The Peloponnesian War was the largest war between the Greek city-states in and around the Aegean Sea after the Persian-Greek War. It was a confrontation and conflict between the DelosIan League with Athens as one side and the Peloponnesian League with Sparta as the other, covering almost the entire Ancient Greek-speaking region, and could be called the "all-out war" of the ancient eastern Mediterranean.
In the usual sense, the span of war is established as a 27-year period from 431 BC to 404 BC, but this was only the second conflict between the two sides. In fact, by the end of the Persian-Greek War, before the Peace of Karias had been signed, the conflict between the Greek city-states had intensified. In this article, let's comb through the development of this war that brought unprecedented destruction to ancient Greece and led to the decline of Greek civilization.
※ The League of Delos and the Rise of the Athenian Empire?※
The League of Delos was founded in 478 BC during the Persian Empire's third expedition to Greece and was hit land and sea. At that time, some city-states led by Athens formed economic and trade alliances, and set up vaults on the island of Delos in the middle of the Aegean Sea, so it was called the "Delos League". In contrast, the Peloponnesian League, formed by Sparta, Athens' traditional geopolitical rival, was formed much longer. Around 530 BC, most of the city-states of the Peloponnese had joined the Alliance and made it clear that Sparta had the privilege of convening a general meeting of the member states. However, because Athens contributed the most in the Persian-Greek War (successively at the Battle of Marathon, the Battle of Salamis, the Battle of Plataia, and the Battle of Mikale), the sea alliance he led gradually gained momentum.
Around 460 BC, the Delos navy, led by the Athenian fleet, had gained absolute superiority in the Aegean Sea and had stripped the Ionian city-states on the western side of Asia Minor from the Persian Empire. However, when Athens intended to use its maritime superiority to further expand its power to Cyprus, Phoenicia, and Egypt, it was hit by a head and bleeding. Eventually, the Combined Greek Army, led by Athens, reconciled with the Persians in 449 BC, and the two sides signed the Treaty of Karias and divided their respective regions, forming a new geopolitical equilibrium.
Originally, for Sparta, it was a pleasure to have the Alliance of Athens and Delos as a barrier between itself and the Persian Empire. But as the confrontation drew to a close and the Athenians moved the treasury of the Delos League into their city-states, an Athenian maritime empire was growing stronger and posing a serious threat to Sparta's interests. Unlike the maritime commercial city-states founded by the descendants of the Ionians and the Auris, most of the Peloponnesian city-states such as Sparta were agrarian and authoritarian societies dominated by The descendants of the Dorians. The rise of the Delos League was bound to lead to an increase in the influence of the ancient Athenian democratic system inherited from commercial civilization and the spirit of navigation, and threatened the stability of authoritarian societies such as Sparta, and the contradictions between the two sides became increasingly prominent with the retreat of the Persians.
※Thebes and Sparta join forces to attack Athens?※
Because Athens controlled the entire Aegean region and the power to set the price of trade, the Greek city-states at that time competed for the Delos League, and even the members of the Peloponnesian League also had a "chaoqin twilight" conversion. Megara, a city-state on the eastern side of the Isthmus of Corinth (the geographical location that connects the Peloponnese and Attica Peninsulas), was Sparta's traditional sphere of influence, but it also began to follow in the footsteps of the Athenians, which caused strong resentment among the Spartans. Soon, the Spartans decided to invade the Attica Peninsula north and engaged the Athenians for 15 years (also known as the first phase of the Peloponnesian War). However, at this time, the Persians were still in the aftermath, and neither side wanted their own strength to be damaged in the infighting, so they did not expand the war. In 446 BC, athens and Sparta signed a peace treaty after brief negotiations, which was agreed to be 30 years in length, and Michaela returned to the Peloponnesian League. However, with the complete dissipation of the Persian threat, especially the continuation of the Athenian Empire, the geopolitical balance between the two sides was bound to be broken again.
Just as the so-called "one mountain does not tolerate two tigers", the two powerful states of Athens and Sparta are bound to engage in a dragon and tiger fight. By the same token, Thebes, who shared Athens on the Attica Peninsula, was also obsessed with Athens' strength. After the Third Persian Expedition to the Greek Peninsula and the Battle of Thermos, the Thebes, who had long been ambiguous, quickly defected to Persia and became a staunch ally in the war against the Athenians. After the Battle of Plataea, the victorious Greek coalition was soon to liquidate Thebes, but was conditionally surrendered due to Sparta's obstruction. In Sparta's view, leaving Thebes would be a counterweight to the Athenian expansion on the Attica Peninsula, which was obviously a clever move.
In 431 BC, Thebes, who had full wings and had regrouped the viotia region in the north of the Attica Peninsula, led the Viotia League to conquer the Iron League of Platya in Athens, and crossed the mountains in the middle of the peninsula to the Athens mainland. At the same time, the Spartans who had been given the opportunity were clearly no longer willing to be bound by the statute of limitations of the peace treaty, and the Peloponnesian coalition began to cross the Isthmus of Corinth to attack Athens (this action also stemmed from the corinthian-Athenian struggle for the former colony), and the Peloponnesian War entered a full-scale outbreak (also known as the second phase).
※ The stalemate between sea power and land power?※
When Persia invaded the Greek peninsula by land and sea, Athens used its rich experience in naval warfare to harass the enemy's logistics lines and destroy the Persian navy. However, the same scheme did not apply to the Spartans, who were transported by land from the Peloponnese to Athens, which greatly reduced the Athenians' maritime superiority. In order to protect their roots, the Athenians built a corridor about 8 kilometers long between their own city and the port of Piraeus to the southwest, which was used to ensure the safety of the route to supply Athens from the sea, which led to the Peloponnesian army, although the city was approaching, but there was nothing to do about Athens.
However, the Spartans' own alliance camps were not monolithic, and the city-states of Thebes (the head of the Viotia League) and Corinth (second only to the Greek naval city-states of Athens) had their own ideas, and more importantly, the slave class responsible for farming in Sparta (i.e., the Hilo, also known as the Hellos) was eager to move because the main force of the Spartan army had been out for a long time. In view of this, and because the Peloponnesian navy was difficult to contain the Athenian fleet, the Delosian side used the navy to circumvent the Peloponnese Peninsula and repeatedly landed on the peloponnesian cities and agricultural fields, forcing the Spartan army to stay on the Attica Peninsula for a long time.
In order to break the territory, both sides began to carry out diplomatic means to persuade neighboring forces to join their own camp. Among them, the kingdoms of Macedonia and Adlicia (founded by the Thracians who entered the monarchical era after being influenced by the Persian Empire) believed that Athens, which controlled the sea power, could bring more benefits to themselves, so they formed an alliance. Many city-states located in the middle of the Greek peninsula, even if the social systems differed due to the different foundations of the state, eventually chose their allies according to the realist style due to geographical factors. However, due to the scorching heat of the war, Athens and Sparta, exhausted after a decade of stalemate, finally decided to cease hostilities and signed the Treaty of Nisias. The two sides agreed to a peace of law for 50 years, and the League of Delos and the Peloponnesian League returned land and prisoners of war to each other and returned to the pre-war state.
Expeditions to Athens and Sparta?※
Since the peace treaty signed by Athens and Sparta in the first phase of the war was not observed, the two sides will certainly not have taken the Treaty of Nicaeas seriously into practice, and even from the very beginning the two sides have been at odds over the issue of land settlement. Of course, in order to recover, the two camps still maintain a fragile balance by large, but everyone knows that there is no need to wait 50 years for the Greek peninsula to rekindle the war. It was Athens that drew the Peloponnesian War into the third phase, because they recovered faster than Sparta, based on commerce. As mentioned earlier, both Macedonia and Thrace preferred to be allies of the Athenians, but the Peloponnesian League was not only a partner of the Viotian League of Thebes. Sicily, at the southern tip of the Apennine Peninsula, although it had long been on the sidelines and did not make a move to take sides, attracted the covetousness of the Athenians because it was an important supply base for the Peloponnesia.
Due to its location in an active area of the Mediterranean volcanic seismic belt, Sicily is prone to volcanic eruptions, and thick volcanic ash nourishes the island's land and makes it an important source of food. For this reason, when the Athenians once again started a war, in order to prevent the stalemate of the previous stage, they turned to their strong naval strength and prepared for an expedition to Sicily to cut off the supply routes of the Peloponnesian states. In fact, Sicily has experienced more than 300 years of colonization by the Greeks, and Corinth was their suzerainty, and Syracuse, the largest city-state on the island at this time, was descended from the Corinthians. In fact, whether it is historical origins, geopolitical environment or commercial interests, Syracuse should be on the side of the Peloponnesian League, but Sicily, which combines business and agriculture, gradually developed an ancient democratic form similar to the participation of Athenian citizens, which made it reluctant to get involved in it in the early stages of the war.
However, when the Athenian Citizens' Assembly, under the slogan of risking to make a fortune, gathered tens of thousands of sailors and warriors, as well as additional auxiliaries and volunteers, rushed to Sicily, Syracuse was inevitably pushed to the Spartan side. In view of this, on the one hand Sparta and Corinth crossed the sea to support Syracuse, on the other hand, the Peloponnesian army once again went north to besiege the city of Athens, and stationed itself in Dequeria in the north of Athens, frequently harassing the economic production activities of the Athenians outside the city and obstructing the overland supply transportation of its northern allies. At this time, the main forces of the Athenian land and sea were transferred to Sicily, which created the conditions for the Spartans to besiege Athens for a long time (after all, there was no need to worry about the Peloponnesian mainland being harassed by the Athenian navy).
Compared with sparta's strong army strength, the Athenian army's land combat experience was very insufficient. However, whether it was the Sicilian Battle or the war under Athens, it was the least good land warfare in Athens, and the navy was reduced to a supply team for the Sicilian Expeditionary Force. As a result, the Athenians began to bear increasing financial pressure, but the war on both sides remained in a state of stalemate. At this time, if Athens withdraws its troops from Sicily and returns to defense, it may be possible to regain the strategic initiative, but since Athens under the ancient democratic system has played the slogan of expedition to make a fortune, these people who have devoted all their efforts to planning the war will naturally not allow them to give up the war against Syracuse at this time. In 413 BC, the Athenian expedition suffered heavy losses on both land and sea lines when food and grass were cut off, and the Sicilian expedition ended in failure.
The failure of the expedition to Sicily prompted Athens to mobilize a national force and rebuild a new fleet. Correspondingly, Sparta also realized the importance of sea power and began to raise funds from allies to develop a navy. However, no matter how Sparta developed its navy, it still lacked confidence in defeating Athens, so the Spartans also began their own expeditionary program, and their target was Thrace. Thrace was chosen to control the Dardanelles And thus to secure trade routes from the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea. At that time, the main grain importers of athens and other Delos were the Black Sea coast (the plains on both sides of the Kerch Strait to be precise), and controlling the Dardanelles Strait could contain Athens' food supply routes. The change in the situation prompted a large number of members of the Delos League to break away from the Alliance and even intend to negotiate a separate peace with the Spartans. However, with their deep naval heritage, the Athenians regained control of the Dardanelles and the Aegean Sea through two naval victories, and the two sides once again fell into a stalemate.
※ Tyranny, Athens to the outside, Sparta to the inside?※
Due to the heavy attrition of the Sicily expedition, the Athenians intensified their exploitation of the members of the Delos League, and maintained their demand for hegemony by increasing commercial taxes. This practice of democracy at home and tyranny on the outside has also laid the foundation for themselves. Since then, the Spartans have easily won the support of many city-states with the slogan of overthrowing the oppression of the Athenians. Thus, even as the Athenians maintained a strong maritime superiority, their financial pressures grew, and they were increasingly unable to maintain the Delos League.
For most of the Peloponnesian War, Sparta was able to maintain relatively harmonious relations with its allies. Its tyranny was mainly manifested in the oppression of the domestic slave class, but with its strong military strength, it did not worry about their uprising. However, as the balance of war gradually shifted to the Spartan side, its internal power characteristics began to gradually reveal. In Syracuse, the Spartans interfered in the political situation in Syracuse, thus becoming at odds with Corinth; on the Attica Peninsula, Sparta, for the purpose of containing Thebes, later left Athens in spite of the opposition of Corinth and Thebes, and intended to annex the Viotia League, thus arousing the vigilance of Thebes; and in Athens, the forced promotion of the system of the Lords of the Bulge led to its hostility to Sparta. These are precisely the reasons why Sparta's hegemony could not last after its victory in the Peloponnesian War.
※ The ambitions of the Persian princes and the decline of Athens?※
Of course, corinth, thebes, and Athens joined forces against Sparta, and thus launched the "Corinthian War" as a follow-up. Until then, we need to explain what broke the deadlock after the two failed expeditions to Athens and Sparta and the two sides fell into a confrontation again. In fact, quite simply, when Sparta was again seized of Aegean sea power by Athens in 408 BC, emissaries were sent to the peninsula of Asia Minor to persuade the support of the local Persian governor Cyrus the Younger. As a cover for the Persian Emperor Darius II, Cyrus the Younger chose to finance Sparta in exchange for future military support in order to prepare for the throne. As a result, Sparta, which had Persian financial support, began to build a large-scale navy and lured Athenian sailors to jump ship with high salaries, and soon gained the upper hand.
Losing its maritime superiority, the athenian empire collapsed, surrendered most of its warships at the request of the Spartans, dissolved the Delos League (later re-established, but was less powerful than the first), and destroyed the Athenian passage to the coast. Since then, Greece has experienced a short period of Spartan hegemony and Thebes hegemony, and although Athens has repeatedly resisted, it has been difficult to regain its former glory.
To sum up, Athens, which rose up in the Persian-Greek War, became the maritime hegemon of the Greek peninsula with the Delian Alliance, which attracted hostility from Sparta and Thebes. The two sides have clashed several times, but have repeatedly reached a stalemate because of their military superiority on land and sea. Later, athens and Sparta tried to open a "second battlefield" to cut off the logistics supply of the other side, but both failed. Finally, athenian oppression of its allies, as well as Persian funding of Sparta, eventually contributed to the rise of the Spartan navy and the collapse of the Athenian Empire. However, the protracted Peloponnesian War was not the end of the Greek Civil War, and the fragile geopolitical balance soon led to new strife (i.e., the Corinthian War), which severely depleted the internal strength of the Greek city-states and thus achieved the great cause of the Macedonian Empire.