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A Chronological History of the War's Events |
The first attacks came in 431 B.C.E. when Thebes led an army against the Athenians in Plataea, and when the Spartan King Archidamus attacked into Athenian territory. Both battles resulted in wins for the Athenians. Archidamus continued to attack the Athenian frontier for about ten years. This period of time from 431-421 B.C.E. has been called the Archidamian War. In response to these attacks, Pericles of Athens attacked the Spartan cities of Megara and Epidaurus. Both were too well fortified and resulted in Spartan victories.
In 430 B.C.E., because of the Spartan threat, the Athenian population gathered behind the city walls. The Spartan general Archidamus led his army to Athens and surrounded it. The siege lasted two years. In that time, a massive plague broke out within the city walls. It resulted in the deaths of 1/4 of the Athenian population, about 50,000 people. Such people as Pericles himself were victims of the plague. This created a lack of manpower and leadership.
In 429 B.C.E., the Spartans besieged the city of Plataea. The city population was either executed or sold into slavery. The city was then leveled. A year later an ally of Athens, Mytilene, revolted against Athens, but was crushed. The Delian League was beginning to fall apart. To help increase morale, the Athenian military decided to go on the offensive. In 427 B.C.E., they built a naval base near the city of Messenia, about 50 miles west of Sparta. Sparta feared the Athenians would influence the Messenians into a revolt, so they attacked the naval base, but failed to destroy it. Between 425-421 B.C.E., Sparta refrained from attacking and kept asking Athens for peace, but their pleads were rebuked by the Athenians.
In 424 B.C.E., Spartan General Brasida convinced several Delian League cities to defect. He then used their armies to capture the strategic Athenian city of Amphipolis. Both sides then called a truce which lasted from 423-422 B.C.E. At the end of the peace, Athens' new general, Cleon, went to Amphipolis to fight Brasida. Cleon's army was destroyed and Cleon himself was killed in the fighting.
The year 421 B.C.E. brought the long anticipated Peace of Nicias. It was supposed to last 50 years but unfortunately lasted just a mere three years. Under the peace terms, Athens was to keep their empire. Sparta would then join with Athens and give both cities dual hegemony over all of Greece. After the three years of peace, an anti-Spartan axis was formed and led by Athens. In response, Sparta rearmed and crushed the allied forces at the Battle of Mantinea, 418 B.C.E. The alliance between Athens and Sparta dissolved and tensions grew high, war was once again on the horizon.
The first move was made by Athens. They decided to launch a major force to Syracuse, a small city on Eastern Sicily. The goal was to capture the source of Sparta's food supply and starve them into defeat. About 134 warships, 130 supply ships, 5,100 hoplites, and 1,300 archers set sail in late spring. (Sacks, 1995) But unfortunate for the Athenians, the general who designed the plan was charged for impiety. So he fled to Sparta and told of the invasion force. When the Athenians landed, they started building a huge wall around the harbor where their ships were moored. The Spartans decided to attack before the wall was finished and just went around it! The Athenians soon found themselves to be trapped with little hope in sight.
In 413 B.C.E., as a final effort to win the war, the Athenians launched a second armada to Syracuse. They tried to excavate the remaining forces from the first armada, but were blocked in the harbor by the Syracusan navy themselves. The Athenians decided to beach their doomed ships and fight on the land. After a couple days, all of the Athenian troops were either killed or captured, the invasion had failed twice. It was also the greatest military defeat of Athens, and not the last.
From this point on, Sparta was closing in on the city of Athens, which they eventually reached and surrounded. The end was near for the Athenians who once again huddled behind the great walls of the city. To achieve the final blow on Athens, Sparta allied with Athens' arch rival, Darius II of Persia, in 412 B.C.E. Sparta asked Athens to surrender, but they refused the offer. In 404 B.C.E., the Spartan and Persian forces attacked and decimated the city of Athens after six months of siege attacks. Athens would never again have a golden age or influence Greece.
