Thucydides 'Peloponnesian War'

Pericles, the Athenian leader, avoided land battles and concentrated on control of the sea. After Pericles' death, the Athenians signed a fifty year truce called the Peace of Nicias in 421. This provided that each side restore captured places and prisoners and remain at peace with each other. This was soon supplemented by an actual Athenian-Spartan alliance, which concluded for fifty years. The intention was chiefly to give each power a chance to put its own alliance in order while secure from an attack by the other. The war had been marked by numerous acts of brutality on both sides; prisoners had been slaughtered or enslaved, and agreements broken in a way that were shameful. (Winks)

Athens and Sparta were both dominant powers in ancient Greece. However, a legendary rivalry existed between the two. When Athens ended its alliance with Corcyra in 433 B.C. and began to surround Potidaea, it threatened Corinth’s position. Sparta feared that Athens was becoming too powerful and tried to avert war. The Spartans believed that peace was possible if the Athenians would revoke measures against Sparta's ally, Megara. The Athenian leader, Pericles, refused to concur with this because Sparta and Athens had earlier agreed that conflicts would be solved by negotiation. If the Athenians would yield to Sparta's request, they would in fact be accepting Sparta’s orders. This was unacceptable, and as a result, war broke out. Athens and its Delian League were attacked by Sparta and its Peloponnesian League. Diodorus mentions that the Spartans did not just declare war, but sought additional support from Persia.

The Peloponnesian war lasted from 431 to 404 B.C. and was profoundly influenced by two Athenian men, Pericles and Alcibiades. Though Pericles and Alcibiades were related by blood they were quite different. Pericles was a diplomat, he approached matters with a level head and tried to find a solution that did not end in bloodshed. Alcibiades was less stable, he either fought, manipulated, or ran when confronted with a problem. Both men spoke eloquently enough to move almost the entire city of Athens, using their words to bend people to their will.  What was different between them was what their will was, one cared about the city and its wellbeing, the other cared about his own wellbeing.

Action from necessity is a constantly recurring theme in Thucydides’ The Landmark Thucydides: A Comprehensive Guide to the Peloponnesian War. A sentiment used to explain the growth of the Athenian Empire which some Athenians espoused to an assembly at Sparta best quantifies necessity, “. . . we were necessarily compelled at first to advance the hegemony to where it is—especially by fear, and then by honor, and later by benefit.” (Selected Passages 1.75.3). This claim, referred to as the Athenian Thesis, is used to advance the two following implications: all states act with the motivations of fear, honor and interest and no one can condemn a state for doing so. The Athenian Thesis influences the way many of the Athenian elite structure their patterns of reasoning in both noticeable and subtle ways.

The battle between Sparta's well-built army and Athens's exemplary navy was like a battle between a bear and a shark. If the bear goes into the water, the shark wins. However, if the shark enters land, the bear will kill it. The Athenian general and military genius Pericles knew this. Therefore, he devised a strategy that was based on the strength of his navy and the Spartan inability to battle him on sea; he devised a strategy of attrition where they would sit at home, and outlast the enemy (Kagan 52). In his mind, if Athens disregarded the Spartan land attacks, and instead survived off sea trade from their allies, the enemy would be unable to cause much damage. He wanted to drain them out psychologically, to get them to surrender from attacking the Athenian Empire (Kagan 52). One of the most important steps in doing this was to connect Athens to its navy city and their port. They did this by building walls that connected them, later known as the Long Walls (Kagan 9). Back then, walls were almost impregnable to attacks, and were one of the best defenses in the ancient world. Therefore, the addition of the Long Walls made both Athens and the port extremely hard to crack; they were ready for any Spartan land attack that would come their way. When the war finally started and the Spartans did come, they found that their attacks were not going to work. Their strategy of totally crushing the Athenian Empire and fighting a battle of annihilation was countered by the

"Just before the Peloponnesian War began, Pericles of Athens and King Archidamus of Sparta provided net assessments of the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the two sides. Evaluate their projections."

Homer’s Iliad and Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War ask if death and philotēs can exist simultaneously. In the respective texts, that which Achilles and the Athenians encounter prove they will not exist in harmony for “human nature” is “incapable of controlling passion” and “the enemy of anything superior” (HPW 3.84). When Achilles does not receive his earned honor after battle and death’s toll from the war blurs the Athenians’ identity, their grief causes apathy. Achilles withdraws from his own people with a “rage, black and murderous” causing his own army to buckle which parallels the Athenians who at Pylos become “obsessed with the idea...to attack Spartans” (HPW 4.34). Before these cruel lapses in judgment, both desire

During the following years, the Athenians decided to take the offensive by attacking the city of Syracuse. They campaigned all throughout western Greece and even the Peloponnese. By 425 B.C., it wasn’t looking good for Sparta and they wanted to bring about peace. They soon, however, gained victory of Chalcidice and Athens were encouraged to revolt, but in a battle at Amphipolis in 422 B.C., two major leaders of Sparta and Athens were killed and Athenians were persuaded to accept Sparta’s peace

Argos received an excuse from the Delphic oracle to keep it from battle (Hdt. VII.148-152), and Messene was “so corrupted that [it] even tried to prevent Sparta’s attempts to come to Greece’s aid” (Plato, 692d). Other city-states avoided participation in the wars as well. The oracle also excused Crete from fighting (Hdt. VII.169), and the tyrant Gelon of Syracuse refused to let his state help Greece’s cause (Brunt 158-162). If these poleis had chosen to fight, the Persians may have been intimidated by the large Greek forces and avoided war. The Greeks instead presented an image of a nation torn by cowardice, thereby making the Persians more confident in attacking Greece. This lack of unity among the city-states created some

Undeniably, the ancient Greek society places a heavy emphasis on values and traditions. The two texts of the “Clouds” by Aristophanes and “History of the Peloponnesian war” by Thucydides, although contextually divergent, are actually conceptually convergent. Both texts are built around the central theme of the collapse of conventional values. While the breakdown of traditional values in the “History of the Peloponnesian war” is presented in a more metaphorical and symbolical manner, the downfall of conventional values in the “Clouds” is on a more direct basis. Although both texts essentially convey across the same solemn message that the relinquishment of

The remaining Athenian fleet was caught unawares at Hellespont and destroyed. This signified the first time in a century that Athens did not have control of the Aegean. Sparta blockaded land routes, thus preventing resupply to Athens. By 404, Athens capitulated.

Once back in command Lysander directed the Spartan fleet towards Hellespont, the Athenian fleet of 160 ships followed him and took up a position at Aegospotami, Lysander commanded the mariners and pilots to go on board and sit in silence, they did this for four days. The Athenians were scattered about as the men were sleeping or dining as they grew careless waiting for Lysander to attack, when Lysander’s fleet did attack the men were coming unarmed and scattered to help but many died at their ships which resulted in Lysander seizing the city of Lampascus, killing many of the crews and capturing 3000 men and 160 ships, all prisoners were executed. Having taken their ships in tow he sailed back to Lampascus having accomplished a great work with small pains, the war that had a 25 year duration was finished in an hour, it was put to an end by the ready conduct of one man. Lysander. Lacedaemonians quotes that Lysander wrote to the ephors: Athens is taken” and

of events which I am going to look at to see if there was a single

The book written by Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, contains two controversial debates between distinguished speakers of Athens. The two corresponding sides produce convincing arguments which can be taken as if produced as an honest opinion or out of self-interest. The two debates must be analyzed separately in order to conclude which one and which side was speaking out of honest opinion or self-interest, as well as which speakers are similar to each other in their approach to the situation.

When Sparta gave its ultimatum to Athens, Pericles was more than happy to oblige and go to war. He embodies Athenian arrogance and overzealousness. Pericles speaks to the Athenian assembly convincing them to go to war because according to him, they cannot lose. Pericles explains how Sparta doesn’t have the same financial advantages that Athens does and how Athens has a far superior navy. According to Pericles, the best strategy is to use that to Athens’ advantage, leaving Attica exposed by only attacking and defending the sea were they have an advantage. Pericles finishes of by saying that Athens possesses all of Sparta’s strengths and none of its weaknesses, and Athens must fight so that future generations will have an Athens that is as good as ever.