An outline, era by era

Peloponnesian War

Classical Antiquity · ~500 BCE – ~500 CE

The Peloponnesian War (431 to 404 BCE) was a long conflict between Athens and its empire on one side and Sparta and its Peloponnesian League on the other. It was fought across the Greek mainland, the Aegean, Sicily and the coast of Asia Minor. The immediate causes were disputes involving Corcyra, Potidaea and Megara, but the deeper cause was the growth of Athenian power after the Persian Wars, which alarmed Sparta and its allies.

The war came in phases: the Archidamian War, ended by the Peace of Nicias in 421 BCE; the disastrous Athenian expedition to Sicily (415 to 413 BCE); and the Ionian or Decelean War, in which Sparta, helped by Persian money, built a fleet. Athens surrendered in 404 BCE after losing its fleet at Aegospotami. The war weakened the Greek city-states, brought a brief Spartan dominance, and left behind Thucydides' history, a founding work of political and historical analysis.

Things happened, and the rest is history

  1. Corcyra, Potidaea and the road to war

    Event

    What happened

    In 435 BCE Corcyra and its mother city Corinth go to war over Epidamnus. In 433 BCE Athens makes a defensive alliance with Corcyra, and its ships take part in the battle of Sybota against Corinth. In 432 BCE Potidaea, a Corinthian colony in Athens' empire, revolts and Athens besieges it. Sparta's assembly then votes that Athens has broken the Thirty Years' Peace of 446 BCE, and the Peloponnesian League votes for war.

    The rest is history

    Thucydides names the growth of Athenian power and the fear it caused in Sparta as the truest cause of the war, and treats these disputes, along with the Megarian decree, as the open complaints. Modern historians still debate how far the Athenian decisions were reasonable defence or provocation, and how much weight to give each dispute. In spring 431 BCE a Theban attack on Plataea began the fighting. Later that year Sparta and its allies invaded Attica for the first time, opening the Archidamian War.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 1.24-66 and 1.67-88. Greek prose history, late 5th century BCE.
    2. BookKagan, Donald. The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969.
    3. Bookde Ste. Croix, G. E. M. The Origins of the Peloponnesian War. London: Duckworth, 1972.

  2. The Peace of Nicias and its collapse

    Event

    What happened

    In spring 421 BCE, after the deaths of Cleon and Brasidas at Amphipolis in 422 BCE, Athens and Sparta agree the Peace of Nicias, named after the Athenian statesman who negotiated it. The treaty is meant to last fifty years and provides for the return of captured places and prisoners. Sparta and Athens also make a separate defensive alliance. Several of Sparta's allies, including Corinth, Thebes and Megara, refuse to accept the peace, and Sparta fails to carry out all its terms, notably the return of Amphipolis.

    The rest is history

    The peace was uneasy from the start. Corinth and others turned to Argos, and in 418 BCE Sparta defeated Argos and its allies at Mantinea, restoring its position in the Peloponnese. Athens meanwhile kept some places it was meant to give up, and Alcibiades pressed for a more aggressive policy. Thucydides argued that the war was not truly over and counted the years of this uneasy peace as part of one continuous twenty-seven year war. In 415 BCE Athens sent its great expedition to Sicily, and in 413 BCE Sparta fortified Decelea in Attica, after which open war resumed.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 5.14-24 and 5.25-26. Greek prose history, late 5th century BCE.
    2. BookKagan, Donald. The Peace of Nicias and the Sicilian Expedition. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1981.
    3. BookKagan, Donald. The Peloponnesian War. New York: Viking, 2003.

  3. The plague that killed Pericles

    Popular belief

    The legend

    In the second summer of the war a mysterious plague strikes Athens, crowded with country people sheltering behind the walls. Thousands die, the gods seem deaf to prayer, and the city loses its great leader Pericles. Some say the Spartans had poisoned the wells of the Piraeus.

    The rest is history

    Thucydides, who caught the disease himself, describes it in detail. It began in 430 BCE and returned in 427 to 426 BCE, killing a large share of the population, including Pericles in 429 BCE. The poisoned-well rumour is reported by Thucydides as a rumour only. The disease has never been certainly identified, and typhoid fever and other illnesses have been proposed. A mass grave found in the Kerameikos in Athens in the 1990s has yielded evidence that suggests typhoid, though this remains debated.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 2.47-54. Greek prose history, late 5th century BCE.
    2. BookKagan, Donald. The Peloponnesian War. New York: Viking, 2003.
    3. ArticlePapagrigorakis, Manolis J., et al. "DNA examination of ancient dental pulp incriminates typhoid fever as a probable cause of the Plague of Athens." International Journal of Infectious Diseases 10, no. 3 (2006): 206-214.

  4. Pericles' funeral speech

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    At the end of the first year of war, Pericles stands before the Athenian dead and praises the city for its freedom, openness and courage. He calls Athens the school of Greece and says its citizens should fall in love with her.

    The rest is history

    The speech is known only through Thucydides, who says he gave the gist of what was said and did not claim to quote it word for word. Scholars debate how far it reflects Pericles and how far Thucydides' own view, written after Athens had fallen. Public funerals for the war dead were a real Athenian custom, held each year. The speech has since become one of the best-known statements of democratic ideals.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 2.34-46. Greek prose history, late 5th century BCE.
    2. BookHornblower, Simon. A Commentary on Thucydides. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991-2008.
    3. BookLoraux, Nicole. The Invention of Athens: The Funeral Oration in the Classical City. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.

  5. Alcibiades and the mutilation of the Herms

    Heroic tale

    The legend

    On the eve of the Sicilian expedition, the stone Herms of Athens are defaced in one night. Suspicion falls on the glamorous Alcibiades, who is also accused of mocking the Mysteries. Recalled from Sicily to stand trial, he escapes to Sparta and advises Athens' enemies.

    The rest is history

    The affair is described by Thucydides and Plutarch. The mutilation of the Herms happened in 415 BCE, and the accusations caused real panic in Athens. Alcibiades did flee, was condemned in his absence, and advised Sparta to fortify Decelea in Attica, which was done in 413 BCE. He later returned to Athenian service and was recalled in 407 BCE. The guilty parties for the Herms were never clearly established.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 6.27-29, 6.53-61. Greek prose history, late 5th century BCE.
    2. PrimaryPlutarch. Life of Alcibiades. Greek biography, c. 100 CE.
    3. BookKagan, Donald. The Peloponnesian War. New York: Viking, 2003.

  6. Sicilian captives and the quarries

    Folk tale

    The legend

    After the Athenian army is destroyed at Syracuse, the survivors are thrown into the stone quarries. Some are said to win their freedom by reciting lines of Euripides, whose poetry was loved in Sicily.

    The rest is history

    Thucydides describes the harsh imprisonment of the captured Athenians in the quarries of Syracuse in 413 BCE, with crowding, hunger and disease. The Euripides story comes from Plutarch's Life of Nicias, written about five centuries later, and cannot be checked. The defeat itself was real and severe, costing Athens most of a great fleet and army.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryThucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, 7.84-87. Greek prose history, late 5th century BCE.
    2. PrimaryPlutarch. Life of Nicias, 29. Greek biography, c. 100 CE.
    3. BookKagan, Donald. The Peloponnesian War. New York: Viking, 2003.

  7. The walls come down to the music of flutes

    Folk tale

    The legend

    After Athens surrenders, the Spartans and their allies pull down the Long Walls to the sound of flute girls, and believe that the day marks the beginning of freedom for Greece. Some allies urge that Athens be destroyed outright.

    The rest is history

    Xenophon describes the scene in 404 BCE, and says the walls were demolished with great enthusiasm. He also reports that Corinth and Thebes wanted Athens destroyed, but Sparta refused, recalling Athens' service in the Persian Wars. The terms required Athens to give up its fleet and empire and follow Sparta. Sparta then backed the oligarchic Thirty, whose rule was overthrown within about a year.

    Sources

    1. PrimaryXenophon. Hellenica, 2.2.19-23. Greek history, 4th century BCE.
    2. BookKagan, Donald. The Fall of the Athenian Empire. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987.
    3. BookLazenby, J. F. The Peloponnesian War: A Military Study. London: Routledge, 2004.

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