Peloponnesian War

The war between Athens and Sparta and their allies (431-404 BCE), and its causes and consequences.

Category: Society

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1. 431 BCE
   Peloponnesian War

   Athens and Sparta and their allies fight from 431 to 404 BCE. Thucydides blames Athens's growth and Spartan fear. Persia's support for Sparta from 413 and Lysander's victory at Aegospotami end it. Athens surrenders in 404 and the Delian League is dissolved.

   Greek city-statesAthensSpartaPeloponnesian War📍 Athens📍 Sparta
2. April 4, 431 BCE
   The Peloponnesian War breaks out

   On 4 April 431 BCE Thebes attacks Plataea, an Athenian ally. Sparta then votes that Athens has broken the Thirty Years' Peace and King Archidamus II invades Attica, starting the Archidamian War. Athenians shelter inside their walls.

   Greek city-statesAthensSpartaPeloponnesian WarThebes📍 Plataea
3. c. 430 BCE
   Pericles's Funeral Oration

   In winter 431-430 BCE Pericles delivers the funeral oration for the first Athenian war dead, praising Athens's democracy. We know it only through Thucydides, and scholars debate how far the words are his own.

   Greek city-statesAthensPericlesPeloponnesian WarPolitics📍 Athens
4. 430 BCE
   Plague of Athens

   A plague strikes crowded Athens in 430 BCE and returns in 429 and 427-426, killing an estimated quarter of the population. Its cause is unknown: typhus, typhoid and others have been proposed. It saps Athenian strength and morale.

   Greek city-statesAthensPeloponnesian War📍 Athens
5. 429 BCE
   Pericles dies

   Removed as general and fined in 430 BCE, Pericles is re-elected in 429 but dies that year, reportedly of the plague, after losing two sons to it. Cleon leads a more aggressive Athenian policy afterwards.

   Greek city-statesAthensPericlesPeloponnesian War📍 Athens
6. 425 BCE
   Pylos and Sphacteria

   In 425 BCE Demosthenes fortifies Pylos, and Athens traps about 420 Spartan hoplites, 120 of them Spartiates, on Sphacteria and takes them to Athens. Cleon rejects Spartan peace offers. The capture shakes Sparta, whose elite class is small.

   Greek city-statesAthensSpartaPeloponnesian War📍 Pylos
7. 422 BCE
   Battle of Amphipolis

   In 422 BCE the Spartan Brasidas, who had taken Amphipolis, and the Athenian Cleon, trying to retake it, both die in the fighting. Both sides are exhausted, and the Peace of Nicias follows.

   Greek city-statesAthensSpartaPeloponnesian War📍 Amphipolis
8. March 421 BCE
   Peace of Nicias

   In March 421 BCE Athens and Sparta end the first half of the war, restoring prewar conditions with exceptions. It is meant to last fifty years, but Sparta's allies reject it and militants take over in both cities. Thucydides counts about seven years.

   Greek city-statesAthensSpartaPeloponnesian War📍 Athens📍 Sparta
9. 416 BCE
   Athens takes Melos

   In 416 BCE Athens besieges Melos and takes it that winter, executing the men and enslaving the women and children. Thucydides's Melian Dialogue, where Athenian envoys say the strong do what they can, is his reconstruction, not a transcript.

   Greek city-statesAthensPeloponnesian War📍 Melos (Milos)
10. 415 BCE
    The Sicilian Expedition

    From 415 to 413 BCE Athens sends a great force against Syracuse under Nicias, Alcibiades and Lamachus. Alcibiades is recalled and defects to Sparta. Spartan help under Gylippus turns the siege, and the Athenian army and fleet are destroyed.

    Greek city-statesAthensSpartaPeloponnesian War📍 Syracuse
11. 413 BCE
    Sparta fortifies Decelea; Persia backs Sparta

    In 413 BCE Sparta fortifies Decelea, a short march from Athens, and Persia begins supporting it. The Decelean (Ionian) War follows.

    Greek city-statesSpartaPeloponnesian WarAchaemenid Persia📍 Decelea
12. June 411 BCE
    The oligarchic coup of 411 at Athens

    In June 411 BCE an oligarchy of the Four Hundred overthrows Athenian democracy, after the Sicilian disaster and with Alcibiades promising Persian money. The fleet at Samos refuses to obey it. The Four Hundred give way within months to the Five Thousand.

    Greek city-statesAthensPeloponnesian WarPolitics📍 Athens📍 Samos
13. 406 BCE
    Arginusae and the trial of the generals

    In 406 BCE Athens beats the Spartan fleet at Arginusae, but a storm prevents the rescue of drowning sailors. Six of the eight generals are tried together by the assembly and executed. Socrates, presiding, refuses to put the motion to a vote.

    Greek city-statesAthensSpartaPeloponnesian WarSocrates📍 Athens
14. 405 BCE
    Battle of Aegospotami

    In 405 BCE the Spartan Lysander destroys or captures nearly the whole Athenian fleet on the Hellespont and has about 3,000 prisoners executed. Conon escapes with nine ships. Athens, cut off from its grain supply, is starved into surrender.

    Greek city-statesAthensSpartaPeloponnesian War📍 Hellespont (Dardanelles)
15. 404 BCE
    Athens surrenders to Sparta

    Starved and without a fleet, Athens surrenders in spring 404 BCE: March by one source, 25 April by another. Sparta spares the city but the Delian League is dissolved and the city's walls are demolished.

    Greek city-statesAthensSpartaPeloponnesian War📍 Athens
16. c. 400 BCE
    Thucydides writes the History of the Peloponnesian War

    Exiled from Athens after failing to save Amphipolis in 424, Thucydides writes a history of the war from 431 to 411, where it breaks off. He revises it after 404, relies on eyewitnesses and leaves the gods out. His speeches are reconstructions.

    Greek city-statesAthensLiteraturePeloponnesian War📍 Athens