The Battle Of The Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War pitted the Athenians against the Spartans. The Peloponnesians’ were an alliance of city-states controlled by Sparta. These two powerful city-states became locked in a struggle for dominance of the eastern Mediterranean area. The roots of the conflict and in particular this expedition is highly complex. As Thucydides says in his history of the war, the underlying cause was Spartan fear of Athens' expansive power. But, the triggering event was Athens' aggressive behavior towards Corinth, an ally of Sparta.

Three key features of the Parthenon that reflected the social context of the goddess Athena and the Athenians are the Pediments, the Internal Frieze and the Athena Parthenos. The Parthenon, meaning “of the virgin” referring to the goddess Athena, was built in 447 BC and opened to the public in 432 BC. It is located in the south side of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece and was built to house the cult statue of Athena.

The Athenian Empire was a more voluntary alliance of city-states that were impressed by the Athenian Navy's prowess in the Persian War and were willing to pay for its protection. Athens used this revenue to further improve its navy, as well as improve its own infrastructure and defenses. Included in these improvements was the construction of large walls around the city and down to the port at Piraeus, home of the Athenian Navy.

In 431 B.C., even before the Peloponnesian War, Athens’ strength compared to other Greek polises was evident. Athens had islands, a powerful, a well-trained navy, and one, if not the best, general at the time: Pericles. Pericles says in his speech that, “war is inevitable,” but in fact the war was preventable (72). Even with all of the military strengths and assets that Athenians had afforded to them, they chose to be merciful to the Peloponnesians who were in no shape to go to war. They did not have the experience, money, manpower, or means to participate in a lengthy war and Pericles makes the citizens aware of this (70). Pericles is both modest and humble for choosing to point out these facts which in turn helps the Athenians see the potential

Sparta invaded Attica in 431 B.C, and easily gained control of the area surrounding Athens. Athens was most known for having a superior navy, while Sparta was known for having a superior army. This caused the war to drag on, because neither side could easily gain total domination of the land and sea. Sparta tended to use a strategy that involved annually invading Athenian territory, and destroying anything that helped the Athenians survive. Farms and other resources were targeted by the Spartans, but the effectiveness of this strategy is questionable. Athens was protected by its "Long Walls" that it had constructed earlier, so it was near impossible for the Spartan army to break through and ravage Athens. Not to mention, these walls ran all the way to the port supplying Athens. There was no way that Sparta could match the Athenian navy, so Athens could receive supplies from outside from their port. It soon became clear that the war would be won not from battle alone, but from time itself.

The Peloponnesian war (431–404 BC) was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens against the Peloponnesian led by Sparta. Thucydides famously claims that the war started “because the Spartans were afraid of further growth of Athenian power, seeing as they did have the greater part of Hellas was under the control of Athens”. The two main protagonists from opposing sides Lysander and Alcibiades had the most influential impact on the end of the war.

Dating back to 449 B.C., Sparta and Athens always had an alliance, but as time grew that balance slowly began to fall as one felt threatened by another. Before any sight of unsteadiness the Spartans and Athenians had a bound partnership. Beginning after their domination of the Persian war, the two states slowly became aware of one another’s growing power. More time went by, and the Spartans began to grow conscious of the other states, feeling wary and paranoid around them (Fox, 170). No state was particularly to blame for the strain on their peace treaty, nor for the war, it came as the two states developed. Eventually the two states had clashed enough and declared war. Although the Spartans gave the Athenians a chance to back down and

The Peloponnesian War was a battle between Athens and Sparta for about 30 years. Athens controlled a mass empire with a dominant Navy; however by the end of the war Athens lost their empire and lost control. There are many reasons how this conflict started and how it escalated. In the end both powerful empires fall after many years of fighting.

The spark that ignited the Great Peloponnesian War was a civil war at Epidamnus, between Corcyra and Corinth. The Corcyraeans had a fleet that was second in size to that of Athens, and the Athenians feared that its capture by Corinth would threaten the Athenian Empire. As a result, the Athenians made an alliance with Corcyra that angered the Corinthians. In the summer of 432 B.C.E., the Spartans met to consider their allies grievances. The Spartans were persuaded that the Athenians had an insatiably aggressive power seeking to enslave all Greeks, which resulted in their declaration of war. The Athenians refused to yield to threats or commands, but the Spartans refused to arbitrate and could not reach any settlement with the Athenians.

The Greek civilization was a great paradox, meaning that they had very bad failures but they also had great success. The Greeks were very divided, what I mean by that is that the Greek citizens were only loyal to their own poleis. These people would show no loyalty to Greece which lead to no political sense. Many people of Greece started to kill each other due to the conflict between each of the poleis. The Peloponnesian War was a war between the two city-states, Sparta and Athens.

The Peloponnesian War was a 27 yearlong war fought between Athens and Sparta. Both Athens and Sparta were leaders of their own leagues, Athens and the Delian League and Sparta with the Peloponnesian League. War broke out after Athens failed to adhere to the 30 years treaty, plus ever since its growing size and economic wealth Athens had been acting more like a bully and less like a civilized city-state but anger amongst Sparta and Athens allies only made war more inevitable. Thucydides, who served as a general in the Peloponnesian war stated in his recount of the war, “ The growth and the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.” Once war had officially begun Pericles, the Athenian leader, suggested

Evolving Athenian Strategy During The Peloponnesian War “The longer a war persists the more inevitable is the sinking below civilized levels of warfare…to a much more horrible way of fighting.” - Dr. Donald Kagan speaking of The Peloponnesian War The Peloponnesian War pitted two regional powers, Athens and Sparta, against one another in a prolonged struggle to determine which state would reign supreme within the Hellas. Sparta with its agrarian structure and superior land force sought to curb the growth of Athens’ commerce based society and naval supremacy. In facing the aggression by Spartan forces during the conflict the Athenian strategy slowly shifted the ways it would attempt to achieve victory by increasing the amount of risk it

I disagree with the statement. While works of fiction may be skewed they usually have some historical backing of the time period they are set in, and some even are based loosely on real historical events. In historical tales we can assume that the underlying themes show many of these ancient cultures beliefs and practices.

During the session, Luke and I talked through early Greek history, Alexander the Great, and the Hellenistic period. We mainly focused on making connections between the wars (Persian and Peloponnesian Wars) and the worldviews of the Greek people. Luke was able to explain how the Persian Wars bolstered Greek pride and began the construction of Athenian society. We then discussed how after the Persian Wars Greece ended up having a civil war called the Peloponnesian War. Luke was able to understand how this war bought down the Greeks’ pride and view of humanity. I explained that the classical ideas promoted by Plato and other philosophers began to become less popular along with the belief in the absolutes. We then looked at the different pictures

For the realization of the strategy in the first part of the war, Athens used all the available elements of national power. The Athens’s strategy, viewed from today 's standpoint, was based on a comprehensive approach to the defense of vital national interests. In other words, military assets were not the only instrument, because the economy played an important role. The economy, in the context of the Athens strategy, should be viewed in a dual role: as a source of power sufficient to bear the cost of long-term warfare and as a means of influencing other actors in the environment, especially Sparta. Sufficient wealth and money enabled Athenians not to defend Aticca and avoid a direct confrontation with superior Spartan forces. The Athens strategy partly rested on the calculation that the costs of the war would provoke the rebellion of Spartan 's allies and also make Sparta give up his intentions. The primary role of their strong Navy was to secure the free trade of the Athens Empire in order to obtain the necessary wealth for the functioning of the state and the payment of the costs of war. In an offensive role, the Navy successfully attacked the coastal areas under the control of Sparta and its