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The Peloponnesian War
A Brief History of a Protracted Tragedy
by Joel Toppen
Born of paranoia and distrust, the
Peloponnesian War was a Greek Tragedy on an
epic scale. For nearly three decades, the city
states of Athens and Sparta, along with their
allies, waged a brutal war against each other,
committed frightful atrocities, and ultimately
exhausted their resources to the extent that
both victor and vanquished alike were fatally
weakened. The Peloponnesian War pitted
the Athenian empire of coastal and island
city-states which dotted the Aegean and
Adriatic Seas against the Spartan-led
Peloponnesian League which included the
powerful city states of Thebes and Corinth.
Following the defeat of the Persians in 480
B.C., the Greek city states that had joined
forces to defeat the foreign invaders began to
turn a wary eye towards each other. Athens
formed a league of city states that within a
few decades became an empire dominated by
Athens. Athens gained fabulous wealth from
the tribute gathered from the city states it now
dominated. When any subject city state tried
to withdraw from the empire, the Athenians
moved swiftly using their elite fleet of warships to crush the revolt.
Other city states such as Corinth and
Thebes — traditional rivals to Athens — not
party to the Athenian empire or Delian League
watched with suspicion. For protection from
the democrats of Athens, they turned to
militaristic city-state of Sparta and joined the
Spartan-led Peloponnesian League.
It was Corinth that led the push towards
war. When the Corinthian colony of Corcyra
defeated Corinth in battle, the latter began a
naval buildup preparatory to an expedition to
bring their colony back into line. Corcyra appealed to Athens for support. Athens agreed
to a defensive alliance with Corcyra and
prevented Corinth from reasserting control
over Corcyra. Suffuciently annoyed, Corinth
encouraged one of her colonies, Potidea,
which was a member of the Athenian empire
to revolt. Corinth deepened the crisis by
covertly aiding the rebels who were besieged
by the Athenians.
Athens responded by imposing severe trade
restrictions on the city of Megara, a member
of the Peloponnesian League. This proved to
be too much for the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League to ignore. At a meeting of the
Peloponnesian League, the Spartan assembly
voted to go to war with Athens.
Led by the capable statesman, Pericles,
Athens was not concerned by this develop-
ment, for Athens occupied what Pericles felt
to be an unassailable position. The port of
Piraeus was connected to the city of Athens
proper by their famous long walls. With the
seas dominated by their first-class navy, even
though besieged by land, the Athenians could
bring food into the city by way of the port,
thus negating the effects that any siege would
have on the inhabitants of the city. Or so they
thought. For there were two intangibles that
were not considered which ultimately led to
the collapse of the Athenian ability to wage
war: Plague within the city, and loss of naval
supremacy without.
The Spartan strategy was initially as
unimaginative as the Athenian strategy — or
lack thereof. The Spartan king, Archidamos
planned to invade Attica, pillage the farms
belonging to the inhabitants of Athens, and
provoke them into a pitched battle in which
the inferior Athenian hoplites could be
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defeated and the war brought to a swift conclusion. What he failed to take into account
was what to do if the Athenians could not be
lured out of their fortifications.
What then followed was a protracted war
marked by sieges with a few pitched battles
on land and a number of large naval engagements. The war that we know as the Peloponnesian War began in 431 B.C. with the Spartan invasion of Attica. The war was fought in
three distinct phases. The first phase, known
as the Archidamian War (after the Spartan
king), lasted until 421 B.C. The second phase
consisted of the Sicilian invasion by Athens,
began in 415 B.C. and ended in 413 B.C. The
final phase, known as the Decelean War (after
the fort the Spartans built near Athens) or
the Ionian War (the scene of the majority of
fighting in this final period) lasted until the
Athenian surrender in 404 B.C.
The first phase was marked by annual
invasions of Attica by Sparta and amphibious operations by Athens. But by far the most
significant event of the Archidamian War
was the death of Pericles. In 430 B.C., only
a year into the war, plague struck Athens.
Over 30,000 civilians, soldiers, and sailors
perished. Pericles was among those who died.
With Pericles died the one man who had the
charisma to hold the Athenian war policy to
a conservative and prudent course. During
this period the Athenians won an important
victory when they defeated a small Spartan
army at Pylos, a coastal fort in the south of
Lacedaemonia. Three to four hundred Spartan
hoplites were taken as valuable hostages.
Furthermore, a grave threat to Spartan
internal security was presented, for Pylos lay
within that part of Lacedaemonia that was
inhabited by the Helots, a class of slaves upon
whose service Sparta was dependent. Fears of
a general Helot revolt badly shook the Spartans. Their fears were compounded when the
Athenian outpost at Pylos began attracting
runaway Helots. The Athenian victory at Pylos, however, was offset by the Spartan victory
at Amphipolis, an important Athenian city
in the north Aegean. In 421 B.C. both sides
agreed to a truce known as the Peace of Nicias
(named after the Athenian leader Nicias).
During the Peace, the powerful but
independent city-state of Argos was able to
form a new league, luring the Spartan-allied
cities of Mantinea and Elis away from Sparta
and into a democratic confederation. What
followed was a war within a war as Sparta
fought its own allies in order to maintain
The Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC — Historical Background for Hellenes
its hegemony in Lacedaemonia. Ironically,
the largest land battle of the Peloponnesian
War was fought during the Peace of Nicias.
In the Battle of Mantinea the Spartans were
able to break up the Argive confederacy and
reestablish their dominance over the Arcadian
breakaway cities.
In 415 B.C., Athens, now led by an
ambitious adventurer named Alcibiades
(who would later defect to the Spartans),
determined upon a bold, some might justly
say reckless course of action. They resolved
to invade Sicily and subject the city-state of
Syracuse. The goal was ultimately to break the
stalemate in Greece. The Athenian invasion
of Sicily accomplished just that, but not in
the manner the Athenians planned. For the
balance of power was to shift, but in Sparta's
favor. The invasion was an unmitigated disaster. The outcome was that the Athenian fleet
was shattered. Athens no longer held absolute
naval supremacy.
And so it was that in 413 B.C. Sparta
renewed the war in Greece. Decelea, a small
town near Athens was fortified so that the
siege might be pressed harder against Athens.
But most significantly, under the leadership
of a young general, Lysander, the Spartans
began to work towards challenging the
Athenian mastery of the sea.
That the Athenians could even recover so
much as to resist the Spartan renewal of the
war is remarkable. That they held out until 404
B.C. is astonishing! Prior to the outbreak of
war, the Athenians had maintained a reserve
of money and 100 warships that were only to
be used in the most dire national emergency.
After the debacle at Syracuse, Athens was
faced with just that. And so it was that the last
reserves were used to form the core of a new
fleet. But the Athenians weren't the only ones
raising cash and building triremes.
Sparta now turned to a source of wealth
that would tip the scales in her balance and
bring Athens to its knees: Sparta turned to the
satraps of the Persian Empire. The combination of Persian cash and Lysander's leadership
enabled Sparta to built a fleet with which they
could challenge Athens on the high seas.
Six major naval battles followed: Eretria
and Cynossema in 411 B.C., Abydos and
Cyzicus in 410 B.C., Arginusae in 406 B.C.,
and Aegospotami in 405 B.C.
Eretria was a Spartan victory fought off
the coast of Euboea. The Spartan victory led
to a revolt in which nearly all the city-states
of that strategic island revolted. The danger
to Athens was dire for the only thing keeping
them in the war was the vital sea lanes from
the city's Black Sea grain supply to the port
of Piraeus. Later that same year, 411 B.C. a
smaller Athenian fleet was able to snatch vic
tory from the jaws of defeat in the naval battle
of Cynossema in the Hellespont. Had the
Athenians lost that battle, the war would have
almost certainly ended. As it was, they were
able to continue the struggle.
In 410 B.C. the Athenians won another
naval victory in the Hellespont at Abydos.
Then fell the hammer blow: later that same
year, off Cyzicus, the Athenian fleet under
Alcibiades (who had changed sides yet again)
decisively crushed the Spartan fleet. War
weary and demoralized, Sparta made a peace
offer. Sniffing total victory Athens refused the
offer and the war dragged on. This was Athens'
last chance for victory.
In 406 B.C. the Athenians won yet another
naval victory at Arginusae in the east Aegean.
But the fruits of this victory were merely to
prolong the struggle. In 405 B.C. a Spartan
fleet under the command of Lysander, caught
the Athenian fleet on shore in the Hellespont
and annihilated it. The result was that the
Spartans could now effectively blockade the
port of Piraeus by closing its line of supply to
the Black Sea grain. In 404 B.C. Athens fell
and the war ended.
Both victor and vanquished alike were
fatally weakened. Yes, Sparta won the war. But
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the fruits of victory were sparse. Within thirty
years Epaminondas would crush the Spartan
army in pitched battle at Leuctra and again
at Mantinea. Sparta would never again regain
hegemony over the Greek-speaking peoples.