Peloponnesian War

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“The Peloponnesian War”
Introduction
The war was a wide-ranging conflict between the rival Greek cities. It began in 431 BC and ended in around 404 BC. The ancient Greeks did not have any ruling empire or central government. Instead, the nation was composed of small, autonomous communities known as city-states. This type of system bred rivalry, political disintegration, and finally led to war. Corinth, Thebes, Athens, and Sparta were some of the most famous city-states of the war period and were also the leading participants in the “Peloponnesian War” (Lazenby 16). These city-states practiced self-governance and exhibited a lot of competition among each other when it came to politics, trade, sports, and even cultural influence. The tensions that existed between the city-states culminated into a full-blown war between the two top city-states of Athens and Sparta in 431 BC. Soon after the war began, the other famous city-states of Greece found themselves joining the war for various reasons. The conflict is named after Peloponnesus; the southern Greek peninsula where the better part of the war took place. Most of the information that people have about the war today originated from Thucydides, a Greek historian who survived the war and later wrote about it. This article will discuss the history of the war, as well as some of its probable causes as narrated by Thucydides.
Causes of the Conflict
Many top class historians have given their interpretations of what might have caused the Peloponnesian war, and many are still likely to throw their ideas into the debate.

However, Thucydides, one of the most prominent Greek historians who lived through the war has the most plausible account. Therefore, based on his works and some of the works he inspired, the ideas discussed below were some of the probable reasons why the Peloponnesian conflict broke out.
The Delian League and Athens: The earlier wars of Persia had a significant role to play in the development of the Peloponnesian war. Because of the wars of Persia, Athens was rebuilt. It then rose to gain both economic and political dominance over its allies. These allies, together with Athens, later formed the Delian league to prevent any possible future attacks on Greece. Athens was allowed to lead the league since it had the largest navy and stood the best chance of thwarting any attacks from the Persians. By virtue of being the leader of the Delian League, Athens could access the “communal treasury” at will (Lazenby 23). It then used this privilege to take a lot of funds from the kitty to revamp its navy. With a navy as strong as the one they built, Athens could easily wage war against any Greek city-state and win.
The Allies of Sparta: Before the Delian League was formed, Sparta boasted of having the strongest military commander in all of Greece. Sparta had a group of loose allies who were results of single treaties. The alliance between Sparta and its allies was known as the “Peloponnesian League” (Kagan 10). The league consisted of Achaea, Argos, and many other city-states.
Sparta’s Insult to Athens: Sparta had the ability to help Thasos when they were invaded by Athens. However, Sparta had just been struck by a natural calamity which weakened them, rendering them unable to help their ally. Feeling bound by the alliances that were crafted during the wars of Persia, Athens decided to offer a helping hand to Sparta who rudely refused and asked them to get out of their territory. Athens took that as an insult, and a quarrel began between the two city-states.
The Three-Decade Peace Treaty: In around 446 BC, Sparta and Athens signed a peace agreement. The Greeks had two formal Hegemons during this period; the land power Sparta, and the sea power Athens (Lazenby 27). The treaty stated that no party that had taken one side or the other was allowed to shift allegiances. However, the neutral parties to the agreement were free to switch sides as often as they so wished. When the signatories to this treaty stopped observing the rules, the signs of war started to show.
The Delicate Power Balance: Corinth, an ally to Sparta, was engaged in a political war with Corcyra, “her neutral daughter city” with a very strong navy. The war led to the involvement of Athens in the realm of Sparta. Corinth advised Athens to remain neutral, but the naval strength of the Corcyra lured Athens to their side (Kagan 11). Athens knew that Sparta had a stronger army on land; therefore, if they were to stand a chance against them, then they needed to maintain their naval superiority. As a result, the sided with Corcyra and defeated the Corinth. From then on, Athens knew it was only a matter of time before the Corinth joined the Sparta to wage war against them.
The War
As mentioned before, the war was mainly between Sparta and Athens. Each of these two city-states led a team of allied city-states. The alliance led by Athens included most of the coastal cities and islands around the eastern and northern “shores of the Aegean Sea” (Kagan 15). Sparta, on the other hand, led the key land powers of central Greece and Peloponnese together with Corinth, a sea power. Therefore, Athens had a more powerful navy, and Sparta had a stronger army. Besides that, Athens had more financial resources than Sparta; therefore, they had a better chance of building a more powerful army.
Before the Peloponnesian war broke out, Sparta and Athens had fought and decided to call a truce. This truce is what is referred to as the Thirty Years Treaty. However, the uneasy peace that existed between the two powers and their allies ended when Athens decided to aid one of Corinth’s allies to subdue Corinth. After that war, fighting erupted, and the Athenians took actions that seriously violated the three-decade treaty. Sparta and its allied city-states accused the Athenians of hostility and threatened to wage war against them.
Athens, following the advice of one of its most prominent leaders, Pericles, declined to surrender. There were many diplomatic attempts to resolve the conflict, but they all failed. In the 431 BC spring, Thebes, an ally to Spartan launched an attack on Plataea; an ally to Athens and open conflict began (Cook 127). The subsequent years of wars can be divided into two segments separated by a six-year truce. The first phase of the war lasted one decade, and it started with the Spartans under the command of Archidamus II. The commander led an army inside Attica near Athens. Pericles refused to go out and fight the superior forces allied to Sparta. He instead urged the people of Athens to remain within the borders of their city and make use of their superior navy to assault the ships and the coasts of their enemies. However, just a few months into the war, Pericles was struck by a severe plague that swept through the whole city of Athens killing many civilians and soldiers.
Thucydides, the Greek historian whose account of events this article borrows from, survived the terrible plague and lived to tell his tale. The Spartans also did suffer sea reverses when trying to aid Athens colonies like the Island of Lesbos to revolt against their colonizers. After defeating the rebel island and its sympathizers, Cleon, an Athenian demagogue, convinced the people of Athens to vote for the massacre of the men of the rebellious island and the enslavement of every other person (Lazenby 38). However, on second thought, they decided to execute only the leaders of the war. The initiatives of Sparta during the plague period were all futile safe for the successful invasion and capture of the city of Plataea in the year 427 BC.
In the few years that followed, the people of Athens “took the offensive” (Cook 128). They campaigned in Peloponnese and launched attacks on the city of Syracuse. By 425, the future looked miserable for Sparta, and they began looking for diplomatic ways to end the conflict. However, Brasidas. Popularly known as the “hero of the battle of Delium,” led them in successful conquests which encouraged some of the colonies of Athens to revolt. In 422 BC, a decisive clash at Amphipolis saw both Cleon, the leader of Athens and Brasidas killed. The death of Cleon allowed his enemy Nicias to talk the Athens people into accepting Spartan’s peace offer. This agreement was named the “Peace of Nicias,” and it lasted six years starting from 421 BC (Lazenby 39). It was a time when diplomatic efforts gradually paved the way for modest military activities by each side to win small states over to their side.
However, the uneasy calm was broken in 415 BC when Athens launched a severe attack on Sicily. The 11 years that followed marked the second phase of the Peloponnesian conflict. The assault against Sicily saw Athens suffer a serious catastrophe. Despite getting reinforcements in 413 BC, the Army of Athens were defeated by the Spartans and their allies. Soon after that loss, its navy was also defeated, and the Athenians were completely destroyed as they attempted to retreat. By 411 BC, the Athenians had serious political issues among themselves. The oligarchical party overthrew democracy, and they were in turn defeated by the moderate administration “of the Five Thousand” (Cook 129). The Athenian navy, after several victories, tried to restore democracy but the democratic leaders refused the peace offer that Sparta put forward. As a result, the war went on in the waters with both Athens and Sparta trading expensive victories. Nonetheless, the Spartans, with some aid from the Persians, managed to subdue the Athenians. After a solid blockade had starved the Athenians, they were forced to surrender under specified terms.
Conclusion
The Peloponnesian War was undoubtedly one of the greatest wars in the history of Greece. After the Persian wars, Athens emerged as a dominant sea power due to the resources it amassed while leading the Delian League. As a result of their massive finances and a powerful navy, Athens bullied both the neutral cities and its allies. Sparta was also not happy with the fact that they had lost their former military glory to Athens. As a result, the Peloponnesian war broke out in 431 BC. I took place in two phases separated by a six-year truce. Spartan eventually subdued Athens and saw the war end in 405 BC.
References
Lazenby, John Francis. The Peloponnesian War. Routledge, 2004.
Kagan, Donald. The outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. Cornell University Press, 2013.
Cook, Martin L. “The Peloponnesian War.” Parameters 34.1 (2004): 127-129.