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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 C3i Magazine 23 Page 38 2009 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 C3i Magazine 23 Page 39 2009 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.