Category: Peloponnesian Wars

Ancient Greece — known for its sophisticated sculpture, architecture, and famous philosophers — is full of history. Moreover, Ancient Greek history is full of culture, amazing architecture, famous philosophers, and most importantly, war. The History of The Peloponnesian War, written by Thucydides, is known to be a historical account of the Peloponnesian War which centers around the fifth-century BC war between two cities—Sparta and Athens. Thucydides was an Athenian historian as well as an Athenian general during the war. The Peloponnesian War began shortly after the Persian Wars ended around 500 BCE. The two cities struggled to agree on numerous subjects regarding their “respective spheres of influence” so the disagreement led to tension—ultimately causing war. Within this essay, readers will learn answers to a series of questions such as “How do Perikles and Alcibiades each make a case for Athens to enter into military conquests”, “How do Athens and the Athenians in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War resemble the Persians in Aeschylus’ Persians?”, and “How is Klytemnestra portrayed as a tyrant in Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Furies, in light of her gender and of ideas about tyrants and autocracy?”. After reading the essay, readers will understand the wholly of dynamic between war, gender, and Ancient Greece!

For the first question: “how do Perikles and Alcibiades each make a case for Athens to enter into military conquests?”, we will focus on Perikles and Alcibiades’ methods of how they made Athens enter the military conquests. In 430 BCE, Athens was struck by a disaster—a deadly tragedy (the plague). The plague spread all throughout the city of Athens and Athenians were racked with fevers and diseases which eventually killed them. This is how Perikles decided to convince Athens to enter the military conquests.

As mentioned earlier, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, focuses on the war between two city-states—Sparta and Athens. The Athens and the Athenians in the History of the Peloponnesian War resemble the Persians in Aeschylus’ Persians in countless ways. Before analyzing the similarities between the two, I’d first like to introduce Aeschylus’ Persians. The Persians is a tragedy written by the Greek playwright Aeschylus. It was first produced in 472 BCE and has been considered the oldest surviving play in the history of theatre. The piece revolves around the “Persian response to the news of their military defeat under Xerxes at the Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE”. I will be focusing on the similarities between Xerxes and Perikles. Perikles was an Athenian statesman who helped the Athenian empire and democracy flourish due to his great leadership. Perikles and Xerxes are names that no one in history will ever forget. Xerxes will most definitely be remembered throughout history for his high ambitions and goals while Perikles will always be remembered for his realistic ideas for Athens and his ideas toward democracy. Though Perikles and Xerxes’ leadership skills differed in one way or another, both leaders were definitely influential during their time shown through their diplomacy, conquest, and their handling of internal affairs. Both Perikles and Xerxes were vital and powerful leaders during their time. An aspect of leadership includes traits of diplomacy and negotiating. While both leaders had different methods of diplomacy and negotiation, they were still very similar in how well they executed them. Xerxes, an emperor who had a gigantic army was able to get what he wanted by using his military. Xerxes would send messages to his army and instead of being calm and negotiable, he usually was condescending and brutal. He threatened his enemies instead of negotiating. An example of Xerxes’ threatening personality is portrayed during the battle of Thermopylae when Xerxes sends a message to the Leonidas (Spartan King) saying “My armies will shoot so many arrows the sun will be blocked out”. This is one example that illustrates the levels of diplomacy Xerxes went by—he was obviously intimidating when he talked to his enemies which is why he got what he wanted at the end of the day. Perikles was also known to be a master diplomat, in a very calm and non-threatening way. For instance, he made sure to listen to others and made sure not go against the system. He was known to keep the peace between Greece and was exactly the opposite of Xerxes. Although both differed in terms of personality, they were both great leaders—achieving everything they wanted.

In this century, gender equality is definitely considered extremely vital. However, back in Ancient Greek times, it was impossible for a woman to rule/participate in anything political. One exception includes Klytemnestra who can be seen as a tyrannicide in Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, and Furies. In Greek mythology, Klytemnestra was the wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae. Klytemnestra is set on killing her husband “partly to avenge the death of her daughter Iphigenia”. When Klytemnestra murders her husband, becomes the ruler of Argos. Klytemnestra becomes known as a woman with strong willpower and an extreme thirst for power. She clearly doesn’t care about her husband as she goes on to kill him. She wants power and she wants it at its fullest; readers can conclude that Klytemnestra is a woman who doesn’t give up and a woman who isn’t scared to go against the rules in the book. In the Iphigenia in Aulis by Euripides Clytemnestra speaks to Agamemnon saying “ I never loved you! Tantalus you slew, my first dear husband; and my little soon, you tore him from my breast.” Women during the Ancient Greek time period would never go against the men of their household, but Klytemnestra proved otherwise.

All in all, readers learn answers to a series of questions such as “How do Perikles and Alcibiades each make a case for Athens to enter into military conquests”, “How do Athens and the Athenians in Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War resemble the Persians in Aeschylus’ Persians?”, and “How is Klytemnestra portrayed as a tyrant in Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Furies, in light of her gender and of ideas about tyrants and autocracy?”. All these questions revolve around topics such as war, gender, and democracy.

Fall of Athens: End of a Golden Age

The downfall of Athens marked the end of a golden age. The same unerring golden age that molded Athens into the imperial, powerful, and glorious Athens that many think of it as today. Much of Athens’ glory was earned through the unlikely defeat of a vast Persian army in the Persian war by badly outnumbered Greeks while much of its democratic and military strength was followed by the rule of Pericles, an Athenian statesman, orator, and general. The flourishing period in which he led Athens has been known as the Age of Pericles due to his influence, not only on Athens but on overall Greek history. The Age of Pericles lasted until his death and the beginning of the Peloponnesian War which can be marked as the very beginning of the city-state’s decline. The years of strength, glory, and peace were on the verge of a catastrophic decline that eventually led to the downfall. The End of this golden age was an outcome of multiple issues that Athens itself was a cause of as Athens’ dominance over Greece grew, the use of its power became more and more unfavorable. This unfavorable use of power was the stem of the political and social issues following it. The fall of Athens was imminent after these years of political, economic, and social decline that began with the revolt of the other city-states, continued with natural and economic disasters, and ended with the Peloponnesian War.

Political issues such as revolts against Athens’s Delian League were one of the early causes that led to the downfall of Athens. According to George Grote, “The Delian League was an alliance of Greek city-states led by Athens to liberate eastern Greek cities from Persian rule and as a defense to possible invasions and conquests from Persia” (Grote, 38). This alliance would slowly become so controlled by Athens that it later came to be known as the Athenian Empire. Athens became tyrannical in its control of the alliance. Athens did not approve of city-states leaving the alliance and began using the League’s funds for its own purposes. This lack of rights and say among the other city-states led to revolts. Athens responded to these revolts by military force and required tribute in various forms such as money, ships, and other materials. The city-states were not released from these requirements even after the cessation of hostilities. Despite these constant issues among the city-states not being a huge threat to the vast empire, they were enough to distract it from outside threats such as Spartans who were against the league; thus, these revolts were known as one of the early causes of the Athenian downfall.

Furthermore, as Pericles led Athens into the Peloponnesian War, economic and natural disasters arose and weakened the empire severely. As most men fought in wars and revolts, there were very few people making money and working which made it difficult for families economically as even after the men returned to their families, it would take time to stabilize themselves and their families. The deaths of these men would also result in their wives becoming economically unstable. This eventually resulted in an economic disaster that further weakened Athens. Further, in the war, a plague struck Athens. As Joshua Cole describes it in his book Western Civilizations: Their History & Their Culture, “The plague of Athens was a natural disaster and an epidemic that devastated the city-state of Athens during the Peloponnesian war when Athenian victory still seemed within reach” (Cole 52). It is believed to have entered Athens through Piraeus, the city’s port and sole source of food and supplies. He also describes the cause as he writes, “The plague killed approximately 1/3 of the population. The sight of the burning funeral pyres of Athens caused the Spartans to withdraw their troops, being unwilling to risk contact with the diseased enemy” (Cole, 52). This allowed Athens to recover from the damage, but it was still far from what it was before the Plague due to the immense decline in population, hence less manpower. After the death of Pericles, Athens was led by many weak and incompetent leaders. It was not until later that Athens had recovered fully and was prepared to mount an offense against Sparta. Athens might have survived the economic and natural disasters, but it had weakened significantly from when it had started, and it only made it more difficult for Athens to survive the war.

As Athens continued to struggle through the debilitating incidents that arose consecutively, it was the Peloponnesian war that marked an end to Athens. A twenty-seven year on and off a war between two of the most powerful city-states in Greece. Initially, both city-states signed a truce to prevent the war, but as Athens attacked one of Sparta’s allies, a war broke out. After years of sieges and battles against Sparta and the recovery from the plague of Athens, Athens began an expedition known as the Syracuse Expedition in which they hoped to cut out Sparta’s food supply in Sicily. Donald Kagan describes this expedition as a disaster as he writes, “This soon turned out to be a disaster as they were heavily defeated at the battle of Syracuse due to the Spartan reinforcements that helped the Sicilians surround and annihilate the Athenians” (Kagan, The Fall of Athenian Empire 3). This immense defeat permanently weakened Athens even further and this time around, there was not enough time to recover. Spartans were fed up and formed an alliance with the Persians that they once fought together with Athens. According to George, “They offered Persians the Ionian city-states that were allies of Athens in exchange for a navy” (George 88). The navy helped the Spartans overcome the Athenians and the walls that surrounded Athens that were soon destroyed and conquered. These factors of the Peloponnesian war that contributed to the Spartans overcoming the Athenians and leaving Athens no possible way of restoring its pre-war prosperity ended the Athenian Empire also known as the fall of Athens.

Regardless of it being the most powerful city-state of its era, it fell due to internal weakness such as revolts among the empire, and natural disasters such as the plague and the Peloponnesian war which not only weakened Athens but the whole of Greece as Sparta was also exhausted from the war and did not remain the center of Greece for long. In Donald Kagan’s book The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, he describes this exhaustion in detail as he writes:

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 ‘King’s Peace’ where Sparta ceded her empire to Persian control, but Sparta was left to dominate Greece. However, trying to crush Thebes, Sparta lost the crucial battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE against the brilliant Theban general Epaminondas. (Kagan, The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War 63)

Perhaps Persia was the winner of the war and Macedonia in the long term which under Philip II destroyed and conquered the weakened Greek city-states.

Works Cited

1. Cole, Joshua, and Carol Symes. Western Civilizations: Their History & Their Culture. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2017. Print.
2. Grote, George. A History of Greece. Murray, 2016. New York. Print.
3. Kagan, Donald. The Fall of the Athenian Empire. New York: Cornell University Press, 2013. Print.
4. Kagan, Donald. The Outbreak of the Peloponnesian War. New York: Cornell University Press, 2013. Print.

During the fifth century BC, battles raged on land and at sea in a protracted and bloody conflict between the two leading city-states of ancient Greece: Athens and Sparta. On one side was the supreme naval power of Athens and on the other the dominant Spartan army, with each heading an alliance that involved nearly every single Greek state. The Peloponnesian War of 431-404 BC would reshape the Hellenic world.

The pre-eminent account of the war was written by Thucydides, who, despite serving as a general in the Athenian army, is remembered as a forefather of impartial historical study. He began his masterly work, The History of the Peloponnesian War, in the first year of the conflict, 431 BC, “believing that it would be a great war and more worthy of relation than any that had preceded it”.

Although the war, and Thucydides’ work, came to be named after the peninsula of Greece where Sparta and some of its allies were located, the fighting was not confined to the Peloponnese. Battles also devastated the Aegean coastline, the island of Sicily and the Attica region.

Yes, Athens and Sparta had fought side by side against the Persian invasions of Greece by Darius and then his son Xerxes in the early fifth century BC. Allied Greeks defeated them first at Marathon and then at the battles of Salamis, Mycale and Plataea, crushing the invasions.

In the aftermath, in 478 BC, an alliance of Greek states called the Delian League was formed as protection against any future Persian attacks. Hundreds of states joined the Delian League, but it came to be so dominated by Athens that the Athenians effectively turned the alliance into an empire. Circling the Aegean Sea, the Athenian Empire built a huge navy of triremes – galleys, more than 30 metres long and with three lines of rowers down the length of each side, capable of great speeds – making Athens the dominant maritime power in Greece.

Sparta grew alarmed at Athens’ hegemony, which continued to expand due to regular tributes pouring in from across the empire. Athens also planned to rebuild the ‘Long Walls’ – miles of fortifications connecting the city to the harbour of Piraeus – so as to offer a link to the sea even at times of siege, making it yet more powerful.

While Athens ruled the seas, Sparta had long headed its own alliance of states from the Peloponnese and central Greece – the Peloponnesian League – which commanded a stronger army thanks to much-feared and respected Spartan warriors.

The lives of Spartan men were consumed by military service and commitment to winning glory in battle. Their constant and brutal training began at the age of seven, when boys would be sent from their families to undergo the ritual of agoge, a form of boot camp. This turned them into a fiercely disciplined and highly trained fighting force, feared across all Greece. During the Persian invasions of the fifth century BC, Sparta had shown its might when 300 warriors and an alliance of Greek city-states, led by King Leonidas, had fought the Persian army at the battle of Thermopylae.

Fighting had raged for decades before the Peloponnesian War, as Athens and Sparta got involved in the conflicts of other states or exploited circumstances to further their own advantage. This period, sometimes called the First Peloponnesian War, ended with the Thirty Years’ Peace in the winter of 446/45 BC – although the uneasy peace lasted only half that time.

Athens continued its aggression during the 430s, siding against Corinth, an ally of Sparta, by sending ships to assist its own ally, Corcyra, at the battle of Sybota. Athens then further tested the limits of the peace treaty by laying siege to the Corinthian colony of Poteidaia and issuing, in c432 BC, the Megarian Decree, which essentially imposed a trade embargo on another long-time Spartan ally, Megara. Even then, Sparta did not immediately retaliate, as it honoured the peace and was unready for a long conflict. But war was brewing.

When war finally broke out in 431 BC, Sparta had the lofty aims of liberating Greece from Athenian tyranny and dismantling its empire. Attacking over land, King Archidamus II led an army of hoplites, armed with spears and shields, into the Attica peninsula, leaving destruction and chaos in his wake and robbing Athens of vital resources. He hoped to provoke the enemy and draw them out from their fortified walls into open battle, but Athens refused to take the bait thanks to the guidance of influential statesman Pericles. Instead, Athens used its superior navy to harass Spartan ships and make its own assaults in the Peloponnese.

Even though it may have been regarded as cowardice by the enemy, remaining behind the walls was a savvy move. But disaster struck when Athens was ravaged by plague. Outbreaks wiped out a huge proportion of the population – perhaps as many as a quarter, or around 100,000 people – and decimated the Athenian leadership. Pericles himself succumbed in 429 BC.

The plague is thought to have come from sub-Saharan Africa, reaching Athens through the port of Piraeus; the added burden of people from Attica arriving to escape the Spartans only served to spread the disease faster. The fortifications that were keeping Athens safe in war were now keeping the plague inside. The Spartans did not approach the city for fear of catching it themselves, but they simultaneously refused the Athenian calls for peace.

Yet Sparta failed to take advantage of a much-weakened Athens as its campaigns on land and sea suffered setbacks. Then when the island of Lesbos looked like rising up in revolt against Athens, which resulted in a blockade being put in place, the Spartans failed to come to their assistance and the island surrendered. In 427 BC, however, Sparta did capture the strategic Athenian ally of Plataea following a lengthy siege.

With the cautious Pericles gone (he died in 429 BC) and the hawkish Cleon taking over, Athens embarked on a more aggressive strategy. One of the finest generals of the day, Demosthenes, commanded raids on the Peloponnese; he was given a fleet with which he occupied and fortified the remote headland of Pylos; and repelled the assault to win it back. The building of outposts on the Peloponnese created a different problem for Sparta: the Athenians used them to attract runaway helots, or slaves, meaning there were fewer people to work the fields and a higher chance of a slave revolt.

As more battles went against them Sparta began suing for peace itself, until terms became more favourable when it achieved victories of its own. The most significant came in 422 BC with the capture of the Athenian colony of Amphipolis. The man Athens had sent to protect it was Thucydides – for his failure, he was exiled and dedicated his time to his impartial history of the war. The distinguished Spartan general Brasidas died in the fight for Amphipolis, as did Athens’ Cleon, leaving the way clear for those, on both sides, who desired peace.

The resulting Peace of Nicias – named after the man from Athens sent to negotiate the treaty – was signed in 421 BC. Intended to last 50 years, it ended up lasting just six. In fact, fighting never really stopped, as both sides spent those years trying to win over smaller states, or watched on as allies formed coalitions of their own and kept the conflict going.

In 415 BC, war officially resumed when Athens launched a massive assault on Sicily with the aim of capturing Syracuse, a powerful city-state which controlled a large share of Mediterranean trade. If successful, Athens could claim its abundant resources.

The expedition started badly, however, as the Athenian commander Alcibiades, who had been accused of the serious crime of impiety and ordered back to Athens, defected to Sparta. Syracuse, with Spartan aid, broke the blockade around Sicily and time and time again defeated the invading army until it was crushed, even in a sea battle.

By 413 BC, the few who had not been killed or enslaved were forced to retreat. The invasion was a total disaster for Athens, a major blow to morale and prestige.

Back in Greece, Sparta certainly looked to be closer to victory over the next few years as it occupied Attica once again and several revolts broke out against Athenian rule. Athens itself was in political turmoil as governments were overthrown and replaced. What’s more, the Persians had chosen to back Sparta as they saw the Athenian empire as a threat.

And yet, the Spartans and their allies were slow to act, allowing Athens to rebuild and put into service its reserve navy. Athens started winning naval battles again, so much so that by 406 BC, it had actually won back parts of the empire thought to have been lost.

It would be a naval victory that won the Peloponnesian War after 27 years, but not an Athenian one. Sparta managed to build an imposing fleet of hundreds of triremes, thanks to Persian money and resources, and put to sea. In 405 BC, the fleet – under the skilled command of Lysander – crushed the Athenians at the battle of Aegospotami, near the Hellespont. Lysander then advanced to Athens itself and forced the city-state to surrender the following year. The victorious Spartans ordered the Long Walls to be demolished, forbade Athens from building a fleet larger than 12 ships and demanded Athens pay them tribute. The Athenian empire was no more; Sparta had emerged as the dominant power in Greece.

Sparta’s position did not last long. It became embroiled in too many conflicts for its army to handle, and its hold over Greece ended with defeat by Thebes and its Boeotian League allies at the battle of Leuctra in 371 BC.

Nearly a century of the Peloponnesian War, followed by continued fighting and divisions, had left Greece vulnerable. This instability was exploited by Philip II of Macedon, who invaded and defeated the city-states – laying the foundations of a Macedonian empire, which would grow to an unprecedented size in the reign of his son, Alexander the Great.

The causes of the Peloponnesian War constitute such a persistent theme in discussions of fifth-century Greek history, in part because of the complexity of the aetiological view of our earliest source, Thucydides.

Critics tend to admire Thucydides’ subtle distinction between aitiai es to phaneron legomenai and alethestate prophasis, [but they are generally less comfortable with his formulation of the two sets of causes: one consisting in individual episodes of tension between Athens and Sparta’s allies, particularly Corinth, in the years leading up to the war (specifically the events of Corcyra and Potidaea); the other a process that followed immediately upon the end of Xerxes’ expedition (the growing tension between the two leading Greek cities, Athens and Sparta).

By qualifying it as alethestate, Thucydides is clearly claiming that the prophasis is more important for a correct understanding of the origins of the war. In other words, he is asserting that a proper perception of the origins of the war depends upon a consideration of the previous fifty years as well as careful attention paid both to the physis of the Athenian arche, as an ever increasing force in Greek history, and to Sparta’s phobos, as a reactive force in Greek history.

Thucydides never implies, however, that the aitiai es to phaneron legomenai are unconnected to the breakout of the war. As he himself observes: “As for the reason why they [sc. the Athenians and Lacedaemonians] broke the peace, I have written first the aitiai and the differences, so that no one should ever have to enquire into the origin of so great a war for the Greeks.” The meaning of this statement is clear: if there had been no Corcyra and Potidaea, there would have been no Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE. It is obvious, then, that the relationship between aitiai es to phaneron and alethestate prophasis cannot be presented as if it were a relationship between false and true causes.

In recent years, Tim Rood has argued that the aitiai es to phaneron are deeply related to the alethestate prophasis, that they are, in fact, part of the same aetiological system. Rood’s remarks allow us to recover a unity of thought in Thucydides’ interpretation of the origins of the war. Yet, the problem remains: why does Thucydides make a distinction between aitiai es to phaneron and alethestate prophasis? I would suggest that there is something more at stake than the opposition between ‘superficial’ and ‘profound’ causes.

In his disclosure of the alethestate prophasis, Thucydides brings into play the concept of ananke, which is entirely absent from his discussion of the aitiai. In other words, he distinguishes between two sets of causes because there are two different kinds of problems to solve. The first is a problem of historical contingency and properly concerns the origin of the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE. How did the war actually break out? This is the problem for which the aitiai are invoked. The second is a philosophical problem and concerns the nature of the war between Athens and Sparta. Was the war accidental or necessary? This is the problem for which the alethestate prophasis is invoked. Thucydides’ answer, in short, is that the war was necessary: if there had been no Corcyra and Potidaea, there would have been no Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE; the war would instead have erupted at a different time. Without depriving the aitiai of their aetiological function, the concept of alethestate prophasis allows Thucydides to emphasize the inevitability of the war. With his alethestate prophasis, then, Thucydides tries to raise his reader’s awareness and encourage an original, philosophical vision of history.

According to Thucydides, the inevitability of the war was not a concept that common people could easily grasp (ἀφανεστάτην δὲ λόγῳ). In fact, unlike the single events that he classifies as aitiai es to phaneron, the ongoing tension between Athens and Sparta was distant in time and more complex in form. Such a relationship, therefore, can only be revealed by a master of history and politics, whose insight is particularly canny. By insight I mean control of the facts from the distant past, knowledge of the physis of man and especially, of the physis of power. In two demonstrations of Book 1, the Archaeologia and the Pentecontaetia, Thucydides gives a full display of this type of knowledge, which we may consider to be the theoretical backbone of his political science.

Naturally, we have the option of trusting Thucydides’ mastery and thus gratefully accepting his lesson about the causes of the war and its historical necessity. However, some critics have noted that Thucydides does not inquire into important events that occurred in the years immediately before the war, such as the Megarian Decree. Some have drawn our attention to the artful rhetorical construction of Book 1, or have disagreed with Thucydides’ insistence that the war was unavoidable. Some situate Thucydides’ work within the context of contemporary political debates about the responsibility for the war, debates that were quite animated during and after the Peloponnesian War; in light of this, they find Thucydides’ account unsatisfactory: in their opinion, Thucydides’ explanation is defective and, even worse, biased.

Among Thucydides’ critics is Karl Julius Beloch, who notes that the difficulties experienced by Pericles and his party in the preceding years had a direct impact on the outbreak of war. During this period, Pheidias, Anaxagoras, and Aspasia were all put on trial, incidents that are recorded by sources other than Thucydides, such as ancient comedy and—it is supposed—a pamphletistic tradition hostile to Pericles. Indeed, this is at the core of Diodorus’ account of the causes of the Peloponnesian War, the main source for which, Diodorus tells us, was the fourth-century historian Ephorus of Cyme.

Modern critics rarely praise Ephorus’ historiography. If we look at F 196, the fragment on the causes of the Peloponnesian War, we can perhaps understand why. Here, besides a reference to Pericles’ personal affairs, we find three citations from ancient comedy, apparently adduced by Ephorus as evidence. The first two, from Aristophanes’ Peace and Acharnians, clearly assert Pericles’ responsibility for initiating the war. If some critics believe that Thucydides defended Pericles too vehemently, many more contend that Ephorus preferred the silly inventions of poets and the vulgar insinuations of pamphleteers over Thucydides’ trustworthy account and subtle aetiological analysis, and that he held only Pericles accountable for the war. Such a formulation has long formed the basis for Ephorus’ supposed ignorance in historical matters.

Among Ephorus’ detractors is Felix Jacoby. In his view, Thucydides had unduly neglected Athenian internal politics, and so Ephorus would have written an account of the causes of the Peloponnesian War better than that of Thucydides had he both paid attention to Thucydides’ text and at the same time examined Athenian internal politics without surrendering to the lethal seduction of comedy or pamphlets. I would suggest instead that, as is evident from Thucydides’ text, at the time when he was writing (after 431 BCE, at least), Pericles was commonly viewed as responsible for the war; Thucydides thus writes to counter this opinion. With regard to Ephorus, we could ask Jacoby if it would have been possible or conceivable for a historian of the fourth century to examine the internal politics of fifth-century Athens without considering the comic tradition and, more generally, the literature of the time, which was an active part of the ongoing political debate. The answer, I maintain, would be no. For modern historians too, ancient comedy (when correctly used) is a documentary source. The question, then, becomes: does Ephorus make good or bad use of ancient comedy? But there is a second question also: does Ephorus, as has been suggested, simply lay blame for the war on Pericles, thereby neglecting the wider scenario of international politics, or is his aetiological view somewhat more subtle? To answer this, we must take a closer look at F 196, and the other texts apparently indebted to Ephorus for the causes of the Peloponnesian War.

F 196 is a difficult text. Diodorus mentions Ephorus at the end of a long and seemingly lacunose account: αἰτίαι μὲν οὖν τοῦ Πελοποννησιακοῦ πολέμου τοιαῦταί τινες ὑπῆρξαν, ὡς Ἔφορος ἀνέγραψε (“Now the causes of the Peloponnesian War were in general what I have described, as Ephorus has recorded them.” 12.41.1, translation by C. H. Oldfather). By his use of the term τινες Diodorus seems to be saying that this is approximately what Ephorus said about the causes of the Peloponnesian War. But from F 196 we do learn of several matters: first, Pericles’ difficulties in giving an account of his financial administration to the demos, and his will to resolve such difficulties by means of a war; second, the trials of his associates Pheidias (charged with embezzlement of public funds that had been allocated for Athena’s statue) and Anaxagoras; third, Pericles’ involvement in these charges, which in fact masked political attacks by his opponents, and his aim to resolve these troubles with a war; and finally, the existing problem of the Megarian Decree, and the consequent debate during which Pericles urged his fellow citizens not to surrender to Sparta’s ultimatum. At the end of this account, as we have seen, the reader encounters the term τινες, and is prompted to wonder whether Ephorus actually said all of this. If so, furthermore, can we assume that he said it in this form?

Scholars of the twentieth century generally agree that Diodorus’ account is only an imperfecta imago of what Ephorus wrote about the causes of the war. In order to reconstruct what one might call ‘Ephorus’ version’, then, Diodorus’ supposed lacunae are often supplemented with information from Plutarch, Aristodemus, and from scholia of late antiquity on the works of Thucydides, Aristophanes, and Hermogenes.These texts, considered together, constitute the so-called ‘Ephorus tradition’; here, we find both more detailed information than Diodorus alone provides about the cases of Pericles’ associates (Aspasia in particular, notably absent from Diodorus’ account), and more extensive quotations from Aristophanes’ Peace and Acharnians.

Nevertheless, when we look for Ephorus in works other than that of Diodorus, a new question arises. In reading Aristodemus, we find not only information about Pericles’ private affairs, Pheidias’ trial, the Megarian Decree, and extensive quotations from Aristophanes, but also other data, including the affairs of Corcyra and Potidaea and—last but not least—the Thucydidean alethestate prophasis, here defined as aitia alethestate. Is Ephorus, then, the source only for the causes that implicate Pericles, or for all the causes named by Aristodemus? Is it possible, perhaps, that Ephorus is simultaneously considering different versions of the causes of the war, not in fact neglecting Thucydides’ version but—as is evident in Aristodemus’ account—redefining it?

This solution actually has a longer history than might appear at first sight. Meier Marx, the very first editor of Ephorus’ fragments in 1815, conjectured that Ephorus might very well have included in his history as a vulgate tradition the information about Pericles’ personal affairs that we find in Diodorus. Eduard Schwartz suspected that Diodorus rearranged various tales that Ephorus had collected. Robert Connor’s idea was in some way similar: Ephorus, in a Herodotean manner, might have collected different versions of the origins of the war, without necessarily preferring one over the others. If this were true, Ephorus would approximate the author about whom Jacoby had dreamt, a historian who could present his reader with a complete aetiological picture of the problems connected with the origins of the Peloponnesian War.

But before we draw any conclusions from Aristodemus’ text alone, we need to take a closer look at Diodorus’ account (F 196), for it is the only one in which the name of Ephorus is expressly mentioned. As we shall see, it seems possible to reach, through Diodorus, a different conclusion about Ephorus’ view of the causes of the Peloponnesian War.

The quotations from the comic poets appear only at the end of the fragment, immediately before the concluding mention of Ephorus. Here we find, together with the two quotations from Aristophanes, a quotation from Eupolis’ Demoi This quotation does not concern Pericles’ personal affairs, Aspasia, Anaxagoras, Pheidias, or the Megarian Decree, but rather his rhetorical ability:

In editing F 196, Jacoby chose to expunge the Eupolis quotation, believing it to be irrelevant to the problem of the causes of the war. Even if this were the case, it is not reason enough to reject it: we cannot ignore that it is in Diodorus’ text, that it appears immediately before Ephorus’ name, and finally, that it is not the only instance in the fragment that emphasizes Pericles’ rhetorical ability. Given that this quotation could be part of Ephorus’ original account of the causes, it would be better to take it into careful consideration.

At first sight, it would seem that by quoting all the poetic evidence at the end of his account, Diodorus gathered together miscellaneous information, thereby confusing the evidence that Ephorus had originally organized in an ordered manner. But things are probably otherwise.

Plutarch’s passage confirms our impression that Ephorus did not quote Aristophanes as an authority to be blindly followed. Ephorus felt free to craft new historical concepts by drawing on comedy’s most evocative images. In Thucydides’ view, if there had been no Corcyra or Potidaea, we would not have had the Peloponnesian War in 431 BCE. In Ephorus’ view, if Pericles had not resolved to uphold the Megarian Decree, there would have been no war in 431 BCE. At that time, war was still avoidable, but it was only a matter of time before tensions broke out between Sparta and Athens. Among the culprits behind the war of 431 BCE, Pericles was certainly predominant. But Sparta and Athens were both responsible for bad choices that they had previously made, when each willingly pursued political hegemony; their choices were going to be decisive. We can surmise from the reference in F 196 to the removal of the Delian League’s treasure that Ephorus considered the collapse of the Panhellenic alliance between Athens and Sparta (ca. 462 BCE) to have been a negative turning point in the fifth century.

Far from being a corrupter of the science of history, Ephorus of Cyme proves to be a very competent historian in matters of aetiology. Looking backward from the fourth century BCE, he did not believe the war of 431 was inevitable; he believed, like many modern historians, that Thucydides’ thesis of ananke was unconvincing. When addressing the much-debated question of the causes of the Peloponnesian War, he chose to consider data that Thucydides had neglected. In so doing, Ephorus conformed to the fundamental methodological principle that he had proposed for his own research, and in fact more satisfying than the one Thucydides provided. A careful analysis of Ephorus’ F 196 uncovers broader and more balanced insights into the origins of the Peloponnesian War and helps us see how, contrary to the communis opinio, fourth-century historiography is closer to the best examples of modern inquiry, both in its aetiological sensibility and its historical perspective.

From past to present, there were unending wars that has happened with all cost. Most of the time, these costs were loss of life, land and money. Many weapons were used in wars stones, swords, rifles and so on. And What were these wars for? Was the reason for these wars to survive or to lead a better life? Besides all these, people have had experienced to pass their life in different forms of societies. Empires, City states and Nation states, these are all form of primary units that societies live in. Because the war that will be examined is the Peloponnesian War, the unit that should be examined is Greece City states.

From 2000 BC the city states, called “Police”, emerged in ancient Greece and the Aegean. The most popular ones are the city states such as Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Larissa and Megara. Aegean, Greek civilization, colonial activities and easy transportation facilities have helped to develop social, political and cultural relations between the West and Asia. Due to its geographical location, its problems and its neighbors, it has always been a problematic region. Land and maritime trade were the most important element in that period. If a country has a good location for trade, this country could be the target. In this questionable area, there were always a war whether it is civil or between the states. The most important one was the Peloponnesian War. It was a very bloody war that has happened between two of the biggest states of the Hellas, nowadays it is known as Greece, Sparta and Athens. The most important source of the war was an ancient Greek historian, Thucydides.

The person known by the name Thucydides; He is a famous ancient Greek historian and an Athenian general. Thucydides, who lived between 460 and 400 years before Christ, is one of the famous historians of that time. After the war that took place between Athens and Sparta, Thucydides passed away in 400 BC. In 424 BC, Thucydides, who was appointed as commander. The colony of Amphipolis, one of the most important colonies of Athens, was given the task of ensuring the security of Brasidas, a very famous commander from Sparta, against the armies. He failed to show the desired success in the war. When Thucydides did not show the desired success, he went into exile with his own volition without requiring his superiors to do anything. Thucydides, who lived in antiquity, is a historian who usually deals with the political events of history. According to the logic of Thucydides, the most important part of history is its political aspects and therefore it has always examined history according to political aspects. Thucydides, the famous philosopher and writer, is a much more interesting and different historian than Herodotus, who lived in the same age. In his works he examined the events in the cause-effect relationship. Thucydides, who used an instructional language when writing his works. Also, he is known as one of the first to launch instructional history technique with this aspect. In his works, he described the Peloponnesian war that happens between the famous cities of his time between Athens and Sparta, which lasted about 30 years. When we examine his work, we can see the emphasis on courage and justice. In his work, Thucydides writes from the language of the sides of the war that the powerful do what his soul desires and that the weak are forced to admit it. So, he gets the strength he wants with the strength. If you want peace, you must be ready for war. In other words, he uses the language of strong power and if there is weak, the weak embraces concepts such as law and morality. The first member of the realist style, Thucydides, explains the Peloponnesian wars with the power struggle. And there is a brief explanation of the war.

The foundations of war are based on Persian wars. Athens, known for its support of Persian wars and its dominance over the seas, was further strengthened compared to other Greek states. This imbalance in the Balance of Powers can be called the first sparks of the war. (This will be explained in detail later in this article). The city of Epidamnus, which had developed into the Adriatic Sea and developed in the territory of Western Greece, had experienced a civil war, and a region of the city had asked for help from the Corcyraeans, who was also an island city state in the same region. Epidamnus who could not get the help they expected, asked the help of the Corinthians, who were connected to the Spartan Union. The Corinthians accepted it, and when the Corcyraeans learned that the Corinthians would help the Epidamnus, they sent the warships they had prepared to the region and besieged the city. At the end of mutual reconciliation, the parties to the dispute began to fight. The Corcyraeans won the war but the Corinthians wanted revenge. Concerned about this situation, the Corcyraeans wanted to form an alliance with Athens. Athens, who listened to both sides, chose the Corcyraeans, and this choice overturned all balances. Corcyra defeated the Corinthians with the support of Athens. The first war between the Athenians and the Corinthians would be the beginning of the breakdown of the Thirty Years Peace between Athens and Sparta, and the wars that would never end thereafter. The Peloponnesian Wars took about 30 years in the entire region. In addition to Athens and Sparta, other city-states in the region sometimes waged war between Sparta or Athens and sometimes between themselves. Sparta was the winner of the Peloponnesian Wars, and the Athenians were struck by wars in both the Sicilian and the Aegean seas.

When the war occurred, Athens lost and Sparta won, but there was a questionable question. Who was the reason for the war? On this paper, I will briefly explain the main reason of the war. Although the cause of the war is the civil war in Sparta, Athens or Epidamnus, it is a strong argument that it is not the main reason and that it is by nature of the Wars. There are three reason why the var was inevitable? And why Sparta, Athens and Civil war were not the main reason of the Peloponnesian War?

The first reason that proves war was inevitable, is the word “Dilemma”. Dilemma, it refers to the instability in which people choose to choose between two bad and undesirable situations. It means that someone has two option, and one of them should be choose and none of them are in favor of this person. The dilemmas in this period appeared constantly. Because of the nature of the dilemma states cannot avoid themselves from the unwanted conditions, in this case wars. Beside all these arguments there are some saying that claim Athens were guilty in this war because they claim that Athens broke the Thirty Years’ Peace rules. In contrast there are some strong arguments that shows this claim is not that much true. There were two type of dilemmas in this context, “Security dilemma” and “Prisoners dilemma”. And How these dilemmas influence the war and Why the war was inevitable?

First reason, as a dilemma, was Security. Security is the core principle for a country. Even the slightest security concern can do anything to a country. Security dilemma, in political science, a situation in which actions taken by a state to increase its own security cause reactions from other states, which in turn lead to a decrease rather than an increase in the original state’s security (Wivel, 2019) . If a state perceives and fires a threat from another state, it means that the perceived state responds in the same way. In this case, both states were armed against each other, which resulted in a huge burden on both the economy and the military.

Security dilemma first seem at the Epidamnus Problem. The city of Epidamnus experienced a civil war and the city had asked for help from the Corcyraeans, who were the island city states in the same region. Epidamnus, who could not get the help they expected, asked the Corinthians which is under the Spartan league to help. The Corcyraeans besieged the city to protect when the they learned that Corinthians would help the Epidamnus. When these moves taken to protect the Epidamnus by the Corcyraeans were perceived differently by the Corinthians, these conditions undesirably caused the war to begin. This was the trigger of the Peloponnesian wars that would lead to larger destruction.

The second reason was Prisoners dilemma. In its most general sense, the prisoner’s dilemma is the conscience of the prisoner in the two separate interrogation rooms on their behalf unaware of each other. If one of the prisoners speaks about the other and the other is silent, the prisoner who is witness to his testimony will be released, and the detained prisoner will be tried with a 10-year prison sentence. If both prisoners are silenced, they will be sentenced to 1 year each. If they talk to both prisoners as a last chance, they will both get 5 years in prison. The main problem here is lack of confidence and not knowing what the other person thinks.

As Joseph S. Nye Jr. and David A. Welch (2014) stated “The Athenians position in 432 looks very much like the Prisoner’s Dilemma. In the middle of the century, the Athenians and Spartans agreed they were both better off having a truce” (p. 27). On the other hand, If Athens makes an alignment with the Corcyra, they will break the rules but if they did not make alignment, other side can do it and Athens may become alone. Suspicion of being weak and alone pushed the Athens to choose such a way. That’s why Athens had no any other choice rather than doing this.

An example of the chaos caused by the Security Dilemma is the Cold War between 1947 and 1991. The foundation of the problem is based on the Second World War. The fragile alliance, which was formed during the Second World War, has been lost because of the mutual distrust that resulted in the victory of the war. The United States and the Soviet Socialist Republics have become two superpowers due to the victory of the war. The dispute between them on many issues caused the two sides to polarize against each other. In the bipolar system that dominated this period between the US and the USSR, one of the winners of the Second World War, the parties increased their search for mutual power and entered a period of arms race. When the confidence in each other gradually decreased, the security dilemma of the US and the USSR had worsened the situation. The first action that they take was the nuclear deterrence. US military use of nuclear weapons in the second world war has worried the USSR and Soviet went to nuclear. This was the only one example of security dilemma in Cold War. And it can prove how actions that was taken by one state can be misunderstood by another one.

The second reason why the Peloponnesian War was inevitable, is that Civil war did not cause the war. For the wars to start, there must always be a chaos that ignites the event. But the main point to be considered, would there be big wars without this type of small chaos? According to many views, civil war in the Epidamnus cause Peloponnesian War. In contrast, this argument is not that much true. Before the starting analyses it is important to know the civil war in the Epidamnus.

As Joseph S. Nye Jr. and David A. Welch (2014) mentioned “In Epidamnus, the democrats fought with oligarchs over how the country would be ruled. The democrats appealed to the city-state of Corcyra, which had helped establish Epidamnus, but were turned down. They then turned to another city-state, Corinth and the Corinthians decided to help. This angered the Corcyraeans, who sent a fleet to recapture Epidamnus, their former colony” (p. 24) After this Conflict, war has started between Corcyra and Corinth. And then, it has expanded to the Athens after that, it leaped to the side of Sparta. If there was no civil war, would the war begin? There is a counterfactual that how the direction of the war can change, if one event change?

Counterfactually, one war possible again but it can start in different way. Before the civil problems in Epidamnus, there was a bigger and ongoing problem between Corcyra and Corinth. Thucydides (2017) has mentioned this conflict in his book in a few sentences; Corcyra was the colony of Corinth. But the Corcyra people did not show the necessary respect to the Corinth. At that time, colonies had to give the first products of the animal sacrifice ceremony, to the state which they were attached. In other words, the Corcyraeans did not do what other states did. On the other hand, the Corcyraeans underestimated the Corinth because they have become very rich. In addition, the Corcyraeans developed very well on maritime. The diplomatic problems between these two city states was the core reason of the Corinth-Corcyra War that will gets bigger afterwards like an avalanche. Civil war has only accelerated the situation. The almost same situation has also been experienced in the recent past.

In the WW1, as many people assumes, one of the main reasons for the beginning of the war is the civil war in the Hungarian empire. Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is killed by Serbian young who is the member of Young Bosnian movement. The reason behind this assassination was creating the chaos and separating the South Slavic regions from Austria-Hungary and adding them to the Kingdom of Serbia. After this assassination the war the conflict in Austria-Hungary has expanded to all Europe. But again, the main cause of the WW1 is not the civil war in Austria-Hungary Empire. There are so many reasons behind the WW1 such as spread of nationalism, harshness of German policy, etc. The world was ready for a battle and only a spark was expected. Civil wars have always been a spark of great wars.

The third reason why the Peloponnesian War was inevitable, is the loss of balance of power. Balance of power is an understanding that aims to maintain a balance between countries, not allowing a country to take control of everything that is military, political and economic. According to some views the real cause of Peloponnesian War was Sparta because of its aggressive policy against Athens. In contrast, the situation is not what it seems. The Athenians were very powerful, and this made the Spartan uneasy. The deterioration of the power balance between the Greek city-states means that a state has a voice over others. And this was not welcomed by the Spartans. Also, as Thucydides (2017) stated that “But the main reason nobody could admit was that the Athenians became extremely powerful and the Spartans were afraid of them” (p. 17). To understand the how the balance of power has collapsed, it is important to know How has Athens become so powerful?

“Sparta was a conservative, land-oriented state that turned inward after the victory over Persia; Athens was a commercial, sea-oriented state that turned outward”. Athens had a good location for the sea trade and based on their strategy they are open to trade and was seeking to develop. Also, Athens had an organization called Delian League. Athens was not afraid to enter the war. If they felt like they were going to fail in a war, they attacked a few points on their way back to overcome the battle with minimum loss. On the other hand, the Spartans were only interested in observing the events because The Spartans were not a pro-war society. They would fight when they had to. The aim for this alliance was to protect states against the Persia and Athens were collecting taxes from states who wants to join this league. These taxes that they pay were very high so that Athens become so powerful comparing to Sparta.

The power balance policy is that, in a geography, a country creates an open threat and other states make alliances and take a stand against it. Athens become stronger than other city states and Sparta has begun to make alliances with other city states. Sparta already had alliances with city states in the Peloponnesian Peninsula. The Corinthians were angry with the Athens because Athens chose Corcyra in the problems in the Epidamnus. Therefore, Corinthians were not happy because Spartans were passive against the Athens. Although the strategy is opposite, unbalanced distribution of power pushed the Spartans to the war. In addition, balance of power theory includes a conflict that can be seen in the Peloponnesian war too. “Balance of power theory, however, predicts that a state will join whoever seems weaker, because states will act to keep any one state from becoming preponderant”. It the theory, this is the case but in real life it is vice versa. For instance, in the early day of the conflicts, the states were trying to join stronger side instead of weaker one. The Corcyraeans and Corinthians have spent many hours in parliament to be allied with a strong state Athens. In contrast to the theory, states that want to be in favor of the powerful have both caused the Spartan to be in a difficult position, and the balance of power has become worse. But why the states had decided to join stronger side instead of weaker one? It is called Bandwagoning. This defines the weak states decided to be with the powerful ones because of some reason such as lack of alternatives etc. This was the same as the Peloponnesian.

More powerful examples are available that shows how has changes in balance of power cause the war? For instance, again WW1 is the basic example. Before the First World War, the balance in Europe began to deteriorate. As Joseph S. Nye Jr. and David A. Welch (2014) stated “German heavy industry surpassed that of Great Britain in the 1890s, and the growth of German gross national product at the beginning of the century was twice that of Great Britain’s”. France and Britain wanted to stand against this rapid growth of Germany. And same situation has happened as Peloponnesian war.

According to the realists, interstate relations are not a harmony or harmony relationship, but a conflict. Each state will keep its own interest ahead. Realists believe that human nature is bad and that it is impossible to bring peace. According to Thucydides, one of the first representatives of the realist view, the state was the main actor in international relations and international interest is in the forefront. States are in search of power and therefore wars are inevitable for some reason that were mentioned above.

In my analysis, I have tried to focus on how the wars were inevitable by giving example from the history. Dilemmas was the first reason because one of the two negative choices should be selected in the dilemmas. The cold war was the main example of security dilemma. During the Cold War, the concept of security dilemma was always interpreted and perceived as predicting negative results. In this case, the power race between the two superpowers has revealed. The result of this competition was negative for both sides. The biggest reason for this is that each step in the name of security gives rise to insecurity for the other party. The second reason was a false inference “The civil war in the Epidamnus caused the Peloponnesian war”. It was not logic that millions of people to die because of an assassination. This example was from WW1. Small events only accelerate the process. As I mentioned before “Civil wars have always been a spark of great wars.” Third reason was the imbalances in the distribution of power. As this happened before the WW1, if one state starts to have superiority over others, it may cause a conflict because others worry about crushing at the bottom. All in all, it is an inevitable fact that wars are harmful and cost millions of people’s lives and property, but it has been a controversial question that whether we can prevent the wars or not. However, at this point, even if not wanted, battles emerge.

The Peloponnesian Wars (431 – 404BC), also known as the fall of Athens, demonstrated the power and capacity of the two of the strongest rival poleis in Ancient Greece, Athens, and Sparta, who were both competing for dominance. The two city-states varied across multiple aspects. Although the Athenians were well cultured and educated, had naval forces, and led the Delian League, the Spartan’s militaristic practices, values, army, alliances, and battle strategies significantly contributed to their cultural identity that helped secure their upper hand victory in the Peloponnesian Wars.

Sparta in Ancient Greece was known for incorporating militarism into their practices and teachings, which proved as an asset against Athens in the Peloponnesian Wars. While this lifestyle was ordinary for Spartans, the Athenians lived a more simple and more civilized lifestyle where school and art were customary. For example, in Sparta, children were expected to be strong since birth. If a newborn was deemed weak or deformed, it would be left on a remote hillside or tossed into a gorge to die. When boys reached the age of seven, they were forced to attend military school where they learned army tactics and fighting techniques (Wissar, 2012). However, they lived in poor conditions, were not fed properly, wore only one set of clothing, and participated in relentless training that sometimes even required them to steal in order to survive, and get whipped in order to build resilience. Their intense training can be supported and explained by a quote from Xenophon, an Athenian soldier, and historian. He says,

“In fact, with his feet so trained, the young Spartan would leap and spring and run faster unshod than another in the ordinary way. Instead of making them effeminate with a variety of clothes, his rule was to habituate them to a single garment the whole year through, thinking that so they would be better prepared to withstand the variations of heat and cold… It is obvious, I say, that this education was intended to make the boys craftier and more inventive in getting supplies, while at the same time it cultivated their war like instincts” (Xenophon, 375 BCE).

Similarly, girls were trained to be strong, physically fit, and experienced in combat but in less harsh conditions (Eshuys, Guest, Bowman, Davies, & Phelan, 2000). A possible reason as to why Spartan children were brought up this way was because they feared that the people they conquered, the Helots, would revolt against them. The Helots were treated as slaves and outnumbered the Spartans seven to one. In contrast, Athenian children were taught many skills other than battling. At age 6, boys attended school and studied subjects such as maths, writing, reading, history, public speaking, good behavior, music, and sports. This allowed them to pursue any career they desired and, unlike Sparta, was not restrictive in turning boys into soldiers. Primary sources Figures 1 and 2 visually represents the subjects Athenian boys studied (Douris, 2013). On the other hand, girls were taught by their mothers on skills such as: managing a household, budgeting, buying, dressmaking, and entertaining (Eshuys, Guest, Bowman, Davies, & Phelan, 2000).

Figures 1 and 2: Vase painting depicted school life for boys in Athens by Douris, an Ancient Athenian vase-painter (Douris, 2013)

Due to the vast difference in education, lifestyle, practices, and values between the Spartans and Athenians, it can be deduced that Sparta’s militaristic view would have given them a generous advantage against Athens during the Peloponnesian Wars. This is because whilst the Athenians went to school for artistic pursuits, the Spartans trained to become warriors of their country, led by their combatant ideologies and bred-for-war customs and upbringing.

Pre-war aspects such as polis involvement in the Delian or Peloponnesian League, and army strength, could have contributed to a city’s victory or defeat. The Delian League, led by Athens, was initially formed to liberate Greek allies from Persia. However, Athens yearned an empire and soon achieved this by conquering polis after polis. In response, Sparta formed the Peloponnesian League and led the poleis who also feared Athen’s power-hungry behavior. This event was also described by Thucydides, an Athenian general, and historian of the time, claiming that,

“The real reason [that] forced the war was the growth of Athenian power and Spartan fear of it” (Thucydides, 1872).

Therefore, as a result of the two of the most powerful city-states forming their own alliances, the Peloponnesian War was inevitable (Burvill-Shaw, et al., 2012). As Athens was on its rise to power and dominated the Mediterranean Sea with their naval supremacy, they were able to assemble a number of supporting city-states such as Aegina, Byzantium, Chios, Lesbos, Lindos, Naxos, Paros, Samos, Thasos, etc. The Peloponnesian League on the other hand, was only between Sparta, Corinth, Elis, and Tegea (Cartwright, 2016). Hence, Athen’s league was stronger than Sparta’s and therefore would have been beneficial for them in the War. With regard to army supremacy, both city-states had equally strong forces. Such that Sparta led a remarkable army, and Athens led an exceptional navy. As previously stated, Sparta’s army was developed through years of strict militaristic customs and therefore found its name in history as the protector of Greece. As for Athens, their creation of a navy was encouraged by an Athenian general and statesmen, Themistocles. It was initially formed to exploit Persia’s naval weakness, should they return to Greece for another attempt at invasion, Athens would be prepared with a navy. Consequently, Athens began building their navy by using money from their silver deposits to build ships and trained soldiers to fight in the navy (Greek Boston, n.d.). For these reasons, it can be inferred that although Athens had a stronger alliance than Sparta’s, and shared equally formidable armies, events during the Peloponnesian War must have influenced Sparta’s upper hand victory.

Battle strategies, major generals, inconvenient misfortunes (for Athens), and a stroke of luck (for Sparta), were some of the events that happened during the Peloponnesian War that saw the rise of Sparta. In 459BCE, Sparta was in conflict with two of its allies and Athens took advantage of this by allying with Megara. Consequently, war began, and fifteen years later, it was concluded with the 30 Year’s Peace Treaty. However, the peace did not last long and in 432BCE, Corinth called a meeting with the Peloponnesian League and decided that Athens broke the treaty. Hence, the second phase of the war began. Pericles, an Athenian general, devised a defensive strategy and built three six-kilometre walls that ensured the safety of Athens. Because the wall connected Athens to the coast, Spartan army could not defeat Athens due to their weak navy, and Athen’s navy was unable to attack Sparta’s military on land (Burvill-Shaw, et al., 2012). Not only that, this meant that the peninsula on which Athens was located, Attica, was exposed. As a result, Athens had no choice but to allow the residents of Attica into the city walls – hence the skyrocketing of Athen’s population. Unfortunately, in 430 BCE, a plague broke and claimed almost two-thirds of the Athenian population, Pericles included. In response, Sparta decided to invade those poleis surrounding Athens. This strategy was meant to cut Athen’s food supply but was unsuccessful in doing so because, firstly, it was traditional for Spartan soldiers to return to the city each year, and secondly, Athen’s stable trade network with its numerous allies prevented them from starvation. Eventually, in 421 BCE, the second phase of the war ended with the Peace of Nicias. In 415 BCE, Alcibiades, an Athenian general, launched an expedition to attack Sicily with the hopes that once it was captured, they could cut off Sparta’s supplies. In his speech to convince Athens, he said,

“If we do not rule others, others will rule us” (Alcibiades, n.d.).

However, shortly before the expedition, Alcibiades was accused and charged with sacrilegious acts. Despite this, he continued to Sicily, but took the chance to flee to Sparta, in fear for his life if he returned to his home. Once accepted into Sparta, he advised them on how they could defeat Athens. As a consequence, in the third and last phase of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta saw a chance at victory. Surprisingly though, Athens continued to fight on until 404 BCE but was forced to surrender when a siege fell upon them (Burvill-Shaw, et al., 2012). This was strategized by the Spartan Kings, Pausanias and Agis II, and Lysander, a Spartan general, who blocked Athen’s ports. For these reasons, it is evident that both of the city-states had almost equal chances of winning the War, but due to battle strategies and unforeseen events, Sparta reveled in their military success whilst Athens fell to its knees.

It can be deduced that although the Athenians were well cultured and educated, had naval forces, and led the Delian League, the Spartan’s militaristic practices, army advantage, and alliances had held both city-states quite on par with each other in the War. This is because whilst the Athenians went to school for artistic pursuits, the Spartans trained to become warriors of their country, led by their bred-for-war customs and upbringing. Furthermore, Athens had a stronger alliance than Sparta’s and shared equally formidable armies. Therefore, it was in fact, during the third phase of the War, when an Athenian traitor, Alcibiades advised Sparta, as well as a cleverly devised plan made by Sparta’s kings and general that turned Sparta’s victory into Sparta’s upper hand victory. Needless to say, it was unfortunate for Athens to suffer a plague and siege during the War. In summary, Sparta’s militarism, alliances, and battle strategies significantly contributed to their cultural identity which helped them secure their upper hand in victory in the Peloponnesian Wars.

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6. Wissar, A. (2012, December 20). Athenian Culture vs. Spartan Culture. Retrieved from academia.edu.au: https://www.academia.edu/21825984/Athenian_Culture_vs._Spartan_Culture Xenophon. (375 BCE). The Polity of the Spartans.

From 431BC to 404BC two of the world’s most formidable superpowers, Athens and Sparta, engaged in one of early history’s longest and most brutal wars, The Peloponnesian War. Though both superpowers were located within close geographical proximity to one another, they were anything but similar regarding their cultural, diplomatic, and philosophical viewpoints. These three factors and perhaps more culminated together to create a rift between the two city-states, causing tensions and a hegemonic fight for power and dominance over ancient Greece. The Peloponnesian War was elicited by prejudiced ethnocentrism and gross misappropriations of hegemonic viewpoints held by both the Spartan and Athenian superpowers of ancient Greece resulting in a war over territory and cultural supremacy.

On one side of the Peloponnesian War was Sparta, a militant state famed for its military prowess and it strict civilian lifestyle that promoted, “the general subordination at Sparta of the individual to the group” (1). This ideology may have given way to the crude manner that many Athenian citizens treated the Spartans, deeming them as foolish and unwise because of the way they let their leaders treat them in such a totalitarian state. Meanwhile, on the other hand, there was Athens, which preceded Sparta with a rich and inclusive democracy and massive cultural and philosophical advancements which are still spoken of to this day. This great honor of having one of the world’s oldest and most richly developed societies seemed to have given the Athenians an inflated ego and an ethnocentric viewpoint towards less free-spirited and more strict governments such as Sparta and could be a reason why they broke the thirty years truce. Whereas the seemingly untouchable military strength and societal secrecy of Sparta seemed to have made them the better world power in their eyes which could have also fueled their fire to stake their claim in the Mediterranean.

The great Thucydides proclaimed in his History of the Peloponnesian War that it, “was begun by the Athenians and Peloponnesians by the dissolution of the thirty years’ truce made after the conquest of Euboea,” (2) claiming that the cause of the war was due to a break in the thirty-year peace treaty that ruled over the land. However, according to The Plague of War: Athens, Sparta, and the Struggle for Ancient Greece, “the Athenians passed a decree against Megara [a Peloponnesian state], probably the last of several issued during the 430s. The decree was of a nature unprecedented in history: a peacetime embargo, barring the Megarians from trading in the Athenian city center and market-place known as the agora or in the ports of the Athenian empire,” (3) and this was in fact what and who sparked the start of the Peloponnesian War.

That being said, the Spartan’s fear of losing power over all that they had gained in their conquest of territory in the Mediterranean and the Middle East was a definite contribution toward the start of the Peloponnesian war. Secrecy and seclusion from strangers was key tactic practiced by the Spartans in their attempts to remain anonymous to the enemy were of utmost importance. The fact that everyone was an enemy to Sparta is what made them known for their military defense. The initial acts made by the Athenians and their victory over the Corinthian territory of Megara were what made the Spartans spring into action and finally take the offensive and take on Athens and their egocentric viewpoints due to the fact that the Spartans could not stand to lose in battle.

Though this may be true, it is widely debated that the ethnocentric viewpoints held by both the Spartans and the Athenians toward one another were a large part of the reason for the start of the Peloponnesian war. One famous Athenian philosopher named Thucydides was notorious for his critical statements of Sparta and it has been said that “No one in the antique world ever spoke as negatively about Sparta as Thucydides did” (4). One such statement made by Thucydides in reference to Spartans reads, “we congratulate you on your innocence but do not envy you your folly,” (5) in essence calling them dim-witted fools. Though the famed Greek writer Thucydides wrote such harsh words about the Spartans, the philosopher was also the one who wrote The History of the Peloponnesian War and wrote the powerful Funeral Oration of Pericles. When Thucydides wrote, “they joyfully determined to accept the risk, to make sure of their vengeance, and to let their wishes wait; and while committing to hope the uncertainty of final success, in the business before them they thought fit to act boldly and trust in themselves. Thus choosing to die resisting, rather than to live submitting, they fled only from dishonor but met danger face to face, and after one brief moment, while at the summit of their fortune, escaped, not from their fear, but from their glory,” (6) in the Funeral Oration of Pericles, he was showcasing the might of the Athenians, their courage and their grace, a stark contrast to his criticisms of the “foolish” Sparta. Another writer who wrote about the Athenians and altered their image in the eyes of the public was Plutarch who wrote of the famous Pericles stating that “Pericles entertained an extraordinary esteem and admiration, and filling himself with this lofty and, as they call it, up-in-the-air sort of thought, derived hence not merely, as was natural, the elevation of purpose and dignity of language, raised far above the base and dishonest buffooneries of mob eloquence, but, besides this, a composure of countenance, and a serenity and calmness in all his movements, which no occurrence whilst he was speaking could disturb, a sustained and even tone of voice, and various other advantages of a similar kind, which produced the greatest effect on his hearers,” (7) clearly showing the nuances of the ways of an Athenian citizen, their low-lying flaws and their hidden attributes.

All things considered, it should be noted that both sides of the line were at fault and their prejudice toward one another is what ultimately sparked the start of the Peloponnesian War. The constant change of citizenry for both the Spartans and the Athenians due to their thirst for conquest through the ages resulting in a melting pot of people with clashing ideals, cultures, and norms was enough to catapult each hegemony into civil unrest let alone force them into the great war ahead. Ethnocentric comments made by prominent figures, as well as fear of higher power and authority, and some aggressive moves made by politicians are what fueled the start of one of the most famous wars in history.