The Peloponnesian War From 431 To 404 BC

Name: Mohammed Alkhaldi Instructor: Brett McCormick Exam 1

The Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War occurred between the years from 431 to 404 BC. It was a historical ancient Greek war which was fought in Athens by Athenians and its entire empire against Sparta which led the Peloponnesian League. In order to fully understand the causes of the war, it is important first to know the principle parties that were involved in the war. The Peloponnesian War involved two principle groups which were the Peloponnesian states, Sparta and Athens. There were other small parties which were involved in the war either aiding the Spartans or the Athenians such as the city states of Sicily, Attica, Corinth and Thebes.

The Peloponnesian War was caused by the

The causes of the war can be simply explained through the three phases that led to the war in the first place. The Peloponnesian War’s started off was when the first phase occurred which was remarkable and was called the Archidamian War where Sparta launched a series of repeated attacks on Attica while Athens was busy using its naval superiority to raid the entire coast of Peloponnese. This phase was completed in 421 BC through the signing of the famous Peace of Nicias treaty.

The war then started off again and this time it was caused to escalate when war broke out again in Peloponnese resulting in Athens sending a colossal expeditionary force to invade Syracuse in Sicily leading to the attack failing in 413 BC. This resulted to what was later called the Decelean War or the Ionian War where Sparta aided by Persians were involved in supporting rebellions in various Athenian controlled cities such as Ionia and Aegean. This undermined the strength of Athens

Some of the short- term consequences of the war included the fact that Sparta was only victorious for a short while as it was later conquered by Thebes. Thebes also internally crumbled after its general died and its victory was short lived.

Sparta won the war but never reached the traditional and cultural prominence that was enjoyed by Athens. Athens was culturally superior and influenced a lot of science, artistic and intellectual life for many years after it was defeated in the Peloponnesian war. The war led to Greek cities concentrating less on fighting and more on intellectual growth and cities such as Ionia pioneered in research revolving around metaphysics.

There were social and political consequences of the war that affected all futuristic activities of the Greek people. The social and political systems of Athens and Sparta after the war affected the way they conducted their civil war as they avoided an all-out-war and took certain small strategic attacks on each other. Socially, the Greek states after the war supported minor rebellions and politically, they rallied against taking one city at a time from their