The Thirty Years' Peace was a treaty signed between the ancient Greek city-states of Athens and Sparta in 446/445 BC. The treaty brought an end to the conflict commonly known as the First Peloponnesian War , which had been raging since c. 460 BC.
111-888: The purpose of the treaty was to prevent another outbreak of war. Ultimately, the peace treaty failed in achieving its goal, with the outbreak of the Second Peloponnesian War in 431 BC. Athens was forced to give up all possessions in the Peloponnese, which included the Megarian ports of Nisaea and Pagae with Troezen and Achaea in Argolis , but the Spartans agreed to allow the Athenians to keep Naupactus . It also ruled out armed conflict between Sparta and Athens. Neutral poleis could join either side, Sparta or Athens, which implies that there
222-453: A "manly spirit". It was custom in the Spartan upbringing for a young adult to be assigned as the "inspirer" ( eispnelas ) or "lover" ( erastes ) of an adolescent, and Lysander was matched in this role with the future king Agesilaus , the younger son of Archidamus II . Nothing is known of Lysander's actual career before he was elected, in 408 BC, to Sparta's annual office of admiral, to conduct
333-686: A close friendship that was to have a decisive effect in the course of the war. Cyrus began funding Sparta's war effort on a large scale, and was encouraged to increase the pay of Lysander's crews from three to four obols, increasing their morale and Lysander's popularity among them. Once back in Ephesus, Lysander summoned a conference of influential oligarchs from all over the Greek cities in the Aegean, encouraged them to organize into political clubs ( hetaireiai ), and promised to put them in power in their respective cities in
444-577: A congress of their allies to discuss the possibility of war with Athens. Sparta's powerful ally Corinth was notably opposed to intervention, and the congress voted against war with Athens. The Athenians crushed the revolt, and peace was maintained. The more immediate events that led to war involved Athens and Corinth. After a defeat by their colony of Corcyra , a sea power that was not allied to either Sparta or Athens, Corinth began to build an allied naval force. Alarmed, Corcyra sought alliance with Athens. Athens discussed with both Corcyra and Corinth, and made
555-449: A contemporary. For other (later) sources he remains an ambiguous figure. For instance, while the Roman biographer Cornelius Nepos charges him with "cruelty and perfidy", Lysander – according to Xenophon – nonetheless spared the population of captured Greek poleis such as Lampsacus . The Westland Lysander aircraft was named after him. According to Duris of Samos , Lysander
666-597: A defensive alliance with Corcyra. At the Battle of Sybota , a small contingent of Athenian ships played a critical role in preventing a Corinthian fleet from capturing Corcyra. In order to uphold the Thirty Years' Peace, the Athenians were instructed not to intervene in the battle unless it was clear that Corinth would invade Corcyra. However, the Athenian ships participated in the battle, and the arrival of additional Athenian triremes
777-436: A great amount and was condemned to death in absentia. The Athenian general Thrasybulus , who had been exiled from Athens by the Spartans' puppet government , led the democratic resistance to the new oligarchic government. In 403 BC, he commanded a small force of exiles that invaded Attica and, in successive battles, defeated first a Spartan garrison and then the forces of the oligarchic government (which included Lysander) in
888-494: A great victory at the Battle of Sphacteria . In a shocking turn of events, 300 Spartan hoplites encircled by Athenian forces surrendered. The Spartan image of invincibility took significant damage. The Athenians jailed Sphacterian hostages in Athens and resolved to execute the captured Spartans if a Peloponnesian army invaded Attica again. After these battles, the Spartan general Brasidas raised an army of allies and helots and marched
999-491: A land attack and subject to Spartan control. According to Thucydides, although the Spartans took no action then, they "secretly felt aggrieved". Conflict between the states flared up again in 465 BC, when a helot revolt broke out in Sparta. The Spartans summoned forces from all of their allies, including Athens, to help them suppress the revolt. Athens sent out a sizable contingent (4,000 hoplites ), but upon its arrival, this force
1110-469: A minor Spartan victory by their skillful general Lysander at the naval battle of Notium in 406 BC. Alcibiades was not re-elected general by the Athenians and he exiled himself from the city. He would never again lead Athenians in battle. Athens won the naval battle of Arginusae . The Spartan fleet under Callicratidas lost 70 ships and the Athenians lost 25 ships. But, due to bad weather, the Athenians were unable to rescue their stranded crews or finish off
1221-453: A number of other states. For a time during this conflict, Athens controlled not only Megara but also Boeotia . But at its end, a massive Spartan invasion of Attica forced Athens to cede the lands it had won on the Greek mainland, and Athens and Sparta recognized each other's right to control their respective alliance systems. The war was officially ended by the Thirty Years' Peace , signed in
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#17328476513911332-583: A period now called the Athenian Empire . By mid-century, the Persians had been driven out of the Aegean and had ceded control of vast territories to Athens. Athens had greatly increased its own power; a number of its formerly independent allies were reduced, over the course of the century, to the status of tribute-paying subject states of the Delian League. This tribute was used to fund a powerful fleet and, after
1443-464: A powerful Peloponnesian state that had remained independent of Lacedaemon. With the support of the Athenians, the Argives forged a coalition of democratic states in the Peloponnese, including the powerful states of Mantinea and Elis . Early Spartan attempts to break up the coalition failed, and the leadership of the Spartan king Agis was called into question. Emboldened, the Argives and their allies, with
1554-406: A propaganda gesture he restored places like Aegina , Melos and Scione to populations whom the Athenians had forcibly uprooted throughout the course of the war. Following an unsuccessful attempt to bring about Athens's surrender with a show of force off Attica in autumn 405 BC, Lysander began establishing contacts with Athenian oligarchic exiles and sponsored their return to the city as one of
1665-576: A retreat to Athens, but Nicias at first refused. After additional setbacks, Nicias seemed to agree to a retreat until a bad omen, in the form of a lunar eclipse , delayed withdrawal. The delay was costly and forced the Athenians into a major sea battle in the Great Harbor of Syracuse. The Athenians were thoroughly defeated. Nicias and Demosthenes marched their remaining forces inland in search of friendly allies. The Syracusan cavalry rode them down mercilessly, eventually killing or enslaving all who were left of
1776-625: A war with Thebes and other Greek cities, which came to be known as the Corinthian War . The Spartans prepared to send out an army against this new alliance of Athens, Thebes, Corinth and Argos (with the backing of the Achaemenid Empire) and ordered Agesilaus to return to Greece. Agesilaus set out for Sparta with his troops, crossing the Hellespont and marching west through Thrace . The Spartans arranged for two armies, one under Lysander and
1887-776: The Aegean . He had his satrap Tissaphernes make alliance with Sparta against Athens . In 412 BC, this led to the Persian reconquest of most of Ionia . Tissaphernes also helped fund the Peloponnesian fleet. Facing the resurgence of Athens, from 408 BC, Darius II decided to continue the war against Athens and give stronger support to the Spartans . He sent his son Cyrus the Younger into Asia Minor as satrap of Lydia , Phrygia Major and Cappadocia , and general commander ( Karanos , κἀρανος) of
1998-470: The Agiad King of Sparta , arranged a settlement between the two parties which allowed the re-establishment of democratic government in Athens. Lysander still had influence in Sparta despite his setbacks in Athens. He was able to persuade the Spartans to select Agesilaus II , his younger lover , as the new Eurypontid Spartan king following the death of Agis II , and to persuade the Spartans to support Cyrus
2109-476: The Battle of Munychia . The leader of the Thirty Tyrants, Critias, was killed in the battle. The Battle of Piraeus was then fought between Athenian exiles who had defeated the government of the Thirty Tyrants and occupied Piraeus and a Spartan force sent to combat them. In the battle, the Spartans defeated the exiles, despite their stiff resistance. Despite opposition from Lysander, after the battle Pausanias
2220-794: The Greco-Persian Wars were over. After defeating the Second Persian invasion of Greece in the year 480 BC, Athens led the coalition of Greek city-states that continued the Greco-Persian Wars with attacks on Persian territories in the Aegean and Ionia. What ensued was a period which Thucydides called the Pentecontaetia , in which Athens increasingly became an empire, carrying out an aggressive war against Persia and increasingly dominating other city-states. Athens brought under its control all of Greece except for Sparta and its allies, ushering in
2331-529: The Thirty Tyrants , a reactionary regime set up by Sparta. In 403 BC, the oligarchs were overthrown and a democracy was restored by Thrasybulus . Although the hegemony of Athens was broken, the Attic city completed the recovery of its autonomy in the Corinthian War and continued to play an active role in Greek politics. Sparta was later defeated by Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC. A few decades later,
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#17328476513912442-464: The battle of Mantinea in 418 BC, won by Sparta against an ad-hoc alliance of Elis , Mantinea (both former Spartan allies), Argos , and Athens. The main event was the Sicilian Expedition , between 415 and 413 BC, during which Athens lost almost all its navy in the attempt to capture Syracuse , an ally of Sparta . The Sicilian disaster prompted the third phase of the war (413–404 BC), named
2553-602: The 17th year of the war, word came to Athens that one of their distant allies in Sicily was under attack from Syracuse, the main city of Sicily. The people of Syracuse were ethnically Dorian (as were the Spartans), while the Athenians, and their ally in Sicilia, were Ionian. The Athenians felt obliged to help their ally. They also held visions, rallied on by Alcibiades , who ultimately led an expedition, of conquering all of Sicily. Syracuse
2664-435: The Aegean, and Sparta's other allies were also slow to furnish troops or ships. The Ionian states that rebelled expected protection, and many rejoined the Athenian side. The Persians were slow to send promised funds and ships, frustrating battle plans. At the start of the war, the Athenians had prudently put aside some money and 100 ships that were to be used only as a last resort. These ships were then released, and served as
2775-612: The Athenian Empire and replace it with Spartan hegemony. Little is known of Lysander's early life. His year of birth is estimated at 454 BC. Some ancient authors record that his mother was a helot or slave. Lysander's father was Aristocritus, who was a member of the Spartan Heracleidae ; that is, he claimed descent from Heracles but was not a member of a royal family. According to Plutarch , Lysander grew up in poverty and showed himself obedient, conformed to norms, and had
2886-445: The Athenian cause. But instead of attacking, Nicias procrastinated and the campaigning season of 415 BC ended with Syracuse scarcely damaged. With winter approaching, the Athenians withdrew into their quarters and spent the winter gathering allies. The delay allowed Syracuse to request help from Sparta, who sent their general Gylippus to Sicily with reinforcements. Upon arriving, he raised a force from several Sicilian cities, and went to
2997-479: The Athenian fleet, in 405 BC, at the Battle of Aegospotami , destroying 168 ships. Only 12 Athenian ships escaped, and several of these sailed to Cyprus , carrying the strategos (general) Conon , who was anxious not to face the judgment of the Assembly . Facing starvation and disease from the prolonged siege , Athens surrendered in 404 BC, and its allies soon surrendered as well. The democrats at Samos , loyal to
3108-449: The Athenian population died. Athenian manpower was correspondingly drastically reduced and even foreign mercenaries refused to hire themselves out to a city riddled with plague. The fear of plague was so widespread that the Spartan invasion of Attica was abandoned, their troops being unwilling to risk contact with the diseased enemy. After the death of Pericles, the Athenians turned somewhat against his conservative, defensive strategy and to
3219-473: The Athenians had broken the peace, essentially declaring war. The first years of the Peloponnesian war are known as the Archidamian War (431–421 BC), after Sparta's king Archidamus II . Sparta and its allies, except for Corinth, were almost exclusively land-based, and able to summon large armies which were nearly unbeatable (thanks to the legendary Spartan forces ). The Athenian Empire, although based in
3330-412: The Athenians had to withdraw. However, Lysander ceased to be the Spartan navarch after this victory and, in accordance with the Spartan law, was replaced by Callicratidas . Callicratidas' ability to continue the war at sea was neatly sabotaged when Lysander returned all the donated funds to Cyrus when he left office. After Callicratidas was defeated and killed at the Battle of Arginusae , Cyrus and
3441-481: The Athenians had violated the treaty. Sparta declared war, the Thirty Years' Peace was void and the Second Peloponnesian War began. The Thirty Years' Peace was first tested in 440 BC, when Athens's powerful ally, Samos , rebelled from its alliance with Athens. The rebels quickly secured the support of a Persian satrap , and Athens found itself faced with the prospect of revolts throughout its empire. If
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3552-820: The Athenians. However, the Spartans decided that Alcibiades must be removed and Lysander, with the help of Pharnabazus, arranged the assassination of Alcibiades. Lysander amassed a huge fortune from his victories against the Athenians and brought the riches home to Sparta. For centuries the possession of money was illegal in Lacedaemonia, but the newly minted navy required funds and Persia could not be trusted to maintain financial support. Roman historian Plutarch strongly condemns Lysander's introduction of money; despite being publicly held, he argues its mere presence corrupted rank-and-file Spartans who witnessed their government's newfound value for it. Corruption quickly followed; while general Gylippus ferried treasure home, he embezzled
3663-462: The Athenians; but instead of withdrawing, the Athenians sent another hundred ships and another 5,000 troops to Sicily. Under Gylippus, the Syracusans and their allies decisively defeated the Athenians on land; and Gylippus encouraged the Syracusans to build a navy, which defeated the Athenian fleet when they tried to withdraw. The Athenian army tried to withdraw overland to friendlier Sicilian cities, but
3774-455: The Corcyraean and the Peloponnesian fleets at once. If Athens accepted the Corcyraean request to join forces, it would be able to fight the Peloponnesian with the help of the Corcyraean fleet. The Corinthian counterargument was that although the treaty said that any unenrolled cities may join whichever side it likes, the clause was not meant for those who join one side with the intention of hurting
3885-680: The Decelean War, or the Ionian War, when the Persian Empire supported Sparta to recover the suzerainty of the Greek cities of Asia Minor , incorporated into the Delian League at the end of the Persian Wars . With Persian money, Sparta built a massive fleet under the leadership of Lysander, who won a streak of decisive victories in the Aegean Sea, notably at Aegospotamos , in 405 BC. Athens capitulated
3996-541: The Peloponnese. Athens stretched their military activities into Boeotia and Aetolia , quelled the Mytilenean revolt and began fortifying posts around the Peloponnese. One of these posts was near Pylos on a tiny island called Sphacteria , where the first war turned in Athens's favor. The post off Pylos exploited Sparta's dependence on the helots, slaves who worked the fields while its citizens trained to be soldiers. The Pylos post began attracting helot runaways. In addition,
4107-761: The Peloponnesian League would respect each other's autonomy and internal affairs. A further provocation was Athens in 433/2 BC imposing trade sanctions on Megarian citizens (once more a Spartan ally after the First Peloponnesian War). It was alleged that the Megarians had desecrated the Hiera Orgas . These sanctions, known as the Megarian decree , were largely ignored by Thucydides , but some modern economic historians have noted that forbidding Megara to trade with
4218-537: The Peloponnesian War marked the dramatic end to the fifth century BC and the golden age of Greece . The main historical source for most of the war is the detailed account in The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides . He states that he began writing his history as soon as the war broke out and took his information from first-hand accounts, including events he witnessed himself. An Athenian who fought in
4329-491: The Persian King Artaxerxes II. Lysander was arguably hoping to receive command of the Spartan forces not joining the campaign. However, Agesilaus had become resentful of Lysander's power and influence. So Agesilaus frustrated the plans of his former mentor and left Lysander in command of the troops in the Hellespont, far from Sparta and mainland Greece. Back in Sparta by 395 BC, Lysander was instrumental in starting
4440-401: The Persian troops. There, Cyrus allied with the Spartan general Lysander . In him, Cyrus found a man willing to help him become king, just as Lysander himself hoped to become absolute ruler of Greece by the aid of the Persian prince. Thus, Cyrus put all his means at the disposal of Lysander in the Peloponnesian War. When Cyrus was recalled to Susa by his dying father Darius , he gave Lysander
4551-573: The Sicilian Expedition, Lacedaemon encouraged the revolt of Athens's tributary allies, and indeed, much of Ionia rose in revolt. The Syracusans sent their fleet to the Peloponnesians, and the Persians decided to support the Spartans with money and ships. Revolt and faction threatened in Athens itself. The Athenians managed to survive for several reasons. First, their foes lacked initiative. Corinth and Syracuse were slow to bring their fleets into
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4662-459: The Spartan assembly. This debate was also attended by an uninvited delegation from Athens, which also asked to speak, and became the scene of a debate between the Athenians and the Corinthians. Thucydides reports that the Corinthians condemned Sparta's inactivity until then, warning Sparta that if it remained passive, it would soon be outflanked and without allies. In response, the Athenians reminded
4773-420: The Spartan elite forces to defeat them. The result was a complete victory for the Spartans, which rescued their city from the brink of strategic defeat. The democratic alliance was broken up, and most of its members were reincorporated into the Peloponnesian League. With its victory at Mantinea, Sparta pulled itself back from the brink of utter defeat, and re-established its hegemony throughout the Peloponnese. In
4884-407: The Spartan fleet. Despite their victory, these failures caused outrage in Athens and led to a controversial trial . The trial resulted in the execution of six of Athens's top naval commanders. Athens's naval supremacy would now be challenged without several of its most able military leaders and a demoralized navy. Unlike some of his predecessors, the new Spartan general, Lysander, was not a member of
4995-400: The Spartan kingships collective and that the Spartan king should not automatically be given the leadership of the army. There is argument amongst historians as to whether this was an invention to discredit Lysander after his death. However, in the view of Nigel Kennell, the plot fits with what we know of Lysander. Lysander is one of the main protagonists of the history of Greece by Xenophon,
5106-570: The Spartan royal families and was also formidable in naval strategy; he was an artful diplomat, who had even cultivated good personal relationships with the Achaemenid prince Cyrus the Younger , son of Emperor Darius II . Seizing its opportunity, the Spartan fleet sailed at once to the Dardanelles , the source of Athens's grain . Threatened with starvation, the Athenian fleet had no choice but to follow. Through cunning strategy, Lysander totally defeated
5217-417: The Spartans intervened at that moment, they would be able to crush the Athenians, who were in a vulnerable situation, but when the Spartans called a convention to discuss whether or not they should go to war, it decided not to go to war. The Corinthians were notable for opposing the war with the Athenians. The war between Corcyra and Corinth caused trouble in the peace and was one of the immediate causes of
5328-462: The Spartans of Athens's record of military success and opposition to Persia, warned them of confronting such a powerful state, and encouraged Sparta to seek arbitration as provided by the Thirty Years' Peace. The Spartan king Archidamus II spoke against the war, but the opinion of the hawkish ephor Sthenelaidas prevailed in the Spartan ecclesia . A majority of the Spartan assembly voted to declare that
5439-571: The Younger in his unsuccessful rebellion against his older brother, Artaxerxes II of Persia . Hoping to restore the juntas of oligarchic partisans that he had put in place after the defeat of the Athenians in 404 BC, Lysander arranged for Agesilaus II, the Eurypontid Spartan king, to take command of the Greeks against Persia in 396 BC. The Spartans had been called on by the Ionians to assist them against
5550-483: The ancient Greek world. Athens, the strongest city-state in Greece prior to the war, was reduced to a state of near-complete subjection, while Sparta became established as the leading power of Greece. The economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece, poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens was devastated and never regained its pre-war prosperity. The war also wrought subtler changes to Greek society,
5661-481: The battle, the Athenians obliterated the Spartan fleet, and succeeded in re-establishing the financial basis of the Athenian Empire. Between 410 and 406, Athens won a continuous string of victories, and eventually recovered large portions of its empire. All of this was due, in no small part, to Alcibiades. From 414 BC, Darius II , ruler of the Achaemenid Empire had started to resent increasing Athenian power in
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#17328476513915772-458: The bitter last, held on slightly longer, and were allowed to flee with their lives. The surrender stripped Athens of its walls, its fleet, and all of its overseas possessions. Corinth and Thebes demanded that Athens should be destroyed and all its citizens should be enslaved. However, the Spartans announced their refusal to destroy a city that had done a good service at a time of greatest danger to Greece, and took Athens into their own system. Athens
5883-567: The city to play music as the deed was carried out. He also oversaw a meeting of the Athenian assembly which effectively abolished Athens's democracy and replaced it with a governing board of thirty oligarchs (the Thirty Tyrants ). After storming and seizing Samos, Lysander returned to Sparta. Alcibiades, the former Athenian leader, emerged after the Spartan victory at Aegospotami and took refuge in Phrygia , northwestern Asia Minor with Pharnabazus , its Persian satrap . He sought Persian assistance for
5994-497: The conditions for peace, which was finally concluded in spring 404 BC. Lysander received the surrender of the last of Athens's allies, Samos , in the summer of 404 BC, after which he went in person to Athens in response to an appeal by Athenian oligarchs. On the anniversary of the Battle of Salamis , Lysander sailed into the Piraeus , ordered the razing of Athens's city walls and the burning of its fleet, and sent for female flautists from
6105-471: The conflict between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, each of which supported friendly political factions within other states, made war a common occurrence in the Greek world. Ancient Greek warfare , originally a limited and formalized form of conflict, was transformed into an all-out struggle between city-states , complete with mass atrocities. Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of countryside, and destroying whole cities,
6216-463: The conquest of all of Italy and Carthage , and to use the resources and soldiers from these new conquests to conquer the Peloponnese. The Athenian force consisted of over 100 ships and some 5,000 infantry and light-armored troops. Cavalry was limited to about 30 horses, which proved to be no match for the large and highly trained Syracusan cavalry. Upon landing in Sicily, several cities immediately joined
6327-402: The core of the Athenians' fleet throughout the rest of the war. An oligarchical revolution occurred in Athens, in which a group of 400 seized power. Peace with Sparta might have been possible, but the Athenian fleet, now based on the island of Samos , refused the change. In 411 BC, this fleet engaged the Spartans at the Battle of Syme . The fleet appointed Alcibiades their leader, and continued
6438-470: The early part of the war, Thucydides was exiled in 423 BC and settled in the Peloponnese, where he spent the rest of the war collecting sources and writing his history. Scholars regard Thucydides as reliable and neutral between the two sides. A partial exception are the lengthy speeches he reports, which Thucydides admits are not accurate records of what was said, but his interpretation of the general arguments presented. The narrative begins several years before
6549-626: The end of the Thirty Years Peace and the beginning of the Peloponnesian War. The quarrel was over a small distant land, Epidamnus . Corcyra went to Athens to ask for help. Their argument was that there were three fleets worthy of mention in Greece: the Athenian fleet, the Corcyraean fleet, and the Corinthian fleet. If the Corinthians were to get control of the Corcyraean fleet first, Athens would see two of them become one, and it will have to fight against
6660-491: The enemy crews. Eventually, however, one of the Athenian officers, despite orders to stay put, was drawn into a fight with an advance party of Peloponnesian ships. Lysander gave a timely order for his entire fleet to advance, and drove off the intruder before they had properly deployed for battle, inflicting modest losses. Alcibiades, who had been away on urgent business, returned upon hearing of this setback and again offered battle off Ephesus, but Lysander once more refused, and
6771-489: The event of Athens' defeat. In doing so, Lysander created in effect a network of clients who were loyal to him personally and contributed to Sparta's war effort with increased eagerness. As Lysander was fitting out his vessels at Ephesus, an Athenian fleet roughly the size of his own, led by the famous Alcibiades , set up anchor at the nearby port of Notium . At first, the Spartan was content to refuse battle and let his higher wages, funded by Cyrus, encourage desertions among
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#17328476513916882-401: The expedition without being tried (many believed in order to better plot against him). After arriving in Sicily, Alcibiades was recalled to Athens for trial. Fearing that he would be unjustly condemned, Alcibiades defected to Sparta and Nicias was placed in charge of the mission. After his defection, Alcibiades claimed to the Spartans that the Athenians planned to use Sicily as a springboard for
6993-471: The fear of a revolt of helots emboldened by the nearby Athenians drove the Spartans to attack the post. Demosthenes outmaneuvered the Spartans in the Battle of Pylos in 425 BC and trapped a group of Spartan soldiers on Sphacteria as he waited for them to surrender. But weeks later he proved unable to finish them off. Instead, the inexperienced Cleon boasted in the Assembly that he could end the affair, and did win
7104-401: The fleet. The Athenian fleet, the dominant Greek naval force, went on the offensive, winning at Naupactus . In 430 BC, an outbreak of a plague hit Athens. The plague ravaged the densely packed city, and in the long run, was a significant cause of its final defeat. The plague wiped out over 30,000 citizens, sailors and soldiers, including Pericles and his sons. Roughly one-third to two-thirds of
7215-408: The following year and lost all its empire. Lysander imposed puppet oligarchies on the former members of the Delian League, including Athens, where the regime was known as the Thirty Tyrants . The Peloponnesian War was followed ten years later by the Corinthian War (394–386 BC), which, although it ended inconclusively, helped Athens regain its independence from Sparta. The Peloponnesian War changed
7326-577: The full hoplite army of the Peloponnesian League , the alliance network dominated by Sparta (then known as Lacedaemon). The Long Walls of Athens rendered this strategy ineffective, while the superior navy of the Delian League (Athens' alliance) raided the Peloponnesian coast to trigger rebellions within Sparta. The precarious Peace of Nicias was signed in 421 BC and lasted until 413 BC. Several proxy battles took place during this period, notably
7437-403: The future. Outraged, the Corinthians encouraged Potidaea to revolt and assured them that they would ally with them should they revolt from Athens. During the subsequent Battle of Potidaea , the Corinthians unofficially aided Potidaea by sneaking contingents of men into the besieged city to help defend it. This directly violated the Thirty Years' Peace, which stipulated that the Delian League and
7548-416: The harvest. Moreover, Spartan slaves, known as helots, needed to be kept under control, and could not be left unsupervised for long. The longest Spartan invasion, in 430 BC, lasted just 40 days. The Athenian strategy was initially guided by the strategos , or general, Pericles , who advised the Athenians to avoid open battle with the far more numerous and better trained Spartan hoplites, relying instead on
7659-466: The hostages for the towns captured by Brasidas, and signed a truce. With the death of Cleon and Brasidas , both zealous war hawks for their nations, the Peace of Nicias was able to last six years. However, it was a time of constant skirmishes in and around the Peloponnese. While the Spartans refrained from action themselves, some of their allies began to talk of revolt. They were supported in this by Argos ,
7770-558: The later intervention of the Persian Empire in support of Sparta. Led by Lysander , the Spartan fleet (built with Persian subsidies) finally defeated Athens which began a period of Spartan hegemony over Greece. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases. The first phase (431–421 BC) was named the Ten Years War, or the Archidamian War, after the Spartan king Archidamus II , who invaded Attica several times with
7881-615: The length of Greece to the Athenian colony of Amphipolis in Thrace. Amphipolis controlled several nearby silver mines whose that supplied much of the Athenian war fund. A force led by Thucydides was dispatched but arrived too late to stop Brasidas capturing Amphipolis; Thucydides was exiled for this, and, as a result, had conversations with both sides of the war which inspired him to record its history. Both Brasidas and Cleon were killed in Athenian efforts to retake Amphipolis (see Battle of Amphipolis ). The Spartans and Athenians agreed to exchange
7992-458: The long-running Peloponnesian War against Athens. From Gythium on the eastern shore of the Peloponnese , Lysander set out with 30 triremes. He sailed to Rhodes , where he collected some more ships, and made his way to Cos , Miletus , Chios , gathering ships, until he finally arrived at Ephesus , which he turned into the Peloponnesian League's main naval base for the Aegean . His arrival
8103-458: The middle of the century, massive public works in Athens, causing resentment. Friction between Athens and the Peloponnesian states, including Sparta, began early in the Pentecontaetia. In the wake of the departure of the Persians from Greece, Sparta sent ambassadors to persuade Athens not to reconstruct their walls, but was rebuffed. Without the walls, Athens would have been defenseless against
8214-446: The mighty Athenian fleet. The Lacedaemonians were not content with simply sending aid to Sicily; they also resolved to take the war to the Athenians. On the advice of Alcibiades, they fortified Decelea , near Athens, and prevented the Athenians from making use of their land year round. The fortification of Decelea prevented overland supplies to Athens, and forced all supplies to be brought in by sea at greater expense. More significantly,
8325-410: The more aggressive strategy of bringing the war to Sparta and its allies. Rising to particular importance in Athenian democracy at this time was Cleon , a leader of the hawkish elements of the Athenian democracy. Led militarily by a clever new general Demosthenes (not to be confused with the later Athenian orator Demosthenes ), the Athenians managed some successes as they continued their naval raids on
8436-508: The nearby silver mines were totally disrupted, with as many as 20,000 Athenian slaves freed by the Spartan hoplites at Decelea. With the treasury and emergency reserve of 1,000 talents dwindling, the Athenians were forced to demand even more tribute from her subject allies, further increasing tensions and the threat of rebellion within the Empire. Corinth, Sparta, and others in the Peloponnesian League sent more reinforcements to Syracuse, to drive off
8547-477: The oligarchic clubs which Lysander had sponsored all sent embassies to Sparta requesting the former admiral's return to command. The Spartan government consented, a sign of confidence in his ability and an endorsement of his policy of supporting oligarchies in the Greek cities. As Spartan law did not allow an admiral to hold office twice, Lysander was instead appointed the secretary ( epistoleus ) or second-in-command to Callicratidas's eventual successor, Aracus , with
8658-596: The other under Pausanias of Sparta , to rendezvous at and attack the city of Haliartus in Boeotia . Lysander arrived before Pausanias and persuaded the city of Orchomenus to revolt from the Boeotian League . He then advanced to Haliartus with his troops. In the Battle of Haliartus , Lysander was killed after bringing his forces too near to the walls of the city. Following Lysander's death, Agesilaus II "discovered" an abortive scheme by Lysander to increase his power by making
8769-415: The other. The Athenian decision was to enter an alliance that was only defensive ( epimachia ), instead of a both offensive and defensive was unusual ( symmachia ) and is the first such relationship that is known. The decision led to war with the Corinthians. The Battle of Sybota was one of the battles that spurred out of the conflict. The Athenians were forced to fight the Corinthians, which further hurt
8880-514: The peace treaty. Peloponnesian War The Second Peloponnesian War (431–404 BC), often called simply the Peloponnesian War ( Ancient Greek : Πόλεμος τῶν Πελοποννησίων , romanized : Pólemos tō̃n Peloponnēsíōn ), was an ancient Greek war fought between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies for the hegemony of the Greek world . The war remained undecided until
8991-458: The peninsula of Attica, spread out across the islands of the Aegean Sea; Athens drew its immense wealth from tribute paid by these islands. Athens maintained its empire through naval power. Thus, the two powers were relatively unable to fight decisive battles. The Spartan strategy during the Archidamian War was to invade the land around Athens. While this invasion deprived Athenians of the productive land around their city, Athens maintained access to
9102-482: The prosperous Athenian empire would have been disastrous for the Megarans, and so have considered the sanctions a contributing causing of the war. Historians who attribute responsibility for the war to Athens cite this event as the main cause. At the request of Corinth, the Spartans summoned members of the Peloponnesian League to Sparta in 432 BC, especially those who had grievances with Athens, to make their complaints to
9213-484: The relief of Syracuse. He took command of the Syracusan troops, and in a series of battles defeated the Athenian forces, and prevented them from invading the city. Nicias then sent word to Athens asking for reinforcements. Demosthenes was chosen and led another fleet to Sicily, joining his forces with those of Nicias. More battles ensued and again, the Syracusans and their allies defeated the Athenians. Demosthenes argued for
9324-422: The revenues from all of his cities of Asia Minor. Cyrus the Younger would later obtain the support of the Spartans in return, after having asked them "to show themselves as good friend to him, as he had been to them during their war against Athens", when he led his own expedition to Susa in 401 BC in order to topple his brother, Artaxerxes II . The faction hostile to Alcibiades triumphed in Athens following
9435-429: The rivalry between Athens and Sparta ended when Macedonia became the most powerful entity in Greece and Philip II of Macedon unified all of the Greek world except Sparta, which was later subjugated by Philip's son Alexander in 331 BC. Lysander Corinthian War Lysander ( / l aɪ ˈ s æ n d ər , ˈ l aɪ ˌ s æ n d ər / ; Ancient Greek : Λύσανδρος Lysandros ; c. 454 BC – 395 BC)
9546-498: The sea, and did not suffer much. Many of the citizens of Attica abandoned their farms and moved inside the Long Walls , which connected Athens to its port of Piraeus . At the end of the first year of the war, Pericles gave his famous Funeral Oration (431 BC). The Spartans also occupied Attica for periods of only three weeks at a time; in the tradition of earlier hoplite warfare, the soldiers were expected to go home to participate in
9657-601: The situation before the war as: "The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon , made war inevitable". The nearly 50 years before the War had been marked by the development of Athens as a major power in the Mediterranean world. Its empire began as a small group of city-states, called the Delian League – from the island of Delos , on which they kept their treasury – that formed to ensure that
9768-523: The sources, were the massacre and enslavement of the population of Iasus and Cedreae , allies of Athens. He continued toward the Hellespont to threaten the route of grain transports to Athens from the Black Sea , forcing the Athenians to send their fleet, 180 ships, in pursuit. Lysander set up anchor at Lampsacus and plundered it, while the Athenians took up a position at Aegospotami in the opposing shore of
9879-402: The straits. For several days Lysander refused battle, studying the opponent's moves, until, during a moment of enemy carelessness, he surprised the Athenians and captured most of their vessels as they were still ashore and unmanned. The entire Athenian fleet was gone, and Sparta had finally won the Peloponnesian War. Now in full command of the seas, Lysander began touring the Aegean to receive
9990-611: The strategic city of Naupaktos on the Gulf of Corinth . In 459 BC, there was a war between Spartan allies Megara and Corinth , which were neighbors of Athens. Athens took advantage of the war to make an alliance with Megara, giving Athens a critical foothold on the Isthmus of Corinth . A 15-year conflict, commonly known as the First Peloponnesian War , ensued, in which Athens fought intermittently against Sparta, Corinth, Aegina , and
10101-407: The summer of 416 BC, during a truce with Sparta, Athens invaded the neutral island of Melos , and demanded that Melos ally with them against Sparta, or be destroyed. The Melians rejected this, so the Athenian army laid siege to their city and eventually captured it in the winter. After the city's fall, the Athenians executed all the adult men, and sold the women and children into slavery . In
10212-503: The summer, Lysander's principal benefactor, Cyrus, was summoned to the deathbed of his father, the King, and, before departing, took the extraordinary step of entrusting the Spartan with his entire treasury and with the revenues from the Persian-ruled cities under his administration. Lysander finally set sail with some 125–150 ships, and among his early actions, which are variously reported by
10323-486: The support of a small Athenian force under Alcibiades , moved to seize the city of Tegea , near Sparta. The Battle of Mantinea was the largest land battle within Greece during the Peloponnesian War. The Lacedaemonians, with their neighbors the Tegeans, faced the combined armies of Argos, Athens, Mantinea, and Arcadia . In the battle, the allied coalition scored early successes, but failed to capitalize on them, which allowed
10434-498: The surrender of enemy strongholds, ordering all captured Athenian garrisons and cleruchs (colonists) home in order to overcrowd the city and hasten its surrender through famine. In many Greek cities, he installed ten-man governing boards (decarchies) whose members were selected from the oligarchic clubs he had sponsored earlier, supported and supervised by a Spartan harmost (military governor). Democrats and other opponents of his narrow oligarchies were often massacred or banished. In
10545-474: The topics of the war's conclusion and aftermath. Born in Athens, Xenophon spent his military career as a mercenary , fighting in the Persian Empire and for Sparta in Asia Minor , Thrace and Greece. Exiled from Athens for these actions, he retired to live in Sparta, where he wrote Hellenica around 40 years after the war had ended. His account is generally considered favourable to Sparta. A briefer account of
10656-466: The truce by participating in the dispute over Epidamnus and Corcyra in 435 BC, which angered the Corinthians, who were allies of Sparta. Athens put into effect trade sanctions against the Spartan ally Megara for participating in the Corinthian-Corcyran dispute. In 432, Athens attacked Potidaea , which was a listed ally but a Corinthian colony. The disputes prompted the Spartans to declare that
10767-530: The understanding that the latter would allow Lysander to take the lead. Making his base at Ephesus again, the Spartan began gathering and rebuilding the remnants of the Peloponnesian fleet in the Aegean , once again with the full cooperation of his Greek allies and Cyrus. In the meantime, Lysander visited Miletus , an ally of Sparta, and deceitfully massacred some leading democrats during the festival of Dionysus in early 405 BC to place his own adherents in power; replacing Miletus' democracy with an Oligarchy . In
10878-659: The walls of Amphipolis and grave of Brasidas , excavated in the 20th century. Some buildings and artworks produced during the war have survived, such as the Erechtheion temple and Grave Stele of Hegeso , both in Athens; these provide no information on military activity but do reflect civilian life during the war. Several plays by the Athenian Aristophanes were written and set during the war (particularly Peace and Lysistrata ), but these are works of comedic fiction with little historical value. Thucydides summarised
10989-434: The war ( Pericles , Nicias , Alcibiades and Lysander ) in his Parallel Lives . Plutarch's focus was on the character and morality of these men, but he does provide some details on the progress of the war that are not recorded elsewhere. Written in the first century AD, Plutarch based his work on earlier accounts which are now lost. More limited information on the war is derived from epigraphy and archaeology , such as
11100-413: The war in Athens's name. Their opposition led to the reinstitution of a democratic government in Athens within two years. Alcibiades, while condemned as a traitor, still carried weight in Athens. He prevented the Athenian fleet from attacking Athens; instead, he helped restore democracy by more subtle pressure. He also persuaded the Athenian fleet to attack the Spartans at the battle of Cyzicus in 410. In
11211-403: The war, explaining why it began, then reports events year-by-year. The main limitation of Thucydides' work is that it is incomplete: the text ends abruptly in 411 BC, seven years before the conclusion of the war. The account was continued by Xenophon , a younger contemporary, in the first book of his Hellenica . This directly follows Thucydides' final sentence and provides a similar record, on
11322-469: The whole war is provided by the Sicilian historian Diodorus Siculus in books 12 and 13 of his Bibliotheca historica . Written in the first century BC, these books appear to be based heavily (possibly entirely) upon an earlier universal history by Ephorus , written in the century after the war, which is now lost . The Roman-Greek historian Plutarch wrote biographies of four of the major commanders in
11433-405: The winter of 446/5 BC. The Thirty Years' Peace was first tested in 440 BC, when Athens's powerful ally Samos rebelled from its alliance with Athens . The rebels quickly secured the support of a Persian satrap , and Athens faced the prospect of revolts throughout its empire. The Spartans, whose intervention would have been the trigger for a massive war to determine the fate of the empire, called
11544-410: Was "to have the same friends and enemies" as Sparta. The overall effect of the war in Greece proper was to replace the Athenian Empire with a Spartan empire. After the battle of Aegospotami , Sparta took over the Athenian empire and kept all its tribute revenues for itself; Sparta's allies, who had made greater sacrifices in the war than had Sparta, got nothing. For a short time, Athens was ruled by
11655-457: Was a Spartan military and political leader. He destroyed the Athenian fleet at the Battle of Aegospotami in 405 BC, forcing Athens to capitulate and bringing the Peloponnesian War to an end. He then played a key role in Sparta's domination of Greece for the next decade until his death at the Battle of Haliartus . Lysander's vision for Sparta differed from most Spartans; he wanted to overthrow
11766-412: Was a formalized list of allies for each side. Athens and Sparta would keep all other territories pending arbitration. It also recognised both Leagues as legitimate, a boost for Athens and its newly-formed empire in the Aegean. The Thirty Years' Peace, however, lasted only fifteen years and ended after the Spartans had declared war on the Athenians. During the peace, the Athenians took steps in undermining
11877-403: Was dismissed by the Spartans, while those of all the other allies were permitted to remain. According to Thucydides, the Spartans did this out of fear that the Athenians would switch sides and support the helots; the offended Athenians repudiated their alliance with Sparta. When the rebellious helots were finally forced to surrender and permitted to evacuate the state, the Athenians settled them at
11988-410: Was divided and defeated. The entire Athenian fleet was destroyed, and virtually the entire Athenian army was sold into slavery. Following the defeat of the Athenians in Sicily, it was widely believed that the end of the Athenian Empire was at hand. Their treasury was nearly empty, its docks were depleted, and many of the Athenian youth were dead or imprisoned in a foreign land. After the destruction of
12099-416: Was enough to dissuade the Corinthians from exploiting their victory, thus sparing much of the routed Corcyrean and Athenian fleet. Following this, Athens instructed Potidaea in the peninsula of Chalkidiki , a tributary ally of Athens but a colony of Corinth, to tear down its walls, send hostages to Athens, dismiss the Corinthian magistrates from office, and refuse the magistrates that Corinth would send in
12210-428: Was not much smaller than Athens, and conquering all of Sicily would bring Athens immense resources. In the final preparations for departure, the hermai (religious statues) of Athens were mutilated by unknown persons, and Alcibiades was charged with religious crimes. Alcibiades demanded that he be put on trial at once, so that he could defend himself before the expedition. However, the Athenians allowed Alcibiades to go on
12321-427: Was shortly followed by that of Cyrus , young son of the Persian king Darius , who had been appointed by his father as governor of the provinces of Asia Minor in response to an earlier Spartan embassy requesting increased aid in the war against Athens. Lysander promptly went to meet Cyrus at his headquarters in nearby Sardis , and with calculated deference made a deep impression on the young prince, developing with him
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