The Peloponnesian War is one of the most famous conflicts of antiquity. From 431 to 404 BC. J.-C., it opposed Athens and the league of Delos on the one hand, Sparta, the league of Peloponnese and its allies on the other hand. Beyond a struggle for hegemony, this conflict expressed a fundamental opposition between the Athenian democratic ideal and the Spartan aristocratic ideal. It begins in -431 when Athens is the dominant power within the Hellenic world, dominating naval trade thanks to its formidable war fleet. It must however capitulate on April 22 -404 BC after a long siege. The Peloponnesian War ends with Sparta's short-lived victory, but leaves Greece ravaged and the Greek city-states deeply divided.
The hegemony of Athens challenged by Sparta
In the middle of the 5th century BC, the Athenian power is reflected in particular by its domination over the League of Delos, originally a military alliance forged between Greek cities against the Persians. The imperialism of the Athenian thalassocracy is opposed by the land Power of Sparta, which has its own alliance, the Peloponnese League. After a kind of Cold War, where the two rival cities confront each other through interposed client states, the conflict erupts when Sparta invades Attica following the Corinthian affair.
Sparta's hostility to Athenian hegemony began with the founding of the League of Delos, following the victory of the Greeks against the Persians (see Medics, wars) in 478 BC. AD Refusing to join this league, Sparta rallied other refractory cities such as Thebes and part of Boeotia. The Spartans denounced Athenian imperialism; their society, which was based on an oligarchic regime, refused the "school of Greece" that Athens claimed to be. Inside Athens itself, the partisans of an alliance with Sparta were counted in the ranks of the aristocratic party led by Cimon and Thucydides (homonym of the historian).
The Peloponnesian War and the fall of Athens
It was the beginning of a war of almost 30 years, where naval or land battles alternated, truces and dramatic changes. These years will see in particular a terrible epidemic hitting Athens, the very one that will take the famous Pericles to death. The political instability of the city of Athens combined with its growing unpopularity with its allies will end up giving a certain advantage to Sparta. The latter, financially aided by Persia, will succeed in crushing the Athenian fleet and cutting off the city of Attica from its sources of wheat supply.
Despite a major naval victory at the Arginuse Islands (406 BC), the Athenians, abandoned by all their allies, had to capitulate after a siege of several months. In 404 BC. BC, the Spartans imposed on the city of Athens an oligarchic constitution and dismantled the “Long Walls” which had long symbolized its hegemony. Peace will force Athens to dissolve the League of Delos and to deliver its fleet with the exception of a few ships, marking for a few years the precarious triumph of Sparte .
History was perhaps born of this drama from the pen of Thucydides, an unfortunate actor and exceptional witness. In this long conflict, Sparta as much as Athens had exhausted their forces and the 4th century was that of the emergence of a new power, a monarchy nevertheless heir to this Hellenism of the cities symbolized by Athens:the Macedonia of Philip II and 'Alexander the Great.
Bibliography
- The Peloponnesian War, by Thucydides. Folio, 2000.
- The Peloponnesian War, by Victor Davis Hanson. Fields History, 2010.