M1D1: Realism

Peloponnesian War
from The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide
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War fought 431–404 BC between Athens and Sparta and their respective allies, involving most of the
Greek world from Asia Minor to Sicily and from Byzantium (present-day Istanbul, Turkey) to Crete.
Sparked by Spartan fears about the growth of Athenian power, it continued until the Spartan general
Lysander captured the Athenian fleet in 405 BC at Aegospotami and starved the Athenians into
surrender in 404 BC. As a result of this victory, Athens’ political power collapsed.
The Peloponnesian War was a classic example of a war between a seapower and a landpower, with
Athens controlling most of the Aegean and its coasts, and Sparta most of the Peloponnese and central
Greece. This partly explains both its length and why so much of the early fighting was peripheral. The
Spartans were unable to bring about the decisive battle they wanted by invading Attica, since the
Athenians withdrew within the fortifications of Athens and the Peiraias, their supplies guaranteed by
seapower. But, equally, Athenian raids on the Peloponnesian coast were ineffective even when
extended by the occupation of permanent bases on and off enemy coasts 425–424 BC, though the
pressure this exerted brought about a spectacular Athenian success at Pylos in 425 BC. Following this,
an Athenian attempt to win control of Megara failed, and an over-ambitious plan to knock Boeotia out
of the war ended in disaster at Delium in 424 BC.
Meanwhile, the Spartans at last devised a means of hitting Athens in a vital spot when they sent an
expeditionary force overland to raise revolt amongst its allies in Thrace. However, the death of its
charismatic leader Brasidas and that of Cleon, the Athenian principally opposed to negotiations, at
Amphipolis, led to a temporary peace in 422/1 BC.
During the early years of the peace Athens made use of the discontent of some of Sparta’s allies to
engineer an alliance in the Peloponnese and so match Sparta on land. The alliance disintegrated after
Sparta’s victory at Mantinea in 418 BC, and Athens fatally dissipated its strength by sending an
expeditionary force to Sicily in 415 BC. The annihilation of this force in 413 BC shattered Athenian
seapower and encouraged Sparta and its allies to make a real effort at sea, Athens’ allies to rebel, and
Persia to throw its financial weight behind Sparta in the hope of recovering the Asiatic Greek cities lost
to Athens in the years following the Persian king Xerxes I’s defeat at Plataea in 479 BC.
The great battles of the last ten years of the war were all fought at sea, in the northern Aegean, the
Hellespont (present-day Dardanelles), or the Propontis (Sea of Marmara), as successive Spartan
admirals strove to cut Athens’ supply lines. Athens won a series of victories, notably off Cyzicus in 410
BC and the Arginusae Islands in 406 BC, but the end came with Lysander’s destruction of the Athenian
fleet at Aegospotami in 405 BC and, after withstanding siege by both land and sea through the winter,
Athens surrendered in 404 BC.
essays
Peloponnesian War
weblinks
Epic of the Peloponnesian War: Historical Commentary
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Peloponnesian War
Plague in Athens During the Peloponnesian War
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APA
Peloponnesian War. (2018). In Helicon (Ed.), The Hutchinson unabridged encyclopedia with atlas and
weather guide. Helicon. Credo Reference: http://vlib.excelsior.edu/login?
url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/heliconhe/peloponnesian_war/0?
institutionId=1649
Chicago
“Peloponnesian War.” In The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide,
edited by Helicon. Helicon, 2018. http://vlib.excelsior.edu/login?
url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/heliconhe/peloponnesian_war/0?
institutionId=1649
Harvard
Peloponnesian War. (2018). In Helicon (Ed.), The Hutchinson unabridged encyclopedia with atlas and
weather guide. [Online]. Abington: Helicon. Available from: http://vlib.excelsior.edu/login?
url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/heliconhe/peloponnesian_war/0?
institutionId=1649 [Accessed 8 March 2022].
MLA
“Peloponnesian War.” The Hutchinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide, edited
by Helicon, 2018. Credo Reference, http://vlib.excelsior.edu/login?
url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/heliconhe/peloponnesian_war/0?
institutionId=1649. Accessed 08 Mar. 2022.
http://vlib.excelsior.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/heliconhe/peloponnesian_war/0