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THE PELOPONNESIAN WAR – GREECE’S CIVIL WAR
After the Persian Wars, the Greeks wanted to make sure they were ready in case the
Persians ever returned and so they formed the Delian League.
The purpose of the Delian League was to put money into a shared treasury (like a
bank) to have in case of war. It takes money to make weapons and ships and to train
soldiers and the Greeks wanted to be ready to fund a war instantly.
Athens guarded the treasury. (Corinth would have probably been a better choice. For
one thing, Corinth was famous for being good with money - they had their own bank.
And they weren’t constantly at war with Sparta like Athens was. Athens and Sparta just
could not get along). But Athens didn’t discuss who would guard the treasury. They just
started collecting money from the other city-states.
Pericles was the young, talented leader of
Athens during this time. He persuaded the
Athenians to build the Long Walls for protection in
case an attack came. He also traveled to Sparta
and convinced the Spartans to declare a truce for
30 years so that everyone in the Greek world
could recover from the Persian Wars.
It was a time of great prosperity in Athens.
Money was pouring into the city-state. They were at peace. Art, poetry, philosophy,
music, and education flourished. New temples and buildings were built on the Acropolis.
Where was all this money coming from? Some of it came from the Delian League.
(Athens only kept 1/60th of the League’s treasury to pay for the guards but because the
League collected so much money, even 1/60th was a lot!) Athens grew rich guarding
the treasury of the Delian League. The other Greek city-states were not happy.
The Athenian historian Thucydides, who lived through the Peloponnesian War and
wrote the history of it, began by asking, “Why did the war start?” He said that the war
started because Athens was too greedy and tried to take over all of Greece and the
Spartans decided to stop the Athenians. The Spartans formed an alliance with Corinth
and some other Greek city-states and marched its army to the walls of Athens in 431BC.
In the first years of the war, it must have seemed pretty hopeless. The Athenians had
a lot of money and power and they were the only Greek city-state that had a good navy.
Even though the Spartans could attack the countryside around Athens, the Athenians
were safe inside their walls, and the Spartans could not break through. And the
Athenians could get food, and come and go as they pleased, by sailing out of their port
in their ships. The Spartans didn't have any navy, so they couldn't stop the Athenians
from sailing around.
But in the summer of 430BC, the Athenians began to die from a terrible plague.
People from the surrounding countryside had fled inside the city walls, fleeing Spartan
attacks. The city was not prepared for that many people to live in Athens. There was not
enough food. They did not have a way to safely remove waste. It was a mess. So it
was easy for the plague to spread.
We don't know exactly what this plague was. Even though Thucydides described it, it
doesn't sound exactly like any modern disease. Some people think it might be a
stronger form of measles. But thousands of people died, including Pericles.
Things got a lot worse after that. Athens suffered from poor leadership, no food, and
continued illness. They were starving. The Spartans had the town surrounded. The
Athenians could not get to their crops. Finally, in April of 404BC, Athens surrendered.
Despite the bitterness, the Spartans were generous. They did not level the town as
Corinth and Thebes wanted them to do. Instead, they made Athens a satellite state
under a Spartan oligarchy. It was the end of democracy. Ten years later, Sparta gave
Athens its independence. But Athens was never again the golden city it once was.