ATHENS vs SPARTA: The Peloponnesian Wars

“I dread our own mistakes more than the enemy’s intentions.” – Thucydides

The Peloponnesian Wars   460-446 / 431-404 BCE 

Everyone knows the story of King Leonidas and his 300 Spartans, while those who paid attention in history class might also know how Athens came to their aid in helping to turn the tide against King Xerxes and his armies, but what many don’t know is what happened next – and how it forever changed the trajectory of western civilization…

ATHENS vs SPARTA 

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In ancient times, long before before Greece was a single unified nation, the Greek City-States vied for supremacy. Of these, the two most prominent powers in the region were of course Athens and Sparta, and these two rivals couldn’t be more different from one another…

Athens was the birthplace of democracy, considered by many to be the pinnacle of civilized society in the ancient world (slavery, institutionalized misogyny, and corruption aside), it was built on the ideals of philosophers, and a pursuit of knowledge, culture, and art.

Meanwhile, the Spartans were… not that.

Sparta was a proud, militaristic “warrior society” built around brutal discipline, and unyielding loyalty to the state. While Spartan women had many more freedoms than most other cultures, there was still vast inequity, and for all their propaganda around concepts like freedom and liberty, they were still an oligarchy built on the backs of slaves.

Still, despite their stark contrasts and absolute contempt for one another, the two Greek City-States managed to put aside their differences long enough to team up against the entire might of the Persian Empire during the Greco-Persian Wars (499-449 BCE), as seen in the Frank Miller-inspired ‘documentary’ “300” by Zack Snyder. Everyone knows about the last stand of the 300 Spartans and King Leonidas at the Battle of Thermopylae, but you may not know that it was actually the Athenians who won the day at the Battle of Salamis, thanks to their naval superiority.

“They sunk my Battle Ship!?” – Xerxes, probably

Following this temporary alliance however, as soon as the war against Persia ended, Athens and Sparta immediately had a falling out over their clashing fundamental ideologies. And the intense conflict that followed would come to be known as The Peloponnesian Wars…

The First Peloponnesian War (460-445 BCE)

Just 20 years after the Battles of Thermopylae and Salamis, before the War with Persia was even officially over, tensions started to rise between the two Greek City-States. Athens had started to expand its reach as the leader of the Delian League, a wealthy naval power with imperial ambitions, and Sparta (of course) saw this as a direct threat to their own sovereignty.

So Sparta, being all Spartan about it, decided it was a good excuse for another war.

The conflict officially broke out in 460 BCE when two allied city-states had a minor territorial dispute: Megara (aligned with Athens) and Corinth (who was backed by Sparta). What started as a series of skirmishes soon turned into full-on military campaigns for key territories. While the Athenians had firm control over the sea, boasting the most powerful fleet in the ancient world, the Spartan Army had land superiority with their superior tactics, elite soldiers, and phalanx formations.

Unfortunately for the Spartans (and their Peloponnesian League), Athens had a series of fortifications known as “The Long Walls”. The Athenian military retreated, and for all their might, the Spartans were unable to lay siege to the walled city. As a result, the war ended in a bitter stalemate.

The 30 Years’ Peace (446-431 BCE)

Both sides were exhausted, between a series of plagues and fighting two wars, the leaders of Sparta and Athens ultimately decided to settle their dispute with a peace treaty known as “The 30 Years’ Peace”.

Unfortunately, the three-decade peace accords only lasted about 15 years before the rivalry heated up once again in 431 BCE…

The Archidamian War (431-421 BCE)

Archidamus II

The Second Peloponnesian War kicked off over a minor dispute regarding Corcyra, one of the colonies of Corinth (Sparta’s ally). Long story short: when Athens decided to intervene, the Spartans saw this as a direct violation of their treaty. Then, when a Corinthian Colony (Potidaea) rebelled against Athenian rule, they laid siege to the colony. In response to Megara (another Spartan ally) supporting the Corinthian Rebellion, Athens passed the Megarian Decree which banned Megarian merchants from trading with the Athenian Empire. The economic blockade that followed devastated the Megara’s economy.

As a result, King Archidamus II of Sparta issued an ultimatum for Athens to reverse the embargo. They did not…

The leader of Athens, Pericles, was convinced that war with Sparta was inevitable, but historians (and even contemporary scholars like Plutarch and Thucydides) agree that it was really Pericles who picked a fight.

Good Guy Pericles (as seen in the ‘documentary’, “Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey”)

Under Pericles, the Athenian strategy was to hide behind their fortifications, where they were supplied by sea, while their navy raided the coast, disrupting Sparta’s trade routes. Meanwhile, Archidamus and the Spartans had a much more direct approach: annihilate the Athenian countryside, and decimate their farmlands in an attempt to provoke them into a land battle, where they had the advantage.

Athens was holding its own until the following year, when a devastating plague hit the walled city which claimed the life of Pericles and a large chunk of the Athenian population. Sparta however suffered a serious blow itself, in 425, when the Athenians captured a large number of elite Spartan soldiers on the island of Sphacteria.

One of the most significant clashes occurred in 422 BCE, at the Battle of Amphipolis – where Athenian forces attempted to reclaim the Spartan-occupied city of Amphipolis. During the chaos, two of the best generals, *on both sides*, were killed: the Athenian General (Cleon) and the Spartan General (Brasidas)!

The Peace of Nicias (421-413 BCE)

Following the demise of their most hawkish commanders, both sides were once again weary of all the pointless fighting. So in 421 BCE, the Athenians and Spartans agreed to another truce: the Peace of Nicias. Territories were relinquished, prisoners were returned, and this time both parties agreed to a 50-year ceasefire…

(Spoilers: It barely lasted 8.)

The Sicilian Expedition (415-413 BCE)

After a few short years of peace following another fragile treaty, tensions still simmered among both parties, each distrustful of the other, and just looking for an excuse to start shit.

Well that excuse came in the form of a small town in the region of Sicily (modern Italy). The Sicilian city of Segesta sent an appeal to Athens for aid against its rival, Syracuse. Syracuse it turns out was aligned with Sparta (and the Peloponnesian League), so the Athenians saw an opportunity to weaken their rival’s network, while expanding westward, and securing grain for their troops in the process. Win-Win right?

The entire military expedition that followed was a massive disaster.

Athens sent a gigantic army aboard a fleet of over 100 ships led by three generals: the ambitious Alcibiades, the cautious Nicias, and the completely inexperienced Lamachus. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the entire campaign was doomed from the start. At the last second, Alcibiades was recalled back to Athens on charges of “sacrilege”, so he was like “screw this” and defected to Sparta! Meanwhile, Nicias was nervous and decided to delay the attack on Syracuse, which gave the enemy to prepare its defenses, while Alcibiades urged the Spartans to send reinforcements. Awesome.

The Spartan General, Gylippus took command of the Syracusan resistance as the Athenians attempted (and failed) to lay siege to Syracuse. Athens sent a second fleet which was also promptly met with disaster. After a couple years of brutal fighting, the Syracusans and the Spartans launched a final decisive assault, and the entire Athenian fleet was decimated. Those who survived were either thrown in prison (were most died), or sold into slavery.

The Sicilian Expedition wasn’t just an epic fail, it was a catastrophic one…

The Ionian / Decelean War (413-404 BCE)

After the spectacular debacle in Sicily, the emboldened Spartans established a base just north of Athens, in a town called Decelea. Alcibiades (the Athenian turn-coat from earlier) advised the Spartans as a strategist, and recommended setting up camp there in order to further cripple Athens by cutting off its supply routes, seizing their farmlands in Attica, and even liberating their slaves from the silver mines of Laurium – all of which absolutely wrecked the Athenian economy.

If all that wasn’t bad enough, the war then picked up in the Aegean Sea to the East and particularly on the coast of Ionia (modern day Turkey). Ionia just so happened to be where the Athenian Empire drew most of its wealth from. In the fallout of the disastrous incident in Sicily, Athenian allies began to lose faith, and the Ionians themselves began to revolt.

But perhaps the biggest turning point in the conflict came when Sparta made an alliance with their former enemies, the Persian Empire! (the enemy of my enemy and all that) With the immense financial backing of Persia behind them, the Spartans began to build a fleet of their own, and finally had the opportunity to put Athen’s naval dominance to the test…

The Fall of Athens and the Rise of Sparta (405–371 BCE)

The once high and mighty Athens was now losing the war of attrition against the Spartans and the Peloponnesian League, thanks to the generous backing of their new frenemies, the Persians. The Athenians were still recovering from significant losses over the Sicily debacle, and were struggling to finance new ships and soldiers. Things got so desperate in fact, that Athens briefly abolished their democratic system! An oligarchic coup led by a Council of 400 overthrew the government in 411 BCE.

It all came to a head though in 405 with the Battle of Aegospotami.

The Spartan fleet, led by Lysander, caught the Athenian fleet off guard on a beach in the Hellespont. During the ensuing battle, Athens lost the remainder of their once invincible fleet – a whopping 180 ships, all captured or destroyed! With no Navy, no way to import food, and surrounded by enemies at their gates, the city of Athens was forced to surrender to the Spartans in 404 BCE.

The Spartan terms included the surrender of the entire fleet, the dismantling of their fortifications, the dissolution of the Delian League, and the installation of a pro-Spartan puppet government under a brutal oligarchy known as “The Thirty Tyrants”. Athens surrender signaled the end of the Peloponnesian War, the end of Athenian Democracy, and the end of an era. Because of their hubris, the Athenian Empire came crashing down in less than ten years, and Sparta now ruled over all of Greece unposed.

The Spartan Hegemony reigned over Greece from 404 to 371 BCE. During this reign of terror, Athenian citizens were terrorized, exiled, and even executed by the cruel and incompetent oligarchs left in charge. This dictatorial rule eventually backfired as the people began to revolt against the rigid authoritarian state. The sudden wealth of Persian gold soon led to widespread corruption among the elite, and constant warfare on all sides (thanks to their ‘aggressive foreign policy’) led to dwindling numbers among their ranks. For all their strengths on the field of battle, it turns out the Spartans were not exactly equipped to effectively manage an empire.

In 395 BCE, Corinth and Thebes (former allies of Sparta) joined forces with Argos and an Athenian Resistance to fight back against Spartan rule in what became known as the Corinthian War, which ended with a peace treaty broached with Persia known as “The King’s Peace” in 387 which established that all of the Greek City-States would have autonomous rule, and the Spartans were forced to secede all of their lands in Anatolia (Asia Minor).

The once proud Spartan army was ultimately defeated by Thebes during the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE, despite completely outnumbering them. Theban General Epaminondas developed a tactic known as the “Oblique Order” to break through their flank. During the battle, the Spartan King, Cleombrotus was killed, and the crushing defeat forever tarnished their legendary reputation. The Theban army invaded Spartan territory, freed their slaves, and decimated their entire way of life. Sparta was no more…

Interestingly enough, the decline of the Greek City-States paved the way for a new power in the region: Macedon, under Phillip II and his son, Alexander the Great – but that’s a story for a different article.

A lot of what we know about the Peloponnesian Wars comes from the Greek historian, Thucydides, who wrote: “Love of power, operating through greed, and through personal ambition was the cause of all these evils”  and “What made war inevitable was the growth of Athenian power and the fear that this caused in Sparta.” The Spartans and Athenians had such a bitter rivalry that in their attempt to destroy one another, they instead destroyed themselves. And it’s not difficult to apply these events to our modern world, especially here in a polarized nation like America with ideological extremists constantly escalating and dividing rather than any attempts at unity and diplomacy.

Will history repeat itself? You decide.

 – Erik Slader