Download File - Mr. Williams

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As we learned before, Sparta and Athens worked
together to win the Persian Wars, with the Spartans
fighting most of the land battles, and the Athenians
fighting at sea.
After the war, the powerful Athenian fleet continued to
protect Greece from the Persian navy. This have Athens
great influence over much of Greece.
After the Persian Wars ended, many city-states formed
an alliance, or agreement to work together in order to
punish Persia for attacking them and to help defend
each other in the future.
To pay for this defense, each city-state gave money to the
alliance. Because the money was kept on the island of
Delos, historians call the alliance the Delian League.
Because of its navy, Athens was the strongest member of
the league and began to treat other league members as
their subjects, refusing to let members quit, forcing
others to join, using league money to pay for buildings in
Athens.
Essentially, Athens made the Delian League an Athenian
empire.
 After the Persian Wars, Sparta and
many cities in southern Greece
formed their own alliance called the
Peloponnesian League (named after
the peninsula on which they were
located).
 The growth of Athenian power
worried the Peloponnesian League.
To stop Athens’s growth, Sparta
declared war.
 The Peloponnesian War between
Athens and Sparta lasted from 431404 BC and threatened to tear all of
Greece apart.
 In 431 BC the Spartan army marched north to
Athens and surrounded the city, waiting for
the Athenians to come out and fight. When
they didn’t come out, the Spartans began to
burn the crops in the fields around the city
hoping to starve them into surrendering.
 The Athenian navy escorted merchant ships
filled with food to the city. The navy also
attacked Sparta’s allies, forcing them to send
troops to defend other cities.
 Disease wept through Athens, killing
thousands.
 For 10 years neither side could gain an
advantage. They agreed to a truce. Athens
kept its empire, and the Spartans went home.
 A few years later, in 415 BC, Athens
tried again to expand its empire
and sent its army and navy to
conquer the island of Sicily. It
backfired. The entire Athenian
army was defeated by Sicilian allies
of Sparta and taken prisoner. They
also destroyed most of the
Athenian navy.
 Sparta took advantage of Athens’s
weakness and attacked, starting
the war up again. Sparta
surrounded the city and cut off
their food supply completely. In
404 BC, Athens surrendered.
 The war was over, and Sparta was
in control. For about 30 years,
Sparta controlled nearly all of
Greece until other city-states
started to resent them.
 This resentment led to a period
of war where control shifted
from varying city-states.
 All this fighting weakened
Greece and left it open to attack.