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The First Peloponnesian War (460–445 BC) was fought between Sparta as the leaders of the Peloponnesian League and Sparta's other allies, most notably Thebes, and the Delian League led by Athens with support from Argos.
- Causes of The War
- Athens & Her Allies
- Sparta & Her Allies
- Innovations in Warfare
- Sparta's Invasions of Attica
- Sieges
- The War Rumbles on
- The Sicilian Expedition
- Aegospotami & Victory
- Aftermath
In the 5th century BCE Sparta and Athens were the two major powers in Greece and it was perhaps inevitable that their spheres of influence would overlap and cause conflict. Sparta seems to have been particularly alarmed at the growing power of Athens, able to build an ever-bigger fleet of ships thanks to tributes from its allies and dependants. Spa...
Following the Persian Wars of the early 5th century BCE the Greek city-states or poleis began to align themselves in protective alliances. Many states sided with Athens, notably those from Ionia, and together they formed the Delian League sometime around 478 BCE. The League, at its greatest size was composed of over 300 members who paid tribute to ...
The tough military training in Sparta, which started from the age of seven and was known as the agōgē, resulted in a professional hoplite army capable of great discipline and relatively sophisticated battlemanoeuvres which made them feared throughout Greece, a fact perhaps evidenced by Sparta's notable lack of fortifications for most of its history...
Like all great conflicts, the Peloponnesian War brought about changes and developments in warfare. The heavily armed hoplite in the phalanx formation (lines of closely packed hoplites protecting each other with their shields) still dominated the Greek battlefield but the phalanx did become deeper (more rows of men) and wider (a longer front of men)...
With one side predominantly a land-based army and the other a great maritime power it is not perhaps surprising that the war dragged on for decades with indecisive victories and ineffectual raids. The principal Spartan strategy was to annually attack Athenian lands, starting in 431 BCE, creating as much destruction as possible such as burning farms...
Sieges were another common feature of the Peloponnesian War. They were already a feature of Greek warfare but they increased dramatically in number during the Peloponnesian Wars, reaching around 100, 58 of which were successful (for the attackers). Siegecraft involved two main strategies - repeatedly attacking the city directly (until the defenders...
In 428 BCE Athens ruthlessly crushed a revolt on Lesbos involving Mytilene and in 427 the fall of Plataea was followed by a civil war on Kerkyra (Corfu) and a failed Athenian attempt to support Leontinoi in Sicily. In 426 BCE Demosthenes led 40 triremes in a campaign against Pylos (they were in fact on their way to Sicily) where they defeated the S...
In 415 BCE Athenian general Alcibiades was the mastermind behind the invasion of Sicily, the largest operation of the entire war. Athens wanted Sicilian timber for her fleet and the pretext for the attack was a request for help from the small polis of Segesta which sought protection from Syracuse. However, on the eve of departure Alcibiades was imp...
Athens was not beaten yet though and she continued to raid the Peloponnese from the sea. Sparta, following the advice of Alcibiades, built a fort at Dekeleia to more easily disrupt Attic agriculture with their annual attacks on Attic farmland. Agis made his headquarters at Dekeleia and received envoys from various poleis wishing to leave the Delian...
Sparta's position as the number one city-state in Greece, though, was to be short-lived. Continued Spartan ambitions in central and northern Greece, Asia Minor and Sicily once again dragged the city into another protracted conflict, the Corinthian Wars with Athens, Thebes, Corinth and Persia from 396 to 387 BCE. The result of the conflict was the '...
- Mark Cartwright
The history of the Peloponnesian War reveals both the unpredictability of war in general and the particular consequences of the repeated unwillingness of the Athenian assembly to negotiate peace terms with the other side.
Stalin used War and Peace as a propaganda tool during WWII. Russia’s victory over Napoleon in 1812 speaks so strongly to the Russian national psyche that when Hitler attacked the Soviet Union...
Jul 6, 2022 · Pericles would come to notice the hole that Cimon’s exile had left in the Athenian people’s lives, and Cimon would eventually be brought back from exile. Given Athens’s failure in their foreign war against Persia in Egypt, Pericles signed a peace treaty with Sparta in 454 BC.
· In about 460, Egypt revolted from the Persians. The Athenian sent ships. After initial successes, the Persians defeated the Athenian expeditionary forces after a six-year campaign, although there is a debate to the scale of the defeat.
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Apr 25, 2019 · By 460 BCE, Athens and Sparta were essentially at war, although they rarely fought one another directly. Here are some of the main events to take place during this initial conflict known as the First Peloponnesian War.
