great and the Romans. Others insist that the Greek city-states wanted to maintain their independence, and that Athenian imperialism had threatened the Greek understanding of liberty.

Bibliography

Cawkwell, George. Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War. London: Routledge, 1997.

Henderson, Bernard. The Great War Between Athens and Sparta. New York: Ayer, 1973.

Kagan, Donald. Pericles of Athens and the Birth of Democracy. New York: Free Press, 1991.

Panogopoulos, Andreas. Captives and Hostages in the Peloponnesian War. Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1989.

Peloponnesian Wars. Documentary. Madacy Entertainment, 1995.