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The Peloponnesian War (431–404) was an
ancient Greek war fought by the Delian League led by Athens against the
Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the
war into three phases. In the first phase, the Archidamian War, Sparta launched
repeated invasions of Attica, while Athens took advantage of its naval
supremacy to raid the coast of the Peloponnese and attempt to suppress signs of
unrest in its empire. This period of the war was concluded in 421 BC, with the
signing of the Peace of Nicias. That treaty, however, was soon undermined by
renewed fighting in the Peloponnese. In 415 BC, Athens dispatched a massive
expeditionary force to attack Syracuse, Sicily; the attack failed disastrously,
with the destruction of the entire force in 413 BC. This ushered in the final
phase of the war, generally referred to either as the Decelean War, or the
Ionian War. In this phase, Sparta, now receiving support from the Achaemenid
Empire, supported rebellions in Athens's subject states in the Aegean Sea and
Ionia, undermining Athens's empire, and, eventually, depriving the city of
naval supremacy. The destruction of Athens's fleet in the Battle of Aegospotami
effectively ended the war, and Athens surrendered in the following year.
Corinth and Thebes demanded that Athens should be destroyed and all its
citizens should be enslaved, but Sparta refused. Although the term
"Peloponnesian War" was never used by Thucydides, one of the
conflict's most important historians, the fact that the term is all but
universally used today is a reflection of the Athens-centric sympathies of
modern historians. As prominent historian J. B. Bury remarks, the
Peloponnesians would have considered it the "Attic War". The
Peloponnesian War reshaped the ancient Greek world. On the level of
international relations, Athens, the strongest city-state in Greece prior to
the war's beginning, was reduced to a state of near-complete subjection, while
Sparta became established as the leading power of Greece. The economic costs of
the war were felt all across Greece; poverty became widespread in the
Peloponnese, while Athens was completely devastated, and never regained its
pre-war prosperity. The war also wrought subtler changes to Greek society; the
conflict between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, each of which
supported friendly political factions within other states, made war a common
occurrence in the Greek world. Ancient Greek warfare, meanwhile, originally a
limited and formalized form of conflict, was transformed into an all-out
struggle between city-states, complete with atrocities on a large scale.
Shattering religious and cultural taboos, devastating vast swathes of
countryside, and destroying whole cities, the Peloponnesian War marked the
dramatic end to the fifth century BC and the golden age of Greece.
Opponents: Delian League (led by Athens) versus the Peloponnesian League (led
by Sparta) Supported by: Achaemenid Empire
Commanders and leaders:
Delian League - Pericles (died in 429 BC) Cleon † Nicias Executed
Alcibiades Executed (in exile) Demosthenes Executed
Sparta - Archidamus II Brasidas † Lysander Alcibiades
Casualties and losses:
Delian League - At least 18,070 soldiers - unknown number of civilian
casualties.
Spartans -unknown
The Peloponnesian War was soon followed by the Corinthian War (394–386), which, although it
ended inconclusively, helped Athens regain some of its former greatness.
Prelude:
As the preeminent Athenian historian, Thucydides, wrote in his influential
History of the Peloponnesian War, "The growth of the power of Athens, and
the alarm which this inspired in Lacedaemon, made war inevitable."
Indeed, the nearly fifty years of Greek history that preceded the outbreak of
the Peloponnesian War had been marked by the development of Athens as a major
power in the Mediterranean world. Its empire began as a small group of
city-states, called the Delian League – from the island of Delos, on which
they kept their treasury – that came together to ensure that the
Greco-Persian Wars were truly over. After defeating the Second Persian invasion
of Greece in the year 480, Athens led the coalition of Greek city-states that
continued the Greco-Persian Wars
with attacks on Persian territories in the Aegean and Ionia. What then ensued
was a period, referred to as the Pentecontaetia (the name given by Thucydides),
in which Athens increasingly became in fact an empire, carrying out an
aggressive war against Persia and increasingly dominating other city-states.
Athens proceeded to bring under its control all of Greece except for Sparta and
its allies, ushering in a period which is known to history as the Athenian
Empire. By the middle of the century, the Persians had been driven from the
Aegean and forced to cede control of a vast range of territories to Athens. At
the same time, Athens greatly increased its own power; a number of its formerly
independent allies were reduced, over the course of the century, to the status
of tribute-paying subject states of the Delian League. This tribute was used to
support a powerful fleet and, after the middle of the century, to fund massive
public works programs in Athens, causing resentment.
Friction between Athens and the Peloponnesian states, including Sparta, began
early in the Pentecontaetia; in the wake of the departure of the Persians from
Greece, Sparta attempted to prevent the reconstruction of the walls of Athens
(without the walls, Athens would have been defenseless against a land attack
and subject to Spartan control), but was rebuffed.[10] According to Thucydides,
although the Spartans took no action at this time, they "secretly felt
aggrieved".
Conflict between the states flared up again in 465, when a helot revolt broke
out in Sparta. The Spartans summoned forces from all of their allies, including
Athens, to help them suppress the revolt. Athens sent out a sizable contingent
(4,000 hoplites), but upon its arrival, this force was dismissed by the
Spartans, while those of all the other allies were permitted to remain.
According to Thucydides, the Spartans acted in this way out of fear that the
Athenians would switch sides and support the helots; the offended Athenians
repudiated their alliance with Sparta.
When the rebellious helots were finally forced to surrender and permitted to
evacuate the state, the Athenians settled them at the strategic city of
Naupaktos on the Gulf of Corinth. In 459, Athens took advantage of a war
between its neighbors Megara and Corinth, both Spartan allies, to conclude an
alliance with Megara, giving the Athenians a critical foothold on the Isthmus
of Corinth. A fifteen-year conflict, commonly known as the
First Peloponnesian War, ensued, in
which Athens fought intermittently against Sparta, Corinth, Aegina, and a
number of other states. For a time during this conflict, Athens controlled not
only Megara but also Boeotia; at its end, however, in the face of a massive
Spartan invasion of Attica, the Athenians ceded the lands they had won on the
Greek mainland, and Athens and Sparta recognized each other's right to control
their respective alliance systems. The war was officially ended by the Thirty
Years' Peace, signed in the winter of 446/5.
Breakdown of the peace:
The Thirty Years' Peace was first tested in 440, when Athens's powerful ally
Samos rebelled from its alliance with Athens. The rebels quickly secured the
support of a Persian satrap, and Athens found itself facing the prospect of
revolts throughout the empire. The Spartans, whose intervention would have been
the trigger for a massive war to determine the fate of the empire, called a
congress of their allies to discuss the possibility of war with Athens.
Sparta's powerful ally Corinth was notably opposed to intervention, and the
congress voted against war with Athens. The Athenians crushed the revolt, and
peace was maintained.
The more immediate events that led to war involved Athens and Corinth. After
suffering a defeat at the hands of their colony of Corcyra, a sea power that
was not allied to either Sparta or Athens, Corinth began to build an allied
naval force. Alarmed, Corcyra sought an alliance with Athens, which after
debate and input from both Corcyra and Corinth, decided to swear a defensive
alliance with Corcyra. At the Battle of
Sybota, a small contingent of Athenian ships played a critical role in
preventing a Corinthian fleet from capturing Corcyra. In order to uphold the
Thirty Years' Peace, however, the Athenians were instructed not to intervene in
the battle unless it was clear that Corinth was going to press onward to invade
Corcyra. However, the Athenian warships participated in the battle
nevertheless, and the arrival of additional Athenian triremes was enough to
dissuade the Corinthians from exploiting their victory, thus sparing much of
the routed Corcyrean and Athenian fleet.
Following this, Athens instructed Potidaea in the peninsula of Chalkidiki, a
tributary ally of Athens but a colony of Corinth, to tear down its walls, send
hostages to Athens, dismiss the Corinthian magistrates from office, and refuse
the magistrates that the city would send in the future.
The Corinthians, outraged by these actions, encouraged Potidaea to revolt and
assured them that they would ally with them should they revolt from Athens.
During the subsequent Battle of Potidaea, the Corinthians unofficially aided
Potidaea by sneaking contingents of men into the besieged city to help defend
it. This was a direct violation of the Thirty Years' Peace, which had (among
other things) stipulated that the
Delian League and the
Peloponnesian League would respect each other's autonomy and internal affairs.
Battle of Potidaea (432 BC): Athenians against Corinthians.
A further source of provocation was an Athenian decree, issued in 433/2,
imposing stringent trade sanctions on Megarian citizens (once more a Spartan
ally after the conclusion of the First Peloponnesian War). It was alleged that
the Megarians had desecrated the Hiera Orgas. These sanctions, known as the
Megarian decree, were largely ignored by Thucydides, but some modern economic
historians have noted that forbidding Megara to trade with the prosperous
Athenian empire would have been disastrous for the Megarans, and have
accordingly considered the decree to be a contributing factor in bringing about
the war.
Historians that attribute responsibility for the war to Athens cite this event
as the main cause for blame. At the request of the Corinthians, the Spartans
summoned members of the Peloponnesian League to Sparta in 432, especially those
who had grievances with Athens to make their complaints to the Spartan
assembly. This debate was attended by members of the league and an uninvited
delegation from Athens, which also asked to speak, and became the scene of a
debate between the Athenians and the Corinthians. Thucydides reports that the
Corinthians condemned Sparta's inactivity up to that point, warning the
Spartans that if they continued to remain passive while the Athenians were
energetically active, they would soon find themselves outflanked and without
allies.
The Athenians, in response, reminded the Spartans of their record of military
success and opposition to Persia, and warned them of the dangers of confronting
such a powerful state, ultimately encouraging Sparta to seek arbitration as
provided by the Thirty Years' Peace. Undeterred, a majority of the Spartan
assembly voted to declare that the Athenians had broken the peace, essentially
declaring war.
The "Archidamian War" (431–421)
Sparta and its allies, with the exception of Corinth, were almost exclusively
land-based powers, able to summon large land armies which were very nearly
unbeatable (thanks to the legendary Spartan forces). The Athenian Empire,
although based in the peninsula of Attica, spread out across the islands of the
Aegean Sea; Athens drew its immense wealth from tribute paid from these
islands. Athens maintained its empire through naval power. Thus, the two powers
were relatively unable to fight decisive battles.
The Spartan strategy during the first war, known as the Archidamian War
(431–421) after Sparta's king
Archidamus II, was to
invade the land surrounding Athens. While this invasion deprived Athenians of
the productive land around their city, Athens itself was able to maintain
access to the sea, and did not suffer much. Many of the citizens of Attica
abandoned their farms and moved inside the Long Walls, which connected Athens
to its port of Piraeus. At the end of the first year of the war, Pericles gave
his famous Funeral Oration (431).
The Spartans also occupied Attica for periods of only three weeks at a time; in
the tradition of earlier hoplite warfare the soldiers were expected to go home
to participate in the harvest. Moreover, Spartan slaves, known as helots,
needed to be kept under control, and could not be left unsupervised for long
periods of time. The longest Spartan invasion, in 430, lasted just forty days.
The Athenian strategy was initially guided by the strategos, or general,
Pericles, who advised the
Athenians to avoid open battle with the far more numerous and better trained
Spartan hoplites, relying instead on the fleet. The Athenian fleet, the most
dominant in Greece, went on the offensive, winning a victory at Naupactus. In
430 an outbreak of a plague hit Athens. The plague ravaged the densely packed
city, and in the long run, was a significant cause of its final defeat. The
plague wiped out over 30,000 citizens, sailors and soldiers, including Pericles
and his sons. Roughly one-third to two-thirds of the Athenian population died.
Athenian manpower was correspondingly drastically reduced and even foreign
mercenaries refused to hire themselves out to a city riddled with plague. The
fear of plague was so widespread that the Spartan invasion of Attica was
abandoned, their troops being unwilling to risk contact with the diseased
enemy.
After the death of Pericles, the Athenians turned somewhat against his
conservative, defensive strategy and to the more aggressive strategy of
bringing the war to Sparta and its allies. Rising to particular importance in
Athenian democracy at this time was Cleon, a leader of the hawkish
elements of the Athenian democracy. Led militarily by a clever new general
Demosthenes (not to be
confused with the later Athenian orator Demosthenes), the Athenians managed
some successes as they continued their naval raids on the Peloponnese. Athens
stretched their military activities into Boeotia and Aetolia, quelled the
Mytilenean revolt and began fortifying posts around the Peloponnese. One of
these posts was near Pylos on a tiny island called Sphacteria, where the course
of the first war turned in Athens's favour. The post off Pylos struck Sparta
where it was weakest: its dependence on the helots, who tended the fields while
its citizens trained to become soldiers. The helots made the Spartan system
possible, but now the post off Pylos began attracting helot runaways. In
addition, the fear of a general revolt of helots emboldened by the nearby
Athenian presence drove the Spartans to action. Demosthenes, however,
outmanoeuvred the Spartans in the Battle of Pylos in 425 BC and trapped a group
of Spartan soldiers on Sphacteria as he waited for them to surrender. Weeks
later, though, Demosthenes proved unable to finish off the Spartans. After
boasting that he could put an end to the affair in the Assembly, the
inexperienced Cleon won a great victory at the Battle of Sphacteria. The
Athenians captured 300 Spartan hoplites. The hostages gave the Athenians a
bargaining chip. After these battles, the Spartan general Brasidas raised an
army of allies and helots and marched the length of Greece to the Athenian
colony of Amphipolis in Thrace, which controlled several nearby silver mines;
their product supplied much of the Athenian war fund. Thucydides was dispatched
with a force which arrived too late to stop Brasidas capturing Amphipolis;
Thucydides was exiled for this, and, as a result, had the conversations with
both sides of the war which inspired him to record its history. Both Brasidas
and Cleon were killed in Athenian efforts to retake Amphipolis (see Battle of
Amphipolis). The Spartans and Athenians agreed to exchange the hostages for the
towns captured by Brasidas, and signed a truce.
Peace of Nicias (421 BC) Main article: Peace of Nicias With the death of Cleon
and Brasidas, zealous war hawks for both nations, the Peace of Nicias was able
to last for some six years. However, it was a time of constant skirmishing in
and around the Peloponnese. While the Spartans refrained from action
themselves, some of their allies began to talk of revolt. They were supported
in this by Argos, a powerful state within the Peloponnese that had remained
independent of Lacedaemon. With the support of the Athenians, the Argives
succeeded in forging a coalition of democratic states within the Peloponnese,
including the powerful states of Mantinea and Elis. Early Spartan attempts to
break up the coalition failed, and the leadership of the Spartan king Agis was
called into question. Emboldened, the Argives and their allies, with the
support of a small Athenian force under Alcibiades, moved to seize the city of
Tegea, near Sparta. The Battle of Mantinea was the largest land battle fought
within Greece during the Peloponnesian War. The Lacedaemonians, with their
neighbors the Tegeans, faced the combined armies of Argos, Athens, Mantinea,
and Arcadia. In the battle, the allied coalition scored early successes, but
failed to capitalize on them, which allowed the Spartan elite forces to defeat
the forces opposite them. The result was a complete victory for the Spartans,
which rescued their city from the brink of strategic defeat. The democratic
alliance was broken up, and most of its members were reincorporated into the
Peloponnesian League. With its victory at Mantinea, Sparta pulled itself back
from the brink of utter defeat, and re-established its hegemony throughout the
Peloponnese.
Sicilian Expedition (415–413 BC) Main article: Sicilian Expedition
Destruction of the Athenian army at Syracuse. In the 17th year of the war, word
came to Athens that one of their distant allies in Sicily was under attack from
Syracuse. The people of Syracuse were ethnically Dorian (as were the Spartans),
while the Athenians, and their ally in Sicilia, were Ionian. The Athenians felt
obliged to assist their ally. The Athenians did not act solely from altruism:
rallied on by Alcibiades, the leader of the expedition, they held visions of
conquering all of Sicily. Syracuse, the principal city of Sicily, was not much
smaller than Athens, and conquering all of Sicily would have brought Athens an
immense amount of resources. In the final stages of the preparations for
departure, the hermai (religious statues) of Athens were mutilated by unknown
persons, and Alcibiades was charged with religious crimes. Alcibiades demanded
that he be put on trial at once, so that he might defend himself before the
expedition. The Athenians however allowed Alcibiades to go on the expedition
without being tried (many believed in order to better plot against him). After
arriving in Sicily, Alcibiades was recalled to Athens for trial. Fearing that
he would be unjustly condemned, Alcibiades defected to Sparta and Nicias was
placed in charge of the mission. After his defection, Alcibiades claimed to the
Spartans that the Athenians planned to use Sicily as a springboard for the
conquest of all of Italy and Carthage, and to use the resources and soldiers
from these new conquests to conquer the Peloponnese.
The Athenian force consisted of over 100 ships and some 5,000 infantry and
light-armored troops. Cavalry was limited to about 30 horses, which proved to
be no match for the large and highly trained Syracusan cavalry. Upon landing in
Sicily, several cities immediately joined the Athenian cause. Instead of
attacking at once, Nicias procrastinated and the campaigning season of 415 BC
ended with Syracuse scarcely damaged. With winter approaching, the Athenians
were then forced to withdraw into their quarters, and they spent the winter
gathering allies and preparing to destroy Syracuse. The delay allowed the
Syracusans to send for help from Sparta, who sent their general Gylippus to
Sicily with reinforcements. Upon arriving, he raised up a force from several
Sicilian cities, and went to the relief of Syracuse. He took command of the
Syracusan troops, and in a series of battles defeated the Athenian forces, and
prevented them from invading the city. Nicias then sent word to Athens asking
for reinforcements. Demosthenes was chosen and led another fleet to Sicily,
joining his forces with those of Nicias. More battles ensued and again, the
Syracusans and their allies defeated the Athenians. Demosthenes argued for a
retreat to Athens, but Nicias at first refused. After additional setbacks,
Nicias seemed to agree to a retreat until a bad omen, in the form of a lunar
eclipse, delayed any withdrawal. The delay was costly and forced the Athenians
into a major sea battle in the Great Harbor of Syracuse. The Athenians were
thoroughly defeated. Nicias and Demosthenes marched their remaining forces
inland in search of friendly allies. The Syracusan cavalry rode them down
mercilessly, eventually killing or enslaving all who were left of the mighty
Athenian fleet.
The Second War (413–404 BC) The key actions of each phase The
Lacedaemonians were not content with simply sending aid to Sicily; they also
resolved to take the war to the Athenians. On the advice of Alcibiades, they
fortified Decelea, near Athens, and prevented the Athenians from making use of
their land year round. The fortification of Decelea prevented the shipment of
supplies overland to Athens, and forced all supplies to be brought in by sea at
increased expense. Perhaps worst of all, the nearby silver mines were totally
disrupted, with as many as 20,000 Athenian slaves freed by the Spartan hoplites
at Decelea. With the treasury and emergency reserve fund of 1,000 talents
dwindling away, the Athenians were forced to demand even more tribute from her
subject allies, further increasing tensions and the threat of further rebellion
within the Empire. The Corinthians, the Spartans, and others in the
Peloponnesian League sent more reinforcements to Syracuse, in the hopes of
driving off the Athenians; but instead of withdrawing, the Athenians sent
another hundred ships and another 5,000 troops to Sicily. Under Gylippus, the
Syracusans and their allies were able to decisively defeat the Athenians on
land; and Gylippus encouraged the Syracusans to build a navy, which was able to
defeat the Athenian fleet when they attempted to withdraw. The Athenian army,
attempting to withdraw overland to other, more friendly Sicilian cities, was
divided and defeated; the entire Athenian fleet was destroyed, and virtually
the entire Athenian army was sold off into slavery. Following the defeat of the
Athenians in Sicily, it was widely believed that the end of the Athenian Empire
was at hand. Their treasury was nearly empty, its docks were depleted, and many
of the Athenian youth were dead or imprisoned in a foreign land.
Athens recovers The triumphal return of Alcibiades to Athens in 407:
Following the destruction of the Sicilian Expedition, Lacedaemon encouraged the
revolt of Athens's tributary allies, and indeed, much of Ionia rose in revolt
against Athens. The Syracusans sent their fleet to the Peloponnesians, and the
Persians decided to support the Spartans with money and ships. Revolt and
faction threatened in Athens itself. The Athenians managed to survive for
several reasons. First, their foes were lacking in initiative. Corinth and
Syracuse were slow to bring their fleets into the Aegean, and Sparta's other
allies were also slow to furnish troops or ships. The Ionian states that
rebelled expected protection, and many rejoined the Athenian side. The Persians
were slow to furnish promised funds and ships, frustrating battle plans. At the
start of the war, the Athenians had prudently put aside some money and 100
ships that were to be used only as a last resort. These ships were then
released, and served as the core of the Athenians' fleet throughout the rest of
the war. An oligarchical revolution occurred in Athens, in which a group of 400
seized power. A peace with Sparta might have been possible, but the Athenian
fleet, now based on the island of Samos, refused to accept the change. In 411
this fleet engaged the Spartans at the Battle of Syme. The fleet appointed
Alcibiades their leader, and continued the war in Athens's name. Their
opposition led to the reinstitution of a democratic government in Athens within
two years.
Alcibiades, while condemned as a traitor, still carried weight in Athens. He
prevented the Athenian fleet from attacking Athens; instead, he helped restore
democracy by more subtle pressure. He also persuaded the Athenian fleet to
attack the Spartans at the battle of Cyzicus
in 410. In the battle, the Athenians obliterated the Spartan fleet, and
succeeded in re-establishing the financial basis of the Athenian Empire.
Between 410 and 406, Athens won a continuous string of victories, and
eventually recovered large portions of its empire. All of this was due, in no
small part, to Alcibiades.
(This opinion is not shared by many including Nepos)
Achaemenid support for Sparta (414–404):
From 414, Darius II, ruler of the Achaemenid Empire had started to resent
increasing Athenian power in the Aegean and had his satrap
Tissaphernes enter
into an alliance with Sparta against Athens, which in 412 led to the Persian
reconquest of the greater part of Ionia. Tissaphernes also helped fund the
Peloponnesian fleet. Facing the resurgence of Athens, from 408, Darius II
decided to continue the war against Athens and give stronger support to the
Spartans.
He sent his son Cyrus the Younger into Asia Minor as satrap of Lydia, Phrygia
Major and Cappadocia, and general commander of the Persian troops. There, Cyrus
allied with the Spartan general Lysander. In him, Cyrus
found a man who was willing to help him become king, just as Lysander himself
hoped to become absolute ruler of Greece by the aid of the Persian prince.
Thus, Cyrus put all his means at the disposal of Lysander in the Peloponnesian
War. When Cyrus was recalled to Susa by his dying father Darius, he gave
Lysander the revenues from all of his cities of Asia Minor. Cyrus the Younger
would later obtain the support of the Spartans in return, after having asked
them "to show themselves as good friend to him, as he had been to them
during their war against Athens", when he led his own expedition to Susa
in 401 in order to topple his brother, Artaxerxes II.
Lysander triumphs:
The Spartan general Lysander has the walls of Athens demolished in 404, as a
result of the Athenian defeat in the Peloponnesian War. The faction hostile to
Alcibiades triumphed in Athens following a minor Spartan victory by their
skillful general Lysander at the naval battle of Notium in 406. Alcibiades was not re-elected
general by the Athenians and he exiled himself from the city. He would never
again lead Athenians in battle. Athens was then victorious at the naval battle
of Arginusae. The Spartan fleet under
Callicratidas lost 70
ships and the Athenians lost 25 ships. But, due to bad weather, the Athenians
were unable to rescue their stranded crews or finish off the Spartan fleet.
Despite their victory, these failures caused outrage in Athens and led to a
controversial trial. The trial resulted in the execution of six of Athens's top
naval commanders. Athens's naval supremacy would now be challenged without
several of its most able military leaders and a demoralized navy.
In 404, the Athenian General Alcibiades, exiled in the Achaemenid Empire
province of Hellespontine Phrygia, was assassinated by Persian soldiers, who
may have been following the orders of Satrap
Pharnabazus II, at
the instigation of Sparta's Lysander. Unlike some of his predecessors the new
Spartan general, Lysander, was not a member of the Spartan royal families and
was also formidable in naval strategy; he was an artful diplomat, who had even
cultivated good personal relationships with the Achaemenid prince Cyrus the
Younger, son of Emperor Darius II.
Seizing its opportunity, the Spartan fleet sailed at once to the Dardanelles,
the source of Athens's grain. Threatened with starvation, the Athenian fleet
had no choice but to follow. Through cunning strategy, Lysander totally
defeated the Athenian fleet, in 405, at the Battle of
Aegospotami, destroying 168 ships and
capturing some three or four thousand Athenian sailors. Only twelve Athenian
ships escaped, and several of these sailed to Cyprus, carrying the strategos
(general) Conon, who was
anxious not to face the judgment of the Assembly.
Facing starvation and disease from the prolonged siege, Athens surrendered in
404, and its allies soon surrendered as well. The democrats at Samos, loyal to
the bitter last, held on slightly longer, and were allowed to flee with their
lives. The surrender stripped Athens of its walls, its fleet, and all of its
overseas possessions. Corinth and Thebes demanded that Athens should be
destroyed and all its citizens should be enslaved. However, the Spartans
announced their refusal to destroy a city that had done a good service at a
time of greatest danger to Greece, and took Athens into their own system.
Athens was "to have the same friends and enemies" as Sparta.
Aftermath:
The overall effect of the war in Greece proper was to replace the Athenian
Empire with a Spartan empire. After the battle of Aegospotami, Sparta took over
the Athenian empire and kept all of its tribute revenues for itself; Sparta's
allies, who had made greater sacrifices for the war effort than had Sparta, got
nothing. For a short period of time, Athens was ruled by the "Thirty
Tyrants", and democracy was suspended. This was a reactionary regime set
up by Sparta.
In 403, the oligarchs were overthrown and a democracy was restored by Thrasybulus. Although the
power of Athens was broken, it made something of a recovery as a result of the
Corinthian War and continued to play an active role in Greek politics. Sparta
was later humbled by Thebes at the Battle of Leuctra in 371, but the rivalry between Athens
and Sparta was brought to an end a few decades later when Philip II of Macedon
conquered all of Greece except Sparta, which was later subjugated by Philip's
son Alexander in 331 .
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