Download L18. Peloponnesian War 2

3/15/2012
L16.
Peloponnesian War 2
HIST 332
Spring 2012
Peloponnesian War
Peace of Nicias breaks down
418 BCE
Battle of Mantinea
• proxy war (Argos vs. Tegea)
• Sparta almost loses but wins in the end
• reestablished her hegemony over Pelo after being weak
416 BCE
Melos crushed by Athens
• Delian fleet sails to island of Melos
• Athenian soldiers walk in and demand their surrender
“Melian Dialogues”
– “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what
they must.”
– The Athenians further suggest that the Spartans are no
strangers to this principle, and thus that the Spartans will
not assist the weak Melians if doing so is to Sparta's
disadvantage.
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Phase 2: Exporting the War West
Sicilian Expedition (415-413)
• Athens spends all its resources to “help” small
Greek polis in Sicily
– Nicias
– Alcibiades
– largest fleet ever assembled by Athens
• Syracuse asks Sparta for aid
• Sparta eventually wins the conflict
• Athens forced to withdraw
War breaks out in the West
416 two cities in Sicily go to war
– Segesta
– Selinus
• Selinus was joined by Syracuse, a colony of Corinth
and implied ally of Sparta
• Egestans turned to Athens.
An embassy of Egesta asked for 60 ships with men
from Athens.
• Alcibiades saw this opportunity to carve out $ and
political power
• After a speech by Alcibiades to the ekklesia,
Athenians voted for over 200!
– By this time Alcibiades was becoming too powerful for
jealous political opponents to endure.
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Differing Strategies
Nicias
• wants slower, quieter planning
before rushing off to help some
“foreigners”
• loses debate but forced to joint
command of fleet
• wanted to scout out enemy
• lays siege to Syracuse
• trapped and forced to withdraw
• Athenians slaughtered (413)
Alcibiades
• argues that war is good for all
and Athens can conquer and
spread its power West
• Eve of embarking, called in for
religious improprieties
• starts by invading neighboring
city
• Defects to Sparta
• assists them with war in Attica
• sleeps with King’s wife
Alcibiades: James Bond
of Ancient Greece
Athenians still maintained respect for aristocrats
• Alcibiades was stylish and flamboyant with
tremendous ambition
• He fought bravely in 424 at the battle of Delium,
which the Athenians lost to the Boeotians.
• His life was saved in that battle by none other than
Socrates, the philosopher, who became a lifelong
friend.
• Some say he wanted to be the new Pericles
– Initially favored democracy
– Over time demonstrated that he was more self-serving
than ideologically wed to democracy
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Nicias’ Speech (6.10)
“I say then, that you wish, though leaving many
enemies behind you here, to bring hither fresh ones
besides, by sailing there. And you fancy, perhaps, that
the treaty that has been made by you affords some
round of confidence. But tho as long as you remain
quiet, that will, indeed, be a treaty—in name (for this
condition have certain persons here and among your
enemies brought it by their intrigues), …
yet if we are ever defeated with any
considerable force, those who hate us will
quickly make an attack upon us; seeing, in the
first place, that the arrangement was made of
necessity by them, under circumstances of
disaster, and of greater discredit to them than to
us; and, secondly, that in this very arrangement
we have many subjects open to debate.
…the Lacedæmonians remain quiet at present,
they too are restrained by truces from one ten
days to another. But probably, if they should find
our power divided (which we are now so anxious
to bring about), they would with all their might
attack us, in conjunction with the Siceliots,
whose alliance they would in time past have
valued most highly.”
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Alcibiades’ Speech (6.18)
“This is how we get our Empire—as did everyone
else who rules—by eagerly coming to the
support of anyone who calls on us, whether
Greek or foreign.
In dealing with a stronger
power, one should not only defend oneself when
it attacks; one should take advance action to
preempt the attack. We cannot control the size
of our empire we want as we would a budget. …
Know that we shall increase our power at home
by this adventure abroad . . . Let us humble the
pride of the Peloponnesians by sailing off to
Sicily . . . And at the same time we shall become
either masters, as we very easily may, of the
whole of Hellas . . . Or in any case ruin the
Syracusians, to no small advantage to us and
our allies.”
Thucydides’ Analysis
of Sicilian Expedition (6.31)
“Indeed the expedition became not less famous for its
wonderful boldness and for the splendor of its
appearance, than for its overwhelming strength as
compared with the peoples against whom it was directed,
and for the fact that this was the longest passage from
home attempted up until that time, and the most
ambitious in its objectives considering the resources of
those who undertook it.”
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The “Great” Sicilian Expedition
• 134 triremes
• 70 supply vessels
• 27,000 men
– Treasury is emptied
• Three Commanders to keep things balanced
– Alcibiades
– Nicias
– Lamachus
Day of the Expedition’s Launch
The night before the fleet sailed
• busts were systematically defaced all
over the city
• the blasphemy was compounded as this
came during the celebration of the
Eleusinian Mysteries.
• Alcibiades was suspected immediately
and called for an inquiry
– Fleet would not sail without him
– Alcibiades’ political enemies arranged for
him to sail with a cloud hanging over him.
The Fleet Arrives in Sicily
• ship summons Alcibiades to return to Athens
to face charges brought by the ekklesia.
– Alcibiades dives into the sea
– defects to Sparta, leaving Nicias and Lamachus in
charge of the operation.
• Syracuse was built on an island and peninsula
defended by an old wall.
– The key to victory was to cut off all escape by land
by spanning the peninsula and reducing the city.
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Good start for Athens
• The Athenians won early victories but then
withdrew to establish winter quarters in
Catana, north of Syracuse
• The Syracusans used this extra time to throw
up an entirely new and stronger wall
• send messengers to ask the Spartans for help
– call on a shared “Dorian” heritage
Alcibiades in Sparta
• On the advice of Alcibiades, Sparta agrees to send
troops to Syracuse
• Sparta occupies the Decelea, near Athens
– prevents Athenians from making use of their land year
round. The fortification disrupted silver production and
freed 20,000 Athenian slaves
• Athenian treasury and emergency reserve fund of
1,000 talents dwindling away
• Athens forced to demand even more tribute from
her subject allies, increasing rebellion within the
Empire
– He then sleeps with Spartan King’s wife (pregnant?)
Sparta Sends Help
• The Corinthians, the Spartans, and others in
the Peloponnesian League sent more
reinforcements to Syracuse
• Athenians sent another hundred ships and
another 5,000 troops to Sicily.
• Under Gylippus, the Syracusans and their allies
were able to decisively defeat the Athenians on
land
– Syracusans to build a navy, Athenian fleet was
destroyed,
– Athenian army, divided and defeated
– entire Athenian army was sold off into slavery.
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9,000 Athenian hoplites had perished
Real concern was the loss of the huge fleet dispatched to Sicily.
Triremes could be replaced, but the 25,000 experienced sailors lost in
Sicily were irreplaceable and Athens had to rely on ill-trained slaves to
form the backbone of her new fleet.
Aftermath of the “Expedition”
• Most of the original 25,000 man force died due to
incompetent leadership, especially that of Nicias
– lunar eclipse prevented a withdraw
• Demosthenes and Nicias were condemned to
death by the Spartans.
• The last battle is humiliating for Athenians back
home as they hear horrible stories of fellow
citizens cut off from their ships, dying of thirst.
• Surviving Athenian prisoners are forced to work
in stone quarries on a diet of bread and water for
six months.
• Spartans intervene to make sure they are not put
to death by Syracusans.
Fate of Athenian and Allied Survivors
(Thucydides, 7.87)
• The prisoners in the quarries were at first harshly treated by the
Syracusans. Crowded in a narrow hole, without any roof to cover
them, the heat of the sun and the stifling closeness of the air
tormented them during the day, and then the nights which came on
autumnal and chilly made them ill by the violence of the change;
besides, as they had to do everything in the same place for want of
room, and the bodies of those who died of their wounds or from
the variation in the temperature, or from similar causes, were left
heaped together one upon another, intolerable stenches arose;
while hunger and thirst never ceased to afflict them, each man
during eight months having only half a pint of water and a pint of
grain given him daily. In short, no single suffering to be
apprehended by men thrust into such a place was spared them. For
some seventy days they thus lived all together, after which all,
except the Athenians and any Siceliots or Italians who had joined in
the expedition, were sold. The total number of prisoners taken it
would be difficult to state exactly, but it could not have been less
than 7,000.
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Athenian Reaction to Sicily
• The expedition and consequent disaster left Athens reeling.
• In Athens, the citizens did not, at first, believe the defeat
• When the magnitude of the disaster became evident, there
was a general panic.
• Attica seemed free for the taking, as the Spartans were so
close by at the Decelea.
• The defeat caused a great shift in policy for many other states
– Neutral states joined with Sparta, assuming that Athens' defeat
was imminent.
– Many Delian League allies in the also revolted
• Athens began to rebuild its fleet, there was little they could
do about the revolts for the time being.
Athens Recovers
• Alcibiades (who angers Spartan king) escapes to Samos
– wants to come back to Athens if they reinstate him
– given command of Samian fleet
411 Sparta makes alliance with Persia for a fleet
• Battle of Syme
– indecisive
410 Battle of Cyzicus
• Athenian fleet obliterates Spartan fleet
– Between 410 and 406, Athens won a continuous string of
victories and eventually recovered large portions of its
empire
• due, in no small part, to Alcibiades
Spartan Naval Commander Lysander
– not of royal family line
– skilled strategist, statesman and speaker
– was able to get Persian money to build a Spartan fleet
• After being removed from command briefly was
reinstated and became the victorious Spartan
general
406 cuts off Athenian grain supply from
Hellespont
405 Battle of Aegospotami
– destroys Athenian fleet
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Defeat of Athens
• Spartan King Pausanias lays siege to Athens
• Lysander blockades Piraeus
• Theramenes started negotiations with Lysander
– took three months, but in the end Lysander agreed
to terms at Piraeus
Facing starvation and disease from the prolonged
siege, Athens surrenders in 404 BCE
Lysander’s Puppet government
Initially Spartans wanted to raze Athens
– Lysander said “no!”—honor for defeating Persians
He establishes an the oligarchy called Tyranny of the 30
– under Critias
– included Theramenes as a leading member
• executed a number of citizens
• deprived all but a few of their former rights as citizens of
Athens
• Many of Athens’ former allies now ruled by boards of ten
(decarchy)
• often reinforced with garrisons under a Spartan
commander (harmost)
Resistance by Athens
Tyranny of the 30
• Severely reduced the rights of Athenian citizens.
• Imposing a limit on the number of citizens
allowed to vote
The Athenian general Thrasybulus, had been exiled
from Athens led the democratic resistance to the
new oligarchic government
403 He invades Attica with a small force of exiles
• first defeats Spartan garrison
• forces of the oligarchic government into Battle of
Munychia
– Critias killed in battle.
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